The NBA’s Anti-Vaxxers Are Trying to Push Around the League—And It’s Working

[thecampster]

27 minutes ago, AUhawksfan said:

People have personal freedoms but so do businesses. If the business (NBA) comes to a consensus and decides to force players to sit who aren’t vaccinated that’s also there choice. 
 

Those individuals who are skeptical or want the ability to choose can still do so. That doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be consequences to what they choose.  Seems pretty black and white to me, the problem is most people just want to have their cake and eat it too. 

Hey @AHF can you weigh in on the legal rights (or not) of employers to know an employee's medical status/history/etc?  How black and white is it? How muddled?

[AUhawksfan]

40 minutes ago, thecampster said:

Hey @AHF can you weigh in on the legal rights (or not) of employers to know an employee's medical status/history/etc?  How black and white is it? How muddled?

I could see that being an exception, if an individual has a medical reason for not getting it. That’s not the case for most who are refusing though. I see it as a public health/safety issue more than anything. 
 

An employer can require an individual to wear safety glasses or a hard hat on the job for safety reasons and folks don’t bat an eye. To me it’s the same if an employer wants to require the vaccination for public health in their work environment. The thing that makes it tricky for most folks is all the misinformation and conspiracy theories, hence making it less of a black and white issue for a lot of folks. 

[JayBirdHawk]

44 minutes ago, thecampster said:

Hey @AHF can you weigh in on the legal rights (or not) of employers to know an employee's medical status/history/etc?  How black and white is it? How muddled?

I'm no lawyer but would it not fall in the category or similar of a business requiring a drug test for their employees? (In terms of 'medical status')

[marco102]

1 hour ago, thecampster said:

Yah, see I'm vaccinated, I advocating being vaccinated but I'm not 100% sure I'm okay with giving a president (any president) the power to mandate things to businesses. If you feel that strongly about it, pass a law. The president's mandate isn't constitutional (IMHO) but that's a conversation for another forum.

I know some people don't listen to logic or reason know matter how much you coax them. If COVID was say 20% deadly if caught or something I'd be okay with legally mandating it, giving employers the power to mandate. But we are talking something that (in its current state) isn't much different than the flu.  I just don't like giving away that power over my own body to the government. But being a logical being, jumped in line to do it.

I'm not okay with restricting speech against it either, because there is a push to silence objectors in any society and the basis of our society is to give people the right to make their own decisions. Alcohol kills, but we still make it legal. Does it kill everyone, no but its deadly to many. Its the same basic thing.

For me its not even a matter of money.  Getting COVID can really hurt your season (see Bogi's first half) and your body (I know people with scarred lungs). Its a real easy logical decision but it takes some people a lot longer to see logic and reason.

Damn that's brilliant!  I'm stealing it.

I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I can tell you from a close family member's personal experience, the effects of COVID on your brain is nothing like the flu.  Maybe it is, but not well documented. My family member  started getting panic attacks when they had COVID.  Symptoms went away and now three months after they had COVID, those attacks are back and much much worse.  We've had to get that individual, psychiatric help.  It's not just the flu when people are having these long term effects.  My boss is still having loss of smell and he had COVID in March. 

Do you know of someone who's had these long term effects of the flu? I do not, but I've never had the flu.

Edited September 26, 2021 by marco102

[JeffS17]

1 hour ago, thecampster said:

Yah, see I'm vaccinated, I advocating being vaccinated but I'm not 100% sure I'm okay with giving a president (any president) the power to mandate things to businesses. If you feel that strongly about it, pass a law. The president's mandate isn't constitutional (IMHO) but that's a conversation for another forum.

I know some people don't listen to logic or reason know matter how much you coax them. If COVID was say 20% deadly if caught or something I'd be okay with legally mandating it, giving employers the power to mandate. But we are talking something that (in its current state) isn't much different than the flu.  I just don't like giving away that power over my own body to the government. But being a logical being, jumped in line to do it.

I'm not okay with restricting speech against it either, because there is a push to silence objectors in any society and the basis of our society is to give people the right to make their own decisions. Alcohol kills, but we still make it legal. Does it kill everyone, no but its deadly to many. Its the same basic thing.

For me its not even a matter of money.  Getting COVID can really hurt your season (see Bogi's first half) and your body (I know people with scarred lungs). Its a real easy logical decision but it takes some people a lot longer to see logic and reason.

