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I'm curious to see how enforcing the vaccination policy will work out. I haven't seen any other big company doing this move, and to my knowledge there are many

I'm curious to see how enforcing the vaccination policy will work out. I haven't seen any other big company doing this move, and to my knowledge there are many engineers refusing to be vaccinated.

mavhc 5y ago
Thus proving that no group can be vaccinated against idiocy
- matz1 5y ago
  How is not wanting to be vaccinated is idiot ? Vaccination should be personal preference.
  - JaimeThompson 5y ago
    Should speed limits and building codes be personal preference as well?
    - yarcob 5y ago
      Speed limits and building codes generally don't have side effects that can kill you. A bunch of otherwise healthy people have died from the vaccine. You can argue that it's a numbers game, and that getting vaccinated is still less risky, but the decision should not be forced on anyone.
      - mavhc 5y ago
        A bunch? How many, to the nearest 100.
        yarcob 5y ago
        Enough that some governments recommend Astra Zeneca only for elderly patients, because risk/reward might be too big for healthy, young patients. I just don't think anybody should force anyone to get a shot. That should be a personal decision.
        mavhc 5y ago
        So 0? Or 100?
        yarcob 5y ago
        In Germany the Paul Ehrlich Institute has received 871 reports of deaths after vaccination. Most of them are from elderly people, but there are also a bunch of young people who have likely died from side effects. PEI reports 21 people under 40 who died from thrombosis after Astra Zeneca. Biontech and Moderna had other side effects (myocarditis for young men), and also a bunch of young deaths. Johnson is not common enough in Germany to make any reasonable judgements. Severe side effects (not deaths) are around 0,2 per 1000 shots. (reported side effects, actual number may be higher) Source (in German): https://www.pei.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/newsroom/dossiers/sicherheitsberichte/sicherheitsbericht-27-12-bis-31-05-21.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=7 https://www.pei.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/newsroom/dossiers...
        throwawayboise 5y ago
        How many German people under 40 die from thrombosis or suffer myocarditis in an average year? This year, when everyone is getting vaccinated, it's easy to draw unwarranted conclusions that rare conditions are being trigged by the vaccine when it could possibly be just cooincidence.
        yarcob 5y ago
        To the best of my knowledge, the fact that thrombosis is a (rare) side effect of Astra Zeneca and Johnson is pretty thoroughly established. It's a pretty specific type of thrombosis, and afaik it doesn't occur eg. for the Biontech and Moderna vaccines. I know there's a lot of misinformation about the vaccines going the rounds, but that doesn't mean that all reports of side effects are made up or statistical noise.
        PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        Good information, but those numbers always need to be traded off against the number of people who (a) would have died anyway (b) would have died from COVID19 had they not been vaccinated.
      - oscardssmith 5y ago
        That is just false. The current number of possible vaccine related deaths in the US is 1.
      - armada651 5y ago
        Eventually some employers will want everyone back in the office. And running the risk of being infected with COVID because your employer forces unvaccinated individuals into your close proximity is not a personal choice either. The latter has a several orders of magnitude higher death rate than the vaccines. So which option should the employer go for? Mandate everyone to get vaccinated or mandate everyone to mingle with the unvaccinated?
        matz1 5y ago
        Why would I afraid of hanging out in close proximity with unvaccinated individual if I'm vaccinated ?
        armada651 5y ago
        There are more severe breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals than there are deadly outcomes to getting vaccinated. Also there's the risk that even a mild case has long term side effects. Since the number of deadly outcomes or side effects to the vaccine is so low the breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals become significant when you compare the risks.
        throwawayboise 5y ago
        This just feeds the beliefs that some people have that the vaccines don't really work. We should be strongly demonstrating that the vaccinated do not need to wear masks, distance, etc so that there are clear benefits to being vaccinated. If the vaccines reduce the disease to nothing more severe than a cold or mild flu, we should be back to the same daily routines we had when those things were an ordinary risk at the workplace.
        armada651 5y ago
        In my opinion pretending the vaccine is 100% effective and carries 0 risk has done more to shake public confidence than informing people about the risks no matter how small. In the information age it has become easier than ever to find contradicting data and there will always be contradicting data. Besides, most people have enough life experience to intuitively know that there's no certainty in life. Being honest with people will do more to gain their trust than enhancing the truth for their own well-being.
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        > A bunch of otherwise healthy people have died from the vaccine. Here's my take on that. Yes, some young, healthy people have died after taking the vaccine. Small numbers of young, healthy people die for no apparent reason all the time, but because vast numbers of people were not all getting the same vaccines at the same time, there was never a plausible common thread to tie them to.
