y’know considering all the antivaxx and lolbertarian sentiment
They’ve decided that schools are going to remain open come hell or high water and that will remain true unless there are unimaginable levels of mass death
Because they’re inextricably connected to labor as a whole, since many workers have children but need school as a babysitter, but a large portion of them couldn’t find someone to watch their kids during the day (whether many workers can afford it is almost a separate matter; I think schools may simply have a far higher capacity than daycares).
So, they obviously don’t care about the well-being of workers, but the system is relatively fragile and I think the focus is on (surface-level) attempts to regain stability—although nothing really toppled, the pandemic has been a very visible showing of the absolute incapacity of the US state.
Speaking of, I also suspect this must be enforced through businesses because the US state has relatively few channels for interacting with masses of citizens outside of a few very well-defined ones (car registration, taxes, police, etc); certainly the CDC isn’t capable of doing weekly covid tests for all non-vaccinated workers, no state institution is. So, the state by necessity acts through businesses in this case, if it actually wants to accomplish what it says.
I also think this is still relatively unenforceable, because I do not see lots of businesses facing terribly serious consequences (at least, not for businesses of sufficient size). Depending on what the consequences are, they may just decide it’s not worth the hassle to comply, depending on whether such businesses feel any need to retain current employees, or whether there are enough in reserve to replace whoever is needed. I also think the state would be responsive, if the capitalists were to collectively signal back that the requirements are too onerous.
