Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 722 posts

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#201

Post by jlokier »

throwawaysea wrote: post #188
standardUser wrote: post #3

To be perfectly clear, they are mandating employees be vaccinated if they want to physically go in to an office, not to do (or keep) their jobs.

Given that the CDC just admitted that vaccinated people can also spread COVID (by reissuing mask guidance), what is the point of requiring vaccinations?

> What is the point?

It affects the balance of propabilities, and that is everything in the current situation.

Shifts in probabilities make the difference between large scale disease (a wave growing exponentially) or not (decaying to zero).

They CDC have always acknowledged that vaccinated people can spread COVID-19 with some probability. There is no "admission" because that's not new. What's changing the advice is new measurements, modeling, social behaviours, vaccination levels (or hesitancy), and the delta variant all update the balance of probabilities.

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#202

Post by boulos »

marton78 wrote: post #190
boulos wrote: post #177

Can someone explain the “I won’t get it until it’s fully approved by the FDA” logic to me? Unlike usual vaccine trials, these vaccines have been deployed worldwide with hundreds of millions of people across many different conditions. Europe stopped using some due to an extremely rare blood clotting episode that was tens of people out millions. That suggests that rare, acute side effects have been (mostly?) discovered…

I'm not sure I can explain anything related to the FDA (I'm European) but maybe I can shed some light on the insight what people are worried about. These vaccines have been applied hundreds of million times in the past year, true. Therefore, we have a very good understanding of their adverse effects in the first 6-12 months. What we cannot know, however, are possible adverse effects that are longer term. Susceptibili…

Agreed on concerns about long-term effects! But I don’t believe FDA approval includes that. If anything, I suspect long covid, mRNA surprises, and similar issues will only be truly apparent in the multi-year timeframe. Again though, FDA approval doesn’t seem to address that. So I understand, “I want to understand the long-term side effects”, but not FDA approval versus emergency authorization.

I had originally hoped that Europe’s use of AZ might have avoided the concern over new methodology. But ultimately the various problems during production, testing, and rollout, “seem” worse than the newness of mRNA (in my circles).

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#203

Post by colechristensen »

throwawayboise wrote: post #150
colechristensen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a mortgage and a child, do you really have the freedom to say “no” when something becomes a condition of your continued employment? Corporations, very much including google, are becoming defacto governments having a huge control in the flow of information and have threads weaved in to all of our lives. You can’t just give them a pass to do anything they want just because they’re technically not government…

You have the freedom to say no, but it is certainly into the territority of "duress"

This is the evolution of oppression and control. Just add money to make it seem like everyone has freedom.

No longer are people going to stab you with something pointy and drive you out of your home if you don't accept control, they'll drive you out of your home by giving you the "choice" of accepting control or losing your salary. Feudalism is back but disguised as real estate investment and trillion dollar corporate overlords giving you a salary.

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#204

Post by raverbashing »

imwillofficial wrote: post #64
raverbashing wrote: post #31

I can't blame Google for not wanting disease spreaders in their campus. It's their prerogative as a private company. Remains to be seen how companies that won't enforce this will perform. In my guess, poorly

As of now, everyone, included the vaccinated are still disease spreaders.

"The overall vaccine effectiveness against transmission was 88.5%." https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.13.21260393v...

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#205

Post by adamors »

nomoreplease wrote: post #118

Current research shows that the previously infected’s antibodies are equal-to or better than the vaccine. So previously infected should be sufficient, yet I expect these companies not to care about that

Then how are multiple infections possible? I know several people who have been sick with COVID 2 times already.

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#206

Post by boulos »

kderbyma wrote: post #187
boulos wrote: post #177

Can someone explain the “I won’t get it until it’s fully approved by the FDA” logic to me? Unlike usual vaccine trials, these vaccines have been deployed worldwide with hundreds of millions of people across many different conditions. Europe stopped using some due to an extremely rare blood clotting episode that was tens of people out millions. That suggests that rare, acute side effects have been (mostly?) discovered…

I set myself a smart goal. 2024. clinical trials for all will be finished by the end of 2023 at the latest and then, give it a couple months to wrap up and draft or bury and reports. that is my basis. it's Smart.

I think waiting for long-term effects to be clear is a defensible position.

What I don’t follow is that, AFAICT, full authorization is likely ~6 months from the date of filing (so November to January depending on manufacturer). So we won’t have long-term data.

Is full FDA approval meaningful to you? If so, how?

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#207

Post by boulos »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #198
boulos wrote: post #177

Can someone explain the “I won’t get it until it’s fully approved by the FDA” logic to me? Unlike usual vaccine trials, these vaccines have been deployed worldwide with hundreds of millions of people across many different conditions. Europe stopped using some due to an extremely rare blood clotting episode that was tens of people out millions. That suggests that rare, acute side effects have been (mostly?) discovered…

Your explanation is completely correct as far as I can tell, but you can see how someone who's unfamiliar with the details might be skeptical. "You're telling me the FDA already knows the vaccine is safe and effective, and they're just keeping it a secret for 6 months because the rules say so?"

Absolutely. But I honestly was (am) hoping to hear it from someone who personally holds the opinion, because I think we’re all missing something (replies so far don’t include anyone saying that’s what they’re waiting for).

I have plenty of my own speculation, assumptions, and anecdotes, but my hope is that someone pops up with an interesting nugget of “actually, EUA ”.

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#208

Post by raverbashing »

dang wrote: post #133
raverbashing wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccines not cutting transmission in 100% are still a poor reason to not have everyone vaccinated. Anti-vaxxers pretend they worry about the ones who can't get vaccinated when they're actually who makes things unsafer for them

Please don't take HN threads into tedious flamewar on eternal flamewar topics. We've had to ask you about this countless times. Would you please just stop? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry about that dang, I see now how that comment didn't add much of value, and got carried away.

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#209

Post by boulos »

ozzydave wrote: post #181
boulos wrote: post #177

Can someone explain the “I won’t get it until it’s fully approved by the FDA” logic to me? Unlike usual vaccine trials, these vaccines have been deployed worldwide with hundreds of millions of people across many different conditions. Europe stopped using some due to an extremely rare blood clotting episode that was tens of people out millions. That suggests that rare, acute side effects have been (mostly?) discovered…

I expect for the most part it’s a fig leaf, and when it is approved the goal posts will move. Then it will be, “the FDA rushed approval” with no evidence presented or required.

That’s certainly going to be true for some people. But my express goal in this thread is to hear a good faith “full authorization argument” from someone who honestly argues for it. I believe arguments exist that I haven’t considered.

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#210

Post by tomp »

ksec wrote: post #186
nomoreplease wrote: post #118

Current research shows that the previously infected’s antibodies are equal-to or better than the vaccine. So previously infected should be sufficient, yet I expect these companies not to care about that

Oh that is interesting. Most Data have shown previous infection tends to have much better Anti-Bodies than all vaccines. And I was under the impression that previous infection automatically equaled to have vaccinated, at least in the few countries I know of. So that is not the case in US and you still have to get a vaccine? Or is it simply because there is no "proof" that you have been previously infected?

The EU limits “recovery certificate” to 6 months (after infection, as proven by PCR teat) vs possibly longer validity of vaccination. So the US is not the only “science denying” country.

Most EU countries (that I checked - Austria is an exception) don’t even recognise the presence of antibodies as proof of past infection.

Post reply on HN