Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Syt]

In Austria the employer can't ask you to get vaccinated, but they can require new hires to be vaccinated. I've seen several job ads asking applicants to be vaccinated, maybe 20-25%.

Here employers can't even ask for your vaccination status. It's illegal to request the medical history of new hires.

Same here (for the already employed). As job requirement for new hires it's a grey area, but the government has given the green light, and so far it's not been challenged.

[Zanza]

Interesting.  So parents can opt their kids out of vaccines, like measles and such?

A measles vaccination mandate was enacted three years ago for children in kindergarten and school as well as their teachers and for care-givers in certain institutions for disabled persons. So as the constitutional article says, a law can infringe upon these freedoms. That said, the Constitutional Court has not yet decided on that law yet. Back in the 1950s there was a smallpox vaccination mandate, which was apparently constitutional. 

However, I read that the difference between measles and Sars-Cov2 is that the former can be effectively managed with herd immunity, the latter cannot as it will become endemic like influenza.

Also, employers are not allowed to ask their employees for vaccination status here, which I find problematic as it makes maximum protection measures necessary.

[Syt]

Actually, starting next week, all Austrian workplaces require anyone who has contact with anyone (i.e. including back office workers) to be tested, vaccinated, or recovered from infection, else they can't enter the workspace.

Whether this will be followed in practice remains to be seen.

[Zanza]

We have that here as well, but employers may not ask for proof of your status.

[Sheilbh]

Yes, refusing medical care is obviously a basic right of every person. Specifically, the state has to safeguard "physical integrity", which I find a poor translation from German. It means that you are sovereign over your body.

Maybe physical or personal autonomy?

I'm not sure of the position in the UK in terms of vaccine mandates - it's not my area. But I believe there needs to be a specific law or regulation mandating employees are vaccinated. There is one for care homes (or, technically, "Care Quality Commission-registered care homes for adults") and the government is planning to introduce one for NHS staff. I could be wrong but I suspect the NHS one will be in relation to staff who come into contact with patients as opposed to, say, the graphics design team or the app engineers. But I think Labour and the unions are opposed to vaccine mandates generally, which is a shame because I think they are a good idea especially for high risk areas like healthcare and care homes.

In Austria the employer can't ask you to get vaccinated, but they can require new hires to be vaccinated. I've seen several job ads asking applicants to be vaccinated, maybe 20-25%.

Yeah it's complicated here. In general it is possible in the same way that checking people's covid status is possible, but you need to show that it would be necessary rather than just a nice to have. So that means you can probably only ask if, because of your place of work, employees are more likely to encounter infected individuals, or your employees could pose a risk to clinically vulnerable individuals.

That could be quite broad and could, say, include supermarkets etc - but because my understanding is employers can't mandate vaccinations (and it could be discrimination to fire someone who wasn't vaccinated) - I don't think it's worth it. There's practically nothing you can do with the information except, maybe, move the unvaccinated into back office roles.

Obviously if there's a legal mandate for people to be vaccinated, then employers can ask.

[Tamas]

In Hungary, employers will be allowed to mandate vaccinations from November (the state as employer will do so) and mandatory masks on public transport will also be back. This is about a week after Orbán was talking about how there is no need for restrictions because Hungarians can be relied on to be reasonable, so the data must be looking bad.

[crazy canuck]

In Austria the employer can't ask you to get vaccinated, but they can require new hires to be vaccinated. I've seen several job ads asking applicants to be vaccinated, maybe 20-25%.

Here employers can't even ask for your vaccination status. It's illegal to request the medical history of new hires.

However, there's a loophole: since safety protocols differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated employees, they can ask you which one would apply to you.

Here it is often inadvisable to seek medical history before hiring because medical history is almost always going to be irrelevant to whether they can do the job and so it will be a prima facie discrimination claim.

However, not being vaccinated is not a medical condition and so it is not a protected ground here.  The protection would only arise if the reason for not being vaccinated is because of a medical condition. 

It gets a bit convoluted but bottom line is employers can ask here so long as they are careful to find out why.  If it is simply a choice not to be vaccinated the employer can decided not to hire without legal liability.

For existing employees there is a risk of constructive dismissal because there is now a fundamental change to the terms of the contract - ie a term that the employee must be vaccinated has now been added.  That is the biggest risk here.

For unionized employees it is fairly straightforward to pass a policy requiring vaccination.   

[Tamas]

You can tell I have had a tiring week, just realised I wrote employee instead of employer above. 

Mixed messaging in Hungary though, the group of companies owned by richest man and Orban's human wallet, announced they won't do a mask mandate.

