When your hairdresser/beauty therapist/osteopath refuses the vaccine ...

[Roasegarden21A]

Firstly, I just want to say I don't believe in pushing people into having vaccines. It has to be a willing choice. I do personally believe in the effectiveness of the vaccination project and I want to be safe and I want my family to be safe. What would you do if a long standing therapist that comes into very close physical contact with you (and many others) is an anti vaxxer? I'm talking about people that are outstanding at their jobs. Would you keep going to see them?

@Lostinacloud Wonderful reply, I agree completely.

This is getting boring now. Yes I'd continue to use services I require because I wouldn't ask someone's vaccination status because its rude and none of my business.
I provide a professional service and if a client asked me my vaccination status they'd be told that information is private.

It’s up to them. I didn’t ask whether they had had flu or MMR etc before covid so it goes into the same category to me. I am vaccinated so I feel I have done what I can to protect myself and others but I could easily spend hours right beside someone on the tube or at work etc who isn’t and I’d never know. I don’t view this as being any different.

@Moondust001

Do you get the flu vaccine every year?

Yes.

And flu is potentially serious for the older and the more vulnerable, which is why it is freely available to them every year, even though (a) humans, even the vulnerable, have a higher degree of natural resistance to flu on account of it usually not being a novel virus and (b) flu is nowhere near as dangerous to people as Covid currently is.

I have very little doubt that at some point in time, what we now know as Covid will probably be no more serious than flu currently is to us. But you need to remember that flu kills thousands every year, and a "very bad flu year" can easily result in 40-50,000 associated deaths in the UK alone. We have to learn to live with it unless it conveniently dies out like Spanish Flu did. But that doesn't mean that right now, at this moment in time, we should be putting the most vulnerable at risk of something with heightened morbidities.

But I do think there is a balance that has to be struck. If your frail and elderly mother lives in a care home, are you absolutely fine with someone working in physical contact with her who is refusing to be vaccinated against a virus that might be asymptomatic in the worker, but could kill your mother?

I am not in favour of forcing people to have a vaccine that they do not want. But there are many examples of occupational requirements that we accept simply because they exist; and right now when we have so many people vulnerable to a virus that is new to us, perhaps we do need to consider that some occupations or types of contact do need to be conducted by vaccinated people. Yes, people should have the free choice to take the vaccine or not. Shouldn't vulnerable people have the same right to make decisions about their lives? And shouldn't employers who are legally responsible for employees and clients also have the same right?

I honestly don't know what the "right" answer is, but it is nowhere hear as black and white as people want it to be. There simply isn't a "yes" or "no" answer to this matter. But ignoring it won't make it go away.

And as for those worried about the two tier society - we have plenty of tiers in society already. One more is irrelevant. But may actually be more necessary than some of the ones we happily live with all the time.

I don’t ‘need to remember’ anything thanks. I’m well aware that flu kills many people every year and that we vaccinate the most vulnerable groups against it. But that’s it. We don’t vaccinate everyone even though some at-risk people can’t have the flu vaccine. And we don’t push the vaccine on the whole population with threats of restrictions and accusations of being anti-vaxx if they refuse it. The vulnerable people have to make a choice about whether they take the risk to be out in public where they may come across a non-immune person because there are no guarantees.

And no two-tier society is ‘necessary’. That’s a pretty shocking thing to say actually.

No

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

No I wouldn't use them, and actually it wouldn't matter whether they chose not to have the jab or simply couldn't.

My hairdresser isn't old enough to have been vaccinated last time I went. I'm not going to stop seeing him due to something completely outside of his control. It would be different if he started spouting crap about the vaccine being dangerous etc., I would reconsider then but not being offered it isn't his fault.

Of course it's not his fault, but someone might still decide not to use him until he was vaccinated, in favour of someone who was. Fault is irrelevant to the risk and for me I'd be assessing it purely based on the risk to me. It's not the person's fault at all that they are relatively more risky to me right now than others, but the fact is they are.

I'm not saying I have a right to ask or know, by the way, and nor am I saying I think everyone should be pushed into having the vaccine.

I just reserve the right to choose to avoid relatively risky interactions, and so my answer to the OP's question (which assumes that somehow I do know), is no.

In real life I currently deal with this by avoiding most of these types of treatments completely for now. Long term I'd be swayed by non-personal things like really well ventilated premises, which would make vaccination status even less relevant.

They may not have had any vaccines ever.

I'm not high risk so wouldn't ask them. If they offered the information then I'm not sure. If they were anti vax then id probably go somewhere else .

As for not all adults being offered it yet well that depends on the area you live in. Here it's being offered to 18 and above now. My 18 year old had his first yesterday

Yes. I was happy for him to cut my hair when neither of us were vaccinated - as of today I am double Moderna-d, so in a far better place than eg last July. I would be surprised if he didn’t have it other than because he was medically advised not to though.

