Thread: breaking covid rules

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

This is a really serious issue challenging employers, large and small, at the moment. Two similar but different issues; consider:

• employer allows unvaccinated employees to work alongside fully vaccinated people,
• employer allows unvaccinated customers normal accccess to premises.

Employee develops covid, which turns to long covid, which becomes life changing, claims she was infected by an unvaccinated fellow worker. Can the employee sue the boss for negligence for unecessarily exposing them to covid? [It could involve long term support, plus massive legal fees]

I do not know the answer to this question. But I do know that there is an army of lawyers looking for the opportunity to find out.

Next question; if any employer decides to lock out all unvaccinated people, then who is the policeman? What is his authority? Would this breach competition law?

First time that I have ever tried quoting myself !!!

Here is an ABC Story that sums up the issues that I raised:
Unvaccinated workers could pose serious legal risks to businesses, lawyer warns - ABC News

Bottom line is that we will not know for certain what the law is until it goes to court and works its way through the ponderous system, and the Full Bench of the High Court finally decides. This usually takes years.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

I consider Anti-Vaxxers to be my absolute enemy. They are dangerous, malicious, ignorant and deliberately provocative.

Enough of compromises. Enough of tolerance. Anti-scientific stupidity is a disease within itself.

I think we need to be a little kinder and aim for understanding of the anti-vax community. Because I don't have the data on anti-vaxers specifically, I'll go a little broader and consider those with vaccine hesitancy. I'm not advocating agreement, but a respectful attempt at understanding. Much like vegetarians, electric car owners, hermits and those with a religious faith, it would be both inaccurate and unfair to assume they all have the same motivation for the decisions they make. When we make no attempt to understand their position, there is every chance that our repeated dogma is meaningless to them, so we just shout louder and call them names. I'll come back to this later.

Firstly, vaccine hesitancy as of today is sitting at 12% (Vaccine Hesitancy Report Card (2021), Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research.). So to start off, that's a small proportion of the population.

Let's consider the state of functional literacy in Australia and its potential impact on vaccine hesitancy. In a paper published in January this year, (an eye-opening read) the author presents the following:
- Approximately 40% of Australians aged between 16 and 65 have literacy skills below the standard required for broad participation in work, education and training, and society.
- 22 Australian Government websites (Federal and WA state) which Google returned for searches of "coronavirus" and "COVID-19" were analysed.
- All analysed websites required a university reading level to understand.

Let that sink in.

What percentage of our population were actually able to understand official Government communication. This is a complex topic, and it's hard to convey nuanced information simply. So if those who struggle to read are left behind by authoritative sources, where are they left to find their information. No doubt they will continue to sift through results until they find something they understand. But now they're not getting information from trusted sources any more. The online search and content algorithms noted that they went down an anti-vaccination rabbit hole for twenty minutes, and now selects similar results for them in subsequent searches. Newspapers and their nightly TV news and current affairs shows are happy to splash inflammatory headlines which by their very nature are attention grabbing and easy to understand. Couple this with the illusionary Truth effect, and what do we expect the outcome to be? The fact that we only have 12% hesitancy is, I think, remarkable.

Now back to my first paragraph where we're shouting loudly and calling people names. Every person I know personally who hesitated before getting a vaccination was worried about the health of their kids and/or themselves. They aren't raving nutters or conspiracy theorists, just normal people who felt conflicted by the information they were exposed to. Compassion, understanding and reasoned, patient dialogue are the things that brought them around. When we start yelling at them and calling them names, I imagine it would be far easier and emotionally safer for them to disengage from public discourse, rather than risk a conversation with someone who may be able to broaden their understanding.

The next time you find yourself talking to someone with vaccine hesitancy, switch yourself to input mode only. Don't express your views, just listen, ask questions, and try to understand theirs.

We watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure with our kids last night, so I'll sign off with:

"Be excellent to each other."

As the restrictions get lifted more people will get Covid and need to be hospitalised. In the majority they will be the unvaxed.

It doesn't matter as to why they did not get vaccinated they just need to understand that if they get sick and start to die they should not expect to move up the hospital admittance list ahead of other equally sick people who did the right thing and got vaxed.

There are lots of other reasons to finish up in hospital but just because you couldn't be bothered to get a shot should not be one of them.

If they have a genuine medical reason to not be vaxed then they should be exempt.

As soon as the gov start to enforce this the problem will go away, just like when Covid started to spread, vaxing took off.

Sorry if this attitude upsets a few but I get really p's'd off by the few b's that think only of themselves and ignore the risk and stress that they expose people like me who are in a medically vulnerable position.

LanceC, thank you for your wisdom. I think its good. I'll feed that into the old Noggin and assimilate it

Lance

Thank you for your reasoned and considerate approach. You have in fact highlighted what happens when the majority start to become "afraid" of the minority and the consequences it might have on them. Actually terrorism is another example of this. Without knowing actual numbers, I suspect that there are very few genuine terrorists, ( a few more sympathisers of course) but the effect they generate, without going into the ethics, is quite out of proportion.

