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Google says employees flouting vaccination rules will eventually be fired

67 points by nojito 5y ago

qwertyuiop_ 5y ago
“I am paying you for half your days worth of time so you better shape up” They have already done hairsplitting analysis on the few stragglers. They figured we will go full stasi if they quit f* ‘em. We are still a market monopoly protectorate of the government. It will barely make a dent. I could care less about Google. Maybe some employees will leave they will not. 2021 is a sad year.
dablweb 5y ago
We were promised this wouldn't happen by our governments last year right? It feels like the public are building their own prisons. Why are private companies stuck policing these absurd policies?
- kiba 5y ago
  Unless you have medical exemption, it's just a jab in the arm?
  - nsxwolf 5y ago
    It's capitulation to coercion, which has its own side effects.
    - C19is20 5y ago
      Like rickets?
    - CabSauce 5y ago
      That's why I drink and drive as much as I want. Can't let the man tell me what to do! /s
      - dontblink 5y ago
        Don't forget about seat belts!
      - kiba 5y ago
        The reason why drunk driving is so dangerous is because of the choices of past governments to make implicit subsidies for cars and urban planners making car dependent suburbia. Our choices are already constrained before we even realize it and yet people chose to die on the vaccination hill.
      - ekianjo 5y ago
        You employer is checking what you drink before you drive? If not, that's a pretty bad analogy.
        Volundr 5y ago
        When I was driving a company vehicle for my job? Hell yes they were.
        ekianjo 5y ago
        So they were checking every morning when you were taking your company car that you had no alcohol in your blood? How did that work? Your boss was waiting at the door?
    - tjpnz 5y ago
      There are bigger, better and more productive hills to die on if you don't enjoy being told what to do.
    - epistasis 5y ago
      You're talking about employment where the employer makes much much of off your labor than you will ever receive, and you are powerless to demand your fair share. Yet instead, a safe workplace is the coercive part? If you don't want to be coerced, you had better not be an employee with wages. Go out there and start your own business.
      - refurb 5y ago
        It’s hilarious to see HN flip from “I dream of a future where no one has to work and fall under the yoke of greedy employers” to “just get injected with this drug and be thankful you have a job; don’t get it and you deserve to starve”.
        epistasis 5y ago
        The vaccines are the magic future where a small bit of technology prevents disease and death. > don’t get it and you deserve to starve It's not by chance that you have to make up ridiculous words and put them in my mouth to attempt to criticize the comment, either in this part where I quoted you, or in the weird assertion about no one having to work.
        acdha 5y ago
        > The vaccines are the magic future where a small bit of technology prevents disease and death. That's the part I've found so disappointing about this: a couple of decades of development and we have a massive breakthrough in our ability to rapidly create and update vaccines which precisely target near-arbitrary targets. Seeing what would have been a sci-fi technology when I was a kid being the target of so many conspiracy theories must be incredibly disappointing to all of the actual medical experts who worked so hard on this.
        native_samples 5y ago
        Those medical experts should look at themselves for why people react this way. An absolute refusal to accept any legal liability for harms done by the product, whilst simultaneously insisting it's perfectly safe? Check. Claims that anyone worried about long term effects is a crazy malicious person when Moderna was failing to progress beyond animal trials due to multi-dose toxicity as recently as 2017? Check. [2] Fanatical insistence on forced vaccination, even when the logical basis for mandates has been invalidated by equal infectiousness? Check. [1] Constantly shifting claims about effectiveness, invalidated within months yet all presented with absolute confidence? Check. Insistence that nobody look at the database of injuries and papers which do so should be retracted, despite it existing specifically to be analyzed? Check. A million different non-vaccine explanations for the sudden spike in public heart attacks, none of which are remotely plausible? Check. We could go on for many pages of this. The medical/public health establishment has consistently wrecked their own credibility and acted in untrustworthy, suspicion-raising ways. They don't then get to make a sad face and say "but sci fi". Let us know when Pfizer/Moderna can be taken to court for injuries and deaths caused by their sci-fi tech, and interest will grow. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00258-1/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7... [2] https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/ https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/
    - wedowhatwedo 5y ago
      At my restaurant we save money by never cleaning the kitchen. No one should coerce me into doing something where it is not necessary. Cleaning wastes my time and money and it's my freedom to not clean! No one should take that freedom away in a free country!
      - Chris2048 5y ago
        Sure, but do you get to pretend your kitchen is clean at the same time?
    - handrous 5y ago
      It hadn't occurred to me that this might lead a whole bunch of people, who didn't previously, to regard the employment relationship as fundamentally coercive. Hm. I'm now torn on this.
  - cfcf14 5y ago
    For many people, it's more than just a jab, it's 1-3 days of being quite unwell. I have no underlying health conditions, but I've been bedridden by my 2nd shot and booster shots, with a high fever, fatigue, dizziness, and aches for at least 48 hours. My partner who is immuno-compromised is worse off, generally being very ill for 1-2 weeks after each jab. Her case is somewhat different though, as her situation is just all round unfortunate. I'm not saying I won't continue to comply with all health advisories for vaccination or other public safety measures, and I'm not saying vaccines aren't worth it for society. But it's not "just" a jab.
    - wedowhatwedo 5y ago
      This is why the company I work for will give you up to three paid days off after getting a vaccine shot. Feeling bad after the shot should not be a reason to not get it.
      - input_sh 5y ago
        Hell, mine even reimbursed traveling to another country before they were available to the general public in my own country.
    - moonchrome 5y ago
      The pro vaccination camp has been more annoying than the antivaxers - at least the nutjobs are easy to filter out, it takes soo long to wade through the bullshit when it's veiled as facts.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Why can't companies mandate a lobotomy then? After all it is just jab in the brain. You hardly notice it if you receive it...
    - wedowhatwedo 5y ago
      Yes they can do that. They can then complain about the huge labor shortage.
      - Chris2048 5y ago
        Lobotomising people would create a surge of labour for many tech corps..
  - artificialLimbs 5y ago
    >> ...it's just a jab in the arm Until it isn't. Then what are you going to do? Probably nothing except suffer debilitation for life or death (~20,000 that have been reported to VAERS, so probably substantially more). https://brandnewtube.com/watch/full-hearings-ron-johnson-039-s-expert-panel-on-covid-vaccine-injuries_RJogrA87bWROhRG.html?lang=type https://brandnewtube.com/watch/full-hearings-ron-johnson-039... Edit: spllng
    - ben_w 5y ago
      I saw less than half that number — 8099 — on the VAERS site. And this is for a disease which has killed 821,335 Americans after infecting 51 million. So if it’s absolutely perfectly safe and there is a roughly 5% chance of getting infected with Covid while waiting for the vaccine to take effect, it would look like this.
      - artificialLimbs 5y ago