Damn that's brilliant!  I'm stealing it.

Covid-19 is not comparable with the flu.  Over 1% of cases become fatal.  Its around 0.1% for the flu so Covid-19 is roughly 10x as deadly.  1% is a massive number and its closer to 10% for the most at-risks populations.  Not only is it 10x as deadly but it spreads significantly faster and is way nore infectious than even bad flu season strains.  This is evidenced by jam packed ERs around the country.

 

I normally don't engage in these types of discussions because I really just cone here to talk Hawks, but I know multiple people who have not taken it seriously and infected their family members who then died.  Now they're living with guilt and dealing daily.  I also know people who refused the vaccine and then later died, leaving their children fatherless.  Its incredibly sad and devastating.  There are a lot of people who do not care about this pandemic or vaccine until it personally affects then, so I strongly encourage anyone who is in that head space to consider getting vaccinated.  It's tough to care about something that is a such a low chance of happening but the consequences can be devastating.

[REHawksFan]

2 hours ago, JeffS17 said:

Covid-19 is not comparable with the flu.  Over 1% of cases become fatal.  Its around 0.1% for the flu so Covid-19 is roughly 10x as deadly.  1% is a massive number and its closer to 10% for the most at-risks populations.  Not only is it 10x as deadly but it spreads significantly faster and is way nore infectious than even bad flu season strains.  This is evidenced by jam packed ERs around the country.

 

I normally don't engage in these types of discussions because I really just cone here to talk Hawks, but I know multiple people who have not taken it seriously and infected their family members who then died.  Now they're living with guilt and dealing daily.  I also know people who refused the vaccine and then later died, leaving their children fatherless.  Its incredibly sad and devastating.  There are a lot of people who do not care about this pandemic or vaccine until it personally affects then, so I strongly encourage anyone who is in that head space to consider getting vaccinated.  It's tough to care about something that is a such a low chance of happening but the consequences can be devastating.

Honest question since you've said you are in the healthcare industry.  If vaccinated people can still get Covid and pass it along, how does having more vaccinated people eradicate the virus?  My wife and I were having this discussion recently because we are both fully vaccinated but have friends who haven't gotten vaccinated (not anti-vax in general but don't think it's necessary for them with Covid because they are young, healthy, etc...).  The question always comes up, is it a personal choice or a public good choice?  The issue we can't resolve is that we see people that have been vaccinated still getting Covid and still passing it along.  They aren't nearly as sick and don't end up dying from it, but they still get it and pass it.  So how does upping the Vax rate actually slow the spread of the virus?  And if it doesn't, how is it anything more than a personal decision?  

And as an aside, the entire family that I am referring to just had Covid, weren't vaxxed, and never had more than cold symptoms.  So now they are convinced they were in the right to not get vaccinated because it wasn't that bad and now they have antibodies.  

[Diesel]

I can't wait until the Government declare it a mandate that everyone get vaccinated. 

Look..

Your Personal Liberties do not supersede Public Safety.  If you don't believe that stop going to the Airport.  Stop going into Federal Buildings.  Jacobsen vs. Massachusetts clearly states that the state ability to police comes before civil liberties. 

Because from where I sit...  IF this virus is allow to continue and it morphs into a virus that the vaxx doesn't protect us from...   NOW the personal liberties of others has endangered the lives of all.   Nobody will say it but why are unvaxed people taking hospital beds away from people who have diseases and conditions that they didn't openly invite?   When hospitals reach capacity and most of the people are sick unvaxed... there's a problem.   There's some man who was injured at work.. his life is in danger and there's no room in the hospital because it's filled with people who chose not to prevent a preventable virus.  So now that unvaxers personal liberty has affected the life of an innocent bystander.

Time for the mandate.  Just like Smallpox.  Mandate it and let's go fourth. 

 

 

 

[Diesel]

1 hour ago, REHawksFan said:

Honest question since you've said you are in the healthcare industry.  If vaccinated people can still get Covid and pass it along, how does having more vaccinated people eradicate the virus?  My wife and I were having this discussion recently because we are both fully vaccinated but have friends who haven't gotten vaccinated (not anti-vax in general but don't think it's necessary for them with Covid because they are young, healthy, etc...).  The question always comes up, is it a personal choice or a public good choice?  The issue we can't resolve is that we see people that have been vaccinated still getting Covid and still passing it along.  They aren't nearly as sick and don't end up dying from it, but they still get it and pass it.  So how does upping the Vax rate actually slow the spread of the virus?  And if it doesn't, how is it anything more than a personal decision?  

