back to article Cisco requires COVID-19 shots for all US staff – even remote workers

Cisco has updated its COVID-19 vaccination policy for US staff to make the jabs mandatory – even for those who work remotely. The new policy, a copy of which was obtained by The Register, requires "all US-based employees (including US Territories), regardless of whether you work remotely or in a Cisco facility, be fully …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Get rid of the religious exemption.

    A medical exemption from a physician licensed to practice medacin is usually a valid reason not to get vaccinated, but show me a religion, *ANY* religion that teaches their followers not to get themselves vaccinated & I'll show you another cult offering you a delicious cup of KoolAid.

    Accept the medical, refuse the religious, & fire anyone that doesn't comply. Your "freedumb" to not get vaccinated ends as you leave your house & enter the rest of society.

    1. Old Used Programmer

      Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

      Be careful about the medical grounds, too. Recent years have shown that there are doctors willing to sign off on a spurious medical exemptions for school vaccinations. That started in earnest when California dropped the "personal philosophy" exemptions.

      On the religious exemptions...yeah. Those are universally bogus. Turn 'em all down.

      1. cyberdemon Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        I am a member of the satanic church of antivaxxx and I demand my exemption.

        (maybe I should use the 'joke alert' icon..)

        1. theblackhand

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          Depends if you go Church of Satan or the Satanic Temple.

          Satanic Temple is the more mainstream option and tend to go with the follow tenet for their vaccination policy:

          "One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason."

          The Church of Satan is much smaller and their policy on vaccination is very much down to individual choice but don't cause harm to others unless you are prepared to be destroyed by them so arguably that does support vaccination...

          For anti-vax you a probably looking for the evangelical nationalists but they all paint Satan as the bad guy while they do what ever they want. Without any acknowledgement of the irony...

      2. J27

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        That's a matter for medical boards to crack down on. Phony exceptions should result in license suspensions.

    2. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

      There are a handful of religions that have always been against modern medical intervention. Christian Scientists (how about that for an ironic name) and Old Order Amish and Mennonites. Pretty sure the latter two are not working for Cisco or any federal contractor for that matter.

      But yeah, 99.9% of the people claiming a religious exemption have nothing in their faith that allows for it.

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        For the record, Christian Scientists accept vaccination where required by law.

        Not that it matters much ... there are probably fewer than 65,000 of them left, world-wide, and under 45,000 here in the US.

        Religion of all kinds has been on the decline here in the US since the 1950s.

        1. Headley_Grange Silver badge

          Religion of all kinds has been on the decline...

          You sure?

          https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/02/christ-church-idaho-theocracy-us-america

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: Religion of all kinds has been on the decline...

            2,000 loons in Idaho aren't reversing the trend of 70-odd years.

            1. herman

              Re: Religion of all kinds has been on the decline...

              I think people are just a bit more honest about their non beliefs. The percentage of real religious loonies are likely the same as always.

        2. Mongrel

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          The Christian Scientists have a document (https://www.christianscience.com/press-room/a-christian-science-perspective-on-vaccination-and-public-health) that gets quoted heavily until they get to the "We're faith healers and have pushed prayer as a solution" paragraph that's quickly followed by the "members are free to make their own decisions" statement.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            The point is they are not dogmatic on the subject of vaccines.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          "there are probably fewer than 65,000 of them left, world-wide, and under 45,000 here in the US".

          Yet more proof that Darwinism works.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            "Yet more proof that Darwinism works."

            I suspect it's education, not Darwinism.

            1. Outski

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              Education - the vaccination against many harms

        4. herman

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          ‘Required by law’ - A Presidential mandate is not a law. Laws are supposed to be made by Congress. There are so many levels of wrongness in the US Covid Dictatorship.

          1. herman

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            It is funny how I get thumbs down votes for stating a legal fact. Refer to Judge Napolitano who wrote extensively on these problems. The US is not a Republic. The President doesn’t make laws. His mandates are mere ‘wishes’ which carry much weight, but many of which are not enforceable.

            1. J. Cook Silver badge
              Boffin

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              It's an Executive Order, which carries the same force as a law.

              Along with the OHSA rule, which also has the same force as a law. (And fighting OHSA is a Bad Idea.)

              Sorry, but you are wrong.

              1. EnviableOne
                Headmaster

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                It may carry the same force, but it is not a law. It's a Presidential Proclamation until codified by both houses it does not become a law.

            2. ecofeco Silver badge

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              Because you are wrong.

            3. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              > It is funny how I get thumbs down votes for stating a legal fact

              Nah, you got the thumbs down for throwing in the "US Covid Dictatorship" comment.

              1. codejunky Silver badge

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                @AC

                "Nah, you got the thumbs down for throwing in the "US Covid Dictatorship" comment."

                But is he wrong? Regardless of if you consider it right or wrong that people are coerced with little choice to get vaccinated (and these comment sections attract both sides), the president stating 'so it must be' and then people having to do that just on the presidents say so does seem to ring true to US Covid Dictatorship.

                Which of course people will argue for or against even if they dont like the wording.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                  > But is he wrong?

                  Yes, of course he's wrong. Because if it were genuinely a dictatorship then there would be arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, thugs beating-up anti-vax protesters and all the other things that dictators do.

          2. Justthefacts Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            Nope, the President does actually have this power. This is an Executive Order, affecting federal employees, not a general law in the courts affecting all citizens.

            https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/09/09/executive-order-on-requiring-coronavirus-disease-2019-vaccination-for-federal-employees/

            In principle, companies then *do* have a perfectly valid choice: withdraw from all federal contracts, or fire all their non-vaccinated employees.

            Ironically, it’s the *Republicans* who wrote into law that public companies in the US have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. That, and *only that* makes it a *law* that companies can’t prioritise their staff choices and rights over federal contracts. Rather than just a tough decision, which different companies could choose differently.

            And they say that Americans don’t understand irony.

            1. Someone Else Silver badge
              Pint

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              And they say that Americans don’t understand irony.

              To a large degree, they don't. As an example, ask any Republican to find the irony in your statement. I'll happily wager one of these - - - >

              ....that they won't be able to.

          3. DS999 Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            The president can issue a mandate in cases where existing laws passed by congress allow for it. For instance, the law establishing OSHA allows OSHA to issue mandates like "must have fall protection when working on a roof" and since OSHA is part of the executive branch the president can direct OSHA to issue new mandates related to workplace safety. Not having your unmasked antivax coworkers infect you with something that has killed 700K people in the US certainly counts as "workplace safety".

            The president can also use the power of the purse to require government contractors to require vaccinations for their employees. If a business owner doesn't want to do it, they are free to continue operating their business their way, at the cost of their government contracts.

            What would be beyond the power of the president would be to issue a mandate requiring everyone in the US to be vaccinated. There has to be a tie-in with existing powers that congress has already granted the president.

            If you think the president has too much power, complain to your congressman to pass laws restricting his power. Though I'm guessing the overwhelming majority of people who think Biden is abusing his authority with executive orders, or believe Obama did, were totally fine with the 140 executive orders and 59 other executive actions by Trump.

      2. Lars Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        Re"There are a handful of religions".

        I don't think there is really any need to call them "religions".

    3. jake Silver badge

      Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

      Yes. Get rid of the religious exemptions, They have no place in tre 21st century. Or the 20th, for that matter. Or the 19th ...

      So called "religious objectors" can kiss my pasty white butt ... unless you can show me in scripture (any scripture!) where it unequivocally states vaccines are a big Thou Shalt Not. I've looked, and see no valid examples, just dumb-ass "preachers" rabbiting on about their freedumbs. (The only freedom they actually seem to want is the freedom to collect loot from their flocks, and otherwise maintain their power over other people. Slimeballs, the lot of 'em.)

      1. Diogenes

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        Many of the religious objections are down to the fact that aborted fetus cell lines are used in either production or testing.

        The fruit of the poisoned tree as it were.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          "the fact that aborted fetus cell lines are used in either production or testing."

          That's bullshit, not "fact".

          Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are synthetically produced. A computer was used to sequence the genes. Fetal cell lines were used nowhere in the synthesis or production of the vaccines.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            Actually, no, that is not correct.

            Aborted foetal cell lines are used in the testing in each of the major vaccines to a greater or lesser extent.

            Strictly speaking.

            https://www.health.nd.gov/sites/www/files/documents/COVID%20Vaccine%20Page/COVID-19_Vaccine_Fetal_Cell_Handout.pdf

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              Whether it's true or not, who gives a shit? It's not like pharmaceutical companies are encouraging people to get pregnant and then have abortions on purpose.

        2. katrinab Silver badge

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          The Catholic Chuch objects to this practice but has no problem with corona vaccines. The Vatican has vaccinated more people per head of population than any other country.

          1. jmch Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            "The Vatican has vaccinated more people per head of population than any other country."

            I would expect so, since it has the population of a small hamlet (officially just over 800), the vast majority of whom are senior (both as rank and as age) clergy.

            1. minnsey231

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              I believe the Vatican has vaccinated > 100% of its population. E.g. ~1500 poor and homeless people outside their own immediate jurisdiction, maybe others?

              Not a believer myself but seems like a job well done.

              1. katrinab Silver badge

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                Also all the people who work in the Vatican and live in another country (eg Italy)

                Gibraltar has a >100% vaccination rate for the same reason.

              2. Allan George Dyer

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                @minnsey231 - "Vatican has vaccinated > 100% of its population. E.g. ~1500 poor and homeless people outside their own immediate jurisdiction, maybe others?

                Not a believer myself but seems like a job well done."

                Meh. "The Vatican" == "The Catholic Church", their responsibility isn't just to their 800 residents, but to their millions of followers (and their religious obligation to care for others). I'd be looking at how much they've contributed to getting vaccines to people who would otherwise be unvaccinated, maybe because their government is too poor/corrupt/stupid to do it (looking at Brazil, for example). ~1500 in that context seems like a negligible contribution.

        3. Mog_X

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          As at least one hospital in the US has stated in a message to its staff, unless they can truthfully say that they have never taken or will never take any of the following:

          Acetaminophen, albuterol, aspirin, ibuprofen, Tylenol, Pepto Bismol, Tums, Lipitor, Senokot, Motrin, Maalox, Ex-Lax, Benadryl, Sudafed, Preparation H, Claritin, Prilosec, and Zoloft

          Then they can't use the 'fetal cell lines' excuse, as these have all used them during R&D.

          1. herman
            WTF?

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            ‘Aspirin???’ - Aspirin has been used since about 400 BC by Hippocrates himself and for a thousand years before him in ancient Egypt and Sumeria. I really doubt that the old doctor tested it with fetal cells.

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              I suspect that if you look into it, it's no longer made from natural extracts of tree bark, beans or any of the other natural sources of the key ingredient. Aspirin is a fully synthesised drug that has been through all the testing regimes you'd expect.

              1. John Jennings

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                Asprin has been made from salicylic acid since 1897 - it was not tested on anything but the inventor back then.

                It was the 'wonderdrug' of the Spanish Flu - where it became a household product (fully synthetic then)

                Also, on that list is Prep H - its been around since 1935 (interesting story)...... It might have been tested later - but that is 'after the fact' - it had been in general use a lot longer.

                The list is incorrect.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                  mRNA vaccines were also not developed using fetal cells either, they were only tested using them.

                  So if aspirin or Prep H was ever tested for efficacy or safety using these cells, then the list is appropriate.

                  There are other tests done with mRNA vaccines without fetal cells.

                  So if you go for the poisonous tree argument, there is a clean foetal-cell-free branch from production through test.

                  In fact, someone could open a lab and test *everything* on fetal cells, and these refuseniks will have to then not take any drugs, medicines or treatments, if they are actually genuine about their beliefs.

