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OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

• walterbell 5y ago
  Is the federal government going to provide employers with the same legal immunity granted to pharmaceutical vendors via the PREP act? Does this mandate incorporate the Sept 2021 CDC definition of vaccine, https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article25... > Before the change, the definition for “vaccination” read, “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” Now, the word “immunity” has been switched to “protection.” The term “vaccine” also got a makeover. The CDC’s definition changed from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease” to the current “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.”
  • lalaland1125 5y ago
    Why would employers need additional immunity? Do schools usually need legal immunity when they require vaccines?
    • walterbell 5y ago
      The MMR vaccine required by school is sterilizing, once and done. Intramuscular Covid vaccines provide blood/serum antibodies that can reduce the risk of severe disease or death, but they are non-sterilizing. They never promised to prevent infection and the CDC has updated their definitions to make that clear. Why would employers need legal immunity? Their lawyers may want to look closely at the legal immunity protections of the PREP act, which extend to healthcare professionals who recommend "countermeasures".
      • lalaland1125 5y ago
        Why would that change liability requirements? My fundamental question is that schools already have tons of vaccine requirements, so why should this one be considered special?
        • walterbell 5y ago
          Because it alters the risk/benefit calculus. A sterilizing vaccine that stops transmission in its tracks, has a clear public health benefit to every part of society, even if there are risks. A non-sterilizing vaccine does not provide that society-wide public health benefit, leaving the employer to bear risks without benefit.
          • lalaland1125 5y ago
            But the COVID vaccine does provide a society-wide public health benefit. Our best available data indicates that it reduces the risk of transmission, even for Delta [1]. 1. https://www.acsh.org/news/2021/09/07/covid-19-vaccines-prevent-delta-transmission-yet-another-study-shows-15787 https://www.acsh.org/news/2021/09/07/covid-19-vaccines-preve...
            • walterbell 5y ago
              Reducing is not the same as stopping, which is the definition of sterilizing vaccines, which is the common layman perception of "vaccine", including your original example of school-mandated vaccines. Fortunately, the CDC's Sept. 2021 updated definition makes it clear that non-sterilizing Covid vaccines should not be conflated with the transmission-stopping track record of sterilizing vaccines (e.g. MMR) mandated for school & travel.
              • lalaland1125 5y ago
                Reducing is still a society-wide public health benefit.
                • walterbell 5y ago
                  Reducing does not have the same scaling effect as stopping, e.g. society must continue to pay an ongoing price for mitigations. Stopping means society can move on after a one-time vaccine cost. There are intranasal (e.g. inhaler) vaccines under development, which may provide nasal/mucosal antibodies. Until those are available, recovery from natural infection will provide both nasal/mucosal and blood/serum antibodies. This path is available to both the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
      • tfehring 5y ago
        Isn’t the varicella zoster vaccine, which many schools have required for decades, also non-sterilizing?
      • BurningFrog 5y ago
        What does "sterilizing" mean in this context?
        • SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
          It means that for people with an immune system that's functioning within the normal range, the vaccine entirely prevents infection (100% effectiveness). Population-wide effectiveness isn't 100%, but for most individuals it is.
          • BurningFrog 5y ago
            Thanks. Now I know another term. I'm a bit confused by the term "infection" here. Let me split some hairs: Vaccines work by teaching the immune system how to fight an intruding virus, so it doesn't have to spend days or weeks figuring it out while the virus destroys your body. That means vaccinated people get viruses as often as unvaccinated, but defeat it much faster, usually before you notice any symptoms. My confusion is that I would call the time my immune system spends fighting a virus in my body an "infection", but apparently that is not the established use.
            • sn9 5y ago
              Your confusion is warranted. These aren't terms that are 100% agreed upon and the scientific understanding is still evolving as our tools get better. The Atlantic just published an article about this very topic: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/sterilizing-immunity-myth-covid-19-vaccines/620023/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steriliz...
            • SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
              If the immune system fights off the invader before it becomes established and starts freely replicating (before any symptoms, before it can be detected, before it can be transmitted) then it's not an infection. It's just some contamination.
      • elliekelly 5y ago
        > which extend to healthcare professionals who recommend "countermeasures" Not quite: > The term “covered person”, when used with respect to the administration or use of a covered countermeasure, means— (A) the United States; or (B) a person or entity that is— [...] (iv) a qualified person who prescribed, administered, or dispensed such countermeasure; Prescribing, administering, and dispensing are very different from “recommending”. https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=42-USC-1258700831-306953241&term_occur=999&term_src=title:42:chapter:6A:subchapter:II:part:B:section:247d–6d https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840...
      • slavboj 5y ago
        "They never promised to prevent infection" Are we really going to bother digging up the copious video evidence this is a lie? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xcur3kwCyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xcur3kwCyg
        • dntrkv 5y ago
          Like the MD in your video pointed out, it _reduces_ transmission, it does not completely eliminate it. Nobody has ever claimed that it does.
        • rualca 5y ago
          > Are we really going to bother digging up the copious video evidence this is a lie? It seems you're either a bit confused or you didn't bothered to even watch the very same video you posted. I watched the video and nowhere in it does anyone promise anything about infections magically go away. In fact, the infection disease specialist in the video says quite clearly that the observed reduction in spread was around 60%, and this statement is repeated in multiple occasions throughout the video. The video was also posted over 7 months ago, prior to some of the major vaccines having been approved and made available to the public. Please do not throw baseless accusations of anyone lying when the best proof you can come up with just refutes your accusation entirely.
          • slavboj 5y ago
            Did you read the headline? "No one ever claimed this" except for literally thousands of journalists and government spokesmodels.
            • scohesc 5y ago
              Don't worry, it's "safe and effective!"
            • angelzen 5y ago
              Text: Most elephants are grey. Sometimes they can be white. They are definitely not black. Headline: The Science is in: Elephants are White Pushback: No, elephants are not white. Twitter: NO ONE EVER CLAIMED ELEPHANTS ARE WHITE. or STOP SPREADING MISINFORMATION THAT ELEPHANTS ARE BLACK.
      • sn9 5y ago
        Funnily enough, The Atlantic just put out an article describing why the idea of "sterilizing vaccines" itself might be a myth and why that doesn't matter from a practical public health standpoint: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/sterilizing-immunity-myth-covid-19-vaccines/620023/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steriliz...
    • maxlybbert 5y ago
      Side effects from vaccines are rare, but do occasionally happen. Because of the small risk, there’s a government program to pay money to anybody who suffers a serious side effect from taking a vaccine in exchange for granting legal immunity to vaccine producers ( https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html ). So, to answer your question, schools don’t literally require legal immunity themselves, but they do benefit from legal immunity that that the government gives vaccine manufacturers: there’s no need to sue a school for requiring vaccines when there’s a special program to pay out benefits. Last I knew, COVID-19 vaccines weren’t covered, but apparently I missed some news, since it’s the first thing listed on https://www.hrsa.gov/cicp https://www.hrsa.gov/cicp .
