Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines | Hacker News Reader

Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

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162 pointsnevir417 comments

Ugg, why doesn't anybody, whether it be government officials, employers, whatever, ever consider those with natural immunity?

It's like some weird joke. The official CDC estimates over 115 MILLION natural infections in the U.S. alone, and that only accounts for February 2020-March 2021. 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.

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.

Natural immunity is not as well understood as vaccine response and longevity for COVID-19. There's also increasing evidence that newer variants like Delta present a significant reinfection risk for those who were infected with the wildtype or even Alpha six or more months before.

Delta also presents a risk of breakthrough infection for vaccinated people.

And that seems likely to lead to the development of new strains against which the current vaccines are ineffective, as the virus mutates in vaccinated people.

I'm vaccinated myself, but I don't count on that providing protection for long. I expect it to be more like the flu, for which yearly vaccines are required against whatever strains are expected to be common that year.

Breakthrough infections with Delta remain relatively low amongst fully vaccinated people, with most cases not resulting in serious infections.

But isn't it true that most cases don't result in serious infections, regardless of vaccination status? I recall reading at one point that 80% of infections are asymptomatic or very mild.

However there are many more studies of variations for vaccinated people than for natural immunity. It may be because the laboratories themselves are interested commercially for those studies, while natural immunity doesn't bring them any commercial benefit, but this doesn't change from the information we have right now.

So TL;DR, it is just better to be vaccinated right now.

That TL;DR doesn't follow from the main paragraph, which simply says we don't know if it's better to be vaccinated.

Yeah, sorry, what I meant was that in conclusion it was better to be vaccinated considering the studies we have (not a TL;DR).

But there's also evidence it presents a significant risk for people who were vaccinated against the earlier variants too.

Agreed, it may well make sense to have people get boosters at some point.

You have to prove natural infection, and at least 2/3rd of those natural infections never got tested at all, and then there's the piles of people who swear up and down they caught it in November of 2019 and other self-diagnosis.

And the virus is basically just an mRNA vaccine with extra stuff to self replicate. The virus RNA genome is its mRNA so its the same thing as the mRNA vaccine. You know you can beat the vaccine because you know you beat the virus. You might still benefit from antibodies to the rest of the genome, which is great. Natural immunity just comes at the cost of a pile more side effects and a bunch of actually self-replicating virions that might put you in the hospital if things spiral out of control.

Apparently 67.6% of India has SARS-CoV-2 antibodies [1]. This can't be attributed to vaccination since nowhere near that percentage of India has had a vaccine for it.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/india/india-covid-antibodies-...

I’d expect natural immunity to be more robust to future covid mutations than vaccination, since our bodies will have been exposed to and responded against all parts of covid’s biology rather than just the spike proteins.

It is if I understand this correctly: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...

As far as mandates are concerned, it's far easier to prove vaccine-based immunity.

The questions I have about natural immunity is:

1) how "strong" is it relative to the vaccines in use?

2) how variable is it?

3) how to you prove it?

4) and how expensive would that be at scale?

> Yet, for some unknown reason, natural infection is NEVER talked about anywhere.

Because early on in the pandemic immunity became a political issue and those who suggested you could get immunity were seen as right-wing wackos. To this day there is some level of immunity denial out there.

Not to mention there is a vested interest to promote vaccines, which boosts revenue for pharmaceutical companies. Vaccine promotion is one of the reasons I think the CDC hasn't straight out said kids aren't at risk of covid. If they did, nobody would bother getting their kids vaccinated (because quite frankly they don't need to!).

I honestly think most of this crap doesn't make any sense and doesn't really add up because most of this is fueled by hysteria, non-stop fearmongering and politics. A small fraction of what we are doing is actually sound disease mitigation. The rest is just humans running around like chickens with their heads chopped off.

It's because their antibody response is similar to those who got just a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine, which is not enough to protect against Delta variant. I suspect natual immunity played a huge role in prevention of vanilla COVID and Alpha variant but it's not with Delta which probably contributes to the recent spike.

It's not worth the exception when the vaccines are free and easy to access

Individual preferences need not apply. The "smarter" mob demands you remove your mask and ignore acquired immunity and instead submit to experimental vaccines because they'll feel better about it.

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.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting...

Same reason why folks who got chicken pox as kids don't need the vaccine; we already had it!

Edit: If you did have chickenpox, CDC says you don't need the vaccine.

> CDC recommends two doses of chickenpox vaccine for children, adolescents, and adults who have never had chickenpox and were never vaccinated.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/varicella/public/index.html

> Same reason why folks who got chicken pox as kids don't need the vaccine; we already had it!

Chicken pox is a different disease. It's not the same as COVID-19.

There are a lot of questions around natural COVID-19 immunity that people who want to rely on it need to answer if they don't want to get vaccinated (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27987103). Then there's the question of why go through so much trouble to avoid something that's easy, cheap, and far more certain.

At this point I think the proof is already quite clear:

[1] https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...

[2] "The people who are not testing positive in the current outbreak are those who have had COVID-19 previously and recovered. These people account for 9% of Israel’s population but less than 1% of recent infections, according to Kovler’s analysis." source: https://www.deseret.com/platform/amp/coronavirus/2021/7/20/2...

[3] https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2021/06/09/cleveland-cl...

The burden of proof is not on the people who have every reason to believe they have natural immunity.

It's entirely on people who want to mandate a medical procedure.

It's a thought, I suppose, but the science is in on the vaccines. It's not in on the case you're talking about, and given the safety & availability of the vaccine it's an easy call.

Oh yes. I've seen absolutely exasperating articles in the New York Times and I think possibly other places complaining about people who refused to get vaccinated despite having caught Covid, as though that was somehow supposed to make it more worth their while getting vaccinated rather than less...

Good. Its time to stop messing around with this. The vaccines are tested and are safe.

I have taken both shots. But I wouldn't call them "safe", as they are young and approved under emergency guidelines. They are probably safe, but nobody knows that right now.

There's been nearly 4 billion shots delivered across the world in the past 8 months. I suspect if they were to cause great harm, we would have known by now.

Some vaccines take years or even decades to show harm. See Air Force pilots and Anthrax vaccine history. Rare but devastating consequences.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the covid vax. I got Pfizer myself as soon as it was available. But there is still room for doubt.

Some viruses take decades to show harm as well, e.g. HPV, and there are theories that herpes is involved in Alzheimers.

Maybe we'll realize in a couple of years that even asymptomatic covid harms your heart so much that affected people lose years of their lives? The vaccine seems like the safer choice to me.

Sure, but the harm from COVID is pretty evident in the 600,000 deaths in the states in the past 18 months.

No one has said the vaccine is 100% safe, it does list side effects after all, but this whole notion of "I'm waiting until all the data is out/it's only approved for emergency use" is just nonsensical.

> Some vaccines take years or even decades to show harm.

Frankly, in the entire history of vaccination, this has proven so extremely rare as to be a non-factor, especially given how these mRNA vaccines work.

This really sounds like FUD at this point...

> Some vaccines take years or even decades to show harm. See Air Force pilots and Anthrax vaccine history. Rare but devastating consequences.

If you don't get the vaccine, unless you become a shut in, you're going to get COVID eventually (and being a shut in will probably become less and less tenable the farther we get from the peak). I highly doubt the vaccines have additional long term side effects that the actual disease doesn't have.

The situation with an Anthrax vaccine is different, because it's very unlikely for someone to get exposed to Anthrax.

