Kaiser Permanente suspends 2,200 employees who didn't get Covid vaccine | Hacker News Reader

Kaiser Permanente suspends 2,200 employees who didn't get Covid vaccine

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Alternate headline: 99.3% of Kaiser Permanente's 304,000 employees vaccinated, 0.7% unvaccinated placed on leave

Indeed. 2200 seems like a lot until you remember the scale of these places.

2200 is a lot if you remember they are people.

700000+ is also a lot

so by firing these people everywhere we're bringing those who died from covid back from the dead? cool.

No, but we're helping protect the next quarter million.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

Those families still exist, they just don't have jobs now.

They'll still go to the same grocery stores you go to, they'll still interact with the world.

People will still die, vaccinated or not. Now we just have more unemployed people, wunderbar!

> they just don't have jobs now.

The workers had a choice, though, get vaccinated or lose the job. It's not like the spouses and children who are now without a breadwinner because the employed parent was among the thousands of dead.

The risk of covid death for a working age parent in 45-55 is about 1:1000. More interesting, the risk of covid death out of all deaths in said age group is 12.5%. Maybe adults have a right to decide for themselves whether a 12.5% increase in their death risk is worth whatever other considerents they might have?

Can we please stop acting like covid is some sort of a guaranteed death sentence, even if older and unvaccinated?

> their death risk

Such a selfish answer. What about the risk to others around them if they carry it?

Vaccinated people are also a risk to those around them. A lower risk, but still significant and with declining difference over time.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y

I encourage everyone to get vaccinated if they can. But in the long run everyone can expect to be exposed multiple times throughout their lives regardless of how many others are vaccinated.

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

It's a shame that so many people continue to be indifferent and dismissive while making excuses for selfishness. Had empathy and compassion prevailed over greed, we had a chance to eliminate the virus. The best punishment for those who brought us to this point would be their gradual realization of the horror and suffering and the role their excuses and incompetence played in this outcome.

Since the virus has animal reservoirs, there was never any chance to eliminate it no matter what we did. The bats that presumably spread it to humans in the first place are still out there somewhere in China or Laos. Many other mammal species now carry the virus. From the time it first spread to humans it was always destined to become our fifth endemic coronavirus.

I chose the word "eliminate" carefully. I did not say "eradicate", which is a different term. Epidemiologists distinguish between "elimination", which we could have accomplished had the initial response, by the previous American administration, not been so criminally negligent and incompetent, and "eradication", which is much more difficult. By contrast, we have eradicated smallpox. Thanks to vaccines and effective public health interventions (NPIs), the virus only exists in secure samples in a few BSL-4 labs.

Isn't 99.3% enough for herd immunity? I really wish the US would recognize natural immunity from those recovered from Covid instead of filtering out everyone who doesn't want to subscribe to a endless 2x/year vaccine passport program, which seems to be more beneficial to Big Pharma than the average person.

Herd immunity only applies when the people in the set seldom/never meet people outside the set.

If the people in the set go home and meet others once per day, then that's not herd immunity. And a lawyer may reasonably argue that some patient definitely should get $256 million, and the hospital may reasonably want to avoid that liability.

This logic is disconnected from reality:

* There is no reasonable way to pinpoint the cause of a covid infection to a single person.

* There is no reasonable assumption that an unvaccinated person is infected with covid at all times.

* There is no reasonable assumption that only unvaccinated persons can transmit covid.

Well, let's see.

When I was in hospital a few years ago, I met a total of perhaps 15 people during a week. Pinpointing the cause of an infection would have required testing those 15.

Also, there's good evidence that the vaccines dampen transmission. Random quote (from Nature): "…people who become infected with the Delta variant are less likely to pass the virus to their close contacts if they have already had a COVID-19 vaccine than if they haven’t1. But that protective effect is relatively small, and…" and basically the effect is small but measurably present.

False dichotomy argument. I'm perfectly happy if you get vaccinated at least once if you've been positive before, and largely leave any future boosters up to the individual.

Although since we're talking about heathcare in the title article, direct patient care should probably be vaccinated yearly. That's about it though.

Is the difference between suspension and layoffs that a layoff can collect unemployment insurance while a suspension can't?

Does suspension lead to fire with cause?

