Andrea Hsu

Omicron has left employers around the country short of workers. Sometimes very short.

At United Airlines, CEO Scott Kirby said nearly a third of the workforce called out sick on one day alone at Newark Liberty International Airport.

At MOM's Organic Market, some of its East Coast stores have had to deal with 15 out of 50 workers out on a single day.

America's entrepreneurial spirit remains strong during the pandemic.

That's the takeaway from new numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Wednesday, which found that a whopping 5.4 million new business applications were filed in 2021, surpassing the record set in 2020 of 4.4 million.

Amid a flurry of flight cancellations, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby offered a window into the staffing challenges employers are facing due to the omicron surge.

"We have about 3,000 employees who are currently positive for COVID. Just as an example, in one day alone at Newark, nearly one-third of our workforce called out sick," he wrote in a memo to employees on Tuesday.

New York City's strict vaccine requirements get even stricter as of Monday. Everyone 12 years old and up now has to show proof of full vaccination to dine in at restaurants, go to the movies, work out in gyms, or attend any kind of indoor performance.

For Beata Moon, a composer, pianist and teaching artist in Queens, that means she will not be able to perform a recital in February at Musica Reginae, a community concert space.

In what the city says is "a first in the nation measure," New York City is now mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for all private sector employers, effective Dec. 27.

As Covid cases surged over the summer, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian took action: Unvaccinated workers would have to pay an extra $200 a month for their health insurance, starting Nov. 1.

It felt less onerous than the vaccine mandate imposed on workers by rival United Airlines. But still, it was audacious.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has won the lottery to hear legal challenges to the Biden administration's vaccine rule that affects some 84 million workers.

In the fight over who has the authority to tell companies what to do when it comes to COVID-19 and workplace safety, a random drawing could play a big role in which side prevails.

A federal court in Texas has handed United Airlines a win, for now.

A group of United employees sued the airline over its policy that puts unvaccinated workers on unpaid leave if they have been granted religious or medical exemptions to its vaccine mandate. The employees said it would cause them irreparable harm.

The group, which includes two pilots, a flight attendant and an aircraft technician, had asked the court to block the policy.

It took just a day-and-a-half for President Biden's vaccine-or-test rule covering 84 million workers to be blocked by a federal appeals court.

Now, the Biden administration is gearing up for a fight.

In early September, President Biden announced he was taking steps to get more Americans vaccinated and turn the tide on COVID-19.

On Thursday, the administration rolled out two of those steps — two different vaccine rules covering more than 100 million workers.

Here are the details:

For 33 years, Karl Bohnak worked at his dream job delivering weather forecasts on TV for what he considers one of the most challenging but beautiful spots in the United States — Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

He became so popular that "That's what Karl says!" became a slogan at his station in the 1990s and even inspired a song.

But Bohnak's time as chief meteorologist for news station TV6 came to an abrupt end last month. He was fired after refusing to comply with the vaccine mandate imposed by his station's corporate owner, Gray Television.

ESPN college basketball and football reporter Allison Williams has joined a small minority of workers who have quit or been fired from their jobs over a vaccine mandate.

"I have been denied my request for accommodation by ESPN and the Walt Disney Company, and effective next week, I will be separated from the company," she said in a video posted to Instagram on Friday.

The workers behind Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops and Raisin Bran are striking for a better deal — for themselves and for their future co-workers.

In the quest to get more Americans vaccinated, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: Vaccine mandates work.

Nowhere is that more apparent than at United Airlines. On Aug. 6, United became the first U.S. airline to tell its workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 if they wanted to keep their jobs.

In early September, just before President Biden ordered 80 million workers to get vaccinated or undergo regular testing, a question went viral on the internet.

"Would y'all report your unvaccinated co-worker(s) for $200K?" asked @RevampedCP on Twitter.

The responses came quickly.

More and more employers are ordering workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 without the option of getting tested instead. Now workers are pushing back.

When Pam Goble first heard that President Biden was mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for health care workers, she had one thought: It's about time.

Goble is owner and CEO of Ability HomeCare, a pediatric home health care agency serving 900 children in San Antonio, Texas.

Of her 261 nurses and therapists, 56 have declined to get the vaccine.

Ahmad Zai Ahmadi was just a teenager when he ran into a group of U.S. Marines at a bazaar in his hometown of Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2003.

"I just started saying, 'Hi' and 'How are you,' and they say, 'OK, you speak English. Do you want to be translating for us?' I say, 'Of course, yes!' " recalls Ahmadi, now 36.

He went on to work as an interpreter for U.S. forces for nearly a decade, a job that took him all over Afghanistan. He forged friendships with U.S. service members, including a number of high-ranking officers. His nickname was Rock.

In a move to further protect workers and customers from COVID-19, United Airlines has told employees who are seeking religious or medical exemptions to the company's vaccine mandate that even if approved, they will be put on temporary leave starting Oct. 2 while the company works to institute safety measures for unvaccinated employees.

Employees granted religious exemptions will be placed on temporary, unpaid personal leave, and those granted medical exemptions will be placed on temporary medical leave, according to an internal memo.

When Norma Jasso first started working from home in March 2020, she thought it was fun.

"I could wake up later, not have to commute, not have to put my pumps and my working clothes on," says Jasso, who was a regulatory case manager for San Diego Gas and Electric.

But soon, her days grew longer. She found herself checking email at odd hours. She missed her colleagues. She'd been with the utility for 23 years and found joy being around people.

In mid-July, David Bronner of Dr. Bronner's soaps looked at the vaccination rate among his workers. It had reached 60% — not bad, Bronner says, but not high enough given the rapid spread of the delta variant.

Bronner is CEO of Dr. Bronner's, the natural soap company known for its counterculture roots and the ramblings covering its labels in tiny print.

He was reluctant to impose a vaccine mandate on his 300 employees.

"We don't want to create bad vibes and ill will," he says.

For many, yoga is a source of calm and healing.

Those who teach do so because they love the practice, often finding it spiritually rewarding.

But it's also a business. And sometimes, a cutthroat one.

Eighteen years ago, when Justine Cohen opened the Down Under School of Yoga in Boston, poaching was rampant, she says.

"Teachers walking in with clipboards and gathering names and then opening literally upstairs or next door," Cohen says.

Crystal Rogers, owner of Cozy Couch Family Day Care in Martinsburg, W.Va., finally feels appreciated. It took the pandemic to make that happen.

For too long, she says, society has looked down on day care — as somehow less worthy than school. And no wonder. Child care is one of the lowest paid occupations in America.

"We're not baby sitters ... I've been wanting to say that," Rogers says. "We go to trainings. We do all the things that a professional child care provider does."

For a while there, it seemed like things were finally heading back to normal. Now, not so much.

In the span of just a week, plans for a September return to the office have been pushed back. Mask mandates have made a comeback. And a growing number of employers, including the federal government, are laying down the line on vaccines.