California tells coronavirus-positive medical workers to stay on the job(latimes.com)
latimes.com
California tells coronavirus-positive medical workers to stay on the job
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-12/california-to-covid-positive-healthcare-workers-keep-working
41 comments
Unvaccinated nurses with natural immunity can't stay on the job but infected nurses can. This is peak idiocy.
Wait until those who only had a one booster (and hence are no longer “fully vaccinated”) get fired next year.
It's not a real problem because of the millions of nurses nationwide you can count on one hand the number with natural immunity who can't stay on the job because they are unvaccinated.
Also, immunity is not binary. Healthcare professionals by definition work with the most vulnerable and should be getting all the immunity they can get. That's common sense, not peak idiocy.
Also, immunity is not binary. Healthcare professionals by definition work with the most vulnerable and should be getting all the immunity they can get. That's common sense, not peak idiocy.
I can count on two hands the number of nurses at my one hospital who were fired (or forced to resign, or whatever corporate language you’d like to put on it) last year because they refused to get vaccinated and had recently had COVID within the past few months.
And you'd need a crowd of hands to count those nurses who were not vaccinated and subsequently died from COVID not with COVID under the care of their former colleagues.
That scenario removed far more caregivers from production than your scenario, so what's your point?
That scenario removed far more caregivers from production than your scenario, so what's your point?
In New York there’s more than 30000:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/terminated-health-care-workers-jo...
Yet supposedly in California there’s less than 5. I’m unconvinced.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/terminated-health-care-workers-jo...
Yet supposedly in California there’s less than 5. I’m unconvinced.
If the point is to stop the spread of virus, it is. But if the point is to force everyone to get vaccinated (why?), it is not.
Which is why from medical and ethical standpoint the vaccine passports that are oh so popular never made any sense. Vaccinated people can and do spread it. Even among each other. So what is the point? For proper control the test passport would have been the clear solution.
But I take there are political opinions behind this...
But I take there are political opinions behind this...
The point is that vaccinated people have lower infection rates and if they do catch, they spread it less. That is the justification for having less restrictions on vaccinated people.
Still non-zero infection rates. Also it is clear that they have lead to increase spreading as people take less precautions and do more risky behaviour like drugs...
Non zero people die with seatbelts too.
Remember when we were told seatbelts would make people drive like lunatics so we shouldn't legally require them? (I do.)
Remember when we were told seatbelts would make people drive like lunatics so we shouldn't legally require them? (I do.)
I guarantee this is happening in every state in the US right now.
Should we have fired unvaccinated medical workers?
If they're definitely going to catch covid from their coworkers, it seems a bit of a liability for the hospital, considering the elevated risk of severe disease from not being vaccinated
I'm sure they would enthusiastically sign whatever form absolves liability...
Yes
Doesn't matter. The virus will take care of them in a couple of days on the job. They would be out after that.
Most people had no to low symptoms even with Covid original. Far more so now with Omicron.
According to this November, 2021 article, 20% of health care workers have quit since the pandemic: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-11-15/...
According to this aggregation of stats, it seems about 1% of hospital staff have been terminated or quit due to COVID-19 vaccination compliance: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce/vaccination-... The numbers seem to be lower in highly vaccinated states and higher in vaccine skeptic states, so for California the number is probably lower than 1%.
I'm not sure if those numbers favor or disfavor your point, but I was curious.
According to this aggregation of stats, it seems about 1% of hospital staff have been terminated or quit due to COVID-19 vaccination compliance: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce/vaccination-... The numbers seem to be lower in highly vaccinated states and higher in vaccine skeptic states, so for California the number is probably lower than 1%.
I'm not sure if those numbers favor or disfavor your point, but I was curious.
That link you referred to about 1% seems to be just firings. From personal experience with someone who works in California hospitals, I can say that there is massive stigma to those unvaccinated (with no regards to previous infection immunity, of which 2 years into the pandemic I'd wager 1/2 of them have it due to proximity), and a good portion of that 20% you mentioned quit will be preemptive because of dissatisfaction with mandate policies and stigma.
> That link you referred to about 1% seems to be just firings.
Several of the hospital reports included resignations and early retirements, and at least one reported only voluntary resignations and zero dismissals, yet the numbers seemed to align well. But I was mostly just eyeballing an overall estimate of 1%. And the 1% and 20% figures aren't even directly comparable as I assume all health care workers (latter group) are a different group than hospital staff (most of the former group). Still, they're sourced numbers, which is something. Numbers with citations can be vetted, just as you did, and they can help anchor the debate.
Several of the hospital reports included resignations and early retirements, and at least one reported only voluntary resignations and zero dismissals, yet the numbers seemed to align well. But I was mostly just eyeballing an overall estimate of 1%. And the 1% and 20% figures aren't even directly comparable as I assume all health care workers (latter group) are a different group than hospital staff (most of the former group). Still, they're sourced numbers, which is something. Numbers with citations can be vetted, just as you did, and they can help anchor the debate.