The difference is that workers are only suspended until they comply with the vaccination requirements: the affected workers are still employed, just on an unpaid leave. Laid off employees who later comply with the vaccination requirements would need to re-apply for their job and go through the normal application process.

> Is the difference between suspension and layoffs that a layoff can collect unemployment insurance while a suspension can't?

Lay off can mean different things, which may or may not qualify for unemployment, but is generally a definite, permanent, or conditioned on external events (not employee actions) loss of employment.

This is conditioned on response to the vaccination requirement, though im December it becomes permanent (and is characterized in the article as being “laid off” at that point.)

> Does suspension lead to fire with cause

While the article calls it a lay off, yes, this looks like it ends with a termination for failure to meet requirements, which is generally a cause that makes unemployment unavailable.

Good riddance. It's telling that most of the employees losing their jobs over this across the country are almost never physicians and researchers (and only occasionally nurses). It's mostly support staff: people who often have no scientific or medical training and/or no college degree. That should tell you a lot about how justifiable their die-hard belief is.

I don’t know about your must obey tactics, it’s just going to make more hardline people. Someone should just send them a link to the three and five year safety data of these vaccines, fight misinformation with information.

Three and five years safety data of vaccines developed last year?

FYI, Vaccine side effects outside of the first 2 months are pretty much unheard of https://www.uab.edu/news/health/item/12143-three-things-to-k...

I am not going to say that's impossible. I am going to say that there would be Nobel prize in medicine waiting if 2-year effects are both observed and explained.

Just curious, how many babies have been born from two vaccinated parents? How many studies have been done to ensure there are no side effects on the conceived child and/or the mother?

In countries that have been doing mass vaccination all year, this is not something that would even be noteworthy or worth tracking.

Having some amount of caution for a novel vaccine for a novel disease with novel vaccination types seems reasonable. These vaccines are the first mass vaccinations with mRNA or the first mass vaccination with modified adenovirus, depending on which one you get. Personally, the risk from the disease outweighed the risk from the vaccination, but I also wasn't anywhere near the front of the line to get one.

Also, my child participated in a "long term" study on a childhood vaccine reformulation, and long term just means one year. So, if there were side effects outside of that period, it wouldn't be found from long term studies, it would have to come from some other research. Of course, small effects that show up years later is going to take a long time to pin down, and would have required a very large study group to notice statistically.

Realistically, if there is some negative side effect that takes years to develop and only affects a very small fraction of people, we won't know that it's related to any particular vaccine for a long time. And we'll figure it out from epidemiology studies, not from safety studies.

That’s the point.

Yes, you just take one month of safety data on 60 patients and that's 5 years of safety data. It appears the anti-vax are innumerate as well as anti-science!

Your proposal presupposes that their decision-making is grounded in fact. It is not. Data and evidence have no bearing on their mindset. There will always be a more creative justification as to why it's the wrong thing in their mind. The goal posts will always move.

Thank you for mind reading 2200 people.

"The goal posts will always move" ... you're right about that! I think I remember, two weeks to stop the spread

2 weeks to flatten the curve!

90% to herd immunity!

100% vaccinated or else!

goal posts are fun!

>"The goal posts will always move" ... you're right about that! I think I remember, two weeks to stop the spread

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event in our lifetime. Is it better to have a leader who modifies her approach as new information becomes available, or one who stubbornly sticks to the same plan when it has clearly failed?

ah yes, adaptation to science when I do it, goal post moving when others do it.

maybe those other people adapted to new facts coming in such as side effects of the vaccine and already contracting covid and decided not to get it.

>ah yes, adaptation to science when I do it, goal post moving when others do it.

Parent mentioned moving goal posts, not I.

>maybe those other people adapted to new facts coming in such as side effects of the vaccine and already contracting covid and decided not to get it.

The facts show that vaccine side effects are generally mild, vaccination reduces transmission by 5X or more and that natural immunity offers inferior protection to vaccination. If you have convincing evidence showing otherwise, I encourage you to present it.

natural immunity offers greater protection than the vaccine, you're thinking of combined vaccine + natural immunity.

vaccine side effects range from mild to death. https://openvaers.com/covid-data

OpenVaers is a public reporting tool - anyone can type data into there. Unfiltered, it is basically junk, and claiming it as data against the COVID-19 vaccines is dishonest scaremongering.

