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• Southwest Airlines plans to keep its vaccine mandate despite the Texas governor’s executive order.
• President Biden’s federal vaccine requirement supersedes state law, according to the carrier.
• Southwest said that to remain a government contractor, it must comply with the president’s mandate.

Southwest Airlines said it will comply with President Joe Biden’s federal vaccine mandate despite Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issuing an executive order prohibiting it.

On Monday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an hoka shoes executive order preventing any organization, including private businesses, from forcing workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The move comes as President Joe Biden issued a federal vaccine mandate in September requiring businesses with more than 100 employees to mandate vaccines or weekly testing.

“No entity in Texas can compel receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine by any individual, including an employee or a consumer, who objects to such vaccination for any reason of personal conscience, based on a religious belief, or for medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19,” Abbott wrote in the order.

Many Texas-based corporations have already announced they will comply with Biden’s order, including Dallas-based Southwest Airlines announcing its workers need to be fully vaccinated by November 24, except for those who have an approved medical or religious accommodation.

Despite Abbott’s order, Southwest said it would continue to comply with the federal mandate, challenging the Republican governor’s decree and creating tension between the company and lawmakers.

“According to the president’s executive order, federal action supersedes any state mandate or law, and we would be expected to comply with the president’s order to remain compliant as a federal contractor,” a Southwest spokesperson told Insider on Tuesday.

Many major carriers, including Southwest, United, American, and Delta, have government contracts that transport goods and employees, hey dude and therefore have to comply with Biden’s vaccine mandate. In early October, American Airlines mandated its employees be inoculated or face termination, while Delta has yet to implement the requirement.

Southwest’s rebuttal comes after a four-day meltdown that canceled over 3,000 flights and left passengers stranded in airports across the country. While the carrier blamed air traffic control issues and weather for the disruptions, some high-profile public figures said the mass cancellations were due to a pilot anti-mandate protest. However, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly and Southwest Airlines Pilots Association President Casey Murray denied the rumors.

“I can say with certainty that there are no work slowdowns or sickouts either related to the recent mandatory vaccine mandate or otherwise,” Murray said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Kelly told CNBC on Tuesday that a walkout did not occur.

“We have some very strong views on that topic, but that’s not what was at issue with Southwest over the weekend,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Ever since schools closed in March 2020, the parents of school-age children have lived with a daily sense of uncertainty. When would schools open again? When they did, would they stay open? Back in the classroom, would children be safe?

Then, on Monday, came the news that Pfizer’s vaccine is safe and effective for children between ages 5 and 11. “Mom of an 11-year-old here, and I could cry with relief,” tweeted the climate strategist Mary Anne Hitt. Randi Weingarten, head of the powerful American Federation of Teachers, brooks shoes praised the announcement as “Great, great news.”

After a disastrous experiment with remote learning, educators agreed that the new school year needed to mark a return to a pre-pandemic normal. But as with much else, the highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus scuttled those plans. While schools have been open this fall, their reopening has been fraught, and hardly free of interruption. According to the data site Burbio, which tracks school reopenings, 2,000 schools across the country have already closed temporarily because of a coronavirus outbreak.

With the cold weather coming, some fear that trend could be exacerbated, forcing children to attend school again from home, where studies have routinely shown they learn less and suffer the psychological consequences of isolation.

Monday’s news from Pfizer therefore offered something the last several months have lacked: hope, in particular for parents and children dreading the prospect of more Zoom school. Pfizer announced that clinical trials for children between the ages of 5 and 11 showed a strong antibody response — and virtually no adverse effects.

“This is the news that many, many parents have been waiting for,” says Dr. Leana Wen, a professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University and the former health commissioner of Baltimore. “I hope that Pfizer will submit for authorization soon and that the FDA will review as quickly and efficiently.”

Every indication is that Pfizer is indeed rushing to clarks shoes uk submit an application for emergency use authorization to the Food and Drug Administration. But that doesn’t mean children will be rolling up their sleeves tomorrow. The recent controversy over booster shots for adults is a reminder that following the science — as the Biden administration has vowed repeatedly to do — can be a challenging exercise: It takes patience waiting for scientists to do their work.