      • basch 5y ago
        >pay money to anybody who suffers a serious side effect from taking a vaccine Nitpick, but really it is a fund to pay for anyone who suffered a side effect that it cannot be proven wasnt a vaccine. In this case vaccines are guilty until proven innocent. >approximately 70 percent of its payments are the result of a negotiated settlement “in which HHS has not concluded, based upon review of the evidence, that the alleged vaccine caused the alleged injury.” https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/05/vaccine-safety-program/589354/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/05/vaccine-s...
      • R0b0t1 5y ago
        I was given the paperwork for this program on my first dose, I got it early.
      • scohesc 5y ago
        1) How do you prove it was the vaccine that caused your side effects? You can't. It's not provable in court because "my legs went numb a day or two after I got the jab" isn't exactly concrete evidence. 2) No company should have their liability removed for any reason, especially by the government. This thinking was partly why the 2008 recession happened. I don't want the government taking on the liability of a multi-billion dollar industry because if the company messes up, we're paying more in taxes - guaranteed - to pay for all the settlements. 3) This mandate by the government violates every part of a right to personal autonomy when it comes to your health - there is a MONUMENTAL difference when the mandate comes from government as opposed to private business. This sets (further) precedence for future governments to give them carte blanche as to peoples' health. Side note - Just a reminder that government-ran health systems like the NHS makes decisions about your health based on the status of the current system - meaning that people who are too costly to fix/repair/KEEP ALIVE will receive palliative care. That's disgusting to me. (The US healthcare system is a whole other topic entirely, this is just an example of government making bad decisions regarding your health)
    • indymike 5y ago
      If you cannot sue the maker of the vaccine, enterprising lawyers will sue the deepest pockets involved in making you get vaccinated.
      • ceejayoz 5y ago
        They'll run up against OHSA's sovereign immunity pretty fast here.
        • ecommerceguy 5y ago
          Are you implying OSHA is 'un-sueable'? https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/23/lawsuit-osha-safety-coronavirus/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/23/lawsuit-o...
          • ceejayoz 5y ago
            Anyone can sue anyone for anything. Winning is a different thing. Sovereign immunity doesn’t prevent the filing of a suit. The suit was dismissed. https://www.foodprocessing.com/industrynews/2021/meat-workers-suit-against-osha-dismissed/ https://www.foodprocessing.com/industrynews/2021/meat-worker... > But, he added, courts have no jurisdiction to force OSHA to take action and “the remedy lies with the Legislature and not the courts.”
      • ImPostingOnHN 5y ago
        if qualifying companies don't mandate the vaccine, enterprising lawyers will sue the deepest pockets involved in not making sure employees get vaccinated yep, turns out lawyers will find stuff to sue folks for, no matter what so, companies might as well do the right thing and be protected by the federal government than do the wrong thing and have to fight those lawyers all on their own
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Is the federal government going to provide employers with the same legal immunity granted to pharmaceutical vendors via the PREP act They already did for COVID countermeasures in general. In the first declaration that did that for pharmaceutical companies, public entities managing countermeasure planning and distribution, and others in March of last year.
  • resoluteteeth 5y ago
    Do the employers need this if they are just requiring vaccination but not actually administering the vaccine themselves?
    • maxerickson 5y ago
      Yes, the other poster hasn't laid out what liability they think employers face from this government mandate.
  • pibechorro 5y ago
    goal posts keep moving to fit the agenda of handing a select few billions of dollars at our expense.
    • TOMDM 5y ago
      Unless you mean a very literal "at our expense" as in dollars paid for a highly effective vaccine, are you implying that the vaccine has been a net negative?
      • iammisc 5y ago
        When it first came out, the data made the vax an obviously net positive. Given what we now know about cases amongst the vaccinated and how they can spread it... It's no longer an obvious positive. The vax has made covid more pervasive because of bad data at the beginning.
        • TOMDM 5y ago
          I could maybe buy people being lax about masks and social distancing because of the vaccine, but surely you don't think the vaccine itself has made the virus more pervasive?
          • iammisc 5y ago
            Well what is the effect and purpose of the vax other than to make people lax about social distancing and masks. The vaccine was correctly developed expressly for the purposes of rendering both unnecessary. If the vax had worked to sterilize or mostly sterilize the virus as originally it was sold to us as, then this would be okay. Instead it did not really work, thus spreading covid more. So in the end, we locked down and destroyed the economy in hopes of a vaccine, but the vaz didn't fully work and now we're going to have to open anyway to avert major economic and social disaster.
            • TOMDM 5y ago
              The vaccine does work. It lowers your chance of getting it and thus spreading it significantly and it severely lowers your chance of having a severe reaction in the case of a breakthrough infection. The only reason it hasn't worked at a societal level is that not enough people have taken it.
  • tomrod 5y ago
    They have the HRSA in place, right?
  • thomastjeffery 5y ago
    mRNA vaccines do not directly stimulate the immune system. They cause the immune system itself to create protein structures that stimulate the immune system. The definition change is simply to more accurately include this vaccine method.
    • freemint 5y ago
      Slightly wrong. They cause any and no particular cell to create protein structures that stimulate the immune system.
• dmitrygr 5y ago
  > OSHA will issue an Emergency Temporary > Standard (ETS) to implement this requirement Is this "temporary" in the same way that the PATRIOT act and our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 were "temporary"? Well, I guess one should never let a good crisis go to waste...
  • hoten 5y ago
    Most of the Patriot act was to expire after 4 years. It was renewed by Congress multiple times. Parts of it were renewed in separate bills after it eventually expired. For the COVID ETS from this June, OSHA has been coordinating with the CDC monthly to determine if it is still necessary. See https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/ets#:~:text=to%20assess%20the%20ongoing%20need%20 https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/ets#:~:text=to%20assess%20t... Although, just like Afghanistan, there's no clear end to COVID afaik ... although I disagree with the implication that there's some great benefit the government / other interests are getting out of this ETS, of the same scale that the military-industrial complex/the executive branch got out of the PATRIOT act/Afghanistan.
    • erklik 5y ago
      > there's some great benefit the government / other interests are getting out of this ETS Pharma is gonna be making some good money out of COVID, no? The amount of tests that have been produced, plus the amount of vaccines being used are certainly not free.
      • Paradigma11 5y ago
        They would be making a lot more money without the vaccines.
        • erklik 5y ago
          How's that?
          • Paradigma11 5y ago
• adamrezich 5y ago
  if they try to pull this here, I know for a fact my 65-year-old coworker—who has been working from home ever since we were mandated to wear a mask only in the building lobby (this ended July 1st)—won't put up with it, and I won't either, so that's 2/3 of the school district programmers they'd have to fire. thankfully our governor has already stated she's going to take any such actions to court.
  • reidjs 5y ago
    Are you guys irreplaceable?
    • adamrezich 5y ago
      absolutely. I was hired this year to learn how the hell all the complicated stuff the 55- and 65-year-old programmers do every day works, and I've only learned a fraction of it so far.
      • ghaff 5y ago
        The world is full of “irreplaceable” people.
