Coronavirus Roundup: Up to date Boosters for Children and Extra Time to Get Your Actual ID

The Homeland Safety Division has as soon as once more prolonged the deadline for REAL ID enforcement, transferring it from Could 2023 to Could 2025. This extension is due, partly, to the remaining results from the pandemic on the power to get a REAL ID driver’s license or identification card.

“DHS REAL ID progress over the previous two years has been considerably hindered by state driver’s licensing businesses having to work by way of the backlogs created by the pandemic,” DHS acknowledged on December 5 in a press launch. “Many of those businesses took numerous steps in response to the pandemic together with robotically extending the expiration dates of driver’s licenses and identification playing cards and shifting operations to appointment solely.”

Congress handed the REAL ID Act in 2005, following a advice from the 9/11 Fee, which established minimal safety requirements for driver’s licenses and identification playing cards. Now, underneath a brand new regulation, individuals 18 and up will want a REAL ID compliant card for home air journey. Listed here are among the different latest headlines you might need missed. 

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a 242-page report on Thursday saying “long run systemic failures left our nation unprepared” to deal with the pandemic. The report additionally detailed failures within the federal authorities’s early response to COVID-19. The report contains 17 suggestions on pandemic preparedness and response. 

In a report issued this week, the Labor Department’s watchdog recommended that Congress prolong the statute of limitations for pandemic associated unemployment fraud instances. “At the moment, the statute of limitations for most of the OIG’s pandemic-related [unemployment insurance] fraud investigations will expire in 2025 because the statutes most frequently used to prosecute [unemployment] fraud have a 5-year limitation,” stated the report. An extension “would assist guarantee many teams and people which have focused this system don’t escape justice.”

On Thursday, the Meals and Drug Administration authorized the updated bivalent shot for children as young as 6-months old. “As this virus has modified, and immunity from earlier COVID-19 vaccination wanes, the extra individuals who hold updated on COVID-19 vaccinations, the extra profit there will likely be for people, households and public well being by serving to forestall extreme diseases, hospitalizations, and deaths,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf stated in a press release. 

On Wednesday, the Occupational Security and Well being Administration moved its much-anticipated everlasting COVID-19 customary for well being care settings to the Workplace of Data and Regulatory Affairs for Evaluate, following the lapse of the short-term one. “This pandemic is just not over and all uncovered employees want safety, not simply those that work in well being care settings,” Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of the Nationwide Council for Occupational Security and Well being. “That stated, it’s an vital step ahead to supply protections towards the unfold of COVID-19 and different infectious illnesses for tens of millions of well being care employees who’ve risked their lives to care for the remainder of us throughout this pandemic.” She urged the Workplace of Administration and Price range, which homes OIRA, to “instantly and urgently evaluation this proposed customary, with employee safety as the highest precedence.”

Assist us perceive the scenario higher. Are you a federal worker, contractor or army member with data, considerations, and so forth. about how your company is dealing with the coronavirus? Electronic mail us at newstips@govexec.com.