Right now, it looks like we will be getting a vaccine for Covid-19. Do you want to require your employees to get it? Brenda Neckvatal and I discuss what you should be thinking about.
9 thoughts on “The Real HR Show: What Happens When a Vaccine Comes Out?”
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This whole issue is going to be problematic going forward. I just saw a statistic that a huge percentage of Americans are not planning to get vaccinated. Personally, I’m not an anti-vaxxer and am high-risk to boot. However, the Government’s handling of the pandemic has been so — unnecessarily — politicized, that I’m looking to the recommendation of credible experts, once a vaccine is available to me, to shape my decision. Normally, I would support requiring everyone to be vaccinated. But, right now, it’s prudent for everyone to proceed with utmost caution.
I agree that with some serious politicians and their doctors still pushing bleach and hydroxychloroquine and making really silly recommendations about covid, it would be hard to believe them if they said a vaccine was safe. But I’ll bet that when Anthony Fauci is vaccinated it’ll make the news, and I’d trust his judgment. All of us outside the medical field will have to wait at least several months for our turn anyway, so we’ll have more reason for confidence when our turn comes.
I’d also trust Dr. Fauci. Of course, by then, he will probably have been fired, so more able to freely speak his mind too. Hopefully, his head will never be “on a pike.”
I think once a vaccine is available, it should be treated like any other vaccine. If you require vaccines for Polio, MMR, the Flu then sure add Covid to the list.
But if you do not have a vaccine requirement then why would you start now?
I would think the requirement for the COVID-19 vaccine to allow employees to work, should be a covered cost by the employer, if they deem it necessary as a public health concern, especially if their employees are your public face to customers, then their health (employees) is your cost, like any other required to work vaccine. But first make sure all the details of the vaccine is ironed out to included all members of the population, especially side effects. Caution at this time should be priority before going forth with requiring this vaccine.
The US Government has already spent billions of dollars on at least one of the likely vaccines, in order to ensure that it is provided free of cost to Americans. I expect that all of the approved vaccines will end up being provided to everyone for free.
I wonder whether the scientists have any idea how long these vaccines will protect us. After we get two shots, will we be protected for at least one year? I think that I will continue to wear a mask, even after I get vaccinated.
We should all — definitely — continue to wear a mask after vaccination, until community spread of COVID-19 is no longer a major public health concern. Even if the vaccine is 95% effective, there is no way of knowing who’s in the 5% for which it is not.
I don’t think employers can enforce employee vaccination. At least, not in every industry. Some industries – such as healthcare – sure. We should all urge it and encourage it, maybe even pay for it (like some employers do for influenza shots) and maintain masks and distance and hand hygiene for the foreseeable future.