                  PS: I get abortion, the action, is something they disagree with, but isnt the foetus the whole thing they defend and protect? Wouldn't a foetal cell thus represent all the goodness, that the evil action of abortion is destroying?

                  I'd have thought the argument would have been to point to all the lifeforce in foetal cells, so use the vaccine and stop abortions? These folk should prefer the foetal cell versions.

              2. herman

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                I doubt the 19th century synthesis developers used fetal cells.

                1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                  Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                  Neither do the COVID-19 vaccines. No foetal cells used in development or production. Some tests may have involved foetal cells. But then even long established drugs are often tested in new ways to see if they can be helpful in other ways. It's highly likely that Aspirin has also been tested in this way at some stage, and so I'd lean towards the hospital list as being genuine and accurate. If someone refuses to take a drug because of a certain testing regime, then logic says they must refuse any drug tested in that way.

                  On the other hand, those refusing a COVID-19 vaccine seem to be refusing any and all COVID-19 vaccines. Some are made in the "traditional" way, others are not. Some may have been tested against foetal cells at some stage, others almost certainly were not. So why aren't these people looking into exactly how each and every COVID-19 vaccines was developed, tested and produced and then having one they can agree with?

                  1. jake Silver badge

                    Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                    "So why aren't these people looking into exactly how each and every COVID-19 vaccines was developed, tested and produced and then having one they can agree with?"

                    For the hard of thinking, evidence suggests that was a rhetorical question.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              "The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna do not require the use of any

              fetal cell cultures in order to manufacture (produce) the vaccine.

              Early in the development of mRNA vaccine technology, fetal cells were used for “proof of

              concept” (to demonstrate how a cell could take up mRNA and produce the SARS-CoV-2 spike

              protein) or to characterize the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein."

              mRNA vaccines don't use foetal cells for production either.

              So if it is the testing argument that refusniks hold on to, anyone ever testing aspirin or even water for tha matter on fetal cells, makes them tainted.

              Maybe we could test fossil fuels and meat on foetal cells, will it solve climate change?

            3. Lars Silver badge
              Happy

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              On Aspirin.

              "Medicines made from willow and other salicylate-rich plants appear in clay tablets from ancient Sumer as well as the Ebers Papyrus from ancient Egypt.[11]: 8–13 [18] Hippocrates referred to the use of salicylic tea to reduce fevers around 400 BC, and willow bark preparations were part of the pharmacopoeia of Western medicine in classical antiquity and the Middle Ages.[18] Willow bark extract became recognized for its specific effects on fever, pain, and inflammation in the mid-eighteenth century.[61] By the nineteenth century, pharmacists were experimenting with and prescribing a variety of chemicals related to salicylic acid, the active component of willow extract.[11]: 46–55

              Old package. "Export from Germany is prohibited"

              In 1853, chemist Charles Frédéric Gerhardt treated sodium salicylate with acetyl chloride to produce acetylsalicylic acid for the first time;[11]: 46–48 in the second half of the 19th century, other academic chemists established the compound's chemical structure and devised more efficient methods of synthesis. In 1897, scientists at the drug and dye firm Bayer began investigating acetylsalicylic acid as a less-irritating replacement for standard common salicylate medicines, and identified a new way to synthesize it.[11]: 69–75 By 1899, Bayer had dubbed this drug Aspirin and was selling it.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin#History

    4. jmch Silver badge

      Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

      " Your "freedumb" to not get vaccinated ends as you leave your house & enter the rest of society."

      I strongly disagree. One can live perfectly well in society keeping a 2m distance, wearing a mask indoors and avoiding crowded indoor spaces. Anyone who choses to not get vaccinated should be free to do so, just don't go barhopping/clubbing and avoid theaters/cinemas etc and it's fine.

      There needs to be some proportionality here, especially considering that vaccinated people can both catch and transmit covid*, and yet we seem OK with them are congregating in crowded areas without masks.

      *transmission rates from vaccinated people with covid is identical to that from unvaccinated people with covid - This is from the Lancet, not some tinpot facebook conspiracy theorist:

      https://els-jbs-prod-cdn.jbs.elsevierhealth.com/pb-assets/Lancet/pdfs/s1473309921006484-1635425926927.pdf

      money quote: ", fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings"

      Granted that (fairly recently) vaccinated people have less chance of catching covid than unvaccinated people, but allowing vaccinated people into crowded indoor spaces without masks (equivalent to 'household setting') negates that advantage. Vaccinated people engaging in 'riskier' behaviour has resulted in there being no discernable correlation between %age of vaccinated population and infection rates - this is from the European Journal of Epidemiology, not some tinpot facebook conspiracy theorist:

      https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7

      It would be nice to go with the dream from a year ago that we'll get a vaccine and everything will go back to pre-covid normal, but present reality has shattered that dream. We either have to accept that the days of crowded, in-your-face events especially indoors are a thing of the past, or we have to learn to live with an ongoing reality of endemic covid, and deal with it as best we can same as we learnt to deal with influenza.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        "deal with it as best we can same as we learnt to deal with influenza."

        Which is why I've had both my Covid booster and, as in previous years, influenza vaccinations in the last few weeks.

      2. minnsey231

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        "with breakthrough infections"

        Isn't that the money quote?

        If you don't get a breakthrough infection the infection rate is much lower?

        (Says he currently sharing a house with an unvaccinated , < 16, child who caught Covid a week ago. So far my double vaccinated wife and I keep testing negative .... fingers crossed)

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          Best wishes, you're in a difficult situation. My daughter is in a similar position in that her unvaccinated son caught it at school and she had a breakthrough infection. Her single jabbed daughter moved out and avoided it.

          Probabilities aren't certainties but they're still probabilities and that's what counts when understanding and managing epidemics. Looking at the infection figures, the age distribution hereabouts since early September has been strongly bimodal. The highest peak is in the teens and the other in the age group of teenage children's parents. Since the start of half-term the overall level has been falling. I'd say the finger of suspicion points to getting the children back into school before getting round to deciding to vaccinate them. With the end of half-term I wouldn't be surprised to see infections rise again.

        2. herman

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          Ha, you don’t need a test to tell you that you have Covid - you will Know - with a capital K. I had it. It was extremely unpleasant. It is certainly not ‘just a sniffle’.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            I sympathise, with you but you are missing out on all the asymptomatic carriers and the vaccinated who may show no or very slight signs of COVID-19 symptoms. Looking at the current UK infection rates, thankfully starting to fall again, there's still something like 30,000+ daily reported new infections, from a recent high of over 50,000 on one day. Hospital cases are up, but not scarily so, as are deaths, but neither anywhere near last years numbers. Clearly a lot of people are catching it, but nowhere near as many are suffering from it.

          2. Pirate Dave Silver badge
            Pirate

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            I've had it twice, a year apart. The wife too. The first time was awful, like the full-blown flu (but luckily no puking like the flu). Coughing. Lots of coughing. The second time was just feeling crappy for a couple of days.

            But my 82-year-old father-in-law got it (and the Delta variant at that, we think) and didn't even get a sniffle. He felt tired for a couple of days, lost his taste and smell, then was back to normal within a week.

            Four of our five kids (aged 15-27) have tested positive for it, only one actually got sick. Took him about 2 weeks to get back to normal.

            It's a freaking weird virus.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              >I've had it twice, a year apart. The wife too.

              According to Bob that can't be true, you should have acquired natural immunity from the first infection...

              1. Pirate Dave Silver badge
                Pirate

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                I guess I had good natural immunity. I live in the Southern US, Georgia specifically. We've basically been back to "normal" since last November - no masks, full capacity in restaurants, no directional arrows on the floor of the supermarket, etc. (And even before then we were, at best, half-assing our efforts at isolating/quarantining). We know Covid is still making the rounds, but apparently we've decided to leave our weaker members to whatever fate awaits them.

                in spite of having it twice, I still got the Moderna shots this past spring. Work was giving $bonus$ to employees who got the shot, so I figured if I could survive the virus twice, I could survive a shot meant for old folks. I spent my $bonus$ on beer and ammo. Living that Georgia life...lol.

                1. Lars Silver badge
                  Happy

                  Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                  @Pirate Dave

                  Reading about Georgia we find this:

                  "Georgia has administered at least one dose to 6,062,599 people,

                  covering 60.8% of the eligible population, 12 and older...

                  and 57.1% of the state’s entire population.

                  At least 5,141,539 people have been fully vaccinated.".

                  But the Total reported cases per 100k U.S. overall is 13,867 while it's 15,433 in Georgia.

                  https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/covid-vaccine-states-distribution-doses/

                  1. Pirate Dave Silver badge
                    Pirate

                    Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                    Yeah, we have a lot of folks who haven't (and won't) get the shots for whatever reason. I'm fine with that. The folks who are most worried about Covid (or are most susceptible) have already had the shots (or, like me, saw some other benefit to it). So the remainder are primarily folks rolling the dice. Good luck to 'em, but I ain't going to no funerals if they get snake-eyes.

                    1. jtaylor

                      Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                      "The folks who are most worried about Covid (or are most susceptible) have already had the shots (or, like me, saw some other benefit to it). So the remainder are primarily folks rolling the dice. Good luck to 'em, but I ain't going to no funerals if they get snake-eyes."

                      I'd like to agree with you, but I have family and friends with compromised immune systems, who got the vaccine and still have minimal protection (chemo will do that...) I also know someone waiting for joint replacement who keeps getting delayed while hospitals care for critically ill foolish people.

                      COVID spreads socially. If people who chose COVID also chose to withdraw from society, that would be a personal choice.

            2. Lars Silver badge
              Coat

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              Do you actually know or do you just think.

              1. Pirate Dave Silver badge
                Pirate

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                Swab-up-the-snotter I think we know.

          3. Lars Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            @herman

            I have no reason, proof, to doubt you but I feel I have reason to doubt those who cannot prove they had it with any test and still go on about how many times they had it.

      3. Blank Reg

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        If the willfully unvaccinated followed the rules then perhaps I'd have some sympathy, but it seems that many (most?) don't. Instead they love to gather in large, unmasked crowds yelling about freedom and communist oppression.

        There is apparently a large overlap in the unvaccinated and idiot populations. Something approaching a circle on a Venn diagram

        1. Potemkine! Silver badge

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          There is apparently a large overlap in the unvaccinated and idiot populations. Something approaching a circle on a Venn diagram

          There Natural SelectionTM will apply. Unvaccinated ones being (at least) 11 times more at risk to die, it should help cleaning the gene pool.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            It won't make that much difference to the gene pool, as most of those dying from it are past the peak reproductive age range.

            I do wonder whether the early-C19 flu pandemic had an effect on average intelligence, as that affected younger people more, and I guess the link between stupidity and not taking sensible precautions won't be that different..

            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              Upvote for the first comment but I'm not sure about the 2nd. A lot of the spreading in the "Spanish Flu" was in the armies during WWI before 1919.

          2. Justthefacts Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            Unfortunately not true.

            You aren’t distinguishing between “more likely to die if unvaccinated than vaccinated” (true) from “out of those who die, what percentage are unvaccinated” (mostly vaccinated, but with health conditions). Different questions, different answers.

            The real problem is that we are continuing to subsidise the anti-vaxxers financially. They are causing very quantifiable harm, death and economic devastation. Normally, if I acted negligently in such a way as to injure you so badly that you were hospitalised for weeks, and never recovered sufficiently to be able to work again, you could sue me for very large amounts of compensation. For some reason, just because it’s a virus, I don’t have to pay compensation. It makes no sense at all.

            I understand perfectly that some people are asymptomatic, and others will be vaccinated but still infectious. This is about *negligence*. If I’m driving a well-maintained car, experience a tyre blowout, and have an accident that injures somebody that’s one thing. If I pop a wheelie on my motorbike while drunk at 120mph, slide and injure somebody, that’s quite another.