        yarcob 5y ago
        The doctors who track side effects are not stupid. They look for clusters of similar cases, and compare reported cases to the expected number of cases considering how many people in each age/gender cohort got the shot. It's not like this is the first time a vaccine is introduced.
    - DeusExMachina 5y ago
      Speed limits and building codes do not force you to inject something in your body. The ability to oppose forced medication is a right enshrined in many constitutions. The ability to go as fast as you want on a road is not.
      - runawaybottle 5y ago
        There are many stories of muslim women who are pregnant and fast during Ramadan (during their pregnancy). We’re in complicated territory.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      I don't necessarily disagree with the point you are trying to make but this comment that you think is hyperbolic belies your biases. Speed limits and building codes pretty much are "personal preference" in wide swaths of the US. Prior to some federal shenanigans many states had highways with no particular speed limit. Many rural areas do not enforce any building code for noncommercial non-dwelling structures and many exempt dwellings if they are being constructed by the property owner for themselves. And beyond this there are even more areas where laws are on the books but you're free to disregard them and enforcement will ignore you unless you do something so unreasonable they can't justify ignoring you.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        The rural areas still without building codes represent a vanishingly small fraction of the US population. Here in New Mexico, where there was no building code until the 1980s, we now have a tasty legacy of houses built not to code that are being sold to 2nd, 3rd and even 4th owners-after-building, and the stories are not great. People calling out contractors to fix this and that to be told that the entire plumbing/electrical system needs replacing to meet code. I own a copy of "The Owner Builder and the Code" and several other books from the heyday of the owner-builder "movement". I want people to be able to construct their own dwellings in ways that liberate their creativity and imagination. Decades on, however, I have to concede that this does have some downsides that need to be addressed.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    Vaccines have saved an estimated billion lives
    - nanis 5y ago
      - I don't want to eat. - You need food. - Well, not _this_ food and not necessarily at this moment in time. Whether these particular vaccines are saving any lives is an open question. Given that 1) Given the number of deaths in the two major waves in the U.S. (Spring 2020 and Winter 2020-21) and the timing of most of the vaccinations, it is not clear how much of the improvement is due to vaccination and how much of the effect is due to a wave burning out. Over the long term, are these going to be as effective as measles vaccines? There is no way to know. However, there is some indication that the time between the first and second injection is particularly risky. Also, I would love to see a breakdown of how many of the "unvaccinated" are people who had their first shot and waiting for the second, or people who had their second shot, but two weeks have not passed. It is not unreasonable for people to want to wait and see before diving head first into the "volunteer for experimental treatment" end of the pool.
      - mavhc 5y ago
        Not experimental when a billion people have had it. That's a 1000 times more than most medications
        throwawayboise 5y ago
        Yes but 999 million of those people are not being clinically monitored and side-effects/reactions to the vaccine are being reported anecdotally and are not really verifiable.
      - nawgz 5y ago
        > Whether these particular vaccines are saving any lives is an open question In no world is this statement justifiable. It is obvious from hospitalization & fatality rates of unvaccinated vs. vaccinated people that the vaccine has already saved many lives and was also probably a strong contributor to that "wave burnout" in the first place, especially looking at a country like Canada > there is some indication that the time between the first and second injection is particularly risky. There is no indication that getting one shot puts you in a "particularly risky" position. It is clear the vaccine only achieves partial effectiveness in this time, but that is not "particularly risky", that's slightly reduced risk against the null hypothesis of being unvaccinated. I challenge you to post any literature which shows anything about increased susceptibility of one shot vs no shots. > It is not unreasonable for people to want to wait Tell me, what numbers have you set in your head to make it reasonable to "trust" the vaccination? To me, seeing the Phase 3 trials without significant side effects was plenty. Now, we have probably 10+x that data over 2-3x the timespan, and the risk picture has not changed. What tipping point(s) will you consider?
  - jcburns 5y ago
    It's not a personal preference situation. You're making a decision that affects those close to you, those you work with, and those you encounter in a grocery store aisle. It's been so many years since polio and earlier vaccines that people have forgotten the power and importance of collective action. Hope we can turn that around.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > How is not wanting to be vaccinated is idiot ? Not wanting to do lots of things that contribute to public health or workplace safety that have a small personal cost/risk, and small expected personal benefit is fairly normal. Refusing to do them, OTOH, is different than not wanting to do them.