And as an aside, the entire family that I am referring to just had Covid, weren't vaxxed, and never had more than cold symptoms.  So now they are convinced they were in the right to not get vaccinated because it wasn't that bad and now they have antibodies.  

Depending on which Vax you take, they have their percentage of effectiveness.   NO Vax is 100% effective... whether you're talking Small pox, rubella, measles  or any of the booster shots you took in your childhood.  But Just like them... they have a working percentage.  For instance, Measles Vax is somewhere about 88% effective.  That means that 12% of the vaccinated population can still get Measles.   Well Since the 70s  the MMR Vax has been mandatory.   Guess what.. with 88% effectiveness, the Measles have been eradicated in the US for about 20 years now. 

Social Media hypes up the breakthrough cases as if the breakthrough cases doesn't fall in the % effectiveness of the vaccine.  As soon as everybody is mandated to take the Vax... just like with MMR, people will have less frequency running into people who have covid... and eventually, it will also be eradicated. 

[JeffS17]

52 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

Honest question since you've said you are in the healthcare industry.  If vaccinated people can still get Covid and pass it along, how does having more vaccinated people eradicate the virus?  My wife and I were having this discussion recently because we are both fully vaccinated but have friends who haven't gotten vaccinated (not anti-vax in general but don't think it's necessary for them with Covid because they are young, healthy, etc...).  The question always comes up, is it a personal choice or a public good choice?  The issue we can't resolve is that we see people that have been vaccinated still getting Covid and still passing it along.  They aren't nearly as sick and don't end up dying from it, but they still get it and pass it.  So how does upping the Vax rate actually slow the spread of the virus?  And if it doesn't, how is it anything more than a personal decision?  

And as an aside, the entire family that I am referring to just had Covid, weren't vaxxed, and never had more than cold symptoms.  So now they are convinced they were in the right to not get vaccinated because it wasn't that bad and now they have antibodies.  

Good question, and before I answer, let me be clear I'm not a doctor or a medical professional -- but I end up in social circles with nothing but healthcare people through my wife and her PhD friends and through work conversations (I work with our companies medical directors and physicians).  With that disclaimer aside, vaccines as you mentioned are not 100% effective, so not only can you still get the virus but you can still also spread the virus.  Both of these are true.  But transmission isn't as binary as possible / not possible, and so the goal is to reduce the probability as much as possible which is where vaccines come in.

 

The way vaccines work from a population stand point is they are reducing the chance that you contract the virus, so even if it's possible to get a breakthrough case, it is still LESS likely if you are vaccinated, which means you're less likely to continue to transmit to your social circles and so forth.  The other piece that's really important is that the breakthrough cases are less severe, and the person is carrying a lower viral load.  Every time you sneeze, cough, or breathe you're putting out viral particles that can transmit the virus.  The more you put out, the more likely it is the next person will contract the disease.  So if you are symptomatic you are more likely to spread the virus through coughing rather than an asymptomatic person spreading it through breathing.  Most of the transmission for Covid-19 is through respiratory droplets (coughing/sneezing) and not just breathing.  This is also why masks have been pushed so hard as annoying as they are to wear.  So basically the vaccine helps in 2 primary ways ways 1. Reduces the chance you will get Covid-19 and 2. If you do contract the disease, it reduces the severity which reduces the chance you will continue to spread. 

• If you imagine a group of 10 unvaccinated people that hang out with 1 person who has Covid, let's say transmission rate for an unvaccinated person is 60% so 6 people get infected and 4 remain O.K..  And then those 6 infected people 6 people go hang out with 10 more unvaccinated each of which they all infect 6/10 so now 36 people have Covid in this scenario.
• Now let's imagine the vaccine is ~50% effective at stopping you from getting the disease and if you do contract the disease, the transmission rate is only 30% instead of 60% (because you carry a lower viral load and are less likely to be symptomatic).  Now let's repeat the same scenario above with 10 vaccinated individuals.  The first person will only spread to 3 people out of 10.  Now those 3 vaccinated people go hang out with 10 more vaccinated people.  Now they will spread to 1 person each, so we have 6 total infected instead of 36.