            If they had to pay the compensation equal to the damage they are causing (over £2k per nutter per week), they’d soon run out of money for their ridiculous posturing.

            1. codejunky Silver badge

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              @Justthefacts

              "The real problem is that we are continuing to subsidise the anti-vaxxers financially. They are causing very quantifiable harm, death and economic devastation."

              I am not sure how that works. One thing is for sure and that is the virus will go through the population, nothing we can do about it. Vaccinated or not you will still catch it and still pass it on regardless. The vaccination being a personal protection thing that you are less likely to suffer or die from catching the virus because of vaccination, but thats all it is.

              So an vaccinated person is no more danger than a vaccinated person. As for chance of it hitting harder and possibly causing death the vaccinated one should be at less risk. The mistake is in thinking that vaccination = immune to catching or passing it on and that Covid wont get you (which is like thinking the flu wont get you).

              1. Hubert Cumberdale

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                Maths says you're wrong (apart from most of your last sentence). Being vaccinated gives you a 6–7-fold lower probability of catching it. Even if the transmission rates once infected are the same, it still means you're in less danger if you're vaccinated, and so is everyone you know. I reiterate the above poster's point that anti-vaxxers are causing very quantifiable harm, death, and economic devastation. /overandout

                1. codejunky Silver badge

                  Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                  @Hubert Cumberdale

                  "Being vaccinated gives you a 6–7-fold lower probability of catching it."

                  Cool, Nice to see studies show your less likely to catch it. I know there are various attempts to see what effect the vaccines have (outside the obvious protection). I wonder how this changes based on the mutation.

                2. Roland6 Silver badge

                  Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                  > Even if the transmission rates once infected are the same

                  From what I remember reading, being vaccinated primes your immune system, so you are infectious for a much shorter period than if you haven't been vaccinated. Which all things being equal, should result in someone taking no precautions infecting fewer people.

                  What COViD19 has demonstrated is that we are woefully unprepared for a pathogen that has a natural R value of 4~7 and a mortality rate of 30% ie. another smallpox.

                  1. codejunky Silver badge

                    Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                    @Roland6

                    "What COViD19 has demonstrated is that we are woefully unprepared for a pathogen that has a natural R value of 4~7 and a mortality rate of 30% ie. another smallpox."

                    How could we prepare? This all started because the virus of unknown origin (china) which occurred naturally (US funded lab it seems) wasnt stopped at the source because China arrested anyone trying to warn the world.

                    For all the glorious systems we have in place the lab it seems was not a secure enough level for the work being done and politicians pride (China) covered it up instead of stopping the spread. Even when there seems to have been cases pre-outbreak that were ignored.

                    A lot of this outbreak seems to be the usual suspects- people. On the plus side these vaccines have been developed in record time and economics now has a new scenario to consider- the destruction of an economy by shutting it down.

              2. Justthefacts Silver badge

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                Two points

                #1 Vaccinated people *can* pass it on, but on average *less*. How do we know? Compare the *case* curve this year with same time last year. Last year it was increasing 50% per week at this time, this year it is approx stable. The difference is the change in R due to the vaccinated.

                #2 Financial (which was my point). Come and walk in my shoes. I run a small company and employ about 30 people, to whom I have legal and moral responsibilities

                Person A rings me up: “I’m medically vulnerable, with a health condition that is protected under the Disability Discrimination Act. As my employer, you need to provide me a workplace that is safe, with reasonable adaptations to my needs. Being in contact with unvaccinated people is a specific threat to my safety of life. And I’m a line manager, so I can’t do my job properly from home. You need to make sure that all employees I come into contact with are vaccinated, otherwise I will resign and claim constructive dismissal under DDA, and win”.

                Person B rings me up: “It’s my right to not be vaccinated. I’m perfectly happy to come in to the office. Or you can find me tasks to do from home (which don’t really exist). Either go on paying me to do nothing, or fire me and I will claim unfair dismissal”.

                Can you see how I stand to lose a significant amount of my own money, whatever I pick, due to somebody else’s personal choice?

                And how it might be particularly upsetting that the law might subsidise person B from my pocket?

                This situation is being repeated up and down the country in tens of thousands of companies large and small. Restaurants employing waiters who can’t be put front-of-house without risking their entire business being shut down. Cab companies with unvaccinated cabbies with their feet up. Hospitals with porters “working from home” to avoid risk to patients.

                We are being absolutely fleeced, having put our own hands in our pockets to keep our companies going and not fold with people’s lives in our hands. And now this is how we are repaid.

        2. jmch Silver badge

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          "If the willfully unvaccinated followed the rules then perhaps I'd have some sympathy, but it seems that many (most?) don't."

          Take a case in point of the US - about 70-80 million unvaccinated adults. Do you really believe that any significant proportion of 70 million adults in the US are congregating in protest marches yelling unmasked about freedom? Actual reports of protest marches mention 'hundreds' - there's maybe 1 in 1000 unvaccinated people behaving like nutters, but as usual the vocal minority of idiots get everyone else tarred with the same brush (see also football hooligans vs fans).

          In Europe, I've seen reports of 25k in Madrid and up to 120k all over France (not in a single protest). Not insignificant numbers but still one in hundreds (and the French always like a good protest, whatever the subject!)

          Rather than your many/most, it's actually < 1%!!

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            Yeahbutt!!!, what about all the unvaccinated not protesting, but simply going about their ordinary, unmasked, lives, passing through all the usual places such as stores, offices etc. and acting like it's all over?

            1. jmch Silver badge

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              "...what about all the unvaccinated not protesting, but simply going about their ordinary, unmasked, lives..."

              I guess that depends on where you are. In my neck of the woods, everyone has to wear masks at stores and public transport. Offices can decide their own policy. Maskless is only allowed indoors at venues such as theatres / restaurants that have a certificate check.

              I believe this is a more sensible approach since it's far too cumbersome to have to check certificates for everyone walking into a store or hopping on a bus/train. A mask mandate in specific locations is far less invasive than a vaccine mandate. The only thing missing is to be able to get a certificate based on antibody count from a previously undetected infection. Currently it's only a certified previous positive test, vaccination, or current negative test that are allowed for a certificate, but the simple maths of knowing 80-85% of people catching covid are asymptomatic means there must be millions of people who have anti-covid antibodies and don't even know it.

              1. Justthefacts Silver badge

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                Firstly, best estimates are 30-50% asymptomatic, not 80-85%

                Secondly, even you are describing the situation six months ago, not now, and certainly not going forward over the next year. Antibodies decrease over time, and also new strains have emerged and continue to do so. If you “got natural immunity” from the first wave in spring 2020, you almost certainly no longer have it, unless you got vaccinated this year.

                People who didn’t get vaccinated this year, aren’t going to get their booster shots next year. They represent a *permanent* and *annual* safety-of-life risk to themselves and those around them.

                1. jmch Silver badge

                  Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                  "Firstly, best estimates are 30-50% asymptomatic, not 80-85%"

                  Granted 80% is the high end of the range as initially thought. But besides the 50% asymptomatic there's bound to be another considerable chunk of people with mild symptoms who never got confirmed as covid +ve. Regardless of whether the actual %age of people with covid who don't know they had it is 40, 50 or 60%, it's a considerably lareg chunk of people.

                  Natural-infection immunity or vaccination immunity are both temporary, but it seems like the more often the body encounters covid (natural or vaccine), the stronger the subsequent immune boost. So if the virus is endemic and omni-present (looking at the next 10+ years) it's possible to reach some sort of steady-state where a large %age of the population have built up a longer-term immunity, whether vaccinated or not. (speculative, I know)

        3. herman

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          How many of the unvaxed already had and recovered from Covid19? This illness has now been with us for two years. I can’t believe that anyone still haven’t gotten in contact with the viruses.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            "How many of the unvaxed already had and recovered from Covid19? This illness has now been with us for two years. I can’t believe that anyone still haven’t gotten in contact with the viruses."

            Because of my job, I've had relatively frequent tests and never tested positive so far. I got my first jab relatively early on and have recently had the boost jab too and take all the sensible precautions, ie mask indoors, hand washing, cleaning my work area and equipment etc. I would imagine that there is probably quite a few more like me out there.

          2. Justthefacts Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            Immunity starts to wear off after 6 months, and is much less by one year. If you had it in March 2020, you are much less immune than somebody who was vaccinated in June 2021. We will all need booster shots regularly and repeatedly, probably annually.

            Does that explain it?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              In a couple more years, shouldn't most of fhe population that's susceptible to dying from Covid be dead from Covid, and we can relegate it to the same status as influenza?

      4. Paul 195

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        There seems to be quite a large overlap between the cohorts of people who don't want to be vaccinated, and who refuse to wear a mask in public. Public health issues often override individual liberties and this has only become a problem since people started doing their own research on the YouTube and Facebook campuses.

      5. Barrie Shepherd

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        "One can live perfectly well in society keeping a 2m distance, wearing a mask indoors and avoiding crowded indoor spaces."

        But the same dumb types who won't be vaccinated are the same dumb types who won't wear a mask, keep 2m apart or stay out of cinemas, theatres, restaurants and bars.

      6. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        Regarding the legal right to enforce public health, especially during epidemics and pandemics, every state has full power to take every measure needed to end the threat. Those states that have chosen not to, are being willfully and criminally negligent.

        Here is the law:

        https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2020/youraba-april-2020/law-guides-legal-approach-to-pandemic/

      7. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        Strange then that a large study in Scotland when they started vaccinating healthcare workers found that people who lived in the same household as somebody who had been vaccinated were at least 30% less likely to be infected than somebody who lived in the same household as a healthcare worker who had yet to be vaccinated.

        This study looked at over 144,000 healthcare workers. The 30% figure was a very conservative estimate and the actual figure was likely to be much higher:

        "The study said the "true" effect of vaccination could be even higher.

        This was because people within the household could catch Covid from many different sources so the 30% relative risk reduction was an underestimate."

        https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-56373252

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

      This makes no sense. Recent unadjusted data in the UK shows that the vaccinated are MORE LIKELY to spread the disease. The Pfizer jab is not the 93% originally claimed, but more like 39% in Israel.

      Thankfully, it gives strong protection against hospitalization and death, which is why I'm strongly in favour of the vaccine. Which is about personal protection. But forcing people to have it, with Delta and with the data we now have... makes no sense. (and telling people they will lose their job IS forcing, or coercing)

      Amazingly, many people just don't get this?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        Well duh. If everyone is vaccinated but vaccination isn't 100% effective then you will more likely catch it from a vaccinated person because you will never meet an unvaccinated person.

        Amazing how some people have made freedom from this vaccine their hill to, literally, die on.

        1. Cederic Silver badge

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          Now check the rates per 100,000 population.

          It's not the raw count that matters. True when there were few vaccinated, still true now.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            The original poster is spouting rubbish.

            "vaccinated are MORE LIKELY to spread the disease"

            Either the vaccine is pointless and makes no difference, or has an effect.

            Getting a vaccine cannot accelerate infections. The vaccine has no viral material.

            If vaccines were ineffective, they cannot show a difference in infection rates from the unvaccinated, they would have been only as good as saline.

            Thus given the claim the vaccinated are "MORE LIKELY to spread", this means the most banal conclusion is that vaccines are certainly effective.

            If more people are asymptomatic, that in itself is the vaccine showing effectiveness, and these individuals are not hogging up health care systems, nor dropping from work and economic activity - creating suuply chain issues, missed school days and other wider acute and chronic effects.

            So if people are ill for shorter or not at all, returning to work quicker, freeing up health services quicker, the vaccine is working and thus vaccination is *necessary*.

            This should be complemented by inexpensive measures like masks and hand washing. Vaccination was never a licence to ignore inexpensive measures like masks and hand washing.

