Google Delays Return To Office, Mandates Vaccines (seattletimes.com) 146
Google is postponing a return to the office for most workers until mid-October and rolling out a policy that will eventually require everyone to be vaccinated once its sprawling campuses are fully reopened. The Associated Press reports: The announcement Wednesday came as the more highly contagious delta variant is driving a dramatic spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. In an email sent to Google's more than 130,000 employees worldwide, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is now aiming to have most of its workforce back to its offices beginning Oct. 18 instead of its previous target date of Sept. 1. The decision also affects tens of thousands of contractors who Google intends to continue to pay while access to its campuses remains limited. "This extension will allow us time to ramp back into work while providing flexibility for those who need it," Pichai wrote.
And Pichai disclosed that once offices are fully reopened, everyone working there will have to be vaccinated. The requirement will be first imposed at Google's Mountain View, California, headquarters and other U.S. offices, before being extended to the more than 40 other countries where the Google operates. Google's vaccine mandate will be adjusted to adhere to the laws and regulations of each location, Pichai wrote, and exceptions will be made for medical and other "protected" reasons. "Getting vaccinated is one of the most important ways to keep ourselves and our communities healthy in the months ahead," Pichai explained.
And Pichai disclosed that once offices are fully reopened, everyone working there will have to be vaccinated. The requirement will be first imposed at Google's Mountain View, California, headquarters and other U.S. offices, before being extended to the more than 40 other countries where the Google operates. Google's vaccine mandate will be adjusted to adhere to the laws and regulations of each location, Pichai wrote, and exceptions will be made for medical and other "protected" reasons. "Getting vaccinated is one of the most important ways to keep ourselves and our communities healthy in the months ahead," Pichai explained.
Incoming outrage in 3..2..1.. (Score:2)
(at least expected to come immediately)
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Re:Incoming outrage in 3..2..1.. (Score:5, Informative)
No outrage. I think they are fools for mandating it, but it is a free country and they can manage their company in any way they see fit.
Possibly, but the US conservative movement doesn't think freedom means "free to do as you wish", but "free to do as they wish". In other words, they're free to not take vaccines but employers are not free to require it.
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Wait a sec, aren't conservatives supposed to side with the corporations?
Re:Incoming outrage in 3..2..1.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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A lot have conservative views actually. Especially on gay people and religion. But black people are distrustful of the government for a reason.
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Pure coincidence that once people stopped wearing masks and everything opened back up that cases have started to rise. https://www.news4jax.com/news/... [news4jax.com]
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There won't be any outrage. Given what we've heard about the workplace culture and internal politics at google I can't imagine any conservatives work there. At least not for very long.
Hopefully they don't fire someone important (Score:2)
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Very often in the COVID debate it becomes a conversation of - it kills you or it doesn't.
But there can often be medium or long term effects that can really diminish your health:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronaviru... [cdc.gov] (article is surface level, doesn't go into durations etc)
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It can be hard to have a legitimate conversation about risk-reward profiles based on age and history and underlying conditions
Re:Hopefully they don't fire someone important (Score:4, Interesting)
If I'm Google I'm possibly more concerned about this [thelancet.com]:
People who had recovered from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits versus controls when controlling for age, gender, education level, income, racial-ethnic group, pre-existing medical disorders, tiredness, depression and anxiety. The deficits were of substantial effect size for people who had been hospitalised (N = 192), but also for non-hospitalised cases who had biological confirmation of COVID-19 infection (N = 326).
[...]
Interpretation. These results accord with reports of ‘Long Covid’ cognitive symptoms that persist into the early-chronic phase.
It's still early but it makes me very grateful to have avoided infection, and if I was a tech employer, I might be extra motivated to avoid an outbreak in the office.
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It doesn't really matter what the disease will do to you. Nobody cares if you die, have long-term medical complications, or just have the worst cold of your life. What we care about is all the people you will put at risk if you get infected. You're being told to get vaccinated because we care about other people, some of whom can't get vaccinated, some of whom are the 5% that the vaccine isn't effective for.
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I'm actually curious how many people fit in the unvaccinatable group, as it might not be worth it to risk 80 million children to protect 200 elderly boomers.