I agree. Its a coin flip. We don't know what the long term effects of COVID are, we don't know what the long term effects of the vaccine are. I'd argue that we know more about what COULD happen with the vaccine long term and I'd rather place my bets on that. The alternative is hiding away for 20+ years and not getting vaccinated or contracting COVID, obviously not feasible.

Also, at least in some years, people who got the flu vaccine in previous years are more likely to die from the flu.

That tiny bit of room for doubt is still much smaller than that for the virus itself.

For example, once you get over chickenpox, the virus remains dormant in your nerve cells and could rear its head in the form of shingles later on in life. Who knows what long-term effects COVID will have? History shows for the overwhelming amount of vaccines no random side-effects after ~3 months.

There are outliers, of course, but since Delta looks like it will makes its rounds and infect many people, it's not quite the same in terms of anthrax exposure which is why I'm cool with Google mandating the COVID vaccine from a risk/benefit perspective.

> See Air Force pilots and Anthrax vaccine history. Rare but devastating consequences.

Do you have a source? Paul Offit, at least had said that we don't see vaccines causing long-term harm which aren't apparent within the first couple weeks. (In his interview on Oh No! with Ross and Carrie.)

> The anthrax vaccines were receiving criticism in several scientific circles, because of both potency problems and allegations that the anthrax vaccine contributed to Gulf War syndrome.

That's the only excerpt I was able to find wrt that. Is there more?

I can't find anything about the Anthrax vaccine that shows it was problematic, just a a bunch of conspiracy theories.

Radiation, asbestos, lead paint and a bunch of others would like a word.

Can we put smoking on that list ?

The people resistant to taking them are concerned with potential “long term”effects so by definition argue that it wouldn’t be known by now.

Serious question:

Is anyone putting up a real argument that the vaccines may have long-term harm that outweighs the harm done by the risk of the disease in the same timeframe? Say 20 years. Compute the risk of getting covid over 20 years based on, say, the risk seen in North Dakota over the last year and estimate a health outcome based on that. Is anyone putting up a real argument that any of the vaccines might have a comparable outcome?

> The people resistant to taking them are concerned with potential “long term”effects

Not necessarily long-term. I would suggest that short-term effects such as thrombosis of myocarditis, however rare, are also a valid cause for concern.

If they are safe, then there is no reason the vax makers should be protected from liability then. At the moment we could be mandated to take something yet have no recourse if something happens down the line.

I suspect if they were to cause great harm, we would have known by now.

Known how, exactly. The only way that would be known is via official statistics, but the only sources of such data have serious reliability problems. Additionally any paper that tries to use these stats to do any analysis struggles to get published or gets immediately retracted because some people don't like the conclusions.

One thing that's undeniable though is that earlier vaccines had their approvals pulled after fewer reported deaths than these vaccines have racked up from just single causes of death alone. The same safety standards as before are not being applied. Thus it cannot be said that these vaccines are "safe", compared to earlier vaccines.

lol - there are plenty of things that only cause (attributable) harm after a long time.

You mean like severe cases of COVID? Admission to critical care or death from COVID?

no, I'm talking about doing something that's helpful, like insulation using asbestos that ends up being harmful as well. things can be both helpful and harmful in different ways.

obviously COVID is bad, no one is denying that. no one is denying that the vaccine is good. but to say that the vaccine cannot be bad ever or ever have potentially negative side effects is being misleading at best and disingenuous at worst. this is why people who are concerned about these tradeoffs should consult a medical professional.

Just finished listening to a great podcast that touches on the safety and FDA emergency approval, see https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-sense-with-sam-... .

Some key points i) we have more data on these vaccines than any other in history ii) though we don't have long term data, there has never in the history of vaccines been side effects that wouldn't be detectable at this stage iii) the FDA is really dragging its feet and should have given approval by June, latest. Vaccine companies have submitted all the data for review a long time ago and previous FDA commissioners generally agree it's taking far too long. The current FDA commissioner said approval will take until January next year!

Just because you heard it in a podcast, doesn't make it true. Disclaimer: I'm not saying vaccines are bad or not to take them, I'm saying it's wrong to assume there are no risks.

> there has never in the history of vaccines been side effects that wouldn't be detectable at this stage

In Europe several years after the H1N1 Pandemic, it was found that people who had received the vaccine for it were contracting narcolepsy, especially children[1].

Research[2] into it has been unable to determine the exact cause[3], but the conclusion of the CDC is still "An increased risk of narcolepsy was found following vaccination with Pandemrix, a monovalent 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine that was used in several European countries during the H1N1 influenza pandemic".

[1] https://sciencenorway.no/childrens-health-diseases-sleep/chi...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/history/narcoleps...

[3] https://www.statnews.com/2018/07/05/flu-vaccine-2009-pandemi...

> Just because you heard it in a podcast, doesn't make it true.

Sure - that's true of any source though, including those links you just posted. I included the podcast link because it was informative and the experts are trustworthy, whether you agree with that is up to you.

You're completely right about there being risk albeit small - but it's important to weigh up the risk on both sides which is why I think FDA emergency approval is important.

The expert. Sam Harris is not an expert on the topic as he mentions on that podcast

I want to also add this to my parent post above. There are several vaccinations. Not all are equal. Sinovac was given to my Turkish relatives and they now have to get a 3rd or even 4th shot as Sinovac's efficacy was found to decline after some amount of months.

That no one mentions each shot may be different is more proof (to me) that there is a lot of politics (as opposed to thoughtful analysis) going on here.

> Not all are equal. Sinovac was given to my Turkish relatives and they now have to get a 3rd or even 4th shot as Sinovac's efficacy was found to decline after some amount of months.

So has Pfizer and Pfizer is in the process of preparing an application for EUA for boosters.

They have been given to half the adults in the country. I think we have a pretty good idea about the adverse affects at this point. Full FDA approval is a formality at this point.

actually, they just proved themselves "safe enough" over the past few months. If they weren't, it would have been detected by epidemiologists. In fact, they did manage to determine there were some extremely rare effects, which increases the confidence they didn't miss some major effects.

They're vastly safer than letting the pandemic rage on, at least.

That isn't what the data is showing...

Why are the major COVID-19 vaccines still under FDA emergency use authorization guidelines? What's preventing the FDA from dropping those special rules and treating the vaccine like every other vaccine?

Because full authorization takes time. The speed in rolling out emergency use vaccination was by the book. Speeding up full authorization would not be.

Emergency Authorization also allows for production of the vaccine to happen alongside testing [0]..

Compared to Approval -> Production. If they drop the emergency use, technically they would need to stop production of the vaccine..

[0] https://vaccine.unchealthcare.org/science/vaccine-approval/w...

interesting precedent for the future. Whats an 'emergency'? Whats is the point of an FDA review at this point?

When the cost of not taking action (not vaccinating) exceeds the cost of taking action (vaccinating).

thats an incredibly loose definition and up for manipulation

IIRC, they still need to complete the regular review process. Normally that process takes several years

So either the process is overlong or the vaccines are not verifiably safe.

The documentation required for approval was submitted by the pharma companies a long time ago. Many experts, including some previous FDA commissioners have stated these vaccines should have been approved by now given the data submitted. The current FDA commissioner has said it will take until January, without explaining why it's taking them so long.

Pfizer/BioNTech already has full authorization in Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand, Saudi Arabia an Brazil.

Pfizer/BioNTech made application for full approval in the US and the goal is January 2022.

Phase III trial formally ends early next year. The emergency authorization has provided huge amount of extra data outside ongoing Phase III trial.

I'm vaccinated and I personally don't care if others choose not to do it.

