I think the decision to fire unvaccinated workers was made months ago, before the omicron surge. I think that’s it’s state dependent, at least that’s what my relatives in health care are reporting. I know that The Cleveland Clinic backed down on its vaccine mandate for the moment.
But the arguments have been presented to the Supreme Court and they will tell us what it’s going to be.
I’m not sure why we here keep debating this. It happened in certain states, not in others.
My personal opinion is that employers have a right to tell their employees how they want them to behave. I’m pretty sure that they have to have a hepatitis vaccine and others. Including flu vaccines.
I ran into this a few days ago at the dentist – he’d agreed to take a rapid test before fitting my crown, I called to find out who the assistant would be so I could ask her too, the front-desk clerks weren’t the sharpest knives and I had to explain about 16 times, ending with “don’t worry, I’ll just bring it in with a note, the doctor will know what to do.” Less than an hour later I’m getting email and phonebombed by an admin there who wants to tell me that “protocol” is that they don’t test “at patient request”, then she stuck “dean” on there to make it more impressive, and when I asked whether faculty dentists were going to be disciplined if they, adults, decided to take a medical test, we had a bout of shouty-talking over each other, she got real mad and asked did I want to talk to the dean. Can he answer the question? I asked. Yes, she said, and I said, Then sure.
In the interim I got phonebombed by the dean, declined to answer, went to the appointment early, gave a different desk clerk the Binax box, and away she went with it to the dentist. I sit down and listen to one of the clerks tell the others the same story four times in a row about how sick she’s just been and how she isn’t really over it and can’t climb stairs and what it’s all felt like with all the strength just going right out of her and having trouble with her mind. The dentist and his assistant take the tests and then call me back; they’d had lots of fun with the tests, never had a rapid test before, but only after sticking the swab in the card did it occur to them that they’d have to figure out what to do if they came up positive, since they’d been seeing patients all morning.
It seems the dentist had had a visit from an admin, too, between my calling and my coming in. He was lovely and vague about what happened. His father died of covid less than a year ago.
They don’t test. Testing is not happening. Testing is never supposed to be happening unless people are obviously ill.
I eventually got back to the dean by email, asked him would he please just answer that question, and he said no, they’re not disciplining faculty who decide to do whatever private medical things they do.
Let’s correct this sentence: Firing the unvaccinated stops them from spreading disease to people who are in hospitals and vulnerable to getting sick, and NO ONE enjoys firing people.
It’s doing what was promised. It’s keeping a lot of people from going to hospitals and dying.
We may have found the solution to vaccine reluctance. Quebec requires proof of vax to purchase alcohol or cannabis. Vax rates skyrocketing. Whatever works…
My uncle, who has had 4 heart attacks, and is nearly blind besides, had a stroke last week. He spent 3 days at the major medical center an hour from his home in Mass – on a gurney in the ER hallway. There was literally no otherplace to put him. He was eventually moved upstairs to 3 more days in a semi private room; the whole hospital is full of unvaccinated COVID patients. They didn’t have enough staff to keep him settled, so my cousin convinced the head nurse to let her stay at his side rather than put him in restraints (uncle kept attempting to get up and leave but he is a dementia patient with a fall risk)
Meaning a 53% reduction in the probability that someone who gets omicron will need hospitalization. The bad news is that omicron is much more contagious, and if over twice as many people get it, then as many or more people will need to be hospitalized, not less.
The healthcare professionals I know are frustrated and angry that their (former) colleagues would behave in such a selfish, irrational, and dangerous manner so as to endanger themselves, staff, and patients. Good riddance.
What I’d feel good about is removing wildly unnecessary risks to newborns. After that, if I had time, and I suspect these people don’t, I’d be super pissed at the people who put me through that in the middle of a crisis in order to protect the newborns.
As for people worrying that the vax doesn’t do etc. – come on. It’s one excuse after the next with these people. The “worries” are rhetorical, nothing more. It’s joined to the self-conviction that if they show true colors the world will persecute them, as if they know what that means, so they’re not just justified but more or less required to talk baloney about why they’re not doing it.
Cowardice, in other words.
Yesterday I was listening to a podcast doing some catch-up on COP26, and this brogressive guy was just beside himself at the complacency, and I’m listening and thinking: are you not looking around you; people are fine with dying. They don’t care. The combination of a sense of agency and a sense of what to do with one’s life turns out to be a rare thing. There is no sense of urgency about continuing to live. So no, the lightbulb isn’t going to go on and make them stop jetting around the world and driving everywhere and cranking the gas-powered heat and so on. It’ll be top-down or not at all. They’ll go where they’re led, mostly, but you better have the right leaders, and at the moment we don’t. Buy scuba gear now.
