Folks in the South Florida real estate industry dubbed Andrew Cuomo the “Florida Realtor of the Year” in gratitude for all of the money that they made selling houses to people fleeing New York’s lockdowns, school closures, and mask orders. (This was before Mr. Cuomo became famous for his efforts in other areas.)
I wonder if Kathy Hochul, the current governor of New York, will be remembered for solving every Florida health care enterprise’s HR problems. The nursing shortage in FL could be over by the end of next week, according to the NYT:
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York is considering calling in the National Guard and recruiting medical professionals from other states to cover looming staff shortages at hospitals and other facilities as the likelihood grows that tens of thousands of health care workers will not meet the state’s deadlines for mandated vaccinations.
New York State is one of the first major testing grounds for stronger vaccination edicts rolling in across the country in the health care sector. California and Maine have also set deadlines for health care workers to be vaccinated. President Biden has said his administration will issue a national vaccination mandate expected to ultimately affect some 17 million health care workers at hospitals and other institutions that accept Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.
Hospital and nursing home employees in New York are required to receive a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by 11:59 p.m. on Monday night, while workers working in home care, hospices and other adult care facilities must do so by Oct. 7, according to state regulations and a mandate issued on Aug. 16 by former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
For health care workers seeking freedom, Florida may not be a complete solution (since President Biden and, if necessary, the U.S. military could step in to deprive Floridians of the freedoms that Governor DeSantis has tried to arrange), but moving to Florida certainly will ensure as much freedom as is possible to obtain as an employed American (folks on welfare, of course, are completely free from requirements to wear masks, get vaccines, etc., since they are not going to work).
It doesn’t usually take a huge nudge to move someone from New York to Florida. A high percentage of the above-mentioned workers probably had planned to move to Florida after retirement. For those doctors and nurses who don’t want their pharmaceutical intake to be determined by two lawyers (Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul), could this be the final nudge that sends them down I-95?
Separately, how much do we love it when people with no technical or scientific training say that MDs and RNs are rejecting science and have fallen prey to “misinformation” about the vaccines whose long-term disease-prevention capabilities and side effects are apparently best-known to politicians and journalists? (from state-sponsored NPR: “In The Fight Against COVID, Health Workers Aren’t Immune To Vaccine Misinformation”)
Also, as a vaccinated person I do appreciate the “blame-the-unvaccinated-for-all-of-our-woes” strategy being pursued by our leaders. But I wonder how long we can keep it going. If someone is a front-line health care worker and feeling young/healthy enough to be out and about without a vaccine shot, isn’t it likely that he/she/ze/they has already had a SARS-CoV-2 infection and therefore has at least as good immunity as someone who is vaccinated?
Last night, from the Juno Beach Pier:
Related:
- “These Health Care Workers Would Rather Get Fired Than Get Vaccinated” (NYT, 9/26): a selection of those who might be easily recruited
- “Mount Sinai hospital leaders holed up in Florida vacation homes during coronavirus crisis” (New York Post, March 28, 2020): While heroic staffers beg for protective equipment and don garbage bags to treat coronavirus patients at a Mount Sinai hospital, two of the system’s top executives are waiting out the public health catastrophe in the comfort of their Florida vacation homes, The Post has learned. Dr. Kenneth Davis, 72, the CEO of the Mount Sinai Health System who pulled down nearly $6 million in compensation in 2018, is ensconced in his waterfront mansion near Palm Beach. Davis has been in the Sunshine State for weeks and is joined by Dr. Arthur Klein, 72, president of the Mount Sinai Health Network, who owns an oceanfront condo in Palm Beach.
- No exceptions for “people who are pregnant, lactating, or planning to become pregnant” from the New York Department of Health: … all pregnant individuals be vaccinated … Vaccination of pregnant people against COVID-19 also serves to build antibodies which may protect their baby from COVID-19 infection. … pregnant people with COVID-19 might be at increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preterm birth, compared with pregnant women without COVID-19… If pregnant people have questions about getting vaccinated… If someone is pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant, healthcare providers should discuss the risk to the pregnant person … Vaccinations for Lactating People … A lactating person may choose to be vaccinated… . Pregnancy alone is not a valid “health condition” upon which to base a medical exemption.
> For those doctors and nurses who don’t want their pharmaceutical intake to be determined by two lawyers (Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul), could this be the final nudge that sends them down I-95?
I can’t say for sure, but I’d try to make sure that you have any pending home/house purchases locked in by this point, in case there’s another Exodus resulting from the New Rules that causes another price spike. At the very least you could keep renting and flip the place, with the gains paying for your rent at least a year or more. Depending on how things move, it might make sense to keep doing what you’re doing *and* buy a house if you can sublease, but it’s difficult to for me to say definitively – you’ll have to run the numbers.