  - 13415 5y ago
    No, it shouldn't. If not enough people are vaccinated, then no herd immunity can develop, the disease becomes long-term endemic and new mutations arise every year. If people had refused vaccinations against Polio in this way, we'd still have people living in iron lungs.
  - neogodless 5y ago
    It still is personal preference. Choose to be vaccinated, or choose to stay off campus, so you're not in close proximity to other people for extended periods of time. I don't make the parent comment claim that "not wanting to be vaccinated is idiotic." It does seem uninformed, unless there's a very clear reason to support that point of view. While the law supports religious exemptions, I'm less sympathetic. And science really seems like it supports vaccinations, not only for personal protection and quality of life, but very importantly, for helping to prevent the continued transmission and mutation of a virus that has taken over 4 million lives.
  - xtracto 5y ago
    A very interesting take which I think shows an education and culture background. My belief is completely the opposite: Vaccination should NOT be a personal preference: A vaccinated population is a social good. People NOT being vaccinated (against polio, mumps, covid or even influenza) puts the population at risk. If providing the vaccine is cheaper for the government than the having certain amount of population sick, then vaccination should be enforced. But then again, I live in a country that has a more socialist approach to governance, and I also was educated more towards this ideology.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      It cannot be justified simply because "it is cheaper" for the government. It would be cheaper for the government to simply euthanize the mentally disabled rather than give them lifelong support and care that they can never repay, but we reject that as immoral. Historically, we've seen that making arguments like this on the basis of costs, numbers, and science leads to eugenics. It must be a moral argument, which has gotten harder to make in modern times as commonly-recognized sources of moral truth (religion, mostly) have been on the wane for some time.
  - paxprose 5y ago
    No, it really shouldn't. It's causes social harm to not get vaccinated. If your "freedom" negatively affects the safety and welfare of the other participants of a community then it's the best interest of that society to either coerse you comply, or expel you. Selfish personal liberty should never detract from the freedoms of the commonwealth. Not getting vaccinated because someone believe biology is a political decision unilaterally detracts the freedoms of others.
    - nanis 5y ago
      > If your "freedom" negatively affects the safety and welfare of the other participants of a community ... A whole lot of people's newfound official freedom to smoke the stinkiest pot and have the smoke travel through the vents to neighboring apartments does negatively affect very young children and elderly in apartment buildings. Yet, here we are. Clearly, some negative effects on some people's safety and welfare are not considered as important -- oftentimes by the same people who are really adamant about making everyone else comply with their demands.
  - bitsoda 5y ago
    Nah, airborne viruses affect the community so you can't leave it up to personal preference. It's similar to how a house fire can spread to neighboring houses regardless of the homeowner's preference to have it put out or not. For example, in my area two years ago, measles made a return because of anti-vaxxer Facebook mommy groups. I needed to bring my days-old infant to the pediatrician for checkups all the while knowing measles lingers in the air for two hours and a pediatrician's office is the most likely place to harbor the virus. Fun times as a parent and a big shout out to all the selfish people endangering newborns with literally no immune system based on junk "science" when the facts are overwhelmingly clear in favor of vaccines.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      Newborns, esp. if breast feeding, do have something of an immune system. Still a good idea to avoid the doctor's office if you don't have to be there. They are disease cesspools. If it were me I'd wait outside in the car and have them call me on the phone when they had the treatment room cleaned and ready so I could pass quickly through the waiting room.
    - matz1 5y ago
      > It's similar to how a house fire can spread to neighboring houses regardless of the homeowner's preference to have it put out or not. If I can make my house fireproof (analogy of being vaccinated) then I would not worry about my neighbor house not being fireproof catching fire and spread.
  - midrus 5y ago
    Agree. Also forbidding access to work, restaurants, theaters, child day care etc to non-vaccinated should be a preference of their owners or the government If somebody thinks vaccines just protect themselves, now that's a real idiot, because it is not how they work. They work by preventing you from spreading an illness that could kill other people, specially those that for any given (serious) reason cannot be vaccinated.
    - 8note 5y ago
      Specifically these vaccines protect you from having severe covid if you catch it. You can still be contagious, though less so, since you're having less severe symptoms
