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New York's largest healthcare provider fires 1,400 unvaccinated workers
- codevark 5y agoHeard a clip of a 60-something nurse saying that she's getting a "monoclonial [sic] antibody" treatment, but she didn't get the vaccine because "all those side effects that's been proven". I do not want this nurse at my bedside.
- joelbondurant 5y agoCommunist clown show.
- CoastalCoder 5y agoMy impression is that the vaccine is a net win for almost everyone who takes it, and for the persons they're near*. We're losing 1400 healthcare workers in the middle of a pandemic, and those workers are (due to their own decisions [EDIT: s/own decisions/chosen stances/], I assume) losing their jobs. It just seems like such a tragic waste. EDIT: Just to clarify, I haven't been able to find good, consistent information about the extent to which being vaccinated makes one less prone to infect others with the delta variant. But transmission aside, each unvaccinated person probabilistically adds to their community's healthcare burden.
- tomrod 5y agoPer your edit: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-variant.html#:~:text=%E2%80%A2%20Fully%20vaccinated%20people%20with,the%20virus%20to%20others https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-var.... > Fully vaccinated people with Delta variant breakthrough infections can spread the virus to others. However, vaccinated people appear to spread the virus for a shorter time The last sentence clarifies.
- rconti 5y agoThe last information I saw was that asymptomatic vaccinated individuals with the Delta variant may be just as contagious as the unvaccinated / symptomatic, however you are of course much less likely to be infected in the first place.
- kderbyma 5y agoI am almost certain that the....'probabilitically' added benefit of a trained healthcare worker is likely greater than their taxation.....
- tomrod 5y agoI expect there will be a lot of comments on this post representing a diverse set of views. From an economics perspective, people choosing to avoid vaccinations adopt a stance that exacerbates a public health risk because, by their choice, they avoid internalizing the costs of their decisions. Mandates like the one rolled out by the Biden administration are legal, have strong standing, and are effective policy tools. And no one is being held down and coerced to receive a shot.
- beerandt 5y agoIt's the businesses choice to make healthcare a job benefit. I know we've gotten to where the practice it's common, but that doesn't make it any less of a business decision. So what happens when companies start screening new hires for expensive health issues?
- bastawhiz 5y agoIf the health issues were communicable to the other employees in the office, I would personally probably support those screenings. Besides being expensive for the company that pays me, it's entirely reasonable to expect my coworkers have done the absolute bare minimum to also protect me from an awful disease.
- beerandt 5y agoFauci was also for banning hiv/ aids patients from public places in the 80s. Because a novel disease was thought to be more communicable, more deadly, and more of a pandemic than it really was.
- bastawhiz 5y ago> more deadly, and more of a pandemic than it really was Essentially 100% of people who contracted HIV in the 80s died from it. So I'm really not sure how you can say that it was thought to be "more deadly" or "more of a pandemic than it really was." HIV was a death sentence, and without treatment, it continues to be a death sentence. HIV and COVID-19 are not comparable, and the politics around them cannot be boiled down to a single person's opinion at any one point in time.
- munk-a 5y agoIt'll be surprising to see what actually happens when these mandates expire - I'm quite happy the government is taking a more serious approach to encouraging vaccination but I'll be interested to see if these folks (which I assume have loads of healthcare administration or service experience) will cause a noticeable wage dip when suddenly they're viable candidates again. It's also probably going to be hard getting another job right now if you end up disclosing that you were let go for being unwilling to get vaccinated. Employers probably want to avoid hiring unvaccinated people and also will want to avoid any HR drama you're going to force on them.
- zzzeek 5y agoI would assume most of the larger companies would just keep them in place, as it's good for business. the mandate gave companies cover to do what they really wanted to do anyway.
- iammisc 5y ago40% of the population is unvaxxed. More will likely be unvaxxed when the definition of unvaxxed expands to having a booster. Given the racial element, you are deluded to think there will be a time when these people 'come back' into the workforce. There will either be substantial federal structural change or substantial economic change, if not flat out riots. There is no situation under which this ends well. This will go down in American history as a very dark dark chapter. > It's also probably going to be hard getting another job right now if you end up disclosing that you were let go for being unwilling to get vaccinated. Employers probably want to avoid hiring unvaccinated people and also will want to avoid any HR drama you're going to force on them. No it's not. Republicans are more likely to be unvaxxed and more likely to own small businesses. They'll be likely picking up solid corporate candidates, amassing wealth and power, and will hopefully use it to end these stupid mandates.
- munk-a 5y ago> No it's not. Republicans are more likely to be unvaxxed and more likely to own small businesses. They'll be likely picking up solid corporate candidates, amassing wealth and power, and will hopefully use it to end these stupid mandates. This might be a bit snipey but... if you can't do the cost benefit analysis on getting vaccinated I think you're going to have problems delivering value to your company.
- orf 5y agoThat's nearly 2% of their workforce, at a place that I would assume would self-select for people who take vaccines seriously. I wonder what the unvaccinated % is for other industries.