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/scicheck-viral-posts-misus...

Hospitals directly report to VAERS as well. We've had this system in place for a reason, you need a way to track anecdotal reactions in individuals that suffer extreme reactions or death that were otherwise healthy.

There's countless instances of healthy people dying right after the shot, doesn't matter if you wish it away.

Yes it may be a small amount percentage wise, but the more you scale the more absolute deaths you get.

> Hospitals directly report to VAERS as well. We've had this system in place for a reason

Correct, and this is not the reason. You are misusing it.

> There's countless instances of healthy people dying right after the shot,

Calling BS on that, it's not "Countless", far from it. And it needs to be compared to the - far worse - risks of COVID. This statement is dishonest scaremongering.

>natural immunity offers greater protection than the vaccine, you're thinking of combined vaccine + natural immunity.

No. There is no consensus on the duration of natural immunity, nor do we know how effective it is against variants. We do have confidence in the duration of vaccine-derived immunity and its performance against existing variants (https://www.newsweek.com/natural-covid-immunity-delta-varian...).

>vaccine side effects range from mild to death

You've not provided convincing evidence of this.

From the VAERS website: VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable.

Maybe someone should investigate each of these reports :)

Can I ask you why you think we have the VAERS system?

These reports are investigated. The number of deaths reported to VAERS is inconsistent with results of clinical trials for the major COVID vaccines.

VAERS was created as a provision of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986. The NCVIA was enacted because manufacturers of childhood vaccines could not obtain robust liability insurance.

> These reports are investigated. The number of deaths reported to VAERS is inconsistent with results of clinical trials for the major COVID vaccines.

A clinical trial !== an investigation into the report. Do you know what the investigation for each of these reports concluded or are you assuming they were "inaccurate".

Have you read these detailed submissions of VAERS? It's very hard to conclude anything other than the vaccine does have adverse effects in some people.

All that can be concluded from VAERS is that some number of people reported these effects after claiming to take the vaccine. It does not imply causation nor can we infer correlation. This is why clinical trials were done before the vaccines received an EUA.

It can be proven when they took the vaccine, they don't just "claim it", they took it.

Some people suffered shortly after and were otherwise healthy. It's definitely a red flag to look into.

I am as appalled by the mandatory vaccination push as the next guy. That being said, all the data I've seen shows that the risk of covid complications is significantly higher than the risk of covid vaccine complications. If the fear of vaccine adverse effects is the only thing that keeps you from getting a vaccine, consider getting the vaccine.

Right, my question though is the small risk of the vaccine worth it if you already have good immunity from a previous infection?

Personally I think that's up to the individual to decide depending on their bout with covid and how they feel about their chances with the vaccine.

Maybe they've had previous reactions with another vaccine, maybe medical family history, I don't know.

That's why I'm against mandates period.

We are on the same page. Nobody should ever be forced to take a medication they don't want. Some people ride motorcycles on the freeway, or do wingsuit jumps, or surf bigwaves, or ski the backcountry, or freesolo el Capitan. I guess it's more fun than getting a bad case of covid, but either way, more power to them.

The only point I'm making is that VAERS data by itself is negligible compared to the effects of covid itself. I understand that it can be frustrating to interact with 2-masks+3-jabs+forever-lockdown+kill-unvaxxed crowd, especially given the political power it wields in the real world, but IMHO the VAERS data does not make a strong case for passing on the vaccine.

My only point for VAERS is that there are instances of people reacting to the vaccine. Yes anecdotes should be verified, but they do exist as does the small chance of a reaction.

So that small reaction should be enough for people with immunity from a previous infection to say, "hey, that's my reason". Not that they need one :)

> Not that they need one :)

Exactly! None of your damn business how other people handle their health. Go cower in the basement if you can't handle a (hopefully temporary) less than 15% increase in the death rate for your age cohort.

https://data.cdc.gov/resource/3apk-4u4f.csv

> I am as appalled by the mandatory vaccination push as the next guy.

What does this mean? Vaccine mandates for certain jobs and circumstances are what we are getting, and this is _not_ "mandatory vaccination".

