The same poll [pdf] showed that 55% of all Americans support companies requiring all employees to be vaccinated. A poll from a couple of weeks ago showed this:
At 67%, there’s overwhelming support for a vaccine mandate for hospital workers. In addition, 57% say there should be mandates on cruise ships and 54% support them for airplanes. Just 50% back mandates for federal government workers.
Even so, Biden mandated vaccines for federal workers and there wasn’t a big outcry against it. Also, note that everyone expects hospital workers to do something they might perceive as onerous.
The political hurt on COVID will come in a couple of months if kids can’t go to school and airplane rides turn into spreading events. As this Twitter thread from an ER physician points out, the Northeast is next, because our vax rates aren’t high enough to protect against another wave when we all go inside. Gavin Newsom’s ad touting his vaccine mandates should be a template for Democrats.
Also, can we please get a federal mandate for paid time off for vaccinations so “essential workers” can get a fucking shot and recover? This story of workers who would get vaccinated if they could is infuriating, especially because some of them are restaurant workers and teachers’ aides who can spread COVID far and wide.
RaflW
That’s a huge margin. Get after those MFing Republican governors. Dang.
germy
@RaflW:
Our new secretary of education said the feds will cover the funds the republican governors deny.
Just Chuck
Sure there was, but it came from the same whiny stupid fucks that are increasingly safe to ignore.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Just Chuck: Right, I didn’t know how to word that. Maybe “the only complaints were from the habitual complainers.”
Urza
I would like to see an “Every Voter Vaccinated campaign”. Have the Democratic party reach out to every single voter, regardless of party affiliation, offering to help them schedule a vaccination if they haven’t been able to yet. Try to set up travelling vaccinations to go to them at the time thats best for them. Followup on secondary shots. Let people know Democrats care about their health and survival. Later, as Covid runs its course people will remember who lied to them and who tried to help even if they didn’t take advantage at the time. Non voters are ok to, but make it clear its going off the voting rolls that the party would normally have access to and not some other source that people might be uncomfortable with a political party having.
There’s a bonus that it would drive the crazy conservatives even nuttier thinking its another part of the conspiracy.
Betty Cracker
To your last point, maybe this is why?
brendancalling
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
I think you mean an “ER” doc, not an “ED” dc. Two very different things…
Adam L Silverman
https://www.wfla.com/community/health/coronavirus/nearly-5600-hillsborough-co-students-in-quarantine-emergency-school-board-meeting-called-for-wednesday/
trollhattan
Speaking of the moron set.
“Health? Don’t Care” workers.
Anonymous At Work
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: “Habitual complainers” are what I call “fundamentalists” of a particular topic, most often “Privacy” in my line of work. Nothing is ever good enough until you give them everything they want, no compromise. Lincoln’s speech at Cooper Union is a masterpiece in calling such people out (not much having changed in 162 years).
The problem with the polling is that it was a nationwide sample and the “Nation” never votes on anything. In Texas, except in some, hand-crafted Congressional districts, being a Democrat is worthless. And unless those Republicans and Independents show up to vote on masking in the next GOP primary for governor, their numbers are worthless as well.
Central Planning
Our local school district mandated masks for students and staff. I haven’t heard of a big pushback, but I’m sure the “No New Normal!!1!” protestors are losing their minds.
Almost Retired
Just wrote mandatory vaccine policies – pro bono! – for my small-business clients. My draft includes a judgment-y preamble about everyone’s disinterest in your personal beliefs (but elegantly worded in exquisitely impenetrable legal-ese so as not to obviously appear to be calling anyone refusing a shot a selfish misanthrope). Complete with a super-oppressive opt out procedure for religious beliefs (less so for medical reasons). One of my clients noted that I seemed to be calling her vaccine-hesitant employees fucking morons. She was fine with that.
Anonymous At Work
@brendancalling: Amen. Doctors who do that work HATE, LOATHE, DETEST, [Something from Thesaurus] that term. “Emergent” or “Emergency Medicine” since they do do research and training in a medical field, not just “prep work” at their “employment station”.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan:
Fire them. No sympathy. Enough.
OzarkHillbilly
You are not being forced to nurse. You can go out in the fields and pick vegetables if you’d prefer.
trollhattan
ThotsNPraars
bluefoot
Within my circle, I know someone in IT who is working or on call 7 days a week and can’t get time off in case he has to take time for a vaccine reaction. It’s really freaking him out to the point that he’s been looking for another job so that he can get vaccinated. He can’t take time off since he used up all his time off earlier in the year when he was hospitalized for something non-COVID. He’ll lose his job if he takes any more time off, and he can’t afford that.
