Month: December 2021

President Joe Biden signed a nearly $770 billion defense bill into law on Monday, which includes an overhaul on sex assault crimes prosecution.The National Defense Authorization Act for military appropriations in the 2022 fiscal year includes $740 billion for the Department of Defense, which is $25 billion more than Biden’s budget request. It also includes $27.8 billion for  Department of Energy defense-related activities and another $378 million for other defense-related activities.

The bill includes funding to change how the military prosecutes sexual assault cases, along with other items, such as military construction, basic pay increase for troops, national security programs and intelligence programs, a brief White House statement shows.

The bill also specifically includes a 2.7% pay raise for troops, an independent commission to review the two-decade war in Afghanistan. Biden said in a White House statement: “The Act provides vital benefits and enhances access to justice for military personnel and their families,” Biden also said in the statement that “unfortunately,” certain sections of the legislation continue to bar the use of funds to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees into the United States or custody of certain foreign countries unless certain conditions are met. He added that these restrictions “constrain the flexibility of the executive branch with respect to its engagement in delicate negotiations with foreign countries over the potential transfer of detainees,” and urged Congress to eliminate the restrictions.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) announced on Monday that Americans who test positive for COVID-19 but do not have symptoms can stop isolating after five days as long as they continue wearing masks, cutting in half the agency’s previous isolation period down from 10 days.  The CDC also said it was loosening its guidance for quarantining after a COVID-19 exposure for unvaccinated Americans or those eligible for a booster who have not yet received their additional shot. It now recommends a five-day quarantine followed by five days of strict mask-wearing, but says that if quarantine “is not feasible,” it can be skipped as long as they wear a mask in the 10 days after exposure.

The CDC says people who are fully vaccinated and boosted do not need to quarantine after exposure. The agency had previously said all vaccinated Americans, regardless of whether they had received a booster shot, did not need to quarantine after a close contact as long as they did not have symptoms.

The change mirrors a similar move by the CDC announced last week to shorten its isolation guidance for health care workers. Many communities are now seeing record numbers of cases and rising hospitalizations fueled by the variant. Nationwide, the daily average of cases tallied by the CDC has accelerated to a pace not seen since the deadly surge of cases last winter.

Several industries have blamed the recent surge in Omicron cases for crippling much of their workforce. Thousands of flights were canceled or delayed over the holiday weekend, as pilots, flight attendants and other airline workers were forced to isolate after breakthrough cases.In deciding to shorten the recommended isolation period, the CDC said data shows the majority of transmission “occurs early in the course of illness,” within two days before symptoms begin and three days after. The CDC also cited recent data from South Africa and the United Kingdom, where Omicron has spread widely, showing a booster shot could restore vaccine effectiveness against infection.

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