To Vaccinate or Not---The Rat Flu Odyssey Continues

[Mazderati]

[jono]

jono -

I may have presented some of that ^^^ poorly --

rather than 'mandate the vaccine' , If people cannot get medical care without vaccination, I think Some ( maybe enough people ) will choose vaccination -

( maybe I have mis-attributed a comment to you - about 95% ultimately participating ( 9-28-2021. post# 13349 ) ) -

You got the attribution right, I just didn't mean that as a realistic statement--in a perfect world, no politics, no emotional nonsense, given the actual facts, etc. I'm sure well over 95% (probably over 99%) would conclude they're better off getting a vaccine.

On the other hand, there's the world we're both living in. Over here the emotional skin bags are loathe to even think about, let alone cultivate any curiosity toward anything they don't like and only dredge up the atrophied rational parts of their brains to defend their urges and cravings or come up with witty or vapid semi-contrarianisms so their peers will chuckle softly and stroke their lumpy, rotten, fungal egos.

Or maybe it's not that bad. I could be too pessimistic. Five percent, maybe even ten. I'm waiting for a really attractive argument.

[The AD]

I don’t know, but didn’t they have it really bad last summer or fall? Maybe lots of vulnerable people already died and the remaining survivors are doing well with their antibodies (?)

Yes, they got absolutely hammered last winter. At one point they were averaging 1,400 new cases per day. That's a staggering number for a state with a population of less than 800,000.

Australia has fewer total Covid deaths than North Dakota (1321 to 1655) despite having 33 x as many people.

[mcski]

My crayon eating anti vax former classmates seem to have run out of steam on their anti pokeganda and have circled back to their former crusade that masks don’t work, Muslims use them to subjugate women, and Hitler stuff.

[LongShortLong]

The political part of the problem I have no answers for, though I might be willing to speculate in polyass.

The heath part though... My understanding is that every time historically we've needed people to take some action for health, it's required a enforced mandate. I think people love to choose. They also get stuck when there's choices - once you make a choice, your choices are lost. Having 3 vaccines and the option to refuse just makes a waffling mess that people don't escape. A nice mandate makes it easy. We did it for numerous diseases (and still do, get TB and see how many freedoms we give you). Also worked for the WWII ration program, seatbelt wearing, airbags in cars, toll bridges, ...

And reports I'm hearing are that given the choice between vaccine or job, 97-99% are getting vaccinated. Since many already were, that probably works out to more than 90% of the holdouts. Would not be surprised if some of the refusers had bosses who emphasized the "choice" to leave, rather than "the team really needs you, please meet the requirements and help me help you."

[twat]

No kangaroos in austria : )

[subtle plague]

No kangaroos in austria : )

You're doomed. Unless you use horse dewormer.

[skiJ]

geez - I think I prefer the optimism that ultimately 95% will accept vaccination -

But to tie that to a world without politics and without emotion ( and I'll add without religion, though I am not opposed to religion ( I just believe we have made a mess of it, probably since the beginning of Time )) ,,,, ultimately, we (gotta) deal with reality - and

there are enough people opposed to vaccination whose Work is not threatened by a mandate tied to Work, that a mandate tied to Work, ,,, I just don't see that getting us to an actual 85% -

Oh - And a mandate that allows a test-out option is looking more to me like a (political) 'sound bite' than an actual, effective mandate.


I see the next battle -
. . . how do we vaccinate school children (?)

but let me set that aside for another post except to say,
I believe the role that School is playing in the recent / current surge is being under,,, valued -

far up-thread there is even a claim that schools are just an extension of everyday life.
I believe this is an unfortunately inaccurate characterization -

classrooms have always been sites that contribute to the spread of disease - a simple matter of fact.
Add to that the social events that inter-school sports are, and we have a great environment for spreading the virus -

the arguments about vaccinating children ,,, will - I believe - make this year look pretty calm.
This may be where a Federal mandate for vaccination may actually succeed.

( no vaccination, no funding. )

Ugh.

Please,
get vaccinated ;

when you can,
Please get your kids vaccinated - please...

Thanks for ( listening... )

respectfully. tj

[jono]

geez - I think I prefer the optimism that ultimately 95% will accept vaccination -

But to tie that to a world without politics and without emotion ( and I'll add without religion, though I am not opposed to religion ( I just believe we have made a mess of it, probably since the beginning of Time )) ,,,, ultimately, we (gotta) deal with reality - and

there are enough people opposed to vaccination whose Work is not threatened by a mandate tied to Work, that a mandate tied to Work, ,,, I just don't see that getting us to an actual 85% -

Oh - And a mandate that allows a test-out option is looking more to me like a (political) 'sound bite' than an actual, effective mandate.