- jopsen 5y agoDoes employees include administrative staff, janitorial staff, etc? Healthcare providers probably employ at lot of people who aren't nurses or doctors.
- tptacek 5y agoIt does.
- munk-a 5y agoYup it definitely does - but those people will more regularly rub shoulders with people engaged in actual patient care. Even the administrative positions should probably be treated seriously - and trying to break out exceptions (i.e. allowing unvaccinated people who are fully remote) can be difficult from an HR perspective and can expose you to unnecessary liability from both the patient side and from the HR side (by allowing more room for wrongful firing suits).
- beerandt 5y agoActual healthcare providers are likely contracted companies and/or workers, and not direct employee hires. Moreso for physicians and mid-levels, but sometimes nurses and techs, as well. (Although idk about the subject of this story, specifically.) Primarily educational institutions and 100% public hospitals are keeping physicians directly employed, and even some of them are now going the contract route.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago>Healthcare providers probably employ at lot of people who aren't nurses or doctors. Hard to say for any particular provider. Some facilities/companies subcontract everything. Some don't.
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- h2odragon 5y agoIf our healthcare system cannot or does not wish to serve us, it is time to take responsibility for our own health. Good start: https://store.hesperian.org/prod/Where_There_Is_No_Doctor.html https://store.hesperian.org/prod/Where_There_Is_No_Doctor.ht...
- tomrod 5y agoI don't see the connection. COVID exists and makes people sick --> The best minds in medicine harness bleeding edge tech to create vaccine in record time --> vaccine gets tested, then distributed using crises management protocols established long before the pandemic --> vaccine uptake low due to right-wing propaganda Where did healthcare fail folks here?
- lrnyc21 5y agoPage 147 - “ Vaccinations (lmmunizations)—Simple, Sure Protection”
- jopsen 5y ago1,400 out of 76,000 employees.
- po1nt 5y ago>2% death rate
- evanextreme 5y agofrom an operational security standpoint i find it hard to argue that workers in the healthcare industry should be able to refuse something which significantly reduces their risk of being a vector for a harmful disease and transmitting it to those who have a higher likelihood of having pre existing conditions
- hapless 5y agoI don't think it will surprise anyone to hear that Northwell is based on Long Island. Other hospital systems were not obliged to fire so many staff.
- thepasswordis 5y agoIs this really the behavior of a hospital system on the brink of collapse due to an ongoing pandemic? Really? I'm meant to honestly believe that the hospital system is on the brink of collapse, and that you are now firing 1400 workers who have been the ones keeping it going for the last 20 months? I think this might be my "yeah, the pandemic is officially over" moment. You don't fire the freaking healthcare workers in a time when you supposedly need them desperately.
- Covzire 5y agoEspecially when a lot of them have caught COVID and have anti-bodies against it. The number of lies (and censorship) being used to sell this mandate is pretty shocking. This won't end well for Democrats in 2022.
- travoc 5y agoI’m afraid to ask why having antibodies from a previous Covid infection isn’t as good or better than taking the vaccine.
- GaryTang 5y agoThe problem is if you can get natural immunity independently, how can you be dependent on the government? Reduced dependency for vaccines and healthcare will reduce the need for government intervention and reduce the justification for increased taxes and regulations.
- xjlin0 5y agoThere are many cases people get covid more than once, even some congressman I think.
- zeptonix 5y agoSending an upvote before all the downvotes come piling in...
- mullen 5y ago
- twa999 5y agoa normalization of a papers please policy in everyday life will have lasting consequences for which demands companies make on their workers will be perceived as normal and how politics and unions will handle this. My current feeling is that sooner or later this will collapse and burn in whatever form. this rapid downward spiral this country has been in for the last few years is not sustainable for much longer..
- po1nt 5y agoGrab a marshmallow brother, it's all up in flames.
- steakknife 5y agoThe only reason you don't consider all the other safety mandates you comply with on a daily basis to mUh FaScIsM is because the time for politicizing them to your ends has passed. I guess surgeons washing hands, smokers barred from restaurants, drunks barred from driving, schools and military requiring all kinds of vaccines, seatbelts, smoke detectors, two points of egress, ADA ramps, drivers licenses, commercial kitchen food handling procedures, etc. are all fine because the administrations that enacted them are long gone.
- rwcarlsen 5y agoWhere is the discussion about the fact that a very large fraction of these employees likely already had far superior natural immunity - which is provable. So they were fired for refusing to undergo what amounts to an unnecessary medical procedure. And these vaccines are non-sterilizing - so it's not like other vaccinations that are routinely required in other public health contexts.
- lrnyc21 5y agoTo be in certain healthcare settings you’re often required to be vaccinated against some diseases e.g. if you’re going to be part of surgeries you need to get a TB vaccine. That’s a public health measure and this is no different.
- Cerealkiller050 5y agoThis is the one thing I just don't get. I check the news everyday to see if the U.S. government has clarified the natural immunity part. The amount of research on it seems good, and other countries already acknowledge it and use it. Why??
