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Mayor to lay out pandemic plan in October

YOUNGSTOWN — Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said at the next city council meeting, he plans to provide options related to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and avoid the passage of $1,000 bonuses to city employees for getting vaccinated. Among those options, Brown said Wednesday, is a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirement for city employees. Those who refuse to get inoculated would be subject to weekly testing at their expense, he said. “Council wanted to see options and that’s what we’re going to give them to consider,” Brown said. “It’s a good start.” Another ...

Sept. on pace for 3rd-most monthly cases

Through its first 15 days, September is on pace to have the third-most COVID-19 cases ever for a month in Ohio. As of Wednesday, the state had 98,365 cases reported for the first half of September. That is an average of almost 6,558 per day. At that pace, Ohio would end September with nearly 196,730 COVID-19 cases. It would be close to the second-highest month: November 2020 with 205,366 reported cases. Only December with 279,317 reported cases had more for a month. At its current pace, September will have a little more than the 195,412 cases reported in January. For ...

COVID-19 hits Ohio children hard

Gov. Mike DeWine said the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting school-age children particularly hard and urged school officials to require face masks but won’t mandate it himself even though he wants to do it. “If I could put on a statewide mandate, if the health department could do it, we ...

Wed. 9:12 a.m.: Biden: Nearly 3M get health coverage during COVID-19 sign-up

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden announced this morning that 2.8 million consumers took advantage of a special six-month period to sign up for private health insurance coverage made more affordable by his COVID-19 relief law. He called the number encouraging and urged Congress to help ...

Wed. 8:43 a.m.: Unvaccinated French health care workers face suspension

PARIS (AP) — Health care workers in France face suspension from their jobs starting today if they haven't been vaccinated against COVID-19. With as many as 300,000 workers still not vaccinated, some hospitals fear staff shortages will add to their strain. Vaccines are now compulsory for ...

Passing $1,000 vaccine bonus for Youngstown workers looks unlikely

YOUNGSTOWN — Mandating COVID-19 vaccination for city employees is one plan the administration is studying while a proposal to pay $1,000 bonuses for getting the shot still can’t get a vote by city council. As the administration considers ways to require city workers to be inoculated or ...