Hope that example isn't confusing but that's the reason it's important for as many people as possible to be vaccinated.  What happens is the virus hits more dead ends the more people that are vaccinated which causes it to "fizzle out" rather than multiply exponentially throughout the population.  This is how we managed to eradicate polio in the US -- not everyone got a polio vaccine but enough people did that the disease hit enough "dead ends" that it died off.

Also, the example above doesn't even touch on the fact the 36 unvaccinated people will come down with much more severe cases of Covid and be much more likely to be hospitalized or have a fatal case.  You can see that in the graphic below from a hospital in West Georgia (my sister is an ER nurse and sent me this but I think it's a regular tweet they put out).

 

 

[JeffS17]

22 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Depending on which Vax you take, they have their percentage of effectiveness.   NO Vax is 100% effective... whether you're talking Small pox, rubella, measles  or any of the booster shots you took in your childhood.  But Just like them... they have a working percentage.  For instance, Measles Vax is somewhere about 88% effective.  That means that 12% of the vaccinated population can still get Measles.   Well Since the 70s  the MMR Vax has been mandatory.   Guess what.. with 88% effectiveness, the Measles have been eradicated in the US for about 20 years now. 

Social Media hypes up the breakthrough cases as if the breakthrough cases doesn't fall in the % effectiveness of the vaccine.  As soon as everybody is mandated to take the Vax... just like with MMR, people will have less frequency running into people who have covid... and eventually, it will also be eradicated. 

This is probably a better, more succinct explanation than the long post I just made lol... the only thing I'll add is that there is a decent chance Covid-19 becomes a seasonal disease similar to flu.  I do not know the exact science behind it but because it mutates into new strains very rapidly, it's extremely hard to eradicate (similar to the flu).  So it's not unlikely we will be recommended to take a seasonal Covid-19 vaccine booster every so often similar to the flu shot, but that hasn't really been determined yet.  

[thecampster]

2 hours ago, REHawksFan said:

Honest question since you've said you are in the healthcare industry.  If vaccinated people can still get Covid and pass it along, how does having more vaccinated people eradicate the virus?  My wife and I were having this discussion recently because we are both fully vaccinated but have friends who haven't gotten vaccinated (not anti-vax in general but don't think it's necessary for them with Covid because they are young, healthy, etc...).  The question always comes up, is it a personal choice or a public good choice?  The issue we can't resolve is that we see people that have been vaccinated still getting Covid and still passing it along.  They aren't nearly as sick and don't end up dying from it, but they still get it and pass it.  So how does upping the Vax rate actually slow the spread of the virus?  And if it doesn't, how is it anything more than a personal decision?  

And as an aside, the entire family that I am referring to just had Covid, weren't vaxxed, and never had more than cold symptoms.  So now they are convinced they were in the right to not get vaccinated because it wasn't that bad and now they have antibodies.  

Limits the time you're infected. Helps the body fight it off faster.

[Jdawgflow]

Not to mention that Moderna and Pfizer are both ~95% effective.  So if we could get over 90% of the population fully vaccinated we would be able to cut down on cases significantly and limit deaths and severe cases to a minimal amount.  Also Jeff, I agree that that this will likely become a yearly booster with slight adjustments made to the vaccine each year to account for new mutations (just like flu shots).  And as someone who cares for children, I am very excited that many kids 12-17 are excited about being able to be vaccinated and that approval for 5-11yo should be coming before the end of the year (I hope).

[RandomFan]

1 in 500 Americans have died from Covid. That is a ridiculous number. Get the vaccine. 

And those are the worst case scenarios, death. There are other side effects for many people even after recovering. Get.The.Vaccine.

[Diesel]

1 hour ago, RandomFan said:

1 in 500 Americans have died from Covid. That is a ridiculous number. Get the vaccine. 

And those are the worst case scenarios, death. There are other side effects for many people even after recovering. Get.The.Vaccine.

RF, 

Everybody in here has been in a room with 500 people.  Damn.   That's not many.  I was watching a sporting event the other day.  Crowd of 54,000+ People.  That's 108 folks in that crowd... Dead.

Get The Vaccine!!

[sillent]

How about everyone just go vegan. Alkaline your body and you don't have to worry about viruses or diseases.

