And Senator Wiik didn’t object?
Last August, the Dow Rummel Village retirement community required staff to get coronavirus shots, for the sake of the lives of their residents and staff as well as their Medicare and Medicaid funding:
Due to the recent COVID-19 surge and the availability of safe and effective vaccines, more than 50 health organizations and medical groups are advocating that all health care and long-term care employers require their workers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Their statement says “This is the logical fulfillment of the ethical commitment of all health care workers to put patients as well as residents of long-term care facilities first and take all steps necessary to ensure their health and well-being.” Last week President Biden announced that staff members at nursing homes will now be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or those facilities would risk losing their Medicare and Medicaid funding. Additionally, many senior-living providers are already mandating vaccines for their staff including Sanford Health, The Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, VA, Touchmark, Presbyterian Senior Living, Sunrise Senior Living, Episcopal Retirement Services, Jewish Home Family, Brookdale Senior Living, Aegis Living, Atria Senior Living, and Benchmark Senior Living to name a few.
We saw many residents and staff step up to receive the vaccine last winter as soon as it was available and with ongoing education to staff, we have seen our percentage of staff getting the vaccine continue to slowly increase to 75% of staff fully vaccinated at this time. Many of you (residents, family members and staff) have expressed a concern that we do not have all staff vaccinated. Our mission is that “Dow Rummel seeks to design and embrace a SAFE and caring social community for active seniors pursuing their fullest potential.” Staff vaccines are vital to the health and well-being of our residents and co-workers and makes for a safer living environment for our residents and safer workplace for our staff. Vaccines have proven to be safe and effective. The Pfizer vaccine is now fully FDA approved. While the other 2 vaccines are FDA EUA (Emergency use Authorization) approved. Therefore, mandating vaccines both for COVID-19 and seasonal influenza is the right thing to do for us at Dow Rummel.
This letter is to let you know that our Board of Trustees has approved a vaccine mandate for all employees and other healthcare workers at Dow Rummel for influenza and COVID-19. All employees and other healthcare workers working at Dow Rummel must be vaccinated for influenza and have received their 2nd Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or 1st Johnson & Johnson vaccine for COVID-19 by November 1, 2021 and receive any required ongoing influenza vaccines or COVID-19 booster vaccines. Our goal is to have all staff vaccinated, but our policy does allow for a process to be followed for health and religious exceptions to the vaccine mandate. While we understand the rationale for the mandate from HHS and CMS and do support it, frankly, we have no choice in the matter as we cannot do without the funding from those agencies [Darla J Van Rosendale, CEO, Dow Rummel Village, “Vaccine Announcement,” 2021.08.30].
Last Friday, by unanimous consent, the South Dakota Senate praised Dow Rummel for protecting life with this mandate. Senate Commemoration 803, brought by Dow Rummel residents’ Senator Reynold Nesiba (D-15/Sioux Falls), lauds the healthful results of this science-based mandate:
WHEREAS, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the state of South Dakota with new cases reaching records daily; and
WHEREAS, the COVID-19 vaccine greatly reduces the chance of severe illness as the risk of being hospitalized is eight times lower for vaccinated adults; and
WHEREAS, the ninety-four percent vaccination rate among staff at Dow Rummel Village, a retirement home in Sioux Falls, surpasses South Dakota’s statewide vaccination rate of just under sixty-three percent; and
WHEREAS, the vaccination of staff at Dow Rummel Village increases the safety and comfort of residents who rely on staff for their daily accommodations and support:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT COMMEMORATED, by the Ninety-Seventh Legislature of the State of South Dakota, that Dow Rummel Village be honored for promoting the wellness of its employees, increasing the safety of its residents, showcasing its commitment to reducing the severity of the pandemic, and for being an exemplary healthcare institution in the state of South Dakota [2022 SC 803, approved 2022.01.21].
“Exemplary”—as in setting an example that we all ought to follow.
So there you have it, straight from the South Dakota Senate: Get your shots, and tell your employees to get their shots!
What about the members of the Board of Trustees, are they mandated to be vaccinated? Also, as clearly stated it is about the money. I see that point was left out of the Commemoration. This seems like a participation certificate for doing the right thing. My thoughts.
Francis Schaffer, the point of Commemorations is exactly as you state: “a participation certificate for doing the right thing.” Doing the right thing is often not easy when you have a lot of politicians, including the Governor, doing an exemplary job of doing the wrong things.
Don,
Thank you for the clarification.
Doctors in Boston refused to accomplish a heart transplant on a needed man because the fool is unvaccinated and refuses to vaccinate.
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/cardiology/boston-hospital-denies-heart-transplant-for-unvaccinated-patient.html
Good.
Doctors ought to triage all unvaccinated folks, except for young children, putting them to back of the line for all care, services, and beds.