        >> 8099 Not sure where you get that number. Also, the numbers for VAERS entry are very probably not even in the ballpark of all injuries because doctors don't often advertise VAERS or even enter patient data there. Why would they, it's basically extra work they don't get paid for. https://vaersanalysis.info/2021/12/11/vaers-summary-for-covid-19-vaccines-through-12-03-2021/ https://vaersanalysis.info/2021/12/11/vaers-summary-for-covi... >> ...killed 821,33 Americans... I had a family friend that shot himself in a hunting accident. Drove himself to the hospital bleeding, didn't make it 24 hours. Tested positive for Covid. Labeled covid death. I get that it can be a serious disease for some, but it's rare unless you're already in poor health. The response to Covid and vaccine insanity has been ultra overblown.
        ben_w 5y ago
        > Not sure where you get that number. https://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html https://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html Like I said, the VAERS site. > The response to Covid and vaccine insanity has been ultra overblown. Last year the UK ran short of mortuaries and body bags. On several occasions, hospitals have been unable to meet demand in various different ways, from beds (meaning staff for them rather than literally beds), to oxygen. > I had a family friend that shot himself in a hunting accident. Drove himself to the hospital bleeding, didn't make it 24 hours. Tested positive for Covid. Labeled covid death. My condolences. But it works both ways: If he’d had a recent vaccine instead of a covid infection, that would be listed on VAERS as correlated to the vaccine, from what I gather.
- xnyan 5y ago
  >We were promised this wouldn't happen by our governments last year right? We were promised that a company can't require a vaccine as a condition of employment? Seeing as some companies have required vaccines for as long as there have been vaccines, I think I must be misunderstanding you. >Why are private companies stuck policing these absurd policies? Companies are requiring the vaccine because they make employees less likely to miss work due to illness.
  - nsxwolf 5y ago
    With the exception of healthcare I don't think a lot of companies have mandated vaccines. My wife works in healthcare and there was a tuberculosis shot mandate for specific jobs at her hospital. There was a flu shot mandate of sorts, but it was tied to a small bonus. You can't point to a small sector that has mandates and say it wouldn't be a significant change if suddenly 100% of all workers everywhere were subjected to it.
    - comrh 5y ago
      Any business doing work with the US government will have to mandate vaccines.
      - bravetraveler 5y ago
        My employer already went this route, something about a fed mandate for their contractors... and we have a lot of those. They extended it to everyone lol
    - xnyan 5y ago
      Millions of people in various sectors outside healthcare (by the way, since when is healthcare a "small sector"?) have had vaccines required as a condition of employment. , mostly people with plenty of risk like teachers, the military and some people working in the travel industry, but this is not always the case. I was required to get the flu shot (or an exemption) in my last job at an electrical engineering firm. On a broader note, I think (coming from the US) workers should have stronger protections against being fired, but everyone I've personally talked to who does not believe your employer should be able to fire you for not getting a vaccine is also opposed to "state controlled employment" or almost anything else that exerts control over the employer-employee relationship. You can be fired for almost any reason in the US, being fired for not getting a vaccine does not seem any worse to me than being fired for any number of awful yet totally legal reasons.
Oddskar 5y ago
- EGreg 5y ago
  Every 3 months? I'm going to say it. As a left-libertarian, I see government and industry working hand in hand. The public is always being distracted from what the industry is doing, by being told it's their responsibility to clean up the mess. Let me take the lid off it so you can't unsee it: 1) The industry adds highly processed sugars and starches into foods, genetically engineers high fructose corn syrup into everything and overuses antibiotics for animals. As a result, we have unprecedented levels of diabetes and obesity in this country, even for kids. (And by the way this has correlated heavily with morbidity and mortality from this coronavirus.) https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/nhp/documents/sugar.pdf https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/nhp/documents/sugar.pdf What is the public told? Exercise consumer choice. Diet and exercise, take care of it yourself. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The brainwashing gets so bad that they rose up in arms against Bloomberg's ban on giant sugary drink containers, in the name of "freedom". 2) The industry turns all farms into factory farms, as a result of capitalist competition so the hamburger can be $1 cheaper. Billions of animals are raised in appalling conditions. Chickens for example are caged with dung dropping from the animals above them, and can barely even spread a single wing. Their beaks are cut off so they don't peck each other. Pigs, turkeys and others are treated horribly as well. Antibiotics are overused in order to make them bigger, which might begin to lead to superbugs that make this pandemic seem like a walk in the park (I hope I am wrong) https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/blogs/antibiotic-resistant-superbugs-how-factory-farming-driving-another-global-health-crisis https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/blogs/antibiotic-resist... What is the public told? Exercise consumer choice. Go vegetarian. You can change the world, etc. But this isn't your grandmother's farming industry. People are used to having cheap meat but they don't think about what happens behind the scenes. They even used to happily eat "pink slime" in hot dogs, McDonalds etc. 3) Plastic containers. While beer companies still use glass, companies like Coca Cola and Snapple have switched from glass to plastic, to save money on transportation, and so forth. But the materials are non-biodegradeable, so it produces externalities all over the world. Same with clothing companies and polyesther and other plastics. Instead of researching and switching to non-biodegreadeable plastic, they push their negative externalities onto the environment and people: https://theconversation.com/plastic-plastic-everywhere-airborne-microplastics-are-settling-into-the-most-remote-corners-of-the-globe-168787 https://theconversation.com/plastic-plastic-everywhere-airbo... What is the public told? Exercise consumer choice. Opt out of plastic bags and straws. Some cities are now MANDATING this, yet the companies upstream continue to produce metric tons of this crap every day. Oh yeah, also the public is told to RECYCLE, and that was mandated too, but it was revealed to be largely a scam in the USA: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/702501726/where-will-your-plastic-trash-go-now-that-china-doesnt-want-it https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/7025017... 4) Fossil fuels. We all heard of this one. But do you realize that the vehicle are locked into a monopoly of fossil fuels, and that the electric car could have been already invented if the government wasn't distorting the market subsidizing fossil fuels for all these decades against OPEC and others? They pollute the environment with carbon dioxide and other chemicals, they contribute to the greenhouse effect that makes the planet warmer, acidification of oceans. What is the public told? Commute to the office. Take public transportation. Don't drive so much, etc. Well, in this case I actually agree, we need to address the demand side, too much waste with all those parked cars etc. And the pandemic made people realize they can work from home, and the industry is FURIOUS. But it was the largest drop in emissions ever. 5) Vaccines. The government and industry failed us with mask production early on, they had months to prepare and didn't. And the Trump government took out all the stops and "Operation Warp Speed" greenlighted mRNA vaccines. And they are FAST indeed. They just made one for HIV, even. But somehow ... lo and behold, this "warp speed mRNA industry" can't seem to update their vaccines for delta, mu, lambda. I mean, they clearly have the capability, and they can simply target the latest mutation. But they are engaging the government to mandate you inject yourself with LAST