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Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

reuters.com

231–240 of 262 posts

Re: Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

#231
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should companies also require their employees not be overweight because they are less likely to miss work due to illness?

Or to be sterilised so they can't get pregnant or make their partner pregnant. Having kids leads to missing work after all.

An employment policy interfering with employee pregnancy, in particular, is illegal (but only because it was explicitly made so in 1978 - https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/pregnancy-discrimination-act-1...).

In general, when an employment discrimination is not specifically forbidden via the Civil Rights Act (or interpreted as equivalent to something explicitly forbidden by the Court), it is legal to discriminate based on it in the United States. Beyond that, the Court and the legislature are (from a political philosophy standpoint) generally willing to let individual employees and employers (or employers and unions) hash out the messy details.

Re: Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

#232

At some point I wonder if health insurers will start denying claims related to the treatment of COVID infections if the person is eligible for the vaccine but has refused to get one? On TV today I saw that Kroger employees don't get sick day pay if they are off because of COVID unless they have been vaccinated (and I would assume there's a medical exemption).

Usually, insurance companies do this carrot-style, not stick-style (i.e. they will give you a premiums discount of some kind if you get a COVID vaccine, or possibly even a one-off gift like a gift card or toaster or something).

... but yes, they definitely already do similar things to influence customer behavior (such as discounts on weight loss programs).

Re: Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quitting alcohol is nowhere as easy as getting covid vaccines. If there was a cheap/free safe vaccine that reduced the chances of getting hospitalized or dying of cancer by >60%, your point would be more valid.

They are clearly not the same, but you first have to make the claim that insurance coverage should be tied to ease of prevention at all, before arguing where the line should be. I'm not aware of any other risky behaviors that exclude coverage, so this would be a precedent.

I've since come around and now think they wouldn't exclude coverage, but they might charge a different premium. That seems fair.

Re: Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

#234
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic insurers could deny claims related to obesity, or risky sexual behavior. Would you approve of that?

It is not possible to spread obesity or risky sexual behavior to others.

People who engage in risky sexual behavior increase the spread of STDs in the population as a whole, causing increased risk even for those who don't engage in risky sexual behavior. The parallels to COVID seem pretty clear, no?

Re: Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

#235
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones I mean are more like camp sites. But I haven't been there myself. Isn't "nudist camp" also a thing in the US?

My reference for nudism is various parts of the Isar and Englisch Garten in Munich. In the US, nudist sites aren't really a thing, certainly not in any major city.

I know the Englische Garten. You can't go shopping in the nude there. I was talking about nudist camps. Afaik in the former socialist east Germany, nudist culture was actually a kind of rebellion against the government.

Re: Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing this in this thread but I don’t follow. > Based on evidence from clinical trials, in people ages 18 years and older, the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine was 94.1% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection in people who received two doses and had no evidence of being previously infected. If you’re prevent infection, aren’t you effectively reducing the R0 by definition? How is the vaccine…

Yes, these are the original data from clinical studies. Now, in real life, a few months later the efficiency has dwindled considerably [0]: > Reports of waning vaccine-induced immunity against COVID-19 have begun to surface. With that, the comparable long-term protection conferred by previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 remains unclear. [0] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...

"Remains unclear" is very different from "no impact on transmission rates". Here's the follow-up paper from the same group [1]

> These results suggest that the vaccine is initially effective in reducing infectiousness of breakthrough infections even with the Delta variant, and that while this protectiveness effect declines with time it can be restored, at least temporarily, with a booster vaccine.

The paper you're looking at is analyzing waning immunity against the Delta variant.

[1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.29.21262798v...

Re: Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

#237
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That covers you but what about the members of staff who actually have a genuine reason for not receiving the vaccine? Peter in ops recently received a double lung transplant and no longer has a functioning immune system. Are you prepared to also sign an agreement barring yourself from ever walking into one of our offices or attending social gatherings?

If Peter in ops has no immune system, he will get sick from non-COVID viruses or diseases regardless of what is done by other people. In that hypothetical situation it would be him who shouldn't go to an office, not other people.

I'm not sure why you immediately assume this is hypothetical. I know a couple people in similar situations. They exist and are not so uncommon as to assume the OP is making it up.

It's also not the doom scenario you describe. Yes they have to take extra precautions, and yes the people around then have to make a point to not be around when they are sick, but with a little consideration plenty of people with highly compromised immune systems live meaningful lives.

Re: Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I drink and drive as much as I want. Can't let the man tell me what to do! /s

You employer is checking what you drink before you drive? If not, that's a pretty bad analogy.

When I was driving a company vehicle for my job? Hell yes they were.

Re: Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

#239
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies are requiring the vaccine because they make employees less likely to miss work due to illness. Then if I don't want to get a vaccine, I'll sign an agreement that if I get sick and miss work, I don't get paid, and that's the end of it.

That covers you but what about the members of staff who actually have a genuine reason for not receiving the vaccine? Peter in ops recently received a double lung transplant and no longer has a functioning immune system. Are you prepared to also sign an agreement barring yourself from ever walking into one of our offices or attending social gatherings?

People with compromised immune systems need the shot even more

Re: Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

#240
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I thought about it for 5 seconds… Hasn’t it always been the case that younger people vaccinate to help keep the older protected? Also, you don’t need to die of Covid to be placed in a hospital. Fewer available beds affects everyone.

> Hasn’t it always been the case that younger people vaccinate to help keep the older protected? No, polio for example. > Also, you don’t need to die of Covid to be placed in a hospital. Fewer available beds affects everyone. "Collective ownership and harm" is not an unrestricted pass for universal mandates. Everything is connected, every action you take affects someone else. Driving for example puts everyone at risk…

> Now it's time to start thinking about moving past covid

No, no it is not yet.

I am referring to Covid-19-Omicron:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59677070

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/dec/15/uk-cov...

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-big-numbers-of-coronavir...

If you're not in the UK, then congratulations, you have time, days to weeks, before this comes your way.

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