Travelore News: Los Angeles OKs One Of Strictest US Vaccination Mandates

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles leaders on Wednesday approved one of the nation’s strictest vaccine mandates — a sweeping measure that requires the shots for everyone entering bars, restaurants, nail salons, gyms or even a Lakers game.

The City Council voted 11-2 in favor of the ordinance that will require proof of full vaccination for patrons and workers starting Nov. 4.

Mayor Eric Garcetti signed it Wednesday afternoon.

“Vaccinating more Angelenos is our only way out of this pandemic, and we must do everything in our power to keep pushing those numbers up,” Garcetti said in a statement. “These new rules will encourage more people to get the shot, and make businesses safer for workers and customers — so that we can save more lives.

move came after the City Council postponed a vote last week to deal with concerns ranging from who could be fined for violations to whether employees could end up in fist-fights when they have to serve as vaccine door monitors.

Some critics charge that a mandate would amount to segregation of those who cannot or refuse to be vaccinated. Others call it unenforceable.

Business trade groups have said the city mandate will sow confusion because Los Angeles County’s own vaccine rules — which apply both in Los Angeles and in dozens of surrounding communities — are less sweeping.

Cities, however, are allowed to pass rules more stringent than the county’s

City Council members who support the ordinance said it is aimed at reducing the risk of new COVID-19 surges. The nation’s second-most populous city faced a huge rise in infections and hospitalizations last winter and a smaller surge this summer linked to the spread of the highly contagious delta variant.

The ordinance would require people to be fully vaccinated to enter indoor public spaces including shopping malls, restaurants, bars, gyms, sports arenas, museums, spas, nail salons, indoor city facilities and other locations. Current vaccine eligibility includes people age 12 and up. Children under that age aren’t yet eligible for the vaccine.

Negative coronavirus tests within 72 hours of entry to those places would be required for people with religious or medical exemptions for vaccinations.

Customers without proof can still use outdoor facilities and can briefly enter a business to use a restroom or pick up a food order.

Council President Nury Martinez has said it is clear that the vaccines work but too many people remain unvaccinated despite widespread availability and door-to-door campaigns to vaccinate more people. She called the mandate “a necessary step towards returning to normalcy” and the lifting of mask requirements and other restrictions.

The ordinance came at a time when COVID-19 cases are plunging while political ambitions in Los Angeles are rising — two council members are running for mayor, as is the city attorney who wrote the proposal.

Councilman and mayoral candidate Joe Buscaino voted against the mandate. Last week during a council meeting he challenged the measure as being “clear as mud” regarding enforcement.

Buscaino also had noted that the conflict between the city’s measure and county’s vaccination mandate, which only covers patrons and workers at indoor bars, wineries, breweries, lounges and nightclubs.

He failed to win several amendments to the measure, including one that would make it a crime to harass employees who try to enforce it.

Councilman John Lee also opposed the measure, calling it “punitive toward businesses,” which are required to request customer proof of vaccination. Businesses can be given a warning for a first offense but fined up to $5,000 for repeated violations of the rules, starting on Nov. 29.

Of the county’s roughly 10 million residents, 78% have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose and 69% are fully vaccinated, according to public health officials.

The county on Wednesday reported 31 new deaths and nearly 1,500 new cases of COVID-19. Health officials said the county has reported 14 deaths a day, on average, even though deaths and hospitalization figures have plunged by some 50% since late August.

California health officials reported more than 5,000 new cases statewide, mostly among the unvaccinated. Nearly 85% of eligible Californians have received at least one vaccine dose.

A growing number of places across the U.S., including San Francisco and New York City, are requiring people to show proof of vaccination to enter various types of businesses and venues.

In San Francisco, proof of vaccination for staff and patrons has been required since Aug. 20 in indoor places where food or drink is consumed, where aerobic exercise occurs such as gyms, and here large groups gather such as entertainment venues.

Businesses have complied with the order and officials have not issued any notices of violation or levied any fines, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

San Francisco also has a mandate requiring masks in all indoor businesses but public health officials in the city and in surrounding San Francisco Bay Area communities are expected to announce this week criteria that would allow officials to lift indoor mask mandates.

New York City this summer began requiring proof of vaccination to dine inside restaurants and bars, or to enter certain types of public places, including museums, theaters, gyms, indoor sports arenas and concert halls.