The White House had prepared to begin administering booster shots for recipients of the two-dose mRNA vaccines this week. But last Friday’s contentious meeting of an FDA advisory panel ended with a narrow recommendation that only people older than 65 or otherwise at high risk receive booster shots. The panel considered only the Pfizer vaccine; the other mRNA vaccine, manufactured by Moderna, does not yet have full approval from the government.

A similar dynamic could play out when it comes to childhood vaccination. Earlier this month, the FDA issued a statement that anticipated the forthcoming Pfizer announcement, acknowledging that parents are “anxious about the pandemic and protecting their children” but asking for patience with the regulatory process. “It’s important that the public recognize that, because young children are still growing and developing, it’s critical that thorough and robust clinical trials of adequate size are completed to evaluate the safety and the immune response to a COVID-19 vaccine in this population,” the FDA statement said.

There is little dispute that the vaccine works, even though children were offered a much smaller dose than adults. The biggest concern for regulators is hey dude shoes myocarditis, a relatively rare heart disorder that tends to affect younger men. Pfizer did not release data from its clinical trials on Monday; a statement from the company made no mention of adverse effects among participants, but regulators will scrutinize data carefully before coming to any conclusion.

The scrutiny will take place as outdoor activities become increasingly difficult across Northern states, including several that have not yet experienced a Delta surge. There had been reports that approval may take place before the end of October, providing American children with a Halloween treat.

FDA officials made clear during the booster debate that they won’t be browbeaten into moving faster, not even by the White House. “I have no information to share about timing at this time,” an FDA spokeswoman, Abigail Capobianco, told Yahoo News in response to an inquiry about whether Pfizer’s announcement would speed the approval process.

“A lot depends on the FDA, which is why I am not saying it will happen by Halloween,” Dr. Kavita Patel, a former Obama administration policy aide who is now a Brookings Institution fellow, told Yahoo News. “Also, it’s not like we will have all kids vaccinated overnight. Getting the flu shots out takes months.”

Others say that while the news is good, it obscures a bigger truth: Children were never at high risk for contracting COVID-19 in the first place. Although hospitalizations of children have risen in recent weeks, age remains closely tied to the incidence and severity of disease.

“It’s great that we’re nearing a safe and effective vaccination regime for younger children, but I hope that it doesn’t cause people to lose sight of the already near-zero risk posed to children by the virus,” says Rory Cooper, a political consultant from northern Virginia who became an advocate of reopening schools last year.

Although schools already mandate a bevy of inoculations, it is not clear that they will do so with the coronavirus vaccine when it comes to the younger cohort, especially since approval will be granted under an emergency use authorization. That will leave vaccination for the 5-to-11 demographic up to parents, which could in turn lead to a fresh round of the immunization culture wars.

If childhood COVID immunizations become politicized — and there is good reason to believe they will be, given the furor over mask mandates in schools — vaccination rates for children could end up being much lower than for adults, 77 percent of whom have received at least one shot. According to the latest Yahoo News/YouGov poll, 56 percent of parents with children under 18 say either that their kids have already been vaccinated (18 percent) or that they plan to get them vaccinated when the shots are fully approved (38 percent). The rest say they won’t get their kids vaccinated (23 percent) or that they’re not sure (21 percent).

“I think people will see the health benefit as low (which it is), and there are a lot of concerns about myocarditis,” Brown University economist Emily Oster wrote in an email to Yahoo News. “Most of the hesitation I see is really just the low-benefit thing. I think if it means kids will not have to quarantine, then that will help a lot.”

Quarantine rules could be relaxed in places where elementary and middle school students are vaccinated, but much about what schools will look like with vaccination remains uncertain. The vaccine itself, though, is soon to become a reality.

“We have to applaud another tool in the battle against COVID,” says another advocate of reopening schools, educator Karen Vaites. “Clearly, many families will feel more comfortable resuming normal activities with their 5- to 11-year-olds vaccinated.”

Despite the persistent pleas by public health officials to get vaccinated as coronavirus infections continue to surge, a staggeringly low number of pregnant people have been vaccinated against the virus nationwide.