Other good reasons aside, I care because it can also affect how my work and risks become altered. I have friends in healthcare who live in divided teams - ones vaxxed and others not. The ones who are not - openly avoid and channel all Covid positive patients to the ones who are - under the pretense that they have better protection. That's unfair. Those who chose to vaxx didn't also sign up to carry increased exposure frequency and risk as a side-effect. This ominous behavior easily translates to other scenarios outside of healthcare. Retail workers who are vaxxed are steered exclusively to people facing roles because those are riskier. Travel necessary, let those who got vaxxed take those trips. Whether we like it or not, individual vaxx status affects us all since it influences behavior and decisions because of its effect on risk determination at the individual and collective level.

Why? Aren’t you worried that a patchily vaccinated population still provides a good (possibly even better) breeding ground for new variants?

I care because despite being vaccinated and having had restrictions lifted, I am once again affected by them because of people that refuse to get vaccinated. If the consequences were siloed to unvaccinated people, I wouldn't care as that's their choice.

Those who chose not to get vaccinated are doing nothing to you.

This is the kind of thinking that resulted in measles starting to have outbreaks again.

They are if you consider second order effects.

You know vaccinated people still transmit right?

I do, because I'm not the only person I care about.

That's nice. I have a baby. I don't want to be exposed to unvaxxed people at the office and risk bringing that home to my baby.

You know the vaccine doesn't do anything to stop transmission right? So you can be in a room full of vaccinated people and still be just as likely to get it...

I do care because if enough people refuse to vaccinate we won't get rid of this pandemic, with all it consequences, and we make it easier for variants to develop, which could be even resistant to vaccines.

So you don't care about the immunocompromised people who might get sick or die? Or the subpopulation of vaccinated people for whom the vaccine just didn't take well?

We're about to go through another spike in cases in the US because of the Delta variant spreading through the unvaxed population. This has implications for vaccinated people.

We may need to reintroduce some lockdown rules and the Delta variant is still going to kill some vaccinated people (in much lower numbers, but unnecessary).

They are not tested long term.

Are there any vaccines in history that have caused something unexpected 10 years from injection?

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history....

The Cutter Incident seems like the most damning.

IMO that's actually a good example of why we should be confident about the COVID vaccines. There was only about 2 weeks between the Cutter Lab vaccine being approved for distribution, and being pulled because of the side effects. Vaccine side effects aren't vanishingly rare, even serious ones, but vaccine side effects taking months or years to appear (in contrast to minutes-weeks) are.

Are there any human vaccines in history that are based on mRNA?

1) Get the JnJ one then?

2) Do you have any evidence to suggest a risk with the mRNA delivery vehicle? If so, what is that risk and why will it materialize in some unknown amount of time instead of after someone gets the vaccine?

Approved? No. Investigated including human trials? Yes.

This is from 2018 - https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd.2017.243

I mean, if you're that concerned, adenovirus (J&J, AZ) and inactivated (Sinopharm) also exist.

Have we had any other mRNA based vaccines in the past? (genuinely curious)

This is the first one that has been approved in any capacity by a regulatory authority:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine#Acceleration

There are vaccines you can get that aren't mRNA based.

The answer is no for any detectable or significant population size. If one in million gets something unexpected, it does not matter.

All mRNA vaccine is gone from the body in few days. Usually, the immune response comes within days or weeks.

Theoretically, there is always a change that vaccination triggers some slowly developing auto-immune disease, but that could be triggered by COVID-19 as well (they have the same mRNA). I would be more worried about Long-COVID symptoms. They might be a sign of something chronic for a significant fraction of the population.

No.

https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/how-do-we-know-covid-19...

>When new vaccines are released, the unknown side effects, if any, show up within two months of vaccination. This history goes back to at least the 1960s with the oral polio vaccine and examples continue through today.

Beyond that you have to look at this in context - the probability of being harmed by COVID-19 vaccine (including long term) vs the probability of being harmed by a COVID-19 infection (including long term). The vaccine have the lower probability of harm by a very large magnitude.

> Are there any vaccines in history that have caused something unexpected 10 years from injection?

Yes [1]

*EDIT* - People are being pedantic saying it's not a vaccine while technically true it was a government approved medication that had horrific side effects discovered after approval. This is why people are wary about taking a vaccine still under approval as 'emergency use'. And also ridiculous to force employees back into an office and also require them to be injected with something they may not wish to. Just let them work from home if they choose to not get vaccinated with am emergency approval drug.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide_scandal

Thalidomide was a terrible medical scandal, but it's not a vaccine. Secondly it didn't cause something unexpected 10 years from injection, it had a side-effect if you were pregnant while taking it.

Huh, that's not a vaccine and where's the evidence it had unexpected effects 10 years after administration?

Thalidomide isn't a vaccine.

BTW, thalidomide is still prescribed, it's a very effective drug.

Not a vaccine.

We've just "tested" the vaccines with over 1 Billion people globally, with virtually every prominent scientific specialist's attention on the subject.

What more is the FDA going to say about long terms effects when 50% of the US population is already using the drug?

Sure they are. The kinks in vaccines have been worked out.

And if you wanted to think about it more rationally, why would you opt for a more likely and proven scenario of COVID-19 illness and perhaps "long COVID" instead of an unproven speculative issue that there is no evidence for and there is no hypothesis to even generate evidence for?

What will happen in "the long term" and how are you going to get evidence for this and weigh it against the risk of illness from COVID-19?

And let's say there was some big thing that happened. Whatever that is - well, we'd all be in it together. hundreds of millions in the U.S. alone, which means whatever bad thing you're imagining happen would happen to pretty much everyone, which, like COVID-19, means a global search for a cure for whatever thing you think would happen.

My only issue is with this line:

>> employees could continue working from home through Oct. 18.

I agree that they should mandate vaccines for in office. But if they do so, I don't think they should force people into the office.

"Mandate" means something very different when performed by a private employer than by a government entity. In the former case it means something like "make continued employment conditional upon." Google employees are perfectly free to decide they're no longer satisfied with the conditions of their employment and find new jobs elsewhere instead.

Edited to add: In terms of whether Google "should" do so, I assume they've thought through the trade-off of increased attrition vs. reduced risk of COVID outbreaks (among other factors) and decided that allowing unvaccinated people to either go back to the office or work remotely would be a net negative for the company.

Do you really believe Google is ready to lose at least 20% of their staff? That would be a horrible decision especially in the market we are currently in. These people will easily find jobs elsewhere.

I doubt Google will lose anywhere close to 20% of its staff, and I assume Google doubts that too. I expect the rest of FAANG+ will follow suit, and there won't be that many jobs where you can earn a FAANG-level salary without being vaccinated (either because they're fully remote or otherwise). When push comes to shove I don't think that many people will be willing to take six-figure pay cuts.

I thought Google was better than this, guess not.

If Google believes their employees are more productive in the office, why shouldn't they do everything in their power to get the workforce back into the office?

Productivity is (hopefully) not the only metric — employee happiness is important too.

And survival.

Thus the vaccination requirement.

I don't agree with Google on returning to the office (at all, irrespective of COVID), but frankly at this point, almost anything that improves vaccine rates is fine with me. The sooner we're all vaccinated, the sooner we can return to normal life.

Only if you think the "productivity" metric trumps everything else.

Google has set up a bunch of alternative options ranging from permanent remote work to temporary extensions of up to a year. If people don't feel comfortable coming back on the date, it isn't hard to stay at home longer.

> But if they do so, I don't think they should force people into the office.

They could just fire them otherwise?

The problem is not the vaccine by itself, it is that you no longer have a say in what happens with your body.