Compliance has been mixed and enforcement purposefully light, with the city favoring initial warnings for violators and fines for repeat offenders.

EU takes US Off Safe Travel List; Backs Travel Restrictions

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union recommended Monday that its 27 nations reinstate restrictions on tourists from the U.S. because of rising coronavirus infections there, but member countries will keep the option of allowing fully vaccinated U.S. travelers in.

The decision by the European Council to remove the U.S. from a safe list of countries for nonessential travel reverses the advice that it gave in June, when the bloc recommended lifting restrictions on all U.S. travelers before the summer tourism season.

The EU’s decision reflects growing anxiety that the rampant spread of the virus in the U.S. could jump to Europe at a time when Americans are allowed to travel to the continent. Both the EU and the U.S. have faced rising infections this summer, driven by the more contagious delta variant.

The guidance issued Monday is nonbinding, however. American tourists should expect a mishmash of travel rules across the continent since the EU has no unified COVID-19 tourism policy and national EU governments have the authority to decide whether or how they keep their borders open during the pandemic.

More than 15 million Americans a year visited Europe before the coronavirus crisis, and new travel restrictions could cost European businesses billions in lost travel revenues, especially in tourism-reliant countries like Croatia, which has been surprised by packed beaches and hotels this summer.

“Nonessential travel to the EU from countries or entities not listed (on the safe list) ... is subject to temporary travel restriction,” the council said in a statement. “This is without prejudice to the possibility for member states to lift the temporary restriction on nonessential travel to the EU for fully vaccinated travelers.”

U.S. travelers would have to be immunized with one of the vaccines approved by the bloc, which includes Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson&Johnson.

Possible restrictions on U.S. travelers could include quarantines, further testing requirements upon arrival or even a total ban on all nonessential travel from the U.S.

In Washington, White House press secretary Jen Psaki stressed Monday that the EU travel restrictions applied to the unvaccinated, adding that “the fastest path to reopening travel is for people to get vaccinated, to mask up and slow the spread of the deadly virus.”

Paski told reporters that the U.S. government is working across federal agencies to develop its own policy for international travel, with the possibility of strengthening testing protocols and potentially ensuring that foreign visitors are fully vaccinated. But she said no final decision has been made yet.

The EU recommendation doesn’t apply to Britain, which formally left the EU at the beginning of the year and opened its borders to fully vaccinated travelers from the U.S. earlier this month.

The United States remains on Britain’s “amber” travel list, meaning that fully vaccinated adults arriving from the U.S. to the U.K. don’t have to self-isolate. A negative COVID-19 test within three days before arriving in the U.K. is required and another negative test is needed two days after arriving.

The EU also removed Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro and North Macedonia from the safe travel list on Monday.

Meanwhile, the United States has yet to reopen its own borders to EU tourists, despite calls from the bloc to do so. Adalbert Jahnz, the European Commission spokesperson for home affairs, said Monday that the EU’s executive arm remained in discussions with the Biden administration but so far both sides have failed to find a reciprocal approach.

In addition to the epidemiological criteria used to determine the countries for which restrictions should be lifted, the European Council said that “reciprocity should also be taken into account on a case-by-case basis.”

The European Council updates the safe travel list every two weeks, based criteria related to coronavirus infection levels. The threshold for being on the EU safe list is having not more than 75 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last 14 days.

The U.S. , meanwhile, is averaging more than 155,000 new coronavirus cases and 1,200 deaths per day, and several U.S. states have more COVID-19 patients in the hospital now than at any other time during the pandemic.

Authorities in Oregon are seeking extra refrigerated trucks because morgues are at capacity and Florida is in a similar situation after a week in which more than 1,700 people died from the virus in the state. Hospitals are desperately running out of staff in several states, and the start of the school year has brought even more fears that the outlook will worsen as millions of unvaccinated students return to their classrooms.

U.S. school districts have been struggling over whether to impose mask mandates, sometimes even suing in states where officials are against such requirements.

Vaccine hesitancy also remains a problem in many locations in the U.S., where 61% of the eligible population is inoculated against the virus. In contrast, Britain has fully vaccinated over 78% of adults and EU countries have inoculated nearly 70% of those over 18.