I see the next battle -
. . . how do we vaccinate school children (?)

but let me set that aside for another post except to say,
I believe the role that School is playing in the recent / current surge is being under,,, valued -

far up-thread there is even a claim that schools are just an extension of everyday life.
I believe this is an unfortunately inaccurate characterization -

classrooms have always been sites that contribute to the spread of disease - a simple matter of fact.
Add to that the social events that inter-school sports are, and we have a great environment for spreading the virus -

the arguments about vaccinating children ,,, will - I believe - make this year look pretty calm.
This may be where a Federal mandate for vaccination may actually succeed.

( no vaccination, no funding. )

Ugh.

Please,
get vaccinated ;

when you can,
Please get your kids vaccinated - please...

Thanks for ( listening... )

respectfully. tj

Agree. I am predicting two things: massive profits for test makers (congrats Mofro--where can I buy stock [and stock]?) and....

I'm not going to be the one to put up a road map, but strategies are being worked out to let people get around these. I haven't heard mention of the most obvious exemption yet, but it's inevitable. Outside of healthcare and some parts of government I expect the loopholes will be explored. (To the ultimate degradation of society and personal freedoms of all sorts, ironically.)

As soon as the conversation turned from "we hope you'll choose to comply" to "we really need you (and probably to survive)" it was a negotiation. And none of the people talking were giving an inch on the vaccine (sic), so literally everything else was on the table.

[Kinnikinnick]

The political part of the problem I have no answers for, though I might be willing to speculate in polyass.

The heath part though... My understanding is that every time historically we've needed people to take some action for health, it's required a enforced mandate. I think people love to choose. They also get stuck when there's choices - once you make a choice, your choices are lost. Having 3 vaccines and the option to refuse just makes a waffling mess that people don't escape. A nice mandate makes it easy. We did it for numerous diseases (and still do, get TB and see how many freedoms we give you). Also worked for the WWII ration program, seatbelt wearing, airbags in cars, toll bridges, ...

And reports I'm hearing are that given the choice between vaccine or job, 97-99% are getting vaccinated. Since many already were, that probably works out to more than 90% of the holdouts. Would not be surprised if some of the refusers had bosses who emphasized the "choice" to leave, rather than "the team really needs you, please meet the requirements and help me help you."

I think that you’re on to something with the while choice thing.

Although I think it might be more of a “mine” thing. “That choice is mine!” And anything meant to educate, cajole, ask, or… mandate is going to trigger the five-year-old inside these people.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p-3e0EkvIEM


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[jono]

Genuinely interested to read about some more of your thinking on this bit. Are the loopholes you're talking about related to dodging both vaccines and testing?

Just vaccines, I think. Hopefully. I can't see a loophole to get around testing apart from lax enforcement, unless OSHA relaxes it due to lack of supply.

I'm curious myself to hear from the lawyers on this: if there aren't enough tests to implement the OSHA rule requiring weekly tests for unvaccinated workers, is that grounds for companies to sue OSHA to delay it? Are there public comment or other requirements on OSHA in this scenario? All the lawsuits I've heard of so far sound like fundraisers (a la big lie) but maybe there are more viable ones? It sure seems like the "reasonable" requirement is satisfied by the presence of vaccines, but if there are Any people with legitimate reasons they shouldn't get one and the covidiots are taking up all the supply, what then?

I'm hearing companies say things like "well, if you do your best and just can't find tests I don't know how we could penalize you for that." Of course, the real answer is that vaccines aren't hard to find, so choosing the impossible option isn't on the company. But we're used to government regulations being put off to let industry catch up, and some people will drag their feet and hope.

[ill-advised strategy]

I have to wonder if osha is prepared to enforce a mandate.
Maybe it will be the kind of thing where lots of workplaces will disregard it, and if there’s a big high-profile outbreak somewhere, then they’ll get involved with fines or whatever…. Maybe not even then if it’s in the wrong state.
Is the Montana state osha going to enforce this? Florida? Alabama?
Under those circumstances, antivax supervisors and business owners would likely then pressure sick workers not to get tested, or whatever it takes to skirt whatever reporting or accountability structures exist. Or if somebody dies they’ll back date some kind of religious exemption or whatever they can do to avoid accountability.

