US: 30.9M Cases - 562.5K Dead - 23.4M Recovered
Worldwide: 127.8M Cases - 2.7M Dead - 103M Recovered

Former Senior Loss Prevention Executive
Know of any fallen LP exec? Let's remember & recognize.

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 279  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 275
*Red indicates change in total deaths

Adult Vaccine Eligibility By State
46 states have announced plans to open up eligibility for adults by May 1

Retail America Shines in Vaccine Effort
Federal government finds that Americans prefer vaccination at pharmacies over expensive mega-sites
The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.

Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.

FEMA data obtained by POLITICO make clear that the pharmacy sites are far outpacing the stadiums, arenas and convention centers enlisted as mass vaccination sites.

The federal retail pharmacy program reported March 11 it had administered nearly 1 million doses over a single day. Over the course of the next four days, the program’s pharmacies administered more than 5 million more doses, according to the federal vaccination data obtained by POLITICO.

“It’s clear that Americans feel comfortable relying on their local pharmacies for the vaccine,” said one senior Biden health official. “The retail pharmacy program will keep growing and I think you will begin to see more people going down the block to CVS to get the shot than driving maybe an hour to the federal sites to get it.” politico.com

New CDC Study Shows Vaccines Are Effective Against COVID Variants
Moderna & Pfizer vaccines are very effective in real-world conditions
Consistent with clinical trial data, a two-dose regimen prevented 90 percent of infections by two weeks after the second shot. One dose prevented 80 percent of infections by two weeks after vaccination.

There has been debate over whether vaccinated people can still get asymptomatic infections and transmit the virus to others. The study, by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggested that transmission is extremely unlikely.

There also has been concern that variants may render the vaccines less effective. The study’s results do not confirm that fear. Troubling variants were circulating during the time of the study — from December 14, 2020 to March 13, 2021 — yet the vaccines still provided powerful protection. nytimes.com

CDC Provides Guidance on Employers’ Onsite Vaccinations
Large employers should consider onsite vaccination programs, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in recent guidance. The CDC didn't recommend onsite vaccination programs for small or midsize employers, saying they should encourage offsite vaccination.

The guidance recommended that an employer consider a workplace vaccination program if it has:

● A large number of workers onsite with predictable schedules.

● The ability to enroll with the local jurisdiction's immunization program as a vaccination provider, including appropriately training staff or using an enrolled vaccination provider.

● A location with enough space to have a vaccination clinic while maintaining social distancing through the entire process, from screening to post-vaccination observation. shrm.org

10 more states open vaccine eligibility to all adults this week

Retail relics provide space for vaccination sites

'The Surge is Already Here'
State leaders sound the alarm over Covid-19 case increases
For weeks, health experts have warned of another possible Covid-19 surge if Americans get lax with safety measures while the country races to vaccinate more people. Now infections are on the rise again and some state leaders are sounding the alarm over their latest trends.

After weeks of declines and then a plateau, the average number of new Covid-19 cases saw a 7% increase from the previous week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Friday. The average of new virus-related hospitalizations also saw a slight increase from the previous week, she said.

More than two dozen states are reporting at least a 10% increase of new cases compared to the previous week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

State leaders across the US have expressed concern about their latest Covid-19 data, urging residents to double down on safety measures just a few weeks longer until enough of the population is protected against the virus. cnn.com

Florida Becomes Hot Spot for COVID Variant
In less than a week span, cases of coronavirus variant double in Florida
Florida, which was already the country's hardest-hit state for two kinds of coronavirus variants, more than doubled its tally of the variants in a report released Sunday by the Centers for Disease Control.

Florida had reported 1,075 variant cases through Thursday. Sunday's report added another 1,255 cases, bringing the state to 2,330.

The United States as a whole reported another 2,303 variant cases on Sunday, more than double the worst increase ever seen in the thrice-weekly CDC updates. The previous record was set Tuesday.

