I work at google and am vaxxed but this pisses me off. I decided that the vaccine was worth the risk and for the best overall but if someone makes a different calculus I can understand and respect that.
IMHO they gone way outside the reasonable scope of an employer - this is a cultural decision at the society level - why the fuck does my employer give a shit about this. Unless the employees are only commuting back and forth to work this does fuck all. It's feel good virtue signalling and I can't stomach any more counter productive SJW bullshit. The risk from COVID is not even that high for vaccinated individuals. What low risk bullshit are they going to make rules about next? Don't expect me to smile when you ask me to trade freedom for a bit of false security.
Want to change something? Then change societies perspective on the vaccine on your own fucking time.
Personally this ranks with their worst decisions and they made some fucking awful decisions over the years. I probably will act as if I don't have the vaccine and let them fire me for it when push comes to shove.
There is a counter point to yours, just as valid, where folks don’t want to be around unvaccinated folks. Maybe they have an immunocompromised relative or child at home. Maybe they don’t feel safe with unvaccinated folks around.
This is a game of odds. People keep acting like this is binary. You’re statistically more likely to have and spread covid without the vaccine.
I would be delighted if my employer enforced this policy but in Finland it’s never going to happen.
Honestly, anyone who's genuinely at risk enough that they can't risk being exposed despite being vaccinated - as opposed to the people who were convinced they are because of stupid media culture war bullshit - probably shouldn't be working in an office, because at that point they're going to be at reasonably comparable risk from the common cold. Seriously. The other four endemic human coronaviruses, for example, are very far from a walk in the park for at-risk people that manage to catch them; it's just that most people with working immune systems have some level of immunity that protects them from the worst effects.
As I mentioned in my comment, many folks have families. We are not dealing with individuals when it comes to a pandemic. We are dealing with contagion amongst bubbles of people. Many people have vulnerable people in their bubbles at home and need to make a living.
But how is this different from previously? Flu, common cold, various other viruses... all present a similar threat to that from covid and spread as easily. What has changed with covid to create so much additional fear and the subsequent authoritarian responses? Any decent person would just keep away from the office if they were ill. What's changed that now a particular course of action has to be mandated with the threat of job-loss as the alternative?
Seems to me that those who are concerned about unfairness for one group are simply transferring that unfairness to another group.
> But how is this different from previously? Flu, common cold, various other viruses... all present a similar threat to that from covid and spread as easily.
Because covid is more transmissible [1], more dangerous, has far longer lasting effects (long-covid), and because vaccines for non-covid viruses are generally more effective to _immunocompromised people_ as we've had longer to deal with them.
Furthermore, flu has been around for generations. We've all probably had some variant of it in our lives, and have some level of immunity. Covid is entirely new. It's far easier to rip through the population and get into the proximity of vulnerable people than flu.
> Any decent person would just keep away from the office if they were ill.
Sure. Except you don't know you're ill. A majority of people will be asymptomatic and spreading it without knowing. This is what is happening in the UK right now.
I'm personally feeling pretty uncomfortable with comparisons to flu and the cold today.
One of the guys on my team has just got out of hospital, he is in his mid-20s with no underlying conditions. Yet when be caught Covid he ended up in hospital on oxygen, was admitted to ICU, there was talk of him having to be intubated before he started to recover. That doesn't sound like a sniffly nose or a bad case of the runs to me.
I know it's only an anecdote, a single data point, but it means a lot more to me.
So... someone with a autoimmune disorder who is on a drug that suppresses their immune system shouldn't be in the office - even if they feel decent daily and definitely wouldn't qualify for disability?
(These sorts of medicines keep folks as healthy and mobile as possible, which is why diseases like MS aren't the sentence they used to be, even if they are still serious).
Diabetes can make you much more likely to have issues with infection too. Should it cause you to stay home? How are you going to eat and pay utilities?
Just FYI, infected vaccinated people have same levels of virus as unvaccinated people, and transmit the virus at the same rate. Best way to “stay away from unvaccinated people” is to just get yourself vaccinated and call it a day. If someone is immunocompromised they are not safe near vaccinated people either.
Assuming this is correct, that would be vaccinated people who get infected, and they are 10 times less likely to get infected in the first place. Antivax arguments are so terrible.
So people who don't want to take the vaccine until it has been fully approved by the FDA should be penalized to accommodate people who neglect their health?
This is not the case. Many people who are double vaccinated are testing positive for COVID and therefore capable of spreading it:
https://archive.is/sYyMf
Look at the data from the UK. The pandemic is far from over there, although hospitalisations are far far lower than previous peaks. There is a non-significant amount of immunocompromised people in the UK (1million+). Maybe the data we are seeing is because the immunocompromised people who take risks all ended up in hospital and died.
Maybe, what you are left with is a huge number of people scared shitless at home, hiding, lonely, scared in a country where everyone is being told everything is fine. My father is in this position, double vaccinated and tested negative for antibodies. Current data shows extremely low efficacy and antibody production in immunocompromised people.