Meanwhile, a public schoolteacher I know in NY state is super angry at the union leadership for being for “vaccine freedom” and “mask freedom.” Apparently nearly all the teachers want vaccine and mask mandates, but the union leadership is dominated by MAGA types. So the public statements put out by the union are all “freedom.”
The Moar You Know
@Almost Retired:ummm, you don’t have a link for that, would you? I could sure use such a thing.
ETA: extra attractive due to the moron section
Just Chuck
@bluefoot: He can get vaxxed at lunch. But he needs to quit before that job kills him from non-COVID causes.
Almost Retired
@The Moar You Know: Ha! I suspect my malpractice carrier would have issues with practicing law in the comments section of a blog…..
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@brendancalling: Yeah, she describes herself as an ER doc so I fixed it. My friend who is an ER/ED doc says she works in the ED, so tastes vary, apparently.
Van Buren
Since this is an open thread, does anyone have tips on how to glue granite? When our dog died last fall, we bought a memorial stone. In June, Ms. Van Buren accidentally knocked it over and it broke in half. I ordered a replacement. On Sunday, the puppy was running and knocked over a small table, which fell on the new stone, and broke that. Such is life. Not going to order a third stone, but I want to give gluing the others together a shot. I can’t figure out a good way to clamp it, though.
Parfigliano
@trollhattan: I hope Andre Jacque dies. Fuck these shitheads.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Adam L Silverman: I live in a zip code where we’re over 90% first shots for 12 and over. Kids in my neighborhood were wearing masks to and from school. We had very little school spread last year.
If the school administration didn’t have a mask mandate this year, the parents around here would be getting out their hand-crafted, artisanal, locally-sourced pitchforks and heading to a school board meeting.
trollhattan
@bluefoot:
Here (CA) you can go into pharmacies, etc. and get vaccinated evenings, whenever. Vaccines can be had on demand. Is it not that way where you are?
He can even opt for J&J so it’s just one jab.
Benw
This school year’s shaping up to be a mess. Our district hasn’t even provided guidelines and school starts in 2 weeks! If they don’t require at least masking and distancing, we’ll have to home school our kids. Last year we hung on through a weird year of remote learning, and it feels like we did it for nothing if the plan this year is “send them back like everything’s normal into an ongoing pandemic” and they all get sick anyway.
JPL
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: Wow! Well down here in the south, the Falcons are 100 percent vaccinated. Twelve and over not so much.
Eunicecycle
@brendancalling: I found out when I started working at a hospital that insiders do indeed call the emergency room the ED-the emergency department.
Kay
Conservatives have shown incredibly bad faith on public schools for months. There was the month’s long insistence that the only thing keeping schools closed was teachers unions. There was the months long CRT panic that followed. Then, just to ensure no one had even the slightest doubt that they could give a shit about public school students, they started a mask panic and enshrined it into law.
They have not lifted a fucking finger to assist public schools in this. It has been one long, screeching complaint.
None of them are talking about the ridiculous anti-mask laws because there’s no possible way they can blame this on teachers unions or public schools so it’s no longer of interest to them.
They can’t attend public schools. They no longer have the capacity for community consideration or ability to compromise that attending a public school requires. They can’t function in a system with a lot of stakeholders and warring priorities. They simply contribute nothing positive or worthwhile other than a constant screaming din that consists of “me, me, me”.
The school operations will be what they demand, the curriculum will be what they demand and the safety rules will be what they demand, or they can’t function in the larger group. They really should all homeschool. The rest of us can get on with it.
Ken
@Eunicecycle: Oh. I’d been thinking it was the other kind of medical ED, and waiting for the spam filters to clamp down – like when we had that problem with any use of the word “socialism” because of the embedded ED drug name.
bluefoot
@trollhattan: It’s not time off for vaccination that he worries about; it’s in case he needs to take time off post-vax. So far, all his siblings had severe enough reactions to the shots that they all needed a couple of days off work post-second shot. So he’s worried about losing his job, and he’s sole bread winner. Which is why he’s looking for another job and continues to argue with his boss about scheduling time off or at least a couple of days where he isn’t on call.
I should add: he’s lives in a red-to-purple area so maybe it’s not surprising the higher ups in his company don’t seem to care.
rp
@Van Buren: JB Weld or some other type of epoxy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: many high-minded types tell me I mustn’t mock or wish for unhappy outcomes for these people
they haven’t persuaded me yet
brendancalling
@trollhattan:
Oopsie daisy!