Is this ^^ a reasonable take?

[Adolf Allerbush]

geez - I think I prefer the optimism that ultimately 95% will accept vaccination -

But to tie that to a world without politics and without emotion ( and I'll add without religion, though I am not opposed to religion ( I just believe we have made a mess of it, probably since the beginning of Time )) ,,,, ultimately, we (gotta) deal with reality - and

there are enough people opposed to vaccination whose Work is not threatened by a mandate tied to Work, that a mandate tied to Work, ,,, I just don't see that getting us to an actual 85% -

Oh - And a mandate that allows a test-out option is looking more to me like a (political) 'sound bite' than an actual, effective mandate.


I see the next battle -
. . . how do we vaccinate school children (?)

but let me set that aside for another post except to say,
I believe the role that School is playing in the recent / current surge is being under,,, valued -

far up-thread there is even a claim that schools are just an extension of everyday life.
I believe this is an unfortunately inaccurate characterization -

classrooms have always been sites that contribute to the spread of disease - a simple matter of fact.
Add to that the social events that inter-school sports are, and we have a great environment for spreading the virus -

the arguments about vaccinating children ,,, will - I believe - make this year look pretty calm.
This may be where a Federal mandate for vaccination may actually succeed.

( no vaccination, no funding. )

Ugh.

Please,
get vaccinated ;

when you can,
Please get your kids vaccinated - please...

Thanks for ( listening... )

respectfully. tj

The school age children thing is important, but it's not going to get us to where we need to be. We're sitting at about 57% of the US population being fully vaccinated. School age kids (5-17) make up about 16% of the population. Of that, maybe 9% are ages 5-11. Assuming we're only able to easily get 57% of people to get their kids, in this age group, vaccinated, we're looking at maybe 17 million people out of the total population. That's a lot, but it only gets us to 62% vaccinated...not nearly enough.

I'm also hearing a lot of friends (anecdotal, warning!) say things like "we're going to wait to see how it goes for other kids before getting our snowflakes vaxxed..." these are people who were clamoring to get vaccinated in the spring, but now will sit on the fence to see how it goes for other kids (i.e., test cases in their minds). This is to say that we're going to see even less kids vaccinated than the general population.

It is what it is....and to me it's going to be a slog.

I have to wonder if osha is prepared to enforce a mandate.
Maybe it will be the kind of thing where lots of workplaces will disregard it, and if there’s a big high-profile outbreak somewhere, then they’ll get involved with fines or whatever…. Maybe not even then if it’s in the wrong state.
Is the Montana state osha going to enforce this? Florida? Alabama?
Under those circumstances, antivax supervisors and business owners would likely then pressure sick workers not to get tested, or whatever it takes to skirt whatever reporting or accountability structures exist. Or if somebody dies they’ll back date some kind of religious exemption or whatever they can do to avoid accountability.

Is this ^^ a reasonable take?

I've been thinking the same thing. Unfortunately, and not that I agree with mtu or others like him on how much protection natural infection provides, but maybe giving those with prior infections a pass on vaccinating is the best we can do? It's better than nothing from a prevention of disease spreading standpoint, and there must be a big number of people that fall into this group that will also never get vaccinated.

[Ted Striker]

My understanding is that every time historically we've needed people to take some action for health, it's required a enforced mandate. I think people love to choose. They also get stuck when there's choices - once you make a choice, your choices are lost.

This. And these days it becomes part of your identity, so it's really hard for people to change their minds because it's viewed as switching sides.

Way upthread, Hugh said "looking for an offramp" which is a great metaphor. At this point, the only meaningful offramp left is mandates. "I didn't want to get off there, but that road goes to my job. I had no choice"

[ill-advised strategy]

There’s going to be some alpha crackpot at every breakroom teaching everyone how to navigate the exemption pathway.

I remember when my state went “right to work” and the alpha crackpots engaged to teach everyone how to do the paperwork to resign from our union.
It’s going to be just like that.

[mcski]

This. And these days it becomes part of your identity, so it's really hard for people to change their minds because it's viewed as switching sides.

Way upthread, Hugh said "looking for an offramp" which is a great metaphor. At this point, the only meaningful offramp left is mandates. "I didn't want to get off there, but that road goes to my job. I had no choice"

This and maybe some leveraging of the insurance industry to make sure anyone without vaccination gets additional premium penalties. More of the i had no choice route.