I guess switching jobs is the only cure for this unfortunate trend.

I don't understand this argument. This isn't the first time vaccines have been required. For instance, every state has required vaccines for school attendance--from kindergarten through college.

Here's the list for Texas: https://dshs.texas.gov/immunize/school/school-requirements.a...

Are you opposed to those mandates as well, or is this one different?

This one is different. In my country in 2018, deaths caused by the flu was more than 50% of all registered Corona deaths. Just that season alone.

Now some wants to mandate Corona vaccines, but then what about flu vaccines ?

Understood. I rarely get a straight answer to that question from people who make the "it's my body" argument, so I appreciate the reply.

Did your country restrict or mandate anything to prevent COVID-19 spreading?

I don't know about GP's country, but http://euromomo.eu/ has a lot of data whereby one can answer such questions for multiple countries in Europe.

Interesting. Which country?

Denmark.

Table 2 states 1,644 deaths due to the flu.

https://www.ssi.dk/sygdomme-beredskab-og-forskning/sygdomsov...

English article:

https://cphpost.dk/?p=101073

Deaths caused by Corona is currently at 2,547. And out of 5.8M people there is currently 10 in serious or critical condition.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/denmark/

Vaccines that are under EUA status?

Companies can mandate no smoking as a condition for entering their buildings. Is this also an example of the company having an unreasonable say in what happens with your body?

I wouldn't compare a vaccine to a no smoking rule, it's not the same.

They are very similar. They are both workplace safety policies. They both reduce danger to other employees. They both place conditions on entering the workplace based on whether or not you put something into your body. You could say the same thing about a "no intoxication at work" policy, especially if work involves heavy machinery.

Whether it's mandating what goes into your body or what doesn't, the aim of the policy is the same: Preventing the reckless behavior of one person from harming other employees.

EDIT because I can't reply:

I don't understand what you mean by "give up control of your body". There is no evidence that taking a COVID vaccine results in loss of control of your body or limbs, or remote control of it by someone else. Hundreds of millions of people have taken it, and they all remain fully in control of their bodies.

I agree to disagree then.

The No Smoking policy mandates what you should not do, same as there is a Must Wear Clothes policy.

On the other hand you have the vaccine mandate, which forces you to give up control of your body if you want the job.

Such a policy should not be mandated by a private company, at most it should be encouraged and optional.

Didn't Billy Joel sing: "Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle California baseball Starkweather Homicide Children of Covid-19 Vaccine"

That is a statement of opinion, not a fact. It is misinformation statements like this that need to be stamped out in social media.

1.1 billion fully vaccinated, maybe a few dozen deaths can be contributed.

200 million reported covid cases, if we go with typical estimates of 2-5X unreported, then we get to a similar number of just over a billion infected, with 4.2 million deaths, not to mention all the nasty "long covid" (hate the expression, btw) cases that are probably higher than that.

Those are facts.

You can say, without evidence, that the vaccines will cause your head to explode in 10 years, but I can say the same thing about Covid infections.

They aren’t fully tested, they have emergency FDA approval but haven’t finished the standard approval process yet.

They are fully tested with continued scrutiny. They have been given emergency approval and granted priority review. There is quantifiable fact and evidence that these vaccines are very effective and safe. Both of the mRNA vaccines are scheduled for full approval in Jan/Feb of 2022.

This is a lie. There is still testing going on to confirm their safety and effectiveness. Here is a list of them:

https://www.pfizer.com/science/find-a-trial/search/BNT162b2/...

"continued scrutiny"...

In terms of efficacy and safety, the facts are undeniable. No medication is perfect. If you've ever seen an advertisement for medicine, many of them come without side effects that outweigh the risk of not taking the medication.

Depending on where you live, I'd look to the government, versus Pfizer's website for clinical trial details: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results/details?cond=covid

No they aren't. We don't have long term data so what you said cannot be proven or said to be accurate.

I hope people who don't take vaccine also ignore bio-engineered food. Wait it's not labeled in the US. So much about being scared of long term effect...

Do they actually reduce spread or do they instead just make people who catch it more likely to avoid hospitalization and increase their survival chances? If it is the first I can see why they do it, if it is the second then I do not see the point of enforcing it.

Although I wonder if they will consider workers who passed covid before (and thus have antibodies) as "vaccinated".

> The vaccines are tested and are safe

Weren't there various (rare) occurrences of serious side effects? (such as the blood clot thing for astra and jonson or myocarditis for pfizer and moderna)

From the data I've seen, they are potentially looking more effective at preventing cases than at preventing hospitalization:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-22/los-ange...

> Among fully vaccinated people, there were about 27 coronavirus infections for every 100,000 county residents in June, according to figures presented Thursday. But among people not fully vaccinated, there were 125 infections for every 100,000 residents.

> That month, there were also 2 fully vaccinated people hospitalized for every 100,000 residents — much smaller than the comparable rate, 11, for people not fully vaccinated.

So per 100k fully vaccinated people, 27 cases and 2 hospitalizations. Or: 7.4% of cases resulting in hospitalization.

Per 100k not-fully-vaccinated: 125 cases and 11 hospitalizations. Or: 8.8% of cases resulting in hospitalization.

What this doesn't tell us is "how many cases were so mild and occurred in people who aren't getting test regularly that they went under the radar." I don't know of any data telling us anything about what the "mild case rate" looks like for vaccinated vs unvaccinated (it would be VERY hard to measure without widespread mandatory testing).

But if you've got a case that gets detected, the vaccine doesn't really seem to prevent that case from hospitalizing you at the same rate as before. It just prevents you from getting those cases nearly as frequently as the rest of the population.

UK statstics show a 20 factor reduction in hospitalisation rates for vaccinated people vs non vaccinated. However what is not considered in all these statistics is the non-symtomatic cases. If hospitalisation rate is 20 times lower it means also that symtomatic infections are way lower than those detected. In your cited statistics for those 27 cases there would be a lot more not diagnosed at all. The risk here is that although they will pass it without notice they will also risk infecting others-hence the recomandation that vaccinated people still need to use masks. There is a great risk on falling into complancy here if we think vaccination is the silver bullet and is enough.

Where Google goes, I expect the rest of the tech companies (including companies that just fancy themselves as tech companies) to follow.

This is that moment when everyone is reminded of "at will" employment.

Tech companies won't move in lockstep on this. Battle for talent is too intense, not many companies can call shots like this like Google can. Some companies will be glad to differentiate to try and attract Googlers that do not want to return to the office, that do not want to be vaccinated (tho I think the number of tech workers that are not vax'd is small)

I agree, I suspect that very few Googlers will be unvaxxed and that trying to identify these individuals and poach them will be tough. Not a good look if other tech companies are specifically bringing in non-vaccinated employees. Might create issues with current employees.

Yeah, and on the demand side, I have a hunch that a company that implicitly or explicitly uses their lack of a vaccine requirement as a recruiting pitch would have a hard time recruiting a large subset of engineers.

The venn diagram of unvaxxed, exceptional engineers, willing to move to a new company is probably very, very small.

With the amount of ridiculous anti-vaxxing statements in this thread, I'm beginning to think there may actually be a large contingent of software engineers deciding not to be vaccinated.

How would a hiring manager evaluate someone who was knowledgeable enough to work for Google but did not get the vaccine and was not valuable enough for Google to retain by other means?

The hiring managers I know would take it as something being wrong with that candidate, who may not be so knowledgeable outside very specific fields, and has trouble working with others. So, which companies will be glad to differentiate? Are there any whose names are known to most people?

Cool, now we're discussing discriminatory hiring practices as if they should be normal.

