Employers can require employees to be vacksinated before they can return to work. Let me say that again. The company you work for can legally force you to get injected with an experimental drug before you can go back to your job.
Holy shit.
I’m one of those people that are being called “vackseen hesitant”. Actually, the term is “vaccine hesitant” but, you know, it’s not actually a vaccine. And I’m a stickler for details. So, I’m going to go with the more scientifically accurate (and totally made up) “vackseen”.
I have no problem at all if you want to get vacksinated. If that what floats your boat, go ahead. I just don’t believe that, for me, the potential reward is worth the potential risk. I’m not afraid of catching COVID-19. But if you are, that’s cool. Go ahead and get vacksinated.
Everyone should know by now that people who have underlying medical conditions are at most risk of having a severe reaction from catching COVID-19. Those people were offered the vackseen first. Most of them got injected, some of them didn’t. But the vackseens have been available to everyone now for weeks.
So, if you’re one of those at-risk people, you’ve had plenty of time to get your shot. Where I live, injection facilities have no waiting. You can get in and out with your vacksination in 5 minutes, tops. Everyone who wants the vackseen can easily get it. We no longer have to worry about “killing grandma” because if grandma wants to be vacksinated she already is.
Everyone should also know by now that the overwhelming majority of people outside the risk group do not have a severe reaction to the disease. Many of them won’t even know they had it. The risk to us from catching COVID-19 is small and, if you believe in the vackseens, the risk to others from us catching COVID-19 is miniscule.
So, why would an employer force employees to get vackinsated? It makes no sense.
After all, everyone who wants to enjoy any protection a vackseen may give them is, and has been for weeks, free to do so. If someone is too lazy or indifferent to get their ass down to CVS and get vacksinated, that’s their problem.
As an unvacksinated person, I’m going to speak for all unvacksinated people and say that we accept any risk associated with our unvacksinated status. We’re not afraid of catching COVID-19. And no vacksinated person should be either.
So, we’re cool. Right? If everyone who wants whatever benefit the vackseen provides has been vacksinated, then there is no reason at all to force anyone to get injected. That’s how I see it anyway.
If I choose not to be vacksinated, it’s because I’ve weighed the risks between having an adverse reaction to an experimental drug versus catching a probably-asymptomatic case of COVID-19.
The chances of me dying from COVID-19 or having a severe adverse reaction to the vackseen are both extremely low. The odds of either one happening are pretty close to zero, but not zero. So, I’m going to go with the non-experimental-let-my-immune-system-handle-it option.
But, if my employer forces me to choose between a paycheck or getting vacksinated, that’s different. Because then I’m choosing between a nearly 100% chance I won’t get paid (or, at best, just damage my career), and a greater than zero chance that I might die or get seriously injured from the vackseen.
Now, to be perfectly honest, I need to tell you that employers can offer accommodations to unvacksinated people. Those accommodations include requiring masks, social distancing and giving them a different job to do. While that’s better than not getting paid, I once again speak for all unvacksinated people when I say we consider those requirements to be cruel, discriminatory and totally unnecessary.
There is no logical reason why any business should force their employees to be vacksinated. They’re not protecting anyone because the vackseens are free and available to whoever wants them and those of us who remain unvacksinated don’t want their protection.
For no good reason, employers have been given the ability to force employees to do something they’d rather not do by threatening them with something else. That’s called coercion. And it’s illegal.
