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

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

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peop…

> I assume google doesn't ask you to prove you're vaccinated against measles for example.

Is there a massive measles outbreak currently infecting millions of people? I don’t see how the fact that they don’t require proof of measles vaccine is in anyway proof that COVID vaccination isn’t in the interest of public health.

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

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re pretty certain you know the real truth. Must be nice.

okay. i’ll bite. what’s the “real” truth?

Sorry I just didn’t like his tone. We should all try to be humble and accept that getting to the truth is a process.

You can’t just watch CNN and then assume you have all the answers and anyone else is a dummy.

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

#433
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned in my comment, many folks have families. We are not dealing with individuals when it comes to a pandemic. We are dealing with contagion amongst bubbles of people. Many people have vulnerable people in their bubbles at home and need to make a living.

But how is this different from previously? Flu, common cold, various other viruses... all present a similar threat to that from covid and spread as easily. What has changed with covid to create so much additional fear and the subsequent authoritarian responses? Any decent person would just keep away from the office if they were ill. What's changed that now a particular course of action has to be mandated with the thr…

> But how is this different from previously? Flu, common cold, various other viruses... all present a similar threat to that from covid and spread as easily.

Because covid is more transmissible [1], more dangerous, has far longer lasting effects (long-covid), and because vaccines for non-covid viruses are generally more effective to _immunocompromised people_ as we've had longer to deal with them.

Furthermore, flu has been around for generations. We've all probably had some variant of it in our lives, and have some level of immunity. Covid is entirely new. It's far easier to rip through the population and get into the proximity of vulnerable people than flu.

> Any decent person would just keep away from the office if they were ill.

Sure. Except you don't know you're ill. A majority of people will be asymptomatic and spreading it without knowing. This is what is happening in the UK right now.

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

#434
post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you can try to lobby although the chance is virtually non existent in this case. I still think very few countries cherish individual rights and privacy as the US

In this particular case the US cherish corporate rights above individual rights. In EU it is >>currently<< otherwise: companies can not (yet?) mandate employees to get vaccinated...

It can be done by law. E.g. France, where 76% of the population support a law making vaccination mandatory for certain jobs, mostly health care, along with requiring proof of being negatively tested, vaccinated or recovered. The same law stopped tests from being free. And all of a sudden people registered for vaccine appointments.

A large part of the vaccine hesitancy is just convenience.

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

#435
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we were told to get vaccinated to protect others. Get vaccinated so you can visit your grandparents. Now we are getting a different message. This is why people develop doubts that the authorities have any real idea what they are talking about.

"Being vaccinated isn't a perfect defense, but it reduces the risk to you of getting the disease, it drastically reduces the risk to you of dying from the disease or suffering long term life altering consequences from it, and it lowers the risk of you spreading it to others." The general guidance hasn't changed. The risk to each other has gone up as Delta spreads, because it's more dangerous. There will probably be o…

"it's incredibly harmless"

The two healthy middle-aged people I know who have died within 24hrs of vaccination would beg to differ.

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

#436
post #410

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Wut? In countries that had lockdowns, children and young adults arguably suffered worse than any other group. For a ten year-old, that's 10% of their life "gone". Children, teens and young adults have foregone life milestones, missed opportunities and friendships. Instead they have been charged with a ridiculous anxiety about something that is harmless to them. It is comparatively inconsequential for the elderly to i…

And which took the biggest losses of life? Funny how children, up to 13 which my oldest age, not really complained that much. Opening everything up now, without a adequate vaccination rate, would just put them at a huge health risk. Right after the social impact they already had. And the social impact, IMHO, affected everyone.

Young children are at greater risk from influenza. Why do you think they have been barely affected by COVID this whole time, but somehow in the future, they will suddenly be the ones dying?

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

#437
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> One has to believe at some point that liberty is worth a certain amount of risk. Others will be taking a risk for your liberty, that is where it becomes unacceptable. We live in a society and individual freedoms must be balanced by the responsibilities towards your fellow man.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious here but arent those that don't want the vaccine a risk just for themselves? If they want to risk it it's their problem/choice. One thing everyone seems to ignore is those people that have immunity/antibodies and don't actually need a vaccine. Why is that? As far as I managed to read here and there not even the shot I had protects me from catching or spreading the virus. It only re…

"One thing everyone seems to ignore is those people that have immunity/antibodies and don't actually need a vaccine. Why is that?"