> Many people who are double vaccinated are testing positive for COVID and therefore capable of spreading it
Yes, but the fact that symptoms tend to be much weaker in the vaccinated likely means it's less likely to spread from them. Currently, the problem is that we have those breakthrough cases, plus also the unvaccinated still spreading the disease.
That said, it's true that the new delta variant may mean we need further boosters.
As mentioned in the parent comment I made, it's a game of odds. It's one thing wearing a mask at the supermarket and passing someone with covid. But if I go to the office, pick up COVID, and I live in the same home as someone who is immunocompromised, they don't stand a chance. This is the reality for many millions of families around the world.
It’s funny though how you say this phrase for a vaccine and not for the hundreds of other riskier situations you face daily. “I drove a car…risk was worth it I decided”. It sounds a bit self-important. Vaccines are just something you do. For me it was not a decision. It’s an interesting exploration in psychology where people oppose something mostly because they are told to do it. Like a teenage rebellion attitude. I get this feeling when I feel like I am being taken advantage of or have been recently.
I can imagine it’s tough being a Google employee in the SJW era. There are a thousands ways they tell you you need to change. New language, etc. Constant unrelenting bullshit that you cannot oppose.
I think this is a way for people to take back control of something because they feel a loss of control in other areas.
Just like brexit, people want to go against things because of the people telling them to do something.
Google shouldn’t tell me. The government shouldn’t tell me. SJWs shouldn’t tell me.
But sadly I don’t think there is a way around this. But I do think the SJWs and vaccine/mask crusaders make things much worse.
> It’s funny though how you say this phrase for a vaccine and not for the hundreds of other riskier situations you face daily. “I drove a car…risk was worth it I decided”.
epistemic risk is fundamentally different from empirical risk
you started off strong with the max level condescendence and ignorance
but I do agree with the rest of the message, roughly at least
Of course you made a decision, unless you are an automaton? (ignoring the question of free will here). If the vaccine killed 90% of those who took it, you would of course take it, because "vaccines are just something you do"? No, you evaluated the risk.
And yes, driving a car absolutely is a risk, as is just about everything.
Yes I would take it. Because if there is a vaccine available and recommended to the general population that has 90% kill rate, the thing it’s protecting against would undoubtedly have a higher kill rate then this.
End of days scenarios we would be talking about nonetheless.
No the implication is a vaccine mandate in itself implies a calculated risk assessment that is sufficiently obvious it doesn’t make sense to use it as a basis for discussion.
That's true, but they are the foot soldiers for the technocrats. Like Mao's Red Guard, they are the ones enforcing it on the ground, ousting dissidents and running the struggle sessions. They humiliate, bully, ostracize, get people fired, destroy reputations. Without them the technocrats would have far less power.
No, I don't think so. The radical extremes give energy to each other. They're a problem for centrists.
It's been interesting to watch the center attempt to embrace enough of the (further) left to address the legitimate concerns (and remove fuel from the fire), without swallowing the poison.
It's also been interesting to watch Trump et al conflate the radicals with the center. They say nonsense like "Nancy Pelosi's far-left agenda", and people believe them. What absurdity.
I'm also at Google. Every single one of my reports who are intending to return to office have expressed concern and stress over unvaccinated peers in the office. Every single one.
Google has 130,000 employees. I've got ~10 reports and not all of them are coming back to in-person work. If 10% of the company doesn't want to get vaccinated, there is a reasonable chance that none of those people end up on my team.
The point is that the presence of unvaccinated people is going to cause stress and problems for other people who are less productive and happy at home and want to return to the office but feel unsafe doing so knowing that they would be sharing space with unvaccinated people.
> this is a cultural decision at the society level - why the fuck does my employer give a shit about this.
I don't think they should care if it is work from home (except that it potentially raises insurance premiums for everyone if they come down with some kind of chronic stuff from getting covid or being intubated or have to pay out company life insurance policies), but in the office there is is an obvious interest in having people vaccinated, just like college dorm rooms required even before covid.
Yeah I totally get that there is an interest - I disagree with whether it's a big enough interest at the employer level to justify a requirement. It feels more like pandering/posturing to me. The trade off isn't something that's easily weighed and I doubt we could ever reach consensus (it's pretty much a classic divisive political issue) but in those cases I err on the side of freedom and am sort of fed up with Americans giving up their freedoms.
If you need to meet customers in person, in their offices, they'll most likely require visitors to be vaccinated against Covid too. So you'd have to meet remotely only, which is a different market (it seems to put you in competition with a jillion people from low cost countries).
I don't want to be forced to be around potentially infectious people. The vaccine, like all others, is not 100% effective. Unvaccinated people pose an avoidable risk to my health. I don't want them around me. I don't want to be forced to be around them. Unvaccinated people have made a choice to risk their lives, they don't get the choice to risk mine.
Then you’ll be opting to stay home? If everyone in the office is vaccinated you’ll be around only potentially infectious people.
