Students in some healthcare training programs treating Medicare and Medicaid patients will  be required to be vaccinated after Supreme Court ruling January 14

Yavapai Community College will reopen on Tuesday  with  in-person classes without any mitigation mandates.  It does offer a series of recommendations that it encourages students and staff to follow. (See below)

It is possible that some of its students in its healthcare training programs may be required to be vaccinated. This is particularly true if the students do clinical training in a facility of any kind that participates in the Medicare and Medicaid program. The reason for this is that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced in September  its intention to require hospitals, dialysis facilities, ambulatory surgical centers and other facilities to vaccinate their staff as a condition for participating in Medicare and Medicaid.

The mandatory vaccination requirement was challenged in court.  Last Friday, January 14,  the Supreme Court narrowly upheld the requirement in a 5-4 decision. 

Federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rules December 17 that employers with 100 or more employees must be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing; opponents of mandate already at Supreme Court asking for emergency action to delay ruling

Back in November 2021 Maricopa and Pima Community Colleges stated that they were going to require employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to meet federal mandates under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mandate . The community colleges were following President Joe Biden’s executive order based on OSHA for federal contractors, which requires all employees to be fully vaccinated, with limited accommodations.

While Yavapai Community College remained silent in November, it appears it would fall into the category of a federal contractor given the funding it receives from the Federal Government for various projects. 

However, on Friday, November 12, 2021, the Federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously issued a  temporary injunction, striking down the Biden Administration’s attempts to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for private employers with 100 or more employees.

Now, on December 17 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion upholding the Biden mandate, which effectively nullified the Fifth Circuit’s decision.  “Fundamentally, the [rule] is an important step in curtailing the transmission of a deadly virus that has killed over 800,000 people in the United States, brought our healthcare system to its knees, forced businesses to shut down for months on end, and cost hundreds of thousands of workers their jobs,” wrote Circuit Judge Jane B. Stranch. “The harm to the government and the public interest outweighs any irreparable injury to the individual petitioners who may be subject to a vaccination policy,” she said.

In addition to the vaccine and testing requirements, the rule requires companies to determine who among their workers are vaccinated and who are not, and to enforce a mask mandate for unvaccinated workers. The new deadline for those steps is Jan. 10.

OSHA had estimated that the vaccine-or-test rule could save more than 6,500 lives and prevent over 250,000 hospitalizations in the six months that it would be in effect.

In dozens of lawsuits around the country, Republican-led states, businesses, religious groups and some individuals have claimed  the Biden administrative order  is unconstitutional.  Saturday morning, dozens of business groups and religious organizations had already filed papers asking  the Supreme Court for a new emergency stay on the Sixth Circuit’s decision.

Yavapai Community College silent so far

According to a November 12 story in the Arizona Republic by Alison Steinbach, Maricopa and Pima community Colleges will require employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to meet federal mandates. The community colleges are following President Joe Biden’s executive order for federal contractors, which requires all employees to be fully vaccinated, with limited accommodations.

Both Community Colleges will have to provide reasonable accommodations for employees who decline vaccination for medical, disability or religious reasons.

Yavapai Community College has remained silent on any plans to require its employees to be vaccinated.  If it has no contracts with the federal government, the mandate does not apply.

Maricopa Community College employees will have until January 7 to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or apply for an accommodation. The mandate includes faculty, staff, student workers, and full-time, part-time and temporary employees, volunteers and remote and virtual employees.

Arizona State University, the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University in mid-October announced their more than 52,000 employees, including student workers, would have to be fully vaccinated or receive a religious, disability or medical accommodation by Dec. 8, although the deadline was moved  to January, per university websites.

Note that the effort by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich  to halt implementation of the federal mandate was denied by a federal judge earlier this week.

Source:  Article by Alison Steinbach, Arizona Republic, November 12, 2021 https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2021/11/12/maricopa-pima-community-colleges-to-require-covid-19-vaccine-for-employees/8590862002/

Preliminary Injunction granted but will allow matter to proceed

Federal District Court judge Steven Logan issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday, November 8 against Maricopa Community Colleges that will prevent them from enforcing the  vaccine requirements for two nursing students who had sued the colleges. The students claimed  the community college district is violating their free exercise of religion by not helping them complete their clinical rotations required for graduation. The students have declined to get vaccinated for religious reasons, and their rotations were scheduled at partner sites that require vaccination.

In a November 8, 2021  article by Alison Steinbach in the Arizona Republic, it was reported that for now the district has to accommodate the students so they can fulfill the clinical parts of their coursework and graduate from the Mesa Community College nursing program as scheduled in December.

The district argued in court that it couldn’t easily switch the students or accommodate virtual simulated clinical shifts. The district may appeal the ruling.

The judge’s order just answers the students’ request for emergency relief, said Colleen Auer, the students’ attorney. But it largely addresses the broader complaint, too, since all that needed to be resolved for the students to graduate on time was the issue of the upcoming in-person clinicals, she said.