I wonder what the breakdown is of nurses/doctors vs admin staff that was fired. Anecdotally, in New Orleans a lot of the firings were of admin staff.
From working in a hospital:
- Much more admin and nursing staff than medical doctors. At the hospital I was at (in an overall left leaning area), I’d estimate between 10 and 15 percent of staff left. In comparison, only a couple doctors left.
- Relatively few firings. There was a strong push by management to pressure people into quitting. And for those that did not, many were placed on indefinite unpaid administrative leave. The rumor in the facility was that management did so to avoid triggering the layoff provisions in the union contract as a loophole.
- Much more admin and nursing staff than medical doctors. At the hospital I was at (in an overall left leaning area), I’d estimate between 10 and 15 percent of staff left. In comparison, only a couple doctors left.
- Relatively few firings. There was a strong push by management to pressure people into quitting. And for those that did not, many were placed on indefinite unpaid administrative leave. The rumor in the facility was that management did so to avoid triggering the layoff provisions in the union contract as a loophole.
Your first point seems to match up with my anecdotal experience.
As for your second point -- how management chose to get rid of the non-compliant workers is much more to do with limiting liability and expenditures. If someone quits, its harder for them to claim unemployment (but not impossible, see constructive dismissal) so many businesses would try to find a way to have you quit rather than fire you.
As for your second point -- how management chose to get rid of the non-compliant workers is much more to do with limiting liability and expenditures. If someone quits, its harder for them to claim unemployment (but not impossible, see constructive dismissal) so many businesses would try to find a way to have you quit rather than fire you.
True. The second point was also intended to highlight that the “1% have been terminated or left due to vaccine mandates” comment in the GP may not tell the whole picture. If people are on unpaid administrative leave, they’ve effectively been fired while not showing up in that statistic.
Didn’t they previously fire unvaccinated workers?
All this because hospitals refuse to increase pay and benefits (the article mentions a few other factors but this one seems like it's by far the most important).
Nationalize, nationalize, nationalize. No more "the margins are too thin, we can't afford to!" All excuses. You have a civic duty in times of crisis to put people (slightly) more over profit. This is what we as a country have historically done during times of war, and it IS a war against this virus. Start putting the fire on the hospital CEOs and C-suite on every platform. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn.
But of course some do-gooder will write a long post explaining how all of this is untenable and how the status quo or something slightly like it is inevitable. It isn't. We can fix this, but we choose not to.
Nationalize, nationalize, nationalize. No more "the margins are too thin, we can't afford to!" All excuses. You have a civic duty in times of crisis to put people (slightly) more over profit. This is what we as a country have historically done during times of war, and it IS a war against this virus. Start putting the fire on the hospital CEOs and C-suite on every platform. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn.
But of course some do-gooder will write a long post explaining how all of this is untenable and how the status quo or something slightly like it is inevitable. It isn't. We can fix this, but we choose not to.
The virus is in dying days and we have gotten here through the free market.The past few weeks Ive known many who have gotten omicron and all have had what feels like a minor cold and recovered quickly. It was capitalism and the US that made vaccines quickly and distributed them throughout the world. Socialism could never have done rhat. The failures of socialism are proven time and again in country after country. The effort to use this crisis as an excuse to extend the reigns of government control and destroy the free market engine that has brought much good is not persuasive. The desperation is apparent.
I find it strange that you would attribute success to capitalism in this case when there were no free markets involved in the development or sale of these vaccines. The bulk of the funding for the initial research came from government. The testing was done in partnership with the FDA, a government agency whose emergency use authorization was required to allow these vaccines to ship. The sales were made to government entities not individuals or even hospitals. And finally, the medical-pharma industrial complex has exactly nothing to do with free markets and open competition. In short, capitalism doesn't get the credit here. I'm not saying it was socialism that should get the credit, just that none of this involved capitalism as I understand it.
In war times, the country has mobilized the workforce with incentives that they needed to and got people into jobs that were productive. We could have and still can do that if we so choose. There was a time in the past where you could get an nurse in the hospital training immediately with basic tasks, and a credentialing program on the order of one year. This crisis has not been so severe has to overcome the regulatory and union issues make this happen.
The UK is determined to not increase pay and benefits for its nationalized healthcare workforce either. It's not a silver bullet, it rather relies on having an informed populace encouraging the government to make intelligent choices.
Same in a mixed system in Australia. There are some temporary covid-related billing incentives for the non-private jabs/visits, but the overall Medicare rates have stagnated.
This seems like there's a communications failure on how severe omicron is, and what the current risks to avoid are.
Well, there must be some point where the scale tips, some point where more people would die from lack of staff, than from being infected by staff.
We really should call the “firing of unvaccinated healthcare workers” for what it really is: protectionism for and against aging upper management.