Ugg, why doesn't anybody, whether it be government officials, employers, whatever, ever consider those with natural immunity?<p>It's like some weird joke. The official CDC estimates over 115 MILLION natural infections in the U.S. alone, <i>and that only accounts for February 2020-March 2021</i>. It doesn't account for all the infections before February 2020 (I and most of my coworkers in downtown SF got it in January) nor any of the infections of the last 4 months, so that number should probably be at 130-140 million or more.<p>Yet, for some unknown reason, natural infection is NEVER talked about anywhere. Why? There's an absolute ton of natural immunity that isn't being talked about or considered and it's very, very, strange. Many people have no intention of taking the vaccine because they prefer natural immunity.
The fact that these mandates ignore the fact that past infection also provides immunity is frustrating and makes me question what is behind the mandates themselves. A valid test showing the antibodies should be allowed in place of an immunization.<p><a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting-immunity-found-after-recovery-covid-19" rel="nofollow">https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting...</a>
Where Google goes, I expect the rest of the tech companies (including companies that just fancy themselves as tech companies) to follow.<p>This is that moment when everyone is reminded of "at will" employment.
I am saying this as someone who has both shots and generally supports the vaccination.<p>From what I understand Google is known as a company with a "liberal" culture.<p>Is demanding employees accept one side of an argument and adhere to it (or face the consequences) contrary to the definition of "liberal"?<p>That's the problem with Western politics. Liberal vs. conservative is no longer about how permissive we are with ideas and unpopular opinions. It's about what subset of ideas we accept.
It saddens me to see that all the top comments on these posts are just some empty populist yelling, variations on "good, after all, there's a war going on". And counterpoints end up being strawmen about vaccines not working anyway. Whatever your end conclusion about whether this is a good move, it's a complex issue that balances a lot of things and is worthy of serious discussion. Instead we get basically an online newspaper comments section filled with shallow or nonexistent points. It's like covid turns everyone toward the lowest forms of debate. HN probably had the most sensible discussions of any site on the internet, so if this is happening here, I can only guess how others are discussing it.<p>I do wonder if tech people are more prone to seeing things in black and white and advocating technological "fixes" over societal compromises, but that's just my speculation.
Looks like employees have until October 18th to be vaccinated and return to the office.:<p>> Google announced Wednesday it would require all in-office workers and visitors to be vaccinated and that employees could continue working from home through Oct. 18.<p>It's possible, perhaps even likely, that the vaccines will be fully FDA approved before that date (Source: FDA spokesperson speaking here <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/16/health/pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-fda-priority-review/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/16/health/pfizer-covid-19-vaccin...</a> )<p>It should go without saying that they're obviously aware that some rare medical circumstances may not allow the vaccine. They have prepared an exceptions process for those people:<p>> He said there will be "an exceptions process for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other protected reasons.
You will see a lot more of this in the coming days.<p>A lot of non-medical companies/organizations were waiting for full FDA approval before requiring vaccines to make doubly sure they are following the law.<p>The Justice Department posted an opinion yesterday saying it's legal to require vaccinations that are approved under EUA.<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/26/politics/doj-covid-19-vaccine-requirements-olc-opinion/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/26/politics/doj-covid-19-vaccine...</a><p>California State University responded by requiring students to get COVID-19 vaccines even if they are only approved under EUA, previously they had said their policy was to require them when FDA gave full approval.<p><a href="https://www2.calstate.edu/csu-system/news/Pages/California-State-University-to-Implement-COVID-19-Vaccination-Requirement-for-Fall-2021-Term.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://www2.calstate.edu/csu-system/news/Pages/California-S...</a><p>Biden said that he expects full approval as early as late August. It's already been three months since Pfizer submitted their application for full approval, two since Moderna did.