OzarkHillbilly
‘We aren’t all dumb hillbillies’: how Covid caused a rift in country music
I love these assholes who think everybody else should be a slave to their freedom.
Eunicecycle
@Ken: oh I always snickered (quietly of course!) whenever someone said ED.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: The major national teachers’ unions both reversed their prior opposition and now support vaccine mandates. I don’t know why they were ever against it.
wmd
We need federal guaranteed paid time off for illness. We don’t want food servers to come into work when they know they are sick because the can’t pay the rent without that day’s tips. This would be a no brainer, and only the most fervent members of the death cult wing of the GQP should oppose it.
Geminid
@Anonymous At Work: in many states, Independents can’t show up in Republican governor’s primaries because they are closed. But they show up for general elections, and their votes can make a difference. They did in Arizona last November. So I look at that 67% support for mandatory school maskingamong Independents as a good number
Elizabelle
@bluefoot:
Wait. In this day of “we can’t hire enough people, poor us”, your friend is going to be fired if he takes a day or two off for a vaccine reaction? Which vaccine is easily available at a pharmacy, at many hours? Also community clinics?
I call bullshit. For one thing, I doubt the employers would be able to replace him that quickly.
I don’t really believe the IT guy’s story, sorry to say. Especially when Covid could destroy him financially. And he’s sole breadwinner.
I think there is something else at play there.
Matt McIrvin
@bluefoot: Yeah, I think the problem of asking for time off for vaccination and/or vaccine side effects if your boss/employer is an antivaxxer is insufficiently appreciated.
OzarkHillbilly
Try ratchet strapping it on a dead flat surface that is just smaller than the stone. Do it dry first, so you can figure out the exact best locations for the straps. And generally, the more straps the better.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: You underestimate the MOTUs capacity for self destruction.
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin: Again, bullshit.
Is that something someone is going to regret in the moments before they are intubated?
Grow a pair. (I speak to the IT guy.).
Also, getting fired for getting a reaction to a life-saving vaccine during a pandemic sounds like it would be completely coverable for unemployment insurance.
Last, the guy is ON CALL. Which means he is not in the office. He might be able to hide being under the weather for a few calls.
I just do not find this believable. Sorry. Maybe the guy has some type of PTSD from all the stress, plus the earlier medical condition that ate all his leave time.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: I probably do.
You could not pay me to live in a red state. Sick of the psychopaths.
I think losing that job could be the best thing that ever happens to that IT guy. Unless his skills are extremely subpar.
SiubhanDuinne
@Benw:
Just had another “visual Mondegreen.” I saw your Our district hasn’t even provided guidelines and read it as “Our district hasn’t even provided guillotines.”
Suzanne
@brendancalling:
Actually not. Only “civilians” call it the “Emergency Room”. Healthcare workers and regulatory bodies call it “Emergency Department”.
Benw
@SiubhanDuinne: lol, the public schools are just falling apart!
Brantl
@Van Buren: UV curable glue is sold in hardware stores, now. You can use a ratchet strap as a clamp.
RaflW
@germy: That’s good!
And, we need to hammer these fucking Republican governors.
I just saw that there are thirty five children in the Houston area pediatric hospitals with Covid. This is on Abbot and all the MAGA jackasses who refuse to mask or get vax’d.
RaflW
@trollhattan: As a person with a BMI above the warning line, I’m going to go ahead and say that Jacque appears to have a significant comorbidity factor.
(I got my jabs as soon as my state opened for my age cohort. I may be bearish of build, but I’m not a dolt.)
Ohio Mom
@bluefoot:
Ohio Dad, a computer engineer, has had a couple of (fortunately short-term) jobs like that. We laugh about them now but they were really awful interludes for our entire family.
People think “tech” and imagine laid back offices where everyday is Friday casual, all the free snacks you can eat, and all sorts of other accommodations for staff. That’s they image you see in magazines.
Some places may be like that but others are straight out of Dickens.
I can’t think of anything helpful to offer. Your friend must have already considered trading on-call time with other employees, who may also be as big assholes as the boss. There’s something about engineering that attracts the empathy-deficient.
SFAW
@The Moar You Know:
Maybe this has already been covered extensively, but: I’m a bit confused regarding “religious exemptions.” Outside of Christian Scientists, are there mainstream (or one-off) religions whose tenets forbid getting vaccinated? I’ve always assumed the “religious” thing was RWMF/Talibangelicals using it as an excuse to tell the government to fuck off, but I’ve been wrong before.
