Hollywood’s Covid-19 Protocols Stay In Place As Negotiations Proceed – Deadline

Hollywood’s Covid-19 protocols, which have been set to run out Friday, will stay in place whereas negotiations proceed between the AMPTP and DGA, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, the Teamsters and the Fundamental Crafts. In a joint assertion, the unions introduced “a continuation of negotiations of the Return-to-Work settlement whereas discussions proceed with the AMPTP,” and that the present guidelines “will stay in place till a brand new Settlement is reached.”

First adopted on September 21, 2020, the protocols had initially been set to run out on April 30, 2021, however have been prolonged with no main modifications and contained all the authentic settlement’s provisions. These embody strictly enforced testing regimens, bodily distancing, Covid compliance officers, diligent use of non-public protecting tools and a “Zone” system to make sure that completely different sections of productions are tightly managed based mostly on proximity to solid, who typically can’t put on masks or keep social distancing whereas working.

They have been prolonged once more on June 30, 2021, and have been amended three weeks later to offer producers “the choice to implement necessary vaccination insurance policies for casts and crew in Zone A on a production-by-production foundation.” Zone A, the place unmasked actors work, is probably the most restrictive of the protected work zones on units. They have been prolonged once more on November 11, 2021, on January 24, 2022, and once more on February 16, April 29 and Could 6.

The vaccination mandates, which permits producers to require vaccinations as a situation of employment on a production-by-production foundation, have confirmed to be probably the most controversial side of the protocols. Earlier this month, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher expressed the opinion that it’s now protected to raise the mandates, though the board finally took no motion.

Proponents of the mandates argued in the course of the board assembly that the mandates ought to stay in place as a result of vaccines proceed to offer a measure of safety towards transmission and an infection – a view supported by SAG-AFTRA’s personal professional, David Michaels, an epidemiologist and professor on the George Washington College College of Public Well being who served as Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA in the course of the Obama administration. Earlier this week, the guild’s security committee met and really useful persevering with the present coverage.

Current knowledge reveals that this yr in Los Angeles County, Covid deaths have surpassed the variety of deaths attributed to the flu, automobile crashes and drug overdoses mixed.

Opponents of the mandates, together with Drescher’s personal professional – Dr. Harvey Risch, who’s Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology within the Division of Epidemiology and Public Well being on the Yale College of Public Well being and Yale College of Medication – keep that the vaccine just isn’t efficient towards the unfold of the most recent subvariants of the virus. Opponents additionally say that many employers haven’t been abiding by the provisions of the Return-To-Work settlement that permit for mandate exceptions based mostly on medical causes or sincerely held spiritual beliefs. Additionally they argue that members who refuse to be vaccinated are being discriminated towards in employment.

Final month, writing in the latest difficulty of SAG-AFTRA Journal, Drescher expressed “concern that giving employers the discretionary rights to resolve which of us can or can’t work based mostly on our medical historical past is a harmful slippery slope. If an employer can resolve you’ll be able to’t work except Covid vaccinated, what’s subsequent, we will’t work and not using a monkeypox vaccine?”

“I totally perceive and respect the significance the vaccine has performed within the saving of lives in the course of the early years of the pandemic,” she wrote. “I actually am vaccinated. And when it was added to the Return-to-Work Settlement (RTWA) final yr, it definitely appeared like the precise factor to do.”

She added, nevertheless, that “with hundreds of unvaccinated members nonetheless unable to work, all new data begs evaluation and consideration earlier than deciding our place on the subsequent RTWA. All I ask is we educate ourselves with the latest science and make an knowledgeable resolution as a result of members’ livelihoods hold within the steadiness.”

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