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Citigroup Bank First Major Financial Institution to Start
Firing Unvaccinated Employees
January 13, 2022
Elizabeth Johnston
Photo by Mikel Parera on Unsplash
Citigroup announced last week they are set to start firing employees who do not comply with the company’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement.
On Friday, the bank issued a memo to workers informing them that they must prove their vaccine status by the end of this week, The New York Post reported.
The deadline for employees to get fully vaccinated was set in October, although they did not indicate that employees who refused would be fired at that time.
As Citigroup services the federal government, its employees are subject to the Biden administration’s vaccine requirement for workers at institutions that fulfill federal contracts.
Currently, the Biden administration’s directive by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to private businesses with 100 or more employees is being argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Last week’s memo warned that those who do not comply will be placed on unpaid leave and ultimately terminated on Jan. 31.
The bank has said in the past they would consider issuing exemptions on a case-by-case basis, and employees who do not comply might still be eligible for year-end bonuses — if they agree not to pursue legal action against the financial group over the vaccine requirement.
The Post noted that other banks have taken a softer approach to vaccines. While JPMorgan told employees it would no longer hire unvaccinated workers, unvaccinated workers have been allowed to work at home while a solution is reached.
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have also been requesting that unvaccinated employees work from home.
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Rare condition listed as possible side effect of COVID-19 shots
The EU’s drug watchdog is warning of a ‘very rare’ spinal cord inflammation possibly related to AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines
The European Medicines Agency wants to put warning labels on Covid-19 jabs made by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, saying there was a “reasonable possibility” they may have caused a spinal inflammation on rare occasions.
Following three days of meetings and discussions, the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) said Friday it wants to include a warning for “very rare cases of transverse myelitis (TM) reported following vaccination” with Vaxzevria and Janssen jabs. It is also adding the condition as an “adverse reaction of unknown frequency” to the vaccine profile.
The EMA describes TM as a rare neurological condition characterized by an “inflammation of one or both sides of the spinal cord,” which can cause weakness in arms or legs, tingling, numbness, pain – or loss of pain sensation – and problems with bowel and bladder function.
The recommendation comes after PRAC reviewed available information on reported cases worldwide and scientific literature, concluding that “a causal relationship between these two vaccines and transverse myelitis is at least a reasonable possibility.” However, it said the “benefit-risk profile of both vaccines remains unchanged.”
The warning is intended to “raise awareness among healthcare professionals and people receiving the vaccines.” Doctors were told to be on alert for signs and symptoms of TM, while recipients were urged to “seek immediate medical attention” if they develop the symptoms.
Last month, EMA approved the Janssen jab as a booster for people 18 and older, to be given at least two months after previous vaccinations.
PRAC also revised the product information for AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria, to reflect that far fewer cases of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia (TTS) – blood clotting with a low platelet count – have been recorded after the second dose of the jab, compared to the first.
The use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, developed with Oxford University, has already been scaled back due to the “ultra rare” side effect, which UK government statistics last summer estimated at around 14.9 per million doses of the jab. A study published in December blamed a very specific issue with Vaxzevria’s adenovirus vector.
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Dangers of Covid-19 during pregnancy revealed
Even mild cases of the coronavirus could lead to severe complications for the woman and the fetus, US scientists have warned
Women who got Covid-19 during pregnancy have an increased chance of poor birth outcomes, including babies being born small, low birth weights, and stillbirths, a new study has found.
Research spearheaded by the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle was based on the health records of 18,000 women who delivered babies in the US between March 2020 and July 2021.
Some 880 of them had tested positive for the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) during pregnancy, and their data was compared to that of other mothers who were never infected with the virus.
The results of the team’s work have been shared in the prestigious Lancet Digital Health journal on Thursday.
“We found that SARS-CoV-2 infection indicated increased rates of preterm delivery and stillbirth, largely driven by first and second trimester infections,” Dr. Samantha Piekos, the first author of the paper, pointed out.
The females in the study had mild or moderate cases of Covid-19. And the paper revealed that poor birth outcomes were possible even if the mother didn’t encounter any respiratory problems due to the disease.
However, the severity of maternal infection wasn’t correlated with gestational age at delivery, according to the study.
“The single greatest predictor of gestational age at delivery is gestational age at infection, with earlier age at infection associated with earlier age at delivery,” Piekos explained.
The paper’s corresponding author Dr. Jennifer Hadlock also stressed that “both maternal and fetal health are at increased risk with Covid-19” regardless of the severity of the disease.
The study asserted that pregnant women “would benefit from increased monitoring and enhanced prenatal care after first or second trimester SARS-CoV-2 infection, regardless of acute Covid-19 severity.”
The data used in the survey was from the period when vaccines weren’t so widely available in the US. Now, when more that 60% of Americans have received two shots of Covid-19 vaccines, further studies can be carried out to find out if vaccination helps to reduce poor birth outcomes, the authors suggested.
Poorer nations reject millions of expiring Covid vaccine doses – UN
Just last month over 100 million doses offered through the Covax program were not accepted
©Camilo Erasso / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The program to help poorer nations to vaccinate their populations against Covid-19 is facing a problem, as many donations have a remaining shelf life too short to be properly distributed, a UN official has revealed.
In December alone, over 100 million doses offered to the UN’s COVAX program had to be rejected by aid recipients, most of them due to the looming expiration dates of the vaccines, Etleva Kadilli told the European Parliament on Thursday. The official heads the Supply Division of UNICEF, the UN’s agency for the betterment of children’s lives worldwide.
The agency later in the day said some 15.5 million of the doses rejected last month were reportedly destroyed. Some of the shipments were rejected by multiple countries.
Poorer nations have a number of issues with accepting the vaccines donated to them. Many lack storage capacity to receive shipments and have problems with rolling out vaccination campaigns due to factors like domestic instability and strained healthcare infrastructure.
But the short expiration dates of vaccines donated to the sharing program is also a major problem, Kadilli told EU lawmakers.
“Until we have a better shelf life, this is going to be a pressure point for the countries, specifically when countries want to reach populations in hard-to-reach areas,” she said.
COVAX is currently approaching the delivery of its billionth dose, its management reported. The EU accounts for about a third of the doses delivered to it so far, Kadilli said.
The World Health Organization (WHO), which co-manages COVAX, has repeatedly described the lackluster assistance it received from donors amid the hoarding of vaccines by rich nations as a moral failure.
Some 92 member states missed the WHO’s 40% vaccination goal in 2021 “due to a combination of limited supply going to low-income countries for most of the year and then subsequent vaccines arriving close to expiry and without key parts – like the syringes,” WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said during an end-of-year conference in December.
Some critics say the program was flawed from the start because it relies on the generosity of the wealthy instead of pushing for wider availability of vaccines to developing nations through the eradication of legal barriers like patent protection. Billionaire Bill Gates, who is an influential figure in global healthcare, has been a vocal opponent of stripping patent protections for medicines, though his foundation seemed to buckle on Covid-19 vaccines after facing criticism over the position.
Alternatives designed for the needs and capabilities of poor nations, like the open-source, patent-free Corbevax vaccine, have been suffering from lack of funding. The vaccine developed by two Texas scientists received more money from the charity arm of spirits maker Tito’s Vodka, which is based in their home state, than from the US government, the project’s co-director Elena Bottazzi told Vice.
Of course, Big Pharma will not let the government invest in a cheap product that works, it would cut into their profits.
No doubt, Big Pharma got paid in full for those destroyed doses; that would be in the billions of dollars.
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