The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health backtracked this week on its recently revised workplace safety guidelines that would have required workers to continue wearing a mask in some situations even if they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Less than a week after Cal/OSHA’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted to adopt the revised workplace rules, the board held a special meeting Wednesday to publicly consult with state public health officials – namely state Public Health Officer Dr. Tomas Aragon – on whether vaccinated people should be able to forego wearing a mask around unvaccinated coworkers if their employer allows them to do so.
The board’s unanimous vote to retract the new guidelines – leaving in place guidelines from November requiring all workers to wear a mask at all times, regardless of vaccination status – tees up a potential vote on revised guidelines, again, at the board’s regularly scheduled meeting June 17.
The rules approved at the June 3 meeting would have allowed workers to forego masks in rooms in which all workers are vaccinated.
Outdoors, vaccinated and unvaccinated workers without symptoms only needed to wear a mask when working at an event with more than 10,000 attendees.
Employers would have also been able to get rid of distancing requirements and protective partitions if they provided N95 respirators to unvaccinated employees.
The June 3 rules prompted a mixed response, with some labor groups arguing that they were paramount to worker safety, emphasizing the need for proactivity in the company. Meanwhile, other groups, including business advocates, contended that the rules were too strict in light of the state’s paltry COVID-19 metrics and high rate of vaccination.
The June 3 rules also would have gone into effect after the state lifts its mask mandate for fully vaccinated people in most situations on Tuesday.
During a briefing Wednesday prior to the Cal/OSHA board’s meeting, state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly declined to answer questions during a briefing Thursday about whether Cal/OSHA’s June 3 rules were too stringent or whether they inadvertently supported skepticism of the vaccines’ effectiveness, citing that the Cal/OSHA board is an independent body.
Ghaly did, however, note that all clinical and real-world data show that the three COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the United States are incredibly effective at preventing coronavirus-related illness and death.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has also remained mum on whether he will intervene in Cal/OSHA’s decision-making process, declining to answer whether he would issue an executive order overriding the now-defunct workplace masking rules.
25 comments
Politically motivated scientific fraud
Thanks for deciding for me that I wont get the second shot, you unbelievably idiotic wannabe tyrants. The only reason I got the first was to ditch the mask. Good God I loath this state and all the fearful, mindless drones who accept every trampling of their freedoms if it comes from some over credentialed functionary.
Thanks for being our hero, all you essential workers, for working with the public through the height of the risk. Now, keep your freaking muzzles on for no reason, because Karen is afraid of her own shadow after sitting at home rocking herself to sleep listening to CNN for a year.
I’m in a free state visiting right now, and NO ONE is wearing masks anywhere other than one person I saw at Jimmy John’s. Their numbers are still going down just like everywhere else. This is bureaucratic nonsense with no real-world data to back it up.
God I need to move away from this garbage.
Hear, hear, Wage Slave! I agree with every thought you have shared…our so-called experts/leaders are creating a caste system: “A caste system uses rigid, often arbitrary boundaries to see the ranked groupings apart, distinct from one another and in their assigned places.” So, you are damned if you do get the vaccine, and damned if you don’t…
…thank you, essential workers, for your courage and putting up with this garbage!
Is anyone surprised that the newscum is surpressingour freedoms
Throwing away the constitution
and treating us like Chinese cccp inhabitants
Dems said they’d follow the science and again lied
Science and experts are down with Covid but the fauci and the newscum want more of our money
As binbiden sends millions of doses we paid for abroad
Well to China anyways
As fouci and his trustworthy Chinese scientists are creating the next virus
Why is no one seeing this guy has been lying and is also in charge of spreading deadly viruses
But you got your 600 dollars so family dying next year from the new viruses
Do you have any ACTUAL proof of what you are spouting?
Thats the trouble with cesspools, it’s tough to stay afloat.
just more leftie lies
#RecallGavinNewsom
COVID IS A POLITICAL, SCIENTIFIC, TYRANNICAL, ECONOMIC, GENOCIDAL, NWO HOAX.
Hint: YOU CAN TELL BY THE MASKS.
These people are sick.
Fauci for prison.
EVERYONE KNOWS. Cry more libs
And thus, the discriminatory mark is revived. Instead of a Scarlet Letter or a yellow star, we have the mask.
Thankfully I’m already seeing a lot of businesses not give a rats ass about masks and we need more people willing to protest this garbage!
Newsom is already playing games with the recall, further attempting to stack the deck. Should he stay in office it will surely be a hollow victory which makes sense given he’s a hollow empty human. Soulless.
See Assemblyman Kevin Kiley’s blog.