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What kinds of people can't get vaccinated though?
Everyone under 12, currently, plus anyone whose immune system is suppressed too much. The first group can't get the shot. The second group can get the shot, but won't actually get vaccinated by doing so.
I'm actually curious how many people fit in the unvaccinatable group, as it might not be worth it to risk 80 million children to protect 200 elderly boomers.
Somewhere around 4% of U.S. adults are immunocompromised. That includes, among others, anyone who has ever gotten any sort of transplant (other than non-blood-bearing tissues like marrow-free bones, ligaments, cartilage, and tendons). That's about 8.4 million people, and not all of them are old (though I
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It doesn't really matter what the disease will do to you. Nobody cares if you die, have long-term medical complications, or just have the worst cold of your life.
What we care about is all the people you will put at risk if you get infected. You're being told to get vaccinated because we care about other people, some of whom can't get vaccinated, some of whom are the 5% that the vaccine isn't effective for.
COVID IS NEVER GOING AWAY. Everyone should expect to be exposed to it at some point. It's only a question of when and under what circumstances.
The idea that you can hide forever or expect everyone else to capitulate to such fantasies is unreasonable. Vaccines and treatment are the ONLY exit ramp other than infection with live virus. There is no third option.
The domain experts were saying this from day one yet somehow the public became confused and got it in their heads that if they hide for long enough
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If we didn't have stupid people refusing the vaccine, COVID-19 would be like the measles in the US by now.
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When mortality drops to basically zero below the age of 40, I can see a lot of young adults hesitant, especially when it ends up becoming quarterly requirement.
Death isn't the issue. Being in the hospital for days or weeks while you can barely breathe, you have brain fog, blood clots, organ damage and "long haul" covid is the issue.
Apparently people don't mind getting sick and feeling like they're dying. Not to mention the hospital bills to pay.
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Death isn't the issue. Being in the hospital for days or weeks while you can barely breathe, you have brain fog, blood clots, organ damage and "long haul" covid is the issue. Apparently people don't mind getting sick and feeling like they're dying. Not to mention the hospital bills to pay.
Hospitalizations and complications are also orders-of-magnitude lower in younger people (specifically below ~40-50) https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
It's a risk no matter which route you take. The nice thing about getting COVID though is that the side-effects are more likely to be covered by insurance.
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Apparently people don't mind getting sick and feeling like they're dying. Not to mention the hospital bills to pay.
These same people don't listen to others who've experienced this very thing and chalk it off to "propaganda."
Missing Option? (Score:1)
OR, it could be that Google doesn't want their group policy rates to go up when everyone starts having long-term symptoms and decline.
RTO needs to stop (Score:1)
A sane society would just pass a law mandating it. We are not a sane society
No vaccine, no service (Score:4, Interesting)
As the Delta variant of covid takes hold in the U.S., some restaurants are now saying if you can't prove you're vaccinated, you don't get served [marketwatch.com].
Needless to say, some people are up in arms about this and some states have passed laws saying you can't require people to prove they're vaccinated before serving them. Here is the real test: bring your dog or cat (or goat or emu) into a restaurant or grocery store and watch how many people whine about bringing "unclean" animals into a place where food is prepared or where some people might be allergic to animal dander.
The hypocrisy will be delicious.
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Meanwhile progressives thought businesses could refuse service except *because of* protected class membership. Unvaccinated is not a protected class. The only hypocrisy here is from conservatives. Shocker.
Within their rights (Score:2)
Google, being a private company, is within their rights to set workplace policy. Employees, if they don't like the rules, are free to take their services elsewhere. What I'd like to see is a policy that allows people to work from home if they don't want to get the vaccine.
Suppose that tomorrow the federal government decided to legalize pot nationwide. Not just state by state but the whole country. Were that to happen, companies could still decide to drug test their employees and fire or refuse to hire peopl
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"Suppose that tomorrow the federal government decided to legalize pot nationwide. Not just state by state but the whole country. Were that to happen, companies could still decide to drug test their employees and fire or refuse to hire people that test positive."