- fsund 5y ago
  I'd like a vaccine for HIV please. Also, can you show me your papers to show that you are HIV infected or not? I don't want to contract it from you.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    If you're catching HIV from people while at work you're probably doing work wrong. If you're in a business where that's likely, guess what, mandatory HIV tests.
  - objectivetruth 5y ago
    HIV is spread via blood / sexual contact. COVID is spread by being in the same room with an infected person. Unless you're having sex or sharing dirty needles with your co-workers, your analogy falls apart pretty quickly.
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    Unlike COVID, HIV isn't a respiratory infection that easily spread through breathing droplets exhaled by infected persons. Do you now see how the difference in the transmissibility affects what would be considered reasonable policy between the two diseases?
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      Sexual activity among people in the same workplace isn't exactly uncommon.
      - meepmorp 5y ago
        Outside of a narrow range of work - with existing STD testing regimens - people aren't supposed to have sex at the office. They are required to breathe, however. Do see now how requiring a vaccine because it would mitigate disease transmission risk in real world scenario that's a requirement of in person work is reasonable, vs requiring it because two people might sneak off to the head to get the leg over?
      - 5y ago
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
Also, I don't think companies can legally force you to tell them if you've been vaccinated. It's protected health information.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  As I understand it, they can't force you in the sense that they can't force you to do anything. But they can stop paying you if you don't (with perhaps some narrow exceptions such as sincerely held religious beliefs or medical conditions that preclude vacccination, as these could fall under protected classes or disability protections).
  - jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
    In order to know who is eligible for medical exceptions, you'd have to ask people about their medical conditions which could run afoul of the ADA. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/employers-should-be-cautious-when-asking-about-vaccination-status.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > you'd have to ask people about their medical conditions Not necessarily. You would have the employee represent and warrant to it. If they lie and it causes a problem down the road, they’re clearly liable, that’s fraudulent misrepresentation and the company is in the clear.
      - jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
        What problem? They would continue working from home I would assume.
        JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > would continue working from home I would assume Is anybody proposing vaccine requirements for remote-only workers? The announcement this thread is based on literally carves out this exception.
lm28469 5y ago
> I haven't seen any other big company doing this move It's illegal in many countries
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > illegal in many countries So is taking a selfie with the Buddha. This is a bad metric for reasonableness.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure that taking a selfie with the Buddha isn't actually illegal in all that many countries - murder is pretty widely illegal though. I feel like it's actually a pretty good metric for reasonableness.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > It's illegal in many countries Vaccination as a condition of employment probably is (especially with an EUA vaccine); vaccination as a condition of in-office work with continued permission for remote work...seems less likely to be.
rootusrootus 5y ago
It will be interesting because software devs have more than usual leverage against the company. In any other job it would just be "get jabbed or get fired" and that would be the end of it. Being anti-vax is definitely not a protected class, and is easily covered by 'at will' employment policy. But goog isn't going to fire a meaningful number of devs over it.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I think you might overestimate how much leverage a developer has at Google or any other large company that has decided to put certain non-negotiable policies in place.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> haven't seen any other big company doing this Morgan Stanley de facto did. Vaccination requires to enter the office. Office work required to keep job. I’m sure there will be a job market for those who refuse to get vaccinated in low-density population centres.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> and to my knowledge there are many engineers refusing to be vaccinated The majority of the general population is getting vaccinated. I seriously doubt that there are disproportionately large numbers of vaccine holdouts working in positions at Google that are correlated with being highly educated. It's more likely that these policies will be well-received by Google employees who don't want to be exposed to an extremely risky virus that is known to be highly contagious but easily stopped with a simple vaccine.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  > simple "and uncontroversial"
ghaff 5y ago
Many universities, entities in the healthcare system, events, NYC, etc. Personally, I expect the floodgates to open at least moderately wide as putting requirements in place is increasingly normalized.

