Dec. 23, 2021 - Epoch Times
16:51
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| Good evening. | |
| Over in New York, the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers has officially gone into effect. | |
| And along that line, thousands of nurses, as well as other healthcare workers across the entire state, they have either lost their jobs or were suspended because they refused to comply. | |
| However, this problem does not only apply in hospitals. | |
| That's because, as of this week, 7,800 teachers here in New York City, they have likewise been taken off of the payroll because they refused the shot. | |
| And by the way, 7,800 is only the number of teachers. | |
| When you include the general staff members in these schools as well, people like custodians, teaching aides, security guards, and cafeteria workers, that number climbs all the way up to 26,000 people having been fired. | |
| And they are now taking it lying down, at least a good portion of them. | |
| As here in New York, protests as well as demonstrations, they've been springing up over the last several weeks. | |
| However, you might have not heard of these events since YouTube, they have just changed their policy, and they will be deleting all of the content that they deem to be anti-vaccine. | |
| Let's go through it all together. . | |
| This is your daily Facts Matter Update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times. | |
| And now let's begin today's discussion over in New York. | |
| As we've already discussed in yesterday's episode, the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers has officially got into effect on Monday. | |
| And as a result, what happened is pretty much what you expected— Yesterday, thousands of nurses, as well as other healthcare workers across the entire state of New York, they have either lost their jobs or they were suspended without pay because they refused to comply with the vaccine mandate. | |
| And this big purge, you can call it, is naturally enough leading to some disruptions of service, especially in more rural areas like in upstate New York. | |
| And as an example of what that shortage is looking like, over in Strong Memorial Hospital over in Rochester, they just announced a two-week pause to some elective procedures. | |
| Here's specifically what the University of Rochester, which runs that hospital, here's what they said in a statement. | |
| Patients can expect longer wait times for routine appointments, some employees will be asked to take on new responsibilities, and temporary bed closures are possible. | |
| Likewise, the Lewis County General Hospital, which is over in Lowville, New York, they recently said that they no longer have the capacity to deliver babies since too many of their employees from the maternity ward decided to leave rather than to take the vaccine. | |
| And then likewise over in Erie County, over at the Erie County Medical Center, which is over in Buffalo, they said that since they are planning to fire about 400 of their unvaccinated staff members, this will cause a staff shortage, and they advised the local community to seek treatment over at urgent care centers or at other medical facilities. | |
| Here's in fact what the chief operating officer of that hospital system, here's what they had to say. | |
| It's hard to discharge people out of the facility since the nursing homes and group homes also have shortages. | |
| We have about 30 patients requiring alternative levels of care. | |
| They shouldn't be in our setting, but we have placement issues and can't go to other places, so that's causing this backlog as well as the mandate that's coming up. | |
| Now, since the mandate has officially gone into effect, we here at the Epoch Times, we have been reaching out to different hospitals here in the state of New York to see what the actual situation is looking like on the ground. | |
| And we've been able to connect with several of them. | |
| For instance, over at Northwell Health, Which is one of New York's largest healthcare employers. | |
| They actually have about two dozen hospitals as well as 74,000 staff members across the state. | |
| And they got back to us via email saying that not all of their unvaccinated employees were immediately given the boot. | |
| Here's specifically what their spokesman told us in that email. | |
| We notified all unvaccinated team members that they are no longer in compliance with New York State's mandate. | |
| We have begun a process to exit all unvaccinated team members Now, we did follow up with that spokesperson, and we asked him for clarification on whether these unvaccinated employees are being allowed to keep working for the time being. | |
| However, he declined to answer, writing simply, Sorry, no update beyond this statement. | |
| Likewise, we were able to speak with a representative for St. | |
| Barnabas Hospital, which is over in the Bronx, and they told us that out of their 3,000 total employees, only 100 of them remain unvaccinated. | |
| And according to the spokesman, these individuals are currently suspended, and they have until October 4th in order to get their first dose. | |
| And if they don't get their first dose by October the 4th, they will be fired. | |
| Here's what they wrote to us. | |
| The loss of these employees, who are presently suspended, has not affected patient care or staff scheduling. | |
| The previous week was spent in an intensive effort to communicate to supervisors and staff about the mandate. | |
| Likewise, we were able to get a hold of someone over at Samaritan Health, which is located in the northern part of New York, and their spokeswoman told us that out of their 2,000 total employees, 90% of them have been vaccinated and And 6% have been granted some kind of an exemption from the mandate. | |
| That spokeswoman added that the remaining 4% of the employees who are not in compliance, they were placed on a two-week leave. | |