My eyebrow lady is pregnant so I think currently not jabbed.

Both salons have spent a fortune on Perspex screens, spaced out work stations, cleaning etc, so I feel fine going.

I would find someone else to pay my money to for their services.

Notice to anyone not having a vaccine:

Just lie that you did so you can still cut Amanda’s hair or do Bernadettes nails. 🙄

@Skinnytailedsquirrel

I would find someone else to pay my money to for their services.

So would I. I've been going to my hairdresser for over 30 years and I know she's been vaccinated. It's something we discussed as soon as the vaccination became available. Of course I wouldn't know necessarily if someone had been vaccinated because I wouldn't ask, but I certainly wouldn't go to a confirmed anti vaxxer.

And I think anyone who provides a service and says they're vaccinated when they aren't is despicable.

Unless people are rude and ask someone’s vaccination status no one would know either way.

Not every person who has not had the vaccine are shouting it from the roof tops and on anti vax protests.

Unvaccinated - yes I would, their vaccination status is not my concern.

Vocal anti-vaxxer - no way purely because I wouldn't want to listen to them.

I wouldn’t give money to such a numpty

I don't know and don't care and I haven't asked my dentist either, who I see much more often than my hairdresser, they haven't asked me either.

@Lostinacloud

Yes and for many reasons.

1. Contrary to what we’ve been led to believe, not every single human that walks the planet has covid all day every day of the year.
2. If you have the virus enough to cause you to be actually ill then you won’t feel like being at work and will most likely be at home getting better. (I’ve had mild covid and certainly didn’t feel like going out or meeting anyone once the symptoms started).
3. If you are worried about how you will personally respond to catching covid and so you’ve had the vaccine yourself, surely you’re protected and so don’t need to worry about catching it if your ‘outstanding at their job’ person just happens to have covid and not know it yet.
4. At some point people need to accept that sars-cov2 will be here forever and get on with their lives.
5. Most of us are more at risk of a million other potentially life threatening events and don’t let that stop us from living a normal life.
6. If you put yourself in your own shoes 2 years ago, would you have questioned getting a service from someone who is outstanding at their job because they hadn’t had the mmr or tetanus or polio vaccine?
7. It wouldn’t even occur to me to ask the vaccine status of anybody and if they happened to be vocal about it then I would either agree or agree to disagree and then be a grown up about things and not let that sort of irrelevant issue get in the way of my normal life and social interactions.

People NEED to let go of this fear!

This. 100%

I wouldn't ask them.

I don't think they should ask me either

Individual opinions aren't going to change anything here. What's going to matter is how the population as a whole behaves, and the direction we're very strongly heading in, is one in which those who refuse the covid vaccine will be very much marginalised. That much is already obvious if you read some of the responses - even many of those who agree with the right to choose feel some concern at getting too close...

With other illnesses, e.g. measles, it hasn't mattered because the rest of society has generally got enough herd immunity that the actions of a few make no difference. But we're unlikely to ever get anywhere near herd immunity with covid as the viruses ability to mutate means that even fully vaccinated people can be infected and spread the virus.

Ironically, that will tend to focus the attention of society on the unvaccinated. It's inevitable that they'll be viewed in the same way we view people who walk out the bathroom without washing their hands.

More and more employers will start insisting on it, perhaps most, like Morgan Stanley will be on an honour system and obviously the Self-Employed can set their own rules, but I think before long those who wish to remain unvaccinated against covid, will find they need to keep that fact a secret - the shameful skeleton in their closet.

I am in a quandary about my hairdresser. She has been cutting my hair for 15 years and I like her and the way she cuts my hair.

However, the last time I went she told me (I didn’t ask) that she does not intend to have the vaccine because she believes it hasn’t been tested for long enough. Fair enough, her decision. She wore a mask and a visor and I wore a mask.

I have had my second vaccine but I do have a kidney disease. I currently have full kidney function but have been advised that as Covid can affect the kidneys contracting the disease would likely accelerate my kidneys losing function.

Quite happy to still go to her while masks are required but don’t know what to do when masks are no longer mandatory. Not sure I want her breathing over me. Yes, I am vaccinated but I have no way of knowing that it has worked for, as I understand it, it doesn’t work for everyone. Also don’t want to have to tell her that I’m not making any more appointments with her because she has not been vaccinated. I usually book my next appointment as I leave. Difficult.

@ConcertedAuntie - you have no choice really but to find a hairdresser who is vaccinated. Your health is more important than her indecision/selfishness. Even masks are not failproof against the India variant. It's not worth taking the chance.

Yes, I would. In fact it wouldn’t even enter my head to ask them whether they’d had it. I’ve had both my jabs, whether they do so is entirely a matter for them.