With riders depending on Metro for essential trips, agency is developing plans to vaccinate staff

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With a devastating surge in COVID-19 cases ongoing in Los Angeles County, Metro continues to run bus and rail service for essential trips. As we reported earlier this week, we are experiencing some staff shortages and missed trips due to employees missing work because they’re ill, caring for family members or in quarantine.

One ray of hope is that vaccinations are underway in Los Angeles County and Metro is working on a plan to get its staff — especially its frontline staff — vaccinated as soon as possible. We know that many thousands of essential workers in our region rely on Metro for their mobility which is exactly the reason our staff are also considered essential workers. We want to protect them so they can continue to serve the people who need us the most.

Our vaccination plans are twofold:

•Metro is working with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to develop a plan for administering the vaccine to our employees once enough doses become available. As part of this effort, we will establish a Medical Point of Dispensing (MPOD) approach to ensure Metro employees who elect to be vaccinated receive their shots on an expedited schedule. We plan on using LACDPH medical staff resources to oversee the vaccinations.

•Metro has also established an internal working group to determine the order that vaccines will be given to the various Metro job classifications. The prioritization will be based on risk of exposure within each job classification. Age will be a sub-category under each classification. This plan should be finalized in the next several weeks while Metro waits for vaccines to become available.

We are very aware that many people inside and outside our agency are eager to hear more about Metro’s vaccination efforts. As vaccinations continue to be deployed, we will provide timely updates to employees, the agency’s Board and the public.

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9 replies ›

  1. Can someone explain who this “Dr. David Martin” is and where he got his doctorate?

  2. The plan should also include removing staff that choose not to be vaccinated (other than for valid medical reasons that prevent them) from potential public contact. Metro needs to keep passengers safe from staff that could be infected. For workers that don’t have direct public contact, such as mechanics, that choose not to be vaccinated, they all can be put into a single shift or single location.

  3. Steve, Victoria Steele is spewing outright false absurdities and should not be allowed to disseminate such wrong and ultimately fatal information to the public in any way. By giving her a voice, you are only ensuring this pandemic never ends. She has no idea what she is talking about, is NOT a scientist or medical professional in any say, and should be ashamed for this word vomit that is entirely false.

    • Hi Medical Doctor;

      I totally understand and agree with your points. That said, some comments are a judgment call as to whether they meet our comment policy and this one does — technically speaking. I do have discretion how often I allow folks to post the same point over and over again. I personally hope that employees at all employers strongly consider being vaccinated. As for what employers are allowed to require, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidelines in December. The New York Times reported on those guidelines in this article.

      Steve Hymon
      Editor, The Source

  4. I am glad that you have made this program voluntary: please make sure that it remains that way and that your employees are not pressured in any way to participate.

    First, the “vaccines” are not vaccines: no form of a live or dead virus is injected. Thus no immunity is developed and the person can still transmit the disease to another person. In addition, no animal studies were done, allowing for research on the effects that could be passed to the next generation and a better understanding of the adverse side effects. “Vaccination” is unlikely to solve your absentee problems. Those that are sick and recover will have immunity, not those who are vaccinated.

    The following is the best description I have encountered. It occurs near the end of the following video: https://earthheroestv.com/programs/special-free-live-broadcast-5th-jan-2021-focus-on-fauci-46120-a90064

    David Martin from January 5, 2021 Focus on Fauci event

    ” Let’s make sure we are clear… This is not a vaccine. They are using the term “vaccine” to sneak this thing under public health exemptions. This is not a vaccine.”

    “This is mRNA packaged in a fat envelope that is delivered to a cell. It is a medical device designed to stimulate the human cell into becoming a pathogen creator. It is not a vaccine. Vaccines actually are a legally defined term under public health law; they are a legally defined term under CDC and FDA standards.[1] And the vaccine specifically has to stimulate both the immunity within the person receiving it and it also has to disrupt transmission.

    And that is not what this is. They (Moderna and Pfizer) have been abundantly clear in saying that the mRNA strand that is going into the cell is not to stop the transmission, it is a treatment. But if it was discussed as a treatment, it would not get the sympathetic ear of public health authorities because then people would say, “What other treatments are there?”

    The use of the term vaccine is unconscionable for both the legal definition and also it is actually the sucker punch to open and free discourse… Moderna was started as a chemotherapy company for cancer, not a vaccine manufacturer for SARSCOV2. If we said we are going to give people prophylactic chemotherapy for the cancer they don’t yet have, we’d be laughed out of the room because it’s a stupid idea. That’s exactly what this is. This is a mechanical device in the form of a very small package of technology that is being inserted into the human system to activate the cell to become a pathogen manufacturing site.

    And I refuse to stipulate in any conversations that this is in fact a vaccine issue. The only reason why the term is being used is to abuse the 1905 Jacobson case that has been misrepresented since it was written. And if we were honest with this, we would actually call it what it is: it is a chemical pathogen device that is actually meant to unleash a chemical pathogen production action within a cell. It is a medical device, not a drug because it meets the CDRH definition of a device. It is not a living system, it is not a biologic system, it is a physical technology – it happens to just come in the size of a molecular package.

    So, we need to be really clear on making sure we don’t fall for their game. Because their game is if we talk about it as a vaccine then we are going to get into a vaccine conversation but this is not, by their own admission, a vaccine. As a result it must be clear to everyone listening that we will not fall for this failed definition just like we will not fall for their industrial chemical definition of health. Both of them are functionally flawed and are an implicit violation of the legal construct that is being exploited. I get frustrated when I hear activists and lawyers say, “we are going to fight the vaccine”. If you stipulate it’s a vaccine you’ve already lost the battle. It’s not a vaccine. It is made to make you sick.

    80% of the people exposed to SARSCOV2 are asymptomatic carriers. 80% of people who get this injected into them experience a clinical adverse event. You are getting injected with a chemical substance to induce illness, not to induce an immuno-transmissive response. In other words, nothing about this is going to stop you from transmitting anything. This is about getting you sick and having your own cells be the thing that get you sick.

    When the paymaster for the distribution of information happens to be the industry that’s doing the distributing, we lose. Because the only narrative is the one that will be compensated by the people writing the check. That goes for our politicians… and our media – it has been paid for – if you follow the money you realize there is no non-conflicted voice on any network.”

    – Dr. David Martin, Jan 5th 2021,

    [1] The word “vaccine” originates from the Latin Variolae vaccinae (cowpox), which Edward Jenner demonstrated in 1798 could prevent smallpox in humans. Today the term ‘vaccine’ applies to all biological preparations, produced from living organisms, that enhance immunity against disease and either prevent (prophylactic vaccines) or, in some cases, treat disease (therapeutic vaccines).
    From: http://www.phrma-jp.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/old/library/vaccine-factbook_e/1_Basic_Concept_of_Vaccination.pdf

    • Victoria, you are flat out wrong. Stop getting scientific or medical advice from Fox News or OANN. Your false rant only seeks to prolong the pain of this pandemic further. You have no medical expertise whatsoever and have no place talking about science or medical advice at all.