        • 6d6b73 5y ago
          Better version imho - Cementaries are full of irreplaceable people.
          • ghaff 5y ago
            Well. I wasn’t going to go there given the context.
          • adamrezich 5y ago
            never caught covid when I took care of my mom when she had it last year and I worked as a cashier at Walmart during last year's Sturgis Rally and tourism season, and I somehow survived this year's Rally and tourism season as well... I'm going to be just fine, but I appreciate the "concern" nonetheless.
• captainredbeard 5y ago
  Why must I be vaccinated if the vaccine doesn't prevent spread? Preventing spread to other people is the only plausible reason to force everyone to take it. I am comfortable catching the disease and even comfortable dying from it (the numbers are vastly on my side). I do far riskier things on a regular basis (extreme sports) and I do not understand the infantilization of society. Join the feedlot if you want but I will not, I have been doing just fine as my own master, I need not the yoke of protection, certainly not from the feds.
  • toomuchtodo 5y ago
    I think it’s fine if you refuse to be vaccinated as long as you agree to not use hospital resources if you do contract the virus.
    • captainredbeard 5y ago
      I would accept that trade. Let's explore this line of reasoning, Mr. Dehumanizer: What about people who engage in risky sex? Should they be refused treatment? What about fat people? What about people who don't exercise?
      • toomuchtodo 5y ago
        False equivalency. The vaccine costs nothing, has insignificant statistical risk, and people are still refusing it. That bed or ventilator can go to someone responsible. If someone chooses not to be vaccinated, they are choosing to die at home.
        • captainredbeard 5y ago
          "Avoiding risky sex costs nothing, has insignificant statistical risk, and they are refusing it. That medical treatment could go to someone responsible. Choose not to have safe sex, choose to die at home."
          • 5y ago
• asquabventured 5y ago
  I refuse to comply with this over reach and I’m fully vaccinated
  • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
    Sadly, there won't be nearly enough who feel as you do. But I wholeheartedly applaud your statement!
    • loonster 5y ago
      It only has to be enough in certain industries. Trucking, food production, Oil & Gas, powerplant workers, linemen, water treatment, etc. In those essential industries, a small percentage of people walking out may wreck havoc on the whole nation. Those are also the same people that I expect are more anti covid vaccine.
      • inawarminister 5y ago
        I have heard that truckers in Australia and Brazil are already boycotting their respective governments due to COVID responses.
        • loonster 5y ago
          There was a trucker strike in Australia. I got the impression that it was limited to TWU (the equivalent of Teamsters) demanding more money and better working conditions. I never saw what better working conditions actually meant. I'm more concerned about 20% of the truckers being fired for not taking the vaccine. Logistics is already stretched thin and it would make it much worse.
    • silentmajthrw54 5y ago
      Created this throwaway to say that there are at least some others who agree but are too scared of the current cultural tone to speak openly about this. I feel thoroughly alienated from my peer-group and family over their fervor for this response and against any who disagree.
• criticaltinker 5y ago
  It's pretty egregious that there is no mention of accommodation for individuals who have already acquired effective immunity through previous infection. Other countries are well ahead of the U.S in this regard. These mandates appear to completely neglect entire aspects of scientific consensus.
  • devb 5y ago
    - Acquired immunity fades with time - You aren't required to get the vaccine, you can undergo weekly testing instead
    • bsima 5y ago
      Natural immunity is stronger than artificial immunity https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
      • notacoward 5y ago
        Already refuted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28480736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28480736 Unlike yours, the study linked last in that comment has been peer reviewed.
      • devb 5y ago
        Even if that were true, and it's not clear that it is, the side effects of infection are far, far worse than whatever side effects the vaccine might have.
    • TexanFeller 5y ago
      So far vaccine immunity fades with time as well. The Pfizer Gang have experienced that already at 6mo or so, but Moderna protection has faded much more slowly.
      • devb 5y ago
        I'd rather get the vaccine multiple times than to be infected multiple times. I don't understand why this is controversial.
• ghaff 5y ago
  I reluctantly support this. I also think a bunch of companies that have many/most employees who can work from home were hoping that they could get through this without widespread mandates given that the reluctant mostly didn’t have to come into the office or customer sites.
  • fmaskerz 5y ago
    go fuck yourself buddy
  • longthrow1 5y ago
    If they can safely work from home this is clearly not an occupational safety and health issue and osha doesn't have any business getting involved. So this is either clearly an overreach or osha was just the vector biden used to exert power he didn't have on his own.
    • ghaff 5y ago
      I don’t even completely disagree. But his objective is to get more people vaccinated and most large employers will be happy to go along. It’s at most a minor nuisance for them to fire people who refuse to comply. Especially if the execs agree with the goals. HR will have zero patience for a conversation about how the rules shouldn’t apply.
• AndrewBissell 5y ago
  What's that term for the fusion of state and corporate power?
  • bob1029 5y ago
    America?
  • fmaskerz 5y ago
    FASCISM!
  • jimmygrapes 5y ago
    Since the only person who answered properly was (correctly) flagged and banned, I'll answer your rhetorical question as accurately as I can: Italian Fascism promoted a corporatist economic system whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy.[0] [0] Andrew Vincent. Modern Political Ideologies. Third edition. Malden, Massaschussetts, USA; Oxford, England, UK; West Sussex, England, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2010. Pp. 160. URL: https://books.google.com/books/about/Modern_Political_Ideologies.html?id=igrwb3rsOOUC https://books.google.com/books/about/Modern_Political_Ideolo...
    • FpUser 5y ago
      >"Since the only person who answered properly was (correctly) flagged and banned" Maybe you can also explain why do you think it is "correct" to ban proper answer? P.S. I'll take it back. I see that the person was banned for something else rather that for this "proper answer"
• fmaskerz 5y ago
  Maskers/Vaxxers are a FUCKING CULT. Go kill yourselves you biofascist fucking pieces of shit! I hope you die in a fucking housefire. FUCK YOU! KILL YOURSELF!
  • dang 5y ago
    Could you please stop creating accounts to post like this to HN? I'm sure you have good reason to feel strongly, but when you post like this, you're just discrediting your own position. That doesn't help you, and it hurts the people who agree with you.
    • christophilus 5y ago
      Just wanted to say thanks, dang. You’re the man.
• fmaskerz 5y ago
  Fuck liberal fucking pieces of shit. You can't even call yourself a liberal. You're just a fucking FASCIST FUCKING CULTIST that needs BULLETS IN YOUR FUCKING HEAD!
• fmaskerz 5y ago
  DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS! DEATH TO MASKERS!
• xqcgrek2 5y ago
  1984 was not an instruction manual.
  • walterbell 5y ago
    Music video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X1A5gxJn_I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X1A5gxJn_I They say it’s 2021 but I ain’t too sure, it feels like 1984.
  • Taniwha 5y ago
    But this is not like 1984 - it's much more like all those movies where you join the army, go to boot camp and get all your shots on the first day
    • SQL2219 5y ago
      joining the army is voluntary
      • Taniwha 5y ago
        Only sometimes
• pokeymcsnatch 5y ago
  So uh... I wouldn't normally do this, but this post isn't showing up anymore and so discussion has stopped. Why?
