All things CoronaVirus

[MDlaxfan76]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.

We have a sit-down or call with those apply for a religious exemption.
Ask simple question- why is this against your beliefs?
Then we ask if they are wiling to mask and test.
All have said yes, so no issues yet.
All religious/medical exemptions accepted.

hmmm, do you expect that to cut it with access to base?
I seem to recall that was the biggest concern.

What % do you expect to thereby have exempted?
If just a small %, then I suspect no sweat...but if a large % then you do stand the risk of that "process" being challenged, whether by someone who gets sick, whether your employee or someone from them, or by the government. Simply waiving people through merely for a claim of a "belief" that is not consistent with any actual religious practices of the individuals could well be challenged as intentionally not compliant.

But if the testing and masking is done rigorously, and that's acceptable for on base access, seems like it could be sufficient, at least for the government...watch out for liability claims, though.

Tough spot...good luck.

Yes, access is the biggest concern. Right now there are no real access issues. We hope it keeps like that after the vaccine mandate.
We expect around 40-45% to be exempt.
No, we don't expect the process to be challenged because there is no mandated process. Internally we don't know what an audit would look like so it's pretty straight forward: either a vaccine card, DR's note, or an attestation.
That covers the Fed mandate and OSHA.
But Base access is very weird. And different from base to base, depending on where we are going on base. We work everywhere from office buildings to down range, and beyond security checkpoints. To be honest with you, Covid is the least deadly thing these guys are working with.

That's why I think the safety aspect should somehow be better attuned to the actual likelihood of large scale infection spread between different jobs and work environment...not all jobs require a hard hat. But while the odds of actually getting hit by a falling brick are pretty darn low, even in the most risky situations for such, the problem for the employer is that if they don't actually require, diligently, that the hard hats be worn in those situations, and an accident happens, there can be hell to pay.

But this is actually more akin to hygiene requirements, so for instance, requirements of hand washing, hair nets, etc when handling food, cleaning surfaces, all to reduce the chances of spreading a pathogen. It's less about the individual's risk than it is the risks to others.

So, the overall public health objective is to get as many people vaccinated as possible, and if not, tested with sufficient frequency to reduce outbreaks, and mask wearing when in dense situations...all of this being acutely needed when infections are high in a region, transmission risks therefore higher.

The other aspect of the vaccine priority is the stress, both personnel and financial, that preventable hospitalizations cause for health care workers and taxpayers. While it's clear that some people are far more prone to have a hospitalization situation, it's not remotely a perfect answer to simply not worry about younger and ostensibly healthier people...there are still far too many preventable hospitalizations among those groups. And it costs us all.

So, the government is looking to pull whatever levers it can to get that vaccination rate up super high. Short of an actual vaccine mandate.

What's bit surprising to me is that 40-45% of your employees simply don't care about the public health costs of their decision. Very few of those would have a legitimate medical basis for avoidance, yet they're going to claim a "belief" instead.

It’s kind of ridiculous that “I don’t believe in vaccines” is a legitimate cause for a religious exemption. Test them everyday.

It’s not “I dont believe in vaccines” and you get a religious exemption.

It’s “I don’t believe in vaccines because … it conflicts with my ___ religious beliefs.”

All the exemption people have agreed to mask at all times, so there is care for public health costs. But there’s also a strong belief in constitutional rights and religious beliefs too.

Exactly what are these 'religious' beliefs and have they ever applied, for them, to any other vaccine or drug or other medical therapy or any other public health requirement?

Or is this just very, very specific to this disease and this vaccine?

[Peter Brown]

5th Circuit affirms OSHA stay applies nationwide. POTUS can’t mandate vaccines on private companies.

Freedom, data, science, laws, America, and personal responsibility.

4AE77806-F423-4EA0-BC82-6A20805F211A.jpeg (78.55 KiB) Viewed 1220 times

[MDlaxfan76]

"pending adequate judicial review".

Reading Comprehension 101 wasn't a required course at Gator U.

[seacoaster]

America?

https://kansasreflector.com/2021/11/12/ ... mparisons/

What the heck is wrong with people?

[Farfromgeneva]

[quote=kramerica.inc post_id=307827 time=<a href="tel:1636771395">1636771395</a> user_id=265]
[quote="Typical Lax Dad" post_id=307701 time=<a href="tel:1636743932">1636743932</a> user_id=269]
[quote=MDlaxfan76 post_id=307700 time=<a href="tel:1636743772">1636743772</a> user_id=313]
[quote=kramerica.inc post_id=307676 time=<a href="tel:1636738775">1636738775</a> user_id=265]
[quote=MDlaxfan76 post_id=307639 time=<a href="tel:1636732987">1636732987</a> user_id=313]
[quote=kramerica.inc post_id=307636 time=<a href="tel:1636732388">1636732388</a> user_id=265]
[quote=MDlaxfan76 post_id=307603 time=<a href="tel:1636726866">1636726866</a> user_id=313]
[quote=kramerica.inc post_id=307599 time=<a href="tel:1636726191">1636726191</a> user_id=265]
[quote=MDlaxfan76 post_id=307554 time=<a href="tel:1636697385">1636697385</a> user_id=313]
[quote=kramerica.inc post_id=307521 time=<a href="tel:1636677917">1636677917</a> user_id=265]
Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.
[/quote]

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.
[/quote]

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.
[/quote]

We have a sit-down or call with those apply for a religious exemption.
Ask simple question- why is this against your beliefs?
Then we ask if they are wiling to mask and test.
All have said yes, so no issues yet.
All religious/medical exemptions accepted.
[/quote]

hmmm, do you expect that to cut it with access to base?
I seem to recall that was the biggest concern.

