End of the day though, with all the “hesitant” people, jerks who jump the line are pretty low on my priorities.
Agreed, especially now. 3-4 months ago when we were struggling to vaccinate the elderly in group living, every 10 jerks who jumped the line killed somebody who didn’t get vaccinated in time.
Now in late Apr 21, not so much.
I don’t think that logic works out because it assumes a jumper prevents someone from getting the vaccine but it only delays it slightly. In the end they probably delayed some people a few days which, while not good, wouldn’t lead to 10% more deaths. One could argue that it might have saved lives because the a-holes probably ignored safety protocols so getting them vaccinated early was good. They’re still assholes, though.
It’s kinda like littering.
If one person tosses a McDonald’s cup out the window does it really do much harm?
No.
But if a few hundred thousand people do that then it is a problem.
Same here. One person jumping the line…meh…won’t be noticed. But a few hundred thousand jumping the line and yeah, collectively they are killing people (indirectly) which makes all of them assholes.
The mere fact you can’t establish direct causation from line-jumper A to dead person B doesn’t mean the connection isn’t 100% real. It’s just forever hidden from view due to our incomplete knowledge of who spread what to who when.
The whole and entire point of contract tracing as is done in civilized countries that aren’t already overrun with disease is that these contacts do directly matter and are fully trackable and follow-able-up-able if only the public will cooperate. And doing so produces a lot less disease and a lot less economic dislocation.
It’s a pure win that we’re too collectively stupid to accept. Even now with disease rampant in the wild in our country if we could wave a magic wand and have full compliance with contact tracking plus full follow-up including quarantine of the active spreaders du jour we’d eliminate this disease nationwide in a couple weeks.
Had a visit with my father in the nursing home yesterday; he had Covid early on (a mild case) and has also had the vaccinations.
I talked to three staff people, the receptionist, the nurses aid who walked Dad to the visiting area (and stayed with him during the visit), and the head nurse from his floor. All three said they are “going to wait a while” before getting the vaccine due to the newness of it. I don’t have a precise number but it appears that’s a common scenario is this particular facility. There was no talk of politics, just a general hesitancy regarding the newness of the vaccine and a great deal of frustration with the ever-changing rules – they said they get new rules and regulations with which they must comply pretty much every week.
The head nurse said they have had two patients (in a 100 bed facility), both vaccinated, who have had a second confirmed case of Covid.
My family doctor, an American born Latino, and my sister’s family doctor who came from Pakistan are also going to wait a while.
This is in small town predominately Democrat Pennsylvania.
I’ve read various news articles and anecdotes about medical people who are hesitant about this particular vaccine because it’s so new.
This may be a rare instance where a lot of knowledge is more dangerous than a little knowledge.
It doesn’t matter what line of work you’re in: you know a lot more about how the sausage is made than do your customers.
If you’re of a cynical mindset you’ll notice and emphasize all the bad in your industry and be more pessimistic than the unwitting customers. If you’re not of a cynical mindset you’ll be the opposite.
This whole thing is a giant Rorschach test where people’s basic mental/emotional make-up is being projected on a giant screen of shifting smoke. They will see in it what they want to see in it. And as we’re discovering, paying actual attention to the actual data is not a large part of many people’s makeup. Among both the well-educated and supposedly intelligent and among the yokels.
I think this counts for this thread and is factual:
In case you’re paywalled, that private school is run by an anti-vaxxer. Any teacher who gets the vaccine will have to stay away from the students, and could lose their job.
Teachers who get the vaccine over the summer will not be allowed to return, the letter said, until clinical trials on the vaccine are completed, and then only “if a position is still available at that time” — effectively making teachers’ employment contingent on avoiding the vaccine.
ETA: Here’s a non-paywalled story:
Here’s something similar from a “health” business in Ontario that’s barring customers who have been vaccinated:
Regarding people who are refusing because they think the vaccines are too new…I try to avoid being an early adopter, but I’ve also been under the impression that plenty of data has been made available about vaccine development, particularly for the mRNA vaccines. While seeing other groups get vaccinated first did provide some reassurance, I didn’t hesitate at all once I was eligible.
And I have no idea how to handle people who think that just because something’s on the internet, it’s true. One of my mom’s friends is like this; Mom has tried reasoning with her, and we’ve both tried supplying links to recognized science publications…but no, some lady out in Arizona found these videos on YouTube, and they tell the real truth. 
The nice part about somebody like Centner or the folks in Windsor is that once they’ve tattoo-ed “I’m F***ing CRAZY” on their forehead, they’re easy to recognize and thereby avoid.
Who knew we’d develop cultural Apartheid over this stuff.
How would this lady force people to divulge this information?
The woman intends to ask her employees in writing if they’re vaccinated. If they say “yes”, she’ll fire them for being vaccinated. If they say “no”, and she later finds out they were lying, she’ll fire them for lying then and for being vaccinated now. If they refuse to answer, she’ll fire them for refusing to answer.
This doesn’t seem very hard to figure out.
But is she allowed to ask for private health information?
The Center moron (apparently sincerely) believes you cannot safely perform the duties of teacher while the vaccine cooties are leaking out of your pores and harming the students and other teachers. It’s not your safety she’s concerned about, but the safety of her customers and your co-workers.
So totally legal. Nonsense, but legal nonsense. At least until some judge says her claims lack sufficient credibility to be taken seriously.
It’s not legal. If she tries this, she will lose in court.
How would she find out they were lying? That information is not available to her.
People use TwitFace. They talk to their friends. etc.
Or hell, just fire anyone who doesn’t sound sufficiently sincere in their denunciation of all things vaccine. Remember, bosses don’t need a reason to fire people; they just can. With very few, very narrow exceptions.
The other legal question that springs to mind concerns liability. If you coerce an employee to act in a manner which is (generally held by experts to be) unsafe, and something bad happens as a consequence of this coercion - lets say a COVID outbreak resulting in serious illness or death - where do you stand?
Have there been precedents in the US?
j
Or if you required vaccinations of your employees and one dies of a blood clot, is the employer liable?