YEAR'S PRODUCTS, because they are selling like hotcakes all over the world. What is the public told? Get a jab of last year's vaccine, or you lose access to your job, your entertainment, your restaurants, whatever. The companies are MANDATED in the USA to do what Google is reported to be doing here. The initial curve was too steep and lots of morbidity because no one had immunity to the novel virus. Now that so many people have been exposed, natural immunity is shown to be more robust than vaccines (by the way what do you think the immunity after breakthrough infections is due to, the vaccine? that's what they will claim in their data LOL). But the government is going by inertia on how bad the omicron coronavirus is, and treat it with much more mandates than t the flu. But what gets me is that no is talking about the major effect of always putting responsibility and mandates on the individual it lets the industry off the hook! In this case the mRNA pharma industry from producing up-to-date vaccines like they do for the flu. The government and media is carrying water for them and helping them sell last year's product, so they have no incentive to cannibalize their own business with R&D. Imagine being forced to download unpatched Windows 95 for years in order to be allowed to get on the Internet. That's how this is. So you see the government constantly telling the public to stop using plastic straws (while Coca Cola produces metric tons a day), to stop watering their lawns (while industries waste water), to go vegan (while factory farms raise billions of animals in abysmal conditions), to stay healthy (while putting sugar and corn syrup in everything), to recycle (while using more and more plastic). George Carlin and Greta Thurnberg were right, there are people running the show, and they want you to be guilt tripping each other into cleaning up their mess so you never look upstream at where the problems come from. At least with fossil fuels, we have finally begun to do so. And this is true in other states and countries, too, governments tell people to stop watering their lawns (while industries waste water), we have aquifers running dry and Day Zero for water around the world drawing closer while industries siphon their water to ship globally. Bolsonaro the "business friendly" president wants to clear away tons of rainforest and displace native tribes so he can grow Soy and more Cows for the world. Exports and capitalism at the expense of the environment, again. There are people who say there is nothing wrong with capitalism, but. But no, these are quintessentially issues specifically arising from market competition and firms turning to government as an enabler, even against the people and the environment. Whether it's the government of Flynt Michigan letting their private buddies pollute the water supply, or privatization of water in Bolivia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochabamba_Water_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochabamba_Water_War), or factory farms emerging as a result of cutthroat competition in agribusiness, private ownership and competition and capitalism are at the root of many of these issues. As a left-libertarian, I recognize that government works with the capitalists (including bailouts to banks, stock market, whatever). And we the people need to call for reform of the system. But when they do, they are told "Bernie, Buffett, why don't YOU pay your taxes, and leave the system alone, capitalism is the best thing that's ever happened you socialist freak." These people are calling for common sense things that are done in many other countries, and they're social democrats, not socialists, btw. I would start with UBI FUELED BY PIGOVIAN TAXES on all the above things. This will avoid the yellow vest protest phenomenon and align incentives correctly. Read the above and tell me if you don't see a pattern... Vaccines are just one of many examples of the big problem.
nsxwolf 5y ago
This is just life, forever. Totally unprecedented. You will get a vaccination every 6 months for the rest of your life or be totally excluded from all civil rights. There will be no end. If the virus mutates to become harmless, the mandates will be given all the credit, and we will double down on this system. It's not temporary.
- CabSauce 5y ago
  What about the rights of a private (in the sense of government) company to make their own decisions?
  - nsxwolf 5y ago
    I don't believe in the rights of private companies to do just anything they want to workers. Most people don't - look at the popularity of indoor smoking bans. Most also agree a private business shouldn't be allowed to deny employment or service based on race. There are many, many such examples.
    - CabSauce 5y ago
      Are you really claiming an indoor smoking ban is a counter example to a vaccine mandiate? That's some interesting logic.
      - Chris2048 5y ago
        It was a counter to the argument of corporate autonomy. The "counter example" you talk about is about the power of government.
  - barney54 5y ago
    Google is free to set their rules and we are free to complain about them.
    - postsantum 5y ago
criddell 5y ago
At some point I wonder if health insurers will start denying claims related to the treatment of COVID infections if the person is eligible for the vaccine but has refused to get one? On TV today I saw that Kroger employees don't get sick day pay if they are off because of COVID unless they have been vaccinated (and I would assume there's a medical exemption).
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Accusations of Racism. Only 28% of young black people in New York are vaccinated as of October, for example. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/nyregion/covid-vaccine-black-young-new-yorkers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/nyregion/covid-vaccine-bl... Edit: Added "young" adjective that was missing, point remains.
  - chrisoverzero 5y ago
    > Only 28% of black people in New York are vaccinated […] This is not what the article you’ve cited says.
    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      Whoops - It said young (whatever that means) as an adjective. I'll edit that in.
      - chrisoverzero 5y ago
        It means 18 to 44, according to the article.
        klipklop 5y ago
        AKA working age people that will have to choose eventually between getting the vaccine and losing their job. A pretty rough choice for those hesitant. (I am vaccinated please don't post hot takes about how I am a anti-vaxer.)
cletus 5y ago
What I find sad about this is how many who seem to be against it were just recently so in favour of private business autonomy [1]. No one's rights are being violated here. If you don't want to get vaccinated, you can. But those choices come with consequences, like just about every other choice we make. It's worth noting that fully remote people won't fall under this policy (from my reading of it anyway) so this isn't a blanket policy. It's also worth noting that a whole bunch of vaccines are required to attend public school already [2]. [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/masterpiece-colorado-gay-marriage-cake-supreme-court/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/masterpiece-colorado... [2]: https://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/immunization/schools/school_vaccines/ https://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/immunization/schools/sc...
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  My Dad has a big divot out of his arm from the vaccine gun when he joined the army. Everyone got a vaccine and that is how it was because the decision was science-based and not up for discussion. Same for when I went to school. Kid not vaccinated? You aren’t going to school. Somehow that got eroded by madness.
  - realreality 5y ago
    > science-based and not up for discussion You realize this is a contradiction, right?
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      Science can be conclusive.
      - ekianjo 5y ago
        Sure, everyone was positive about a millenium ago that everything rotated around the Earth. It was not even up for debate, even among scientists. We all know how that turned out.
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
Does anybody know what exactly their rules are, as the article doesn't actually say? Do they mandate people be vaccinated, or just that they upload their status. Or can they work from home and only have to be vaccinated to be allowed into the office?