            So when you quote "vaccinated are MORE LIKELY to spread the disease" as a so called factoid of the pointlessness, you are merey showcasing your prejudiced and confirmation-biased thinking.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            >> True when there were few vaccinated, still true now.

            It depends on what you are trying to claim or imply with that statement.

            if someone said that vaccines were a 100% effective after a single compete dose, this is indeed an accurate and valid rebuttal that such a claim is untrue. Vaccines are not a 100% effective.

            But if this is being quoted to claim that vaccines are not effective (i.e it is not helping), this quote is not a valid rebuttal. Here it is being quoted in this latter context, if you are following on from the opening post.

            the statement has to be completed with sick days taken, lost economic activity, free hospital beds, denied care for patients requiring non urgent care, lost school days, developmental delays in children and so on.

            The latter data is evidently far better with and since vaccination.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        "Amazingly, many people just don't get this?"

        Almost always a sign that you are actually the one not getting it, as is the case here.

      3. jtaylor

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        "Recent unadjusted data in the UK shows that the vaccinated are MORE LIKELY to spread the disease."

        That sounds like the fallacy of relative risk. The BBC has an excellent podcast about how to understand numbers, especially the sorts of statistics that are used to make public policy. They explained that the stat you quoted is an absolute number, not adjusted for how many are vaccinated. A similar example is that most seriously injured people in motor vehicle accidents were wearing seatbelts. This is because almost all people wear seatbelts, so of course any absolute number will reflect that.

        More Or Less: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zkzq

        tl;dr: The important number is "what is the effect of vaccination on relative risk of spreading COVID?" Context matters.

    6. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

      I wouldn't wanna work for Cisco [or anyone else like them] anyway. And since natural immunity is WAY better than "the jab" I see no need, for me. Therefore I'll just *REBEL* and NOT get the jab, REGARDLESS, (because "they" are trying to find ways to MAKE US ALL GET IT, so *I* *WILL* *REBEL* - otherwise I probably would've done it eventually, after everyone else who wanted it got theirs).

      My Body. My Choice. Right?

      (see icon - my medical history is *MY* *BUSINESS* and nobody else's!)

      Last I heard a bunch of people have been walking off of their jobs and protesting in NYC over this vaccine mandate nonsense. So, I am not alone.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        No not alone, just in the company of a very small group of brainwashed idiots. And a group that is getting smaller as they die, unfortunately in the process clogging Intensive Care beds.

        I hope you stick to your principles if you catch it. Your body, your choice, so you will refuse medical intervention, stay at home and beat it with the strength of your natural immunity. Maybe a good idea to spring for funeral insurance though, wouldn't want you to burden anyone even after you are gone.

        1. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Boffin

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          I hope you stick to your principles if you catch it.

          I had the virus back in January 2020, before anyone heard of the thing. It took the form of a one-day fever, with an encore a week later. I got it from a co-wrker who had just returned from being in China for over a week [he went home sick with the same thing], and 2 weeks later TO THE DAY I got it. So, there is NO way I would be affected by it again. I am naturally immune, and if _you_ ONLY had the vaccine, then MY immunity is most likely better than yours. [THAT would actually be a science-based claim].

          Point is, I do not NEED a vax. And I do not WANT one, either. Let someone ELSE have it. And GUMMINT has NO business telling ME what to do, either. I'm old enough to make my OWN decisions (and I'm certain they're BETTER ones than any GUMMINT could make). My objection is GUMMINT OVERREACH.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            Tested and proven or you just had a cold?

            If you did have it, to how many did you pass it on, directly or indirectly and how many of those died?

          2. jake Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            bob, I regret to inform you that you are not even wrong.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            >>I had the virus back in January 2020, before anyone heard of the thing.

            >>So, there is NO way I would be affected by it again. I am naturally immune

            Yes I absolutely agree. I similarly developed immunity from HIV and ebola. I even reversed my AIDS. I too got it before it had names. My symptoms were very mild due to my advanced natural immunity. My HIV only lasted for two days, to the second.

            It inspired me to pursue my qualification from Facebook University, with a double post doctorate from Twitterati Global. I have published more than a thousand 140 word papers, that have been retweeted 200 million times, and is thus peer reviewed. Zuckerberg has personally selected me for early certification by Meta College.

            I have extensive lab testing facilities, with a mirror, hot and cold water systems for diagnosis, and have a king size bed for immunity building. The bed has advanced features like pillows and duvets that accelerate healing.

            I am hoping to open my Instagram practice, to teach people how to develop natural immunity. Would you like the pre-sale offer for my ebook?

            I think we are special people with unique thinking that have to unite. nothing good can come from these things developed by people called scientists with decades of learning. Our two year education reading websites in our spare time is obviously more valuable, and let's us think outside the box.

            Let us use our qualifications and extensive hard won knowledge to make sure people stop taking these medicines and vaccines, We underestimate what our bodies can do, people who died from plagues, flus, polio, smallpox in the past were lied to. They actually died of unhappiness.

            I am very pleased to announe, as an exclusive here on elreg, that as of this hour, I have determined I am immune from malaria, dengue and zika too. This is excellent news. I am hoping to start a charity foundation to offer my ebook to countries affected by these diseases. Let's save millions of lives!

            So happy to find a like minded thinker.

            </sarcasm>

      2. Wim Ton

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        Rebelling just for the sake of rebelling is more something for a 2 year old.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          I'm sure the Brits said similar 245 years ago.

          1. Jedit Silver badge
            Headmaster

            "I'm sure the Brits said similar 245 years ago."

            We referred to the colonists as "rebellious children", but that was before the War of Independence. It's only when they grew up and began revolting over something serious like money that we started treating them like adults.

          2. bombastic bob Silver badge
            Devil

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            heh - good one. 1776 was a PERFECT example of REBELLING against GUMMINT OVERREACH.

      3. Casca Silver badge

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        You have less chance to die of covid if you are vaccinated and get it. Is that hard to understand?

        I really hope you stay at home if you get Covid and dont take up a hospital bed. I'm so sick and tired of selfish shit stains.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          The vast majority who get Covid don't need a hospital bed. It's not a death-sentence. I'm so sick and tired of selfish, scaredy little fear-mongerers.

          1. John Robson Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            By your very logic there is a proportion who do, so for every individual who selfishly chooses not to get vaccinated there is another n% of a bed taken up... That might not even be a large number, but the number of idiots who can't work out that a vaccine is good for them is also large.

            They also of course are more likely to pass covid on, because a) they're more likely to get an infection that takes and generates significant viral load and b) they're more likely to shun masks and distancing at every opportunity, whether legal or sensible.

            1. ecofeco Silver badge

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              Not to mention they become walking generators of the next mutation.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

                Well, it has to come from somewhere. It's not like it's going to give up and go away.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            >The vast majority who get Covid don't need a hospital bed.

            That is true, however the odds of anyone (who hasn't been vaccinated) contracting CoViD19 ending up visiting hospital are very short, as are the odds of dying from CoViD19 if you are admitted to hospital...

            Unfortunately, until after you are dead or have recovered from CoViD you won't know where you are in the figures and odds; and that is only this time, there is next time...

          3. Justthefacts Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            The vast majority of people hit by a car aren’t hospitalised either.

            Figures below for the UK.

            Out of all road accidents, only 1 in 20 result in even minor visit to hospital. Out of those, only 1 in 6 are serious. Out of those only 1 in 10 die.

            By contrast, for example, out of those hospitalised by Covid, 20% die. So the statistics are clear that it literally is true that getting Covid is worse than being run over by the proverbial bus.

            The annual death toll on the roads is *only* 3000, whereas 140,000 have already died from Covid. That’s as many as have died on the roads since *1975*.

            During the Second World War, *only* 384,000 UK soldiers died, over 5 years, thus about 76,000 annually. This is substantially less than the UK Covid annual death rate.

            On your logic, we should all just be running in front of buses, and signing up to be soldiers in active war zones, to prove we aren’t scaredy cats.

            Can you see the problem with your logic?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              Wow, that's a lot of words and numbers. So you're encouraging more WW2 veterans in the UK to step in front of a bus to avoid getting Covid? That seems a bit harsh, but OK.

              In other words, NO, there's no problem with my orignal logic. MOST people who get Covid won't need a hospital bed. That's just the truth of the matter. Now it sucks for those who DO need a hospital bed, since they have a better chance of dying. But that's not MOST people in the population.

          4. hoola Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            "The vast majority who get Covid don't need a hospital bed. "

            Which is a good thing otherwise we really would be up the creek without a paddle.

            There is a finite number of ICU beds (in the various levels) and for every one that is unnecessarily filled with a Covid patient there will be other people who actually need it. This is why there are still issues with many surgical procedures as the ICU capacity is too tight.

            Maybe in the longer term we do need more capacity BUT it is in everybody's interests for those that are able to vaccinated to just get on and do it. Covid is not like chickenpox where once you have had it you are unlikely to catch it again or smallpox, measles etc where the vaccine is long acting.

            Look what happened when the MMR scare came out due to incorrect information on Social Media. We now have the risk where there is insufficient coverage to guarantee immunity in the population.

            Measles is nasty, particularly for girls, mumps is equally nasty for boys.

            With freedom and choice comes responsibility, unfortunately there is a core of people who want all the freedoms and choice but are not prepared to take any responsibility.

        2. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Pirate

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          you have an even MORE likely chance of being struck by lightning than you do dying from the China Virus, if you have natural immunity. Like me. No need for a vaccine. And, *I* refuse to live my life in fear. A one-day fever is NOTHING. I just took my usual vitamins and aspirin, drank tequila, slept a lot, and played video games.

          1. Adelio

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            There is an idiot born every day.....

            Just keep away for me and my familly, you are not welcome.

            I presume your knowledge comes from your post doc in "Being an idiot"

      4. Robert Moore
        Thumb Up

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        Anyone too stupid to get vaccinated (Yes talking to you Bob.) Is too stupid to work for me. (Looking right at you Bob.)

        I personally love that companies are taking this approach. Although I do wish the local school boards would take the same approach.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          I can only imagine those who choose not to get the jab would chafe under your over-bearing employment practices, so they're far better off working somewhere less opinionated.

          1. Robert Moore

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            > I can only imagine those who choose not to get the jab would chafe under your over-bearing employment practices, so they're far better off working somewhere less opinionated.

            Too bad for them. It is a good job, my one employee is very happy with it. She is also vaccinated. If she were to choose to leave, I would have people lined up around the block wanting to take her place.

            I have always said stupid should hurt. Looks like it finally will.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              "Too bad for them. It is a good job, my one employee is very happy with it. She is also vaccinated"

              Good on you. And that's the only "good job" left? I mean, it must be - why else would you be commentarding about your employee expectations like you're a division manager at IBM?

              Stupid hurts every day. Smart only hurts when you stop to think about it.

        2. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Devil

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          here';s a quote attributed to Albert Einstein:

          "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."

          Just thought I'd mention that.

          And I shall not live my life in fear, either.

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        >And since natural immunity is WAY better than "the jab" I see no need, for me.

        So says someone who has't had CoViD19?

        >My Body. My Choice. Right?

        The Sars-Cov2 virus doesn't care who's body it is...

        1. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          obvously you have not been paying attention...

          (you DO understand what "natural immunity" means, right? it means you recovered from whatever disease you became immune to by recovering from it. Duh.)

      6. Schultz

        "natural immunity is WAY better"...

        .... in the same manner as walking beats driving, eating grass seeds is better than eating heavily cultivated grains, and you should of course never eat any animal that wasn't caught in the wild.

        Oh, I almost forgot, please eat you food raw, it's more natural and must therefore be way better than cooked.

        Boy, do I miss my garden Eden.

      7. Kernel

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        "And since natural immunity is WAY better than "the jab" I see no need, for me."

        At least you now seem to be admitting that CV-19 exists, so we've made progress since last year.