So all of you still think the vaccine stops spread?
John shows real class and progressive care with that post. What if the guy had Covid and was asymptomatic? What if he has antibodies? What if he, like MILLIONS, aren’t negatively affected by Covid? It has been a huge part of the numbers even though you and the media want to focus on the 800k.
I do appreciate the honesty though. We all know libtards don’t really care about people, just the ones that agree with them.
The more Republicans die the better.
I hope I meet you someday.
I’m often called a liberal by Trumpettes on Faceberg but liberals want to convert GOPers or convince them to be kinder and gentler. Me? As a progressive I’m actually working to destroy the Republican Party and erase it from the collective cultural memory.
Don’t really care.
I would, however, like to know if you and the others on here think the “vaccines” stop the spread.
Indigenous Americans and reservations have some of the highest vaccination rates in the country yet rural white, conservative christians would rather get sick and die.
Make no mistake.
In 2020 Donald Trump and Republicans like Kristi Noem targeted Indian Country for annihilation. Since 1993 Donald Trump used the federal courts to punish tribal nations who built casinos he said were competition so his administration slow-walked resources to reservations effectively deploying COVID-19 as a biological weapon in Native America. His Tulsa trip and the Sturgis Rally in occupied South Dakota spread the virus throughout the country. It’s called ethnic cleansing even genocide elsewhere but in Noem’s South Dakota it’s called MAGA.
The faster Earth hating Republicans die the better off America is.
No one asked for that comment. Don’t really care. Personally I’ve been vaccinated and have had Covid twice. The after effects of the shots were ten fold worse than the actual virus. But again, I ask the question:
Do you think the vaccine stops the spread?
Air Force dependent baby boomers like I am got shot up en masse as our fathers and families were shipped to Europe and elsewhere to wage the Cold War. That anyone is skeptical about motives and vaccines is hardly a mystery.
English is hard for you huh?
It’s good to see Senator Nesiba being taken seriously by South Dakota’s Trumpist lawgivers.
The reason the virus didn’t bother you is because of your bodies strong reaction to the vaccine.
That strong reaction tells the real scientists that you could have suffered greatly from covid without the vaccine.
The vaccine prevents serious symptoms from covid. If you don’t know that you have been watching too much Fox TV.
Steve Pearson, That’s a complicated question. Vaccinating one person is going to have little impact on community spread. Vaccines usually have an effect on viral load carried in the vaccinated person and/or the time a virus is carried in certain places in the respiratory tract. Vaccination, thus, does limit the number and/or time period the virus has to move from the vaccinated person to another person. Essentially, the vaccinated person may be less of a disease vector by some factor that depends on a lot of variables. However, by far the most reduction in community spread comes when a high majority, often about 80 percent, of the population is vaccinated. It does this by a very well-known ecological principle: reducing the patches of habitat available for the virus to reproduce efficiently ends up reducing the population of the pest species. To stop community spread of most respiratory viruses, you have to have vaccinated over 80 percent of the population. The asymptomatic person is always going to pass the virus on which is why vaccination to attain herd immunity is important. It is also important to do other things: testing to catch the asymptomatic positives, isolate them for a period of time, contact tracing, wearing masks, etc. China’s zero-tolerance policy has been able to contain community spread through these various means. We’ll see if they can do that with Omicron, which is a much more highly transmissible variant.
The Covid vaccines don’t stop transmission of the Covid virus.
The vaccines are doing very well however in protecting vaccinated people against serious illness and death.
Thus, if you refuse to be vaccinated you run the risk of catching it from anyone.
Whether someone you’re in contact with is vaccinated or not vaccinated, they can kill you.
Is that a risk you wish to take?
Not me.
Do you think the vaccine stops the spread? Anti-vaxx and anti-masking sure as hell doesn’t stop the spread.
Spike – I actually had Covid the first time before getting vaxxed. My second bout was three weeks ago.
As Pearson notes, natural immunity doesn’t stop transmission of Covid, either.
An unvaxxed person who was lucky enough to survive can still kill another of their unvaxxed brethern.
As far as Pearson getting Covid again, after being vaccinated; karma’s a bitch, huh Paco?
Okay, so we can all agree that being vaccinated doesn’t stop the spread then why do we have yet another story like this one? At the beginning of the article it says “for the sake of the residents” doesn’t fly. So why a vaxx mandate by an employer?
Do any of you read?
I had Covid. Then two months later received the vaccination. Then a booster. And now over three weeks ago had Covid again….
So why did the shots totally knock me out but Covid was mild at best? Spike’s logic doesn’t equate to this scenario.
Dow Rummel says: Staff vaccines are vital to the health and well-being of our residents and co-workers and makes for a safer living environment for our residents and safer workplace for our staff.