What % do you expect to thereby have exempted?
If just a small %, then I suspect no sweat...but if a large % then you do stand the risk of that "process" being challenged, whether by someone who gets sick, whether your employee or someone from them, or by the government. Simply waiving people through merely for a claim of a "belief" that is not consistent with any actual religious practices of the individuals could well be challenged as intentionally not compliant.

But if the testing and masking is done rigorously, and that's acceptable for on base access, seems like it could be sufficient, at least for the government...watch out for liability claims, though.

Tough spot...good luck.
[/quote]

Yes, access is the biggest concern. Right now there are no real access issues. We hope it keeps like that after the vaccine mandate.
We expect around 40-45% to be exempt.
No, we don't expect the process to be challenged because there is no mandated process. Internally we don't know what an audit would look like so it's pretty straight forward: either a vaccine card, DR's note, or an attestation.
That covers the Fed mandate and OSHA.
But Base access is very weird. And different from base to base, depending on where we are going on base. We work everywhere from office buildings to down range, and beyond security checkpoints. To be honest with you, Covid is the least deadly thing these guys are working with.
[/quote]

That's why I think the safety aspect should somehow be better attuned to the actual likelihood of large scale infection spread between different jobs and work environment...not all jobs require a hard hat. But while the odds of actually getting hit by a falling brick are pretty darn low, even in the most risky situations for such, the problem for the employer is that if they don't actually require, diligently, that the hard hats be worn in those situations, and an accident happens, there can be hell to pay.

But this is actually more akin to hygiene requirements, so for instance, requirements of hand washing, hair nets, etc when handling food, cleaning surfaces, all to reduce the chances of spreading a pathogen. It's less about the individual's risk than it is the risks to others.

So, the overall public health objective is to get as many people vaccinated as possible, and if not, tested with sufficient frequency to reduce outbreaks, and mask wearing when in dense situations...all of this being acutely needed when infections are high in a region, transmission risks therefore higher.

The other aspect of the vaccine priority is the stress, both personnel and financial, that preventable hospitalizations cause for health care workers and taxpayers. While it's clear that some people are far more prone to have a hospitalization situation, it's not remotely a perfect answer to simply not worry about younger and ostensibly healthier people...there are still far too many preventable hospitalizations among those groups. And it costs us all.

So, the government is looking to pull whatever levers it can to get that vaccination rate up super high. Short of an actual vaccine mandate.

What's bit surprising to me is that 40-45% of your employees simply don't care about the public health costs of their decision. Very few of those would have a legitimate medical basis for avoidance, yet they're going to claim a "belief" instead.
[/quote]

It’s kind of ridiculous that “I don’t believe in vaccines” is a legitimate cause for a religious exemption. Test them everyday.
[/quote]

It’s not “I dont believe in vaccines” and you get a religious exemption.

It’s “I don’t believe in vaccines because … it conflicts with my ___ religious beliefs.”

All the exemption people have agreed to mask at all times, so there is care for public health costs. But there’s also a strong belief in constitutional rights and religious beliefs too.
[/quote]

Exactly what are these 'religious' beliefs and have they ever applied, for them, to any other vaccine or drug or other medical therapy or any other public health requirement?

Or is this just very, very specific to this disease and this vaccine?
[/quote]

There’s the paradox of wanting the government protection of their religious beliefs against the freedoms others to choose whom to employ or to be free of a virus. Then you have some/many religions that want to enforce their world views that are religious based onto others (abortion). Many of said people are the quickest to call others hypocrites as well.

[MDlaxfan76]

True.

[Peter Brown]

"pending adequate judicial review".

Reading Comprehension 101 wasn't a required course at Gator U.

You aren’t too bright. Do you even understand that terminology? Sorry, rhetorical. You don’t.

The Order was an ‘emergency stay’, pending a permanent injunction to be decided later (‘pending adequate judicial review’…ie: most big court decisions aren’t decided in less than a week; stays are emergency orders based on imminent damage, like Biden’s abuse of OSHA).

It’s kinda unlikely this court will reverse its temporary stay when they issue the permanent order since the language on the stay was so strong.

The Biden admin is court shopping right now, hoping to find a more liberal appeals court, but ultimately this will land at SCOTUS, which also will be unlikely to reverse a unanimous decision like this stay.