Will be interesting to see how bad it goes there this winter. Trying to compensate for vaccinating a lot of the elderly with Sinopharm, months ago they introduced a booster shot scheme were you cannot get the same vaccine you got for the first two shots and made rules on what the third can be based on what you had originally, for example after Sinopharm you are getting Pfizer. Takeup isn't great as I understand, though.

[The Larch]

It seems that in Florida even the Surgeon General is an asshole nutter.

Florida surgeon general refused to wear a face mask during office visit, state senator says

A Florida state senator says state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo -- a skeptic of many Covid-19 safety measures -- refused her request to put on a face mask while visiting her legislative office, even after she told him she had a serious medical condition.

Tina Polsky, a Democrat representing parts of Palm Beach and Broward counties, told CNN's Ana Cabrera Monday that she has a strict masking policy for her office. The policy is necessary because she's been diagnosed with breast cancer, which makes her more vulnerable to Covid-19 and other medical conditions, she said.

Ladapo, who was recently appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, and two of his aides entered her office for a Senate confirmation interview maskless, despite signage outside the door about masks being required, Polsky said. Ladapo was asked several times to don a mask but he refused, she said.

"There were five people. I'm masked, my aide is masked and the three of them were not and it's a small space so the whole thing became very uncomfortable," Polsky said.

"He said he doesn't do interviews with a mask on, and I said I can hear you perfectly, I've had many meetings here," she added.
Ladapo suggested they meet outside and he appeared to want to talk about why that would be a solution, Polsky said. "He was trying to negotiate. He thought by suggesting outside he was giving me an accommodation."

CNN reached out to Ladapo for comment but has not heard back.

Polsky said she told Ladapo she had a serious medical condition, though she had not publicly announced her cancer diagnosis at that point. Still, he refused to put on a mask, she said.

"I think he was really just trying to have fun with me -- as he said later on when he left the office -- and kind of push my buttons," Polsky said. "I was really frustrated that he wasn't respecting my wishes."

On top of this, the guy seems to be against lockdowns, mask or vaccine mandates, and won't even say publicly if he's vaccinated himself or not. 

Ladapo is a controversial choice for that role, being a cardiovascular specialist without training in epidemiology, virology, nor infectious diseases. Ladapo's background raises other red flags—he appeared in a video for America's Frontline Doctors, a right-wing group known for promoting misinformation, ivermectin, and hydroxychloroquine. He was also a signatory to the Great Barrington Declaration, which promotes "herd immunity" and normalization of activities as the solution to the covid pandemic; why not for polio and smallpox, too?

Ladapo promptly stated he would "reject fear as a way of making policies in public health." He has argued against many public health measures, including lockdowns and has argued for allowing individuals and parents to decide, for example, to make their own decision as to whether to quarantine. He's also opposed masks and vaccine mandates, claiming that vaccination has "been treated almost like a religion, and that's just senseless." Ladapo has also claimed, despite ample evidence to the contrary, that "The risks of a COVID-19 vaccine may outweigh the benefits for certain low-risk populations, such as children, young adults and people who have recovered from COVID-19."

[Syt]

This is fine.



Number of people in hospitals and ICUs is going up fast, too. The hotspots are the states of Lower and Upper Austria, and Salzburg. Vienna's numbers per capita are less than half those in Lower Austria at the moment.

Only 10% of the cases seem to be fully vaccinated persons. Government said weeks ago there would be no new lockdowns ... for vaccinated persons.

[Syt]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ice-cube-exits-sony-comedy-oh-hell-no-after-declining-covid-19-vaccine-1235038369/

Ice Cube Exits Sony Comedy 'Oh Hell No' After Declining COVID-19 Vaccine

The Sony film, which co-stars Jack Black, had been set to shoot this winter in Hawaii.

Ice Cube has departed Sony's upcoming comedy, Oh Hell No, in which he would've co-starred with Jack Black, after declining a request from producers to get vaccinated, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.

Sony had no comment. A personal representative for the star declined to comment. WME, his agency, declined to comment. Oh Hell No is being produced by Matt Tolmach and Black, who both did not offer a comment.

Ice Cube and Black partnered on the project in June. The Sony film was looking to shoot this winter in Hawaii with Kitao Sakurai, the filmmaker behind Netflix's breakout comedy Bad Trip, in the director's seat. Producers on Oh Hell No made the request that cast on the project would need to be vaccinated.

[Grey Fox]

That fits.

I don't know how you could expect Ice Cube to trust anything from any government. Dude's traumatized like a Russian.

[The Brain]

Today was a good day. I didn't get vaccinated.

[Eddie Teach]

I have no comment on this story.

[Zanza]

Another map showing how dire the situation is in Romania and Bulgaria.