Back in January 2020, I was one of the first legal bloggers to highlight the risks of a new coronavirus and asking the question: What if it spreads.  Over the next several weeks, I started to raise the alarm — so much so that my friend Kate called me out for being a “doomsday lawyer”. 

As the pandemic continues to rage on, the EEOC quietly updated its COVID guidance earlier this month rolling back some (but not all) of the discretion afforded to employers.

The biggest change has to do with testing as a condition of returning or remaining at work.  The new guidance puts some bumpers on employers’ use

Obviously, the big news of last week was that a federal court struck down the mask mandate for public transportation.

But from a bigger employment law perspective, there may be other rules with a shelf life too. The road we are travelling on is not in a straight line.  The big question for now is

This isn’t the end of the pandemic. But it’s starting to feel a lot closer than it has for a while.

First off, the omicron wave has crested in Connecticut. There may still be more variants to worry about but at least for now (a few weeks? months?), cases are declining significantly in Connecticut —

The Omicron Wave is either nearly here or already here in Connecticut depending on what reports you listen to.

For employers, its difficult to know exactly what to expect particularly over the next few weeks; there is no statewide mask mandate, for example, and no closures anticipated from state or local governments.  Yet, this strain

Late Friday night, the Sixth Circuit lifted the nationwide stay on the OSHA so-called “vax-or-text” rule. 

For employers, the “why” the stay was lifted is less important than the “here’s what it means”.

And the short answer to that is that implementation of the rule will begin immediately (again). Of course, there’s still an appeal

Last week, I deleted the Twitter app off my iPhone as a bit of an experiment.  I’ve done this a few times before — but the start of the pandemic back in early 2020 had me going full on Twitter since then.  After all, if it’s important, it’s on Twitter, right?

Well, not exactly.  In fact, when I was sick for a few days, I kept turning to Twitter and finding…not much that merited the visit to the app — just boredom.  (Never fear though, I can still access it on my computer browser.)  Nevertheless, I wondered how much I’d miss if I just took it of my phone.

The first real answer came on Friday when news came of the Fifth Circuit’s beatdown decision to stay enforcement of the OSHA vax or test Emergency Temporary Standard.  Turns out you can hear about it the same time as others even without being on Twitter.

But what happened next was interesting for me — nothing. Without being on Twitter, I missed the immediate reactions, overreactions, snark, and, sure, some actual insights.

And that’s ok.

We are entering a time during this pandemic when the changes are happening more incrementally and slowly.  Perhaps we are headed for a modest 5th wave here, for example.  That might require employers to adjust on the fly again.  But speed isn’t everything right now.

Thus, with the luxury of a few more days to ponder and think, where are we now on the OSHA rule?
Continue Reading Court Stays OSHA ETS, But We Know All Too Well It’s Not the Last Word

Being sick over the last week brought me a lot of unexpected “gifts”.  Sure, there were the forced afternoon naps (oh, who’s kidding, even a morning nap too) .  The watching of “The Price is Right” at least once (or was it twice?). The early start of a post-pandemic diet.

But also the “gift” of

Conneticut’s Travel Advisory Quarantine has been among the most confusing of the orders to arise from the pandemic.  No doubt that it was not intended to be that complicated.

But the last few weeks have had change after change made to the rules.  And then came the announcement last week that Rhode Island was on