> Also, as a vaccinated person I do appreciate the “blame-the-unvaccinated-for-all-of-our-woes” strategy being pursued by our leaders. But I wonder how long we can keep it going.
You should see the looks I get when I don my Aegle N95 folding mask to enter and shop at my local convenience store surrounded by people not wearing one, some of whom I know personally are both anti-vaxx and anti-mask. “Judas!”
I have explained the situation to the owners of the store and the folks who run the register: “Yes, I’m vaccinated and this is an N95. My doctor has basically *ordered* me to do it and I will not contradict him. He tells me he knows best, so let’s see how that goes.
I know that the Pfizer shot I received back in March/April is probably not doing much good for me right now, despite my being told that it was the CURE for the pandemic, like everyone else. I hope you don’t mind. One thing I cannot afford to do (since I don’t live on Martha’s Vineyard or the Hamptons) is have my antibody counts taken every couple of days so that I can continue to live my life. People who have a lot more money than all of us combined, however, do that now as a kind of social credit score. Thanks for the White Cheddar Popcorn.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/18/style/covid-antibodies-calories.html
Finally, after reading that article in the New York Times about all the uncertainty surrounding what the antibody tests actually mean for people who have the means to pay for them, you really have to wonder: “If you wanted to jump off the George Washington Bridge to avoid COVID, would your concierge service be obligated to tell you how to do it, because you wanted to?”
Reading that article it doesn’t seem that anyone doing the testing or analyzing how it is being done has *any answer whatsoever* whether it actually means anything, but they’re willing to take the client money and do these tests.
Last thing, promise: I love the way NYT writes, particularly about really rich people getting whatever they want (as long as they’re people they care about):
“Some may opt to get a booster shot. Although the Food and Drug Administration has only authorized booster shots for those who are immunocompromised, there is some evidence that more than 1 million Americans have already received unauthorized third doses.”
Some evidence? More than 1 million “Americans?” That’s an awful lot of rich people dancing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQZ6vOQYdcs
It’s a little like saying: “There is some evidence that an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter Scale happened yesterday, with the epicenter near the Upper East Side of Manhattan and other places like Beverly Hills, but we won’t know for sure until the seismology all comes in.”
I wonder what would happen if the New York Times published the names and political affiliation of the people who have jumped the line to get their booster shots “up the wazoo?”
Separately, I have a FB friend who is a healthcare employee at a major hospital in the Northeast and she’s wearing an N95, a face shield, and a full smock system along with her eyeglasses now. I told her: “Listen, you really should think about moving to Florida. The pay there is going to be better than what you have now, and I’ll bet you enjoy it more than living in [Northeastern State].”
No response yet, but I was being sincere. She’s already HAD COVID along with her husband, despite working in a healthcare setting and being one of the first people vaccinated in the state she lives in. As Joy Behar has said, she’s been “vaccinated up the wazoo.”
The NPR article is pure agitprop. It marginalizes people doing the actual work and glorifies the heroic struggle of the dear leaders who have to educate the plebs (“rural, low income and Republican”).
As philg points out, apparently Mount Sinai leaders led the struggle from their homes in Florida.
Anonymous: That’s a great point. The heroes of the NPR story are people who’ve been sitting at home for 1.5 years, kept entertained by an Internet they had no role in building and kept fed by an army of Latinx essential workers. The villains are nurses, doctors, and support staff who’ve been going into the plague wards every day, knowingly incurring the risk of being around those sick with COVID-19. (Although I don’t like to organize my life about coronapanic, I wouldn’t be eager to take a patient-facing job in a hospital.)
I am not sure about calling this “agitprop”, though, which has Soviet connotations. After the Chernobyl meltdown, the Soviets did not try to convince the public that the real heroes were those sitting at comfortable desks in Moscow rather than the workers who, fully aware of the radiation hazard, grappled up close and personal with the remains of Reactor 4 in an attempt to save the lives of their neighbors.
See https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2020/09/11/midnight-in-chernobyl-helicopter-heroes/
(Similar objection to those who call the Democrats’ latest plans “Socialist”. In the Soviet Union, every able-bodied working-age citizen had to work. A work-optional society in which people can live off former sex partners (alimony, child support) or working chumps (means-tested public housing, Medicaid, SNAP/EBT) is the opposite of Socialism.)
There need to be statues raised in honor of the everyday Heroes of NPR. They had to stay indoors and watch Netflix and possibly even make zoom calls as their gardeners and maids went about in the background. Nevertheless, they persevered. Modern profiles in courage.
I recall that 25 years ago offering land for sale in Florida was common label for a real estate scam. During my recent trip to Florida, a Floridian of median means told us that real – estate went nuts, starting price for small house is now $350,000