Scientists view Florida — the state furthest along in lifting restrictions, reopening society and welcoming tourists — as a bellwether for the nation. If recent trends there are any indication, the rest of the country may be in trouble. tallahassee.com  yahoo.com

McKinsey & Company
Most popular: 1. When will the COVID-19 pandemic end?
In the United Kingdom and the United States, we see progress toward a transition to normalcy during the second quarter of 2021. The new wave of cases in the European Union means that a similar transition is likely to come later there, in the late second or third quarter. Improved vaccine availability makes herd immunity most likely in the third quarter for the United Kingdom and the United States and in the fourth quarter for the European Union, but risks threaten that timeline.

The fall in COVID-19 cases across much of the world over the past ten weeks signals a new dawn in the fight against the disease. Vaccines are proving effective and rapidly scaling, bending the curve in many geographies. This is a fragile dawn, however, with transmission and deaths still high, unequal access to vaccines, and variants of concern threatening to undo progress to date.

The trajectory of UK and US cases has enabled the beginnings of a transition toward normalcy. We expect this transition to continue in the second quarter of 2021 and will likely see many aspects of social and economic life return to the prepandemic normal, consistent with UK Prime Minister Johnson’s staged reopening plan for the United Kingdom and US President Biden’s goal of a normal Independence Day.

The past month or two have seen seven important developments: Vaccines work - The Vaccine rollout is improving. More Vaccines are on the way. Therapeutics are poised to make more of a difference. New cases and deaths are lower—but still high. It is increasingly clear that more infectious variants of concern may drive a new wave of cases in the coming months. Variants may also reduce vaccine efficacy or enable reinfection. mckinsey.com

Walmart Employees Want Screening Pay - NYC COVID Price-Gouging Fines
Walmart employees say they haven't been compensated for arriving for their shifts early to undergo coronavirus screenings, New York City has been accused of imposing excessive COVID-19 price-gouging fines

While courts across the country are altering procedures, restricting access and postponing certain cases to stem the spread of the coronavirus, the outbreak has also prompted a wave of litigation.

Walmart workers hit the retail giant with a $5 million proposed class action Monday, alleging Walmart required employees to arrive for their shifts early to undergo COVID-19 screenings but flouted the law by failing to fully compensate them for their time.

New York City authorities have unconstitutionally imposed excessive COVID-19 price-gouging fines without due process on "potentially tens of thousands of individuals and businesses" that sell face masks and other pandemic supplies, according to a proposed $50 million class action filed in federal court. law360.com

Lawsuit Claims Employers CAN'T Mandate Vaccine Approved Only For Emergency Use
Can Employers Mandate a Vaccine Authorized for Emergency Use?
Federal and state anti-discrimination agencies have issued guidance for employers that want to require workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine—but at least one lawsuit has claimed that employers can't mandate a vaccine that is approved only for emergency use. While this argument might not hold up in court, employers should be aware of the risks associated with a vaccine mandate.

When employees refuse a vaccine, the employer should address their concerns and explain the reasons why the company has adopted a mandatory vaccination policy, said Mark Goldstein, an attorney with Reed Smith in New York City. "An open dialogue and education will be key, as will following FDA updates in this regard and consulting with legal counsel." shrm.org

2021 is a 'Transition Year'
ServiceNow expects most employees will continue work remotely at least 2 days a week, even after the Covid pandemic passes
“2021 will be a transition year,” a company representative said in an email to the Business Journal. “As the world reopens, we will innovate, observe, learn and adapt together to explore new ways of working within a flexible, primarily distributed model.”

Earlier this month, Bill McDermott, CEO of the enterprise software company, told attendees of a virtual tech conference that ServiceNow would continue to allow employees to work from home or remotely when it reopened its offices.

ServiceNow expects most workers will work from home or remotely at least two days a week, the representative said. And many of them — what it calls "work from anywhere" employees — will be fully remote, without assigned workplaces in its offices. bizjournals.com
 

'Year From Hell' for Grocery Workers
Coronavirus, then a mass shooting: It’s been a year from hell for Colorado grocery store workers
The killing of 10 people at King Soopers in Boulder a week ago — including three of the supermarket’s employees, an Instacart shopper and vendor there to fix a machine at the in-store Starbucks — has rattled grocery workers everywhere, forcing them to imagine what they would do if that happened at their own store. And that terrifying day came after a hellish year for the essential employees who have had to argue with anti-mask customers and risk their health at work so the rest of us could buy food.