I'm curious to see how enforcing the vaccination policy will work out. I haven't seen any other big company doing this move, and to my knowledge there are many engineers refusing to be vaccinated.

mavhc 5y ago

Thus proving that no group can be vaccinated against idiocy

matz1 5y ago
How is not wanting to be vaccinated is idiot ? Vaccination should be personal preference.
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  Should speed limits and building codes be personal preference as well?
  - yarcob 5y ago
    Speed limits and building codes generally don't have side effects that can kill you. A bunch of otherwise healthy people have died from the vaccine. You can argue that it's a numbers game, and that getting vaccinated is still less risky, but the decision should not be forced on anyone.
    - mavhc 5y ago
      A bunch? How many, to the nearest 100.
      - yarcob 5y ago
        Enough that some governments recommend Astra Zeneca only for elderly patients, because risk/reward might be too big for healthy, young patients. I just don't think anybody should force anyone to get a shot. That should be a personal decision.
        mavhc 5y ago
        So 0? Or 100?
        yarcob 5y ago
        In Germany the Paul Ehrlich Institute has received 871 reports of deaths after vaccination. Most of them are from elderly people, but there are also a bunch of young people who have likely died from side effects. PEI reports 21 people under 40 who died from thrombosis after Astra Zeneca. Biontech and Moderna had other side effects (myocarditis for young men), and also a bunch of young deaths. Johnson is not common enough in Germany to make any reasonable judgements. Severe side effects (not deaths) are around 0,2 per 1000 shots. (reported side effects, actual number may be higher) Source (in German): https://www.pei.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/newsroom/dossiers/sicherheitsberichte/sicherheitsbericht-27-12-bis-31-05-21.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=7 https://www.pei.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/newsroom/dossiers...
        throwawayboise 5y ago
        How many German people under 40 die from thrombosis or suffer myocarditis in an average year? This year, when everyone is getting vaccinated, it's easy to draw unwarranted conclusions that rare conditions are being trigged by the vaccine when it could possibly be just cooincidence.
        yarcob 5y ago
        To the best of my knowledge, the fact that thrombosis is a (rare) side effect of Astra Zeneca and Johnson is pretty thoroughly established. It's a pretty specific type of thrombosis, and afaik it doesn't occur eg. for the Biontech and Moderna vaccines. I know there's a lot of misinformation about the vaccines going the rounds, but that doesn't mean that all reports of side effects are made up or statistical noise.
        PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        Good information, but those numbers always need to be traded off against the number of people who (a) would have died anyway (b) would have died from COVID19 had they not been vaccinated.
    - oscardssmith 5y ago
      That is just false. The current number of possible vaccine related deaths in the US is 1.
    - armada651 5y ago
      Eventually some employers will want everyone back in the office. And running the risk of being infected with COVID because your employer forces unvaccinated individuals into your close proximity is not a personal choice either. The latter has a several orders of magnitude higher death rate than the vaccines. So which option should the employer go for? Mandate everyone to get vaccinated or mandate everyone to mingle with the unvaccinated?
      - matz1 5y ago
        Why would I afraid of hanging out in close proximity with unvaccinated individual if I'm vaccinated ?
        armada651 5y ago
        There are more severe breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals than there are deadly outcomes to getting vaccinated. Also there's the risk that even a mild case has long term side effects. Since the number of deadly outcomes or side effects to the vaccine is so low the breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals become significant when you compare the risks.
        throwawayboise 5y ago
        This just feeds the beliefs that some people have that the vaccines don't really work. We should be strongly demonstrating that the vaccinated do not need to wear masks, distance, etc so that there are clear benefits to being vaccinated. If the vaccines reduce the disease to nothing more severe than a cold or mild flu, we should be back to the same daily routines we had when those things were an ordinary risk at the workplace.
        armada651 5y ago
        In my opinion pretending the vaccine is 100% effective and carries 0 risk has done more to shake public confidence than informing people about the risks no matter how small. In the information age it has become easier than ever to find contradicting data and there will always be contradicting data. Besides, most people have enough life experience to intuitively know that there's no certainty in life. Being honest with people will do more to gain their trust than enhancing the truth for their own well-being.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      > A bunch of otherwise healthy people have died from the vaccine. Here's my take on that. Yes, some young, healthy people have died after taking the vaccine. Small numbers of young, healthy people die for no apparent reason all the time, but because vast numbers of people were not all getting the same vaccines at the same time, there was never a plausible common thread to tie them to.
      - yarcob 5y ago
        The doctors who track side effects are not stupid. They look for clusters of similar cases, and compare reported cases to the expected number of cases considering how many people in each age/gender cohort got the shot. It's not like this is the first time a vaccine is introduced.
  - DeusExMachina 5y ago
