Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

You're suggesting I'm inconsistent, but the position is internally consistent:

- Looking at real world data and using some common sense is sufficient.

- Peer review, studies, being published in Nature etc are not especially useful. I mentioned other studies that contradict it to show this.

- Nonetheless, you're presenting such a study implicitly claiming that its institutional/peer reviewed/expert origins make it useful. This doesn't make sense though, because the study is a meta-study that includes papers that haven't been so blessed by the system.

The proof I'm talking about is proof-by-data.

> Here's the calculus. When a needle goes into your arm, you know, with a one hundred percent certainty, that you are subjecting yourself to a tiny risk that something will go wrong. You don't know how your body will respond to the vaccine, nor can you know how protective it is going to be in a couple of months. You know that the risk, to the best of our current knowledge (which tends to change bewilderingly fast), is tiny. Yet, there is no denying that it exists. And you know, know with an absolute certainty, that your body is getting exposed to the vaccine. How much this thought scares you, if at all, is a part of the instrument known as informed consent. What you also know is that if your body gets exposed to the actual virus, there is a much greater chance that something will go very wrong. What you cannot know is whether you will have that encounter with the virus. You also do not know whether you have already been exposed to it and have had it asymptomatically (in theory, it is technically possible to test your immune system, but in practice, no-one is going to do it outside of a clinical trial).

A tiny risk of what? What is the likelihood of the risk and what is the risk?

Go do some homework if you're going to say taking a vaccine is risky. Show me the numbers. Show me the science.

> Pre-2019, we did not mandate that people around us get vaccinated against flu, although we know that flu can result in a lethal pneumonia. Nor did we require people around us to be vaccinated against chickenpox, meningococcus, tuberculosis, etc. Each of those infections can be lethal, so why should we be coerced into sharing space with people who can be contagious?

This is disingenuous (or maybe you actually don't know what you're talking about).

We didn't require flu vaccines (although some places like hospitals did because it kills people...) because although the virus is deadly, it is not nearly as transmissible as COVID-19. Notice how when COVID-19 came about our healthcare infrastructure experienced far more stress than we do with seasonal flu? Maybe you should go talk to some medical workers who dealt with this stuff and ask them what it was like.

And you're completely incorrect about requiring vaccines against other diseases. You have to get exemptions for these. You can't even go to a university without these vaccines unless you have a medical condition that is documented or a religious exemption. We do require people get vaccines. Maybe you don't remember it (or didn't go to university - not judging that) because you were vaccinated like a normal person. Grade schools required vaccines. It's simple fucking public health. This isn't controversial. It sure as hell wasn't in 2019. Interesting how conservatives became liberal on the topic. Hmm.

And even if we didn't do any of the things you mentioned, we can just say that the prior policy was bad, and the new policy is good. Why did people go to the office who knowingly had strep or the flu? That was beyond stupid. Why did we waste so much time and money on people being sick when we had alternatives?

> Thing is, we were not concerned about it, just as you are not concerned about the possible side effects of a vaccine.

What are the possible side effects and what is the prevalence of those side effects? Tell me specifically the science and research you've done. You keep saying there are "possible side effects of a vaccine". Name the possible side effects. Hell, try doing it just for COVID-19 vaccine. Name the side effects, their prevalence, and explain the science behind the concern.

Why do you view these risks as unnecessary, but other more certain and more dangerous risks as necessary? What's your rationale? Do you even have a framework for these risks? Do you not fly airplanes since you're taking a 100% certain risk that a tiny risk of the plane crashing will occur?

> No-one asks you to side with the anti-vax people; the only request they can make is to peacefully co-exist.

Yea. How can my nephew who is immunocompromised peacefully co-exist with people who don't want to get vaccinated against a highly contagious disease because... it's "risky"?

Here's the truth of the matter. You take risks everyday. You take risks when you drink a beer, or smoke a cigarette, drive a car, or walk down the street. You view those risks as necessary, but you view this "tiny" (your words) risk of a vaccine to help stop a disease and protect other people as not a necessary risk. Yea. It's not even a good kind of selfishness. So no, I'm not interested in "peacefully co-existing" with such lunacy when you threaten other peoples lives for no good reason.

Yea same with going to a restaurant that may or may not serve peanut butter that you're allergic to, or getting stung by a bee.

At least if you have the allergic reaction you do it on the spot where the medical professionals are.

And yet again, compare that with the risk of getting COVID-19. (600k+ deaths in the U.S. alone). How many had an allergic reaction to the vaccine and died?

> airplanes

That’s exactly the point. You take these risks all the time. Every day you take these risks, often far more likely and unnecessary. Yet you draw the line at vaccines? That’s irrational. You know the danger.

> You mention science a lot in your posts, in a manner that makes me wonder how much of these questions is genuine and how much is just a rhetorical device.

> Explain the science behind the concern, you say. Really? Are you really interested in the immunology of Guillain-Barré or in the hematology of a thrombosis? Something tells me that you are not.

Does it make a difference? Why do I need to be interested when you’re advocating that people don’t take the Covid-19 vaccine? If you are going to advocate that position at least have the courage to explain exactly what the facts are, using numbers and science.

> A tiny risk of what, you are asking? A tiny risk of serious adverse events — anaphylaxis, thrombosis, myocarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome — depending on the vaccine and the age group.

What is the risk? What are the numbers? Explain exactly what the risk is and explain exactly what the risk numbers are.

> The numbers? The numbers are tiny, like I said, but greater than zero.

… there is a non-zero chance you can get struck by a meteor. Do you stay inside? I bet the probability of that is higher than complications due to a vaccine.

> Some countries discontinued AstraZeneca over the fear of those tiny numbers. I do not remember whether the same happened anywhere for Johnson & Johnson.

And that was at an over abundance of caution. But you can just… take the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine? Or are you going to say that since they temporarily got scared of these other two that you’ll take no vaccines in the future (and I assume in the past) b/c they light experience the same scenario?

> From the title of the article that set the topic of this conversation, and from your mention of employers, I assumed that we were talking about workplace, and more specifically, about white-collar office workers. It is true that in some professions (teachers? the military? medicine?) people have been required to have certain vaccinations. For me, personally, the last place that made that requirement was secondary school. Neither the university, nor my employers have ever made such a demand.

Idk what country you live in but in the US universities and grade school require vaccination. As they should, obviously.

> As an aside, I find it interesting that you mention a religious exemption. I don't know why it would matter to you that a potentially contagious person sharing your space is such because of their religion; or why someone's sheer fear of the vaccine, however irrational, is any different from a religious belief.

You’re drawing interest where none is warranted. I’m speaking factually here how things work at least in the U.S.. I don’t find religious exemption compelling.

> Because their terms of employment made it difficult for them to stay at home

Industrial revolution is over. Which the 8-5 is a product of. Time’s are a-changin.

> We're discussing a policy in which all Google employees who come into the office are being forced to vaccinate on the grounds that if any do not, it might be dangerous.

No one made that argument. Even implicitly. Google wouldn't have an exception process if they thought even 1 person unvaccinated is dangerous. And basically it's the same policy many schools have for other vaccinations.

> Your herd immunity numbers are just made up. I saw many estimates last year and none were even close to 90%.

Last July the US GAO said 70 to 90% for most viruses. Their chart implied up to about 86% for COVID-19.[1]

Fauci in December: "We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent."[2]

WHO in December: "The proportion of the population that must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to begin inducing herd immunity is not known." But about 95% and 80% for 2 other viruses.[3]

[1] https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-646sp

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...

[3] https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/herd-immunity-lockd...