Any employer engages in discrimination while hiring. Some categories are deemed legally protected. Some are not — an employer may choose to hire only people who have a bachelor’s degree. Discriminatory hiring practices are normal.

I would be totally fine with employers aggregating themselves into vaccine mandatory and vaccine optional categories so I can avoid the latter. Just don’t mess around and be something you’re not putting my life in risk.

> not many companies can call shots like this

Nice

I am saying this as someone who has both shots and generally supports the vaccination.

From what I understand Google is known as a company with a "liberal" culture.

Is demanding employees accept one side of an argument and adhere to it (or face the consequences) contrary to the definition of "liberal"?

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.

This policy has nothing to do with opinions and political leanings; it's a physical safety policy for an office. Most offices would also deny you access if you try to get in and stab fellow employees with dirty needles you found by the bus stop.

You could argue the merits of Google not allowing employees the option to permanently work from home, but as far as their offices are concerned this is a very sane requirement for entry given the hazards that currently exist.

Theoretically. If you had an office in Pennsylvania or Minnesota and employed a lot of people that were Amish or Muslim (respectively), and for whatever reason would not accept the shot, would you fire them or allow them to work from home?

> He said there will be "an exceptions process for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other protected reasons."

Religion would be a protected reason, I assume.

Incidentally, Islam allows vaccination.

I have to admit I find this confusing. Elsewhere in these comments, people say that being vaccinated doesn't reduce your risk of being a carrier. So then how does the policy increase physical safety for those who are already vaccinated?

Would you agree with employers doing this with something like AIDS?

Absolutely, in a parallel universe where AIDS is highly transmissible by breathing in the same room as someone else (like COVID-19 is in our universe). Or in an office that's a porn studio, I guess.

Your understanding on "liberal" seems pretty shallow. Liberal support fundamental civil liberty of course, but many of them also tend to support republicanism in some sense, like economics, welfare, corporate policy and public health to establish social equity and justice. You cannot simply draw a clear line between "liberal" and "conservative" and put everyone in one of either bucket; the real world politic is a way more complicated than that.

Who cares about liberal vs conservative? Trying to ensure employee safety is just the responsible thing to do for an employer.

Vaccination has, sadly, become a partisan issue in the United States.

We can't pretend that a reasonable appeal to public safety will work to convince people of the merits here, when there are so many politicians and entertainers who are successfully using opposition to the vaccine as a wedge issue to further their own selfish agendas.

I feel like it's really only partisan for anti-vaxxers. For others, it's the same as stuff like building codes, or health codes for restaurants: just a common-sense protection.

That's definitely the outer surface of the issue, you're right. Some issues have deeper things going on.

It's 'deeper' for the anti-vax community, for everyone else it's just a basic employee/public safety issue.

"Everyone else" is pretty broad and the kind of categorization I wouldn't expect from someone with an open mind

In the US, "liberal" means left-leaning (compared to the US average).

What argument..?

The workforce is safer if vaccines are mandated in the office. Indisputable.

The data would disagree with you

The amount of thinly veiled (or actually outright blatant) anti-vax posts here on Hacker News is really disheartening.

I'm curious, in your mind is someone who wants to be unvaccinated the same as anti-vax? Someone could be unvaccinated and not discourage the vaccinate and simultaneously not want the vaccination for themselves. Would that be an anti-vax position?

full disclosure - I'm vaccinated with moderna.

The amount of times people expressing mere skepticism (even here on Hacker News!) have been flagged as 'anti-vax' is also not that encouraging.

Seeing tin foil hats everywhere is easy--and a trap.

Your comment is disheartening. Pretending there are absolutely zero side-effects to vaccines (or any medical practices) is anti-science

> Pretending there are absolutely zero side-effects to vaccines

I honestly don't know how you got this from my post.

You’re claiming people are anti-vax without arguing against their arguments or data, saying they are concealing their intentions

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.

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.

It's not actually very complex, and in fact for public schools was already a settled issue. It's only become controversial because of rising anti-vaxx sentiment and conspiratorial thinking.

Just because something has become a flashpoint issue doesn't mean it's complex. Gay marriage was also controversial for a long time, despite being quite straightforward.

Homosexual marriage is not straight forward: https://www.kirkdurston.com/blog/unwin

How did almost every human in all sorts of varying societies fail to understand something quite straightforward for almost the entire duration of human existence?

It's not that complex. These people also acted like masks were an affront to their liberties. It's not about the facts, they're delusional.

Disclaimer: this is not legal or medical advice, but an encouragement to read the research for yourself and accumulate an understanding of the issues for your decision making. If you know any good studies or criticisms, please add them.

Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and Biologics License Application (BLA) description: https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2021/06/15/whats-the....

There are already lawsuits challenging EUA vaccine mandates. They’d be moot, though, after FDA approval, since the Supreme Court has upheld states’ vaccination mandates (cf. Jacobson v. Massachusetts)

Some issues around BLA/FDA approval: First, a BLA has some implications. It would likely force the FDA to revoke EUAs to all other candidates (one of the conditions for an EUA is that no other viable approved treatments exist. Some of the controversy around ivermectin and off label use is related to this condition). This would impede development of other treatments, current and future.

Second, the history of SARS-cov vaccines is promising, but incomplete. Many previous trials showed good progress (high antibody titre levels, etc.), but tended to fare poorly on later virus challenges. eg https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Third, sometimes, side effects might not be sufficiently analyzed until well after authorization, eg “Dengvaxia”: a dengue fever (R0=65, CFR=20-30%) vaccine that was extensively used in the Philippines in 2017-8, but later showed evidence of increasing risk of disease severity on the uninfected and now carries that warning: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6214489/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_vaccine

Hayes et al. outlines some of the issues particular to SARS. Again, VAED is a known pitfall: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/Haynes...

Finally, Breslow (https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2021/02/18/employer-...) suggests mandates aren’t legal: previous CDC and FDA guidance have consistently advised against mandatory use of EUA vaccines, and courts would probably continue to defer to those agencies. In April 2020, Dr. Amanda Cohn, the executive secretary of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, reiterated that “under an EUA, vaccines are not allowed to be mandatory. Therefore, early in the vaccination phase individuals will have to be consented and cannot be mandated to be vaccinated” (page 56, https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/min-arc...) In addition, the EEOC June 28, 2021 update (https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-covid-1...), Section K in particular, defers to CDC and FDA guidance on EUA vaccine use and practices.

What are the complexities of the issues at play? It seems pretty straight forward that there is a global pandemic, and that there is a vaccine which significantly prevents the spread of the disease as well as ameliorates the worst symptoms. Requiring people to have the vaccine seems pretty straight forward, especially when "an exceptions process for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other protected reasons" exists.

>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.

Ok, so why don't you start the "serious discussion" instead of just complaining? What exactly "complex" about it?

All 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico have immunization requirements for enrollment in public schools and many private schools and daycares have similar requirements. On the federal level the military has all sorts of immunization requirements and USCIS have immunization requirements for visa/green card applicants.

As a result the vast majority of adults are vaccinated against a whole host of infectious diseases so companies don't usually find it urgent to implement their own policies - vaccine preventable illnesses simply aren't an issue in American offices.

We, as a society, have overwhelmingly accepted immunization requirements as a general concept - there's not really much to discuss.

Looks like employees have until October 18th to be vaccinated and return to the office.:

> 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.

It's possible, perhaps even likely, that the vaccines will be fully FDA approved before that date (Source: FDA spokesperson speaking here https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/16/health/pfizer-covid-19-vaccin... )

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:

> 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.

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.

