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A comment on Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set for office returns.

Re:Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set... by dehrmann on Thursday February 24, 2022 @11:52AM (#30457019)
Vaccine mandates were always about preventing transmission. There isn't great data yet, but Omicron seems pretty good at infecting vaccinated people, so I suspect people with breakthrough cases still transmit it somewhat well. Santa Clara county is heavily vaccinated, but Omicron was still its biggest wave by far.

Pre-Delta, mandates made sense (though the vaccines came too late for this to ever be practical). With Delta, the case was shakier. With Omicron, they're really only effective at preventing severe disease. That's huge for saving lives, not so much for preventing transmission.

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Re:Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set... by bbatha on Thursday February 24, 2022 @01:56PM (#30458716)
> with Omicron, they're really only effective at preventing severe disease. That's huge for saving lives, not so much for preventing transmission.

Given that your employer is also your health insurer its in their interest to prevent severe disease and death as well.

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Re:Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set... by mohanmcgeek on Thursday February 24, 2022 @10:20PM (#30463373)
> your employer is also your health insurer

Is this really true? I thought American employers paid the group insurance premium on their employees behalf to the actual insurance companies

Is every org running its own insurance business too?

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Re:Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set... by bbatha on Thursday February 24, 2022 @11:06PM (#30463608)
They are not but the group premiums are deals cut with every business so businesses are incentivized to promote employee health to cut down in their premiums.
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Re:Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set... by mohanmcgeek on Friday February 25, 2022 @06:07AM (#30465972)
Why would they care _after_ they've cut the deal?
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Re:Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set... by bbatha on Friday February 25, 2022 @04:32PM (#30472618)
Because the deal needs to be renegotiated periodically. The deal may also include incentive structures for continued health initiatives and may include some cost sharing between the company and the insurer.
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Re:Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set... by copo233 on Thursday February 24, 2022 @12:26PM (#30457558)
You really kicked the shit out of that strawman.
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Re:Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set... by dang on Friday February 25, 2022 @02:21AM (#30464517)
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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Re:Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set... by peteradio on Thursday February 24, 2022 @12:33PM (#30457648)
Eh? Vaccine effectiveness at preventing transmission dropped off precipitously with each new variant. Is your suggestion that preventing in-job transmission was not the purported purpose of workplace Covid vaccine mandates?
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Re:Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set... by s1artibartfast on Thursday February 24, 2022 @03:30PM (#30459868)
Yes? Workplace vaccine mandates were never tied to onsite working or return to office, at least for my job.
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Re:Google restores perks, relaxes vaccine mandates, gets set... by copo233 on Thursday February 24, 2022 @02:11PM (#30458880)
Preventing serious illness and death has always been the stated goal of COVID-19 vaccine development and distribution.
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