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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

In the US, the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has basically said that employers can require employees to get vaccinated. (They have to accommodate when possible but obviously a grocery cashier won't be allowed to work from home so the accommodation is that they don't get paid.)

I would not be surprised if this becomes a contentious topic once vaccines are widespread and workplaces, airlines, etc. require proof of vaccination.

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FWIW, as recently as a week ago, the Canadian PM has said that there are no plans (in Canada) for a federal vaccine passport— it may still happen on a regional or industry-specific basis, or they could change their minds, but this is where they're starting from:

“I think it’s an interesting idea but I think it is also fraught with challenges — we are certainly encouraging and motivating people to get vaccinated as quickly as possible but we always know there are people who won’t get vaccinated and not necessarily through a personal or political choice,” Trudeau said during an interview at the Reuters Next Conference.

“There are medical reasons, there are a broad range of reasons why someone might not get vaccinated and I’m worried about creating knock-on, undesirable effects in our community.”

https://globalnews.ca/news/7576955/coronavirus-vaccine-passp...

"Passport" is too fancy a word, but we definitely need a way for vaccinated people to prove their status.

The honor system will not work!

It's effectively a passport, regardless of what you want to call it— it's a document which is government issued, gives you certain movement privileges, and probably needs to include a photo component and be difficult to forge.

It doesn't have to be issued by a government.

Whatever institution performed the vaccination could do it.

Of course, if you want it to be forge proof, there are some non trivial issues.

My yellow fever book would be easy enough to forge, but why would I want to go to a yellow fever country with a forged one?

Vaccine passports for COVID are a pretty different situation. It's not "get this established and well-tested vaccine so that you can go on a safari adventure in Africa," it's "get this very new vaccine that you might have read horrible conspiracies about on the internet so that you can go back to eating at restaurants and attending sporting events."

The incentive to forge proof of a COVID vaccine is way higher, and in some jurisdictions there may even be political and/or media cover for doing so (because it's about your "freedom").

It'll be interesting if private businesses start demanding vaccine proof (at the point when vaccines are widely available) or refuse service. I guess one solution would be to make such a refusal illegal..

I have read their opinion, their statement is more unclear. They say that their is nothing in employment law that prevents requiring an approved vaccine but that it was up to the FDA and other bodies to make the call regarding EUA vaccines. It was confusing and misreported in the press. Their release would have been better rid they said upfront "we don't know if employers can require you to take a EUA vaccine".

These payments to take it might be a form of risk reduction from the companies perspective, as you can get a waiver in return for the payment.

There are quite a few weasel words/phrases in their statement but I would assume it would be enough air cover for any organization who wanted to do so to be able to claim they believed they had the power to require a shot. And any employee disagreeing would have to go to court--and maybe get a judge's ruling in a year or two after paying a bunch of legal fees. Not very practical for a fast food worker or cashier. And there are precedents for vaccines being required.

> In the US, the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has basically said that employers can require employees to get vaccinated.

Once they're FDA approved, sure, but none of the vaccines currently being distributed are approved yet so I doubt this will be enforceable for another two or three years.

What is the difference between FDA approved and an emergency use authorization, from the perspective of the law?

https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/coro...

> What is the difference between FDA approved and an emergency use authorization, from the perspective of the law?

> Under an EUA, FDA may allow the use of unapproved medical products, or unapproved uses of approved medical products in an emergency to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions[1]

The difference is that something pushed out under EUA is _not_ FDA approved. So any laws related to approved medicine, devices, vaccines, etc do not apply automatically to EUA products.

[1] https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/emerge...

Is the employer then liable if negative side effects occur from the vaccine?

If we are talking about the US, then the taxpayers are liable.

https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html

For what its worth, VICP is funded by an excise tax on each vaccine dose. Compensation is also "no fault", and no party is presumed liable.

In the specific case of the COVID-19 vaccines, they are explicitly NOT covered by VICP, but rather the CICP.

[Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) | Official web site of the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration](https://www.hrsa.gov/cicp)

The article points out that vaccine developers and health care providers are shielded from liability, but I don't see anything about employers.

The Wikipedia page does not clarify either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Vaccine_Injury_Compen...

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