The Justice Department posted an opinion yesterday saying it's legal to require vaccinations that are approved under EUA.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/26/politics/doj-covid-19-vaccine...

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.

https://www2.calstate.edu/csu-system/news/Pages/California-S...

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.

"Who are the unvaccinated hurting, exactly?"

It appears to me that a pandemic of the unvaccinated harms the unvaccinated.

"Those who cant get the vaccines"

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)

"Herd immunity to end the pandemic"

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:

1. We'll never vaccinate Afghanistan or Central Asia in general, South Saharan Africa, etc. so COVID will never go extinct [1]

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.

3. Given points 1. and 2., heard immunity for a given country appears to be futile attempt.

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)

[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.

[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.

Not addressing the harm it might do to vaccinated people - don't we have some responsibility to encourage unvaccinated people to get the vaccine for their own good? It's all very well saying "if they want to take the risk, then that's their decision" but in reality many of them have been manipulated by mis and disinformation. Maybe not the hacker news types that are being skeptical and looking at the data and thinking logically, but the vast majority just don't understand the science and look to others for direction.

I understand your point, but saving others from themselves is paternalism writ large. It's not to be taken lightly.

Anyway, the COVID death rates right now are bellow diabetes, smoking [1], etc. On a purely "save people from themselves" COVID ranks really low right now.

You could argue that the vaccine is a small cost to save a person (vs. the cost of banning soda or smoking), but that's pretty paternalistic.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...

> It appears to me that a pandemic of the unvaccinated harms the unvaccinated.

I'm vaccinated with two shots but I can't go on holidays because some people do not want to get vaccinated, I need to go out in mask, business of my friend has lower income now because of covid limitations. On next wave hospitals in my country will get overrun again which means a lot of other vaccinated people will die because of untreated medical issues, we will get another lockdown, which will hurt vaccinated people financially.

Those are really just issues with your government and their decision about what are the appropriate responses. It's not the unvaccinated that are hurting you here, but the government response to them. If the unvaccinated are fine dying and not killing those who fear COVID, why have all the restrictions?

Imagine if the government told you you can't wear a short skirt because a religious extremist might stab you. In what world does is this edict fair? And to make this comparison fair, this case, the religious extremist is also wearing a short skirt!

> Those are really just issues with your government and their decision about what are the appropriate responses.

Well, mandatory vaccinations then should not be a problem too, right? they would also be only issues with your government.

> If the unvaccinated are fine dying and not killing those who fear COVID, why have all the restrictions?

Because none of them is fine with dying. I guarantee you that 99.9% of the unvaccinated people when confrontend with death will NOT say "oh, I've covid just let me die" which means hospitals will be overrun again = affecting vaccinated people in every way that I mentioned in my previous response.

> Imagine if the government told you you can't wear a short skirt because a religious extremist might stab you.

Ruling by the European Court of Human Rights set the precedent that obligatory vaccinations do not contravene the European Convention on Human Rights. I don't know about the rest of the world, I live in Europe. In your example government would do something ridiculously against common sense and Convention on Human Rights. Maybe you should find better analogy.

EDIT: And let me ask you this as I see you have kids and you are unvaccinated, if you get sick and will be offered place and care in hospital that could save your life, will you choose to accept it? Or based on principles you will deny and let your kids live without father? I think we both know the answer to that question (unless you don't care about your kids). And now you are affecting vaccinated people by taking place in hospital/using hospital staff time that could be used for/on vaccinated people.

I want to thank all those who answered my questions politely. I'm pleased to say you appear to have been the majority.

Unfortunately, I'm still unconvinced that the unvaccinated are harming anyone other than themselves. This opens a good topic on the role of paternalism to force people to better themselves. But that'll be for another day.

unvaccinated people are two to three times more contagious than vaccinated people.

therefore they are spreaders.

please note I'm only repeating what I heard from the cbc.

the other arguments are mostly economics and logistics. e.g delaying surgeries

Unvaccinated people are not more contagious. Latest study shows they have about the same viral load.

> "Who are the unvaccinated hurting, exactly?"

My kids, who are too young to be vaccinated. I don't appreciate you being blase about their health.

My father, who is quite possibly immunocompromised, and may not have acquired a strong immunity from his vaccine.

I asked honestly, and seriously. I want to be taught, explained to. Not given lip.

I take (strong) exception to be characterized as "blase". My kids aren't eligible for vaccination either. I can assure you Im not "blase" about their health.

You might want to look at the actual statistics of the harm of COVID for under 12. If that frightens you, that's fine, but then I would encourage you to look at other daily behaviors and their risks.

As to your father, you're right, he may have not acquired a strong response. However, the vaccines are, rightly, praised for being very effective. Including among people who are immunocompromised. As a society we take "accept" hypothetical small risks and will continue to do so until we ban cars inside cities (which I'm in favor of, btw).

>> "Who are the unvaccinated hurting, exactly?"

> You might want to look at the actual statistics of the harm of COVID for under 12. If that frightens you, that's fine, but then I would encourage you to look at other daily behaviors and their risks.

It doesn't matter what the statistics are, it's a risk they're exposed to because of the unvaccinated, anti-maskers, and people looking for every fucking excuse they can think of to avoid addressing this infectious disease.

I don't mean to sound callous here, but I am completely unmoved by the idea that small children are somehow being put at risk. Children under 12 have a 99.995% chance of surviving covid, and the severity of symptoms they experience is similarly miniscule.

From a purely business perspective a COVID-19 infection is highly disruptive to business operations. If you're following CDC guidelines (and some businesses legally must) then a COVID-19 infection causes you to not only lose the infected employee for the duration of their illness, but you lose every other non-vaccinated employee who has had contact with that employee for two weeks. I know of at least five businesses near me that had to close down for two weeks in the fall/winter due to COVID-19 infection - they didn't have enough non-sick, non-quarantined employees to operate.

That's why an employer might mandate vaccinations for their employees.

What form do these mandates take? What kind of proof do they ask for?

As I thought that vaccine information was private medical information.

Couldn’t someone presumably just lie?

It's private information by default, but here it's relevant for employment. You can refuse to give the information, of course, but they can also refuse to employ you for that.

But what prevents someone from just lying? How is this not just an honour system thing?

I think you could present medical records, same as how it works currently for public school vaccination mandates.

It's weird how many people are acting like this is some bizarre, novel thing. We've had mandatory vaccines for public schooling for decades now. Vaccines are also commonly required for some types of visas/immigration. Requiring vaccination in the interest of public health is not new.

IANAL, but the precedents set by all the battles that were fought in previous decades over diseases likes AIDS/HIV seem to make it very hazardous for employers to demand medical records. Liberals once fought hard to keep medical records out of employers hands, and won overwhelmingly, so I don't see how Google or any employer can actually enforce this without serious risk of a class action lawsuit.

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)?

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.

And what of remote workers? A fully remote employee exposes zero company employees to risk. But they will be mandated to have a vaccine?

Why must we always lose one more right each day?

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.

Before Obamacare, I did have to fill out my full medical history when starting a job in order to get the employer-provided health plan.

So we've actually improved on that, thankfully! The pro-vacccination crowd doesn't seem like the crowd that's looking to turn back that clock.

That's interesting; I've been getting health insurance through my employers since that time as well, and never had to provide any health history. I thought that was part of the value of a group health plan.

Curious. This was 2010 and 2011 in Texas and California. Looks like the pre-existing condition rules went into effect in 2014, https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/pre-existing-co... - I wasn't denied care because of any, but I assume they used them to price the plan for the employer.