Or is telling people what to put in there bodies their choice?

If not go vegan no more meat and dairy. Do that and then tell me who's worried about a vaccination.

If we can't tell you what to put in your body don't tell the next person. Simple as that. 

If the vaccine worked like it should nobody would worry about who's vaccinated and who's not. It would just be "smart" people and dead people. Either somethings not working or somethings not right.

I see the unvaccinated homeless still alive and well. What kinda "free" country do we live in when there's no choice on what we put in our bodies?

Again if the vaccine works than good for the vaccinated but it obviously doesn't if everyone has to get it for it to work. Sounds like bs.

 

 

[bleachkit]

I thought anti-vaxxers were just all a bunch of racist White nationalist conspiracy theory believing right wing extremists? Guess not. 

[niremetal]

3 hours ago, sillent said:

How about everyone just go vegan. Alkaline your body and you don't have to worry about viruses or diseases.

Or is telling people what to put in there bodies their choice?

If not go vegan no more meat and dairy. Do that and then tell me who's worried about a vaccination.

If we can't tell you what to put in your body don't tell the next person. Simple as that. 

If the vaccine worked like it should nobody would worry about who's vaccinated and who's not. It would just be "smart" people and dead people. Either somethings not working or somethings not right.

I see the unvaccinated homeless still alive and well. What kinda "free" country do we live in when there's no choice on what we put in our bodies?

Again if the vaccine works than good for the vaccinated but it obviously doesn't if everyone has to get it for it to work. Sounds like bs.

 

 

It's absurd to say that unless a vaccine is 100% effective at preventing infection, it doesn't "work." Almost nothing in medicine (including "natural" medicine, holistic health, etc) has 100% efficacy. Aspirin doesn't get rid of every headache. Penicillin isn't 100% effective against any bacterial infection. Acupuncture doesn't always cure...whatever acupuncture is supposed to cure.

It's especially absurd to hold vaccination to that standard, because vaccination is most definitely not like a head

3 hours ago, sillent said:

How about everyone just go vegan. Alkaline your body and you don't have to worry about viruses or diseases.

Or is telling people what to put in there bodies their choice?

If not go vegan no more meat and dairy. Do that and then tell me who's worried about a vaccination.

If we can't tell you what to put in your body don't tell the next person. Simple as that. 

If the vaccine worked like it should nobody would worry about who's vaccinated and who's not. It would just be "smart" people and dead people. Either somethings not working or somethings not right.

I see the unvaccinated homeless still alive and well. What kinda "free" country do we live in when there's no choice on what we put in our bodies?

Again if the vaccine works than good for the vaccinated but it obviously doesn't if everyone has to get it for it to work. Sounds like bs.

 

 

  It's absurd to say that unless a vaccine is 100% effective at preventing infection, it doesn't "work." Almost nothing in medicine (including "natural" medicine, holistic health, etc) has 100% efficacy. Aspirin doesn't get rid of every headache. Penicillin isn't 100% effective against any bacterial infection. Acupuncture doesn't always cure...whatever acupuncture is supposed to cure.

It's especially absurd to hold vaccination to that standard, because vaccination is most definitely not like a headache, or tetanus, etc. It's an extremely transmissible disease, which means a single vaccinated person can infect many others. That means a person's choice not to vaccinate affects many others. It's very much a public health issue, not just a private health issue. It's not like whether someone takes aspirin. It's more like whether someone washes their hands before handling food (which also isn't 100% effective at preventing the spread of foodborne illness, but it helps a whole heck of a lot).

We basically eradicated smallpox and polio in the United States by requiring everyone to get vaccinated. We had basically eradicated measles too--one of the few illnesses as transmissible as COVID--by requiring measles vaccines, until critical masses of anti-vaxxers created enough of a public health gap to allow small outbreaks to occur. It honestly baffles me that vaccination has become politicized.

3 hours ago, bleachkit said:

I thought anti-vaxxers were just all a bunch of racist White nationalist conspiracy theory believing right wing extremists? Guess not. 

Definitely not. The first major groups of anti-vaxxers that I knew about were anti-corporate/anti-pharma leftist types. The west coast (which is where I live) had the first measles outbreaks in decades as a result. Most of those folks are, far as I can tell, anti-vax about the COVID vaccine as well. But in terms of sheer numbers, the number of people resisting the COVID vaccines are an order of magnitude more, and thus not predominantly drawn from that "original" anti-vax population.