  • walterbell 5y ago
    Story rank dropped from #40 to #250, rather than decaying organically. Perhaps it was flagged by multiple people? http://hnrankings.info/28474997/ http://hnrankings.info/28474997/ Emailing hn@ycombinator.com might help. This topic affects 10's of millions of Americans.
    • pokeymcsnatch 5y ago
      I sent a message. I'm really interested in the HN discussion of this.. it's disappointing to see it just drop off the site.
      • FpUser 5y ago
        Probably because someone makes sure that we all follow the proper party line.
        • freemint 5y ago
          Assume good faith
          • FpUser 5y ago
            I normally do. But after spending enough time here I do see a pattern
  • dang 5y ago
    It set off the flamewar detector. It's also a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28472856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28472856.
• dkdk8283 5y ago
  I can’t get the vaccine due to a medical condition but I was sick and recovered - having some form of natural immunity. These policies are absurd and unfairly punish people like me.
  • Vinnl 5y ago
    I haven't looked into the specific policy, but in the vast majority of cases policies like this have exceptions for e.g. people who can't get vaccinated due to medical conditions, but those exceptions do not get reported because they're exceptions and not relevant to most readers. (Especially since such policies often have as an explicit goal to provide protection for people who can't get vaccinated.)
• dang 5y ago
  Recent and related: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28472856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28472856 - Sept 2021 (262 comments) The titles are emphasizing two different things, but it's the same announcement.
  • Youden 5y ago
    Aren't both of these titles editorialised and against guidelines? The original title of the page is: "Path out of the Pandemic, President Biden's COVID-19 Action Plan", shouldn't that, or a derivative have been used instead?
    • tbihl 5y ago
      And yet both are informative, which is not true of the title you propose.
      • teddyh 5y ago
        This, usually, still does not stop the mods.
    • dang 5y ago
      The subtleties of the title domain are a hell of a rabbit hole, but in the case of the current page, I'd argue that the original title would be misleading at the top of an HN thread. Press releases are often that way- see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=corporate%20press%20release%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
  • tomrod 5y ago
    Thanks dang.
• wly_cdgr 5y ago
  Good
• xupybd 5y ago
  I'm one shot in but think this is a huge government overreach to require this from businesses.
  • Filligree 5y ago
    Not at all. Vaccine mandates date back to George Washington, if you look at it the right way.
    • vips7L 5y ago
      Just because there is precedent doesn’t mean it’s not overreach.
      • owlbynight 5y ago
        It would be overreach were our country's stability not being undermined by large pockets of selfish lemmings that clearly cannot apply logic and critical thinking to their decision making. I don't want to pay even more for everything in my life due to inflation caused by social parachutes because some toothless hillbillies in the South my taxes are ALREADY propping up don't understand their insecurity is being monetized by grifters. If you don't want mandates, perhaps evaluate the consequences of applying the same level vitriol to every single request made of you by the collective regardless of its reasonability.
        • Indomit 5y ago
          How'd you arrive at that being the key demographic for the unvaccinated?
    • kiba 5y ago
      George Washington carried out an inoculation campaign against the wishes of the continental congress.
    • whatthesmack 5y ago
      Isn't this very different, though? Historically, mandated vaccines weren't mandated before we knew they were safe longer-term. We're still awaiting FDA approval for a majority of the available SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in the US, yet many folks would be mandated to receive one. Many folks will see this as being mandated to be a test subject, which is why there has been substantial legal pushback against the mandate less than 24 hours after Biden announced it.
• AUSNA-ZI 5y ago
  About 2/3 of all jobs now require you to be vaccinated?
• tibbydudeza 5y ago
  Our largest healthcare provider has already mandated vaccines for their staff and insurance companies are now following suit because they got hammered with life insurance payouts for 2020 and first half of 2021. Waiting for retailers to announce this as well at some point.
  • anonymouse008 5y ago
    Maybe slightly off topic, but it’s always been odd to me how life insurance tests with vigor for tobacco use but lack that enthusiasm for metabolic health / diet.
    • NetOpWibby 5y ago
      #America
      • the-dude 5y ago
        What makes you think it is different in other countries?
        • NetOpWibby 5y ago
          I didn't, nor did I imply. OSHA is America-based, yes?
          • fogof 5y ago
            Your comment was literally "#America", certainly this implies you think it's different in other countries, otherwise, why would you highlight the Americanness?
            • NetOpWibby 5y ago
              > OSHA is America-based, yes?
• jansan 5y ago
  This sounds like a big chance for smaller companies to hire experienced top notch people.
  • k__ 5y ago
    Don't know if "anti-vax" equals "top notch".
• NDizzle 5y ago
  Biden: Monoclonal antibodies have been shown to reduce hospitalization of UNVACCINATED covid patients by 70% Also Biden, in the same speech: We're gonna force everyone we can get away with forcing to take a shot still under emergency use authorization that is only supposed to be valid if there is NO other viable treatment.
  • maxerickson 5y ago
    The Covid monoclonals are also only available under EUAs. And no one is being strapped down and vaccinated, some consequences are being imposed for some choices. For instance, for workers at larger companies that don't get vaccinated, there is an expectation that the employer will check weekly for negative test results.
    • NDizzle 5y ago
      I’ve worked remotely for 12 years. I should obviously be exempt, right? Why not?
      • maxerickson 5y ago
        What did they implement for remote workers?
• vkou 5y ago
  So, here's the thing. You don't catch an infectious disease through an act of God. You catch it from an act of man. Right now, you have zero recourse if your employer, or your co-workers are creating a dangerous environment. You have no legal standing if your employer's policies are the reason that you catch COVID, which can be financially ruinous - or lethal. Your employer is explicitly protected from any liability their action or inaction creates in this space. We either need the tools to hold employers liable for creating a dangerous work environment - because they are not taking basic precautions against the spread of a deadly disease... Or we can shield them from this liability, and mandate that they take those precautions. It seems we are taking the less litigious option.
  • anonymouse008 5y ago
    > So, here's the thing. You don't catch an infectious disease through an act of God. You catch it from an act of man. I think the same but with a different tack. If you get an infectious disease from another person, and that person didn’t want the disease either and wouldn’t want to spread it, then why are they? How do people not know they have Covid and are giving it to their friends, coworkers, etc?
    • vkou 5y ago
      The same reason that people crash their cars. Oftentimes with friends and family inside them. Sometimes, it's because they did everything they could, within reason, to prevent it. Sometimes it's because they were reckless, negligent, and should not have been behind the wheel. We call the first an accident, and the second (if it kills someone) vehicular manslaughter. We litigate to determine which is which. We also give people leeway in how negligent they want to be. A BAC between 0 and 0.08 is fine... Unless you hit someone - at which point, it will be used against you. A BAC above 0.08 is immediate grounds for arrest, regardless of whether you hurt anyone. That is what personal responsibility on one end, and enforced social responsibility on the other end looks like. Right now, nobody can be held personally accountable for reckless behaviour with COVID. Either we lift that protection, or we double down on enforcing social responsibility.
