After months of death, depression, and disruption due to COVID-19, there is hope of ending the pandemic. The Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed,” which spurred private pharmaceutical research while stopping the Food and Drug Administration from killing people with delay, has delivered two safe and effective vaccines so far. This extraordinary achievement of modern medical research obviously is an unbridled benefit for Americans and other peoples around the world. But not in everyone’s view.
Some medical ethicists are disturbed. States are likely to prioritize the vulnerable elderly after hospital workers, with others filling uniquely sensitive or special roles, including “essential workers,” to follow. But, it turns out, caring for the elderly means that more white people, who tend to live longer, are getting the vaccine. Which some analysts believe is a problem. Better to let political correctness rule and old folks die.
After months of partisan disagreements and bickering, Congress finally approved a $900 billion coronavirus economic assistance package to help stimulate the economy hit hard by the pandemic. It includes $600 payments for many Americans, expands a lending program for small businesses, provides additional support for nutrition, agriculture, schools, airlines, rail, and transit systems, and vaccine distribution. Unemployed individuals will receive an additional $300 per week in unemployment benefits through March 14, 2021. This compares to $600 per week under the CARES Act.
The bill provides $13 billion in COVID-related assistance to support producers, growers, processors, specialty crops, dairy, livestock, poultry, and contract livestock and poultry producers and $13 billion in nutrition assistance.
LANSING Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says she is “skeptical” of legislation passed with bipartisan support during the Legislature’s lame duck session aimed at giving significant tax breaks to Grand Rapids-based grocer Meijer for the purchase and retention of automation equipment.
Whitmer must decide whether to sign Senate Bills 1149, 1150 and 1153, which remove sales tax from the purchase of automated material handling systems and remove personal property tax from such systems, once installed.
The bills have reached Whitmer s desk as the state is facing declining revenues and increased costs during the coronavirus pandemic, and as Michigan grocers are seeing sharply increased profits. Still, the bills have support from what many would consider an unlikely source the United Food and Commercial Workers Union that represents tens of thousands of grocery workers in Michigan.
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UArizona study finds customer behavior is fueling stress in grocery store workers
Grocery workers mental health By Karly Tinsley | December 17, 2020 at 10:24 PM MST - Updated December 18 at 4:42 PM
TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD News 13) - As we head into the busiest shopping season, a survey done by the University of Arizona is shedding light on the mental health of grocery store workers during this pandemic.
Thousands in the local United Food and Commercial Workers Union 99 took part in the study that focused on workplace conditions and other stressors.
“All of the sudden you have this major swath of the workforce being told they were essential to the function of the economy,” said Brian Mayer, Associate Professor in the School of Sociology and head researcher in the study. “There’s been far less attention to the other essential work force, such as retail workers like the grocery store workers we talked to.”