Incidentally, the stay remains in effect until a permanent injunction is issued. That might not be for a long while…

[kramerica.inc]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.

We have a sit-down or call with those apply for a religious exemption.
Ask simple question- why is this against your beliefs?
Then we ask if they are wiling to mask and test.
All have said yes, so no issues yet.
All religious/medical exemptions accepted.

hmmm, do you expect that to cut it with access to base?
I seem to recall that was the biggest concern.

What % do you expect to thereby have exempted?
If just a small %, then I suspect no sweat...but if a large % then you do stand the risk of that "process" being challenged, whether by someone who gets sick, whether your employee or someone from them, or by the government. Simply waiving people through merely for a claim of a "belief" that is not consistent with any actual religious practices of the individuals could well be challenged as intentionally not compliant.

But if the testing and masking is done rigorously, and that's acceptable for on base access, seems like it could be sufficient, at least for the government...watch out for liability claims, though.

Tough spot...good luck.

Yes, access is the biggest concern. Right now there are no real access issues. We hope it keeps like that after the vaccine mandate.
We expect around 40-45% to be exempt.
No, we don't expect the process to be challenged because there is no mandated process. Internally we don't know what an audit would look like so it's pretty straight forward: either a vaccine card, DR's note, or an attestation.
That covers the Fed mandate and OSHA.
But Base access is very weird. And different from base to base, depending on where we are going on base. We work everywhere from office buildings to down range, and beyond security checkpoints. To be honest with you, Covid is the least deadly thing these guys are working with.

That's why I think the safety aspect should somehow be better attuned to the actual likelihood of large scale infection spread between different jobs and work environment...not all jobs require a hard hat. But while the odds of actually getting hit by a falling brick are pretty darn low, even in the most risky situations for such, the problem for the employer is that if they don't actually require, diligently, that the hard hats be worn in those situations, and an accident happens, there can be hell to pay.

But this is actually more akin to hygiene requirements, so for instance, requirements of hand washing, hair nets, etc when handling food, cleaning surfaces, all to reduce the chances of spreading a pathogen. It's less about the individual's risk than it is the risks to others.

So, the overall public health objective is to get as many people vaccinated as possible, and if not, tested with sufficient frequency to reduce outbreaks, and mask wearing when in dense situations...all of this being acutely needed when infections are high in a region, transmission risks therefore higher.

The other aspect of the vaccine priority is the stress, both personnel and financial, that preventable hospitalizations cause for health care workers and taxpayers. While it's clear that some people are far more prone to have a hospitalization situation, it's not remotely a perfect answer to simply not worry about younger and ostensibly healthier people...there are still far too many preventable hospitalizations among those groups. And it costs us all.

So, the government is looking to pull whatever levers it can to get that vaccination rate up super high. Short of an actual vaccine mandate.

What's bit surprising to me is that 40-45% of your employees simply don't care about the public health costs of their decision. Very few of those would have a legitimate medical basis for avoidance, yet they're going to claim a "belief" instead.

It’s kind of ridiculous that “I don’t believe in vaccines” is a legitimate cause for a religious exemption. Test them everyday.

It’s not “I dont believe in vaccines” and you get a religious exemption.

It’s “I don’t believe in vaccines because … it conflicts with my ___ religious beliefs.”

All the exemption people have agreed to mask at all times, so there is care for public health costs. But there’s also a strong belief in constitutional rights and religious beliefs too.

Exactly what are these 'religious' beliefs and have they ever applied, for them, to any other vaccine or drug or other medical therapy or any other public health requirement?

Or is this just very, very specific to this disease and this vaccine?

The three interviewed on my team this week weren’t bs-ing it. It is a closely held belief. And as long as they are believable, not sure we want an HR-type to be responsible for judging the veracity of what’s in someone’s heart.
One is a former catholic, now Greek Orthodox who is a former Navy Seal and said he has disagreements with the church’s leadership right now about this. He said he was pumped full of everything while enlisted, and when he left the military, converted and hasn’t been on any medicines since. All natural. Another is Jewish and the third is a documented, long-standing Christian Scientist.
Mandate- Rubber stamped.

[kramerica.inc]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.

We have a sit-down or call with those apply for a religious exemption.
Ask simple question- why is this against your beliefs?
Then we ask if they are wiling to mask and test.
All have said yes, so no issues yet.
All religious/medical exemptions accepted.

hmmm, do you expect that to cut it with access to base?
I seem to recall that was the biggest concern.

What % do you expect to thereby have exempted?
If just a small %, then I suspect no sweat...but if a large % then you do stand the risk of that "process" being challenged, whether by someone who gets sick, whether your employee or someone from them, or by the government. Simply waiving people through merely for a claim of a "belief" that is not consistent with any actual religious practices of the individuals could well be challenged as intentionally not compliant.

But if the testing and masking is done rigorously, and that's acceptable for on base access, seems like it could be sufficient, at least for the government...watch out for liability claims, though.