Matt McIrvin
The summer wave seems to be turning over in New England. If current conditions were to continue, we’d probably see cases dropping in a couple of weeks. (The outbreak on Cape Cod has been subsiding for a while.) But we are near the end of the summer. Most of the schools have not opened for the fall yet, and students have not arrived for college.
Matt McIrvin
@Ohio Mom: The cushy tech offices with all the perks also exist so that people will be motivated to live at the office all their waking hours and work 80-hour weeks. They’re heaven for obsessives with no families.
And, in my experience, the silly office perks tend to be the first thing to disappear when money gets tight.
Doc Sardonic
@Van Buren: Loctite PL530 is your best adhesive for granite. Shouldn’t stain it where the glue line will be. Best clamping option is a good ratchet strap and a few layers of cardboard for cushioning corners and where the buckle and hooks are located. As always follow label directions and safety instructions.
ETA: What Ozark said about clamping on a dead flat surface is important, sorry in my haste I left that out.
Barbara
@brendancalling: In case no one has called you out on this, “ED” stands for Emergency Department and has overtaken ER for most healthcare providers, the same way “healthcare” has overtaken “health care” when used as an adjective. No, it doesn’t always stand for erectile dysfunction, which is what I assume you were referring to.
Geminid
@Doc Sardonic: This memorial stone conversation has become very informative. I’ve been putting off repairing a friend’s broken concrete water fountain. Now wondering about a good adhesive is no longer an excuse.
emmyelle
Report from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, not MAGA-land, here: in a town nearby me, the local school board had a meeeting, that they did not publicize, to discuss a mask mandate for the kinds coming back to school at the end of next week. Somehow it got on to Facebook, probably on some “mom’s” page. A colleague of mine, who is a parent and a scientist, showed up, was freaked out by a crowded room of unmasked people, almost NONE of whom she recognized as parents at her kid’s middle school (it’s a small town). Anyway, she (masked), made a few comments, was heckled for wearing a mask, and then harassed in the parking lot.
This is effing Massachusetts, by the way.
Happy Tuesday.
SFAW
@Eunicecycle:
Mrs. SFAW, a nurse for 30-plus years, calls it the ED, without exception (at least, none that I can recall).
Barbara
@bluefoot: I know it’s easy to feel this way about a job, but what I would tell your friend is that he is assuming the worst case scenario from the vaccine without regard to the more likely, and much worse impact of the disease itself. The worst side effect of the vaccine for most people is fatigue. Get vaccinated and see what happens. Once he is on the other side of it, he will be much less stressed.
KrackenJack
@Almost Retired: That’s a great example of how to make a positive contribution. Good for you – and the rest of us.
The Moar You Know
@emmyelle: The anti-mask people who have been showing up and disrupting school board meetings throughout San Diego county are:
catclub
@Just Chuck: It takes 20 minutes to get vaccinated at walmart. Is he locked up 24/7? I have doubts.
catclub
Not surprising when the background goal all along is destroying public schools. The vouchers to private schools for kids whose parents object to masks is the endpoint. Defund the schools!
Destroying public water systems will be next.
Ken
@Van Buren: To the other excellent advice, I would recommend a barrier between the stone and the surface. Wax paper might work, check a little of the adhesive on it.
In case you’re wondering, I once managed to bond a ceramic tile to a garage floor when some glue oozed out of the crack….
Jay
@Van Buren:
JB Weld steelcoat epoxy,
https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/j-b-weld-steel-reinforced-epoxy-28-g-0383760p.0383760.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt9TQ-dO48gIVXgytBh1SmQIREAQYASABEgJ82_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
clamp with electrical tape until it’s set, the tape stretches, sticks okay to itself, you can work the angles.
give the epoxy 24 hours to set. Any excess blobscan be removed with a heatgun and box cutter.
Kelly
@catclub: We’re part of a small, about 1,000 households, water district. Rightwing nuts get voted into the board and back out every few elections. Things go smoothly nuts are voted in, something goes badly nuts are voted out. Most of the infrastructure is from the 1950’s. Took three elections to upgrade treatment plant 10 years ago. Last year we ran out of water in a day when the Beachie fire swept thru. That was enough to finally pass a bond measure to replace the 1950’s vintage storage tanks we have been arguing about for years. One of them is wood!
Just One More Canuck
@Almost Retired: it’ll be our little secret
jonas
@trollhattan:
Tell me again why hospitals should have to treat these fuckwits? Save those beds for some poor vaccinated patient with a breakthrough infection and underlying comorbidities. You spent the last year fighting vaccines and lockdowns and now you have Covid? Fuck you. Here’s the name of a good priest. Now get lost.