The Indiana House on Thursday removed language from a controversial employer vaccine mandates bill that would have financially punished employers for firing workers because they are unvaccinated against COVID-19.
The Indiana State Department of Health on Wednesday reported more than 15,000 new cases of COVID-19 and 125 additional deaths.
The Senate Health and Provider Services Committee voted to move the bill forward to the full Senate, after hearing testimony all in favor of the measure.
The reason: The COVID-19 variant has proved so wildly contagious that it may already be running out of people to infect, just a month and a half after it was first detected in South Africa.
Indiana Hospital Association President Brian Tabor said hospitals around the state “have reached a state of crisis with dwindling capacity left to care for patients.”
The shortages are widespread, impacting produce and meat as well as packaged goods such as cereal. And they’re being reported nationwide.
The company has climbed to the lead in global vaccine production with 3 billion doses in 2021 and is planning to produce up to 4 billion doses in 2022.
With the highly transmissible omicron variant spurring record levels of infections and hospitalizations, experts have repeatedly urged the Biden administration to recommend the better-quality masks rather than cloth coverings to protect against an airborne virus.
The move is a reaction to the severe hospital staffing shortages and crushing caseloads that the omicron variant is causing.
Under the new policy, first detailed to the AP, Americans will be able to either purchase home testing kits for free under their insurance or submit receipts for the tests for reimbursement, up to the monthly per-person limit.
COVID-19 patients occupy 37% of Indiana’s intensive care unit beds. The state has 12.6% of its ICU beds available overall.
The federal government has resumed shipping all three monoclonal antibody treatments—including one made by Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co.—that are authorized for early-stage COVID-19 to states despite evidence that two might be ineffective against the omicron variant.
The justices are scheduled to hear arguments Friday about whether to allow the Biden administration to enforce a vaccine-or-testing requirement that applies to large employers and a separate vaccine mandate for most health care workers.
Test manufacturers and distributors seeking to provide a share of the 500 million tests have submitted proposals to the government, and the Biden administration on Thursday evening awarded its first contract toward the purchase.
COVID-19 patients occupy 36.2% of Indiana’s intensive care unit beds, leaving the state with only 9.5% of its ICU beds available overall.
The vaccine-mandate provisions of the bill would effectively force employers to accept any medical or religious reason to exempt employees from getting a vaccine, without question.
The state health department also reported 39 more deaths from COVID, raising the cumulative total to 18,644.
Indiana House and Senate Republican leaders appear to be at odds on how to handle legislation to address employer vaccine mandates and end the state’s public health emergency.
Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box is one of an estimated 113,000 Hoosiers to suffer a breakthrough case since Jan. 18, 2021.
Easy-to-take antiviral pills, authorized just before Christmas, were hailed as a potential turning point in the fight against the coronavirus because of the medicines’ ability to keep high-risk people out of the hospital.
