Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

Re:Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to dist... by kube-system on Friday November 20, 2020 @11:52AM (#25162243)

I expect that state school systems will mostly apply their existing laws for required vaccines. (which is that 4 or 5 of them actually require them, and the rest give religious and/or philosophical exemptions)

But for the vast majority of workplaces, there's not much of an existing precedent to do this, and I suspect the vast majority of employers will not want to rock the boat too much. I suspect it'll be something that will be "required" by policies but not enforced in practice. The people who want to get vaccines will get them, and those who do not will ignore the policy without repercussions.

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Re:Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to dist... by ghaff on Friday November 20, 2020 @01:13PM (#25163160)

>will be "required" by policies but not enforced in practice

That would seem to be extremely unethical and possibly at least borderline an OSHA violation. If a workplace is claiming that certain procedures are being followed and they are in fact not being followed, I think plenty of lawyers would be happy to take that lawsuit.

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Re:Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to dist... by kube-system on Friday November 20, 2020 @01:56PM (#25163617)

I didn't necessarily mean that they would be breaking procedure -- I think it's more likely that the procedures won't be very rigorous. I doubt that procedures for vaccination will be any more rigorous than the procedures for ensuring compliance with mask wearing.

As far as this being unethical -- maybe it is -- but since when has that stopped anyone? There are people still being forced to go to work sick because they have no way to take sick leave without losing their jobs.

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Re:Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to dist... by ghaff on Friday November 20, 2020 @02:15PM (#25163812)

Dunno. Larger companies I'm familiar with have pretty rigorous back to the office procedures which I could see extending to proof-of-vaccination at some point. Without it, they could just not enable badge access. But, as you say, uncharted territory.

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Re:Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to dist... by kube-system on Friday November 20, 2020 @02:37PM (#25164016)

I think, at best, we'll see a situation similar to the requirements that state schools have for enrollment. All 50 states "require" kids to be vaccinated.... but 48 states have religious exemptions.

At the end of the day, it's a lot less risk to HR to not piss off a couple of politically fringe employees over something that the vast majority of employees will do voluntarily anyway, without any coercing. Two unvaccinated employees out of hundreds probably won't cause a problematic COVID outbreak, but they could file a lawsuit.

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