Apple Asks All U.S. Employees to Share Vaccination Status, Still No Mandate

[DanTSX]

Apple continues to put their people in danger. There should be containment facilities for the unvaccinated at this point.

 

[macrumorsuser10]

Are you not vaccinated?

What's the point of getting vaccinated if you're still in fear of someone who has COVID?

Funny you mention common sense. Common sense is generally unsupported by data.

I guess your argument boils down to "because I said so." Not the strongest argument, unfortunately.

The point is the the unvaccinated are infecting each other, giving the virus more time to mutate into another strain that will require even more vaccinations. Not to mention that the economy continues to sag. So the unvaccinated are causing the US as a whole to suffer more than it needs to.

 

[DanTSX]

Gotta love these arguments. You can't get second hand smoking by being around a smoker that isn't smoking at the time, nor is it contagious. Also, it's not even allowed to smoke in the office. That's why they're required to go outside in a designated smoking area so they don't affect those nearby; and those that don't like inhaling smoke can stay away from those areas. If they decided to ignore that and smoke in the office, they'd likely be fired.

Actually it has been proven that smokers carry carcinogens in their clothes and hair and that gets into every thing they touch.

I can smell smokers. I don’t want smokers and their cancer flakes anywhere near me at work.

 

[hop]

Also with medical. Same thing.

So as much as I'm a huge COVID vaccine fan (literally in a clinical trial for one), there are a small but real group of people who truly cannot get the currently available vaccines, usually because they've got a serious allergy to PEG (in Pfizer/Moderna) and polysorbate 80 (in J&J). These folks would mostly love to get vaccinated but they just can't. I'm fine with mandates when people can do it, but to me trying to enforce one for people without medical exemptions would be wrong.

 

[WitchDoktor]

Actually it has been proven that smokers carry carcinogens in their clothes and hair and that gets into every thing they touch.

I can smell smokers. I don’t want smokers and their cancer flakes anywhere near me at work.

Which reminds me, it's time for my afternoon cigar.

Later, everyone!

 

[8CoreWhore]

Gonna be lawsuits.

 

[Feyl]

How come vaccinated people seem to be incredibly afraid of unvaccinated people?
I got my 2 Pfizer shots and couldn‘t care less about other people‘s vaccination status.

Because deep down they know that it doesn't work and that they've made a mistake and took it only to have a simpler life for a moment. I consider a "vaccine" that doesn't prevent you from catching the disease and doesn't stop spreading it non functional.

 

[SactoGuy18]

Look, this isn't a government entity that is asking for your vaccination status. Apple is a private company, and they have the right to ask this very question.

 

[Mansu944]

The thing is, the virus doesn't have a religious exemption - it doesn't say, "oh, that person believes in a particular invisible man in the sky [to use George Carlin's wording], so I won't infect them". And, further, the virus doesn't care whether you believe in it or not. You can still get infected and in turn infect others. The only exemptions there should be are for people who cannot take the vaccine for legit medical reasons (and not just "I convinced a doctor to sign this note").

One political party in the US has worked tirelessly since the 80's to ensure that employment in 49 of the 50 states is "at will", so the employer can discontinue your employment at any time for any reason, as long as it isn't directly because you're a member of a protected class (i.e. can't fire you because you're Jewish, or black, or gay, etc.). So, employers can't force you to get the vaccine (no dragging you by the arm down to the nurse), but they can say, "every employee must be vaccinated", in which case your alternatives are, get vaccinated, or seek other employment. I expect this is going to become a much more common thing, going forward, and there's going to be a whole lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the anti-vaxxer crowd about how their freedoms have been trampled - nope, choices have consequences.

What is the benefit of a vaccinated employee to the employer. You can still spread it and catch it same as unvaccinated.

 

[Phogro]

No one's going to change their mind because some guy on a forum shared a personal story, quoted a news article, or shared data from some study. People will grasp onto out of context facts or partial truths to make their point and ignore other facts or the full context of an article because it doesn't fit into their narrative.

All I want to do is encourage everyone to read/listen to everything they see with some skepticism - especially clickbait news articles. Understand that one article does not prove anything. One news story does not mean that is the full truth.

 

[DNichter]

How come vaccinated people seem to be incredibly afraid of unvaccinated people?
I got my 2 Pfizer shots and couldn‘t care less about other people‘s vaccination status.

It's not necessarily about being afraid, as we are well protected from death (although I definitely don't want to experience COVID again), but the people who refuse to get vaccinated are continuing to spread the virus, allowing for further mutations, hurting our economy, putting people who can't get vaccinated at risk, disrupting our school systems, and hindering our ability to return to a normal life. It's about the greater good, but they don't care about that. It's political, selfish, and dumb.