• smitty1e 5y ago
  Get your jab, you peasant scum Writhing there under our thumb And say to Ben you couldn't keep A Republic, when with him you weep On foreign plane, your rights as gone As your life, while we soldier on All the free to subjugate Within Administrative State
• jasonhansel 5y ago
  This doesn't go far enough. I think that state governments need to start mandating vaccinations for all eligible citizens. Such mandates are clearly constitutional and have a great deal of historical precedent (see Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which upheld vaccine mandates in 1905).
  • 6d6b73 5y ago
    That case was against a law and not against an executive order. I'm tired of presidents ruling by decree - this should stop long time ago but it's getting worse with every president.
    • CabSauce 5y ago
      It's the only way to get anything done since the senate doesn't function without a super-majority.
      • 6d6b73 5y ago
        well, that's not how it's suppose to work.
        • CabSauce 5y ago
          No argument here.
• dooglius 5y ago
  > or require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work So is this a no-op for people who work from home exclusively? that seems like a pretty major thing to just gloss over
• pibechorro 5y ago
  Authoritarianism Incorporated.
  • dadoge 5y ago
    Let me guess, seat belt mandates are also “authoritarian”? What about measles vaccine requirements? Have you complained about those recently? Believe it or not, there was a time when measles wasn’t a thing and very few question the need for a measles vaccine now. What about the broad polio vaccine rollout? Vaccine hesitancy has been a thing, but never this strongly along party lines
    • steverb 5y ago
      You're forgetting about driver's licenses, pilots licenses, cosmetology licenses, ID requirements and searches to fly on a plane, having to be over 21 to buy alcohol and tobacco, selective service, income taxes, property taxes, traffic laws, building codes...
      • landemva 5y ago
        Most of those examples do not apply to persons who are not engaged in commerce. 21+ to buy products should be 18. At some age children become adults. Study the personal income tax and you will find it is primarily enforced through your employer. If each of us had to save and write a check there would be little compliance. For non-commercial property, if the property is not cataloged by county assessor, it doesn't get taxed. Dig in on this bit and be amazed.
        • steverb 5y ago
          Driver's Licenses and the need to show ID and submit to a search certainly do apply. I and a lot of people do have to save a write a check (I pre-pay estimated actually). You do not want to get on the wrong side of the IRS.
          • landemva 5y ago
• refurb 5y ago
  Contrast this with Germany. Employers are asking for permission to confirm employee vaccine status and the govt is saying “no, you can’t do that”. https://www.dw.com/en/germany-bosses-cant-ask-about-employees-coronavirus-vaccination-status/a-59050469 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-bosses-cant-ask-about-employee...
  • zhdc1 5y ago
    And yet, you can't get into a restaurant or cafe in Germany without a valid COVID-19 vaccination certificate or a negative test. The same is true for most EU member states.
    • peteradio 5y ago
      Or have recovered from covid. Not sure why you would leave that bit out.
    • refurb 5y ago
      That’s an important distinction though? Get fired from your job? Bad Can’t go out for a meal? Annoying
    • reportgunner 5y ago
      Well not here (Czech Republic). People barely wear masks apart from public transport.
• ctrlp 5y ago
  Whether or not you agree if there is legal authority for mandates for this vaccine or this pandemic, where does it end? The trajectory we're on is for all people to be monitored by the State for compliance with the vaccine programs. Israel is already saying 4 shots (and more) will required [0] to participate in that society. Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are quasi-police states [1] and will probably mandate vaccination+boosters soon. The writing on the wall is that the 'booster' is being repackaged as a 'series' of vaccines. The health authorities and pharma are going to modify and approve vaccines for endless mutations. Will these be independently tested? I don't expect so, despite using the novel mRNA platform. The end game is to treat Covid vaccines like annual (or semi-annual) flu vaccines. Moderna is already packaging both together [2]. Except flu vaccine is not mandated (yet). There is a LOT of money to be made in mandatory vaccine mandates. Think how easy it would be to grow rich if everyone had to use your products, you had no competition, and the government indemnified you against any responsibility for harm. It's hard to see how this stops. The pandemic is a gift for technocratic-authoritarians everywhere. Here's a prediction. In a few years, if the people don't stand up against this, the pandemic will not be 'over' politically. Nominally 'free' Western governments will have become de facto CCP-style management firms. We will be required to comply with ongoing health directives from the central authorities for vaccination to prevent further restrictions. Our compliance will be monitored via digital passes (or onerous paper-work for the poor). Our employment and freedom of movement will depend on our compliance. Those who disagree and are foolish enough to say something will find themselves censored (for health disinformation) and fined (or imprisoned [3]). Traveling to see grandma without having gotten the latest booster will risk quarantine. So, if you're pro-mandates, I invite you to come back in a couple of years and ridicule me and this warning if it's wrong (if it hasn't been scrubbed from the internet). I hope you're right! I wonder what you'll say if you're wrong? Maybe post your predictions for posterity. [0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/virus-czar-calls-to-begin-readying-for-eventual-4th-vaccine-dose/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/virus-czar-calls-to-begin-read... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/world/australia/new-zealand-covid-lockdown-checkpoints.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/world/australia/new-zeala..., https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/01/australias-drug-regulator-may-refer-anti-vaccination-facebook-posts-to-federal-police https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/01/austr... [2] https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/moderna-developing-single-dose-combination-vaccine-covid-19-flu-2021-09-09/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/01/australias-drug-regulator-may-refer-anti-vaccination-facebook-posts-to-federal-police https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/01/austr...
• tomrod 5y ago
  I see this as an unmitigated good and the only way we move forward on normalcy. May it inspire others to do similar so we can address vaccinations here then move our surplus abroad.
  • guscost 5y ago
    “Normalcy” is gone for good. If you’re actually still hoping for some future that looks like the pre-COVID times, you’re going to be disappointed. Hoping to avoid war is more in alignment with reality, at this point.
    • tomrod 5y ago
      I make no bones that "normlacy" evolves.
    • ceejayoz 5y ago
      > “Normalcy” is gone for good. Unless you want to live naked in a tribe on the African savannas, "normalcy" has been changing for tens of thousands of years, and very fast for the couple hundred, and extremely so for the last hundred. It should not be a surprise that it continues to do so, and "you have to get certain vaccines" has been a thing for any kid going through public schools and/or college for decades. This is nothing new. 92% of Americans are vaccinated for polio within 24 months of birth. 90% for MMR. 90% for chickenpox. 80% for DTaP. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/immunize.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/immunize.htm
    • Cederfjard 5y ago
      What permanent changes are you envisioning?
      • InitialLastName 5y ago
        Not the GP, but I'd love if employers would enact policies that enabled and encouraged their employees to stay home when they get sick. Covid tore through my office early on because someone felt he had to come in and get work done despite being sick. It tore through my office, killing two people and hospitalizing multiple others, definitely costing more productivity than we gained by the one person coming in to work.