- moneywoes 5y ago
  Sounds like they are able to apply for religious exemptions so I’m not sure what the issue is here
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    What religion would come handy? Does the Flying Spaghetti Monster say you should not be vaccinated? I would expect them to require some proof of religious affiliation.
    - devmunchies 5y ago
      Nah, just appeal to the simulation theory. ie. "I believe the Computer scientist running this simulation added the vaccine side quest as a test of gullibility and trust of big govt and big pharma."
oneepic 5y ago
(I needed to look it up:) flout (verb) - to openly disregard (a rule, law or convention). "these same companies still flout basic ethical practices" This definition and example of using it in a sentence were ironically provided by Google search.
dbnap 5y ago
Employees who do not wish to receive the vaccine sacrament should quit, move to Florida and found a new search engine. They are probably the better ones anyway, since they have some hacker spirit left.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  How is putting a crash-developed mRNA vaccine that synthesizes custom-designed antigens into your body, in order to help the greater good, not hacker spirit?
  - agstd 5y ago
    BioNTech and Moderna are Google divisions? It is interesting that any call to action is flagged here, while polite discussion that never changes the status quo is allowed.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      Maybe ask why your peers are flagging those things, instead of insinuating conspiracy.
xiphias2 5y ago
Intelligent adults generally get vaccinated (unless they have a preexisting medical condition), so I can imagine that Googlers don't have problem with saying goodbye to the few antivaxx colleagues.
- disambiguation 5y ago
  I think we can say, at a minimum, compliant adults get the vaccine. Intelligent or otherwise, why would Google or any company want to retain anti-authoritarian staff?
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    Google itself was anti-authoritarian when it was small, for example it was campaigning for net neutrality when most of US politicians were campaigning against it. Understanding statistics behind vaccines requires some general understanding of setting up controlled experiments (vs just looking at some numbers, like ratio of vaccinated vs unvaccinated people in hospitals without controlling for age). Generally more intelligent people have a better understanding of statistics, and Google uses a way of intelligence test to hire people (even if that is unpopular here on HN).
asoneth 5y ago
I'm definitely pro-vaccine, but I'm also concerned about the long-term impact of alienating whole swaths of the country with policies like these. Perhaps there are less onerous policies that would be similarly effective? To address the risk of transmission for in-person employees, would a combination of masking and testing be similarly effective at minimizing office outbreaks? As for the increase in a company's health insurance costs it seems like we could simply let health insurance companies consider vaccination status when calculating an individual's health insurance premiums (like they currently do with smokers). It seems like the reasonable free-market approach to ask people to pay for any increase in risk they willingly choose to take on.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- devmunchies 5y ago
  > let health insurance companies consider vaccination status when calculating an individual's health insurance premiums If I'm in my late 20s or early 30s and in great shape and eat healthy, a vaccine is not going to make a difference in personal risk. If anything, vaccine rates should be used by a company when getting health insurance benefits for the org as a whole.
  - asoneth 5y ago
    > If I'm in my late 20s or early 30s and in great shape and eat healthy, a vaccine is not going to make a difference in personal risk. Assuming that's true then I'd expect your health insurance premiums to remain similar regardless of your vaccination status. I didn't mean to argue that people who are unvaccinated should be charged more, I meant to argue that vaccination status should be added as a sixth factor that health insurance companies are legally allowed to use to set premiums. (The ACA already allows them to consider things like tobacco use and age.) > If anything, vaccine rates should be used by a company when getting health insurance benefits for the org as a whole. Seems reasonable. If it results in cost increases for the company it would be up to the company to decide how to pass that on to employees. (I.e. should everyone pay a little more, just the unvaccinated, or should the company eat the cost?)
disambiguation 5y ago
The median age of a Google employee is 30. The median age of Covid mortality is 80. Think about that.
- ecf 5y ago
  Okay, I thought about it for 5 seconds… Hasn’t it always been the case that younger people vaccinate to help keep the older protected? Also, you don’t need to die of Covid to be placed in a hospital. Fewer available beds affects everyone.
  - disambiguation 5y ago
    > Hasn’t it always been the case that younger people vaccinate to help keep the older protected? No, polio for example. > Also, you don’t need to die of Covid to be placed in a hospital. Fewer available beds affects everyone. "Collective ownership and harm" is not an unrestricted pass for universal mandates. Everything is connected, every action you take affects someone else. Driving for example puts everyone at risk. Not just on the road but also carbon emissions. Where do we draw the line? Wherever the line is, it should be data driven. Just like mortality, hospitalizations are strongly skewed by age. https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboards/key-metrics/hospitalizations https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboa... According to Ohio data, people under 50 (2/3 of the population) account for ~20% of covid-related hospitalizations. Consider also the data towards the bottom: Total bed capacity. Out of 100% capacity, 63% are non-covid patients, and 18% are covid related. If we apply our 20% hospitalization rate to 18% covid beds, we get.. 4%. 4% of total beds will be occupied by people with covid under 50. Is 4% the difference between collapse or not? This number could double, or even triple, and we would still have over 10% of beds available. There was a time and place when there was a real risk of disaster. We did our lockdowns, our social distancing, and we vaccinated a ton of people. Now it's time to start thinking about moving past covid, and getting back to normal life.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
      > Now it's time to start thinking about moving past covid No, no it is not yet. I am referring to Covid-19-Omicron: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59677070 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59677070 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/dec/15/uk-covid-live-news-coronavirus-omicron-boosters-vaccines-christmas-boris-johnson-latest-updates https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/dec/15/uk-cov... https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-big-numbers-of-coronavirus-patients-in-hospital-after-christmas-due-to-phenomenal-omicron-spread-warns-whitty-12496558 https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-big-numbers-of-coronavir... If you're not in the UK, then congratulations, you have time, days to weeks, before this comes your way.
novalis78 5y ago
Come to Florida. We are actively hiring. If Google does not want you, we do! jobs@bytefederal.com
a45a33s 5y ago
its really interesting/disturbing that people put so much blind faith in the organizations pushing these vaccines. so many people are acting unscientifically in the "pursuit of science". science is not something where you blindly trust what the corporations and authority figures tell you. the safety trials had no control group, the approval was based on 4 months of data, the situation that we are in now seems to suggest they dont really work very well, there certainly is no long term data about what happens when you keep reinjecting boosters over and over, lipid nanoparticles themselves are a novel technology that is not very well understood, most people are at low risk and have no need for it, the list goes on