>Unvaccinated people have made a choice to risk their lives, they don’t get the choice to risk mine.
Doesn’t the vaccine cover for this? You get the vaccine and it reduces your symptoms, making you less likely to end up hospitalized or die. Even vaccinated you can still get infected, get sick from and spread the virus.
I said *avoidable* risk. Avoidable is the key. Driving a car has risks, that doesn't excuse idiots driving drunk or racing into my vehicle. Unvaccinated people are literally like drunks. They can be drunk at home, they don't get to be drunk while on the road, and I shouldn't have to stay home so that they can drive dangerously.
> Doesn’t the vaccine cover for this? You get the vaccine and it reduces your symptom
I don't want reduced symptoms, I just don't want your germs. And I wear seat belt or helmet but that doesn't give you a pass to booze up your commute, even though it would reduce the symptoms of rear ending me.
What you said was you don’t want to be forced to be around potentially infectious people. So anyone who’s been fully vaccinated and unvaccinated people who are currently infected. The only people to my knowledge who don’t spread are unvaccinated who have been previously infected. Robust natural immunity can be had from previous infection or cross reactive immunity from a previous coronavirus strain.
Back to your last point. If you don’t want germs, I’m not sure an office environment is for you. A 100% vaccinated office will still be susceptible to spreading COVID, especially if the Delta variant takes off like it did in the UK and Israel.
There are a number of assumptions underlying this perception. And under each of these assumptions, there is some information that you base on trust on some entities.
And if you vary this trust, the perception changes drastically. So you cannot change things like this objectively.
But with these kinds of mandates, it effectively impose your trust, onto others.
I don't think that is ethical.
Also, going by your reason, every other human being on this planet is a potential source of risk for you. Does that mean everyone should drop dead to make you feel safe. Sure I know you mention this "avoidable" thing.
But don't you see that for a person who is concerned about the vaccines, vaccines are this "avoidable" thing?
what i think people forget is that this isn't (IMO) about what the company wants or whatever, it's about the fact that offices are a nasty space where everybody breathes everybody's air - and diseases simply don't give a crap about where that happens. I'm pretty sure if google were an outdoor office complex where everybody sat 10 meters apart from each other they wouldn't give a crap about your vaccination status.
If anything, i think it has highlighted things like how cramped public transport, bars, clubs, etc really are and we just never paid it attention.
At the end of the day, this is one of the mitigations of a disease's spread and an office is somewhere it can happen. Let me flip it: Remote work ends and you now have to go back in, you're not vaccinated because [whatever reason you want] and you inevitably end up contracting the virus (along with it's risks). (My pessimistic guess is: people then sue the company for unsafe working conditions.)
Being personally educated on the risks to to people in my demographic, I would gladly sign an ironclad “I won’t sue the company if I get covid” contract to work in an office. If that’s the company’s concern, I suspect most people who hasn’t received a vaccine would sign such a contract.
Will you compensate financially the co-workers you happen to infect and who are vaccinated but for whom the vaccine didn't work (10% or so risk)?
It's not about you, nobody's stopping you from playing Russian roulette with your own skull. I personally do not want to be around unvaccinated people any more than I want to be on the same road as a drunk or street racer.
I would agree to that, provided there is evidence to prove that the other person was infected from me and not anyone else and that this specific infection caused them harm.
Restitution on dubious causes is not something that would hold in a court, I think.
I don't think you'd need anything other than pointing out that the person refused to take minimal precautions, even though it was available to them. I'm pretty sure employers have been sued for this one - not doing the basic minimum to keep others safe.
Civil courts, at least in the US, don't need proof beyond a reasonable doubt, after all - which is why you can get found not guilty for felony charges but still have to pay a wrongful death settlement for the same incident.
I'm with you except for the sentence about virtue signalling and SJW's; no need to bring the entire culture war into it. (In fact I'm usually on the side of those you call SJW's.)
Vaccination is not a "this is a cultural decision at the society level". It has saved millions and millions of lives. Maybe change your employer if you are so pissed at them?
Is there a coherent thought here? I don't disagree the vaccine has saved lives or even that you shouldn't get it. I can enjoy my job and what I do and disapprove of decisions made by leadership at the same time. It's easily the best place and people I've ever worked with.
It's a very basic responsibility of an employer to try and make their workplace a safe place to work. I'm not sure why that's so difficult to understand.
IMHO they gone way outside the reasonable scope of an employer - this is a cultural decision at the society level - why the fuck does my employer give a shit about this. Unless the employees are only commuting back and forth to work this does fuck all. It's feel good virtue signalling and I can't stomach any more counter productive SJW bullshit. The risk from COVID is not even that high for vaccinated individuals. What low risk bullshit are they going to make rules about next? Don't expect me to smile when you ask me to trade freedom for a bit of false security.
Want to change something? Then change societies perspective on the vaccine on your own fucking time.
Personally this ranks with their worst decisions and they made some fucking awful decisions over the years. I probably will act as if I don't have the vaccine and let them fire me for it when push comes to shove.