Nope. They aren’t.
Not only do we read Mr. Pearson, we comprehend, which is more than you do on your own screed. Joe Biden said something about a reporter from Fox lies yesterday. I think it fits you perfectly as well.
Well, if you did then I’m wondering why you put that comment because it is neither pertinent or helpful in the conversation. But it does show what a true libtard is.
I bet if I go far enough back on just this blog site alone I can find many a story or comment on how the Vaccine stops the spread. That among so much more has been false. I’d prefer to study the hell out of this virus, including where it came from, and attack accordingly INSTEAD of making this political in EVERY fiber of society. But that’s just this pesky conservative’s point of view.
Steve, you confuse something not being absolute with being ineffective or irrelevant. Vaccines do reduce the opportunities for COVID to land, they reduce the ability to take hold and mutate. According to the CDC, the risk of infection remains much higher for unvaccinated than vaccinated people. Let us not play sophistic games with “stopping” versus “reducing” the spread.
Although I sympathize with your being knocked out by the vaccine, almost 900,000 People in America have been much worse than “knocked out” by COVID.
Oh come on you guys: if we were members of the extreme white wing of the Republican Party the first place we would research whether vaccines slow the spread of the Trump Virus is Cory’s blog, right?
And over 4/5 of those people had many, many other health issues. Looking at CDC info only 5% of Americans dead were Covid only. In light of this data it is clear that America needs to evaluate many things affecting health. Not just Covid only.
Larry, we get it. You hate anyone on the political sphere opposite of you. Check.
The bill for an extended hospital stay for uninsured white people?
https://www.thegazette.com/health-care-medicine/whats-the-cost-of-covid-19-for-one-iowa-patient-a-1-million-medical-bill/
Oh little Stevie, you must be the Superman of South Dakota or at least the Hulk. Did those little shots hurt you? So sorry. Why did you even get the shots since you had covid before? Immunity problems?
Of course you can catch covid if you have your shots. Omnicron is different. Your case will be much less than it would have been if you didn’t have the shots.
This award is for people who didn’t kill their clients like your killer Noem or my killer DeSantis. They rail about Australia which has less death than South Dakota and has a million more people than Florida. If DeSantis ruled Australia the way he has done nothing about Covid in Florida they would have over 70,000 deaths instead of 2,500. Djokovic would welcomed both however, Nadal could win number 21 with the Frenchcoming up. Do you think Djokovic wishes he had gotten the shot?
Yes, socialized agriculture, socialized dairies, socialized cheese, socialized livestock production, a socialized timber industry, socialized air service, socialized freight rail, a socialized nursing home industry and now a socialized internet are all fine with Republicans in South Dakota but then they insist single-payer medical insurance is socialized medicine.
Steve, I could not agree more that America needs to evaluate many things affecting health. I am still waiting on those “repeal and replace” plans from my GOP friends. It seems Trump kept forgetting to release the plan he had while he was in office. One of the tragedies of COVID has been its magnification of a crumbling social welfare system; from health care, to preventative care, to child care, to worker exploitation, to wealth hoarding, to science denying, COVID put a magnifying glass on the ills of our society.
I hit a $1000 days that Iowan is a Democrat.
Methinks Pearson is taking the covid only deaths stats out of context….
https://www.google.com/search?q=didf+cdc+say+only+5%25+of+american+dead+had+covid+only&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS925US925&oq=didf+cdc+say+only+5%25+of+american+dead+had+covid+only&aqs=chrome..69i57.21665j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
94% of the others with other disease still had covid.
So why did the shots totally knock me out but Covid was mild at best? Spike’s logic doesn’t equate to this scenario.
What guarantees do we get that you are being truthful? I had Moderna injections and the booster and then a flu shot and had no affects whatsoever.
Pearson: You were vaccinated and still got Covid and once you got Covid you got real sick.
– A hundred others are vaccinated, might have gotten Covid and didn’t get real sick because they were vaccinated.
– That’s why vaccines are vital to the health and well-being of our residents and co-workers and makes for a safer living environment for our residents and safer workplace for our staff.
Because, Pearson you’re an outlier and out of a hundred there are maybe five in your situation.
I’m telling you what I went through. You can sit there in your chair, awaiting your monthly govt checks as always and not believe me. I’m fine with that but it doesn’t negate the truth that it happened.
But having Covid and dying from Covid are two very different things.
Vaccine stops the spread of serious covid. Masks stop the spread of serious covid. Dummies like Steve, only serve as super spreaders, like west nile mosquitos.
Brilliant take on covid from Steve from the duh department “But having Covid and dying from Covid are two very different things.” There you have it, right straight from the horse’s
Steve Pearson, What are republicans for? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_58AD34tRI&t=24s
And a high percentage of those with other diseases died because of the covid, not the other stuff. That is what you right dingers keep getting wrong about about CDC stats.