67 points by nojito 5y ago

“I am paying you for half your days worth of time so you better shape up” They have already done hairsplitting analysis on the few stragglers. They figured we will go full stasi if they quit f* ‘em. We are still a market monopoly protectorate of the government. It will barely make a dent. I could care less about Google. Maybe some employees will leave they will not. 2021 is a sad year.

dablweb 5y ago

We were promised this wouldn't happen by our governments last year right? It feels like the public are building their own prisons. Why are private companies stuck policing these absurd policies?

kiba 5y ago
Unless you have medical exemption, it's just a jab in the arm?
- nsxwolf 5y ago
  It's capitulation to coercion, which has its own side effects.
  - C19is20 5y ago
    Like rickets?
  - CabSauce 5y ago
    That's why I drink and drive as much as I want. Can't let the man tell me what to do! /s
    - dontblink 5y ago
      Don't forget about seat belts!
    - kiba 5y ago
      The reason why drunk driving is so dangerous is because of the choices of past governments to make implicit subsidies for cars and urban planners making car dependent suburbia. Our choices are already constrained before we even realize it and yet people chose to die on the vaccination hill.
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      You employer is checking what you drink before you drive? If not, that's a pretty bad analogy.
      - Volundr 5y ago
        When I was driving a company vehicle for my job? Hell yes they were.
        ekianjo 5y ago
        So they were checking every morning when you were taking your company car that you had no alcohol in your blood? How did that work? Your boss was waiting at the door?
  - tjpnz 5y ago
    There are bigger, better and more productive hills to die on if you don't enjoy being told what to do.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    You're talking about employment where the employer makes much much of off your labor than you will ever receive, and you are powerless to demand your fair share. Yet instead, a safe workplace is the coercive part? If you don't want to be coerced, you had better not be an employee with wages. Go out there and start your own business.
    - refurb 5y ago
      It’s hilarious to see HN flip from “I dream of a future where no one has to work and fall under the yoke of greedy employers” to “just get injected with this drug and be thankful you have a job; don’t get it and you deserve to starve”.
      - epistasis 5y ago
        The vaccines are the magic future where a small bit of technology prevents disease and death. > don’t get it and you deserve to starve It's not by chance that you have to make up ridiculous words and put them in my mouth to attempt to criticize the comment, either in this part where I quoted you, or in the weird assertion about no one having to work.
        acdha 5y ago
        > The vaccines are the magic future where a small bit of technology prevents disease and death. That's the part I've found so disappointing about this: a couple of decades of development and we have a massive breakthrough in our ability to rapidly create and update vaccines which precisely target near-arbitrary targets. Seeing what would have been a sci-fi technology when I was a kid being the target of so many conspiracy theories must be incredibly disappointing to all of the actual medical experts who worked so hard on this.
        native_samples 5y ago
        Those medical experts should look at themselves for why people react this way. An absolute refusal to accept any legal liability for harms done by the product, whilst simultaneously insisting it's perfectly safe? Check. Claims that anyone worried about long term effects is a crazy malicious person when Moderna was failing to progress beyond animal trials due to multi-dose toxicity as recently as 2017? Check. [2] Fanatical insistence on forced vaccination, even when the logical basis for mandates has been invalidated by equal infectiousness? Check. [1] Constantly shifting claims about effectiveness, invalidated within months yet all presented with absolute confidence? Check. Insistence that nobody look at the database of injuries and papers which do so should be retracted, despite it existing specifically to be analyzed? Check. A million different non-vaccine explanations for the sudden spike in public heart attacks, none of which are remotely plausible? Check. We could go on for many pages of this. The medical/public health establishment has consistently wrecked their own credibility and acted in untrustworthy, suspicion-raising ways. They don't then get to make a sad face and say "but sci fi". Let us know when Pfizer/Moderna can be taken to court for injuries and deaths caused by their sci-fi tech, and interest will grow. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00258-1/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7... [2] https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/ https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/
  - wedowhatwedo 5y ago
    At my restaurant we save money by never cleaning the kitchen. No one should coerce me into doing something where it is not necessary. Cleaning wastes my time and money and it's my freedom to not clean! No one should take that freedom away in a free country!
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      Sure, but do you get to pretend your kitchen is clean at the same time?
  - handrous 5y ago
    It hadn't occurred to me that this might lead a whole bunch of people, who didn't previously, to regard the employment relationship as fundamentally coercive. Hm. I'm now torn on this.
- cfcf14 5y ago