Just 25% of pregnant people in the United States between the ages of 18 and 49 are currently vaccinated with at least one dose, according to data through Sept. 11 compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The decision to not get vaccinated has resulted in a growing number of pregnant people ending up in intensive care wards, brooks shoes many severely ill with COVID-19. This worrisome uptick has been particularly evident in Mississippi, where state health officials have been sounding the alarm not only about the influx of fetal and maternal deaths, but also about several reports of pregnant women being turned away from getting the shot.

“Some of the patients had reported to us that they had gone to be vaccinated, and were turned away because they were pregnant. Those were people who were just sharing their experiences at pharmacies and other areas around the state,” Dr. Michelle Owens, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at University of Mississippi Medical Center, told ABC News.

Owens, alongside other state health officials, reported this week that not all of their patients had been vaccine-hesitant, but instead were turned down after disclosing that they were expecting.

“People are kind of adverse to pregnant patients when they come in. They’re hesitant to give pregnant patients medications, and certainly, vaccinations kind of fall into that,” said Dr. Marty Tucker, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at UMMC, during a press conference on Thursday.

In light of the concerning reports, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs issued a standing order last week for women to receive COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy, “to give the pharmacy some reassurance for the places that it’s OK clarks shoes uk and recommended for pregnant women to get immunized at any stage in pregnancy.”

Owens added that health officials and physicians were all working together “to help reduce barriers to vaccination for pregnant women, and we just really tried to amplify this information so that wherever a pregnant person goes in order to receive care or to receive a vaccine that they are welcomed with open arms and that they receive that vaccine.”

In Mississippi, 72 patients have experienced late pregnancy loss and 15 pregnant women have succumbed to the virus, more than half of whom have died since the end of July. None of the pregnant women who died was fully vaccinated, and the majority were overweight, according to Dobbs.

“There are NICUs all over this country that are filling up with babies who will not get to know their moms, and that’s devastating. There are families who are losing their matriarchs, and then, there are women who have been infected by this virus who won’t ever be the same,” Owens said.

Since the onset of the pandemic, more than 21,000 pregnant people have been hospitalized nationwide, and at least 155 have died as result of COVID-19, according to federal data. Additionally, there have been at least 266 pregnancy losses nationwide, and approximately 10.3% of patients have had to deliver prematurely.

“When we lose a mom, especially something that could be prevented, it is a tragedy. It does not discriminate, we see it in people with and without co-morbidities. We see it in people as young as 23 years old, so it is a bad actor across the board,” Tucker said.

Earlier in the pandemic, pregnant women at UMMC were not becoming as severely ill with COVID-19, but following the spread of the delta variant, Owens said, it became evident patients were becoming severely ill and deteriorating more quickly.

“We are seeing women, who may not have other co-morbid conditions, being affected at an earlier gestational age. hey dude shoes Most of the people who we’re seeing now, are affected in the middle of their pregnancy, and they have a much more aggressive form of the disease,” Owens said. “The next thing you know, they end up progressing very quickly to need intubation.”

MORE: Mississippi health officials plea for vaccination after ‘significant’ number of COVID-19 fatalities in pregnant women

Pregnant people are at an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 when compared to non-pregnant people, according to the CDC. In addition, they are also at increased risk for preterm birth and other poor pregnancy outcomes.

The CDC and other leading health organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, have issued guidelines calling on all pregnant people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

“CDC encourages all pregnant people or people who are thinking about becoming pregnant and those breastfeeding to get vaccinated to protect themselves from COVID-19,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement about the updated guidance last month. “The vaccines are safe and effective, and it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible Delta variant and see severe outcomes from COVID-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people.”

The updated guidance from the CDC was based on further research that found pregnant people can receive an mRNA vaccine with no increased risk to themselves or their babies.

“[It] is really the most important thing to give pregnant women an opportunity to still be able to live to fight another day,” Owens said. “It’s really imperative that women get the good information to know that the COVID vaccine is safe, approved and recommended, and that it makes a big difference in whether or not a patient has severe disease, or potentially, could die.”