| And she said that if these employees don't get vaccinated within those two weeks, they will ultimately be fired. | |
| And so, when you add up all of the hospital employees in the state of New York that have either been fired or suspended, you are looking at thousands of people, which will likely expand into tens of thousands of people within the next month. | |
| Even the director of the CDC, Dr. | |
| Rochelle Walensky, she acknowledged this mandate-induced shortage is a real problem when she said this during an interview on Good Morning America. | |
| It absolutely creates a challenge. | |
| What I would say is we need to do some work to meet them where they are, to understand where their hesitancy is so we can get them vaccinated and get them back to work. | |
| And along that line, just earlier today, YouTube announced that they will be banning all anti-vaccine content from their platform to limit what they're calling misinformation about both COVID as well as other diseases like measles and chickenpox. | |
| Here's what the New York Times reported on this new ban. | |
| YouTube said on Wednesday that it was banning several prominent anti-vaccine activists from its platform, including the account of Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | |
| as part of an effort to remove all content that falsely claims that approved vaccines are dangerous. | |
| Now, what's interesting to note here with this new policy update is that this ban from YouTube extends beyond just COVID, and it actually covers videos about all vaccines. | |
| Here's again what that article said. | |
| The platform, which is owned by Google, has had a similar ban on misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines. | |
| But the new policy expands the rules to misleading claims about approved vaccines, such as those against measles and hepatitis B, as well as the falsehoods about vaccines in general. | |
| However, there does appear to be a caveat in this new policy regarding both news reporting as well as people giving their own personal testimonies. | |
| Here's what this caveat says, quote, Personal testimonies relating to vaccines, content about vaccine policies, new vaccine trials, and historical videos about vaccine successes or failures will be allowed to remain on the site. | |
| And so we'll just have to see whether this new policy will decrease vaccine hesitancy across the entire country, as I guess it's intended to do, or whether it will make more people skeptical. | |
| Only time will tell. | |
| If you'd like to read more about this new YouTube policy, or if you would like to read about what's happening over in New York's hospitals, I'll throw those links into the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And all I ask in return is that you take a quick moment to smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
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| Now, Roman in the studio, back to you. | |
| Now, it's worth noting that the vaccine mandate is affecting more than just the hospital staff here in New York. | |
| That's because caught in the crosshairs of this mandate are thousands of teachers as well. | |
| That's because back in July, Bill de Blasio, who is the mayor of New York, he issued a vaccine mandate for all of New York City's 400,000 public employees, which of course includes all staff members inside of most schools. | |
| And so, here in New York, the approximately 7,800 teachers who are still unvaccinated, they face the possibility of being fired. | |
| That's because they had until Friday, which was five days ago now, to get the shot. | |
| And if they didn't get it by then, well, they have already been removed from the payroll as of Monday morning. | |
| And by the way, 7,800 is only the number of teachers. | |
| When you include the other school staff members as well, people such as custodians, teaching aides, security guards, and cafeteria workers, That number climbs all the way to 26,000 people. | |
| And so, along that line, labor unions have been pushing back against these vaccine mandates, and they're saying that they not only strip the workers of their civil liberties, but they could also have a major consequence due to so many people being let go at once. | |
| And along that line, here's what the president of New York's largest principals union, here's what he said in a recent statement. | |
| It is dangerous and irresponsible for the city to move forward with this plan to allow schools and centers to operate so severely understaffed. | |
| As a result, we are calling on the city to delay the deadline for the mandate to allow the city to develop a reasonable contingency plan. | |
| Furthermore, during a teleconference, this union president said that this problem is not evenly spread out. | |
| And so, while some schools may be just fine, other schools might lose dozens or even up to a hundred staff members on the day that this policy goes into effect. | |
| Here's what he said. | |
| Until there's a plan to make sure schools are safe, we need to re-evaluate what we're doing going forward. | |
| Now, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio, he said that the city of New York has thousands of substitute teachers who are on standby and ready to fill in. | |
| However, according to this union president, he said that that is always the case, that there's always thousands of substitute teachers who are on standby. | |
| However, that does not always work out like you assume it will, since many of these substitute teachers, they hold other jobs and they are not ready to come in on a dime, especially when you have to replace 7,800 teachers in a matter of a few days. | |
| Furthermore, he said that if schools can't get enough substitute teachers, they may be forced to combine classes. | |
| Here's what he said. | |
| I'm going to put five classrooms in an auditorium. | |
| They don't want to be put in that situation. | |
| Now, the teachers, as well as the staff members, many of them are not taking it lying down. | |