And in fact these mandates enjoy broad support (1). Do you expect the people who agree to be shouting about this? Of course they are not. The only people worked up about it are the minority who don't like it, for various reasons, most of them IMHO misguided, factually incorrect, poorly evidenced, or coming from faulty understandings of relative risk. Echo chambers that make it feel that "people are with us" even with small groups with extreme positions are an unfortunate fact of modern online life. As is disinformation.

The next time that I am on an aircraft or in a restaurant, I would be very happy to hear that everyone else there, staff and customers, are also vaccinated. And that goes triple for if by some misfortune I have to go to a hospital.

I'm not asking that people "be forced to take a medication they don't want" (you are still mischaracterising it as "mandatory vaccination") but it's a stretch that they should ask to opt out of safety measures, and then still insist on being an ICU nurse. Sorry, no. Choices have consequences. it's just such an easily avoidable risk.

But what about their job? What about it? If truck driver goes blind, are you going to let them keep their job out of pity, never mind the damage that it will do?

Most people understand this logic. If you're "as appalled by the mandatory vaccination push as the next guy" then ... since the median next guy isn't appalled much, you aren't appalled much?

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/09/16/polls-sh...

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/08/poll-support-vaccin...

And plenty more evidence, at google: "vaccine mandate support"

I wish we lived in a world where this approach would work. It does not.

I think nobody is really cares if they are hardline. They can be hardline all they want, as long as they aren't around others.

The others that are vaccinated right?

The others that even though they are vaccinated, can receive and transmit the virus to others.

So what are the risks of unvaccinated people again?

> So what are the risks of unvaccinated people again?

Dying or taking up a valuable ICU bed. And that’s not just bad for them, but also for anyone else who might have need for ICU, or someone who is medically unable to get the vaccine who is now also at increased risk.

The point isn’t that it magically makes everything perfect, but that at scale, vaccines very much decrease the severity of the pandemic.

> The others that even though they are vaccinated, can receive and transmit the virus to others.

I am a stuck record on this topic by now, but the word "can" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. You're making it sound like vaccinated and unvaccinated are equivalent, but they are not.

I can win the lottery. I can win a coin toss. But they are not equivalent, the odds are drastically different, so the risk management is different between the two cases.

There's more to it than "it can/cannot happen". it's not boolean. It's all risk mitigation, phrases like "80% vaccine efficacy" should tell you that we're not sith dealing in absolutes here.

it is simply pragmatic good sense to keep unvaccinated staff away from patients, because of the increased risk.

>So what are the risks of unvaccinated people again?

The data is clear that unvaccinated people are at least 5X more likely to contract and spread COVID-19[1]. So the fewer unvaccinated people in the workplace, the less likely an outbreak becomes.

[1] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/08/cdc-unva...

what are the chances those people still haven't contracted covid? why ignore natural immunity?

are you okay with this new normal, comply or die? (an economic death)

I believe that American workers have a right to a safe workplace. It is a fact that the federal government has the power to set and regulate workplace safety standards. This is not new.

So why not continue testing unvaccinated people, and allow them to work as long as the test comes back negative? Why throw a blanket over an entire group, even when the majority of them are perfectly healthy?

>So why not continue testing unvaccinated people, and allow them to work as long as the test comes back negative?

They can. The US mandate allows unvaccinated workers to either get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.

> why ignore natural immunity?

Why avoid vaccination, after infection? Apparently it's quite beneficial to get vaccinated then.

risk cost analysis. if you have enough protection already, why add more at the risk of a potential side effect, that's up to the individual.

why not exercise, why not inject yourself with x, why not do this or that. why don't you just get in the train.

why not force everyone to not be fat while we're at it. we're already forcing people to show their papers, why not force everyone to have a vaccine for every disease? why not just keep everyone in a jail cell so they can't be harmed.

> risk cost analysis.

Risk of vaccination is low, benefit good, seems legit.

> that's up to the individual

Sure, if and only if it's also up to the employer to choose as well. Individual choice without accountably for the consequences of that choice would be nice, but it's in short supply on account of the deadly pandemic.

> why not force everyone to not be fat while we're at it.

This is a pointless question. Do fat nurses harm patients thereby? No.

> why not force everyone to have a vaccine for every disease?

There are many contexts in which vaccinations are required. _shrug_

> why not just keep everyone in a jail cell so they can't be harmed.