You don't have to suppose. Change "pot" to "alcohol". Alcohol is legal for anyone over 21 to buy and consume, yet companies can fire or refuse to hire someone who shows up to work or an interview drunk.
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That's right and porn is also legal and most, if not all, companies will fire you if they catch you watching it on company equipment. Again, perfectly reasonable. Getting vaccinated is as much about protecting yourself as it is about protecting your workmates.
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Google, being a private company, is within their rights to set workplace policy.
Let me stop you there. Google, being an organization whose legal status is only in existence subject to it being compliant with a broad swathe of policies and laws controlled by a legislature which is subordinate to the electorate, can only set a policy within those constraints and can be further constrained, crippled, enjoined, or demolished should it step outside those norms via existing legal applications or a change introduced by said legislature.
None of which seems to apply
How is this legal? (Score:2)
It is forbidden for employers to even ASK any medical information. Let alone MANDATE anything.
Employers may not know if you are vaccinated or not.
If you say it is not illegal, you live in the wrong country.
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It is forbidden for employers to even ASK any medical information. Let alone MANDATE anything.
Employers may not know if you are vaccinated or not.
If you say it is not illegal, you live in the wrong country.
You really should read up on HIPAA. Employers can ask you medical questions all day. You're under no obligation to answer them though.
Re:“Mandates vaccines” (Score:5, Insightful)
You're free to work somewhere else.
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You're free to work somewhere else.
Well that ought to coincide quite well with the supposedly large number of people who say they will quit rather than come back in.
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Meanwhile, good-paying jobs available for reasonable people.
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Google is free to mandate vaccines. We are free to deny those terms and leave, orask for compensation changes in response and re-negotiate.
No you are not. At will means that you can be legally terminated if they don't like the color of your socks Enjoy!
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Google is free to mandate vaccines. We are free to deny those terms and leave, orask for compensation changes in response and re-negotiate.
No you are not. At will means that you can be legally terminated if they don't like the color of your socks Enjoy!
They are absolutely free to to deny those terms and leave, and they are free to ask for compensation changes and they are free to attempt to re-negotiate in response.
Contracts aside, they are entitled to nothing. But they are absolutely free to ask.
Re:Mandates vaccines (Score:5, Informative)
The Trump administration should be applauded for ensuring that the USA placed large orders for all of the viable vaccines, but there's no validity to the assertion that "the Trump administration got the job done in RECORD time". Several multinational groups of scientists, often working with direct competitors, got the job done in record time. Trump deserves no credit for their work.
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When you say 'took no funding' what you mean is accepted no direct upfront subsidy. However, under Operation Warp Speed, Pfizer for example was guaranteed a minimum of $2 billion in purchases provided the vaccine met with FDA approval. Effectively they were incentivized by that guarantee to the tune of $2 billion * (whatever they thought the probability of getting FDA approval was).
Re:Mandates vaccines (Score:4, Insightful)
Pfizer for example was guaranteed a minimum of $2 billion in purchases provided the vaccine met with FDA approval.
That would be great if they actually had a vaccine. They didn't. They Bio-N-Tech developed the vaccine and actually received 375million in funding directly from the German government to do so.
You should be thanking Chancellor Angela Merkel for her "Bedienung Warp-Geschwindigkeit" (yeah operation warp speed doesn't make sense in Google translate :) ), and then be grateful Trump did the minimum which was expected from him. (Seriously guaranteeing minimum purchases during a pandemic, no fucking way!!!, but to be fair to his achievement this was uncharacteristically competent of him.)
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Countries were lining up to pay for a vaccine, it's not like the USA was the only one promising to buy. It's why here in Canada we now have lots of vaccine, the government basically signed deals with everyone based on approval.
Pretty sure every pharmaceutical knew that a successful vaccine would sell.
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When you say 'took no funding' what you mean is accepted no direct upfront subsidy. However, under Operation Warp Speed, Pfizer for example was guaranteed a minimum of $2 billion in purchases provided the vaccine met with FDA approval. Effectively they were incentivized by that guarantee to the tune of $2 billion * (whatever they thought the probability of getting FDA approval was).
You think that he should get a medal of freedom for his unprecedented act of obviousness?