      8. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        "And since natural immunity is WAY better than the jab"

        1. Do you ACTUALLY have any evidence for this? Vaccines almost always PRODUCE a bETTer immune response and having A vaccine after infection will act as a bOoStEr. Even the Big ORANGE got vaccinated after he had the virus, presumably on SOUND medical advice. (This after recovering after recEiving the besT healthcare MONEY can buy including experimental antibody treatments not available to regular citizens, all for free. Oh Noes, socialist healthcare!)

        2. The main downside OF "natural immunity" is that you HAVE to risk death/lOng term disease from COVID to acquire IT.

        (Sorry for THE mEntal capitaliZation, but I am respondinG to Bob).

        1. Lars Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          "And since natural immunity is WAY better than the jab"

          Yes that is silly. We got rid of smallpox because we had a vaccine and we used it for many many years.

          Without a vaccine and vaccination we would never have gotten rid of it.

          Some of it from the Wikipedia.

          "The first hemisphere-wide effort to eradicate smallpox was made in 1950 by the Pan American Health Organization.[107] The campaign was successful in eliminating smallpox from all countries of the Americas except Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador.[106] In 1958 Professor Viktor Zhdanov, Deputy Minister of Health for the USSR, called on the World Health Assembly to undertake a global initiative to eradicate smallpox.[108] The proposal (Resolution WHA11.54) was accepted in 1959.[108] At this point, 2 million people were dying from smallpox every year. "

          When I as 16, a long time ago, wanted to be a merchant sailor for a summer I had to have my jab or stay ashore.

          1. Roland6 Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            This is an interesting article on Smallpox that does comparisons with CoViD

            Smallpox used to kill millions of people every year.

        2. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Boffin

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          Do you ACTUALLY have any evidence for this?

          how about https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/10/21/81-research-studies-confirm-natural-immunity-to-covid-equal-or-superior-to-vaccine-immunity/

          (it only took a couple of minutes to scan past the propaganda front-loading the search results, and find something more relevant)

      9. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        > My Body. My Choice. Right?

        Glad to see you'll be rooting for a pro-choice decision from the Supremes when they consider the Texas abortion law.

        1. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Devil

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          It was supposed to be ironic, actually

      10. Justthefacts Silver badge

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        “My body, my choice”

        So in the 80s, when Stonewall / ACTUP covered offices with *fake* blood to protest about AIDS inaction…..you would have been OK for them to use real HIV infected blood?

        How are your actions different?

    7. Potemkine! Silver badge

      Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

      That's sad, because I intended to create my own religion, attributing modestly myself the role of Absolute Beloved Leader and authorizing myself a lot of exemptions!

    8. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

      So a vaccine is developed that's delivered on beef - should vegans and vegetarians be forced to partake?

      There are occasions when an objection is valid - I am not aware of any which apply to *all* of the vaccines on offer for this particular disease (and even one vaccine which doesn't have an objection is sufficient to bypass the issue entirely).

      Given that we need a high proportion of people to be vaccinated, not necessarily 100% it's probably sensible to look at how many people end up with medical and religious objections.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        So a vaccine is developed that's delivered on beef - should vegans and vegetarians be forced to partake?

        Yup. Public health is about the greater good, not just shareholder profits. The idea being that with a dangerous, communicable disease, it's in the public interest to prevent it spreading. So Typhoid Mary could be quarantined against their will. We have lists of notifiable diseases for that reason, although most of those are arguably far more serious than Covid. Like say, diptheria, or even measles/mumps/rubella which are rather nasty as adults.

        But we've also had anti-vaxxers stating that their kids aren't getting the MMR jab. Or anti-vaxxers saying they're not getting the Covid jab.

        And of course, the media-

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59147248

        The UK recorded 33,865 Covid cases on Tuesday and 293 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

        Ohnoes! The media's loved it's Doomsday counts. Cases are just people where the virus has been detected. They're not 'cases' in a more traditional medical sense, ie people have become sick. Especially when PCR tests have been overly sensitive. But governments have also implemented mandatory testing. So the UK's apparently doing something like around 1m+ tests per day now, with the tests having ramped up since case zero.

        Unless there's some normalisation, 33k 'cases' is fairly meaningless. More tests, more 'cases'. More PCR cycles, more cases. But less than 1%, and because epidemic, the longer it goes on, the more people you'd expect to find with traces of the virus. The worst part is still the incorrect definition of 'case', ie that doesn't mean they're a carrier in any traditional sense.

        And then of course there's the definition of a Covid death, ie someone who's just died within 28 days of a trace of virus having been detected. It may have nothing to do with the actual cause of death, but determining that is more complicated, and waaay beyond the wit or wisdom of the Bbc. But <1% of cases turning into deaths, even delayed deaths. And as we approach winter, we're also into the excess winter mortality period, where we expect more deaths from respiratory illnesses.

        But this is also where the Bbc does it's part. Covid's bumped down the headlines, COP is promoted. And thanks to 'climate change' policies, inflation is running rampant, energy costs have rocketed. And we know that cold kills more people than warm. So thanks to energy policies, and energy poverty, more people will die this winter.. But those could probably be spun as Covid deaths, rather than the consequence of bad policy.

        Or there's just outright anti-science, ie it's becoming apparent that vaccines don't have the effectiveness originally claimed, and that side-effects might be higher. No matter, jab 5-11yr olds, and if they develop myocarditis, it's for the greater good. Or refusing to believe in natural immunity. Politicians have determined that vaccines are the answer. Get jabbed, or lose your job.

        Of course there's an IT angle to that, as in it's much easier to create and maintain a database of the jabbed than it is to measure viral loads, or antibodies. But such is politics.

        Disclaimer: I've been jabbed.

        1. John Robson Silver badge

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          "Yup. Public health is about the greater good, not just shareholder profits. The idea being that with a dangerous, communicable disease, it's in the public interest to prevent it spreading. So Typhoid Mary could be quarantined against their will. "

          There is a significant difference between forced quarantine and compelling someone to act against ethical/moral principles. I like cows, I particularly like how they taste, but there is no way I would look to force a vegan to wear leather shoes or eat a steak...

          In this instance I am not aware of any religious objections to the available vaccines, but it's not unreasonable to look at whether an exemption is appropriate (in either direction) - particularly if there are further vaccines being looked at which might bypass those objections altogether.

          i.e. I don't think it's a clear cut issue in terms of moral principles.

      2. Justthefacts Silver badge

        Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

        Insulin for diabetics used to be pig insulin, “harvested” from pigs.

        Now insulin is almost universally grown in bacterial culture genetically engineered with the human insulin gene.

        Heparin is often sourced from cattle.

        But all of Islam, Judaism, Hnduism, Jains, Sikhs, Vegan Society, their religious leaders considered the issue, carefully, and decided that these were exemptions worth making.

        Does that help you with your thinking?

        https://www.dchft.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Animal-Derived-Medicine-PIL-April-2020.pdf

        1. John Robson Silver badge

          Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

          "But all of Islam, Judaism, Hnduism, Jains, Sikhs, Vegan Society, their religious leaders considered the issue, carefully, and decided that these were exemptions worth making.

          Does that help you with your thinking?"

          It reinforces my thinking - because my thinking is that it's worth listening to their objections and talking to the various group leaders.

          1. Justthefacts Silver badge

            Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

            So, dozens of other groups, religious and secular, have done both their talking and their listening. They’ve all come to the conclusion that the rights of the community to life and health trump the existing formal rules.

            But *you* think that you are right, and everyone should spend their time listening to your point-of-view.

            Okaaaayyyyy.

            1. John Robson Silver badge

              Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

              "everyone should spend their time listening to your point-of-view."

              Erm?

              I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that I had presented any point of view aside from doing the very talking which you seem to think negates my point of view.

              Issues like this have the potential to cause very large amounts of distress to a very large number of people. In the case of heparin and insulin the decisions made are presumably well documented, and were arrived at after significant discussion and study.

              In the case of <unknown issue> that discussion clearly hasn't happened yet - since the issue isn't even defined.

              My suggestion was "it's probably sensible to look at how many people end up with medical and religious objections."

              i.e. you look at what groups of people you need to discuss the issue with, rather than taking the typical arrogant modern attitude which you display (no-one's thought process other than my own is valid).

              We know the science - we know that vaccines work, and furthermore we know that they work even with only 95% population coverage, yes 96% is probably better, but there is a tipping point where that final few percent isn't as important as the previous few percent were. [Yes the exact numbers vary, so sue me].

              Given that there will be various medical reasons (allergies being one key issue, compromised immune system is another with a *live* virus) there are going to be some people who simply cannot get vaccinated. That number is likely to be very small, fractions of a single percent.

              So there is some leeway to at least talk to groups who have other objections.

              Where those objections are spurious lies (MMR was faked, moon landings cause autism) then the biggest failure is in our education system - and the fix is, rather than tying people down and stabbing them with a needle, better education. Both for the individuals and for the entire cohorts of students passing through the system every year.

              Where those objections are on moral/ethical grounds (Porcine derivatives, animal cruelty, non consensual human testing, whatever) then monitoring the number of those objectors, and talking to any significant sized groups - or developing an alternative that doesn't rely on the contentious process - is reasonable.

    9. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

      They can have the exception once they produce their deity's certificate.

    10. A_Melbourne

      Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

      There is nothing "medical" about the medical that you refer to.

      Fauci is a liar and a mass murderer. Just look at the history of this guy and what he did with HIV/AIDS with his beloved AZT.

      History is repeating itself with his beloved Remdesevir. It kills 1/4 of patients.

      Japan has switched to Ivermectin and their rate of sickness has collapsed.

      Natural immunity is infinitely better than fake vaccines that don't work. Hospitals are filling up and they call it "Delta Variant". BS

      Go on Bitchute.com and find out what is really going on.

  2. FlamingDeath Silver badge

    People lie

    Deal with it

    Dont be a mug

    End of message

    1. Michael Strorm Silver badge

      Burma Shave.

  3. DevOpsTimothyC
    Headmaster

    The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

    I'd love to see the research that determined that we could all get or spread COVID via VPN. I'm sure it's well peer reviewed if they are making such policy.

    How does this translate to other transmissible diseases like yellow fever ?

    My only question is why this hasn't had broader dissemination?

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

      An alternative view (& this applies to some of the posts below) is that the US finally has a government that takes seriously epidemiology in general and this pandemic in particular. It realises that the maximum vaccination coverage is essential. I think it likely that it has also realised that its hold over federal contractors is one means of increasing coverage. It isn't, therefore, just employees working on federal sites site, nor in the contractors' offices who it intends to reach but as many of the US population as possible.

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Thumb Down

        Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

        you forgot who it was that GOT THE VACCINES DEVELOPED IN THE FIRST PLACE... "Warp Speed" I think it was called. And everyone said it'd take 5 years. Except Trump got it done in less than 9 months by greasing the skids and getting the bureaucracy to COOPERATE.

        "finally has a government that takes seriously epidemiology" - then WHY! THE! ONE! SIZE! FITS! ALL! MANDATE! TYRANNY! *EVEN* when NATURAL IMMUNITY EXISTS and is SCIENTIFICALLY KNOWN to be SUPERIOR TO A VACCINE??? It is a WASTE of RESOURCES, at the very least. Give that vaccine to someone who NEEDS it, instead. Nations in Africa seem to have a low vax rate. That might be a good place to send them, for those who WANT them.

        No serious epidemiologist would DISAGREE with the OBVIOUS LOGIC that I have stated here.

        1. MJI Silver badge

          Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer%E2%80%93BioNTech_COVID-19_vaccine#Funding

          1. Lars Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

            @MJI

            I copy/paste part of that text here as I know that there a those who find it too hard work to have a read at something behind a link like that,

            "Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said he decided against taking funding from the US government's Operation Warp Speed for the development of the vaccine "because I wanted to liberate our scientists [from] any bureaucracy that comes with having to give reports and agree how we are going to spend the money in parallel or together, etc." Pfizer did enter into an agreement with the US for the eventual distribution of the vaccine, as with other countries."