I’m waiting for the revised, updated, and newly released guidelines that will probably be rescinded by the end of the day. I can’t wait for the response by our Governor to set the record straight.
More insane commie BS.
The liberal politicians that run California know that they can lie and put any rules and controls on the people and the mindless citizens will obey . It is amazing how obedient the people are when it comes to the liberal ideology no matter how ridiculous it is . Facts don’t matter
I have 3 coworkers who refuse to vaccinate, basically holding the rest of us hostage who are vaccinated. 😡 I say make THEM wear the masks if they want to be selfish. I am exempt from social distancing and care ride share , but since even ONE person doesn’t vaccinate, we ALL have to mask up.
Wow, not much critical thought was put into your comment.
IF YOU ARE VACCINATED, WHY ARE YOU AFRAID OF CATCHING THE THING WHICH YOUR ARE VACCINATED AGAINST????
You got it ALL wrong. My point is, if I’ve been vaccinated, why should I be forced to wear a mask. It’s the ones who refuse to be safe who should be wearing the mask. They’re the one who are paranoid and refuse to acknowledge science.
You do not have a mask problem. You have a problem with your elected and unelected officials.
If you have been vaccinated, you have no reason to care whether anyone around you has been vaccinated or is wearing a mask. If you have not been vaccinated, that’s all on you and wearing a mask isn’t going to do you any good, anyways.
@anon.. you obviously have no idea about this virus or vaccinations. the vaccination does not make you immune, it mitigates the symptoms. thusly, if you and your ilk continue your selfishness the virus will continue to rage on. Get the shot or mask up
@jazzman
Cry more lib. You wanted the masks so bad, you got them. lol
Look at you, you got the vaccine and you’re still scared like the little brainwashed child you are. Pitiful example of a jazz man, man. Quit being a baby. Boo boo, throwing a tantrum because some people stand up for themselves and won’t let the scientists experiment on them. What a clown🤡🤡🤡🤡
@budE
You ain’t nobody’s boss. “Get the shot or mask up”. Cry more lib. We ain’t getting the experiment. You’re the guinea pig. Just because you’re not that bright and likely made a mistake doesn’t mean everyone else has to. Just go to your safe space, I hear it’s pride week.
Bud E,
Knock yourself out if you want to be the test subject of a pharmaceutical corporation who has been given blanket immunity. The trials are over in 2023, will VAERS or the CDC be transparent about the numbers of those maimed, blinded, killed by this Experimental injection? (It us NOT a vaccine BTW).
So Pakistan is disabling peoples SIM cards who are not vaccinated and India is cutting power to villages who refuse the shot.
I don’t think you get it….I WILL NEVER ALLOW MY HEALTH TO BE PUT AT RISK BY AN EXPERIMENTAL SHOT. NEVER.
That rule was put in place so that unvaccinated people would be pressured by their vaccinated coworkers into getting the vaccine. Judging by the comments here, plenty of people are doing just as intended.
@ Anon, Nailed it.
Today at Food Maxx on Clayton Rd I noticed all the
“please wear a mask inside store” signs were taken down off their front doors.
so i went in without a mask. One employee working produce asked me to put a mask on I told him they removed all the signage off the front of the store, so I wouldn’t be wearing a mask. He walked away mumbling something when I asked him to walk to the front of the store with me to see that the signage was no longer there he refused to do so, so I kept shopping. You would’ve thought I was shopping naked with the looks I was getting, but nobody said anything until a guy stocking canned goods asked me to put on a mask. I told him about the signage on the front of the store and he didn’t believe me. I ended our conversation by flipping him off with both hands while walking away. These people are complete robots, I’m not playing their games any longer. I will refuse to patronize any place that requires masks from here on out. And I will write letters explaining why I will no longer be spending my hard-earned Bitcoin with them any longer..
I’m done, this covid crap was 100% political, 100% B.S. yeah, cry me a river about gramps and granny that died of covid. Even though they smoked 4 packs of filterless palmal’s a day and couldn’t breathe without breathing treatments. Sure people died which stinks, but it was over played X1000.
Nobody will ever know how many or how few people actually died from covid because the Dem’s want it that way. They got what they wanted, 2 pawns in the White House. Now how good are you feeling about these crooks. We are about to be over run by China and Russia, yet nobody seems to care about that. It’s well pastime to stand up for your country to fight for our freedoms like a lot of volunteered to do years ago.
If you don’t fight, please write a letter too your children and loved ones explaining why you were such a sissy and why you just let our country be destroyed by people that promised to have our back. The thing is 90% of this country is too fat and out of shape to fight for anything unless it’s a cheeseburger or latte. We are so, so screwed!!!
We are doomed, yup I said it, America is screwed big time.
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