There was a freakominics podcast recently on a Dutch sociologist that studied cooperative vs individual cultures and how they react. No country is homogenous and the US is already on the extremist end of the individualist spectrum, but listening to that helped explain some of the cultural nonsense were are seeing drive the anti vax/mask groups

[skiJ]

adolph -

Thank you for your Good Information -

. . . I was not looking for school kids to make-up a vaccination gap -

I do see Schools - and School activities - as significant factors to the spread of covid --


unfortunately, sadly, the anti-vaccination movement has received a lot of publicity over the last thirty years...

I have heard too many reports of clinical disease (covid) in children, to think we should not be vaccinating children for covid.

I don't know enough about the details of the transmissibility and pathology ( pathogenesis ) of Delta - but
( but ) I Am concerned about breakthrough infections ( from children to grandparents ).


for now, I am going to mostly try to stay out of the discussion about ,,, circumvention of testing -

i-as worked for a Federal agency for More than a decade, and has see Much

( I worked for a regulatory agency ( long enough ) and saw Too much. ) - -

dang it -
There will be plenty of opportunity to circumvent testing Without the outright dishonesty described., and

as described, they will be plenty that will be more than willing to falsify what is necessary to circumvent testing.

( Just the implementation of a testing program is going to be, ,,, challenging )


so.
rather than school kids contributing to the gap, let's have a Better program for school-aged kids, that more people can support !
( maybe ) fewer choices - and More initial incentive
( and then A question is how important is the vaccination of school-aged kids to limiting the spread of the disease (?)

( intuitively and historically, I believe it is more important than we are currently acknowledging - Because of the ,,, priority to return to the activities of the old 'normal' ))

( I read late last year, of kids that were being transported a hundred miles to participate in co-op sports programs - Before vaccination, driven through multiple communities - and then that hockey team played teams from further distant communities ! ... Because parents wanted their kids to be in a hockey Program.

Good grief. )


so. it's October -
I have no idea how close the Companies are to Approval of a childhood vaccine -

I do believe we need to continue to press the fact that vaccination IS about controlling the spread of the disease, and is important in a Responsible society -


mandate / incentive ? ... what incentive would be necessary with an improved implementation Plan (?)

I do not believe either Government nor Industry are inclined to approve or produce a product that is unsafe for children
( if mistakes were going to be made, it would have been with initial products, for adults ( it still remains to be seen how this still plays-out )


kids count. And schools are involved in the spread of disease -

Vaccination is our Better tool. and Vaccination is our better cost-effective tool.

Help control the disease by participating and being vaccinated.


let's go skiing !

Thank you. tj


postscript - mandate / incentive

it is my understanding a tax increase is coming -

how much would anti-vaccination taxpayers require to quietly visit a pharmacy for a tax Credit ?

have the actuaries pencil it into the tax increase for anyone vaccinated.

. . . I am Not a student of tax law, But I am pretty-sure directly taxing people for being unvaccinated would be challenged, but granting a tax Credit for anyone documenting vaccination is allowed...

They could continue to howl about being opposed to the vaccine, but
addressing it as a tax Credit seems, ,,, to be a 'more level playing field ' . And

a potentially reasonable alternative to promoting a test-out option.

[AK47bp]

Just vaccines, I think. Hopefully. I can't see a loophole to get around testing apart from lax enforcement, unless OSHA relaxes it due to lack of supply.

I'm curious myself to hear from the lawyers on this: if there aren't enough tests to implement the OSHA rule requiring weekly tests for unvaccinated workers, is that grounds for companies to sue OSHA to delay it? Are there public comment or other requirements on OSHA in this scenario? All the lawsuits I've heard of so far sound like fundraisers (a la big lie) but maybe there are more viable ones? It sure seems like the "reasonable" requirement is satisfied by the presence of vaccines, but if there are Any people with legitimate reasons they shouldn't get one and the covidiots are taking up all the supply, what then?

I'm hearing companies say things like "well, if you do your best and just can't find tests I don't know how we could penalize you for that." Of course, the real answer is that vaccines aren't hard to find, so choosing the impossible option isn't on the company. But we're used to government regulations being put off to let industry catch up, and some people will drag their feet and hope.

There’s no guidance (yet) on the type of test. We ordered a pallet of home test kits for around $52k and will mail them to our genius no vax crew. Still working on modifying our HRIS for test results collection and approvals.