- tastyfreeze 5y agoThe only reasoning that makes sense at this point is that the US Government doesn't care if you have natural immunity. They want you to do as they say or suffer.
- bastawhiz 5y ago"Provably" is doing a lot of work here. Could they screen each of the employees for immunity? Yes. And the cost of that would be high, and you wouldn't get results back for two weeks or more. And, natural immunity fades faster than vaccine immunity[0], so it's _not_ unnecessary. Hybrid immunity is "provably" better than natural immunity alone. 0: [edit: not from the delta variant]
- rwcarlsen 5y agoThis is actually false and contradicts findings from several very reputable and large studies. See e.g. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
- zzzeek 5y agothis is an intentionally inflammatory headline and all of the news providers have been doing them. the correct headline should be: "New York's largest healthcare provider reaches 98% vaccination for entire staff, with help from mandates, leading to vastly improved patient and staff safety"
- bobthechef 5y agoWhat percentage of them are black or Hispanic? Many healthcare providers in NYC, including companies like Northwell, are staffed with black and Hispanic workers who have much higher rates of refusal to be vaccinated. If these workers are disproportionately black or Hispanic workers, then this would appear to be a textbook example of systemic racism. This is certainly the view of BLM who has expressed this view w.r.t. the mandate.
- 0des 5y ago> If these workers are disproportionately black or Hispanic workers, then this would appear to be a textbook example of systemic racism Does every incidence of disproportional representation indicate systemic racism, or is there some context lacking here?
- steakknife 5y agoDon't feed the trolls. These are the same folks screeching about supposed critical race theory in elementary schools.
- iammisc 5y agoThis is systemic racism, and like most actual examples of systemic racism (as opposed to the completely trivial number of black men that are killed by police each year), this one is widely supported by most liberal whites, who, yet again, have completely ignored minorities after supposedly elevating our voices for the past year. What a joke. We should start teaching Malcolm X in school.
- steakknife 5y agoHow do you feel about teaching critical race theory in public schools?
- iammisc 5y agoI think it's a bad idea any way you slice or dice it. Either it's an academic legal theory as some claim (in which case it belongs in law schools, not elementary, middle or early high school) or it's divisive as others claim. Personally, I fall on the side of divisive after being explained in great detail by my (white) history professor that I am a white man because, even though I'm brown and have faced ample discrimination (of the very explicit kind, not some voodoo-doodoo systemic crap), since I'm successful and well off and well spoken, I'm not really an immigrant, not really a minority and actually white on the inside in a process he described as 'whitening'. You no sorry, my melanin and my experience beg to differ. I refuse to use 'whiteness' as a synonym of success. That is the most racist thing I've ever heard. How successful you are is not and should not be measured by how 'white' you are. Sorry not falling for this shit.
- ipaddr 5y agoThese fired nurses have fallen quickly from heros to villians. What a terrible outcome for many who risked their lives and who helped so many survive. Feels like we are turning on them, blaming them for continued covid for not getting vaccined. The current stats don't lineup with the theory that covid is being spread through unvaccined healthcare workers who should be fully masked and protected anyways. But the vaccine debate has turned political and the people who were the loudest praising nurses are the first to throw them to the wolves. Nurses (employed still or fired) today feel forgotten. Celebrating them this year feels like a painful reminder of lockdowns. It seems like society has turned cold hearted. Perhaps the endless social causes brought up as an identity page has caused people to truly not care. How can you fire the very people who risked it all and saved you last year?
- foogazi 5y ago> How can you fire the very people who risked it all and saved you last year? Risked it all, except getting a covid vaccine to help reduce their patients exposure to covid
- ipaddr 5y agoThey risked it all for you and your family and all you did was get a vaccine and you think you are morally right to support their firing because them getting a covid vaccine would help reduce exposure to covid? They wear protect masks better than the ones you can buy. You realize your risk is higher in person work, socializing and having kids in school. I hope you have taken steps to stop those activities before you toss the first stone.
- pessimizer 5y agoThey should do cops next. 95% of the Chauvin types are also anti-vaxxers. Union leadership would be decimated if only pro-vax cops were left.
- tomohawk 5y agoAnd as thanks to your hard work, putting your lives at risk over the past year, you're fired. What? You say you're immune because you already had it? Doesn't matter.
- isabelc 5y agoJust last month, a study finally began to investigate the effects of COVID vaccines on women's menstrual system [1]. Because women's official complaints had been ignored by the medical communities all year. Now they've been forced to finally examine it. To say that any vaccine side effects are "trivial" (as some have commented here) ignores women's concerns about the real possibility that something may be going wrong down there due to the vaccine. We'll know the results 1 year from now, when the study concludes. I wonder how many of the 1400 fired unvaccinated workers were women with good-faith concerns over their menstrual systems. 1. https://www.nichd.nih.gov/newsroom/news/083021-COVID-19-vaccination-menstruation https://www.nichd.nih.gov/newsroom/news/083021-COVID-19-vacc...