colleagues not vaccinated

[TheBullfinch]

It's expected that from 1st August, our office staff will be asked to return to work in the office.

In a small office of 8, 4 have not had the vaccine (ethical, religious and anxiety related reasons given).

Would you br happy to return to work in this situation?

Yes I’d be happy to go back.

If the colleague who’s worried about it is CEV though maybe he’s got one of the conditions that means vaccines won’t work as well for him? In which case I can see why he personally might have some concerns.

@bluetongue - Christian fundamentalists I think.

I was vaccinated against mumps via my mmr I still caught it from the antivaxer family down the road was quite ill but apparently not as ill as I would have been this did not make me feel better

You are right to feel wary but we all do need to start living with this virus

@Theunamedcat

I was vaccinated against mumps via my mmr I still caught it from the antivaxer family down the road was quite ill but apparently not as ill as I would have been this did not make me feel better

You are right to feel wary but we all do need to start living with this virus

But where did that family get it from? Because 99% of people are vaccinated…..

99% of people were not vaccinated when I was younger there was an entire antivax community in my town at one point my mom is a friendly person welcomed them to the area helped them navigate the best childcare/nurseries etc (the ones without regular nits and worms) playdates etc then I got mumps turns out they dont believe in vaccines my mom called them "needle dodgers" after that 🙄 we didn't see them much and then they moved i live in a rather strange town 😳

As a healthcare worker, I get the flu vaccine to protect patients
I got the covid vaccine as soon as it was available to me in order to protect myself but also to reduce risk for patients, and my parents and clinically vulnerable friends - there is now pretty good evidence for this.
If I was your employer, I would probably want to see continued social distancing and mask wearing whatever the legislation is in August, as unfortunately with 50% of the staff unvaccinated the risk to the clinically vulnerable member of staff is higher than it should be.

I can't say I blame your colleague.
Of course nobody has to state whether they've been vaccinated, that's entirely their right, as is the choice not to have it.
That doesn't mean that someone who is vulnerable has to work with them.
That's his right.

I get it. It's like if you have blood cancer, they found that only 13% of people had antibodies 3 weeks post vaccine whereas 97% of people without blood cancer had antibodies. It worries me how protected I am

@bluetongue

It wouldn’t bother me.

As an aside though, which religions don’t believe in vaccines?

There are no religious reasons not to have the vaccine.

It wouldn’t bother me. We went grocery shopping every week before anyone was vaccinated. Went on a plane on holiday last September before anyone was vaccinated. And many other incidents of close contact with other people before anyone was vaccinated. Why would the risk be any greater now?

@Polkij never heard of Christian Scientists?

I share a small office with a coworker who will not be vaxxed. I ventilate as much as possible and wear a mask and will do so until my DH is also double jabbed. If I was CEV I absolutely would not want to share that office.

I realise that I'm now the greater risk to my (over 50) coworker and that makes me uncomfortable too.

I've worked all through as I'm in healthcare (hence I'm up this early on a sunday)
I've worn ppe throughout, though.

@MorriseysGladioli

I can't say I blame your colleague. Of course nobody has to state whether they've been vaccinated, that's entirely their right, as is the choice not to have it. That doesn't mean that someone who is vulnerable has to work with them. That's his right.

It does mean they have to work with them if they want to keep their job.

I can't say I blame your colleague.
Of course nobody has to state whether they've been vaccinated, that's entirely their right, as is the choice not to have it.
That doesn't mean that someone who is vulnerable has to work with them.
That's his right

Of course he has to, unless he hands his notice in

Yeah I’d be fine with it. Emily Oster (economist) has a good framework for thinking about questions like this: taking the probability they’d have covid (based on community rates), the probability they’d pass it on to contacts (secondary attack rate), the probability a double vaccinated person would catch it, the probability if you caught it you’d have anything more than a mild case, etc. etc.

When you multiply those things together you come to some really small numbers, (which of course will be increasing in an environment of high community cases and delta, or if you are at personally high risk of hospitalisation/serious illness) which I was a level of risk I was comfortable taking.

It wouldn't worry me per se, but unless they had medical reasons I would be considering them selfish muppets, and I know all my colleagues well enough to say that to their face.

Sounds like he wants an excuse not to return to the office, if it wasn't that it would be something else.

As a staff member or visitor, I wouldn't worry about it, because I'm double jabbed and the journey is as much of a risk just from volume of people.

As an employer, I would be concerned about the risks to the CEV staff member and my liability for that, as well as the costs of all their sick leave when they inevitably share covid amongst themselves. As well as worrying how I employed so many unintelligent people. So as an employer I'd be getting formal legal and HR advice about the next steps to take. At a minimum I'd be looking to put the CEV person in a different room than the vaccine refusers.

[quote TheBullfinch]@bluetongue - Christian fundamentalists I think.[/quote]
Oh Jesus. I'd have a number of other bigger problems with such colleagues than vaccinations if they made their views known.

Do you know all their other medical history and vaccination status? Of course you don't because it's none of your concern.

Yes, because you cannot enforce a medical procedure no matter what