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For those die-hard anti-vaxxers who simply refuse to get vaccinated but who are not COVID deniers, will they just wear face masks the rest of their lives?
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I know this has been raised in other threads, but are there any employers who can legally require employees to get vaccinated? If so, can employees get exemptions for (supposed) religious reasons? I know this is a frequent means of anti-vaxxers avoiding getting their kids vaccinated.
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Vaccine hesitancy is a huge concern, but most who are hesitant can be convinced. Anti-vaxxers mostly cannot. If the only adults who don’t eventually get vaccinated are those VERY few (11 in a million) who are allergic to the vaccine AND the anti-vaxxers, could we still reach herd immunity?
I’m still curious how many anti-vaxxers won’t get the vaccine.* Something I’ve mentioned in other covid anti-vax threads is that the vast majority of anti-vax parents have had their vaccines. They’re not going to get measles or polio or whatever. They putting their kids at risk without really being in harm’s way. With a novel virus out there that they haven’t been vaccinated for, there’s suddenly a very real risk to them. Will they remain anti-vax or will they continue to protect themselves but leave their kids at risk?
My WAG is that they’ll get the vaccine or at least some of them will. They’ll come up with all kinds of logic to make it okay for them, but not their kids, to get it, but they’ll get it.
*On the assumption that this sticks around long enough that if you don’t get the vaccine, you’re like to get sick at some point or another.
I doubt it. They’ll stop wearing them as soon as everyone else stops wearing them. Unless, before this, they wore one when they didn’t feel well, I don’t see why they’d start now.
I would guess that we can. Herd immunity for covid, at least according to wiki (right now), is 60-75%, I don’t think the can’t vax and won’t vax population is going to be more than 25%, but I could be wrong.
Measles, on the other hand, is listed as having herd immunity at 92-95%, which is likely why we hear about outbreaks from time to time. It doesn’t take very many people in a community to skip their MMR vaccines to cause a problem.
I’ve already seen some YouTube videos and op-ed columns by antivaxxers with completely unvaccinated children who are ready (or already) to be vaccinated for COVID, and two things I hear a lot are these: 1) COVID is real-- it’s right out there, and an immediate risk. (Clearly, these people do not understand why measles, polio, etc. are not an "immediate risk, but that’s neither here nor there, as this makes sense to them, and that’s my point.) 2) The primary concern of many anti-vax parents is autism, and adults getting COVID vaccines are not at a developmental stage where they are at risk for autism.
Yeah, it sucks that the vaccine foot-in-the-door is just that-- a foot, with nothing attached to it. But at least people are getting vaccinated for COVID.
I’m also pretty certain that by the time there is a children’s COVID shot, enough of the population will be vaccinated that the children of the anti-vaxxers not being vaccinated won’t matter.
What to do in 10 years, or 20, I don’t know. Maybe there will be a 10-year booster for COVID, so people who were not vaccinated as children will be vaccinated as teenagers.
Yes, health care workers. In fact my MD had to wear a mask pre covid as he was allergic to the flu vaccine and couldnt take it as required.
The Military can also require it- but apparently only when there are enough doses to go around.
Employers can require you take a drug test for marijuana even in states where it is legal. They can require you be a nonsmokers.
Generally religious exceptions no longer hold, CA got rid of them. Too many bogus ones.
And I think the venn diagram of die-hard anti-vaxxers who simply refuse to get vaccinated but who are not COVID deniers, has so little non congruency you can barely see it.
I only know 2 anti-vaxxers, neither with kids. They’re both “hell no” to the COVID vaccine. They’re convinced it “messes with your RNA” and will cause terrible issues down the road. One thinks “the media” has exaggerated the threat of Covid. I’m really not speaking to them at this point because I’ve run out of patience, but I’d be stunned if they change their minds.
Just to clarify: was he allowed to wear a mask instead of getting vaccinated only because he’s allergic, or was that choice available to all medical staff?
Not currently, because none of the vaccines have been officially approved – they are just being distributed under an emergency use authorization. That’s why soldiers are being given a choice, too. My understanding is that once some vaccines are actually approved in the usual way, employers can require their employees to get them. I anticipate the military and most health providers to require it. Dunno about other employers.
He was only allowed to exempt as he was allergic.
Good to know. Thanks.
I wonder if health care workers can claim religious exemptions.
They can but then IME in several states I have worked in as a nurse they are required to wear a face mask at all times for the duration of the flu season. The latest experience was a PT who was a Mennonite working in Nebraska.