• _fat_santa 5y ago
  Good. Imagine all the people I would infect while at work! looks around at empty home office
  • betterunix2 5y ago
    ...nevermind all the other people you interact with in your life.
    • longthrow1 5y ago
      So, not an osha issue then.
      • betterunix2 5y ago
        That's right, but the fact is that the president's goal is to get everyone who can receive the vaccine to be vaccinated. He lacks the authority to issue a simple vaccine mandate for everyone and is just doing what he does have the authority to do. The vaccine is not just about workplace safety and people who work from home should still get the shot.
        • peteradio 5y ago
          Unless you've already had covid right?
        • _fat_santa 5y ago
          I call this "late fee" logic. Often times an apartment will want to charge $X for rent but only charges $Y. They make up the difference by imposing fees and other restrictions so by the end you are basically at $X. I hate these policies because I hate people lying to me. Cut the shit with these late fees and just raise the damn rent. Likewise, if the goal is to vaccinate the entire country, don't try to beat around the bush and have OSHA do it, actually mandate it. I'm not in favor of vaccine mandates, I just hate when poeple tell me to my face "Oh well we need to do this because of A, B and C" where everyone knows it's really "We're doing this because it will accomplish X, Y and Z"
• Ekaros 5y ago
  I wonder should we also start mandating yearly influenza shots from everyone? And bar those who are not tested or vaccinated from work places? It would certainly save some lives wouldn't it?
  • bserge 5y ago
    Let's go even further and mandate psychological and physical tests, to make sure there are fewer deaths. You never know what goes through someone's head or whether a previous injury will lead to an accident. I'm only half joking, this could actually help me :D
    • merpnderp 5y ago
      You know what kills more than COVID? Sugar which causes cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. If we're going to go after COVID for the havoc it causes, there's a long list of similar issues that could be tackled with the same type of mandate. I don't look forward to our health-police state we apparently decided was a great idea. Well we didn't decide, because that would have required congress to pass a law. This was just some old man skipping congress, likely knowing this will be overturned by the Supreme Court, but desperately needing to change the national debate away from Afghanistan.
      • bserge 5y ago
        The ultimate cause of death is life. 100% mortality rate heh
      • TOMDM 5y ago
        If people could take a shot or two that massively reduces the risk of sugar induced cancer, diabetes and heart disease they'd be fools not to take it.
        • pbaka 5y ago
          It's called insulin shots. They're not cheap your side of the Atlantic.
• moistrobot 5y ago
  We're getting closer to two Americas. Policies like these will only exacerbate the transition. Expect to mass over non-compliance from conservative states and businesses
  • DaftDank 5y ago
    There's always been two Americas, if not more. We've just tried to fool ourselves into believing otherwise for a long time.
    • da_big_ghey 5y ago
      Then why did we fight a war on keeping them together. Maybe both would be happier if south and middle states split from coast ones.
      • supergeek133 5y ago
        It's also the urban centers from the rest of some states. For instance I live in MN, the city center is very blue and the rest of the state is not.
        • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
          Inside vs outside of the city and wealthy inner and middle suburbs is a far more massive cultural divide than red state vs blue state, nominal political party membership, rich vs poor or anything else.
        • giantg2 5y ago
          This ^ It's mostly urban vs rural, even on the coasts and in states like CA. Visual: https://brilliantmaps.com/2016-county-election-map/ https://brilliantmaps.com/2016-county-election-map/
        • DaftDank 5y ago
          From my own personal, subjective experiences, I've found this to be the big one. I've lived in 8 states now, in all regions except the Northeast, from big cities to smaller towns (SF to towns of ~30,000) and the rural vs. urban divide seems to be the most pronounced to me.
• motohagiography 5y ago
  Get vaccinated because vaccines mostly work, and then leave other people alone. People so publicly concerned with Jim Crow laws from over 50 years ago seem pretty enthusiastic to reinstitute them for a new contrived outgroup of the non-compliant. There is no return to normal, because the entire objective of this pandemic response was to destroy normal. Ethics themselves are an artifact of the world these policymakers and their tools want to destroy. The mandates have almost nothing to do with a disease, and everything to do with instituting a social compliance regime facilitated by electronic passports. The arguments about rights not being absolute just means we can contrive their exceptions, and generations who have been trained that there is no truth are contriving exceptions with policies like this. The hardest part of the pandemic has been in the wind down phase, where I found out that many acquaintences were really just banal nihilists who are content to forfeit their societies for the perception of approval and alignment to a pernicious narrative. The last 18months were not a crisis, they were just frog boiling, and I predict much harder times ahead.
• literallyaduck 5y ago
  Tomorrow, we should mandate a minimum amount of exercise for executive branch employees, and for businesses with 100 employees or show BMI records.
  • CabSauce 5y ago
    Many health insurance plans already do this. And being fat isn't contagious. Although it is more expensive, hence the insurance differentials.
• tolmasky 5y ago
  The more time passes, the more I'm convinced that the right strategy would have been to make the vaccines initially cost $35,000 a dose, so that the outcry would have been that the Illuminati was making it impossible for the common man to get access to these life-saving drugs. Then, after months of argumentation, people could have had the victory of having the vaccines "liberated" and offered for free, such that getting the vaccine would be sticking it to the elites.
  • steverb 5y ago
    That is evil and brilliant and I love it. We should go into business together. :-)
  • koonsolo 5y ago
    Not sure why you are getting downvoted, because such things can work. Just look at what Antoine-Augustin Parmentier did with potatoes. Same mental trick.
  • rufus_foreman 5y ago
    That's the Captain Cook approach. To get his crew to eat sauerkraut, which was thought to prevent scurvy, he started out by only serving it at the officers table. The crew then asked if they could have it too.
    • commandlinefan 5y ago
      I immediately thought of Antoine Parmentier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine-Augustin_Parmentier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine-Augustin_Parmentier) who was trying to get the potato accepted in France and hired armed guards to protect his potato field to convince people they were valuable... but let people steal as many as they wanted.
  • UncleMeat 5y ago
    What's odd is we did see a little of this. Rich people were bribing their way into getting earlier doses.
  • 5y ago
• disneygibson 5y ago
  Inevitable outcome in a society that is terrified of everything. And to think that our ancestors sailed across the oceans into the unknown and faced diseases, war, famine, and worse. Now we are instituting a surveillance state in the name of a fairly bad flu virus with a 99% survival rate. We really need a new frontier. Hopefully space travel happens before human beings become completely domesticated.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • md_ 5y ago
    > Inevitable outcome in a society that is terrified of everything. I agree. Lots of folks afraid to take a shot that's been well-studied and given to millions and is, in all probability, quite safe. ;) I chalk it up to the youth, who are selfish and only able to think about themselves and their Friendster ranks and how many YouTubes they have on the FaceSpace.