Tough spot...good luck.

Yes, access is the biggest concern. Right now there are no real access issues. We hope it keeps like that after the vaccine mandate.
We expect around 40-45% to be exempt.
No, we don't expect the process to be challenged because there is no mandated process. Internally we don't know what an audit would look like so it's pretty straight forward: either a vaccine card, DR's note, or an attestation.
That covers the Fed mandate and OSHA.
But Base access is very weird. And different from base to base, depending on where we are going on base. We work everywhere from office buildings to down range, and beyond security checkpoints. To be honest with you, Covid is the least deadly thing these guys are working with.

That's why I think the safety aspect should somehow be better attuned to the actual likelihood of large scale infection spread between different jobs and work environment...not all jobs require a hard hat. But while the odds of actually getting hit by a falling brick are pretty darn low, even in the most risky situations for such, the problem for the employer is that if they don't actually require, diligently, that the hard hats be worn in those situations, and an accident happens, there can be hell to pay.

But this is actually more akin to hygiene requirements, so for instance, requirements of hand washing, hair nets, etc when handling food, cleaning surfaces, all to reduce the chances of spreading a pathogen. It's less about the individual's risk than it is the risks to others.

So, the overall public health objective is to get as many people vaccinated as possible, and if not, tested with sufficient frequency to reduce outbreaks, and mask wearing when in dense situations...all of this being acutely needed when infections are high in a region, transmission risks therefore higher.

The other aspect of the vaccine priority is the stress, both personnel and financial, that preventable hospitalizations cause for health care workers and taxpayers. While it's clear that some people are far more prone to have a hospitalization situation, it's not remotely a perfect answer to simply not worry about younger and ostensibly healthier people...there are still far too many preventable hospitalizations among those groups. And it costs us all.

So, the government is looking to pull whatever levers it can to get that vaccination rate up super high. Short of an actual vaccine mandate.

What's bit surprising to me is that 40-45% of your employees simply don't care about the public health costs of their decision. Very few of those would have a legitimate medical basis for avoidance, yet they're going to claim a "belief" instead.

It’s kind of ridiculous that “I don’t believe in vaccines” is a legitimate cause for a religious exemption. Test them everyday.

It’s not “I dont believe in vaccines” and you get a religious exemption.

It’s “I don’t believe in vaccines because … it conflicts with my ___ religious beliefs.”

All the exemption people have agreed to mask at all times, so there is care for public health costs. But there’s also a strong belief in constitutional rights and religious beliefs too.

clowns

Why do you say that?

I’ll chalk it up as unfounded internet machismo.

Because I doubt very seriously you would say that to my employees faces.



These are people who have all served the country. Marines, Seals, EOD techs…And they have also been willing to put their jobs at risk for what they believe, so it’s not a real “bs moment.”

[Typical Lax Dad]

Our company bumped everyone back to Jan 4th.

Found this tidbit in Newsweek today:

Constitutional accountability is coming for the Biden administration's COVID-19 "emergency temporary standard" (ETS)—better known as Biden's vaccine mandate. The rule, which would require businesses with more than 100 employees to enforce vaccination or weekly testing starting January 4, has run into a maelstrom of legal and political opposition.

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the final ETS last Friday, at least 27 states and countless private plaintiffs from around the country filed lawsuits. If history is any guide, OSHA now faces an uphill climb to defend the rule. The agency is relying on the "emergency" authority that allows it to bypass normal procedural safeguards, but that courts have reviewed with a jaundiced eye. Of OSHA's nine previous uses of this authority, six were challenged in court and only one was fully upheld.

Certainly reasonable, what's the count up to now at your company Kram?...we're at 100% and have been since May. Boosters are on the docket next.

OSHA is required to take action if it sees serious risk to workers, but that doesn't mean they have much capacity to actually enforce the rules.

For instance, it's not as if OSHA can check every site where a hard hat is required to see if they're compliant. But what it does do is create a situation in which a whistle blower can bring OSHA in, or more relevantly can show that the employer wasn't following OSHA guidelines and injury resulted from that non-compliance. Liability.

And for those employers which actually want to comply, it provides a cover umbrella for insistence upon workers following OSHA rules.

But if a business does a fairly reasonable job of getting their people to get vaccinated or get tested and someone slips through a bit, not going to find OSHA swooping in to nail them. But there's some real liability if the employer decides to not require employees to do either, or even more flagrantly declares this non-compliance. And then someone dies...hoo boy, I don't want to be that employer.

Where I think the rule is weak, and may be best challenged legally, is that there's inadequate differentiation between work environments. A meat packing plant, for instance, is a way different environment than climbing a telephone pole. The cut-off at 100 employees, while intended to cut some slack on smaller employers, doesn't address the situation in which an employer has 50 workers congregated tightly in a poorly ventilated building...versus a larger company that does outdoors landscaping.