            And as for that money try the link here:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer%E2%80%93BioNTech_COVID-19_vaccine#Funding

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

              @lars Bomb bob and I think that your facts are inconvenient and need to be forgotten.

              I have reported your post as offensive.

              I will organise the twitter outrage. CAPS MANDATORY!

              </sarcasm>

              1. bombastic bob Silver badge
                Trollface

                Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

                heh - the humor in your post is appreciated

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

          Of course not. You used CAPITALS and they are well known to increase the efficacy of a statement by at least 243.6%

          (and if I missed the whoosh parrot...sorry!)

        3. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker

          Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

          My understanding is that there is NO such thing as "natural" immunity.

          We all (naturally) have an immune system that gives us acquired immunity after exposure to a pathogen, whether "natural" exposure or via a vaccine. Some folks' immune systems are just better at it than others.

          Any antibodies you are born with are not "natural" immunity either; they were acquired from your mother while in the womb, which she acquired either from her own mother or via pathogen exposure. And how could anyone already have antibodies for a novel (meaning previously unseen) virus?

          Acquired immunity is NOT superior to vaccines if it kills you in the process. That's why vaccines were invented! Starting with using the less-deadly cowpox as a substitute for smallpox. Nothing wrong with hedging bets on what I feel is the safe side, and so far the COVID vaccines seem to be safer (lower death risk and less long-term effects) than running the risk with an evolving virus.

          1. Cederic Silver badge

            Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

            People interchange the terms natural and acquired immunity.

            There are incidentally natural immunities- e.g. at one point almost everyone in England had a natural immunity to the Black Death, as the rest of the population had died from it.

            Right now it looks like a natural immunity acquired by surviving covid offers better protection than the vaccine, and my understanding is that the two do not work cumulatively. For that reason a blanket vaccine mandate feels odd.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

              >Right now it looks like a natural immunity acquired by surviving covid offers better protection than the vaccine

              The experts were all agreed, there is no long-lasting natural immunity to corona virus's (where long-lasting is more than 1 year).

              All the evidence is natural immunity only lasts a few months, directly related to how badly you suffered, ie. the more you suffered the longer naturally acquired immunity lasts.

              1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

                And if you suffer enough it lasts for ever. What a pity you're not around to enjoy it.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

                  I would say that's the mercy of it, not pity.

              2. bombastic bob Silver badge
                Megaphone

                Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

                I can be your test case, since it's been nearly TWO years since I had my China Flu fever.

                Doing fine. Not worried. And if VACCINATED people "can spread" the thing, why does ANY of this matter? Protect YOURSELF, if you fear it. Leave the REST of us ALONE.

          2. herman

            Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

            I’m still waiting for my super natural powers to kick in after getting vaxed. So far it has been very disappointing.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

              So you didn't get night-vision? Damn, I'd demand a refund.

            2. KBeee
              Joke

              Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

              But my 5G reception has improved enorously! Though becoming magnetic to non-ferrous metals has it's downsides.

        4. Lars Silver badge
          Thumb Down

          Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

          Oh Please bombastic bob.

          You cannot believe that anybody could take that Trump claim seriously. The vaccines were developed in several countries totally regardless of any Trump, including in the USA.

          Best you can say about Trump is that he did not manage to destroy that too.

          A race to develop a vaccine started the second that virus was found.

          The reason it took, what ever time it took, is that the type of virus is known to us and there is a lot of money to be made with that vaccine.

          For Americans I would rather name the virus the Trump Virus than the vaccine anything Trump for how poorly you have managed.

          Or you could of course share it with Britain and call it the Trump-Boris Virus.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

            "You cannot believe that anybody could take that Trump claim seriously."

            He does. I realise that in the context "he" is ambiguous. Both interpretations apply.

        5. jake Silver badge

          Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

          bob, bob, bob ... Stick with techie subjects. The world of politics seems to make you go all woozy.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

            He's not too strong on biology either.

        6. herman

          Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

          Well, in Africa, most people are very young. Covid19 is mainly an old age problem and there are almost no old Africans since they tend to die at 35 or so from other causes. Extra vax would be more use in old age homes like Japan.

          1. ecofeco Silver badge

            Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

            "Covid19 is mainly an old age problem..."

            Not any more.

        7. Kernel

          Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

          "Except Trump got it done in less than 9 months by greasing the skids and getting the bureaucracy to COOPERATE."

          Yeah, in some ways I regret that he didn't get in for a second term - he gave the rest of us an entire country to laugh at in these times of trouble.

        8. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

          ShAmE ThEn ThAt ThE (PrEvIoUs) IdIoT In ThE WhItE HoUsE DiD sO mUcH tO hAmPeR tHe VaCcInE rOlLoUt.

          He HaS a LoT oF dEaTh On HiS hAnDs.

          (See how difficult stupid random capitalization make it to read things).

          1. bombastic bob Silver badge
            Trollface

            Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

            if you only knew how hard I was laughing at the moment...

            This reminds me of one of the 'Lethal Weapon' movies where Mel Gibson as Riggs said "Am I getting to you? Am I getting to you? Am I getting to you?"

            heh heh heh heh heh

            (sometimes this is just TOO much fun!)

            1. jake Silver badge

              Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

              So you have just been trolling all along.

              An honest troll would have come clean when called on it. For shame.

      2. scrubber
        Boffin

        Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

        Doctor Syntax: "maximum vaccination coverage is essential"

        Why? The vaccine does not appear to greatly stop the spread, does not stop infection or reinfection so it's really a preventative treatment rather than a vaccine (i.e. it confers no immunity but greatly reduces the health impact of infection).

        Strikes me that taking the vaccine helps only the person who takes it rather than protecting wider society through herd immunity and the choice to take it, or not, mainly affects only that individual so it should be a private medical decision between each person and their doctor.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

          Your definition of immunity is odd.

          If you have a milder expression of an illness, this is an enhanced immune system in action.

          Vaccines do not and have never conferred 100% protection to the entire population.

          A milder response is still immunity. The viral load is lower, and lives for shorter time.

          >>Strikes me that taking the vaccine helps only the person who takes it rather than protecting wider society

          Myopic thinking. If an individual takes fewer sick days, stays away from draining shared resources like hospital beds, it has very great societal benefits such as supermarkets being stocked and people not going hungry, farm produce being used before they waste, lights staying on, fuel pumps being filled, school children not falling behind, avoiding development delays like speech and social interaction in the very young, and so on. These issues in the young for example can have a major impact in future societal structures, where say literacy rates have fallen.

          So to reiterate "maximum vaccination coverage is essential"

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

            "so it's really a preventative treatment rather than a vaccine"

            The definition of a vaccine is that it is a preventative treatment! All this vaccine (like every other vaccine) does is train your immune system to be ready to respond to a pathogen, without having to be exposed to the actual pathogen.

            Being vaccinated will make it much less likely you will die or get seriously ill (so reduces the impact on the overall health system). It will also reduce the viral load so you are less likely to pass on the virus. A large study of healthcare workers in Scotland found that an unvaccinated person was at least 30% less likely to be infected if they lived with a vaccinated person, than if they lived with an unvaccinated person.

            https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-56373252

            The reason that you can still pass on the virus despite vaccination is that you still have the virus in your body (although less of it) and you may have no symptoms. The vaccine has stopped you getting sick but hasn't yet killed all the viral cells. Therefore you spread the disease without even knowing you have it.

          2. Lars Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

            "Vaccines do not and have never conferred 100% protection to the entire population."

            Not quite true as there is so far one.

            "From 1958 to 1977, the World Health Organization conducted a global vaccination campaign that eradicated smallpox, making it the only human disease to be eradicated. "

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine

            1. bombastic bob Silver badge
              Boffin

              Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

              yeah from a medical science perspective you could call certain vaccines "100%" although if you get nitty you can find some risk factors and ineffectiveness in EVERYTHING.

              Still, 'cow pox' (the first vaccine ever) helped to establish 'herd imunity' which basically killed smallpox. Of course we still vaccinate people with something that has been well tested for decades as to its safety and effectiveness, to KEEP it that way. And of course, other things too,.

              And, seriously, that is the goal of ANY vaccine, to make sure that herd immunity prevents the disease from killing a lot of people. Either partial immunity (mild disease symptoms only) or outright 100% immunity is just as effective. The thing you also want to consider is those who are already immune... where a vaccine might actually be WORSE (a cytokine storm, for example). Only the China Flu seems to have a HUGE number of people trying to mandate those who have already recovered from the disease to get vaccinated ANYWAY... REGARDLESS of any extended risk factors vs NO benefit.

              (and that of course reflects a LOT of ignorance about science among those who INSIST on mandating vaccines)

    2. Justthefacts Silver badge

      Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

      We have been subsidising your political views to the tune of trillions, for over six months now.

      WFH is not a right, nor is it productive.

      It was temporarily the only way anything could get done at all, so we paid you the same salary, for only about a quarter of the end producitivity. You may have been “working just as hard”, but you didn’t produce nearly as much.

      During lockdowns, you bosses have just been very nice, and didn’t really emphasise just how little was actually getting done, because it wasn’t your fault and morale is important.

      This isn’t metaphorical, this is literal. I own and run my own business. I pay for your unproductive WFH out of my own pocket. I’ve had enough of your shit. Get vaccinated and get back in the office and do some work.

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

        I'm demonstrably more productive working from home. All my stuff is here. Often it's better stuff than on site. And I can work when I'm more productive that way. But it takes self-discipline and a LOT of people may not be able to pull that off. There have been a few El Reg articles on this. I suppose I could use a search engine to pull one up but I'll leave that as an exercise for others.

        1. Justthefacts Silver badge

          Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

          Does your boss agree that you are more productive?

          There is a clear split between WFH people believing that they are more productive. And their bosses, who are responsible for the *output* of the team, who think they are less productive.

          Do you think your boss might have a wider perspective than you?

          Here’s a few ideas:

          Because your boss has spent a considerable amount of *their* time, re-defining the tasks you are given, such that they *can* be done from home. And those tasks are more closed-ended, defined tasks, which are basically easier. “Code this module with defined API” can be done from home. “Architect this system, including hardware, software, FPGA elements, negotiating with your peers” less so. You may well be paid £60k employed as the second role, but instead you are doing the first role, a much more junior one that is only worth £30k even when done well. Can you see the problem with this?

          Because the value of what you build is in choosing the right thing to build. Whereas what you see is your progress in building the thing asked for. For most tech companies, at best more than half of what they build turns out to be wrong thing. *The most important thing*, by far, is having the right people together in the right place, to build the right thing. Your progress in coding up the module, honestly barely figures in the profit and loss of the company.

          Because most senior technical roles include well-defined work on mature projects, plus undefined work on blue-sky ideas. You may well be making good progress on the mature projects. But the blue-sky projects will never even have their first brainstorming meeting because nobody has talked to each other properly in months. So your company has a present, but zero future. In three years you will be unemployed. But you will think it’s all somebody else’s fault, because “management” didn’t make any projects. It’s not them, it’s you.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

            >" But the blue-sky projects will never even have their first brainstorming meeting because nobody has talked to each other properly in months."

            That will be because of a failure in management, as someone who was paid £100+K to do blue sky enterprise architecture, I suggest you need to start transforming your management.

            WFH doesn't mean no meetings nor does it mean all meetings and chats need to be conducted in the hallowed corridors of your offices, in fact most of my transformational blue sky thinking was done outside the client's office in the pub, over dinner, in the hotel room...

  4. Zolko Silver badge

    now even the latest can understand

    even for those who work remotely

    if this doesn't proove that all this Covid hysteria has nothing to do with medicine and health, I don't know what would.

