Google and Facebook are the most important companies for controlling information flow in the modern world. As a side effect this rule will increase conformity in their ranks, with predictable consequences.
Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices
41–50 of 722 posts
Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly -- people are still free to not get vaccinated, but they're not free to go to aggregate settings where they might infect everyone there, which seems like a reasonable compromise. It's the same approach as with antivax parents -- don't want your kids vaccinated? Then you'll need to homeschool them.
But if others are already vaccinated, how does an unvaccinated coworker infect a vaccinated coworker?
That's how you know it's not just a public health measure. For other vaccines, we rely on the majority being vaccinated so that any isolated outbreaks are naturally contained. I assume google doesn't ask you to prove you're vaccinated against measles for example. If one person is not vaccinated, it's to their detriment and irrelevant to everyone else. There are weak arguments about vaccine efficacy etc that some people could still get infected, but the point is that majority voluntary vaccination contains disease to the point that there is no justification of invasive personal measures (in this case disclosing personal health information to an information predator, but its unacceptable regardless of the employer). It seems to me this is much more about signaling to their various stakeholders about their politics rather than an actual public health campaign.
FWIW I think (I think) they should be allowed to enforce this if they want, even if i dont like it. Although I might support measures to make this kind of discrimination illegal, I'd have to think more about that. Despite having my vaccine, I would not work for a company that asked me to prove it, however. I've got no beef with the vaccine, only with giving state or corporate actors power over my health choices.
Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly -- people are still free to not get vaccinated, but they're not free to go to aggregate settings where they might infect everyone there, which seems like a reasonable compromise. It's the same approach as with antivax parents -- don't want your kids vaccinated? Then you'll need to homeschool them.
But if others are already vaccinated, how does an unvaccinated coworker infect a vaccinated coworker?
Think of yourself at the center of a circle with a series of concentric rings. If you are vaccinated with a 90% effective vaccine, your chance of catching the bug is 10% from anyone in the first ring. However, if everyone in the first ring is vaccinated, the chance of catching the bug from anyone in the second ring is only 1% (i.e 0.1*0.1). Thus with enough people vaccinated even a crappy vaccine works pretty well.
Perhaps a rather simplistic model, but somewhat illustrative.
Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Breakthrough infections and questions about transmissibility even if vaccinated aside, consider this: a second unvaccinated coworker.
Breakthrough infections are rare, right? And a second unvaccinated coworker is also someone that has chosen not to be vaccinated, right? (Obviously there may be some individuals who can't get the vaccine, but that should be a relatively rare circumstance, and could have policies around dealing with it.)
> Breakthrough infections are rare, right?
Sort of; we don't (and won't) entirely know.
With the delta variant becoming more common, it's seeming like vaccinated people might still be able to transmit the disease, even if they don't become infected themselves. There's also the matter of asymptomatic infection: remember that the 95% efficacy numbers reported by Pfizer and Moderna (for example) are about symptomatic infection; during their clinical trials, they only tested people if they showed symptoms.
And if a vaccinated person is infected but asymptomatic, they may never even know about it. Technically we may or may not call that a "breakthrough infection", but that person could still presumably infect an unvaccinated person, and that's the thing that matters.
> Obviously there may be some individuals who can't get the vaccine, but that should be a relatively rare circumstance, and could have policies around dealing with it.
Right, and having people around them who are unvaccinated by choice is an unnecessary risk to those who can't be vaccinated.
Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Breakthrough infections and questions about transmissibility even if vaccinated aside, consider this: a second unvaccinated coworker.
Breakthrough infections are rare, right? And a second unvaccinated coworker is also someone that has chosen not to be vaccinated, right? (Obviously there may be some individuals who can't get the vaccine, but that should be a relatively rare circumstance, and could have policies around dealing with it.)
Not that rare in the scheme of things. Odds are strong that if you're vaccinated a breakthrough infection will be much less serious though. However in either case, you've now inconvenienced the breakthrough infectee who has to be concerned with how they go on to infect others, e.g. unvaccinated children.
Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Religious most likely
Unfortunately, this loophole will negate the entire mandate.
If I recall correctly, there are ways to ask for religious exemption to some of the requirements (e.g. vaccination when immigrating, answering "no" to an immigration question about willing to bear arms for the US), but they require establishing proof that you have been a member of a religious community that has rules conflicting with the mandate - it's not as easy as saying "it is so because I say so". Depending on how enforcement will happen, it may be possible to at least reduce the loophole.
Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fuck the pushback. We cannot let the worst of mankind condemn us all to death because we don’t want to upset the worst of mankind.
I’m all for getting everyone vaccinated as well, but I’d be really concerned about the precedent this sets. The reasons governments are reluctant to do this is they it sets a precedent for them to dictate what a person can do with their bodies. Saying someone must have an injection, regardless of how well intentioned it is, requires you to be able to dictate what goes into their body. Pretty much the same set of powe…
Unclear how different is this from getting vaccinated as a child, giving blood sample for lab test as a child, and having your tooth removed as a child.
Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices
#48oh snap. I totally understand this measure and, for the record, agree with it, but I'm picturing the pushback that this will lead to.
Fuck the pushback. We cannot let the worst of mankind condemn us all to death because we don’t want to upset the worst of mankind.
i’m with you there. what really concerns me is that people that vaccinated themselves and people who don’t want the vaccine seem to live in completely different worlds.
we are a post truth society. logic and reason have been dismissed and sent to the basement. I laughed hard when I saw Idiocracy first - now I no longer find it funny. I wonder why.
Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m all for getting everyone vaccinated as well, but I’d be really concerned about the precedent this sets. The reasons governments are reluctant to do this is they it sets a precedent for them to dictate what a person can do with their bodies. Saying someone must have an injection, regardless of how well intentioned it is, requires you to be able to dictate what goes into their body. Pretty much the same set of powe…
Unclear how different this is from the draft.
Society has progressed from such times. There are many things that were acceptable back then that would not be now. If the draft was re-enacted, we would hopefully see strong pushback.
Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly -- people are still free to not get vaccinated, but they're not free to go to aggregate settings where they might infect everyone there, which seems like a reasonable compromise. It's the same approach as with antivax parents -- don't want your kids vaccinated? Then you'll need to homeschool them.
But if others are already vaccinated, how does an unvaccinated coworker infect a vaccinated coworker?
The same way that my friend who is vaccinated was infected by his unvaccinated wife. Close quarters with an infected person is going to increase risk for some one who is vaccinated. The Pfizer vaccine is 38% effective [1] at preventing infection on average. It’s obvious that spending 8 hours next to someone who is actively infectious will reduce that efficacy rate.
[1] for the Delta variant, which at this point is what matters