President Biden announced a requirement for all employers with 100 or more employees to mandate a Covid-19 vaccination or require weekly Covid tests for all unvaccinated employees.
Companies are scrambling to deal with the logistics of this. How do you track weekly tests? Who pays for these tests? If it’s an employer requirement, do you have to pay for your employees to get tested?
However, before you worry too much, the emergency order may never go into effect.
Employment attorney and partner with Wickens Herzer Panza, Jon Hyman, explained some of the legal problems with this presidential Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) in a LinkedIn post.
Some of his key points are:
To keep reading, click here: Why Biden’s Vaccine Mandate May Fall Apart
I agree with Hyman that it would be better to eliminate the testing option and just require vaccinations for everyone, in businesses of every size, with the only exceptions being those rare individuals requiring accommodations for disabilities or religion.
I’m as blue as they come but this really scares me as a precedent. Vaccines, like any medicine, have side effects and risks. It’s horrifying to think that the federal government could force me to take ANY medication. That’s between me and my doctor.
And yes, I do have 2 doses of Pfizer. But that was my choice.
No one’s forcing anyone to be vaccinated. However, unvaccinated individuals are now being restricted from certain activities, absent those rare few requiring accommodations for a disability or a sincerely-held religious belief. Vaccinations have been legally required in schools for decades now. They have also been required for military service and certain jobs. Vaccines do have side effects and risks. But, the side effects and risks are far eclipsed by the side effects and risks of the diseases they prevent. No one’s died from a COVID-19 vaccination. However, almost 700,000 Americans have died — thus far — from COVID-19, and the deaths are again on an upward trajectory, especially among the children too young to be vaccinated.
Get vaccinated or lose everything you’ve worked for because you can no longer make a living? That kinda sounds like forcing people to be vaccinated.
My Dr does not recommend me getting the vaccine. I will listen to her and will test if this goes through. I will not have some govt entity telling me to do something that my Dr has said not to do.
If your doctor has recommended you not get vaccinated, you may be among that very small subgroup of people who qualify for a reasonable accommodation, such as working from home or socially-distanced from coworkers. The very same government you decry for mandating vaccines is the one that protects employees requiring reasonable accommodations for disabilities, such as the one you’re claiming. Good luck to you!
By the way – restricting people from certain activities is very different than restricting people from earning a living.
I don’t need to go to a concert, a restaurant, or fly. I need my job.
You understand, I assume, that the mandate only applies to entities with 100 or more employees, and provides for regular testing, as an alternative, for the unvaccinated? No one’s taking away anyone’s ability to earn a living.
My understanding is that if the company does not want to entertain the ‘testing’ they don’t have to – they can simply require the vaccine and that is the end. I read an article today that talked about what would qualify for a medical exemption and it was an extremely narrow, rare allergy to the vaccine. Your Dr saying they do not recommend the vaccine will not be enough. I seriously feel I’m on another planet. “Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News that the large and growing data on the three coronavirus vaccines shows there are no immediate health issues or side effects for most people with pre-existing medical conditions.”
With the pressure from the vaccinated shaming and quilting the unvaccinated it will only be a matter of time. I was told by my boss that I should get a second opinion which means ‘go to someone that tells you to get the vaccine’. This.is.not.right.
Unless there’s a testing site staff on the premises, which means a certified healthcare staff member, or a close to get to test center that requires no cost fee to the employees, there’s no control over the test results which can be easily faked. I highly doubt that most employers want to add more cost than necessary to the labor cost which is already a sore subject. Paying for the time off to get the vaccine and recuperation and requiring proof of vaccination is logistically sounder than constant testing.
I understand the hesitancy, but the time has come to choose to work or not work for the workers.