The numbers I read indicate that as of today we have had more than 78 million people administered at least one dose here in the US. There are 330 million people in this country and we are approaching 2 million new first time vaccinations per day. And now J&J is online. The timeline seems fairly well defined to me if you take out a calendar and do the simple math. The problem is the number of people who will simply refuse to to be vaccinated. I have several in my company and find myself needing legal guidance to establish company policy.
Biden has directed that teachers now be put at the front of the line no matter what their age. Now I'm in one way glad for them, but also wonder why they are now ahead of workers in Grocery Stores or other "essential" businesses. Also why would a 25 y/o teacher be ahead of the over 50 crowd who is still not being prioritized.
It does appear from what I read that as an Employer you can require that your employees get vaccinated, there are some limitations of course, such as religious beliefs, etc. But you are wise to seek some counsel on setting a workplace rule on this. FWIW at my dental office we have nobody who has refused to get the vaccine, in fact by this weekend we'll be all 100% vaxed!
Good for you, Doc! I am not going to have that success rate. I am expecting 5-6 holdouts. Religious conviction and medical circumstances are the two valid objections at this point. My six will object based on fear or conspiracy theory. What makes my situation somewhat different is that we do the bulk of our business on site at customer locations. We not only have to do the right things ourselves but have to bank on them to do the same. So far I've gotten an opinion from one attorney that refusal to vaccinate is grounds for termination if it is company policy and can also be a pre-req for new employment. I don't want it to get to that point.
I don't blame you George, if you have employees who have been with you and been good employees and you are faced with either just accepting that they won't get vaccinated or fire them for the same, even if you have the right and they would have no recourse it's still an uncomfortable situation.
I am really appreciative of the appropriate employer thought process per Covid discussion you guys are sharing... We have a dozen full time employees with 1/3 ready to be vaccinated and the other 2/3 waffling on what they might do, I’ll leave out the contractual labor which is another issue. Personally in speaking with our company attorney I see no current avenue within our company to dictate mandatory vaccinations and I’m not sure I even agree with the thought process. But we are fortunate to work away from the public so cannot truly understand the pressures you are facing with your businesses . One observation is an employees wife is a nurse who works for Lee Health the dominant hospital in SW Florida. Her office has only 1 out of 18 nurses who have chosen to be vaccinated and in asking she says the hospital by law cannot force their employees to be vaccinated. As I said this is just an observation and I don’t have a proper understanding on what an employer can or cannot do.
Since the emergence of variant's, the UK, the South African and the Brazilian and others I guess has created a problem as to whether the current vaccines will be effective. Apparently an Austrian district in their state of Tyrol is particularly hard hit by the South African variant so Pfzer has agreed to send a big lot of doses in exchange for being able to study the outcomes. _______________________________ Earlier this week, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, agreed to allocate 100,000 extra doses of the vaccine to Austria, in exchange for allowing a multinational team of scientists to collect data from the mass vaccination in Tyrol. The region has seen one of the worst outbreaks of the variant in Europe and Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, had been lobbying the European Union for extra doses to try to stop its spread. “Our goal is to be able to massively halt, if not eradicate, the South African variant,” Günther Platter, the governor of Tyrol, said, announcing the project on Wednesday. “We want to protect the people from this variant.” The pilot program in Austria is the first such inoculation drive targeting a specific region within the European Union, where the vaccine rollout has lagged among member states, far behind some other wealthy nations. About 6 percent of the bloc’s people have received at least one shot, compared to 16 percent in the United States, 31 percent in Britain and 55 percent in Israel. Pfizer Vaccine Will Be Tested Against Variant from South Africa
According to an article on USA Today, by April we could be swimming in vaccine, everybody will have a dose available problem will be convincing them to get it apparently. COVID-19 vaccine, scarce now, could be in surplus across US by April
Returned from a Vaccine Vacation Sat. Glad to be traveling again. Still have to wear masks on planes and in public places like airports but nice to be playing golf in the dessert and enjoying a resort.
I just hit 11 months since Covid, continue to respect mask in businesses that require it, mainly respecting those around me. The wife and I have lived life, eat out on a regular basis, I’ve held demonstrations in the field shaking hands, ride together in the truck evaluating crops. This has been done on a constant basis for the past 11 months. In other words unless the historic record of viruses has suddenly changed Covid is just like every other virus once infected, there is immunity. Will it last, I have no idea, but I have the feeling as it’s like all viruses since the beginning of time there’s a pattern to indicate once past infection there is limited re-infection ‘I’m happy for those who want to be vaccinated my father being one of them, it definitely brings peace. Hopefully the powers that be can relinquish the authority they have enjoyed in the control of others. And thank the Lord I live in Florida and it’s current leadership
Biden announced that the Govt has purchased another 100M doses of the J&J vaccine. That means there will be enough vaccine for everybody pretty soon. RECcane...If I were you I'd still get the vaccine, even though you have had Covid, getting the vaccine might even strengthen your systems more in terms of resistance to Covid. It seems like you have nothing to lose and the CDC does recommend the vaccine even for those who have had Covid.
I have been wearing a mask everywhere except when home, eating, drinking, or golfing. Of course all I do is eat, drink, and golf.