  For many people, it's more than just a jab, it's 1-3 days of being quite unwell. I have no underlying health conditions, but I've been bedridden by my 2nd shot and booster shots, with a high fever, fatigue, dizziness, and aches for at least 48 hours. My partner who is immuno-compromised is worse off, generally being very ill for 1-2 weeks after each jab. Her case is somewhat different though, as her situation is just all round unfortunate. I'm not saying I won't continue to comply with all health advisories for vaccination or other public safety measures, and I'm not saying vaccines aren't worth it for society. But it's not "just" a jab.
  - wedowhatwedo 5y ago
    This is why the company I work for will give you up to three paid days off after getting a vaccine shot. Feeling bad after the shot should not be a reason to not get it.
    - input_sh 5y ago
      Hell, mine even reimbursed traveling to another country before they were available to the general public in my own country.
  - moonchrome 5y ago
    The pro vaccination camp has been more annoying than the antivaxers - at least the nutjobs are easy to filter out, it takes soo long to wade through the bullshit when it's veiled as facts.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Why can't companies mandate a lobotomy then? After all it is just jab in the brain. You hardly notice it if you receive it...
  - wedowhatwedo 5y ago
    Yes they can do that. They can then complain about the huge labor shortage.
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      Lobotomising people would create a surge of labour for many tech corps..
- artificialLimbs 5y ago
  >> ...it's just a jab in the arm Until it isn't. Then what are you going to do? Probably nothing except suffer debilitation for life or death (~20,000 that have been reported to VAERS, so probably substantially more). https://brandnewtube.com/watch/full-hearings-ron-johnson-039-s-expert-panel-on-covid-vaccine-injuries_RJogrA87bWROhRG.html?lang=type https://brandnewtube.com/watch/full-hearings-ron-johnson-039... Edit: spllng
  - ben_w 5y ago
    I saw less than half that number — 8099 — on the VAERS site. And this is for a disease which has killed 821,335 Americans after infecting 51 million. So if it’s absolutely perfectly safe and there is a roughly 5% chance of getting infected with Covid while waiting for the vaccine to take effect, it would look like this.
    - artificialLimbs 5y ago
      >> 8099 Not sure where you get that number. Also, the numbers for VAERS entry are very probably not even in the ballpark of all injuries because doctors don't often advertise VAERS or even enter patient data there. Why would they, it's basically extra work they don't get paid for. https://vaersanalysis.info/2021/12/11/vaers-summary-for-covid-19-vaccines-through-12-03-2021/ https://vaersanalysis.info/2021/12/11/vaers-summary-for-covi... >> ...killed 821,33 Americans... I had a family friend that shot himself in a hunting accident. Drove himself to the hospital bleeding, didn't make it 24 hours. Tested positive for Covid. Labeled covid death. I get that it can be a serious disease for some, but it's rare unless you're already in poor health. The response to Covid and vaccine insanity has been ultra overblown.
      - ben_w 5y ago
        > Not sure where you get that number. https://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html https://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html Like I said, the VAERS site. > The response to Covid and vaccine insanity has been ultra overblown. Last year the UK ran short of mortuaries and body bags. On several occasions, hospitals have been unable to meet demand in various different ways, from beds (meaning staff for them rather than literally beds), to oxygen. > I had a family friend that shot himself in a hunting accident. Drove himself to the hospital bleeding, didn't make it 24 hours. Tested positive for Covid. Labeled covid death. My condolences. But it works both ways: If he’d had a recent vaccine instead of a covid infection, that would be listed on VAERS as correlated to the vaccine, from what I gather.
xnyan 5y ago
>We were promised this wouldn't happen by our governments last year right? We were promised that a company can't require a vaccine as a condition of employment? Seeing as some companies have required vaccines for as long as there have been vaccines, I think I must be misunderstanding you. >Why are private companies stuck policing these absurd policies? Companies are requiring the vaccine because they make employees less likely to miss work due to illness.
- nsxwolf 5y ago
  With the exception of healthcare I don't think a lot of companies have mandated vaccines. My wife works in healthcare and there was a tuberculosis shot mandate for specific jobs at her hospital. There was a flu shot mandate of sorts, but it was tied to a small bonus. You can't point to a small sector that has mandates and say it wouldn't be a significant change if suddenly 100% of all workers everywhere were subjected to it.
  - comrh 5y ago
    Any business doing work with the US government will have to mandate vaccines.
    - bravetraveler 5y ago
      My employer already went this route, something about a fed mandate for their contractors... and we have a lot of those. They extended it to everyone lol
  - xnyan 5y ago
    Millions of people in various sectors outside healthcare (by the way, since when is healthcare a "small sector"?) have had vaccines required as a condition of employment. , mostly people with plenty of risk like teachers, the military and some people working in the travel industry, but this is not always the case. I was required to get the flu shot (or an exemption) in my last job at an electrical engineering firm. On a broader note, I think (coming from the US) workers should have stronger protections against being fired, but everyone I've personally talked to who does not believe your employer should be able to fire you for not getting a vaccine is also opposed to "state controlled employment" or almost anything else that exerts control over the employer-employee relationship. You can be fired for almost any reason in the US, being fired for not getting a vaccine does not seem any worse to me than being fired for any number of awful yet totally legal reasons.