Here's the thing. It would be best for public health (and taxpayer expense) if everyone got vaccinated unless they had a very real medical issue that obviated against vaccination. And for those who have high exposure situations, it would be best if they were tested frequently as they could well be carriers, whether vaccinated or not. And it would be best if people wore masks in high congregation, poor ventilation areas...at least while there's significant prevalence of the virus in that area.

But how best to get folks to do these things?

I'm in favor of mandates, but rather than work related (other than risk of spread mitigation), I"d prefer to use access to things we'd like to do, but don't actually have to do.

We were at 40% vaccinated as of earlier this week. 30% of the religious exemptions have been processed so far.

We have not mentioned the January delay to any employees who have not asked, trying to keep them on the Dec glide path to bring about any issues sooner.

We are going to push to have a positive response from everyone so we can tell the gov, "yes" we are 100% compliant (either vaccinated or exempt) to avoid that 14K a day fine, and then we will deal with individual contract performance issues as they arise. We are going to have a handful of vaccinated people who are going to be doing all the work. And a lot of people who can no longer do their job on payrole. Unless the bases are more slack at allowing entry than they are saying.

Wow, that's worse than most of the worst counties in America.

With the 30% of the religious requests "processed", what's been the outcome of such? A handful accepted, the rest told they'll need to be vaccinated?

Good luck with this. Crazy.

We have a sit-down or call with those apply for a religious exemption.
Ask simple question- why is this against your beliefs?
Then we ask if they are wiling to mask and test.
All have said yes, so no issues yet.
All religious/medical exemptions accepted.

hmmm, do you expect that to cut it with access to base?
I seem to recall that was the biggest concern.

What % do you expect to thereby have exempted?
If just a small %, then I suspect no sweat...but if a large % then you do stand the risk of that "process" being challenged, whether by someone who gets sick, whether your employee or someone from them, or by the government. Simply waiving people through merely for a claim of a "belief" that is not consistent with any actual religious practices of the individuals could well be challenged as intentionally not compliant.

But if the testing and masking is done rigorously, and that's acceptable for on base access, seems like it could be sufficient, at least for the government...watch out for liability claims, though.

Tough spot...good luck.

Yes, access is the biggest concern. Right now there are no real access issues. We hope it keeps like that after the vaccine mandate.
We expect around 40-45% to be exempt.
No, we don't expect the process to be challenged because there is no mandated process. Internally we don't know what an audit would look like so it's pretty straight forward: either a vaccine card, DR's note, or an attestation.
That covers the Fed mandate and OSHA.
But Base access is very weird. And different from base to base, depending on where we are going on base. We work everywhere from office buildings to down range, and beyond security checkpoints. To be honest with you, Covid is the least deadly thing these guys are working with.

That's why I think the safety aspect should somehow be better attuned to the actual likelihood of large scale infection spread between different jobs and work environment...not all jobs require a hard hat. But while the odds of actually getting hit by a falling brick are pretty darn low, even in the most risky situations for such, the problem for the employer is that if they don't actually require, diligently, that the hard hats be worn in those situations, and an accident happens, there can be hell to pay.

But this is actually more akin to hygiene requirements, so for instance, requirements of hand washing, hair nets, etc when handling food, cleaning surfaces, all to reduce the chances of spreading a pathogen. It's less about the individual's risk than it is the risks to others.

So, the overall public health objective is to get as many people vaccinated as possible, and if not, tested with sufficient frequency to reduce outbreaks, and mask wearing when in dense situations...all of this being acutely needed when infections are high in a region, transmission risks therefore higher.

The other aspect of the vaccine priority is the stress, both personnel and financial, that preventable hospitalizations cause for health care workers and taxpayers. While it's clear that some people are far more prone to have a hospitalization situation, it's not remotely a perfect answer to simply not worry about younger and ostensibly healthier people...there are still far too many preventable hospitalizations among those groups. And it costs us all.

So, the government is looking to pull whatever levers it can to get that vaccination rate up super high. Short of an actual vaccine mandate.

What's bit surprising to me is that 40-45% of your employees simply don't care about the public health costs of their decision. Very few of those would have a legitimate medical basis for avoidance, yet they're going to claim a "belief" instead.

It’s kind of ridiculous that “I don’t believe in vaccines” is a legitimate cause for a religious exemption. Test them everyday.

It’s not “I dont believe in vaccines” and you get a religious exemption.

It’s “I don’t believe in vaccines because … it conflicts with my ___ religious beliefs.”

All the exemption people have agreed to mask at all times, so there is care for public health costs. But there’s also a strong belief in constitutional rights and religious beliefs too.

Exactly what are these 'religious' beliefs and have they ever applied, for them, to any other vaccine or drug or other medical therapy or any other public health requirement?

Or is this just very, very specific to this disease and this vaccine?