 

[macduke]

Should we also fire everyone who smokes cigarettes because second hand smoke has been proven to be worse for nearby people, not to mention raising insurance rates for these poor multibillion dollar companies. Perhaps every woman should also share their pap-smear status annually so those insurance rates don't affect everyone (including mens rates even though it doesn't apply to them).
How about you move to china so they can tell you how to live your life and you let americans be americans with their freedoms of choice.

No, but we should charge them a lot more for insurance, just like we already do for smokers. Also smoking outside of the office at home during their free time does not put coworkers in danger of dying, so that's a straw man argument. A better comparison would be banning people from smoking in the office, which we did back in the 60s and 70s. So your logic doesn't work there either, since the state of not being vaccinated is something that you can't turn on and off. And yes, pre-existing conditions used to cause increases in your health insurance and eligibility, but we got rid of that with The Affordable Care Act. Unfortunately pre-existing conditions aren't something you can change, but it's super easy, barely an inconvenience to march your ass down to the local clinic and get the FDA approved shot free of charge. So what is your excuse? You sound scared, friend.

 

[jimbobb24]

Polio and COVID are different.
Prove to me (or rather the relevant authority) you have natural immunity and fine, you can be exempt from the vaccine too. But getting COVID does not equal natural immunity.

I just cited multiple reports showing that it does. You prove that all those large studies are wrong. You are going based on Spring 2020 ignorance. We know now that they have immunity. You are in the same silly position as people saying vaccines dont work or they infect you with 5G waves.

 

[Naraxus]

Apple needs to quit ****ing around and tell their employees to get the vaccine or lose your job. No exemptions, no exceptions

 

[iBreatheApple]

This is 100% false. Vaccinated people do NOT pose the same risk of spreading COVID as unvaccinated do, simply because vaccinated people are MUCH less likely to get COVID (including Delta) to begin with.

Further there is no gaurentee that COVID will only become milder over time. Diseases can and do become more dangerous over time as well. That’s what Delta is, a more dangerous future version of the original COVID. Reducing spread through vaccination lowers the risk of variants. There is no medical or scientific reason for most people not to be vaccinated and an enormous reason why they should.

I never said the risk is the same. When you consider the “science” (the most exploited word this decade) about it being 60% more transmissible, it IS much more more easily transmitted than alpha and others. Therefore I can be vaccinated and still give it to someone, particularly an immunocompromised person who probably shouldn’t be out in a pandemic anyway. And of course there is no guarantee. There is no guarantee the earth won’t suffer a cosmic event and we will be existing on this planet next year. But historically, that’s an inherent quality of viruses and mutations. But you can bet your bottom COVID will still exist even if the planet is vaccinated 100%.
Also, based on my personal research, delta is exceptionally more contagious/transmissible but I’ve not yet seen any actual research that says it’s more deadly/dangerous. Can you site this information if you have it? Spoiler alert: there is no consensus yet on this claim.

 

[jimbobb24]

Not nearly the same.
- Fat people aren't infectious to others.
- Fat people aren't going to clog up ICU departments, however, the unvaccinated will, leaving fewer resources available for others ( non - covid reasons ) who need ICU.

Vaccinated people are far less likely to end up in ICU. They'll more likely be sick at home for a few days and recover.

Your post have nothing to do with the post I responded to. The moral question of should we ignore sick people because of their choices has nothing to do with the ability to transmit their ailment.

Go to a hospital and look around. Fat people clog up the whole hospital.

 

[DanTSX]

Look, this isn't a government entity that is asking for your vaccination status. Apple is a private company, and they have the right to ask this very question.

The problem is that without the state involvement, that the private entity may be on shaky ground in validating and enforcing any of this.

Im all for public shaming and ridicule. We need it with all this anti-science horse paste eating and bleach drinking going on. But Private companies are going to get lied to and mislead by their own employees until there is some sort of centralized vaccination registry that they can validate against.

 

[hop]

What's the point of getting vaccinated if you're still in fear of someone who has COVID?

Alongside unvaccinated folks provide a great opportunity for the creation of new variants, the same reason I wear a seatbelt even though doing so doesn't make me any more comfortable with drunk drivers. Seatbelts, like the vaccines, are great at massively lowering the odds of you getting badly hurt, but they can't prevent every serious injury/death, and I'd frankly prefer not to get into a car crash to begin with.

Gonna be lawsuits.

Lots of other employers have explicitly got fully mandates for vaccination so it seems like there's likely to be a pretty solid legal basis for doing so, especially now Pfizer is fully FDA approved for those 16+, and seems like a lot of others are going to follow suit too in the coming months.

What is the benefit of a vaccinated employee to the employer. You can still spread it and catch it same as unvaccinated.