You're not making rational arguments here, just throwing emotional words around.

vaccinated people are protected against unvaccinated people, the only argument is unvaccinated people take up ICU beds.

fat people take up ICU beds for healthy people, being fat is a choice and is the #1 cause of morbidity for covid.

the emotional argument is coming from the side saying everyone needs to be 100% vaccinated so we don't all die.

give me liberty or give me death is not just a phrase.

> vaccinated people are protected against unvaccinated people,

Again, all or nothing thinking. It's not binary; protected completely or unprotected. I doesn't work like that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28800966

The more unvaccinated staff there are, the more risk there is to all staff, vaccinated or not.

And tell me, what about the patients? What if they're not vaccinated through no fault of their own (too young, immune-compromised etc)? Do they not deserve safety in hospital?

I want liberty too, liberty from the risk of being around unvaccinated people. I understand that I won't get that liberty in all contexts, but in some such as hospitals and aircraft, I am glad of it.

Your arguments are full of emotion, but they just don't add up. "other side" means that you think you're fighting someone.

From the report in your link...

> During December 14, 2020–August 14, 2021, full vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines was 80% effective in preventing RT-PCR–confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection

Full vax is only 80% effective? This is quite a bit lower than what the news has been reporting, in the mid-to-high 90's

> Full vax is only 80% effective? This is quite a bit lower than what the news has been reporting, in the mid-to-high 90's

mid-to-high 90s is cited as the effectiveness at preventing severe COVID or hospitalization. Effectiveness at preventing detectable infection is obviously going to be lower, because asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic infections can occur.

No, the CDC says

Based on evidence from clinical trials in people 16 years and older, the Pfizer-BioNTech (COMIRNATY) vaccine was 95% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 in people who received two doses and had no evidence of being previously infected.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different...

"Laboratory-confirmed infection". Not severe or hospitalized.

You misrepresented the results of the original study as per above. The vaccine is 80% effective at preventing infection in frontline health workers (who are at elevated risk of exposure to COVID-19). It is 95% effective at preventing infection across the general population.

>> During December 14, 2020–August 14, 2021, full vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines was 80% effective in preventing RT-PCR–confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection

You conveniently omitted the end of the sentence you quoted. The full sentence is "During December 14, 2020–August 14, 2021, full vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines was 80% effective in preventing RT-PCR–confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection among frontline workers." Frontline health workers are at elevated risk of exposure to COVID-19, so it's reasonable that more of them would contract the virus, even with an effective vaccine.

Did you intentionally misrepresent the results of the study by leaving this part out or was this just a careless omission?

CDC has instituted a policy where vaccinated people were instructed to test on symptoms, whereas unvaccinated people were instructed to test on contact with infected person. In a frontline healthcare setting, workers are constantly in contact with infected persons, thus the difference in testing regimens is maximized. Given that asymptomatic cases are a majority of the cases, such skewed data collection process will result in significant data taint. The faulty policy was active March-July 2021.

TLDR. Any study making 'vaccine effectiveness against infection' claims based on US data overlapping March-July 2021 is subject to potential data taint and perhaps should be retracted. I'd rather look elsewhere for reliable epidemiological data.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777536

https://archive.is/PB8Q6/again?url=https://www.nytimes.com/l...

> In a frontline healthcare setting, workers are constantly in contact with infected persons, thus the difference in testing regimens is maximized. Given that asymptomatic cases are a majority of the cases, such skewed data collection process will result in significant data taint.

I don’t see how this claim is supported by data. The studies referenced showed the vaccine was less effective (vs control) for frontline healthcare workers than the general population (80% vs 95%). If the data were really tainted as you claim, and there is systematic undercounting of asymptomatic breakthrough cases, we would expect the vaccine to perform as well or better in a frontline setting as it does in the general population.

My point was that the parent blatantly misrepresented the results of this study to make a point supporting anti-vaxx positions. Why is this necessary?

Thanks for the clarification. Perhaps you'd get a better response if you were to formulate your questions in a less pointed way. For example, try 'covid vaccine sceptics' instead of 'anti-vaxx'. I can't speak for the parent poster, here are some thoughts:

* As I mentioned, US data is not very credible because of a data collection fumble.

* There are legitimate concerns of vaccine effectiveness dropping over time: either VE is constant over time, or boosters are necessary, but not both at the same time. Note Israel is at 40% population boosted.