The three interviewed on my team this week weren’t bs-ing it. It is a closely held belief. And as long as they are believable, not sure we want an HR-type to be responsible for judging the veracity of what’s in someone’s heart.
One is a former catholic, now Greek Orthodox who is a former Navy Seal and said he has disagreements with the church’s leadership right now about this. He said he was pumped full of everything while enlisted, and when he left the military, converted and hasn’t been on any medicines since. All natural. Another is Jewish and the third is a documented, long-standing Christian Scientist.
Mandate- Rubber stamped.

Israel has a 10% vaccination rate!! I would fire them all. Doesn’t sound like that management team is protecting shareholder’s interest. Government seen through the transparent attempt to circumvent compliance based on BS….

[Peter Brown]

Israel’s fully vaccinated rate as of today is 62.4%.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Israel’s fully vaccinated rate as of today is 62.4%.

How can that be? A Jewish guy is claiming a religious exemption…. And some more BS…. https://apnews.com/article/health-relig ... 7b7b87c185

Management is derelict.

“No clergy are to issue such religious exemption letters,” Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elpidophoros said, and any such letter “is not valid.”

[CU88]

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substac ... tm_source=

How vaccines reduce transmission

Katelyn Jetelina

There is a common misconception that vaccinated people spread the virus as much as unvaccinated. I even received blowback from my holiday post because I said that a room full of vaccinated people with no other precautions didn’t pose a significant threat on the community.

I’m not surprised of the confusion given the suboptimal messaging from public health officials over the past year. But, vaccinated people do not spread the virus as much as unvaccinated. Not even close. Here’s how it works…

Vaccines prevent infection in the first place

Let’s say a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person are standing next to each other and both are exposed to the same amount of virus for the same amount of time. An equal playing field. The virus then enters both of the people’s nasal passageway. What happens next depends on vaccination status:

For the unvaccinated person, viral particles try to find and invade cells. Once a virus particle enters the cell it starts replicating fast. We need a certain amount of virus to become contagious. The virus reaches this threshold and the person starts transmitting to others. The person is contagious for 24-48 hours before getting disease (i.e. showing symptoms).

For the vaccinated person, the viral particles try to find host cells but the immune system (and particularly neutralizing antibodies) recognize the virus and quickly destroys it. Importantly, the virus is destroyed before entering host cells and, thus, cannot replicate. Because it can’t replicate, the vaccinated doesn’t become contagious. This phenomenon is called “sterilizing immunity”, which prevents infection from happening in the first place. Not everyone gets sterilizing immunity, but COVID19 vaccines help with approximately 50-75% reduction in initial infection risk.

This has a huge effect on transmission in the community. You cannot transmit an infection you never get.

Reducing transmission among breakthrough cases

But, vaccines aren’t perfect. For some unlucky few (and specifically those with high exposure jobs like healthcare), vaccine-induced immunity won’t be able to catch all the virus particles before finding cells. Once the virus finds a cell, it starts replicating enough virus to make the vaccinated person contagious. Then, this person typically gets asymptomatic disease, but some breakthrough cases get mild to severe disease.

The vaccine still kicks in though, making breakthrough cases less contagious than unvaccinated cases. Vaccines do this in two ways:

Clears the virus faster. The vaccinated are contagious for far fewer days than unvaccinated (average 3-6 days vs. 13-18 days with Delta). We’ve had three studies provide this evidence thus far: one in Singapore (here; see figure below), one among NBA (basketball) players (here), and one in the UK published in the Lancet (here). The faster the virus is cleared, the less it’s transmitted.


Reduces number of infectious particles. In the first few days, breakthrough cases have the same number of virus particles as unvaccinated (this is called viral load). But viral particles do not equal infectious particles. In fact, vaccinated have less infectious viral particles than unvaccinated. For example, in a study with healthcare workers, the vaccinated and unvaccinated had the same viral load. However, 69% vaccinated were positive for infectious virus compared to 85% unvaccinated positive for infectious virus. We also saw this in another study in China (here). The less infectious virus particles we have, the less the virus is transmitted.

So, in conclusion, the majority of vaccinated people won’t spread the virus if they are exposed. Among breakthrough cases, vaccines ensure less infectious virus for a shorter period of time. Together, transmission is significantly reduced.

Boosters reduce transmission even more

Unsurprisingly, boosters reduce transmission because they increase our neutralizing antibodies. Boosters increase the likelihood of preventing infection in the first place and, presumably, helps clear the virus faster among breakthrough cases. This week a preprint was released assessing this phenomenon for the first time. The study was a lot of mathematical models, but essentially a booster made a sizable impact in reducing individual transmission. Because of this, boosters deceased community transmission by 21-66%.

What about infection-induced (“natural”) immunity?

Some that are unvaccinated and survive COVID19 disease mount an immune response. This means they too have neutralizing antibodies and, because of this, their body acts much like the vaccinated: prevent infection and, thus, prevent transmission.

The problem is that this response is not guaranteed. For example, people with asymptomatic or mild disease may not mount a strong enough response for variants of concern but people who survive severe infection (i.e. hospitalization) do (here). If they don’t mount a response, they don’t have enough neutralizing antibodies to fend off infection and thus transmission.