The 2010 plan also had a lifetime max benefit limit, which has now been removed.

Or it could just be some plans are more privacy-invasive than others. But I hope not, it was nice to be able to stop filling out those forms.

An employer requiring vaccinations prior to employment isn't unheard of in the US. It has been going on for several decades for workers in the education and healthcare industry as some of them have had to get vaccinated for chickenpox, measle, mumps, rubella, the flu, and other viruses as a requirement for employment at their respective organizations.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/3346210001

Also, what would be the next part after this? We would want to first evaluate that before allowing them access to it.

As for remote workers, I think that is a legitimate point and something companies should consider.

Relevant vaccination as a condition of work is not a new thing; what is different with the Google policy is:

(1) It is not clearly a condition of employment, as remote work remains available, generally til mod October and individually beyond that.

(2) The work condition to which it is relevant is “in office work” because of the still-ongoing pandemic, which has not historically been a work condition requiring vaccination.

(3) The vaccines involved are under Emergency Use Authorizations, not generally approved.

To the extent that #2 and #3 might otherwise make the policy questionable, I think as long as #1 is still the case there's not much real ground for that.

Literally the first line of the article: “ Google announced Wednesday it would require all in-office workers and visitors to be vaccinated”

Maybe click on it and read it before flying off on the handle?

I'm calling it now, they will require all employees to have this, remote or not.

…but why? Why would they? And why would you think so?

I think you’ve already decided what to believe and are just looking for ways to justify it. You’ve just got to support this “anti-freedom” narrative somehow for whatever mysterious reason that’s important to your ego and sense of self.

I don’t get it.

For what reason? Arbitrary control?

Why does the right think that every government mandate that they don't understand (masks are the big one) are just about arbitrary control over people? It seems like a very common theme.

Because people are rightfully hesitant to believe anything suspected liars tell them they need to do. The science is far from settled and Google banning doctors for discussing amongst themselves is as big of a red flag as can possibly exist.

If you ask most people on the right how the virus has affected them, their friends or family, they'll tell you the lockdowns and mandates have been 100x more harmful to their entire community, family and friends than the virus has been. This is an extremely common response.

Why would they do it?

They will do it because they are trying to save lives. They think they are doing harm by allowing people NOT to take the vaccine. After all, how many people will die by unvaccinated people spreading the disease? They have a duty to save other humans! That is what I think they believe.

My problem is that this is an overstep. They should stay in their lane, rather than mandating the health of their workers. If someone at Google died from drunk driving, would it be fair to ban alcohol? Of course not.

> 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)?

When you're vaccinated, you receive a small official card with the vaccination details. In the United States, the vaccines are free.

This has nothing to do with your general medical history or medical records.

Well thanks for the downvote. But isn't that card part of your medical history? What if they need proof you are vaccinated against measles? After all, its a proven vaccine...

> But isn't that card part of your medical history?

It's the narrowest, most specific data point possible to establish that you won't put other innocent people in the building at risk of a new outbreak.

> What if they do other things after this thing?

What if dogs had antlers? What if sidewalks were made of cheese?

A dog is not related to antlers. But proof of vaccination is related to vaccination history.

That could be done by not giving your medical history. Every vaccinated person should be delivered a proof of vaccination cryptographically signed by official authorities (eg. CDC in the US), with nothing more that "yes, Bob - ssn XXX - is fully vaccinated". Simple to verify by employers.

'Google announced Wednesday it would require all in-office workers'

First sentence of the article.

You don't have the right to put others at risk of harm. That's why, at least in the US, vaccinations are already usually mandatory for entering public school.

We do have that right. Take cars for example, we drive extremely dangerous machines down the road that kill thousands each year. They also put out dangerous pollutants that kill many people. We all live in a world where there is a give and take. It is only recently that people decided we have a right to live risk-free.

No, you don't. We do accept some risks, but in the case of cars, there are quite a few mandatory things involved designed to limit the risk: it's illegal to drive without a license, illegal to drive while drunk, cars are required to have various safety features to be street-legal, etc.

Same principle here. Vaccines don't completely eliminate the risk of danger from covid, they only reduce it, just like the car regulations.

I can get a job without a car. How soon until I can't get a job without modifying my body?

Some jobs require you to have a car (and a valid license, and an insurance policy). Others don't.

Some jobs require you to work in close proximity with other people. Others don't.

Some jobs actually do require a car, either explicitly or because no other form of transportation would be practical for an area.

Since higher vaccination rates protect other people, I'm hopeful that vaccines become as mandatory as possible. That this bothers anti-vaxxers doesn't bother me, because why should it? I'm not more bothered by this than the vaccine requirement to enter public schools for kids.

My enlarged prostate doesn't pose a risk to my co-workers--my immunization history does. There's a big difference.

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%.

I'm fully-Pfizered, but I think heavy-handed blanket rules without exceptions 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:

"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

The vaccines are safe and you will be fired for not taking it...also if something happens, you can't sue the vaccine makers.

> ...also if something happens, you can't sue the vaccine makers.

Because the liability has been centralized in a fund that will pay you damages: the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

If "something happens," you'll still be compensated.

> Because the liability has been centralized in a fund that will pay you damages: the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

Actually, the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP is broadly similar to VICP, but instead of general recommended routine vaccines, covers recommended pandemic/epidemic/etc. diagnostic, treatment, and prevention measures, inclusing vaccines not covered by VICP.)

https://www.hrsa.gov/cicp/faq#covid

So if an employee develops one of the rare adverse events, will Google be liable for damages?

I don’t think so. Everyone is free to leave if the don’t like the new policies. It’s not like there is a tight market for highly skilled software engineers

This is a concerning argument. We have laws regarding labor for a reason. "I just decided to pay you below the minimum wage and not give you any days off" has not been considered acceptable for decades despite the employees being "free to leave if they do not like the new policies".

Edit: I am arguing against the argument itself in general. Not specifically for the vaccine case.

> "I just decided to pay you below the minimum wage and not give you any days off"

That's a pure disadvantage against employees. Vaccine mandate is a bit different; it is about employee protection, especially for those subset who cannot get vaccines due to their health conditions.

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.

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?

They will lose a lot of smart people like this.

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?

Seems like a lose-lose.

HIPAA (not HIPPA) is only relevant in terms of your health care provider(s) disclosing information. A company is completely free to demand proof of vaccination records xor refuse to employ you (and as long as they're demanding it from you and not your health care provider [without your permission], there is no precedent being set here and HIPAA doesn't even enter the picture).

As a general rule of thumb (barring some edge case exceptions), it is impossible for anyone but a health care provider to violate HIPAA. For examples, reporters reporting on someone's health conditions, sharing health information that was intended to be kept secret, or demanding proof of vaccination are not violating HIPAA.

Plenty of industries demand vaccination (healthcare, childcare, etc.) as a prerequisite for employment; this is not a new model being implemented.

interesting - I thought either HIPAA (thanks for the correction), FMLA or ADA protected employees from being asked about medical information that could result in they being discriminated against in regards to employment things.

There are two easy ways around this.

The first is a note from your doctor. My kids' school requires vaccination unless you bring in a note from your doctor claiming that you have an underlying condition preventing you from being vaccinated. It doesn't have to say what the condition is. Of course there are some doctors that will write up these notes from anyone, and some parents who will seek those out. But the work involved in finding one cuts down on the number of people who will do it.

The second is that the vaccination requirement is only for people who work in the office. You don't need to be vaccinated to work remotely, so allow people who don't want to disclose information to work remotely. Again, this can be gamed by people who don't want to return. But I think that over time the remote crowd will see fewer interesting projects which means fewer opportunities for promotion, making that option less desirable.