This shit is A LOT of work on the administrative side of business and sucks ass.


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[skiJ]

There’s going to be some alpha crackpot at every breakroom teaching everyone how to navigate the exemption pathway.

I remember when my state went “right to work” and the alpha crackpots engaged to teach everyone how to do the paperwork to resign from our union.
It’s going to be just like that.

^^^ I believe this. and I Hate this -- tj


postscript.

hey, i-as, let's Please, not equate the 'test-out option' as an exemption -

the exemption alternative - I believe - already exists And is different.

it might be a matter of somantics, but as AK47 points out, testing is going to be a PITA for business and industry...

( More work, Not an exemption )

[old_newguy]

How about triaging differently? How about instead of triaging at the immediate term hospital level we triage based on a longer timeframe? How much preventable death are we pushing down the road by allowing unvaccinated COVID patients to take up a huge chunk of hospital capacity?

How about reserving a percentage of the HC system to address all of the other issues like cancer treatments, or other screening that are being delayed?

[jono]

There’s no guidance (yet) on the type of test. We ordered a pallet of home test kits for around $52k and will mail them to our genius no vax crew. Still working on modifying our HRIS for test results collection and approvals.

This shit is A LOT of work on the administrative side of business and sucks ass.

Are you charging anything for the tests?

Combining this policy with the stories of $54k test fees that insurance has to pay seems like a recipe for disaster.

[AK47bp]

Are you charging anything for the tests?

Combining this policy with the stories of $54k test fees that insurance has to pay seems like a recipe for disaster.

Not sure yet. Our CEO sent out an email to everyone that weekly testing would be covered by insurance without consulting with my team. At the time that was a gray area with no guidance and testing was covered. Well, since then our provider has issued a statement that weekly employment testing isn’t covered.

The initial strategy may be to send the non vaxxed a month worth of tests (4 or 5) and then tell them they are on their own.




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[Mustonen]

I have to wonder if osha is prepared to enforce a mandate.
Maybe it will be the kind of thing where lots of workplaces will disregard it, and if there’s a big high-profile outbreak somewhere, then they’ll get involved with fines or whatever…. Maybe not even then if it’s in the wrong state.
Is the Montana state osha going to enforce this? Florida? Alabama?
Under those circumstances, antivax supervisors and business owners would likely then pressure sick workers not to get tested, or whatever it takes to skirt whatever reporting or accountability structures exist. Or if somebody dies they’ll back date some kind of religious exemption or whatever they can do to avoid accountability.

Is this ^^ a reasonable take?

This creates an entire data collection and monitoring process that is, at best, challenging and expensive. Coupled with the “great resignation” it creates a significant burden overnight, depending on how the mandate is written. Outside of requiring a vax for continued employment like JongGuy’s workplace…. Which we can’t afford to do because goddamn if there isn’t a lot of crazy around here.

So many at higher turnover, service sector, mid-size businesses are already overworked and understaffed that adding this to the pile all but guarantees minimal compliance. Either OSHA invests enough resources to police it and hand out uniformly comprehensive harsh penalties (and things start to get really ugly and even more divisive out there), or it is largely ignored in areas with already low vaccination rates and barely moves the needle.

I agree with the intent behind the mandate, but like things like heath insurance, I’m annoyed that the burden is falling on the employer in this circumstance.

[SumJongGuy]

There’s no guidance (yet) on the type of test. We ordered a pallet of home test kits for around $52k and will mail them to our genius no vax crew. Still working on modifying our HRIS for test results collection and approvals.

This shit is A LOT of work on the administrative side of business and sucks ass.


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Our policy is clear.. No vax card, no badge access to any company facilities.

We've got 3.5 boxes of the Abbott Binax tests at home. Wife bought one when she was exposed a month ago at work and we used one of them. I bought 3 more boxes thinking it was good to have around in case anyone was wondering but not wanting to go get in line for a formal test... Functional but no way to verify/validate the date or person the test was used on. Home tests are kinda like your probation officer just asking you to bring them a bottle of pee. It defeats the purpose of the test..

[Ted Striker]

We ordered a pallet of home test kits for around $52k and will mail them to our genius no vax crew.

I worked for a company that started charging us for parking when the lot changed hands, and the new owners jacked the lease up. The union looked at it and said the amount of bargaining capital that would be expended fighting it should be saved for something more important. So we started paying to park in "our own" lot.