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The Trump administration should be applauded for ensuring that the USA placed large orders for all of the viable vaccines, but there's no validity to the assertion that "the Trump administration got the job done in RECORD time". Several multinational groups of scientists, often working with direct competitors, got the job done in record time. Trump deserves no credit for their work.
What a looser you are! I watch Trump personally create the vaccines - all of them, in his spare time when he wasn't making America great again. I watched as he fought with that commie fauci after fauci came back from Wuhan with the delta variant, and when the bastard dumped all of the windmill cancer cells - after commie Biden took over, they gatherd in th eoval office, and insured that the 5G chips were in place.
Fear not though good citizen, Mike Lindell has shown us the proof of the steal, and when Tru
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This will be an interesting intersection... right-to-work and anti-vaxxers.
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This will be an interesting intersection... right-to-work and anti-vaxxers.
One of the most funner things in politics is that the idiots who pursue it cannot see past the end of their noses.
Right to lifers bawling because mean liberals want to tell them they can't go to some place because they didn't get the vaccination - Their bodies, their choices. Wait... what? They have made it completely clear that government has control over people's bodies
That union busting effort of right to work has bit many in their patoots. Wait - you mean I can be fired for calling the boss a comm
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“ First, the paramedics came for me, for I was unvaccinated and was running a high fever and had trouble breathing.”
Speaking of, the anti-vaxxer who was busy mocking the vaccine refused intubation until shortly before his choice of hill to die on was granted. I truly cannot be sorry for his choices. I can feel sorry for his SO and children if any.
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Even with the belief's of the religious that they will have a new post death life in some sort of heaven, it just seems crazy that they are completely willing to leave behind grieving wives and children, and to miss out on so much of life. And considering that th
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Theres not a judge on this planet that would award you compensation because you don't want to abide by basic safety standards.
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Of course. Depending on how valuable for Google, your bargaining position may be better or worse, of course.
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(PROBABLY yes, but I am still curious)
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Asked and answered.
Re: Mandates vaccines (Score:5, Informative)
However, let us not forget the last time we rushed out a vaccine. It was for swine flu and it was called Pandemrix. Hospital workers were forced to have it (mandated) in order to continue to do their work of saving lives. One nurse initially refused but eventually gave in and shortly after taking it, ended up with narcolepsy. She took her own life in the end. This led to an inquiry where it was discovered that 1 in 55,000 young people who had Pandemrix ended up permanently disabled. This was only 10 years ago and it got hushed up pretty well. The side effects went unnoticed in the beginning as they took many months to happen with a lot of people. The UK government now pays out as standard £120,000 to each person who can prove they had the jab and ended up with narcolepsy. Additionally, compensated individuals get access to treatments not normally available on the NHS at great cost to the taxpayer.
Here is a reputable source because citation needed: https://www.narcolepsy.org.uk/... [narcolepsy.org.uk]
There is a very good reason vaccines are not mandatory. Mistakes happen. Google should learn to Google.
Re: Mandates vaccines (Score:5, Informative)
The COVID-19 vaccines are very safe, but I would be completely in favor of a government program to compensate people harmed by a vaccine. Oh wait... such a program exists [hrsa.gov], although a slightly different program [hrsa.gov] applies to COVID-19 vaccines.
Given the existence of the programs, I think it's fine to mandate vaccinations. The overall harm to society is reduced that way. Sure, there will be a few unlucky people, but without mass vaccination there would be a lot more unlucky people.
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I had a very bad reaction to the AZ vaccine and the UK doesn't seem to have a vaccine compensation scheme, but even if it did money is not really a substitute for my health. It's set me back years and there is no way of knowing how long I will need to recover.
Managed to get a 2nd dose of Pfizer. It's still a risk, there isn't much data available on mixing vaccines for people with CFS, but anecdotally Pfizer does seem to be much better than AZ for us. At least so far I'm feeling much better than I did after
Re: Mandates vaccines (Score:5, Informative)
Some countries rushed that vaccine out. The US and other countries never used it. The mRNA vaccines are also very different from Pandemrix in almost every respect: They're entirely synthetic, they do not have adjuvants, they only generate a single protein, they do not have any weird chemicals from the egg-based production process used for flu vaccines.