> I thought either HIPAA (thanks for the correction), FMLA or ADA protected employees from being asked about medical information that could result in they being discriminated against in regards to employment things.

ADA does for some things, but not all things. Vaccination status is apparently not among them, though many of the things that would be involved in a medical reason not to vaccinate are.

> ADA does for some things, but not all things. Vaccination status is apparently not among them, though many of the things that would be involved in a medical reason not to vaccinate are.

Right - this is my point that I poorly presented. If you say you cannot be vaccinated for medical issues, obviously they must be presented proof otherwise any anti-vaxxer would say that.

However if said proof would be constitute information under ADA then you wouldn't have to share it no? However since there's no way to know if that's actually true without knowing it seems we're in a dilemma.

Yeah, it's not HIPAA, but employers are prevented from discriminating based on disability and required to provide accommodation for disability.

I'm not confident anyone could successfully win a lawsuit claiming refusing a vaccine is a disability worth protecting there.

> If they force you to disclose doesn't that break HIPPA?

No, HIPAA prohibits, say, your insurer or medical provider (even if it is employer-funded) from disclosing info without your consent, including to your employer.

It does not prohibit the employer asking and you disclosing it. Nor does it prohibit adverse consequences by the employer for your failure to disclose, or for the facts thereby disclosed (though, for some medical information, the ADA or other law might do that.)

Here's a quick comparison of HIPAA and HIPPA (what you original said) that will help clear up the confusion. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3dxHFYVcAAM3V8?format=png&name=...

I don't understand why so many people are obsessed how the company can find out whether you got the vaccine. I mean, as an employee you could lie or otherwise misrepresent your status and probably get away with it, at least for a short time, before they terminated your employment.

> I don't understand why so many people are obsessed how the company can find out whether you got the vaccine. I mean, as an employee you could lie or otherwise misrepresent your status and probably get away with it, at least for a short time, before they terminated your employment.

It's not about the vaccine - it's about the normalization of employers knowing your medical history. Personally I wouldn't care if I was asked as I've taken the vaccine and would say so.

However I can understand why people might be concerned about employers demanding proof.

HIPAA (not HIPPA) mainly prevents medical professionals from sharing your medical information with others. It does nothing to prevent you from sharing your own medical information with anyone you choose. It also does nothing to prevent companies from establishing vaccine requirements as a condition for employment, or to protect your ability to keep your unvaccinated status private if a company has such a requirement. If presented with such a requirement, your options are to either get vaccinated and prove it, or seek employment elsewhere, and HIPAA doesn't give you a third option.

Hippa only applies to medical professionals i believe. Employers can always ask for your medical records. This has always been the case.

It might be worth noting that FAANG companies with huge campuses have medical offices on campus, so I'd assume employees aren't showing their proof of vaccination to a random person, but to some sort of medical professional who I'd think is bound by HIPPA.

so can employers for instance ask about HIV status and discriminate based on that?

Only if HIV status has a significant relevance to your ability to perform your job duties (including things like the safety of other workers, the public, etc., when your work.)

Of course, unless your job involves something unusual like having sex with your coworkers or the public, that's not all that likely.

a lot of jobs like machinists often get cuts on the job that expose your blood

Is that something you've seen happening? Seems far-fetched to me, since you can't contract HIV simply by doing office work in the same room with HIV-positive co-workers.

yes, for machinists if they get a cut and have hiv all work needs to stop and the area needs to be sanitized

Some googling suggests this is already done for pornography.

really? huh, TIL.

Extremely false. Hippa applies to all and is meant to protect people from discrimination on health matters. These policies will end up in court eventually and companies will argue the law moves too slowly for the concerns of the day and they had to make a decision they felt was best for safety of their employees.

This is incorrect. HIPPA prevents sharing info without consent. If you choose to give the info to your employer, HIPPA doesn't apply.

Well of course you do get to choose to waive your rights to hippa protections, you can waive any right you want.

But you do not have to give your records and they aren’t allowed to obtain them without your consent. They’re also not allowed to “punish” you for failing to provide your health records. In this context, someone in the office may get promoted and someone WFH may think they deserved it. So they’ll sue on grounds that vaccinated people in the office are receiving advantage. Not saying it’s right or wrong but prior to covid this type of thing was an HR/legal nightmare any company would steer clear of.

> Hippa applies to all and is meant to protect people from discrimination on health matters

No, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is not a workplace anti-discrimination act. You are, while also probably misunderstanding the lower-level details, confusing its basic purpose and function with something else, probably the Americans with Disabilities Act.

It only applies to one's care providers. Source: I work with human subject data, have to take training each year.

you misunderstand this law. the law is confusing but the terms are well understood.

Vaccine records are nothing new - I remember needing to get a meningitis vaccine to go to college 15 years ago.

The HIPAA privacy rule about sharing data without a patient's consent. It's not about stopping anyone from asking you anything.

(It happens to carve out some reasons why sharing without consent might also be allowed, such as public health purposes, but that wouldn't even be necessary here.)

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).

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.

"Google and the USAID-funded Wuhan scientist Peter Daszak’s virus experiments for over a decade"

All WHO approved vaccines?

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.

I don't let anyone else run RNA code in my cells

I think that happens every time you catch a cold.

This is an example of the incredible ignorance around vaccines.

What exactly do you imagine will happen if your cells run someone else's RNA code?

They already run someone else's RNA code when you get infected by any random virus.

There are more types of RNA than just mRNA. https://www.livescience.com/25988-rna-versatile-molecules.ht...

I'm not an expert so I'm not going to speculate which type might be used, but the risk that the government is using (soon to be mandatory) shots as a way to insert a biological backdoor into the masses far outweighs the risk of catching covid again. They want backdoors into all software systems... why wouldn't they want a backdoor into your biology? If not now, then what about when we're on our 5th booster?

If I was dying on my bed from some crazy variant that the government was fearmongering, I would still think that my risk assessment was valid. I'd have no regrets.

You shouldn't be willing to have any shot if that's your perception of the threat level. Why create a back door when you're literally opening a front door through the shot? Who gives a shit if it claims to be mRNA or not in that scenario?

Don't breathe unfiltered air either. Why not just distribute this backdoor as an aerosol?

It's a new technology with new capabilities. That's why VCs are investing billions in RNA tech to treat disease.

I'd take the Chinese one because China open-sources their inactive virus vaccine and exports raw materials to other nations to manufacture them: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-01/12/c_139661608.htm

A plot to add some "secret sauce" to a vaccine wouldn't work in that scenario.

Bill Gates on the other hand has said it's impossible for others to manufacture these vaccines because "safety and security issues": https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/bill-gates-b...

I think that's BS. If the vaccine is free - why isn't it open-source? If it's not open-source, why should I trust it?

If you are living in the USA why not get the Johnson and Johnson vaccine?

This is the third comment I've had to reply to to point out that the J&J vaccine is also based on barely tested technology. Is this really not widely understood?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_vector_vaccine

It seems that many commentors in this thread believe that the time for questioning has passed regarding EUA vaccines with completely new mechanisms. If it goes wrong later, well don't go blaming any of them since it was all "at-will" and "your choice".

Apparently not.

This Medcram video explains how J&J vaccine works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13qT7wLxkvU#t=1m30s

They splice DNA to put in a virus and the end result is exactly the same as the mRNA vaccines - custom spliced RNA code running in your cells.

I see your point. Thanks for the Video.

you're pretty much letting other people run RNA code in your cells all the time. Thats why your skin is covered in RNAses.

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