It seems fairly clear that many COVID related policies are not justified by any physical or medical theory. It may appear that way on the surface but as you observe, it only takes a few moments to discover internal contradictions that some people are trying to cover up. The cause looks like collectivism. Lots of people desperately want there to be collective solutions, in which everyone obeys authority together and by doing so society collectively beats the common external enemy. Science is warped and distorted beyond recognition in pursuit of this goal, often by scientists themselves.

Examples include:

1. Yours: everyone has to get vaccinated. Children who are immune to COVID. People who have had it and therefore have natural immunity. Pregnant women who were excluded from trials. No explanation is provided for any of this because it makes no logical sense, until you realize that "we all do this together" has become the end goal for some people.

2. "My mask protects you, your mask protects me". There is no physics behind this, masks aren't one way barriers, were never studied or sold as such, nor are they capable of stopping the sort of explosive air pressure caused by a cough. If a mask works it works independently of what other people wear but that would imply individuals should be free to decide what to do, which would be against the goals of collectivism.

3. Cloth masks are OK. The authorities insist that everyone has to wear masks regardless of their own personal risk tolerance, but immediately lost interest in the topic once those rules were imposed even though many people complied by using masks made of ordinary cloth material. There is no scientific argument that a cloth mask can be effective at anything, but as far as public health officials are concerned absolutely anything is fine, as long as you're forced to wear it. This makes no sense when viewed scientifically, but makes perfect sense when viewed as an act of collectivism.

4. Unvaccinated people are dangerous because of vague 'second order effects', therefore everyone must be forced to vaccinate against their will / vaxxports for everything. Again this makes no scientific sense, because data from around the world shows clearly that these vaccines don't stop people being infectious or passing it on. Vaccinated people can catch it, the virus can grow and mutate inside them and they can then infect other people. They can even still get sick from it. Any scientific justification for caring about whether individuals are vaccinated or not disappears given that fact, yet, the vaxxers fanatically push on with their demands that everyone comply and individual choice is removed.

5. Lockdowns are required for everyone, because otherwise hospitals will overflow and there'll be mass death. Places that removed lockdowns have experienced no case spikes, proving that the restrictions were having no effect. Yet some people are still talking about imposing new lockdowns come winter.

6. Protest marches are terrible and will spread disease, but protest marches in favour of collectivist ideology are moral, good, pose no health problems and should be allowed.

In all these cases, either data or their own prior arguments indicate the collectivist solutions aren't justified but all such things are ignored, or new justifications made up on the spot to try and dismiss it. The "101 reasons why Swedes aren't normal humans" we went through last year was an especially grotesque example but it can be seen in many areas of the debate.

Fundamentally, COVID is not a problem that seems to benefit from collective solutions. All things that appear to work are purely individual level solutions, in which respecting people's own choices and freedoms carries zero cost. Lots of people really hate this fact and will do anything to suppress it.

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

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And which took the biggest losses of life? Funny how children, up to 13 which my oldest age, not really complained that much. Opening everything up now, without a adequate vaccination rate, would just put them at a huge health risk. Right after the social impact they already had. And the social impact, IMHO, affected everyone.

Young children are at greater risk from influenza. Why do you think they have been barely affected by COVID this whole time, but somehow in the future, they will suddenly be the ones dying?

Delta is already worse among younger people. That means younger people, not just children, will be infected and affected more. Having unvaccinated children at school also makes future school closures more likely.

We have to reach a point where Covid becomes endemic and we, people, society, are good to love with it. We will reach this point quicker the faster we vaccinate everyone. I guess we can agree school closures are not so good thing, right?

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

#439
post #298
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik at least for the Adenovirus based ones these have not been used before as well.

There are several adenovirus based vaccines, including vaccines for tuberculosis and influenza, among others. The first adenovirus vaccine I'm aware of was developed in the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_vector

According to [1] there are only Covid and Ebola approved vaccines based on an Adenovirus vector. Only for the latter we have a couple of years of data and I am not sure whether it has been administered to large populations.

For tuberculosis there is no approved vector based vaccine [2]. Neither for influenza [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_vector_vaccine

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis_vaccines

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_vaccine#Manufacturin...

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

#440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A club I attend is now proposing proof of vaccination for continued membership. I tried to inform them of a KISS one time paper proof of vaccination to registry that other businesses I visit practice instead of on prem or 3rd party service scanning of our vaccination cards which contains PII of Real Name, DOB and for some, Medical Record Number, MRN They were too spooked by the need for health safety ("We must have a…

What they have, more importantly, is a centralized record of your activities.

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