    Speed limits and building codes do not force you to inject something in your body. The ability to oppose forced medication is a right enshrined in many constitutions. The ability to go as fast as you want on a road is not.
    - runawaybottle 5y ago
      There are many stories of muslim women who are pregnant and fast during Ramadan (during their pregnancy). We’re in complicated territory.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    I don't necessarily disagree with the point you are trying to make but this comment that you think is hyperbolic belies your biases. Speed limits and building codes pretty much are "personal preference" in wide swaths of the US. Prior to some federal shenanigans many states had highways with no particular speed limit. Many rural areas do not enforce any building code for noncommercial non-dwelling structures and many exempt dwellings if they are being constructed by the property owner for themselves. And beyond this there are even more areas where laws are on the books but you're free to disregard them and enforcement will ignore you unless you do something so unreasonable they can't justify ignoring you.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      The rural areas still without building codes represent a vanishingly small fraction of the US population. Here in New Mexico, where there was no building code until the 1980s, we now have a tasty legacy of houses built not to code that are being sold to 2nd, 3rd and even 4th owners-after-building, and the stories are not great. People calling out contractors to fix this and that to be told that the entire plumbing/electrical system needs replacing to meet code. I own a copy of "The Owner Builder and the Code" and several other books from the heyday of the owner-builder "movement". I want people to be able to construct their own dwellings in ways that liberate their creativity and imagination. Decades on, however, I have to concede that this does have some downsides that need to be addressed.
- mavhc 5y ago
  Vaccines have saved an estimated billion lives
  - nanis 5y ago
    - I don't want to eat. - You need food. - Well, not _this_ food and not necessarily at this moment in time. Whether these particular vaccines are saving any lives is an open question. Given that 1) Given the number of deaths in the two major waves in the U.S. (Spring 2020 and Winter 2020-21) and the timing of most of the vaccinations, it is not clear how much of the improvement is due to vaccination and how much of the effect is due to a wave burning out. Over the long term, are these going to be as effective as measles vaccines? There is no way to know. However, there is some indication that the time between the first and second injection is particularly risky. Also, I would love to see a breakdown of how many of the "unvaccinated" are people who had their first shot and waiting for the second, or people who had their second shot, but two weeks have not passed. It is not unreasonable for people to want to wait and see before diving head first into the "volunteer for experimental treatment" end of the pool.
    - mavhc 5y ago
      Not experimental when a billion people have had it. That's a 1000 times more than most medications
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        Yes but 999 million of those people are not being clinically monitored and side-effects/reactions to the vaccine are being reported anecdotally and are not really verifiable.
    - nawgz 5y ago
      > Whether these particular vaccines are saving any lives is an open question In no world is this statement justifiable. It is obvious from hospitalization & fatality rates of unvaccinated vs. vaccinated people that the vaccine has already saved many lives and was also probably a strong contributor to that "wave burnout" in the first place, especially looking at a country like Canada > there is some indication that the time between the first and second injection is particularly risky. There is no indication that getting one shot puts you in a "particularly risky" position. It is clear the vaccine only achieves partial effectiveness in this time, but that is not "particularly risky", that's slightly reduced risk against the null hypothesis of being unvaccinated. I challenge you to post any literature which shows anything about increased susceptibility of one shot vs no shots. > It is not unreasonable for people to want to wait Tell me, what numbers have you set in your head to make it reasonable to "trust" the vaccination? To me, seeing the Phase 3 trials without significant side effects was plenty. Now, we have probably 10+x that data over 2-3x the timespan, and the risk picture has not changed. What tipping point(s) will you consider?
- jcburns 5y ago
  It's not a personal preference situation. You're making a decision that affects those close to you, those you work with, and those you encounter in a grocery store aisle. It's been so many years since polio and earlier vaccines that people have forgotten the power and importance of collective action. Hope we can turn that around.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > How is not wanting to be vaccinated is idiot ? Not wanting to do lots of things that contribute to public health or workplace safety that have a small personal cost/risk, and small expected personal benefit is fairly normal. Refusing to do them, OTOH, is different than not wanting to do them.
- 13415 5y ago
  No, it shouldn't. If not enough people are vaccinated, then no herd immunity can develop, the disease becomes long-term endemic and new mutations arise every year. If people had refused vaccinations against Polio in this way, we'd still have people living in iron lungs.
- neogodless 5y ago
  It still is personal preference. Choose to be vaccinated, or choose to stay off campus, so you're not in close proximity to other people for extended periods of time. I don't make the parent comment claim that "not wanting to be vaccinated is idiotic." It does seem uninformed, unless there's a very clear reason to support that point of view. While the law supports religious exemptions, I'm less sympathetic. And science really seems like it supports vaccinations, not only for personal protection and quality of life, but very importantly, for helping to prevent the continued transmission and mutation of a virus that has taken over 4 million lives.