    1. AW-S

      Re: now even the latest can understand

      I upvoted you - making it 3 - 3.

      I am not sure why 3 people would disagree with you on this point.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: now even the latest can understand

        Because it was a meaningless post? Or are you one of the 'viruses are not real' crowd?

        1. _LC_

          Re: now even the latest can understand

          How dare he, thinking!

        2. AW-S

          Re: now even the latest can understand

          It's hardly a meaningless post.

          How does forcing a Cisco employee, who works remotely, take a leaky vaccine make sense to the risk assessment?

          If it does, EVERY Cisco employee on planet Earth will need to be vaccinated, because they are all "remote".

          1. minnsey231

            Re: now even the latest can understand

            I work remotely but maybe I'm expected to visit the office from time to time or visit clients?

          2. Lars Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: now even the latest can understand

            "EVERY Cisco employee on planet Earth will need to be vaccinated".

            I am fully with you there.

          3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: now even the latest can understand

            If it does, EVERY Cisco employee on planet Earth will need to be vaccinated, because they are all "remote".

            You make a good point. As it's a US govt requirement for Federal contractors such as Cisco and the US traditionally expects everyone on planet Earth to respect its laws perhaps it should apply more widely than the US and US territory. But I suspect that wasn't quite what you were thinking.

          4. Roland6 Silver badge

            Re: now even the latest can understand

            >How does forcing a Cisco employee, who works remotely, take a leaky vaccine make sense to the risk assessment?

            Read the Executive Order.

            The Risk Assessment Cisco would have performed, would have considered the risks of non-compliance with the Executive Order, which would include consideration of various lawyer interpretations of the text of the Executive Order.

            Cisco's interpretation leaves little room for doubt - all " workplace locations " including working from home workplaces have been covered. Although, if you are working from home, you are required to ensure your workplace complies with all guidance on workplace locations published by the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force, which may mean you need to ensure your household are also vaccinated...

    2. herman

      Re: now even the latest can understand

      Clearly Cisco is concerned about a Covid virus infecting the Windows work stations of the remote workers and spreading throughout their organization.

  5. jmch Silver badge

    Legal ass-covering??

    IANAL and can't be bothered to dive into the full text of the execitive order, which anyway seems to mention general 'safeguards' without going into specifics... but it seems to me that Cisco are just going into lawyer overkill, or the executive order is written far too broadly.

    Even if Cisco is a federal contractor, only a small part of it's workforce would be working on federal projects. To include all of it's workforce under the executive order seems like gross federal overreach to me (unless it isn't and it's Cisco who are interpreting it that way). To include people who are working from home in the directive is simply nonsense.

    Oh, and yes, the religious exemption is also nonsensical!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Legal ass-covering??

      Inside Dell EMC it has been explained that the order applies to those working on/at Federal sites or directly for Federal customers _and_ anyone who is _supporting_ those people. Thus it trickles down to general internal IT and HR groups, for example.

      Which I'm totally OK with! Get the jab and stay away from me....

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Legal ass-covering??

        Including HR? Oh, well; you can't win them all.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's not just federal contractors that have a virus mandate - it is all US companies with more than 100 employees. Vaccine or test - and why should a company bear the costs of testing if it doesn't have to. Bet this turns out like New York Police - '10,000 threaten strike, won't get vaccinated' turns into '34 refuse vaccine' when the cold reality of waking up unemployed hits.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Megaphone

      The best jobs seem to come from small businesses and startups wtih fewer than 100 employees.

      At least, that's how *I* see it.

      And that kind of exec order from Washington D.C. is NOT CONSTITUTIONAL anyway. Good luck enforcing it, I say.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Oh are you a constitutional lawyer? That's great. Think how much money the USA can save - just pay Bombasitc Bob to sort out their laws, they won't need those expensive courts any more.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          No, but as he's always right on these matters constitutional lawyers just have to accept what he says. It saves a lot of argument.

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        "And that kind of exec order from Washington D.C. is NOT CONSTITUTIONAL anyway."

        I don't recall you having the same level of antagonism towards the many, many executive orders from Donald J Trump, many of which were overturned as being "NOT CONSTITUTIONAL anyway"

    2. Twanky

      '10,000 threaten strike, won't get vaccinated' turns into '34 refuse vaccine' when the cold reality of waking up unemployed hits

      Yup. That's very strong, effective coercion.

      Contrast the US Executive Order with the UK government policy: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/994850/PHE_Greenbook_of_immunisation_chapter_2_consent_18_June21.pdf

      1. EveryTime

        10,000 threaten turns into '34 refuse'

        With numbers like that, you question the sincerity of even those 34.

        That is about the number of people that would be expected to retire or quit every day. At a guess, most of those 34 were planning to leave anyway. This just provided them an excuse, and includes a lottery ticket for some extra cash if a lawyer is successful in court.

        I expect that there are least as many that didn't actually get vaccinated and will soon be playing the more subtle 'suspended with time accumulating for retirement' game.

        1. Twanky
          Boffin

          That is about the number of people that would be expected to retire or quit every day.

          Out of 10,000 you expect 34 to quit each day? Shirley you're wrong. 34*365=12,410 per annum.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Rights and responsibilities are opposite sides of the same coin. Someone whose job puts them in close contact with lots of other people where barriers such as screens can't regularly be applied, can, if infected themselves, put many of the public at risk. Those members of the public have a right not to be subject to such risks. It becomes a responsibility of those holding the jobs to respect that right. As ever, the reality is that we have to balance out competing rights. The balance society usually weighs the more serious downside, such as serious illness or death as being greater than the less serious downside, loss of a job. I'd also seriously question the professional competence of those who don't recognise their responsibility.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          > I'd also seriously question the professional competence of those who don't recognise their responsibility.

          This - I did not understand why mandatory vaccinations for care home workers was such a prolonged debate in the UK.

  7. 43300 Silver badge

    "We know that everyone will not always be aligned with our approach, but we remain committed to always putting health, safety, and respect at our core,"

    Clearly 'respect' doesn't apply to anyone who has for whatever reason decided that they don't want the clotshot - this is coercion plain and simple (and of course they are citing the 'only following orders' excuse that all agents of totalitarianism use').

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      First post alert

      Did you sign up today just to post bollocks on what you maybe took to be some casual social medium? Overwhelmingly of the denizens of this place are STEM folk who have a fair grasp of this stuff and some of us actually have biological backgrounds. We can spot this garbage a mile off.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Many companies are doing this

    My current company is in the same stage of this, and has interpreted the rules to find that both clauses apply: it is a large contractor for the federal government, and employs more than 100 people. That list of companies will be very long.

    I believe the December date is from the mandate.

    We've spent almost all of 2021 hoping the carrot approach would work. Now it's time for the stick. The people that can follow directions and cooperate in a society are being held back by the few for the sake of "mah freedumbs". Get over it.

    It also helps to separate the nutters from the general population.

    1. MJI Silver badge

      Re: Many companies are doing this

      We didn't need it as well ALL have been vaccinated anyway.

      Last one in September as youngest and second jab.

      First has had booster.

    2. _LC_

      Re: Many companies are doing this

      The nutters in Israel have found themselves in a vicious circle. Way to go Bob!

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Many companies are doing this

      "We've spent almost all of 2021 hoping the carrot approach would work. Now it's time for the stick."

      This. That is all.

    4. Justthefacts Silver badge

      Re: Many companies are doing this

      Oh it really does help sort out the nutters.

      I don’t think the deniers really understand what will happen to them if they lose their job due to their anti-vax stance. They live in an echo chamber, and assume they will just apply for another job.

      Whereas what will actually happen is that, at interview, they will be asked the normal question why they are moving / cause of loss of job. When they come out with that crap, the interviewer will probably mutter something anodyne about personal choice, while privately thinking “and it’s our personal choice not to touch this person with a barge pole”. It’s going to be far larger Red Flag than a prison sentence on your CV.

      This will be a permanently un-employable self-labelled section of the population. And I’m OK with that.

  9. Nate Amsden

    how to prove it

    Just did a search for the text prove, didn't see anyone else asking or answering this Q. But wondering how they prove they are vaccinated? I mean I read a post recently saying the vaccine mandates for Los Angeles county were pretty useless because everyone they knew that was anti vax had a fake vaccine card. I personally got my vaccine through my regular medical group so I'm sure they have a solid record of it. But many vaccines were held.. off the books? I mean in parking lots and stuff. Sure they got a vaccine card with stickers or whatever, but apparently very easy to fake. Not only that but those vaccine cards are fragile and easily lost. I'm generally quite organized so don't anticipate any issues with my card but many people are not. Some places accept digital pictures of the cards, probably even easier to fake that.

    Some of the anti vax folks probably would not be willing to even get a fake card they are so against being associated with such a thing I bet.

    Not that I care either way, just curious if someone knew of an verification measure other than looking at (possibly fake) vaccine cards, since it doesn't seem possible otherwise. Obviously vaccinated people can still get infected, so if you get covid it doesn't mean you weren't vaccinated already.

    I haven't been to any locations that asked to see my card, though I don't go to many locations anyway (covid or not)

    1. _LC_

      Re: how to prove it

      In most countries those “documents” can be easily forged.

      On a side note: We know now that the antibodies created thanks to those shots tend to be pretty much gone after two months already. This is even more the case for the elderly and those with a bad immune system, i.e. those who are supposed to be protected. Could the whole endeavor be any more nonsensical?

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: how to prove it

        Who's this "we" of whom you write?

      2. Ian Bush
        Boffin

        Re: how to prove it

        "We know now that the antibodies created thanks to those shots tend to be pretty much gone after two months already"

        Link to peer-reviewed research, please

      3. Justthefacts Silver badge

        Re: how to prove it

        Antibodies down by 10% after 2 months. That’s the study that was done.

        Read the papers, properly.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: how to prove it

      Fake vaccination cards are liable to be a problem. I don't know anything about the organisation of this in the US but it looks as if the thinking around test and trace and vaccine certification in the UK is about what you'd expect from Dido Harding.

      The cards that are issued look like something you could buy from a jobbing printer of business cards. Maybe, with the demise of the privatised security printing arm of HMSO the ability to put together a secure document in short order is beyond HMG or maybe the necessity never occurred to them.

      Vaccination centres have been well run. The booking programme has been chaotic. My wife was called from the GP for her initial vaccine at the practice (in fact that the adjacent cottage hospital). I asked about myself - they didn't have me listed. A little while later I got a text or letter, I don't remember which, telling me to book online for one of the main centres. Much the same with the follow-up. In fact, I can't remember whether it was just for one or both I did get a notification from the GP after I'd made the booking, or possibly had the jab. She got a call from the GP to book for the booster. A few days later I got a text from them "reminding" me of something they hadn't notified, that they had a walk-in session on the same day as my wife had been invited to book for; we went together but with different admin processes at the site. A couple of days afterwards I got a text inviting me to book through the national system...

      The registration of a lateral flow test result requires nothing more than the number on a test strip - nothing to indicate that anyone, let alone the alleged subject, used the strip to even take a test nor what the actual result was if they did. The online registration of results hasn't worked for me - I've had to go through on the phone line. I am, however, favourably impressed by the lateral flow kits themselves.

      Overall I get the impression that the overall response has been a mixture of bottom up and top-down. Where people have been in a position to take some action on their own ititiative great things have been done. e.g. "The RNA sequence has just gone online, let's make a vaccine." Stuff that's had to be done top-down has been a different matter and the close that top is to the chumocracy the more problematic it's been with the worst of all, of course, being the allegedly world-beating initiatives.

    3. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: how to prove it

      Vaccination cards. Which are linked to a database.

      This is the current system.

      You can forge the cards but you can forge the database. A few folks have already been caught for forging thanks to the database.

