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Comment by bediger4000 | Hacker News Reader

As I understand it, someone has to be a member of some "protected class" to sue over discrimination. I'm guessing that the protected classes vary based on the issue.

I sincerely doubt that "anti-vaxxer" is a protected class. I'm guessing that some suits will be filed, and those filing the suit will have to come up with membership in a protected class, otherwise the suit will be tossed for lack of standing. The suits that don't get tossed will be decided on the basis of "are you really in that protected class". That's a dual-edged sword. Make it super-easy to claim religious group membership? You've just made it super-easy for peace churches to really go after registering for selective service.

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> As I understand it, someone has to be a member of some "protected class" to sue over discrimination.

Everyone is member of a protected class as everyone has a race, nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion or lack of it, family status, etc.

But to have a claim, you need to show that you were discriminated against because of your protected class. Vaccination Status is not one of those

I agree, I'm just pointing out that protected classes apply to everyone, and not just some minorities.

How about people who, for one reason or another, can't get vaccinated for medical reasons?

Sure, in any reasonable system, they would be exempt from the requirement. But were they? If not, they almost certainly have legitimate grounds for a suit.

And it doesn't have to be a discrimination suit. It can be a suit alleging, for example, unreasonable requirements for employment. (Do you have to be vaccinated for measles to be employed by Washington? How about influenza? If not, then what's the rationale for requiring Covid and not the others?)

The article says that 3% of employees are not vaccinated, but have an accommodation. So there must be a way for people who cannot be vaccinated to continue working.

> unreasonable requirements for employment

A pandemic that killed >700,000 Americans probably makes vaccination a reasonable requirement. It also varies by job — some state jobs probably do require MMR or Hepatitis vaccinations.

This death number constantly trotted out is such misinformation.

The vast majority of those people died from morbidities at exactly the age they were expected to.

They admitted plenty of times that any positive test within a month of death means the death is regarded as a covid death.

Plus hospitals have monetary incentives to record these covid deaths.

The excess death rate, adjusted for population age, was almost negligible in 2020

I'm genuinely surprised at the excess deaths number? Can you square your "no excess deaths" vs this data from CDC?

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

> Plus hospitals have monetary incentives to record these covid deaths

Hospitals have been deferring elective procedures, which are big revenue and profit drivers, due to COVID. I doubt this has been a huge moneymaker for them

> legitimate grounds for a suit

Ah, must be nice living in 2018. I remember those days in the Before Times.

There is literally no group that needs to be exempted for medical reasons. Name one. Either way the whole thing allows for medical exemptions.

Well at least for Pfizer I know those with a rare PEG allergy can’t have it. Not sure about the other vaccines. But yeah it’s actually very rare with these vaccines to find someone with a genuine medical reason for exemption.

I'm guessing recently transplanted people. I say 'recently' because my spouse was vaccinated, was on priority list, and she takes immunosuppressors, w/ a 20yo liver transplant. Some people going through chemo? I'm probably missing some cases.

Also pregnant women for a while. But realistically none of those people are actively working and there are real medical exemptions anyway.

Yes, none of those should have to work... And it's the case... in civilized countries.

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