If the unvaccinated mounts an immune response, the durability of protection is also variable. Infection-induced immunity lasts for at least 90 days and a maximum of 5 years. Mathematical models found that, on average, people will mount immunity against SARS-CoV-2 for 16 months.

Because of this, reinfection is much higher among unvaccinated. Two peer reviewed studies found the reinfection rate is 2.5-5 times higher among infection-induced immunity compared to vaccine-induced immunity (here, here).

Bottom Line

The majority of vaccinated people won’t spread the virus if they are exposed. Among breakthrough cases, vaccines ensure less infectious viral particles for a shorter period of time. Fully vaccinated people provide little to no threat to community transmission. Boosters also help. And those with infection-induced immunity may or may not help reduce transmission.

We desperately need pandemic off-ramps. What is our plan to transition into an endemic state? I continue to be surprised and disappointed that we still don’t have guidance on this from public health officials. But, a very safe “off-ramp” is vaccinated people. A room full of vaccinated people, for example at Thanksgiving, with no other precautions poses little to no threat to the larger community.

Love, YLE

[SCLaxAttack]

"pending adequate judicial review".

Reading Comprehension 101 wasn't a required course at Gator U.

Come on, MD, you know his purpose isn’t to provide truthful information. He’s here to troll, and he got you.

[Peter Brown]

Israel’s fully vaccinated rate as of today is 62.4%.

How can that be? A Jewish guy is claiming a religious exemption…. And some more BS…. https://apnews.com/article/health-relig ... 7b7b87c185

Management is derelict.

“No clergy are to issue such religious exemption letters,” Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elpidophoros said, and any such letter “is not valid.”

I get it. Irony.

I don’t care if anyone is vaxxed or not. It never occurs to me to be curious, scared, or interested in anyone else’s vaccination status. Same goes for masks.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Israel’s fully vaccinated rate as of today is 62.4%.

How can that be? A Jewish guy is claiming a religious exemption…. And some more BS…. https://apnews.com/article/health-relig ... 7b7b87c185

Management is derelict.

“No clergy are to issue such religious exemption letters,” Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elpidophoros said, and any such letter “is not valid.”

I get it. Irony.

I don’t care if anyone is vaxxed or not. It never occurs to me to be curious, scared, or interested in anyone else’s vaccination status. Same goes for masks.

Me either. I am concerned with the impact that non compliance has on macroeconomics.

[wgdsr]

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substac ... tm_source=

How vaccines reduce transmission

Katelyn Jetelina

There is a common misconception that vaccinated people spread the virus as much as unvaccinated. I even received blowback from my holiday post because I said that a room full of vaccinated people with no other precautions didn’t pose a significant threat on the community.

I’m not surprised of the confusion given the suboptimal messaging from public health officials over the past year. But, vaccinated people do not spread the virus as much as unvaccinated. Not even close. Here’s how it works…

Vaccines prevent infection in the first place

Let’s say a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person are standing next to each other and both are exposed to the same amount of virus for the same amount of time. An equal playing field. The virus then enters both of the people’s nasal passageway. What happens next depends on vaccination status:

For the unvaccinated person, viral particles try to find and invade cells. Once a virus particle enters the cell it starts replicating fast. We need a certain amount of virus to become contagious. The virus reaches this threshold and the person starts transmitting to others. The person is contagious for 24-48 hours before getting disease (i.e. showing symptoms).

For the vaccinated person, the viral particles try to find host cells but the immune system (and particularly neutralizing antibodies) recognize the virus and quickly destroys it. Importantly, the virus is destroyed before entering host cells and, thus, cannot replicate. Because it can’t replicate, the vaccinated doesn’t become contagious. This phenomenon is called “sterilizing immunity”, which prevents infection from happening in the first place. Not everyone gets sterilizing immunity, but COVID19 vaccines help with approximately 50-75% reduction in initial infection risk.

This has a huge effect on transmission in the community. You cannot transmit an infection you never get.

Reducing transmission among breakthrough cases

But, vaccines aren’t perfect. For some unlucky few (and specifically those with high exposure jobs like healthcare), vaccine-induced immunity won’t be able to catch all the virus particles before finding cells. Once the virus finds a cell, it starts replicating enough virus to make the vaccinated person contagious. Then, this person typically gets asymptomatic disease, but some breakthrough cases get mild to severe disease.

The vaccine still kicks in though, making breakthrough cases less contagious than unvaccinated cases. Vaccines do this in two ways:

Clears the virus faster. The vaccinated are contagious for far fewer days than unvaccinated (average 3-6 days vs. 13-18 days with Delta). We’ve had three studies provide this evidence thus far: one in Singapore (here; see figure below), one among NBA (basketball) players (here), and one in the UK published in the Lancet (here). The faster the virus is cleared, the less it’s transmitted.