- xtracto 5y ago
  A very interesting take which I think shows an education and culture background. My belief is completely the opposite: Vaccination should NOT be a personal preference: A vaccinated population is a social good. People NOT being vaccinated (against polio, mumps, covid or even influenza) puts the population at risk. If providing the vaccine is cheaper for the government than the having certain amount of population sick, then vaccination should be enforced. But then again, I live in a country that has a more socialist approach to governance, and I also was educated more towards this ideology.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    It cannot be justified simply because "it is cheaper" for the government. It would be cheaper for the government to simply euthanize the mentally disabled rather than give them lifelong support and care that they can never repay, but we reject that as immoral. Historically, we've seen that making arguments like this on the basis of costs, numbers, and science leads to eugenics. It must be a moral argument, which has gotten harder to make in modern times as commonly-recognized sources of moral truth (religion, mostly) have been on the wane for some time.
- paxprose 5y ago
  No, it really shouldn't. It's causes social harm to not get vaccinated. If your "freedom" negatively affects the safety and welfare of the other participants of a community then it's the best interest of that society to either coerse you comply, or expel you. Selfish personal liberty should never detract from the freedoms of the commonwealth. Not getting vaccinated because someone believe biology is a political decision unilaterally detracts the freedoms of others.
  - nanis 5y ago
    > If your "freedom" negatively affects the safety and welfare of the other participants of a community ... A whole lot of people's newfound official freedom to smoke the stinkiest pot and have the smoke travel through the vents to neighboring apartments does negatively affect very young children and elderly in apartment buildings. Yet, here we are. Clearly, some negative effects on some people's safety and welfare are not considered as important -- oftentimes by the same people who are really adamant about making everyone else comply with their demands.
- bitsoda 5y ago
  Nah, airborne viruses affect the community so you can't leave it up to personal preference. It's similar to how a house fire can spread to neighboring houses regardless of the homeowner's preference to have it put out or not. For example, in my area two years ago, measles made a return because of anti-vaxxer Facebook mommy groups. I needed to bring my days-old infant to the pediatrician for checkups all the while knowing measles lingers in the air for two hours and a pediatrician's office is the most likely place to harbor the virus. Fun times as a parent and a big shout out to all the selfish people endangering newborns with literally no immune system based on junk "science" when the facts are overwhelmingly clear in favor of vaccines.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Newborns, esp. if breast feeding, do have something of an immune system. Still a good idea to avoid the doctor's office if you don't have to be there. They are disease cesspools. If it were me I'd wait outside in the car and have them call me on the phone when they had the treatment room cleaned and ready so I could pass quickly through the waiting room.
  - matz1 5y ago
    > It's similar to how a house fire can spread to neighboring houses regardless of the homeowner's preference to have it put out or not. If I can make my house fireproof (analogy of being vaccinated) then I would not worry about my neighbor house not being fireproof catching fire and spread.
- midrus 5y ago
  Agree. Also forbidding access to work, restaurants, theaters, child day care etc to non-vaccinated should be a preference of their owners or the government If somebody thinks vaccines just protect themselves, now that's a real idiot, because it is not how they work. They work by preventing you from spreading an illness that could kill other people, specially those that for any given (serious) reason cannot be vaccinated.
  - 8note 5y ago
    Specifically these vaccines protect you from having severe covid if you catch it. You can still be contagious, though less so, since you're having less severe symptoms
fsund 5y ago
I'd like a vaccine for HIV please. Also, can you show me your papers to show that you are HIV infected or not? I don't want to contract it from you.
- mavhc 5y ago
  If you're catching HIV from people while at work you're probably doing work wrong. If you're in a business where that's likely, guess what, mandatory HIV tests.
- objectivetruth 5y ago
  HIV is spread via blood / sexual contact. COVID is spread by being in the same room with an infected person. Unless you're having sex or sharing dirty needles with your co-workers, your analogy falls apart pretty quickly.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  Unlike COVID, HIV isn't a respiratory infection that easily spread through breathing droplets exhaled by infected persons. Do you now see how the difference in the transmissibility affects what would be considered reasonable policy between the two diseases?
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Sexual activity among people in the same workplace isn't exactly uncommon.
    - meepmorp 5y ago
      Outside of a narrow range of work - with existing STD testing regimens - people aren't supposed to have sex at the office. They are required to breathe, however. Do see now how requiring a vaccine because it would mitigate disease transmission risk in real world scenario that's a requirement of in person work is reasonable, vs requiring it because two people might sneak off to the head to get the leg over?
    - 5y ago