| In fact, thousands of people have been coming out onto the streets and protesting against these forced vaccine mandates over the last several weeks here in New York City. | |
| In fact, just yesterday, there was a protest over at Foley Square, that's here in Manhattan, that had teachers as well as school staff members come out in opposition to the city's decision. | |
| We in fact have one of our staffers there on the ground and he had a chance to speak with the protest organizers. | |
| And here's what one of them told us. | |
| The movement is growing. | |
| My numbers of followers keep going up and I have more people contacting me asking me for help. | |
| It's going to continue to grow because there are people that are willing to lose their livelihood in order to keep their freedom. | |
| We're going to bring more powerful people that I can't name yet that are going to come from out of state to help us here in New York. | |
| Another one of the protest organizers, a man by the name of Kevin Peters, he gave us his perspective on what is going on. | |
| This is a turning point, a moment of truth for all of us. | |
| They're really trying to push this agenda forward, and more and more people are seeing, clear as day, Furthermore, that same organizer told us that Instagram had shut down his account just two days before a rally against vaccine passports was said to be held that he was helping to organize. | |
| And actually, you will not likely be able to see any videos about his or any other protest of this type on YouTube either. | |
| That's because, if you've ever been to such an event, the things that people say and the placards that they hold, well, oftentimes they are anti-vaccine. | |
| Which, of course, in America, that's perfectly fine in a public setting like over in Foley Square. | |
| I mean, that is a public square where people are allowed to speak their minds. | |
| However, social media is obviously not a public square. | |
| And so, just as that organizer mentioned about his Instagram account... | |
| YouTube, with their new policy update, will not allow such content here either. | |
| Even if you're there at that event and perhaps somebody is just holding up a placard that is anti-vaccine in nature, they might take the video down. | |
| Now that's because, in my experience at least, with these types of bans, with these types of policy updates, you're not necessarily dealing with an individual who's thinking about these things and banning the videos as he's watching them. | |
| You're actually dealing with an algorithm that scans the videos and they're even able to scan the words and the placards And then, based on those words, they're able to take it down, and then appealing that decision is sometimes like screaming into a black void. | |
| And so we'll have to see how it all works out. | |
| If you'd like to read more about what's happening over in the New York City school districts, I'll throw that link into the description box below this video, free to check out. | |
| And lastly, the best antidote to this censorship that I can think of is for you to go on over to Epic TV and subscribe. | |
| Because that is a platform that we built that is anti-censorship. | |
| It has no censorship. | |
| And instead, it has all of the awesome Epic Times video programs like The Larry Elder Show, American Thought Leaders, China in Focus, Life and Times, Counter Culture with Danielle Desutis Aguil, as well as our show Facts Matter. | |
| and on there we publish exclusive content as well as interviews that, frankly, due to the ever-tightening censorship here on YouTube, I just don't feel comfortable publishing on this platform due to the censorship. | |
| Even though, again, everything we publish on there is fact-based, there's nothing that's hyperbolas, that's nothing that goes outside of the realm of normalcy. | |
| However, again, when you're dealing with an algorithm here on YouTube that just crawls your videos looking for certain words, it becomes almost impossible to publish honest news content. | |
| And along that line, I would highly recommend that you check out this new episode of Cash's Corner over on Epic TV where Cash Patel goes through the implications of the new indictment that was just put forward by John Durham. | |
| Here's a trailer for that episode. | |
| Not only did Sussman, on behalf of the Clinton campaign, per the indictment, take this information to the FBI, he gives it to Christopher Steele. | |
| John Durham has been charged with investigating arguably the biggest political scandal in U.S. history. | |
| The judge that was assigned the Sussman case, his wife represented Lisa Page. | |
| It's unheard of to be 27 pages. | |
| So why put all that information out there? | |
| it's the biggest signal that more is coming if you want to check out that episode as well as all the other awesome content over on Epic TV the link to it It'll be at the very top of the description box. | |
| I hope you click on it. | |
| I hope you check it out. | |
| I hope you subscribe. | |
| And I hope that you join us on this journey of exploring this beautiful, beautiful world through honest journalism that is based in truth and tradition. | |
| Now lastly, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| Subscribe to this YouTube channel if you haven't already in order to get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed while YouTube still allows it. | |
| Also, hit that notification bell so you can actually be notified of any new videos as we release them. | |
| And then, ironically, if you have an Instagram account, consider following me at Epoch Times Roman. | |
| I do publish behind-the-scenes research as well as spicy memes. | |
| It is a good platform to communicate regardless of the amount of censorship on there. | |
| My handle, by the way, is Epoch Times Roman. | |
| Then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. |
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