Reduces number of infectious particles. In the first few days, breakthrough cases have the same number of virus particles as unvaccinated (this is called viral load). But viral particles do not equal infectious particles. In fact, vaccinated have less infectious viral particles than unvaccinated. For example, in a study with healthcare workers, the vaccinated and unvaccinated had the same viral load. However, 69% vaccinated were positive for infectious virus compared to 85% unvaccinated positive for infectious virus. We also saw this in another study in China (here). The less infectious virus particles we have, the less the virus is transmitted.

So, in conclusion, the majority of vaccinated people won’t spread the virus if they are exposed. Among breakthrough cases, vaccines ensure less infectious virus for a shorter period of time. Together, transmission is significantly reduced.

Boosters reduce transmission even more

Unsurprisingly, boosters reduce transmission because they increase our neutralizing antibodies. Boosters increase the likelihood of preventing infection in the first place and, presumably, helps clear the virus faster among breakthrough cases. This week a preprint was released assessing this phenomenon for the first time. The study was a lot of mathematical models, but essentially a booster made a sizable impact in reducing individual transmission. Because of this, boosters deceased community transmission by 21-66%.

What about infection-induced (“natural”) immunity?

Some that are unvaccinated and survive COVID19 disease mount an immune response. This means they too have neutralizing antibodies and, because of this, their body acts much like the vaccinated: prevent infection and, thus, prevent transmission.

The problem is that this response is not guaranteed. For example, people with asymptomatic or mild disease may not mount a strong enough response for variants of concern but people who survive severe infection (i.e. hospitalization) do (here). If they don’t mount a response, they don’t have enough neutralizing antibodies to fend off infection and thus transmission.

If the unvaccinated mounts an immune response, the durability of protection is also variable. Infection-induced immunity lasts for at least 90 days and a maximum of 5 years. Mathematical models found that, on average, people will mount immunity against SARS-CoV-2 for 16 months.

Because of this, reinfection is much higher among unvaccinated. Two peer reviewed studies found the reinfection rate is 2.5-5 times higher among infection-induced immunity compared to vaccine-induced immunity (here, here).

Bottom Line

The majority of vaccinated people won’t spread the virus if they are exposed. Among breakthrough cases, vaccines ensure less infectious viral particles for a shorter period of time. Fully vaccinated people provide little to no threat to community transmission. Boosters also help. And those with infection-induced immunity may or may not help reduce transmission.

We desperately need pandemic off-ramps. What is our plan to transition into an endemic state? I continue to be surprised and disappointed that we still don’t have guidance on this from public health officials. But, a very safe “off-ramp” is vaccinated people. A room full of vaccinated people, for example at Thanksgiving, with no other precautions poses little to no threat to the larger community.

Love, YLE

whoa. 13-18 days? it was difficult to try to find a number from studies 1 and 3 referenced, but in study 2 it said 5.5 days vs 7.5 says. or so i think.
are there quotes in those 3 studies that i couldn't find? if true, it would seem our quarantine measures are out of date.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/6366986001

Blue Lives Matter, unless its COVID.

[a fan]

Israel’s fully vaccinated rate as of today is 62.4%.

How can that be? A Jewish guy is claiming a religious exemption…. And some more BS…. https://apnews.com/article/health-relig ... 7b7b87c185

Management is derelict.

“No clergy are to issue such religious exemption letters,” Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elpidophoros said, and any such letter “is not valid.”

I get it. Irony.

I don’t care if anyone is vaxxed or not. It never occurs to me to be curious, scared, or interested in anyone else’s vaccination status. Same goes for masks.

Me either. I am concerned with the impact that non compliance has on macroeconomics.

In my experience, this is the number one misunderstanding we’ve had since the pandemic started. People are unable to think big picture. It’s why they don’t understand why coaches have to wear masks in pro sports, but the athletes don’t. The policy is focused on community numbers—-larger math——rather than individual numbers. And because they’re focused on one person (the coach wearing the mask) the policy seems insane. It’s not.

[wgdsr]

Israel’s fully vaccinated rate as of today is 62.4%.

How can that be? A Jewish guy is claiming a religious exemption…. And some more BS…. https://apnews.com/article/health-relig ... 7b7b87c185

Management is derelict.

“No clergy are to issue such religious exemption letters,” Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elpidophoros said, and any such letter “is not valid.”

I get it. Irony.

I don’t care if anyone is vaxxed or not. It never occurs to me to be curious, scared, or interested in anyone else’s vaccination status. Same goes for masks.

Me either. I am concerned with the impact that non compliance has on macroeconomics.

In my experience, this is the number one misunderstanding we’ve had since the pandemic started. People are unable to think big picture. It’s why they don’t understand why coaches have to wear masks in pro sports, but the athletes don’t. The policy is focused on community numbers—-larger math——rather than individual numbers. And because they’re focused on one person (the coach wearing the mask) the policy seems insane. It’s not.

i don't follow.
are you saying coaches can do their jobs sufficiently vs players so masks, or that the symbolism of having masks on are supposed to help others watching be ok with it? or that any incremental mask is a good mask for the community? or something else?