I suspect the phenomenon that's happening among NBA players that this article discusses stems from different stuff (there is understandable skepticism of traditional medicine in the US among some in the Black community), as the Rolling Stone piece kind of hints at. But since we don't know for sure what players are unvaccinated (Kyrie aside), no way to know.

[niremetal]

14 hours ago, thecampster said:

Hey @AHF can you weigh in on the legal rights (or not) of employers to know an employee's medical status/history/etc?  How black and white is it? How muddled?

You asked for @AHF, but as the junior employment lawyer on the Squawk...

(Note: I'm trying to make this not-too-technical, but lemme know if something isn't clear.)

Nationally, the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) is the main law that restricts employers from asking employees health-related questions. (There's also HIPAA, but that actually doesn't cover most health-related questions in the context of employment, and that  includes questions relating to COVID vaccines )

In theory, the ADA only protects workers with disabilities. But in practice, since an employer doesn't know (and usually can't ask--see below) which employees have disabilities, employers have to be pretty careful when asking workers about health-related stuff. That said, when it comes to transmissible diseases and things that can affect other workers, employers have more leeway to ask health-related questions.

Here's a bit more detail. The ADA limits an employer's ability to require employees to undergo "medical examinations" or to ask if the employee has a disability (or what type of disability an employee has, how bad it is, etc). Those restrictions aren't absolute, though--an employer can require a medical examination or ask about disability status if they have a legitimate job-related reason for doing so:

Quote

A covered entity shall not require a medical examination and shall not make inquiries of an employee as to whether such employee is an individual with a disability or as to the nature or severity of the disability, unless such examination or inquiry is shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity.

(Link)

Obviously, there are a lot of terms in there ("medical examination," "inquiry," "job-related," etc) that have kind of fuzzy/imprecise meanings. But relevant to this conversation--based on my experiences working on cases involving the ADA, I'd be shocked if courts or agencies decided that the COVID pandemic did NOT give employers a good enough reason to ask employees questions related to COVID vaccination status, especially given the CDC guidance on vaccination status (to say nothing of the impending OSHA rules about vaccination for larger employers).

AHF can let me know if I'm missing anything nationally. If you've got a question about a specific state, I think between AHF and me, you have a ~1 in 10 chance that one of us will know the answer offhand

Edited September 27, 2021 by niremetal

[thecampster]

1 hour ago, niremetal said:

You asked for @AHF, but as the junior employment lawyer on the Squawk...

(Note: I'm trying to make this not-too-technical, but lemme know if something isn't clear.)

Nationally, the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) is the main law that restricts employers from asking employees health-related questions. (There's also HIPAA, but that actually doesn't cover most health-related questions in the context of employment, and that  includes questions relating to COVID vaccines )

In theory, the ADA only protects workers with disabilities. But in practice, since an employer doesn't know (and usually can't ask--see below) which employees have disabilities, employers have to be pretty careful when asking workers about health-related stuff. That said, when it comes to transmissible diseases and things that can affect other workers, employers have more leeway to ask health-related questions.

Here's a bit more detail. The ADA limits an employer's ability to require employees to undergo "medical examinations" or to ask if the employee has a disability (or what type of disability an employee has, how bad it is, etc). Those restrictions aren't absolute, though--an employer can require a medical examination or ask about disability status if they have a legitimate job-related reason for doing so:

(Link)

Obviously, there are a lot of terms in there ("medical examination," "inquiry," "job-related," etc) that have kind of fuzzy/imprecise meanings. But relevant to this conversation--based on my experiences working on cases involving the ADA, I'd be shocked if courts or agencies decided that the COVID pandemic did NOT give employers a good enough reason to ask employees questions related to COVID vaccination status, especially given the CDC guidance on vaccination status (to say nothing of the impending OSHA rules about vaccination for larger employers).

AHF can let me know if I'm missing anything nationally. If you've got a question about a specific state, I think between AHF and me, you have a ~1 in 10 chance that one of us will know the answer offhand

No your legal eagle take is always welcome. I just don't see you around as much.