Steve Pearson: You’re almost right. Having Covid, dying from Covid, and getting sick from covid are three very different things. Most vaccinated people who contract Covid don’t even know it or get any symptoms.
Universal vaccination prevents the spread of disease. Polio, Diphtheria, measles, mumps, smallpox—vaccination works. If uptake of the polio vaccine had been as slow and low as uptake of the coronavirus vaccine, polio would have infected and crippled far more people. If people had shown good sense and gotten us to 90% vaccination rate for covid-19 by July 1, 2021, the delta and omicron variants would have had far less opportunity to spread in South Dakota and the United States; they might not even have had the chance to mutate.
That we have to spend this much time arguing plain, proven epidemiology with loudmouth cranks live Steve Pearson, who get off on spreading harmful misinformation, is deeply frustrating.
Clearly in the 1st paragraph that Dow Rummel needed to follow the mandate to maintain payments from Medicare and Medicaid, not just the health of residents and employees. I am not sure how I could educate myself on the source of this virus so not sure this is relevant to the mandate and I realize that vaccines don’t stop the spread. My concern is the virus continues to mutate and that unknown is very concerning. Does anyone know firsthand which ivermectin version is better; paste or pour on? Asking for a friend.
Francis, Desantis in Florida would say the best one is the one your highest donor is invested in.
One problem many hospitals are currently dealing with is an insufficient number of beds to treat seriously sick folks and folks who are hurt in accidents due to the need for treating covid patients. Every Covid patient in the ER, ICU and on a ventilater takes up a bed that is now becomes unavailable for an accident victim or heart attack patient, and takes staff away from treating other people in need. And as reported in July,
https://www.dakotanewsnow.com/2021/07/22/95-hospitalized-covid-19-patients-sd-not-vaccinated/
Since July it is my understanding the the rate of Covid infections has continued to climb. Whether someone can still get Covid after a vaccine seems of less importance than whether someone who gets Covid has to go into the hospital and takes up critical emergency space and medical care that may be needed by someone else who suffers a serious accident or health crisis, especially as hospitals in many areas continue to receive growing numbers of Covid cases. Since everyone seems to agree that at a minimum the vaccine helps reduce the seriousness of a Covid infection and thereby keep people out of the hospital and out of ICU, it seems important to require most folks to have the vaccine simply to help avoiding the unnecessary filling of hospital ER and ICU beds that might be needed by someone who was unable to prevent a heath crisis or avoid a serious accident injury.
Please explain what misinformation I am spreading Mr. know everything Cory.
Does anyone know firsthand which ivermectin version is better; paste or pour on? Asking for a friend.
From firsthand experience with livestock, pour on is easier and more efficient for internal cattle parasites.
11 cases of new omicron sub-variant BA.2 detected in California, at least 2 in Santa Clara Co.
By Jana Katsuyama and KTVU StaffPublished January 25, 2022 7:03PMUpdated 7:57PMCoronavirus in CaliforniaKTVU FOX 2
No link to story.
Pearson asks “Please explain what misinformation I am spreading. . . . ” I’ll see if I can answer Pearson’s request.
Pearson writes:
That is not quite accurate according to recent research findings. Instead, it has been reported that a paper published in NEJM suggests that people with breakthrough infections are less likely to spread the virus than unvaccinated people. I am not positive, but this may be the paper that this statement refers to:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109072
Thus, if this is accurate then receiving a covid vaccine will be somewhat “less contagious” and thereby reduce the spread of covid. Of course reducing the spread doesn’t equate to a claim of absolutely stopping the spread any more than reducing careless driving equates to stopping careless driving altogether, but when it comes to careless driving, murder, rape, kidnapping, child abuse, and other bad acts we say that a law or rule should be enacted in an effort to “stop” such crimes, and typically we use the term “stop” to include stopping even one such act. So when it comes to covid contagion and the vaccine, if the vaccine stops one or more infections from spreading then in the normal use of our language it has, in fact, stopped the spread of covid to at least one or more potential victims, just as outlawing other harmful conduct “stops” that conduct for at least one or more potential victims.
We can thus see the misleading nature and the absurdity of Pearson’s above statement by paraphasing it as follows:
Seen in this light it seems pretty clear that Pearson’s posts spread misinformation. By claiming the vaccine “doesn’t stop the pread of covid” Pearson conceals the fact that the vaccine may not stop all spread but it apparently does, in fact, “stop”the spread in some potential victims.
COVID-19 in South Dakota: 1,358 total new cases; Death toll rises to 2,628; Active cases at 34,753
Noem’s death count continues.