Source:  Article November 8, 2021 by Aliosn Steinbach, Arizona Republic, https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2021/11/08/judge-sides-maricopa-community-colleges-unvaccinated-students/6307012001/.

Audience crammed closely together in small  room, most without face masks, in County where less than half the population has been fully vaccinated against still out-of-control Covid-19 | Why not at least use much larger room?

One must ask whether Yavapai Community College couldn’t do a better job of trying to control the spread of Covid-19 during Governing Board meetings held on the Prescott Campus at the Rock House.  Pictured below is a video shot showing  a portion of the audience in attendance at the  October 2021 Governing Board meeting.  As the photo below illustrates, people attending the meeting appeared  crammed together sitting elbow to elbow.  Only one person is wearing a face mask. (Photo from video showing only a portion of audience.)

The problem is that the Covid-19 pandemic is continuing out-of-control in Yavapai County with a hundred or more daily infections being reported and many people dying.  Why wouldn’t and educational institution with available huge meeting rooms  move the Governing Board meeting to one of those locations and take at least minimal protections? 

It would make common sense, or so it seems to the Blog.

Healthcare workers refusing to be vaccinated  are being legally fired under the mandate

A divided 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, October 29, rejected claims by healthcare workers seeking a religious exemption to Maine’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The ruling was made in Doe v. Mills (citation below). They had objected to receiving the shots on religious grounds. Maine has adopted a regulation requiring certain healthcare workers to receive COVID-19 vaccines if they wish to keep their jobs. “Unlike comparable rules in most other States, Maine’s rule contains no exemption for those whose sincerely held religious beliefs preclude them from accepting the vaccination.” The Court previously rejected challenges to vaccine mandates in New York and Indiana, though those cases did not involve religious objections.

In Maine, “healthcare workers who have served on the front line of a pandemic for the last 18 months are now being fired and their practices shuttered,” conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a dissenting opinion. He was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito.

Maine Governor Janet Mills’ administration had required that all healthcare workers in the state be fully vaccinated by the beginning of October, but had not said the mandate would be enforced until Friday, October 29. The governor argued workers perform a critical role in protecting the health of Maine’s residents and that every precaution needed to be taken to protect against the spread of the coronavirus, especially because of the Delta variant. 

The challengers argued that the lack of a religious exemption violated their right to free exercise of religion under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. A majority on the Supreme Court disagreed.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor in October had refused to block New York City’s public school requirement that teachers and employees be vaccinated. Justice Amy Coney Barrett in August denied an effort by Indiana University students to block that school’s vaccination mandate.

Also on Friday, October 29, a federal appeals court in New York ruled that the state could move ahead with its healthcare vaccine mandate, which like Maine’s did not allow religious exemptions. A lower court judge had ruled the state had to allow such exemptions.

Sources: Article by reporters Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Leslie Adler, Cynthia Osterman and Sonya Hepinstall, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-rejects-religious-challenge-maine-vaccine-mandate-2021-10-29/; Doe v. Mills, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 31375, 2021 WL 4860328 (1st Cir. Me., Oct. 19, 2021).

Funds provided for  at least nine different student incentives and initiatives as administrators found creative ways to spend federal funds |free classes, $500 incentives to student workers, $500 to each individual registered student who claimed a need (no criteria other than claimed  need), free dorm room and board

The Yavapai Community College Administration provided a list of some of the ways it used the $5.5 million in COVID-19 relief federal funds it was awarded at the September 14 District Governing Board meeting.  The list was labeled “incentives and Initiatives” and was used specifically for students.

As noted in an earlier Blog posting, under a formula created by the federal government, before the federal funds can be used for institutional needs, it must first be spent on students.  The more funds spent on students; the more money becomes available for other institutional uses.

On the student side, the funds have been used for paying the first class free of every student at the Community College.  All of the classes taken by students at the Verde Valley Skilled Trades Center, which was just opened, were free for the first semester. 

It has used funds to provide a $500 incentive for each student worker. Free classes at the Career and Technical Education Center Campus at the Prescott airport in 3D printing, unmanned aircraft, and advanced manufacturing were made possible by the federal funds.

Free room and board at its student dormitories for the fall semester was paid for out of the award.  A majority of students living there are student  athletes from outside Yavapai County.  In addition, all students were eligible for what was described as a $500 per student grant for emergency assistance.

According to the Community College, to obtain a $500 emergency assistance  grant, a student filled out a form making a request.  There were no criteria other than a student claiming a need.  There was apparently no review by the Community College of the accuracy of the request. (See video below.)  The Community College reported that this category made up for a significant portion of the spending from the award.

The Community College did not report how many millions in total were spent on support of students. However,  if the explanation given the District Governing Board at its September meeting  was correct, to get the full $5.5 million half of that would have been spent  directly on some sort of  student support.

The video below contains an explanation of how these funds were spend by the Community College as described by Vice President Rodney Jenkins.