Just read that Glenn Beck has COVID for the second time. Refused the vaccine both before and after his first bout with it. Says this time it’s in his lungs.
“The court allowed to take effect the vaccine policy rolled out in November by the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which sought to require the Covid-19 vaccine for certain health care workers at hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
I went out tonight to play trivia and there was also a chamber of commerce event in the same place. There were absolutely no masks, so either everyone had recently had covid, or no one cares. I know since myself and DH are two weeks past covid (plus previously vaccinated/boosted), it was so liberating to be out and not worry about catching it.
@TexasTiger2 - tried to PM you buy could not. Please feel free to send me a PM! Had to wait 2 hours to respond here and then forgot… so sorry for the late response.
I need to start introducing people to the word “reinfection”.
So you know how covid is really good at marauding through people’s various tissues and scarring them to the point where there’s diabetes and brain fog and blood clots and thrombosis even in people who’ve had mild cases?
The damage doesn’t resolve overnight. The fact that you don’t feel it doesn’t mean that it’s not there.
If you’re already damaged internally, do you really want to risk reinfection of damaged tissue? If you’re fine with that, have you discussed with your family who’s going to stop doing whatever they’re doing with their lives to become your caregiver should you need one or more? There’s a nursing shortage on, you know.
Once upon a time I kept myself ridiculously healthy for an aging specimen out of fear of pre-existing-condition non-coverage and insurance ineligibility. Now? Now I’ve got practically socialist healthcare, which is wunderbar, and the only limiting factor is local pretense that putting on the job costume = doing the job, and that it’s better not to do the job properly because that’d cost money.
The local hospital/HCW attitudes and staggering ignorance about covid, though, now have me taking better care of myself than I have in a decade. It’s clearly a DIY project. Regular all-round exercise? Check. Dietician’s dream diet? Check; I forgot I had brussels sprouts, opened fridge, thought: oh, yay! Flossing, sleep-tracking, blood-sugar-testing, remote poo testing? Check, check, check, check. Advanced first aid? You betcha. Driving? Hardly ever, and not on highways.
Funny thing: all these natural-health-anti-vax-woo people will in the end have me beekeeping and growing a medicinal garden. Skulking around in the park collecting willow. Already got the elderberries and rose hips. (I don’t think I’ll be beekeeping. I hadn’t thought it possible, but the neighbors are already restive about my apple trees. The poor girl next door was wandering around her nearly-pristine yard with a giant leaf vacuum on a windy day. I hadn’t the heart to tell her there’d be more.)
The ones I really feel for at this point are the young HCWs who’re $300K in mostly-nondischargeable debt (which is supposed to be a heads-up about how much we respect HCWs, but most are too young to take the meaning when it’s time to sign for the loans), and have been trying so hard to do the right thing, and are thinking: this is beyond pointless, these people don’t respect their own lives so why should they respect mine, they spit on you for helping, I will be in debt forever unless I spend my life with these people; there’s no way out.
It has been pretty easy for me to get vaccinated, “mask up”, and social distance (I have always been kind of a germaphobe), but people are having vastly different experiences dealing with the pandemic, which is definitely part of the divide. Early in the pandemic, I had 2 elderly extended family members die by May 2020 from Covid, but over the last 18 months haven’t had a single family member need to be hospitalized and only know of one family member deal with any noticeable truly long term effects (longer than 3 months anyway) from Covid (and that family member has several pre-existing conditions).
I believe that most of that “luck” has been due to the vaccines and taking adequate precautions for the family members with the most risks of serious complications. But we also had at least 12 members of my extended family test positive for Covid in the last 6 weeks with the sickest person having about a week of flu-like symptoms after a positive test. I have quite a few extended family members who only wear masks when required (which is not in a lot of places in the South) or wear them so incorrectly, that they might as well take off the mask and I think the lack of visible consequences among our loved ones plays a part. I think your argument around being damaged internally by Covid is one that just doesn’t register because we do that to ourselves as a society in general (Obesity, smoking, drugs, not taking care of ourselves, etc.). It is just another acceptable risk along with the other “risks” that we live with.
I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. I believe some of the worst offenders really just don’t think it could happen to them. And are not that concerned if it happens to you.