To prebut any claims about the single protein: No, vaccine-generated spike proteins are not cytotoxic. https://twitter.com/SabiVM/sta... [twitter.com] https://health-desk.org/articl... [health-desk.org] and your favorite fact-checking sites.
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I have had the first of my two Pfizer jabs. I will soon be getting my second. I consider the trade-off to be worth it due to the risks to my own health were I to end up with with the disease. That is my own personal choice. I also happen to think most anti-vaxxers are misinformed idiots.
However, let us not forget the last time we rushed out a vaccine.
Apples and nuclear weapons
So this is kind of why science communication (Score:2)
Vaccines like Pandemrix need an additive so that your immune system will react to the very minimal amount of weak, dead virus particles in the vaccine. These are called Adjuvants. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines weren't a completely different way and so they don't need Adju
Re: Mandates vaccines (Score:5, Informative)
Pandemrix is still authorized for use against H1N1. That's because the fatality rate for H1N1 infection is several times higher than the rate of narcolepsy reported. That's not to mention more common H1N1 sequelae like encephalitis, seizures and heart attacks.
Taking a medicine is always an exercise in comparing the relative risks of the medicine and the disease. The serious side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines are no joke, but they're rare; as long as the pandemic is producing 20 new cases/day/100,000 population -- or in some states as high as *80* -- your risk of Facing serious health consequences is far higher if you're not vaccinated.
At this point, 3.98 *billion* doses of COVID vaccines have been administered; hundreds of millions of people have been fully vaccinated with any of the vaccines approved for use here. If your'e worried about being a guinea pig, don't be. Yes, there is risk, but unless you're in a group that hasn't been able to receive the vaccine (e.g. 8-12 year-olds) the risks are pretty quantifiable.
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Pandemrix is still authorized for use against H1N1. That's because the fatality rate for H1N1 infection is several times higher than the rate of narcolepsy reported.
Yes, but the decision to take Pandemix is based on the risk of getting H1N1 and having serious complications from it being worse than the risk of getting narcolepsy.
So if you are not likely to be exposed to H1N1 you won't be getting Pandemix just in case. It's not worth the risk.
With COVID vaccines the calculation is a bit different because most people are at risk. There is also pressure from governments to reach herd immunity levels, and from employers who want people to be vaccinated etc.
The real problem
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However, let us not forget the last time we rushed out a vaccine. It was for swine flu and it was called Pandemrix.
Ironically the problems from Pandemrix had nothing to do with the component of the vaccine which causes the immune response itself, and everything to do with the additional components that are needed to make that kind of vaccine work. That's the problem with a lot of the classic vaccines, the things people are most afraid about are the extra additives needed.
This is why among actual immunologists the mRNA vaccine is considered *the safest* vaccine ever created. They designed and targeted an mRNA molecule to
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Remember that almost all severe side effects of vaccines appear within a mere six weeks of getting the shot.
And empirical evidence shows that is true. The very rare side effects of current vaccines that never showed up in Phase III tests (tens of thousands of people) did show up a couple of months into vaccinating millions.
For example, the thrombotic thrombocytopenia (blood clots with low blood platelet count, due to PF4) showed up in Astra Zeneca in Europe and Canada. The same problem showed up in the USA
Re: Mandates vaccines (Score:1)
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If you're under 18 and working for Google, you might be a very rare kind of person anyway.
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The risk for getting Covid, and then for developing symptoms, and then for developing serious illness, and then for ending up in the hospital in the ICU, and then for ending up on a ventilator, and then dying...is still pretty low for everyone... no doubt about it. At each stage the risk of those things are low for everyone at every stage.
In fact, there's a well-known radio talk-show host, Phil Valentine, who used this same sort of logic, repeatedly, over the course of the pandemic, to recommend to his lis
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My neighbor had a car accident and after shaking his hand I caught car accident and has one two weeks later.
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That is already covered under existing ADA law.