I have tremendous respect for nurses, but I admit I’d be uncomfortable with a nurse who wouldn’t get vaccinated. One of my two anti-vaccine friends is a former nurse practitioner. It seems crazy a nurse of any stripe could eschew the science behind vaccines like that, but from what I’ve read, she’s not the only one.
That’s strange about the Mennonite nurse. Mennonites are not opposed to vaccines. I wonder if she wasn’t using her religion as an excuse not to get vaccinated, and TPTB didn’t know better or didn’t want to open that can of worms.
The Mennonite who told me that was a reason she didn’t take the flu vaccine was a physical therapist. I just made a point of making my appts with someone else in the Dept. from then on out. I don’t have much respect for them either (nurses who refuse vaccinations).
Authentic vaccine demurrals are actually few and far between in my understanding. But then I’m a skeptic anyway.
A nurse practitioner who won’t vaccinate is ultra scary. Makes you wonder what advice s/he is giving their patients and parents.
I was thinking the same thing. There are a lot of people in southern Indiana who call themselves Amish, not Mennonite, but they make some distinction-- “church” Amish, or something-- I don’t remember.
They interact with the larger world a lot, and wear athletic shoes from Walmart when they are not doing farm work.
They sell baked goods to the public, and do construction work, and so they have refrigerators that are strictly for the ingredients they need for public baking, but they have the power lines coming in, so they are available for other things, for example, if someone has a medication that needs to be refrigerated, or if there is a baby that needs supplemental formula.
They also own trucks, because when they go to construction sites on private property, they don’t have to worry about the horse-carts getting stuck, or people complaining about horseshit on their yards.
They also get their children checked out by doctors regularly, and get them all their vaccines. They may even get flu vaccines themselves, and tetanus, since they do all the construction work.
I know someone who works for public health nursing, who did say that the Amish are at least reliable when they say they’ll do something-- if you tell them to wash their hands before and after X, and they agree to, they do it. They don’t nod their heads and ignore her. I asked how she knew, and she said because in spite of living in close quarters, they had less transmission of illnesses among families.
I’m really not a huge fan of the Amish for a lot of reasons, but being antivax isn’t one.
Yup.
I worked for a woman who said she couldn’t take the flu vaccine because of an allergy. I thought that was fairly common. I wonder if she’s getting this one. I assume so, as all the ingredients are different.
Under discussion in this thread:
She’s no longer in practice—some vague physical discomfort—but she weights her anti-fax stance with her NP credentials.
There are big differences between Mennonites and the Amish. They both have roots in Anabaptism, but Mennonites are not “church Amish.” I had a Mennonite missionary friend who worked in the same domestic violence program I did. (She didn’t proselytize—it was outreach work. The Amish don’t have missionaries or do outreach.) I also lived near a Mennonite colony in Montana. There are differences between Mennonite groups, as well. My friend wore jeans to work. The Mennonites in the colony near my home a few years later wore traditional dress. Just FYI.
Oh, I know this, but a lot of people don’t. People in New England know only the really strictest sects of the Amish, and for them, nothing else will do-- I’m talking about you regular old people off the street, here, not anyone who is any shade of Amish. They argue with me when I say we have Amish in Indiana who drive trucks and shop at Walmart. “They must be Mennonites.”
Well, they call themselves “Amish,” and I’m not going to argue.
Those seem to me to be less invasive than getting a vaccine, and not very analogous. It may very well be that employers can require people to get a vaccine (I kind of hope it is), but I don’t think those examples are very good evidence. Requiring you to not do something seems like a lower bar than requiring you to undergo a medical procedure.
I would like to see some carrots, such as you can’t enter an airport or go thru FAA security much less fly unless showing proof of vaccine. In fact, I’d like to see full on vaccine passports where people can’t partake in “optional” things like in person dining, bars, stadiums, kids at school, etc.
Washington State had outbreaks of whopping cough a year or two ago. Anti-vaxers created a stampede to get their kids poked.
I’d love to read more about the whooping cough stampede. There sure was no anti-vaxx stampede toward immunization during the measles outbreak that sickened 87 people in 2019. In fact, hundreds of anti-vaxxers protested on the steps to the capital building when the state legislature eliminated the philosophical exemption in response to the measles outbreaks. (I live in Olympia.)
Anti-vaxxers are conspiracy theorists. I’d like to believe they’re not impervious to logic and facts, hence my desire to read about whooping cough vaccinations.