In Other News: Delta will charge unvaccinated employees $200 per month; Feds report most rental assistance has still not gone out

Published 6:30 am Thursday, August 26, 2021

Delta will charge unvaccinated employees $200 per month

Delta Air Lines will charge employees on the company health plan $200 a month if they fail to get vaccinated against COVID-19, a policy the airline’s top executive says is necessary because the average hospital stay for the virus costs the airline $40,000. CEO Ed Bastian said that all employees who have been hospitalized for the virus in recent weeks were not fully vaccinated. The airline said Wednesday that it also will stop extending pay protection to unvaccinated workers who contract COVID-19 on Sept. 30, and will require unvaccinated workers to be tested weekly beginning Sept. 12, although Delta will cover the cost. They will have to wear masks in all indoor company settings. Delta stopped short of matching United Airlines, which will require employees to be vaccinated starting Sept. 27 or face termination. However, the $200 monthly surcharge, which starts in November, may have the same effect.

Trial in Ahmaud Arbery slaying set by judge for February

A federal judge has scheduled an early 2022 trial for three Georgia men charged with hate crimes in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood issued a written order Tuesday setting jury selection to begin Feb. 7 at the federal courthouse in the coastal city of Brunswick. That’s just a few months after the same defendants are scheduled to stand trial on murder charges in a Georgia state court. Gregory and Travis McMichael, a grown father and son, armed themselves and pursued Arbery in a pickup truck after spotting the 25-year-old Black man running in their neighborhood. Travis McMichael ended up killing Arbery with three close-range shotgun blasts. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase and was later charged along with the McMichaels.

Feds report most rental assistance has still not gone out

States and localities have only distributed 11% of the tens of billions of dollars in federal rental assistance, the Treasury Department said Wednesday, the latest sign the program is struggling to reach the millions of tenants at risk of eviction. The latest data shows that the pace of distribution increased in July over June and that nearly a million households have been helped. But with the Supreme Court considering a challenge to the federal eviction moratorium, the concern is that a wave of evictions will happen before much of the assistance has been distributed. Some 3.5 million people in the U.S. as of Aug. 16 said they face eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. Lawmakers approved $46.5 billion in rental assistance earlier this year and most states are distributing the first tranche of $25 billion. According to the Treasury Department, $5.1 billion in Emergency Rental Assistance has been distributed by states and localities through July, up from $3 billion at the end of June and only $1.5 billion by May 31.