Tag: Coronavirus

 

NEW YORK — CNN has fired three employees who violated company policy by coming to work unvaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.

CNN chief Jeff Zucker told staff members of the firing in a memo sent Thursday that reminded them that vaccines were mandatory if they report to the office or out in the field where they come into contact with other employees.

“Let me be clear — we have a zero tolerance policy on this,” wrote Zucker, chairman of news and sports for WarnerMedia.

The memo was obtained by The Associated Press after its contents were first tweeted by CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy. CNN offered no details on the firings, or where the employees were based.

Most of CNN’s offices are already open on a voluntary basis, and Zucker said more than a third of news staff members have returned. Proof of vaccination has been left to the honor system, he said, but that may change in coming weeks.

The CNN leader said that masks will be required in Atlanta, Washington and Los Angeles offices when people aren’t eating, drinking or in an enclosed private space. Even in offices where mask-wearing is not mandated, people should do what feels comfortable to them “without any fear of retaliation or judgment from co-workers,” he said.

The CNN memo also said a planned Sept. 7 company-wide return to the office will be delayed until at least early to mid-October.

Source: CNN Fires Three Employees For Coming To Work Unvaccinated : Coronavirus Updates : NPR

By Julia Ainsley

WASHINGTON — Two more whistleblowers have come forward to allege that children were mistreated by contractors and senior federal employee managers at a Department Health and Human Services migrant shelter in Fort Bliss, Texas, earlier this year, and also say HHS told them to downplay hundreds of Covid infections among children held at the facility.

“Covid was widespread among children and eventually spread to many employees. Hundreds of children contracted Covid in the overcrowded conditions. Adequate masks were not consistently provided to children, nor was their use consistently enforced,” the whistleblowers, Arthur Pearlstein and Lauren Reinhold, said in a federal whistleblower complaint filed Wednesday

But at the end of their service, they said, federal detailees were regularly given written instructions from HHS public affairs that told them, “when asked, to make everything sound positive about the Fort Bliss experience and to play down anything negative.”

At a town hall with employees, a senior manager from the U.S. Public Health Service refused to share the rate of infections, explaining that he did not want the number to end up reported by the media, they said.

Pearlstein and Reinhold are federal employees who volunteered to be detailed to the shelter when the Biden administration ramped up staffing to accommodate the influx of unaccompanied children crossing the border by building emergency intake shelters like Fort Bliss and others.

NBC News previously reported that Servpro, a company that specializes in disaster cleanup and has no child welfare experience, oversaw the care of nearly 5,000 children in Ft. Bliss in early May and June.

Source: Whistleblowers say they were told to downplay Covid outbreak among migrant kids at shelter