Oddskar 5y ago

EGreg 5y ago
Every 3 months? I'm going to say it. As a left-libertarian, I see government and industry working hand in hand. The public is always being distracted from what the industry is doing, by being told it's their responsibility to clean up the mess. Let me take the lid off it so you can't unsee it: 1) The industry adds highly processed sugars and starches into foods, genetically engineers high fructose corn syrup into everything and overuses antibiotics for animals. As a result, we have unprecedented levels of diabetes and obesity in this country, even for kids. (And by the way this has correlated heavily with morbidity and mortality from this coronavirus.) https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/nhp/documents/sugar.pdf https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/nhp/documents/sugar.pdf What is the public told? Exercise consumer choice. Diet and exercise, take care of it yourself. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The brainwashing gets so bad that they rose up in arms against Bloomberg's ban on giant sugary drink containers, in the name of "freedom". 2) The industry turns all farms into factory farms, as a result of capitalist competition so the hamburger can be $1 cheaper. Billions of animals are raised in appalling conditions. Chickens for example are caged with dung dropping from the animals above them, and can barely even spread a single wing. Their beaks are cut off so they don't peck each other. Pigs, turkeys and others are treated horribly as well. Antibiotics are overused in order to make them bigger, which might begin to lead to superbugs that make this pandemic seem like a walk in the park (I hope I am wrong) https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/blogs/antibiotic-resistant-superbugs-how-factory-farming-driving-another-global-health-crisis https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/blogs/antibiotic-resist... What is the public told? Exercise consumer choice. Go vegetarian. You can change the world, etc. But this isn't your grandmother's farming industry. People are used to having cheap meat but they don't think about what happens behind the scenes. They even used to happily eat "pink slime" in hot dogs, McDonalds etc. 3) Plastic containers. While beer companies still use glass, companies like Coca Cola and Snapple have switched from glass to plastic, to save money on transportation, and so forth. But the materials are non-biodegradeable, so it produces externalities all over the world. Same with clothing companies and polyesther and other plastics. Instead of researching and switching to non-biodegreadeable plastic, they push their negative externalities onto the environment and people: https://theconversation.com/plastic-plastic-everywhere-airborne-microplastics-are-settling-into-the-most-remote-corners-of-the-globe-168787 https://theconversation.com/plastic-plastic-everywhere-airbo... What is the public told? Exercise consumer choice. Opt out of plastic bags and straws. Some cities are now MANDATING this, yet the companies upstream continue to produce metric tons of this crap every day. Oh yeah, also the public is told to RECYCLE, and that was mandated too, but it was revealed to be largely a scam in the USA: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/702501726/where-will-your-plastic-trash-go-now-that-china-doesnt-want-it https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/7025017... 4) Fossil fuels. We all heard of this one. But do you realize that the vehicle are locked into a monopoly of fossil fuels, and that the electric car could have been already invented if the government wasn't distorting the market subsidizing fossil fuels for all these decades against OPEC and others? They pollute the environment with carbon dioxide and other chemicals, they contribute to the greenhouse effect that makes the planet warmer, acidification of oceans. What is the public told? Commute to the office. Take public transportation. Don't drive so much, etc. Well, in this case I actually agree, we need to address the demand side, too much waste with all those parked cars etc. And the pandemic made people realize they can work from home, and the industry is FURIOUS. But it was the largest drop in emissions ever. 5) Vaccines. The government and industry failed us with mask production early on, they had months to prepare and didn't. And the Trump government took out all the stops and "Operation Warp Speed" greenlighted mRNA vaccines. And they are FAST indeed. They just made one for HIV, even. But somehow ... lo and behold, this "warp speed mRNA industry" can't seem to update their vaccines for delta, mu, lambda. I mean, they clearly have the capability, and they can simply target the latest mutation. But they are engaging the government to mandate you inject yourself with LAST YEAR'S PRODUCTS, because they are selling like hotcakes all over the world. What is the public told? Get a jab of last year's vaccine, or you lose access to your job, your entertainment, your restaurants, whatever. The companies are MANDATED in the USA to do what Google is reported to be doing here. The initial curve was too steep and lots of morbidity because no one had immunity to the novel virus. Now that so many people have been exposed, natural immunity is shown to be more robust than vaccines (by the way what do you think the immunity after breakthrough infections is due to, the vaccine? that's what they will claim in their data LOL). But the government is going by inertia on how bad the omicron coronavirus is, and treat it with much more mandates than t the flu. But what gets me is that no is talking about the major effect of always putting responsibility and mandates on the individual it lets the industry off the hook! In this case the mRNA pharma industry from producing up-to-date vaccines like they do for the flu. The government and media is carrying water for them and helping them sell last year's product, so they have no incentive to cannibalize their own business with R&D. Imagine being forced to download unpatched Windows 95 for years in order to be allowed to get on the Internet. That's how this is. So you see the government constantly telling the public to stop using plastic straws (while Coca Cola produces metric tons a day), to stop watering their lawns (while industries waste water), to go vegan (while factory farms raise billions of animals in abysmal conditions), to stay healthy (while putting sugar and corn syrup in everything), to recycle (while using more and more plastic). George Carlin and Greta Thurnberg were right, there are people running the show, and they want you to be guilt tripping each other into cleaning up their mess so you never look upstream at where the problems come from. At least with fossil fuels, we have finally begun to do so. And this is true in other states and countries, too, governments tell people to stop watering their lawns (while industries waste water), we have aquifers running dry and Day Zero for water around the world drawing closer while industries siphon their water to ship globally. Bolsonaro the "business friendly" president wants to clear away tons of rainforest and displace native tribes so he can grow Soy and more Cows for the world. Exports and capitalism at the expense of the environment, again. There are people who say there is nothing wrong with capitalism, but. But no, these are quintessentially issues specifically arising from market competition and firms turning to government as an enabler, even against the people and the environment. Whether it's the government of Flynt Michigan letting their private buddies pollute the water supply, or privatization of water in Bolivia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochabamba_Water_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochabamba_Water_War), or factory farms emerging as a result of cutthroat competition in agribusiness, private ownership and competition and capitalism are at the root of many of these issues. As a left-libertarian, I recognize that government works with the capitalists (including bailouts to banks, stock market, whatever). And we the people need to call for reform of the system. But when they do, they are told "Bernie, Buffett, why don't YOU pay your taxes, and leave the system alone, capitalism is the best thing that's ever happened you socialist freak." These people are calling for common sense things that are done in many other countries, and they're social democrats, not socialists, btw. I would start with UBI FUELED BY PIGOVIAN TAXES on all the above things. This will avoid the yellow vest protest phenomenon and align incentives correctly. Read the above and tell me if you don't see a pattern... Vaccines are just one of many examples of the big problem.

nsxwolf 5y ago

This is just life, forever. Totally unprecedented. You will get a vaccination every 6 months for the rest of your life or be totally excluded from all civil rights. There will be no end. If the virus mutates to become harmless, the mandates will be given all the credit, and we will double down on this system. It's not temporary.

CabSauce 5y ago
What about the rights of a private (in the sense of government) company to make their own decisions?
- nsxwolf 5y ago
  I don't believe in the rights of private companies to do just anything they want to workers. Most people don't - look at the popularity of indoor smoking bans. Most also agree a private business shouldn't be allowed to deny employment or service based on race. There are many, many such examples.
  - CabSauce 5y ago
    Are you really claiming an indoor smoking ban is a counter example to a vaccine mandiate? That's some interesting logic.
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      It was a counter to the argument of corporate autonomy. The "counter example" you talk about is about the power of government.
- barney54 5y ago
  Google is free to set their rules and we are free to complain about them.
  - postsantum 5y ago

criddell 5y ago

At some point I wonder if health insurers will start denying claims related to the treatment of COVID infections if the person is eligible for the vaccine but has refused to get one? On TV today I saw that Kroger employees don't get sick day pay if they are off because of COVID unless they have been vaccinated (and I would assume there's a medical exemption).

gjsman-1000 5y ago
Accusations of Racism. Only 28% of young black people in New York are vaccinated as of October, for example. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/nyregion/covid-vaccine-black-young-new-yorkers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/nyregion/covid-vaccine-bl... Edit: Added "young" adjective that was missing, point remains.
- chrisoverzero 5y ago
  > Only 28% of black people in New York are vaccinated […] This is not what the article you’ve cited says.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    Whoops - It said young (whatever that means) as an adjective. I'll edit that in.
    - chrisoverzero 5y ago
      It means 18 to 44, according to the article.
      - klipklop 5y ago
        AKA working age people that will have to choose eventually between getting the vaccine and losing their job. A pretty rough choice for those hesitant. (I am vaccinated please don't post hot takes about how I am a anti-vaxer.)

cletus 5y ago

What I find sad about this is how many who seem to be against it were just recently so in favour of private business autonomy [1]. No one's rights are being violated here. If you don't want to get vaccinated, you can. But those choices come with consequences, like just about every other choice we make. It's worth noting that fully remote people won't fall under this policy (from my reading of it anyway) so this isn't a blanket policy. It's also worth noting that a whole bunch of vaccines are required to attend public school already [2]. [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/masterpiece-colorado-gay-marriage-cake-supreme-court/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/masterpiece-colorado... [2]: https://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/immunization/schools/school_vaccines/ https://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/immunization/schools/sc...