* Recent Canada data is the most promising with VE against Delta infection of 87-92%. The catch is that the measurement stops at 5 months. Perhaps mix & match + large interval between shots is the golden recipe!

* OTOH, UK data is significantly less rosy. Assuming we believe PHE data (VE is negative in 30+yo age group) or the corrected version (VE is <50% in most age groups), something doesn't add up.

May the winter season be light so we can hopefully put the covid crisis past us.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canada-vaccine-effectiveness-...

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

https://twitter.com/LGradaigh/status/1436095950561419280

>try 'covid vaccine sceptics' instead of 'anti-vaxx'

Call it whatever you want, the position is still unsupported by data. Ironically, that side is typically against any form of 'political correctness.'

The UK data also doesn't support what you claim elsewhere in the thread. When adjusted for confounders, unvaccinated case rates are higher across all age groups in the UK according to the twitter link you cite above.

We can geek confounders all day long. At the end of the day, after all confounders have been accounted by reality, the epi data is what the epi data is. Asking for someone's vax passport status (in UK) says little about the risk of the respective individual being infected or not at a given point in time.

Furthermore people vastly overestimate the risk of infection a healthy person poses. This has got beyond grotesque, we are excluding healthy people from society on account that sometime someday they might get infected with covid. As if they can't quarantine for a few weeks if the need arises.

The discounting of time-tested pandemic control methods, from denying natural immunity for people with past covid infection to denying quarantine-on-symptoms as an effective mechanism for controlling spread, its perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the official response to the pandemic.

Funny enough, if you'd ask me, I'd tell you to get vaccinated if you are >18, and wait for more long term data and/or novavax if you are <18. But that doesn't matter. All that it matters is whether we can somehow mess with the lives of those that have the slightest skepticism re a novel technology with yet to be proven long term effects and real life pandemic control results (see UK, Israel, Singapore).

Human rights? Freedom of thought? Bodily autonomy? Obsolete.

I have yet to see a reasonable explanation on why UK case rates per 100k for vaccinated people are higher than unvaccinated in >30yo age groups. Whatever the reasons is, it does not match '5X more likely to contract covid'. According to the UK dataset, in 40-49 the rate of infections in vaccinated people is double the rate of infection in unvaccinated people.

Yes, the data shows vaccines are effective at preventing hospitalization and death. If you are an adult, get a covid vacine, it will keep you from getting a nasty disease. It's just that the vaccines don't appear to be effective at preventing infection, and this is a major pretext in the push for mandatory vaccinations, to the point we are firing people over it (!!!) while the crowds are cheering (!!!).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

>it’s just going to make more hardline people. Someone should just send them a link to the three and five year safety data of these vaccines, fight misinformation with information.

Based on the statistics in the OP, and other reported successes (the US military has achieved over 95% compliance) it looks like these mandates are achieving the desired effect: more working adults are getting vaccinated. It seems as though the most effective tool at combating misinformation is not to try and talk over people spouting lies. Instead, it's to make vaccination a matter of workplace safety, which is difficult for even the scammers to dispute convincingly.

What exactly is "the desired effect?" If it is to eliminate Covid, the vaccine doesn't seem to help much, considering vaccinated people can still get infected and pass on the infection to others.

The desired effect of the mandate is to increase the percentage of the workforce that is vaccinated. It appears to be achieving that goal.

As has been mentioned many times on this thread and others, unvaccinated people are at least 5X more likely to contract and transmit COVID-19 to others.

Your numbers are way off. I encourage everyone to get vaccinated if they can. But the reduction in risk of transmission is far more limited and temporary than you claim.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y

> Unfortunately, the vaccine’s beneficial effect on Delta transmission waned to almost negligible levels over time. In people infected 2 weeks after receiving the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, both in the UK, the chance that an unvaccinated close contact would test positive was 57%, but 3 months later, that chance rose to 67%. The latter figure is on par with the likelihood that an unvaccinated person will spread the virus.

> A reduction was also observed in people vaccinated with the jab made by US company Pfizer and German firm BioNTech. The risk of spreading the Delta infection soon after vaccination with that jab was 42%, but increased to 58% with time.

> eliminate Covid

Nothing is 100% in medicine…

Reply on news.ycombinator.com