“It’s been brutal,” said Johnson, who is director of operations. “And it still is, quite honestly.”

The pandemic has been mentally exhausting for grocery workers — from sanitizing every basket and cart between shoppers, to taking employees’ temperatures before they can start a shift, to placing a monitor at the front door to make sure the store doesn’t bust capacity limits required by law.

So when a grocery store in neighboring Boulder was the scene of a deadly rampage last week, rattled employees at Marczyk’s were offered time off if they needed to step away for a few days. Johnson said he and his team were “in shock,” but launched into making sure the store was as safe as possible.

Workers were already trained about what to do in the event of a hold-up — there’s a button to push to call police. But what they were imagining before was a robbery, not a person wielding an assault weapon intent on killing workers and shoppers.

“Grocery workers, it doesn’t matter if it’s a man-made or natural disaster — flood, blizzard, forest fires, grocery workers always work. They’re a critical part of the food-supply chain,” Cordova said. “They’ve had coworkers die (of COVID), yet they have to come back to work every day.” coloradosun.com

The 'Work to Zero' Initiative
How to Reduce and Eliminate Workplace Fatalities

The NSC's Work to Zero initiative is exploring innovative safety technologies with the goal of making workplace fatalities a thing of the past.

Emily Whitcomb, director of the National Safety Council's Work to Zero initiative, believes the safety profession has come a long way in reducing workplace injury rates over the last 25 years. "Unfortunately," she states, "our fatality rates have been stagnant in that period, and thousands of workers are still dying on the job every year."

"The Work to Zero initiative, she explains, "wants to push our safety leaders to consider how to design out the risk for workers using innovative safety technologies," such as augmented and virtual reality, drones, machine learning, sensors and wearables, robots and cobots.

"Better design, eliminating or engineering out the risk should be top of mind for our safety leaders," Whitcomb says. "There are many lifesaving technologies on the market today, so why is adoption so slow? We are on the cusp of the next evolution of our safety journey, and I’m excited to be leading it through the Work to Zero initiative." ehstoday.com

Retail Impact of Jammed Cargo Ship
Oil, coffee, toilet paper and more supplies jammed by ship stuck in Suez Canal

The ship has finally been freed, but the impact will still be felt globally

The skyscraper-sized vessel container ship stuck sideways in the Suez Canal cost the shipping world $400 million an hour. Already, shipping analysts estimated, the colossal traffic jam was holding up nearly $10 billion in trade every day.

The blockage is not only threatening gas and oil supplies it is also causing shortages of toilet paper, coffee, furniture, exercise equipment and liquified natural gas.

“All global retail trade moves in containers, or 90 percent of it,” said Alan Murphy, the founder of Sea-Intelligence, a maritime data and analysis firm. “So everything is impacted. Name any brand name, and they will be stuck on one of those vessels.”

“Containers are already scarce in China and the backup in the Suez will further stress the inventory,” explained Jon Monroe, a maritime trade and logistics consultant. “We are back to a pre-Chinese New Year environment where factories are running at full steam and are struggling to find containers as well as space for their finished goods.”

A maritime traffic jam grew to more than 200 vessels Friday outside the Suez Canal and some vessels began changing course as dredgers and tugboats worked to free a giant container ship. The massive container ship was finally free Monday, an official said. nytimes.com nypost.com bostonherald.com

IKEA says it could have supply chain issues because of the Suez Canal blockage

Cargo Theft Hits Five-Year High
Recorded cargo theft incidents, average values increased in 2020
Cargo theft volumes and values in the U.S. increased in 2020 over the previous year and also hit a five-year high, according to cargo theft recording firm Sensitech’s annual report.

The firm notes that its data is an indirect representation of the overall cargo theft footprint and not a direct reflection. It uses data from transportation security councils, insurance companies and law enforcement organizations, which may not represent 100% of all thefts but does provide a cross-section of thefts to identify trends, the firm notes.

