Month: January 2022

One day ahead of the scheduled rollout of free COVID-19 tests distributed by the Biden administration, Americans are able to place orders for their free test kits through a form posted by the U.S. Postal Service. The White House announced last week that it would publicly launch the site covidtests.gov on Wednesday, 1/19. However, by Tuesday morning the site was up and running.  By early Tuesday afternoon, more than 500,000 users were visiting the test website. Every household is eligible to order four rapid antigen COVID-19 tests for free, to be delivered by the Postal Service, which will begin shipping tests in late January.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday: “It will officially launch tomorrow morning. It’s in the beta testing phase right now.”   A White House official said in a statement that the website is running at “limited capacity” as the government works to troubleshoot potential issues ahead of its formal launch Wednesday. An announcement was added to the webpage on Tuesday afternoon, saying that the administration has “tests for every residential address in the U.S.” and urged Americans to “check back tomorrow if you run into any unexpected issues.”

The White House also says it plans to launch a hotline that will allow Americans to order their own tests over the phone, if they have difficulty ordering on the website. Orders of the COVID-19 tests will be delivered for free via first-class mail. .

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The family of an Amazon delivery driver, who died when the central Illinois Amazon facility where he worked collapsed due to a tornado, filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday in Madison County. The lawsuit on behalf of 26-year-old Austin McEwen claims that Amazon failed to warn employees of dangerous weather or provide safe shelter before a tornado slammed into the Edwardsville facility on Dec. 10, killing McEwen and five others.

McEwen’s parents, Randy and Alice McEwen, allege that Amazon administrators knew severe weather was imminent but had no emergency plan nor evacuated employees from the fulfillment center.  Mrs. McEwen said at a news conference on Monday: “Sadly, it appears that Amazon placed profits first during this holiday season instead of the safety of our son and the other five.”  The lawsuit stated that Amazon “carelessly required individuals … to continue working up until the moments before the tornado struck” and “improperly directed” McEwen and colleagues to shelter in a rest room, which it says the company knew or should have known wasn’t safe.  The lawsuit seeks more than $50,000 from each of the four defendants named in the suit, which includes Amazon.com, the construction company that built the facility and the project’s developer.

Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel released a statement that countered that the lawsuit: “This was a new building less than four years old, built in compliance with all applicable building codes, and the local teams were following the weather conditions closely. Severe weather watches are common in this part of the country and, while precautions are taken, are not cause for most businesses to close down. We believe our team did the right thing as soon as a warning was issued.”  Nantel said the company would defend itself against the lawsuit but would continue to focus on “supporting our employees and partners, the families who lost loved ones, the surrounding community, and all those affected by the tornadoes.”

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Newly-elected Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia began his term on Saturday with executive actions directed at education and the COVID-19 pandemic, which notably included a ban on critical race theory in public schools and a lifting of school mask requirements. Youngkin also issued executive actions terminating the Virginia Parole Board, rescinding a vaccine mandate for state employees and establishing a commission to combat anti-Semitism.

Youngkin became the first Republican to win statewide office in Virginia since 2009.  He signed nine executive orders and two executive directives following his swearing-in, saying that the executive actions are steps to help launch “the work of restoring excellence in education, making our communities safer, opening Virginia for business and reinvigorating job growth, and making government work for the people, and not the other way around.”

The first executive order from Glenn Youngkin prohibits the teaching of “inherently divisive concepts,” including critical race theory, an academic concept developed by legal scholars to examine the ongoing effects of racism in American policies and institutions. Youngkin said in his executive order: “Political indoctrination has no place in our classrooms,”adding that “inherently divisive concepts, like critical race theory and its progeny, instruct students to only view life through the lens of race and presumes that some students are consciously or unconsciously racist, sexist, or oppressive, and that other students are victims.”

Youngkin also removed school mask requirements statewide. The governor’s order states that parents with children in public schools “may elect for their children not to be subject to any mask mandate in effect at the child’s school or educational program.”  The order continued:“A child whose parent has elected that he or she is not subject to a mask mandate should not be required to wear a mask under any policy implemented by a teacher, school, school district, the Department of Education, or any other state authority.”  The removal of a mask mandate in public schools prompted pushback from school districts outside of Washington, D.C.  Following the governor’s executive order, Arlington Public Schools announced Saturday there would be no change to its mask requirements, with the face coverings still required for staff and students inside school grounds and on buses. Fairfax County Public Schools – the state’s largest school system — also said the district would continue to require universal masking.  Alexandria City Public Schools also stated it will continue to require all individuals wear masks in schools, facilities and on buses.

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