I don't mean this polemically, or rhetorically. I'm honestly asking because I've given this some thought, and it's not entirely obvious to me.<p>"Who are the unvaccinated hurting, exactly?"<p>It appears to me that a pandemic of the unvaccinated harms the unvaccinated.<p>"Those who cant get the vaccines"<p>Now, some people will point out that some can't get the vaccines. Except that ppl with HIV, GBS, autoimmune etc are all encouraged by the CDC to get the vaccine. Children under 12 have ridiculous low rates of harm from COVID. So the folks getting hurt by not being vaccinated are the ones who chose to be unvaccinated. (I have a fairly serious auto-immune disease and it's not obvious to me that I should get the vaccine. Some of the reported side-effects are triggering my auto-immune disease. I'm waiting for my annual appointment my specialist next month to talk about this)<p>"Herd immunity to end the pandemic"<p>Another objection is that the pandemic will not end, we will not reach herd immunity, unless we vaccinate x amount of people. Except that it's not obvious to me that pandemic will ever end - we'll just co-evolve with COVID to be less harmful. The reasons being:<p>1. We'll never vaccinate Afghanistan or Central Asia in general, South Saharan Africa, etc. so COVID will never go extinct [1]<p>2. COVID-19, being a coronavirus, will likely evolve quickly out of our vaccines' scope. Furthermore, variants bifurcate so even if we can make new vaccines quickly, there will be too many variants to have to target.<p>3. Given points 1. and 2., heard immunity for a given country appears to be futile attempt.<p>4. Quickly vaccinating everyone before COVID bifurcates too much appears to be a fools errand. Anyway, you'd make more progress vaccinating the third world than trying to convince reluctant young people in the first world. In the third world the vaccines would be far more effective at stopping COVID's bifurcation (since they have a lot of young people who could safely be inoculated by getting the virus itself by removing all COVID restrictions)<p>[1] Not a dig at those countries, but a statement of fact based on the mistrust the central asians have since rich countries highjacked UN vaccination programs to advance their geo-political goals. Or poor quality vaccines/equipment that spread diseases amongst Africans.<p>[EDIT] While I am not vaccinated, I did sign up for a vaccine trial and was rejected. So please, try not to make this personal.
What form do these mandates take? What kind of proof do they ask for?<p>As I thought that vaccine information was private medical information.<p>Couldn’t someone presumably just lie?
I'm shocked so many people on HN support this. The only way I know to prove someone received a vaccine is for them to turn over their medical history. What if companies start refusing to hire someone because they have a bad medical history (insurance costs anyone)?<p>I'm sure many people will respond to this saying "they don't need to turn over their full medical history!" but once we turn over a part of it, they will want the next part, and the next, its inevitable. There will always be a safety and security justification.<p>And what of remote workers? A fully remote employee exposes zero company employees to risk. But they will be mandated to have a vaccine?<p>Why must we always lose one more right each day?<p>Edit: Apparently you receive proof of vaccination for the current COVID vaccines in the US. But isn't that still sharing part of your medical history? I have never once been asked a single question about my medical history during a job interview.
I suspect the standard will be to say "everyone must," with a long list of exceptions. And the truly vaccine-adverse will find their way into an exception. So the "mandates" moves the needle 10 or 15 percent, not the last 40 or 50%.<p>I'm fully-Pfizered, but I think heavy-handed blanket rules <i>without exceptions</i> would cause more harm than good. People in Idaho shouldn't have the same blanket rule as Google HQ, and I bet the small number of true religious objectors at Google HQ would have no real impact on the public health math.
Well, already job offers:<p>"If you work at Google or Facebook and don't want to get the mandatory vax you can always come and work for Gab. At Gab we respect your medical privacy and do not require an experimental non-FDA approved vaccine that doesn't stop you from getting Covid and includes other high risk side effects including death." Andrew Torba
Reminds me of a David Graeber article on the violence of bureaucracy. It was the first time in my life that I was convinced of the existence of such invisible threads of brutality.<p>As then, it's also now very hard for me to remain non-biased: how can ultimatums demanding mass conformity be the only way for such a technically advanced civilization to 'be productive'? What are the serious counterarguments against the idea that even today, huge effort is invested in the subtle yet solid control of the individual?
How are they going to even know you took the vaccine? Honor system? If they force you to disclose doesn't that break HIPAA? If it doesn't break HIPAA, then doesn't this create a precedent that employers can gain your medical history with arbitrary mandates?<p>Seems like a lose-lose.
As others have pointed out, the long term side effects of this vaccine could take years to fully be known. To make matters worse, it's not a traditional exogenous antigen vaccine -- it's literally synthetic biology... an entirely man made RNA sequence. The idea that the long term side effects of a therapeutic that uses genetic engineer at this level are known is absolutely laughable. They are just setting the precedent for future mandated gene therapy injections (which will grow more complex, and are essentially little biological computer programs).<p>The future is here folks. We live in a science fiction movie. I expect full blown societal collapse soon if the totalitarian take over plan doesn't work. Maybe folks should have listened to Peter Thiel in 2019 when he called Google treasonous.
I would trust google to know about their monster.<p>"Google and the USAID-funded Wuhan scientist Peter Daszak’s virus experiments for over a decade"
All WHO approved vaccines?<p>I'm thinking of leaving the country to try to get an inactive virus vaccine. I don't let anyone else run RNA code in my cells. The attack surface is too large.