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
My Dad has a big divot out of his arm from the vaccine gun when he joined the army. Everyone got a vaccine and that is how it was because the decision was science-based and not up for discussion. Same for when I went to school. Kid not vaccinated? You aren’t going to school. Somehow that got eroded by madness.
- realreality 5y ago
  > science-based and not up for discussion You realize this is a contradiction, right?
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Science can be conclusive.
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      Sure, everyone was positive about a millenium ago that everything rotated around the Earth. It was not even up for debate, even among scientists. We all know how that turned out.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

Does anybody know what exactly their rules are, as the article doesn't actually say? Do they mandate people be vaccinated, or just that they upload their status. Or can they work from home and only have to be vaccinated to be allowed into the office?

moneywoes 5y ago
Sounds like they are able to apply for religious exemptions so I’m not sure what the issue is here
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  What religion would come handy? Does the Flying Spaghetti Monster say you should not be vaccinated? I would expect them to require some proof of religious affiliation.
  - devmunchies 5y ago
    Nah, just appeal to the simulation theory. ie. "I believe the Computer scientist running this simulation added the vaccine side quest as a test of gullibility and trust of big govt and big pharma."

oneepic 5y ago

(I needed to look it up:) flout (verb) - to openly disregard (a rule, law or convention). "these same companies still flout basic ethical practices" This definition and example of using it in a sentence were ironically provided by Google search.

dbnap 5y ago

Employees who do not wish to receive the vaccine sacrament should quit, move to Florida and found a new search engine. They are probably the better ones anyway, since they have some hacker spirit left.

ethbr0 5y ago
How is putting a crash-developed mRNA vaccine that synthesizes custom-designed antigens into your body, in order to help the greater good, not hacker spirit?
- agstd 5y ago
  BioNTech and Moderna are Google divisions? It is interesting that any call to action is flagged here, while polite discussion that never changes the status quo is allowed.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Maybe ask why your peers are flagging those things, instead of insinuating conspiracy.

xiphias2 5y ago

Intelligent adults generally get vaccinated (unless they have a preexisting medical condition), so I can imagine that Googlers don't have problem with saying goodbye to the few antivaxx colleagues.

disambiguation 5y ago
I think we can say, at a minimum, compliant adults get the vaccine. Intelligent or otherwise, why would Google or any company want to retain anti-authoritarian staff?
- xiphias2 5y ago
  Google itself was anti-authoritarian when it was small, for example it was campaigning for net neutrality when most of US politicians were campaigning against it. Understanding statistics behind vaccines requires some general understanding of setting up controlled experiments (vs just looking at some numbers, like ratio of vaccinated vs unvaccinated people in hospitals without controlling for age). Generally more intelligent people have a better understanding of statistics, and Google uses a way of intelligence test to hire people (even if that is unpopular here on HN).

asoneth 5y ago

I'm definitely pro-vaccine, but I'm also concerned about the long-term impact of alienating whole swaths of the country with policies like these. Perhaps there are less onerous policies that would be similarly effective? To address the risk of transmission for in-person employees, would a combination of masking and testing be similarly effective at minimizing office outbreaks? As for the increase in a company's health insurance costs it seems like we could simply let health insurance companies consider vaccination status when calculating an individual's health insurance premiums (like they currently do with smokers). It seems like the reasonable free-market approach to ask people to pay for any increase in risk they willingly choose to take on.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
devmunchies 5y ago
> let health insurance companies consider vaccination status when calculating an individual's health insurance premiums If I'm in my late 20s or early 30s and in great shape and eat healthy, a vaccine is not going to make a difference in personal risk. If anything, vaccine rates should be used by a company when getting health insurance benefits for the org as a whole.
- asoneth 5y ago
  > If I'm in my late 20s or early 30s and in great shape and eat healthy, a vaccine is not going to make a difference in personal risk. Assuming that's true then I'd expect your health insurance premiums to remain similar regardless of your vaccination status. I didn't mean to argue that people who are unvaccinated should be charged more, I meant to argue that vaccination status should be added as a sixth factor that health insurance companies are legally allowed to use to set premiums. (The ACA already allows them to consider things like tobacco use and age.) > If anything, vaccine rates should be used by a company when getting health insurance benefits for the org as a whole. Seems reasonable. If it results in cost increases for the company it would be up to the company to decide how to pass that on to employees. (I.e. should everyone pay a little more, just the unvaccinated, or should the company eat the cost?)

disambiguation 5y ago

The median age of a Google employee is 30. The median age of Covid mortality is 80. Think about that.

ecf 5y ago
Okay, I thought about it for 5 seconds… Hasn’t it always been the case that younger people vaccinate to help keep the older protected? Also, you don’t need to die of Covid to be placed in a hospital. Fewer available beds affects everyone.
- disambiguation 5y ago
  > Hasn’t it always been the case that younger people vaccinate to help keep the older protected? No, polio for example. > Also, you don’t need to die of Covid to be placed in a hospital. Fewer available beds affects everyone. "Collective ownership and harm" is not an unrestricted pass for universal mandates. Everything is connected, every action you take affects someone else. Driving for example puts everyone at risk. Not just on the road but also carbon emissions. Where do we draw the line? Wherever the line is, it should be data driven. Just like mortality, hospitalizations are strongly skewed by age. https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboards/key-metrics/hospitalizations https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboa... According to Ohio data, people under 50 (2/3 of the population) account for ~20% of covid-related hospitalizations. Consider also the data towards the bottom: Total bed capacity. Out of 100% capacity, 63% are non-covid patients, and 18% are covid related. If we apply our 20% hospitalization rate to 18% covid beds, we get.. 4%. 4% of total beds will be occupied by people with covid under 50. Is 4% the difference between collapse or not? This number could double, or even triple, and we would still have over 10% of beds available. There was a time and place when there was a real risk of disaster. We did our lockdowns, our social distancing, and we vaccinated a ton of people. Now it's time to start thinking about moving past covid, and getting back to normal life.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    > Now it's time to start thinking about moving past covid No, no it is not yet. I am referring to Covid-19-Omicron: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59677070 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59677070 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/dec/15/uk-covid-live-news-coronavirus-omicron-boosters-vaccines-christmas-boris-johnson-latest-updates https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/dec/15/uk-cov... https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-big-numbers-of-coronavirus-patients-in-hospital-after-christmas-due-to-phenomenal-omicron-spread-warns-whitty-12496558 https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-big-numbers-of-coronavir... If you're not in the UK, then congratulations, you have time, days to weeks, before this comes your way.

novalis78 5y ago

Come to Florida. We are actively hiring. If Google does not want you, we do! jobs@bytefederal.com

a45a33s 5y ago

its really interesting/disturbing that people put so much blind faith in the organizations pushing these vaccines. so many people are acting unscientifically in the "pursuit of science". science is not something where you blindly trust what the corporations and authority figures tell you. the safety trials had no control group, the approval was based on 4 months of data, the situation that we are in now seems to suggest they dont really work very well, there certainly is no long term data about what happens when you keep reinjecting boosters over and over, lipid nanoparticles themselves are a novel technology that is not very well understood, most people are at low risk and have no need for it, the list goes on