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Not freedom, but this
The president and his agents are urging Americans to get vaccinated - touting it's effectiveness and safety. While I do not doubt either the effectiveness or safety of the vaccines, it is still troubling that the FDA has not approved the vaccine beyond an emergency use approval.
Why has the FDA not approved any of the three yet? Their lack of approval is supporting many folks that have doubts about the vaccines.
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Not freedom, but this
The president and his agents are urging Americans to get vaccinated - touting it's effectiveness and safety. While I do not doubt either the effectiveness or safety of the vaccines, it is still troubling that the FDA has not approved the vaccine beyond an emergency use approval.
Why has the FDA not approved any of the three yet? Their lack of approval is supporting many folks that have doubts about the vaccines.
Because there was trouble with the 5G chips that magnetized people. This is the real truth that Biden and the American Communist party are trying to conceal: https://www.forbes.com/sites/b... [forbes.com] WAKE UP AMERICA!
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Emergency use approval is perfectly fine in this situation given it's a fucking emergency. I'd be far more concerned if
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Because the standard process for approving medications can take years to decades. We don't have years. The virus is slaughtering people right now.
The FDA howver have noted that since the stage 3 trials are completed (And where some of the largest stage 3 trials in history. These are amazingly well tested and proven medications, despite the delta curveball thrown at it) going through the full, multi year process would change he 600K+ death toll into the 3-6m
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Because full approval process is extremely lengthy and will take years. Just like all medicines. The only option to approve something in less time is that "emergency approval" we have now. Looking for conspiracies much?
Re:“Mandates vaccines” (Score:4, Interesting)
Approval is a foregone conclusion, because the data is already public. Nothing came up that would throw approval into doubt. Nothing came up after submission that would pause the review. It's happening within a month or two (Pfizer) and 2-3 months from now for Moderna. Not years. Personally I can't wait to start laughing at all the people who thought anybody delaying getting it over the EUA label was serious and wouldn't just move to another excuse.
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He didn't say anything about laughing at people who 'didn't want to be lab rats'. He said he (as well as I) will laugh at people who actually believed that anti-vaxxers that use the 'no FDA approval' line will suddenly be willing to get the vaccine when it is FDA approved. They won't, they will just come up with another excuse.
As for the 'lab rats' comment: what, exactly, makes the difference in 'lab rat' status between getting the vaccine under an EUA and getting it with full approval? You do realize t
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> Why has the FDA not approved any of the three yet?
Because long-term effects don't show up in the short-term.
Re:“Mandates vaccines” (Score:4, Informative)
For vaccines, as opposed to things you take every day for years, the "long term" for safety is measured in weeks.
What does take time is long term effectiveness data. Normally a regulator would want to know how long a vaccine's protection lasts. Then there's a bunch of rituals about inspecting manufacturing facilities and asking for massive paperwork offerings.
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The mRNA vaccines are a different technology than traditional vaccines.
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Yeah. They're actually safer.
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Long term effects do not show up in vaccines at all. All negative effects of vaccines have shown up within a couple of months of their first use.
Re: “Mandates vaccines” (Score:1)
Re:Mandates vaccines (Score:2)
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Why has the FDA not approved any of the three yet? Their lack of approval is supporting many folks that have doubts about the vaccines.
Pfizer submitted the paperwork for approval on May 7. Moderna submitted on June 1. Priority applications usually take 6 months to process. The applications are being processed as quickly as possible, and the Pfizer approval is expected next month, with Moderna to follow. They're being expedited as much as possible and they're on track to get approved in half the normal time.
Everything is moving as fast as possible, but doing things right takes time.
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Why has the FDA not approved any of the three yet? Their lack of approval is supporting many folks that have doubts about the vaccines.
Why do you morons keep lying about this point? The general public only started getting each of these vaccines the day the FDA approved it.
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Being unvaccinated is not a protected class. Asking if you're vaccinated is not a HIPAA violation.
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Here in Canada, I believe it can be if you have a valid medical reason or religious reason for not being vaccinated. You will have to prove it and if religious, not a fly by night religion that you joined yesterday.
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There is a conflict here between personal freedom and workplace safety. My own view is that, when Google knows they can reduce the risk to all employees of contracting Covid in the office by probably 80+%, they have a moral, and possible even a legal responsibility, to do so.
