Yes.
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Yes in some states. They are not a protected class but some states may have laws requiring employers not to discriminate based upon lawful activities done outside the job. I wonder thought about smoking breaks.
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Good to know. I hadnât heard of that, but I work in a govt building where smokers were still allowed to smoke anywhere inside until the early 2000s.
In my (non-healthcare) industry in the DC area, all of the job postings say vaccination is required.
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Itâs too bad that the ACA prohibits health care insurers from charging a higher premium to the un-vaxxed.
This is something I started thinking about maybe two months after the pandemic started and there was all the flatten-the-curve talk â I thought, you know, this makes sense to me (and I took a class through the Ferguson group paper), but I like graphs, delight in Tufte (mostly), data presentation generally. But most people not only donât like graphs, they canât read them. I bet most people have no idea what âthe curveâ is about or what âflatâ is supposed to mean.
And then I realized â oh crap, most people also have no idea what goes on under their skin. Halloween is their strongest anatomy teacher. Most could not tell you where their internal organs are, let alone visualize aerosol sprays and clouds and plumes and cell receptors and mechanisms of cellular damage and ravaged tissue presentation. Somewhere between 10-15% canât really read. And there on the news, unless itâs a local Barbie and Ken show, itâs college grads talking to college grads.
All that spike stuff, too. Spikes, proteins, mRNAâŠI was listening to an early LFT developer from MIT on NPR yesterday, and she was telling a pretty good story about why, when everyone was desperate for rapid tests early in the pandemic, FDA wouldnât approve hers (and hers wasnât the only one), but it was impossible to follow unless you had some solid background. The host kept trying to back her up and get her to explain in English, but she didnât really know how. Iâd guess she left 75% of the NPR audience behind.
Itâs an incredibly serious problem and I donât think anyone knows how to get at it. We used to do it by authority: youâd freaking do as the health officials said, and youâd get a propaganda poster or two in the nurseâs office. All replaced by the internetâs âmarketplace of ideasâ.
Complexity and democracy. You wonder where the limits are. I mean in the end, thatâs what autocracyâs about: you donât have to figure it out, you just follow that guy, and whatever he says is right.
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Although they canât charge a higher premium, they can offer a discount to those who are vaxxed, as they do with other things (like nonsmokers). It wouldnât make a difference until the next benefits open enrollment, but pricing could be set to make it a penalty-that-is-cannot-technically-a-penalty.
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A quick update regarding the vaccine pass in France: it will be required within a week or so for people 16 and above.
No vaccine? No cafe, according to new French virus law | AP News
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âExperts say the virus wonât become endemic like the flu as long as global vaccination rates are so low. During a recent press conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that protecting people from future variants â including those that may be fully resistant to todayâs shots â depends on ending global vaccine inequity.â
This statement seems suspect. Historically pandemics have resolved on their own without global vaccination.
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WHO has a vested interest to convince the wealthy countries to provide the vaccines free to the developing countries.
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Thanks to the less-than-civil off-topic debate on how to define a term, I am slowing the thread.
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I havenât been following along enough to know if that was sincere or cynical, but Iâd agree that of course the World Health Organization has a vested (or primary) interest in convincing the wealthy countries to provide the vaccines free to the developing countries, or some model that achieves a similar goal.
Letâs all agree on that and move on
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File under âwe arenât taking this seriously enoughâ:
https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/1482768682753445888
I deal with it by listening to Donna Summer, mostly.
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Starbucks says they are âcomplyingâ with the ruling??? The ruling just says the feds cannot put in the mandate, not that Starbucks has to drop it! Carhartt and others are keeping the vaccine mandate for their employees. Good for them.
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