      1. Jaybus

        Re: how to prove it

        Yes. Perhaps we need der Ordnungspolizei to make sure that everyone's papers are in order, eh?

    4. mmccul

      Re: how to prove it

      In California, all COVID vaccinations are reported to the state vaccination database, even the pop-up clinics, and you can download a cryptographically signed smart health card (QR code) that includes name, date of birth, and vaccination data. The database already existed for all other vaccinations, what changed is a website for end users to obtain the evidence (at IAL-1 level) of an individual being vaccinated. That QR code saves directly to both android and Apple mobile devices for production readily, and there are also apps that can display the code readily in forms used for travel (as well as test results).

      After looking into the SHC technical specification, I was pleasantly surprised at it. A lot of things were well thought out.

      Doesn't help those not vaccinated in California, but for many people? It's a nice thing.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: how to prove it

      Nate Amsden> Just did a search for the text prove, didn't see anyone else asking or answering this Q. But wondering how they prove they are vaccinated?

      This is a good point. I would suggest that without a centralised healthcare system it's already a non-starter.

      And even with a centralised healthcare system, if it has a terrible track record for IT, then chances are it will be pisspoor.

      Has anywhere without centralised healthcare and an exisiting national healthcard been successful with vaccine passed? France has. And Taiwan ....

      England doesn't even know how many unvaccinated people are in the country. [Source BBC Radio4 "More Or Less"]

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    Utterly depressing

    I read the comments here and I wonder if any of the people commenting have any comprehension of informed consent, the Nuremberg Code and the right to bodily autonomy.

    Frankly, none of you have the right to force medical treatment on anyone. It's down to personal choice.

    Don't trust people's own research? Well I don't trust government, big pharma or indeed anyone who has authoritarian tendencies.

    Not vaccinated against Covid-19 (but have had just about every other vaccine, starting in 1965 with the then new measles vaccine) and very unlikely ever to do so. Never had a PCR or LF test, not been ill in years, yes I take vitamin and mineral supplements. I don't wear masks, they're utterly pointless.

    I hope you all don't end up being forced into a social credit system, because that's where we're headed if people are not prepared to defend the freedom they were born into.

    1. _LC_

      Re: Utterly depressing

      This is the well-known “salami tactic” to get rid of opposition.

      Martin Niemöller:

      First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

      Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

      Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

      Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

      In Israel now those who don't take the fourth shot will be outcast. Congratulations!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Utterly depressing

        And your point is?

        First they came for the immigrants and I did not speak out—because I was not an immigrant.

        Then they came for climate protesters, and I did not speak out— because I was not a climate protestor.

        Then they came for BLM, and I did not speak out—because I was not part of BLM.

        Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

        Because I had died of COVID

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Utterly depressing

      And I wonder if you have any concept of the responsibility of living in a society? If you want to live in a cabin in Alaska and interact with elks - go ahead. But if you want the benefits of society - healthcare, roads, rule of law etc...then you have to accept societies rules.

      Right now we want you to get vaccinated. You may not like that, and I'm sure your father didn't like being conscripted to be shot at in Vietnam, but get over it.

      And as for the 'not been ill in years'. That will look good when you get nominated for your Herman Cain award.

    3. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Utterly depressing

      Your lack of irony is depressing.

      Almost all countries have similar laws as below.

      "Regarding the legal right to enforce public health, especially during epidemics and pandemics, every state has full power to take every measure needed to end the threat. Those states that have chosen not to, are being willfully and criminally negligent.

      Here is the law:

      https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2020/youraba-april-2020/law-guides-legal-approach-to-pandemic/"

    4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Utterly depressing

      "Frankly, none of you have the right to force medical treatment on anyone. It's down to personal choice."

      You're quite right. However none of you have the right to go round infecting people with your viruses. So if you choose to stay unvaccinated, just stay at home. If this costs you your job, remember it was your choice.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Utterly depressing

      "I don't wear masks, they're utterly pointless."

      Your basis for this comment?

      1. Justthefacts Silver badge

        Re: Utterly depressing

        I think what he means is: masks don’t stop you from getting Covid. Or even hinder it very much. And he’s right about that. Which is why the original medical advice in March 2020 was don’t wear them.

        But masks do stop you giving it to anybody else. Which is particularly important if you are an asymptomatic carrier. And it was that understanding a year ago that changed the medical advice.

        What he means by “pointless”, is that he doesn’t feel any responsibility to anybody else. You can’t change his mind on that.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Utterly depressing

      @Utterly depressing Anon

      Let's play Anon Bingo!

      Nuremberg...

      own research...

      I take vitamin and mineral supplements.

      I don't wear masks,

      QHOUSE!!!

  11. herman
    FAIL

    Unilateral Change to Employment Contract

    I think that a unilateral change to an employment contract and subsequent firing will constitute Unfair Dismissal. The affected employees should lawyer up.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Unilateral Change to Employment Contract

      Forgetting something, if you live in America you accept that the President and Congress then you've already accepted that they can unilaterally change the law, and in the case of the President they can simply sign Presidential decrees and Executive Orders...

      I think you will find your employment contract will contain a clause allowing government to change the law and that such changes will take precedence over any contradictory clauses...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Unilateral Change to Employment Contract

      We have a lot of Right To Work states here where the employer can fire employees for any reason (or no reason), so long as it's not one of the "protected" reasons.

    3. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Unilateral Change to Employment Contract

      There was no change, so they have no standing.

  12. Binraider Silver badge

    To all of you refuseniks. Diddums. That is all.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Please tick one

    Please tick one. Are you...

    [] - Vaccinated against COVID 19

    [] - Intending to get vaccinated against COVID 19

    [] - Medically unable to be vaccinated against COVID 19

    [] - A moron

    1. _LC_

      Re: Please tick one

      You have just made yourself out to be the latter.

  14. Uncle Ron

    No Joke

    There should be NO resistance or argument or push-back by anybody to getting vaccinated for COVID. None. Zero. No excuses, no opt-out, no push-back. What are you--NUTS? This is NOT a "personal decision." It is a decision that should be made my our society--like speed limits and building codes. For the good of ALL OF US. Unvaccinated (and even vaccinated) people can harbor and mutate and spread the disease. These are FACTS. Only people who just can't stand being told what to do resist this. It's a fact. Give me good reasons why I'm wrong. Reasons why we should let this virus be harbored and mutated in people who refuse to be vaccinated. Cicso is right: Get vaccinated or vaxx-off. I only wish political leaders and governments had the guts to stand up and demand this.

    The mRNA vaccines are NOT experimental. They've been in development for TEN YEARS or more. They have been successfully used against SARS and MERS and perhaps stopped a pandemic from those two viruses. The only thing that was accelerated in the COVID case was the clinical trials. The trials used the same regimen and precision, just a HUGE expense to rightfully speed it up. The people driving the resistance to the COVID vaccine are doing it for political advantage. They want the votes of ignorant government-haters and they have fed these people misinformation and downright lies. They know what they're doing. I am really very tired of the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers and half-maskers getting ANY sympathy or agreement or "both-sides" attention. Again, this is NOT a "personal decision." It affect us ALL.

    1. whitepines
      Facepalm

      Re: No Joke

      Great! Let's start by having the US government take some responsibility for adverse effects. Put the vaccine in the Vaccine Injury Compensation System and allow people who suffer adverse effects to be properly compensated. Right now people are being forced to play Russian Roulette with the vaccines, especially those who already had the virus, as it's really quite unknown how their immune system will react to the mass-injection of a new "variant". I wouldn't be surprised if this is why there is such variability in reported adverse effects, including blood clots leading to stroke and similar. *

      If the rate of adverse effect is as low as claimed, why is there objection to allowing compensation for those purported extreme few that have had their lives upended or destroyed by the vaccines? Something isn't passing the smell test here.

      * https://www.ibtimes.com/student-gets-leg-amputated-after-covid-19-vaccine-dies-brain-blood-clots-3325327

      1. whitepines

        Re: No Joke

        To the downvoters...

        I have a wonderful new treatment for the flu! It's three times as effective as current flu shots, and since old people keep dying of the flu we're going to make it mandatory and deny compensation for any adverse effects! If you end up babbling on the floor, you and your loved ones' problem, not ours...

        Oh and look, another one for the common cold! Mandate it to save babies! Again, if you happen to be the lucky few that has a bad reaction and can't work anymore, just hope you have a rich family to take care of you, right? Not our problem!

        Please do explain the rationality of mandating a treatment and not providing for the (rare) cases when it goes wrong? It's always easy to say some sacrifice is needed for the common good, but it does hit somewhat differently when it's someone close to you having made a sacrifice who is now a permanent burden on relations. How "civilized" is that, really?

      2. whitepines

        Re: No Joke

        This is not a black and white issue. I assume most here would consider the New England Journal of Medicine an authoritative source for medical information, and here is what they have to say regarding the COVID vaccines and the VICP:

        "Only people who can afford to wait for Covid-19 vaccination until the emergency declaration has ended and the CDC acts will be able to file injury claims under the VICP".

        "As compared with people who must work in person, people who can work remotely are disproportionately well educated, high earning, and White."

        "We believe that any FDA-approved Covid-19 vaccine (including vaccines approved under emergency use authorizations) should fall under the VICP immediately"

        So as usual it's minorities and such really thrown under the bus, while the rich escape with no risk. Brilliant thinking. And there are purportedly civilized countries that don't even have a compensation program to list the vaccines in, though to be fair those countries tend to have proper socialized medicine so less of a concern.

        https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2034438

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: No Joke

          you have not refuted the claims the vaccine is safe for most people which is the scientific consensus. And the risk is lower than simply going outside during a pandemic.

          The problem you highlight as you seem to allude to is that US has no effective safety net for the minority who are impacted (probably less than those who would have had an issue anyway if they didn't get vaccinated but the government caused their harm directly so...). A lot of hate about medicare for all or any single-payer healthcare options seems to exist in US politics and lobbyists. But even an insurance system and means-tested free health care are common in the rest of the world i.e. if you are unemployed or low income you won't be left to die you may not get treated in as nice a building and there may be real inequalities in the speed of care but an attempt to care for you will be made. The US seems to have it the other way around if you are well off and well educated you can get the odd bit of government help on your terms and you can afford the best insurance. If you are not privileged or even if you are just not wealthy but have a high-income anything that ends employment or is novel or isn't covered by basic policies can be a disaster and the Medicaid/Medicare system will not cover everything you might need you may be left to your fate.

          And I can feel the pushback from fiscal conservatives. I would, however, like to point out economies that are acting and growing faster than the US including some EU countries and China provide more health care than the US and it doesn't hurt them. The UK funds the NHS and it doesn't make them soft commies. The crass political appeal of punishing poverty and the vested interests of many lobbyists seem to be the only argument for the current system to an outsider. Somehow this has been made controversial in the US, it seems China or the EU will need to overtake the US GDP to prove it's not an issue. I can't say ill shed a tear when that happens.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: No Joke

            And I Get you were not saying the vaccine is bad. I am just saying for the benefit of anyone thinking about the best course of action, the answer is to get vaccinated. Yes, there is a small chance of complications but COVID is much much more likely to injure or kill you. If any progress is made on adding the vaccines to the compensation program hopefully it will be back-dated but given the fiscal conservatism in the Senate, I don't see it getting funded any time soon.

          3. Mark C 2

            Re: No Joke

            And all the studies comparing the US Healthcare systems with other developed countries have shown you get roughly the same outcomes but the US system is *double* the cost.

            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3633404/

            https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/03/u-s-pays-more-for-health-care-with-worse-population-health-outcomes/

            https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/072116/us-healthcare-costs-compared-other-countries.asp

            Wonder where all that additional money is going to as it is not on adding value to the patient.....?

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like