Sensitech recorded 870 cargo thefts throughout the U.S. in 2020 – 222 in the first quarter, 230 in the second quarter, 185 in the third quarter and 233 in the fourth quarter. The average value of 2020 thefts was $166,854.

These numbers represent a 23% increase in volume and a 41% increase in average value when compared to 2019. The numbers also represent the highest recorded volume and average value in the last five years, Sensitech adds.

2020 represents a second consecutive year with an upward trend in reported cargo theft volume, which prior to 2019 had been in decline since 2011. ccjdigital.com

Courtrooms Reinvented For COVID-19
Law360 publishes public article

Elaborate Steps: Juries Returning To Changed Courts
Jurors stepped back into court Monday for the first time in months as in-person trials restarted in many places, but they're performing that public service in courtrooms that look very different than they did before the pandemic, all to accommodate proceedings that face a host of new challenges.

Plexiglass barriers, socially distant juries and air tests are just some of the physical changes greeting those returning to courtrooms. The measures mean trials will be fewer and take longer, and they create new hurdles for public access to the courts, judges acknowledge.

The changes may also affect how courthouses are designed and built for years to come, according to some experts.

"It's elaborate, it's complicated, there's no question that conducting jury trials in this way reduces our capacity substantially," said Maryland Chief U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar. "But we're not dead in the water, we're far from it."

Smoking in the Courtroom

Judge Bredar is taking an unusual approach to restarting in-person jury trials. He is allowing smoking in his Baltimore courtroom — in the form of smoke tests.

'Ubiquitous' Plexiglass - Thinking Outside the Box for Juries - Providing Public Access law360.com

How essential retailers are defending against a 2021 slowdown
Big-box retailers like Home Depot and Target, hardware stores, grocery stores and drug stores were some of the only places where people in the U.S. could still shop in-person, after the first wave of stay-at-home measures. As a result, they reported unprecedented sales growth through the spring. A sampling of those results from last year: Target’s comparable store sales were up 10.8% year-over-year between March and May, Lowe’s comparable sales were up 12.3% year-over-year during the same time period, and Kroger’s sales were up 19% during its first quarter last year.

Now, the challenge these once-essential retailers face this year, is to capitalize on some of that sales growth they saw last spring. In earnings calls over the past month and a half, most of the executives at these retailers have said that they don’t expect to match the revenue growth they saw last year. Rather, the goal is to maintain marketshare. In order to keep shoppers coming back to their stores and websites, these once-essential retailers are using this year to expand into new categories, striking deals with popular brands or launching their own private-label lines, and launching new digital features. But it’s a challenging prospect now to keep customers coming back, now that they have more choices about where to spend their money.

“As society starts to open up, trends are not as conducive for retail growth as consumers will start to spend more on experiences such as travel and dining out rather than on products,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail said. modernretail.co

Kmart And Sears Spend Another Friday Evening Closing More Stores

Home improvement retail still has legs after all-time highs

Finding remote work a struggle? Here's how to get your team back on track

Last week's #1 article --

Home Depot Loss Prevention Agent critically wounded, Chicago Police Officer also shot by fleeing Shoplifter; Suspect killed in shootout
A shoplifting suspect who got into a shootout with Chicago police is dead, and a police officer and a security worker were hospitalized in an incident that broke out Thursday afternoon at a store on the city's Southwest Side, authorities said. The officer is the fourth Chicago cop to be shot in less than two weeks. The police officer was being treated for a gunshot wound to the shoulder and was expected to undergo surgery.

A second victim, a Loss Prevention Agent from The Home Depot store where the incident broke out about 5 p.m., on West 46th Street, suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in grave condition, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Merritt. The officer wounded in the shooting has four years with the department and is assigned to the 9th District, authorities said. Shortly before 8 p.m., the officer had been released from the hospital. Authorities said the suspect shot the security worker inside or outside the store. Officers responded, and the suspect tried running away and shot one of the officers, authorities said. They also said police who responded at some point fired back and struck the suspect. The security worker was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center, where his condition was described as grave.  dailymail.co.uk  chicagotribune.com