Though I know a lot of people keep saying this, it isn't true.

You are significantly less likely to catch it if you are vaccinated, which inherently makes you less likely to spread it, even before we talk about how even if you do still get it, your viral load drops down a lot more quickly if you've been vaccinated.

Here's a thread from an actual immunologist going over this with citations and even some little diagrams:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1432715102806069251

I just cited multiple reports showing that it does. You prove that all those large studies are wrong. You are going based on Spring 2020 ignorance. We know now that they have immunity. You are in the same silly position as people saying vaccines dont work or they infect you with 5G waves.

Though I couldn't seem to see the actual citations you posted (sorry if I just missed the links/study details), the evidence we have on the protection from prior infection seems a bit mixed from what I've seen, plus we know that there's no real downside from getting vaccinated following it, instead you just end up even better protected.

 

[DanTSX]

What is the benefit of a vaccinated employee to the employer. You can still spread it and catch it same as unvaccinated.

Because they are vaccinated against Covid. The science works.

 

[Phogro]

What is the benefit of a vaccinated employee to the employer. You can still spread it and catch it same as unvaccinated.

The key is that you are less likely to ever get COVID when you're vaccinated meaning you likely won't have the virus to spread to people. Yes if you do get it you're still contagious and no vaccine is 100% effective, but by reducing your risk to contract the virus you are effectively also reducing your risk to spread the virus to others.

From an employer's point of view this means a vaccinated person is less likely to be out sick from COVID, less likely to infect others within their workforce, and data also suggests those that do break through and get COVID are able to recover and return to work faster. All good things.

Edit - @hop has done a good job summarizing this too with links to relevant information if you'd like to research it yourself.

 

[DanTSX]

Apple needs to quit ****ing around and tell their employees to get the vaccine or lose your job. No exemptions, no exceptions

They should fire them as customers too. Who wants them in the Apple store with you as customers?

They should extend this to their remaining employees for Flu shots, masks (in their off time), etc. I greatly worry that my coworkers are being flippant about masks and endangering me at work with undetected breakthrough infections of Covid. There needs to be some sort of mask surveillance that can score people and be public ally available or at least to people the monitored person agrees to

 

[DanTSX]

The key is that you are less likely to ever get COVID when you're vaccinated meaning you likely won't have the virus to spread to people. Yes if you do get it you're still contagious and no vaccine is 100% effective, but by reducing your risk to contract the virus you are effectively also reducing your risk to spread the virus to others.

From an employer's point of view this means a vaccinated person is less likely to be out sick from COVID, less likely to infect others within their workforce, and data also suggests those that do break through and get COVID are able to recover and return to work faster. All good things.

Edit - @hop has done a good job summarizing this too with links to relevant information if you'd like to research it yourself.

If they are off sick for COVID, they should Be quarantined. Not coming back to work “sooner”.

🤒😷🤮

 

[jimbobb24]

What is so hard for people to understand that the initial viral load of the delta variant is so high that vaccinated people can still EASILY transmit. Easily. Over time - several years - the virus will become less severe similar to a common cold, just as many coronaviruses are now. So, the only people who suffer are the ones unvaccinated as their chances of being hospitalized are much higher compared to those vaccinated. If someone is immunocompromised, they are still at risk due to the transmissibility. Even if everyone on the planet was vaccinated, COVID will not go away. You guys know this, right? Don’t force people to get vaccinated against their will. It doesn’t matter if they have a basis or evidence-based rationale for their reasons. They have choice. Period.

Their risk of hospitalization is higher but some of those risk are negligible.

The risk of hospitalization in healthy 30 year old is (just estimating) 1 in 100000 and death is 1 in 2000000. If you get vaccinated you....might cut those risks by 4/5. But the risks are so small that the benefit is negligible.

This has always been the problem for public health policy with CV19. On average harmless to the young and deadly to the elderly. So public health policy which ignores this produces dumb decisions and recommendations. But since boomers are terrified of death and they run everything we run around scared of a disease that is mostly harmless to the young and healthy.

 

[macrumorsuser10]

What is the benefit of a vaccinated employee to the employer. You can still spread it and catch it same as unvaccinated.

The probability of catching Covid is much less if you're vaccinated. And therefore, the probability of you spreading it is much less. Note that understanding this argument requires a high school level understanding of math.

 

[Stella]

Go to a hospital and look around. Fat people clog up the whole hospital.

Have you noticed the recent months - ICU and hospitals overflowing due to COVID-19, doctor's and nurses at breaking point. Due to the amount of hospitalizations, many countries have had lockdowns. I can't recall fat people having that affect on hospitals.

We should be protecting the people who can't get a COVID-19 vaccine due to health reasons, and encourage the rest to do so.