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There's a way that's even 100% safe.
By not stuffing them into an office and having them work from home.
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If you are correct that there is never a situation where there is a need for Google employees to come into the office, then obviously Google ought not d to employee American workers when they can much more cheaply employ people overseas. In the past, Google has even been so stupid as to import workers on H1B visas, paying them higher wages than they would command in their home countries. How does that m
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Not at all. If you can source the same quality of worker for cheaper than local, you may want to do that.
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...and ignore the benefits of smart people being able to talk to each other at the coffee station
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That can easily be virtualized, with the added bonus that you can equally easily just shut them all up if you need the quiet to concentrate.
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There's a way that's even 100% safe.
By not stuffing them into an office and having them work from home.
You could shut the company and fire everyone too. But that has other consequences, as does splitting teams up.
There is no black and white here, and no absolutes here. Your 100% solution comes at the expense of something else.
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What may that something else be?
I've been in home office for a year now. So far, I fail to identify any downsides.
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Here, the FDA made a simple graphic to show the emergency authorization process. https://www.fda.gov/media/1438... [fda.gov]
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Is it anyone else or does putting things in quote marks like "the science" give the impression that someone has watched to much fox news (or whatever propaganda channel you're watching atm) where it is a regular occurance and even the opinion hosts mimic it when they say it via hand signals?
I suppose the "good thing" about this "COVID" is that it makes them far more likely to get it and be dealt to by a "Darwin Award" thereby reducing the general populous of the "Conspiracy Theorist's".... The bonus is tha
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No, I interpret it as a cynical but accurate interpretation that what Governments and the media and other propagandists describe as "the science" is a highly selective and often misrepresented subset of actual science, if it even qualifies as that.
After all, following "the science" means masks were ineffective, then mandated, then not needed, then mandated. "The science" used data from PCR tests that the FDA have now banned for being insufficiently accurate. People have used "the science" to make wild predi
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Most "experts" agree that companies can require vaccination, but you can't mandate non-FDA-approved vaccines. Otherwise, the sky will be the limit.
Think of all the money these companies requiring vaccines could have saved on lawyers! They should have just asked you instead -- you've got it all figured out.
Face it: "Contrarianism" is a sport for you.
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The difference is a decision that affects YOU and a decision that affects SOCIETY.
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In post delta mutation world if being vaccinated sufficiently prevented you from spreading the virus the CDC wouldn't be recommending masks for vaccinated people.
Define "sufficiently". It protects against alpha in about 95% of people, and against delta in... well, the numbers are all over the map, but I'm going to ballpark it and say 85–90% of people. But although that's probably good enough when there are very few cases, it's a long way from good enough during a surge, which we're now in.
When you factor asymptomatic vaccinated people continue to be a risk during full viral phase because the people who get symptoms know they are sick and take action to isolate preventing exposing others after 1-2 day pre-symptomatic period while the vaccinated but infected tend to bask in ignorance for the total week long duration of viral phase
and the fact Indian mutation produces over 1200x exhaled viral load as the previous mutations
Based on preliminary data, in symptomatic people. You can't automatically assume that vaccinated asymptomatic breakthrough cases have 25% of 1000x the viral load of an unv
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The Israeli delta data shows Pfizer 39% to 64% against infection. Alpha is irrelevant at this point.
The Israeli data is likely skewed by a combination of vaccinated people with minor illnesses not bothering to get tested and unvaccinated people not believing the disease is real and thus not getting tested. The real number is probably somewhere between 39% and 95%. That's about as narrowly as I'm willing to pin it down right now. :-D
Based on preliminary data, in symptomatic people. You can't automatically assume that vaccinated asymptomatic breakthrough cases have 25% of 1000x the viral load of an unvaccinated asymptomatic alpha case, though. That's pure speculation without actual data.
Nevertheless everyone must function in an environment in which all the answers are not available to them. In the absence of real information it is both a prudent and reasonable assumption.
It's a prudent assumption if you're trying to decide whether to make vaccinated people stay apart and wear masks. It's probably not a reasonable assumption if you're trying