    • kook_throwaway 5y ago
      >Lots of folks afraid to take a shot that's been well-studied and given to millions and is, in all probability, quite safe. ;) That's one way to describe it. Another less charitable way to describe it: a novel gene therapy being deployed by organizations with a long history of experimenting on the people they were meant to protect. Pfizer and J&J got the two biggest fines ever handed out by the US government, and moderna and biontech have never had a drug approved before. The US government's history of performing medical experiments on it's own (and foreign) populations speaks for itself. It is interesting how you characterize the lack of trust in these organizations as selfishness. Edit: Apparently I've been posting too fast despite my last post being over an ago, so I can't reply. This post has also been flagged, probably due to the gene therapy comment. Both Modern and the FDA consider it to be a gene therapy. "Currently, mRNA is considered a gene therapy product by the FDA."[1] [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/000168285220000017/mrna-20200630.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/000168285220...
• camillomiller 5y ago
  I was commenting to a critical comment that was, in my opinion, controversial but acceptable. I don't know who flagged it and why, and it's now disappeared. Please, please, please: I'm the most provax person out there, but limiting the contrary voices won't lead this conversation anywhere constructive. The comment was saying the the policies against Covid so far were aimed at the distruction of normal. Here's what I would have replied: I can see part of your point. But how do we deal with the fact that the resistance to what you call "the destruction of normal" is mostly made by people that refuse science, fall victim to conspiracy theory, and have in general a tendency to apply magical thinking to policy making? I'm fully vaccinated and highly critical of how the crisis was handled. But here in Germany the no-vaxxers and the anti-maskers are a crowd of strongly individualistic people that span from tree-hugging spiritual healers to neonazis. There is no logical thinking in their thesis, and every critique is based on the rebuttal of statistics, numbers, and data-based decision making.
  • tomrod 5y ago
    I believe it's time to roll up sleeves as a civic duty.
  • camillomiller 5y ago
    Edit: I'm getting downvoted brigade-style for what? This was supposed to be a forum of civil and intellectual discussion, ffs!
  • zhdc1 5y ago
    > There is no logical thinking in their thesis, and every critique is based on the rebuttal of statistics, numbers, and data-based decision making The worst part is that the data on almost every part of the pandemic is freely available online and updated daily. For instance, the odds of getting myocarditis from the Pfizer vaccine is something like 1:125000. This is significantly less than the risk of child having a seizure from the MMR vaccine at 1:30000.
    • unanswered 5y ago
      Your numbers are being used to lie: You only have to get the MMR vaccine once. But you'll have to get the covid vaccines over and over and over. Just four covid jabs would make these events equally likely. But it's most likely that more than four will be required.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• drewg123 5y ago
  For those of you arguing against getting vaccinated, please go volunteer at a local hospital. I'm currently in the hospital in the "red" part of my purple state. I had an acute appendicitis, and had to wait in a temporary, crowded, understaffed holding area in the ER for over 18 hours before getting admitted for treatment. My roommate in the hospital has an infected foot, and waited over 24 hours to be admitted. He may now loose his foot. The nurses on this non-COVID floor are on a skeleton staff to shift resources to care for COVID patients, the majority of which are unvaccinated. Around the country, some hospitals are pausing "elective" treatments, like cancer surgeries due to the flood of unvaccinated critically ill COVID patients. I almost wish that the anti-vaxxers would just stick to their science-rejecting principles and reject all health care, not just the vaccine. If they were to just die at home instead of clogging up the health care system unnecessarily, the vaccine would not be such a big deal.
  • SergeAx 5y ago
    But working in a hospital requires vaccination now, isn't it? Or even was required by many medical facilities before current events?
    • rejectedandsad 5y ago
      There are a surprising number of nurses that are unvaccinated (much more than Doctors, of which very few are unvaccinated).
      • ecommerceguy 5y ago
        Do you have a source for this?
        • pc86 5y ago
          Not the GP but for which claim? Anecdotally I don't know of any physician I've met in person (my SO and most of her family are all physicians) who isn't vaccinated. I've heard of a couple through stories so it might be 1-2% in my 1st and 2nd level of connections? Meanwhile every single physician I've spoken to about it knows at least a handful of nurses who aren't vaccinated and cite pseudoscientific nonsense as the justification. Nurses are great but the difference in bar to entry and education between a physician and a nurse is staggering. Edit: Here is a source from a couple months ago citing 96% physician vaccination rate and <50% nurse vaccination rate: https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2021/06/28/covid19-vaccination-rates-are-poor-among-healthcare-workershow-can-we-do-better/?sh=20c906b2589e https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2021/06/28/covid19-va...
• bitcurious 5y ago
  Prior to mandating anything, the US government should step up and ensure that every household has a free weekly delivery of rapid at-home tests. There is no reason for us to be individually flying blind whenever we get a sniffle or headache or other minor symptom. Additionally, there is evidence that a prior covid infection grants stronger immunity than at least the J&J vaccine, and 40%+ percent of the US population has had COVID. Unless an exemption is made for that 40%, this is unscientific.
  • motohagiography 5y ago
    Just had a conversation about the J&J vaccine with someone who works at that company in another area and their throwaway comment was, "well, it's not really for our market because the single dose was aimed at non-western countries with weaker governments where the governments couldn't really get after people to do multiple doses." It would have been chilling a year ago, now? Meh.
  • grey413 5y ago
    I agree, easy, free access to rapid tests would be fantastic. They're pretty prone to false results, though, and are no substitute for vaccination. As for giving exemptions for prior infection, there's no real reason to. Prior infection gives decent immunity, but a vaccination on top of it gives great immunity. It's a small net positive, but anything helps.
• zxcvbn4038 5y ago
  Arguably this is probably more of a maneuver to distract from the epic fail withdrawal from Afghanistan. They'll be fighting this out in the courts for years.
  • dannyr 5y ago
    Oh no. The govt is distracting us by trying to save people's lives. /s
• amluto 5y ago
  I hope that’s weekly rapid tests, not weekly 2-3-day turnaround PCR tests. (This presumes that the point is to slow the spread of COVID, not to annoy the unvaccinated.)
  • freemint 5y ago
    The only reason why the turn around time is 2-3 days is bad logistics as the PCR itself only takes a few hours
• hugsisbetter 5y ago
  Wow, this thread is one of the more impressive dumpster fires I've seen on HN. Everyone did their part.
• stefanwlb 5y ago
  This is hilarious, before this, HN was all for mandated vaccinations for healthcare workers because it didn't affect you. Now that it does, it's suddenly a moral/ethical issue. Hopefully you won't be one of the thousands who die from the vaccine or one of the million who have serious side effects, Good luck!
• mchusma 5y ago
  IMO there is only one argument for not dropping all restrictions and a complete return to normalcy, it's "what about the children?" Here is their BS response: "The FDA is undergoing a process now to evaluate a vaccine for children under the age of 12, and under the President’s plan, the Administration will do whatever it takes to support those efforts, while continuing to respect and defer to the scientific decision-making of the agency." I feel like our entire society has been held hostage by the FDA. I think a bold plan to completely get rid of the FDA would have been more appropriate. Just dismantle the whole organization. It's too broken to fix. Figuring out if the vaccine is safe for children under 12 takes a maximum of 8 weeks (1 week to administer, 6 weeks to watch, 1 week to organize results). It's been 4 weeks since the association of pediatric doctors reviewed the data and begged the FDA to lift the ban. It has been well over a year now since phase II safety results were in from adults. It's been many months. I don't understand why there isn't a wide, bipartisan push to remove the FDA from our lives. Multiple presidents, multiple heads, all a complete and total catastrophe.
