Vaccine Mandates for faculty, staff, and students?

[mleok]

I'm not an expert in the science either. I agree that it seems like good advice to get a vaccine, even for those who have previously had COVID. But the bar of need has to be much higher for a government to be entitled to impose a mandate. As seems to be established, employers in the US can require any vaccines they want for employees, though I wonder if some lawsuits might have legs given the significant shift to the right of the judiciary. And of course, not in states where they have been forbidden from doing so by order of the governor or by new state laws.

Now that the FDA has approved the Moderna and Pfizer boosters, when will they be mandated by some states or employers?

Well, IBM, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are going ahead and complying with the federal vaccine mandate in defiance of the Texas governor's executive order, I'll be interested to see how this plays out. I'm curious as to whether you apply the same high bar to such government overreach like the Texas governor's executive order banning vaccine mandates by employers.

Personally, I'm just waiting for a blue state to pass a Texas like law deputizing the public to sue gun owners...

[Caracal]

I'm not an expert in the science either. I agree that it seems like good advice to get a vaccine, even for those who have previously had COVID. But the bar of need has to be much higher for a government to be entitled to impose a mandate. As seems to be established, employers in the US can require any vaccines they want for employees, though I wonder if some lawsuits might have legs given the significant shift to the right of the judiciary. And of course, not in states where they have been forbidden from doing so by order of the governor or by new state laws.

Now that the FDA has approved the Moderna and Pfizer boosters, when will they be mandated by some states or employers?

I think the question is why would there be a justification to to have an exception for people who have already been infected. Having such an exception would be enormously complicated and possibly unworkable, so there would need to be very good reasons to do it. The vaccines are very safe, so there's really no reason to worry about harms involved from taking them. In fact, as you say, there's every reason to think that previously infected people will benefit substantially from the vaccines.

We don't usually make exceptions to rules and mandates on the basis that some people might not pose quite as much of a risk as others if they aren't required to follow the rule. You may be a better driver than me and less likely to cause an accident if you drive fast, but that doesn't mean you get an exception to the speed limit.

As for boosters being required, it isn't going to happen anytime real soon. At the moment, the boosters are only being given to people six months after their first shot, so it would be hard to have a mandate and there's probably too much confusion and uncertainty around the benefits of the boosters to imagine a mandate. In the medium run, I think its quite possible you will have requirements for a booster every year.

[downer]

I'm not an expert in the science either. I agree that it seems like good advice to get a vaccine, even for those who have previously had COVID. But the bar of need has to be much higher for a government to be entitled to impose a mandate. As seems to be established, employers in the US can require any vaccines they want for employees, though I wonder if some lawsuits might have legs given the significant shift to the right of the judiciary. And of course, not in states where they have been forbidden from doing so by order of the governor or by new state laws.

Now that the FDA has approved the Moderna and Pfizer boosters, when will they be mandated by some states or employers?

Well, IBM, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are going ahead and complying with the federal vaccine mandate in defiance of the Texas governor's executive order, I'll be interested to see how this plays out. I'm curious as to whether you apply the same high bar to such government overreach like the Texas governor's executive order banning vaccine mandates by employers.

Personally, I'm just waiting for a blue state to pass a Texas like law deputizing the public to sue gun owners...

It is funny and bemusing that the Republicans are becoming the anti-business party. Yet again, they are the party without any consistent principles.

As for where I stand on individual rights versus the rights of businesses to tell their employees what to do outside their jobs, what medications to take, what vaccines to take, what political beliefs they have, how fat they can be, ... well, I confess I'm probably more on the side of the individual. But I have some sympathy with the idea that if people don't like what their employer demands, they can resign. I can't say that I've really thought much about what governors should have the power to tell businesses to do. Sometimes it is hard to take the clownshow of US politics seriously enough to think about what is actually the right answer.

[kaysixteen]

Seeing as how the government mandates and forbids a whole host of things, many of which do not reasonably affect anyone other than the individual mandated or forbidden to do said things, on what logically consistent basis do we oppose covid vaxxes, considering the immense public health implications of refusal to take said vaxxes?

[mleok]

Seeing as how the government mandates and forbids a whole host of things, many of which do not reasonably affect anyone other than the individual mandated or forbidden to do said things, on what logically consistent basis do we oppose covid vaxxes, considering the immense public health implications of refusal to take said vaxxes?

There is nothing rational or logical about the resistance to a COVID-19 vaccination mandate, either by the federal government or by employers.