So let me see if I can unravel this (being more than a novice but less than an expert on legal jargon).  In general, a medical inquiry into an employee's health (transmissible disease) would be generally limited to either A) an employee demonstrates symptoms consistent with a medical situation (ie protecting an employer who administers CPR, sends a sick employee home, etc) or B.) In a general policy applied to the general worker population without prejudice (all employees must be drug tested, 6 weeks family leave with cause, etc)?

1. Would those 2 statements be true?

and

2. Can you come up with another circumstance/situation?

[thecampster]

2 hours ago, niremetal said:

It's absurd to say that unless a vaccine is 100% effective at preventing infection, it doesn't "work." Almost nothing in medicine (including "natural" medicine, holistic health, etc) has 100% efficacy. Aspirin doesn't get rid of every headache. Penicillin isn't 100% effective against any bacterial infection. Acupuncture doesn't always cure...whatever acupuncture is supposed to cure.

It's especially absurd to hold vaccination to that standard, because vaccination is most definitely not like a head

  It's absurd to say that unless a vaccine is 100% effective at preventing infection, it doesn't "work." Almost nothing in medicine (including "natural" medicine, holistic health, etc) has 100% efficacy. Aspirin doesn't get rid of every headache. Penicillin isn't 100% effective against any bacterial infection. Acupuncture doesn't always cure...whatever acupuncture is supposed to cure.

It's especially absurd to hold vaccination to that standard, because vaccination is most definitely not like a headache, or tetanus, etc. It's an extremely transmissible disease, which means a single vaccinated person can infect many others. That means a person's choice not to vaccinate affects many others. It's very much a public health issue, not just a private health issue. It's not like whether someone takes aspirin. It's more like whether someone washes their hands before handling food (which also isn't 100% effective at preventing the spread of foodborne illness, but it helps a whole heck of a lot).

We basically eradicated smallpox and polio in the United States by requiring everyone to get vaccinated. We had basically eradicated measles too--one of the few illnesses as transmissible as COVID--by requiring measles vaccines, until critical masses of anti-vaxxers created enough of a public health gap to allow small outbreaks to occur. It honestly baffles me that vaccination has become politicized.

Definitely not. The first major groups of anti-vaxxers that I knew about were anti-corporate/anti-pharma leftist types. The west coast (which is where I live) had the first measles outbreaks in decades as a result. Most of those folks are, far as I can tell, anti-vax about the COVID vaccine as well. But in terms of sheer numbers, the number of people resisting the COVID vaccines are an order of magnitude more, and thus not predominantly drawn from that "original" anti-vax population.

I suspect the phenomenon that's happening among NBA players that this article discusses stems from different stuff (there is understandable skepticism of traditional medicine in the US among some in the Black community), as the Rolling Stone piece kind of hints at. But since we don't know for sure what players are unvaccinated (Kyrie aside), no way to know.

Nire, you and I have butted heads in the past but I give credit where credit is due. There is a lot of really good information in this post. A lot of well formulated fact based information. This should be required reading.

Focusing on that bottom section, crazy knows no allegiance to any one political affiliation.  I can't even push this anti-vax stuff at libertarians.  Its a cross section of every belief system, religious and not, left and right, educated and not. There are antivaxxers living in trailers in backwoods Arkansas, tenements in downtown Detroit and living in country clubs in metro Atlanta. I even to some degree understand the distrust. I tend to operate on a risk appetite type of decision making. I openly admitted at the time that there were risks with trusting the government and a poorly tested new vaccine. I also looked at the risks I posed to myself (and society as a whole) if I didn't get vaccinated. It was a very easy choice.  Limited risk (get ill, feel bad for a few days, possible side effects) vs 3 weeks in a hospital on a ventilator before I croaked and infecting my entire family.  Seemed like a pretty easy decision to accept the vax risk.

 

I think it all goes back to honesty. Be honest with folks that there are risks with any medical procedure (no matter how slight) and be honest with the risks if you don't have it done.  Some people, no matter how reasonable the decision seems to be, will reject government involvement and basic science.  But I'm willing to accept that risk of letting them make personal decisions (even if they are stupid) in lieu of the greater risk of giving government control over forced vaccinations for all.

All that said, go get jabbed folks. Its over in a few seconds. Make sure you're on a probiotic regimen beforehand and it will lighten the side effects greatly. The vaccine lessens your time of being contagious by helping your body fight it off faster. Its really simple.  Contagious for 3 days is better than contagious for 2 weeks.