  • ctrlp 5y ago
    I guess you don't subscribe to the possibility of mid-term and long-term effects of gene therapies. A pregnancy takes 9 months (which is longer than 8 weeks if my math is correct) and involves a child under 12 (again, check my math). But you're right! All this hand-wringing about 'the children' is just safetyism.
    • chinathrow 5y ago
      mRNA vaccines are not altering your genes and are not generally viewed as "gene therapy".
      • ctrlp 5y ago
        Nature.com doesn't agree with you. At least in 2019 it wasn't controversial to say so: "Because mRNA falls into the broad vaccine category of genetic immunogens, many of the guiding principles that have been defined for DNA vaccines (162) and gene therapy vectors (163,164) can likely be applied to mRNA with some adaptations to reflect the unique features of mRNA." [0] And still in 2021, Nature.com felt they were gene therapies: "However, these mRNA vaccines, which have been developed and approved within a few months, signify a breakthrough in the field of gene therapy, which has battled to achieve ordinary acknowledgement due to a large number of sceptical and conservative scientists and other claimed safety and translational concerns."[1] [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd.2017.243 https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd.2017.243 [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41435-021-00136-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41435-021-00136-6
• Hunter235711 5y ago
  I am not anti-vax, but I STRONGLY oppose this vaccine mandate. Looking at the CDC data here: (https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Sex-and-Age/9bhg-hcku https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Sex...) there have been 3,043 covid deaths in the 18-29 year range out of 103,738 total deaths in that same age range. I'm 29 and in good health. I know I'm much more likely to die from activities I enjoy like rock climbing, farm work, skydiving, driving my car, but I don't wan't my employer mandating I can't do those things. I have weighed the risks. I want to get covid eventually if I haven't already for better protection against future variants that could have worse survival rates for my age range (https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-once-confers-much-greater-immunity-vaccine-vaccination-remains-vital https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...) If I were older, I would choose to get the vaccine. Also, people will say that I'm going to spread it to others. Well the CDC states that "preliminary evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people who do become infected with the delta variant can spread the virus to others" and recommends they wear masks! (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guidance.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vac...) I suspect that if I get covid and quarantine, I'll be less likely to spread the delta variant than someone who is vaccinated after I recover (people who have had been vaccinated are 13 times more likely to get infected than unvaccinated people who were previously infected with covid according to the science.org article I linked above)
  • kbos87 5y ago
    There are so many conveniently chosen facts and holes in your argument that I don’t even know where to begin. The CDC dataset you cite above only reflects death, not the serious illness and disability ~30% of people end up with. Yes, vaccinated individuals can spread COVID, but this is dramatically less likely if you are vaccinated. You assume you’ll be less likely to spread delta because you’ll quarantine, but you ignore the fact that much of the transmission we see is from asymptomatic spread, before people even know they are sick. All of the mental gymnastics, for what? Getting vaccinated is barely even an inconvenience and we have real proof from hundreds of millions of doses that it’s safe and effective. The selfishness and unwillingness to cooperate for the greater good is mind blowing.
• stjohnswarts 5y ago
  I really feel it should be a much tighter number like 20 employees.
• kbos87 5y ago
  The number of comments here that fall back on some sort of a slippery slope argument, based in a worry about government overreach, is really disheartening. If COVID has proven anything in the US, it's how little control the federal government actually has. They've barely been able to enforce mask mandates. The slippery slope argument doesn't hold water here. I think we can look at the facts - 700,000 people dead, hospitals overwhelmed, countless people injured or disabled from COVID, and no end in sight - and decide that a strong mandate makes sense here, and that a mandate won't make sense in future cases. The "government is always bad, personal choice should always win" mindset runs deep in this country unfortunately, and from what I can see, it's often based in nothing other than veiled conservatism and a preference for division and anti-cooperativeness. Above all else, this sentiment holds very little water when it's coming from people who speak out against a vaccine mandate but choose to stay quiet on things like abortion rights.
  • mythrwy 5y ago
    That mandate doesn't make sense though. "Think of the Children!" type arguments aside.
  • jasonlaramburu 5y ago
    There seems to be consensus that the delta wave won't end until the US reaches at least 85% herd immunity (either through vaccination or infection). It's clear from polling that there is a large enough minority of American adults who won't take the vaccine voluntarily (under any circumstances) to achieve this level of immunity, so that leaves infection. Letting covid 'rip' through the remaining unvaccinated population will bring tens or hundreds of thousands of additional, unnecessary deaths, even with wide availability of current therapeutics. If you want the pandemic, masking, lockdowns etc to end for good, it seems a vaccine mandate is the only way forward (absent some as-yet-to-be-invented technology). What am I missing here? Is there some other way to 'convince' anti-vaxxers to take it? Is 100k+ Americans dead an 'acceptable loss' to maintain some perception of 'medical freedom?'
    • xur17 5y ago
      I'm curious - of the folks that have not gotten vaccinated, do we have an idea of how many haven't gotten it because they strongly do not want to get it, and how many haven't gotten it for other less strong reasons (inability to get time off work, mixed signals from social media, etc)?
• Madmallard 5y ago
  Why should people with natural immunity after having contracted covid be required to be vaccinated? That doesn't make sense. They have better immunity than the vaccinated. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
  • sauwan 5y ago
    How do you prove you have natural immunity? Because it's not always clear whether you have natural immunity, even with bloodwork. Is it antibodies, t-cells, or some other mechanism that's providing immunity? What if we test for one thing and are wrong? The immune system is a complex thing.
    • Madmallard 5y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU7uBmLUiiY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU7uBmLUiiY I'm assuming it's not that difficult. edit: besides you can just show a past test that said you were positive for covid
    • landemva 5y ago
      Assuming we can trust doctors, you get a letter from your doctor. I mean a medical doctor, not a fake doctor working in a medical establishment like Fauci's wife has been pretending. Note how she has the first spot under the 'meet our doctors' heading which is misleading because she is not a medical doctor like others in the list. https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/meet-our-doctors/cgrady.html https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/meet-our-doctors/cgrady.html
• iammisc 5y ago
  I for one am looking forward to vaxxers paying for unemployment benefits via taxes and/or the resulting social collapse/political upheaval
• tacitusarc 5y ago
  Based on that study from Israel, it seems like the highest level of protection is being vaccinated + natural immunity, followed by natural immunity by itself, then vaccination itself. But natural immunity is not considered an alternative in this mandate, which makes it feel highly political and not science based. I can completely understand the risk analysis of someone who has already had Covid not wanting to get the vaccine based on the available data.
• jdhzzz 5y ago
  To those that see this as government overreach, what would their response have been in the case of Mary Mallon? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon