Telegraph is reporting vaccine to be compulsory for care home workers

[bathsh3ba]

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/03/22/care-home-staff-face-compulsory-covid-vaccination/

I feel quite uncomfortable with the idea of making any vaccine compulsory....

Thoughts?

I agree with it.

No one is being forced to have it 🙄

Simply that you can't do that job if you're not prepared to have a vaccination to help to prevent passing Covid on to residents. 🙄

@AmelieTaylor

I agree with it.

No one is being forced to have it 🙄

Simply that you can't do that job if you're not prepared to have a vaccination to help to prevent passing Covid on to residents. 🙄

People who already work in care and have rents or mortgages to pay and families to provide for may as well be forced.

@Bluntness100

Because of the amount of outbreaks in care homes and vulnerable people who died. Obviously. As said, a large percentage of those outbreaks will have come from staff infecting the residents. The stats speak for themselves. If you can’t trust the care home to adequately protect the residents then the government needs to step in and do what’s required instead.

The government needs to step in and do what's required instead - enforcement of vaccines in care staff to reduce the risk.
I pointed out that there were so many other things the government could have done to reduce the risk, before now, and didn't, and that the largest risk (and problems ) came from sending elderly patients into care homes that were positive. That the government are now not some wonderful heroes that are protecting the elderly and vulnerable against care workers who won't get the vaccine, by making them. But it's much better for the government to make out that actually care workers are the issue, and not the fact they threw care homes under the bus in the first place.
You then said I was silly to say it only came from hospitals.

I didn't pretend it came from hospitals only, I know staff are a risk, but a risk because they need to live (relatively ) normal lives, they have to travel to work, they have partners and children that work/ are at school, they aren't paid when they need to isolate with symptoms (and only once with a positive test), If the government "Need to step in and do what's required " because of the risks (or as you put it, Care homes not able to be trusted) why didn't they attempt to lower those risks this time last year with supporting care staff to be less risk, instead of letting that continue and now implementing mandatory vaccines like it's the only thing that would have ever made a difference, insinuating that they need to make it mandatory because otherwise care workers will just avoid it (not trustworthy ) and put the elderly and vulnerable at risk.
Blame the care workers, implement something that won't cost any more than the vaccine roll out would have anyway, and come out looking like the good guys for doing basically, nothing.

What about MY rights not to be placed in contact with unvaccinated people?

I don't mind people choosing not to be vaccinated but I do not consent to their anonymity to cause me harm.

@AmelieTaylor

I agree with it.

No one is being forced to have it 🙄

Simply that you can't do that job if you're not prepared to have a vaccination to help to prevent passing Covid on to residents. 🙄

So forced to have it then.

So forced to have it then

Other jobs exist

This time last year there were a lot of outbreaks in care homes as a result of patients being discharged from hospitals without testing. However, since then there have been really strict rules on testing and isolation for hospital discharges, but there have still been more care home outbreaks. You can blame the government for past mistakes, but that won't remove the risk posed by unvaccinated staff to patients. Staff can choose to work in a different job. Frail elderly people usually have no choice at all about needing to live in a care home.

What about pregnant care workers being forced to have the vaccination?

Would you want to expose an elderly relative in care to an unvaccinated employee, pregnant or not?

Any staff that looks after vulnerable members of society have a duty of care. And that includes being vaccinated against Covid!

Staff can choose to work in a different job.

Frail elderly people usually have no choice at all about needing to live in a care home.

This

@TheKeatingFive

So forced to have it then

Other jobs exist

And if they could get them, most would be doing them already.

You people - you somehow see something right in front of your face but then either ignore it or convince yourselves that it's something entirely different (and more in line with your middle-class worldview).

And if they could get them, most would be doing them already.

While care work is not the most sought after job, there are equivalent options out there.

No one has a god given right to do a specific job. There are qualifications/ requirements for many roles.

Good, glad to hear it.

So, someone chooses not to have the vaccine, rather than can't have it, and go to work with sick, vulnerable people who have a high chance of dying if they catch Covid. That is bordering on manslaughter IMO.

@TheKeatingFive

And if they could get them, most would be doing them already.

While care work is not the most sought after job, there are equivalent options out there.

No one has a god given right to do a specific job. There are qualifications/ requirements for many roles.

I very much doubt anyone doing care work is claiming a god-given right to do what they're doing.

You really could not give less of a shit could you, as long as they are still looking after your elderly relatives (jnstead of you), or delivering your parcels, or driving your ubers.

Vaccinated people can carry and pass on the virus, so why exclude those that aren't?

You really could not give less of a shit could you, as long as they are still looking after your elderly relatives (jnstead of you), or delivering your parcels, or driving your ubers.

There’s no need to get personal, you know nothing about me.

Try to look at it from the perspective of other people (which you don’t give a shit about, clearly).

The frail, older person who may not have been able to have the vaccine for medical reasons or who fears the vaccine may not have worked well on them, what would they be more comfortable with? 100% vaccinated staff or not?

Or the owners/management teams of care homes who’ve had the stress and heartbreak of outbreaks during the last year. Who will they hire, they vaccinated person or the one who won’t have it?

If people think they should be facilitated to work in the most Covid vulnerable environment possible, while refusing a vaccine, they need to get real.

Vaccinated people can carry and pass on the virus

All emerging data indicates that it is very much reduced in those vaccinated.

@bathsh3ba

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/03/22/care-home-staff-face-compulsory-covid-vaccination/

I feel quite uncomfortable with the idea of making any vaccine compulsory....

Thoughts?

It's called having a duty of care. I absolutely agree with it.

@TheKeatingFive

You really could not give less of a shit could you, as long as they are still looking after your elderly relatives (jnstead of you), or delivering your parcels, or driving your ubers.

There’s no need to get personal, you know nothing about me.

Try to look at it from the perspective of other people (which you don’t give a shit about, clearly).

The frail, older person who may not have been able to have the vaccine for medical reasons or who fears the vaccine may not have worked well on them, what would they be more comfortable with? 100% vaccinated staff or not?

Or the owners/management teams of care homes who’ve had the stress and heartbreak of outbreaks during the last year. Who will they hire, they vaccinated person or the one who won’t have it?

If people think they should be facilitated to work in the most Covid vulnerable environment possible, while refusing a vaccine, they need to get real.

Lol - so you complain I know nothing about you and then immediately make a supposition about me - well done.

The fact that you only mention the owners and the management teams as being the ones having the 'heartbreak' rather than the actual carers doing, you know, the caring, speaks volumes.

The fact remains that the government are only able to do something like this because they know that the people they are doing it too have no alternative.

You can bet your life they won't be passing a similar law forcing visitors to be vaccinated, and yet they will be just as likely to kill great-aunt doris. Why not? Because the visitors are more likely to be nice middle-class conservative voters.

You and everyone else saying "get another job" can keep pretending like most carers have an alternative in order to ease your conscience if you like - I can't.

FFS have the vaccine. It's good for you and those you care for.

@Firefliess

This time last year there were a lot of outbreaks in care homes as a result of patients being discharged from hospitals without testing. However, since then there have been really strict rules on testing and isolation for hospital discharges, but there have still been more care home outbreaks. You can blame the government for past mistakes, but that won't remove the risk posed by unvaccinated staff to patients. Staff can choose to work in a different job. Frail elderly people usually have no choice at all about needing to live in a care home.

No I agree, it won't remove the risk. That risk needs to be controlled. Covid has highlighted so many issues within the care system, from how things are set out, how corners are cut in favour of profit and how poorly treated care workers are. I have no issue with having the vaccine, my issue is that instead of admitting that these failures (not just from this time last year, but for decades) have made covid much worse than it needs to be in social care, the care workers are now being blamed for refusal of vaccine rather than looking at the real problems that are causing the staff to pose that risk in the first place. It's an absolute kick in the teeth to have done everything possible on an individual level (and read stories, Heard people talk, watch my colleagues), against these problems, to keep covid at bay, be paid a pittance and then have the finger of blame pointed squarely at you for not doing enough, when the true problems lie with areas care staff have no control over. It's saddening and disheartening. And then to hear that it's demanded I give up either my job, or my bodily autonomy to protect other people's loved ones, yet those loved ones don't feel like they should have to have a mandatory vax to protect their own family member, and me, when they see them, truly shows how beneath society care workers are considered by some. And that's a sad reflection on how we see the vulnerable and elderly, that they can be looked after by people so poorly viewed by society. This time last year people called us heroes, now, even though we've by and large not changed what we've been doing, suddenly we're the villains.

@Firefliess

This time last year there were a lot of outbreaks in care homes as a result of patients being discharged from hospitals without testing. However, since then there have been really strict rules on testing and isolation for hospital discharges, but there have still been more care home outbreaks. You can blame the government for past mistakes, but that won't remove the risk posed by unvaccinated staff to patients. Staff can choose to work in a different job. Frail elderly people usually have no choice at all about needing to live in a care home.

This.

DM's and StepDads care home had no outbreaks until January this year. They were strict with visitors, and PPE, no agency staff. Visiting through windows/intercoms etc. Regular LFT's for all residents and staff. Residents had to isolate whenever they went out for medical appointments, even for the GP. DM was in isolation for 10 days twice, just because she went to a dentist, and a medical consultant. Then it got in. DM and StepDad died, as did a number of other residents, all in one week. Who do you blame then? The virus.

@Moonmelodies

Vaccinated people can carry and pass on the virus, so why exclude those that aren't?

Because transmission is reduced to a vanishingly small probability with the vaccine. I do wish people would stop spouting this garbage about vaccination not reducing transmission.

It's an interesting ethical point, I suppose. Where is the line in terms of asking a person to do something in order to prevent harm occuring to someone else?

Get vaccinated against covid? Ban private vehicles to save 40K lives a yer in the UK? Make the flu vaccine mandatory? Euthanase violent offenders? Make kidney donation mandatory if you've got two healthy ones? Make alcohol illegal? Ban dog ownership?

Some of those examples might sound ludicrous but implementing any of this would save lives, notwithstanding unintended consequences. Who gets to decide where the line is between what you expect of person A in order to protect person B?

I personally draw the line at inforcing any unwanted medical intervention, clearly many disagree - or don't care, as they are frightened/want normality back so don't feel ethics is a big consideration.

The fact that you only mention the owners and the management teams as being the ones having the 'heartbreak' rather than the actual carers doing, you know, the caring, speaks volumes.

I feel very much for them too, I only didn’t mention them because they aren’t the ones making the decisions.

But honestly, you’d put both your vulnerable patients AND your co-workers at greater risk because you won’t take a vaccine. Nice.

You can bet your life they won't be passing a similar law forcing visitors to be vaccinated

Then won’t have anything like the same access to all patients as staff, so not comparable at all.

The fact remains that the government are only able to do something like this because they know that the people they are doing it too have no alternative.

It’s a bit silly to keep insisting that the only job someone can possibly secure is in care. C’mon now.

Because transmission is reduced to a vanishingly small probability with the vaccine. I do wish people would stop spouting this garbage about vaccination not reducing transmission

On either this thread or another one I was told I was spouting anti-vax garbage for suggesting it did reduce transmission and told to educate myself.