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago

Also, I don't think companies can legally force you to tell them if you've been vaccinated. It's protected health information.

throwawayboise 5y ago
As I understand it, they can't force you in the sense that they can't force you to do anything. But they can stop paying you if you don't (with perhaps some narrow exceptions such as sincerely held religious beliefs or medical conditions that preclude vacccination, as these could fall under protected classes or disability protections).
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
  In order to know who is eligible for medical exceptions, you'd have to ask people about their medical conditions which could run afoul of the ADA. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/employers-should-be-cautious-when-asking-about-vaccination-status.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > you'd have to ask people about their medical conditions Not necessarily. You would have the employee represent and warrant to it. If they lie and it causes a problem down the road, they’re clearly liable, that’s fraudulent misrepresentation and the company is in the clear.
    - jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
      What problem? They would continue working from home I would assume.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > would continue working from home I would assume Is anybody proposing vaccine requirements for remote-only workers? The announcement this thread is based on literally carves out this exception.

lm28469 5y ago

> I haven't seen any other big company doing this move It's illegal in many countries

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> illegal in many countries So is taking a selfie with the Buddha. This is a bad metric for reasonableness.
- munk-a 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure that taking a selfie with the Buddha isn't actually illegal in all that many countries - murder is pretty widely illegal though. I feel like it's actually a pretty good metric for reasonableness.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> It's illegal in many countries Vaccination as a condition of employment probably is (especially with an EUA vaccine); vaccination as a condition of in-office work with continued permission for remote work...seems less likely to be.

rootusrootus 5y ago

It will be interesting because software devs have more than usual leverage against the company. In any other job it would just be "get jabbed or get fired" and that would be the end of it. Being anti-vax is definitely not a protected class, and is easily covered by 'at will' employment policy. But goog isn't going to fire a meaningful number of devs over it.

ghaff 5y ago
I think you might overestimate how much leverage a developer has at Google or any other large company that has decided to put certain non-negotiable policies in place.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> haven't seen any other big company doing this Morgan Stanley de facto did. Vaccination requires to enter the office. Office work required to keep job. I’m sure there will be a job market for those who refuse to get vaccinated in low-density population centres.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> and to my knowledge there are many engineers refusing to be vaccinated The majority of the general population is getting vaccinated. I seriously doubt that there are disproportionately large numbers of vaccine holdouts working in positions at Google that are correlated with being highly educated. It's more likely that these policies will be well-received by Google employees who don't want to be exposed to an extremely risky virus that is known to be highly contagious but easily stopped with a simple vaccine.

mdp2021 5y ago
> simple "and uncontroversial"

ghaff 5y ago

Many universities, entities in the healthcare system, events, NYC, etc. Personally, I expect the floodgates to open at least moderately wide as putting requirements in place is increasingly normalized.