Coincidentally I have become aware of people not wanting to get the vaccine and this does trouble me more than a little as one is a nurse and the other is a doctor....... Their issues are that the vaccine rollout has been considerably hastened compared to traditional timeframes (arguably understandably, but not to their satisfaction) and the full implications are not completely understood yet. However, these concerns were not enough to prevent me having my two shots. To some extent now the issue is whether the vaccines, which were fundamentally developed to combat the original virus, are going to be effective on the Delta variant or indeed any other mutation that develops and is virulent.

Will time only tell?

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by LanceC

Let's consider the state of functional literacy in Australia and its potential impact on vaccine hesitancy. In a paper published in January this year, (an eye-opening read) the author presents the following:
- Approximately 40% of Australians aged between 16 and 65 have literacy skills below the standard required for broad participation in work, education and training, and society.
- 22 Australian Government websites (Federal and WA state) which Google returned for searches of "coronavirus" and "COVID-19" were analysed.
- All analysed websites required a university reading level to understand.

I made a comment earlier about modern science being based on numbers, and that the numbers might be "statistically significant" but that doesn't always make them relevant to the real world. Another trend of modern science is to link datasets based on numbers without ever proving a causal relationship. This, I suspect, may be an example. I personally know, and through the pharmacy I am exposed to, a number of people who won't get vaccinated. Those people comprise a mix of all socio-economic groups, and people of widely varying intellects and education levels. Whilst it is true that a portion are not capable of understanding (or in some cases even reading) a detailed analysis of the case for vaccination, it is also true that most of that particular group would not even attempt to understand the issues, their views are based on other things entirely - their worldview is skewed away from what many of us consider to be the norm. Equally there are large numbers of people of similar education levels who have happily been vaccinated, so lack of understanding would not seem to be the problem. That would seem to be backed up by the fact that I also know nurses, teachers and one marketing manager (for a pharmaceutical company!) who refuse to be vaccinated - understanding the data surely cannot be the issue for them? None of them, by the way, are objecting on religious grounds or [edit: typo] due to medical conditions.

There are a great many issues involved, from basic belief systems through to outright fear of needles (and for some people it's easier to scoff at a vaccine than admit being worried about a needle!). Lack of reading ability may be a small part of the problem, but realistically you don't need to understand the details to understand that it's the right thing to do. On a daily basis we all use and do things that we don't understand, and we do so on the basis that someone who does understand it has decided that it is the right thing to do. Whether it's using a phone, driving a car or taking a tablet, very few people understand the details of what they are doing. I am unsure why one particular vaccine (and in a lot of cases it is one particular vaccine, many of these people have 'flu shots every year) should require a greater degree of understanding than the myriad of other things that people do on faith!

I read a few interesting things about sociopathy and anti-mask wearing, plus anti-vaxxers. (My daughter is a psych and talks of these things)

These people absolutely DO NOT CARE about you.

This makes them genuinely dangerous people.

Sociopathic traits linked to non-compliance with mask guidelines and other COVID-19 containment measures

In the online study, 1,578 Brazilian adults completed a measure of maladaptive personality traits between May 21 and June 29, 2020. They also completed assessments of empathy and compliance with COVID-19 containment measures.

The researchers found that those who scored higher on measures of callousness, deceitfulness, hostility, impulsivity, manipulativeness, and risk-taking tended to be less compliant with COVID-19 containment measures, such as socially distancing, washing hands frequently, and wearing a facemask in public. Participants with greater empathy, on the other hand, tended to be more compliant with COVID-19 containment measures.

Lance..a most intelligent, and sensible comment. Well said.
For me, I do as the Amish do..shun the anti's.

In Victoria it is rather simple, employers, employees and customers for most events are required to be double vaccinated and show the details to the venue.

For those not so vaccinated only little is open, basically food and medical need, but click and collect is available.

All this is legally mandated by the chief health officer and is expected to remain in force until well into 2023.

Originally Posted by Bohdan

As the restrictions get lifted more people will get Covid and need to be hospitalised. In the majority they will be the unvaxed.

It doesn't matter as to why they did not get vaccinated they just need to understand that if they get sick and start to die they should not expect to move up the hospital admittance list ahead of other equally sick people who did the right thing and got vaxed.

That's a VERY slippery slope to start on.

Let me preface my comments by stating that I am a person with health risks from the unvaccinated and I too held similar opinions, but on further consideration I changed my mind.

Consider the obese person who ends up taking up an ICU bed for a heart operation, should they have taken more care of their eating habits?
Or the smoker who a has a stroke.
What about the alcoholic with or without mental health issues ....
Or the woodworker who for years didn't use PPE
Or the baby that wasn't vaxed.
Or the speeding driver.
ETC

It's too bloody hard to untangle most of these things as we never can know the full backstory in sufficient detail and it will take a room full of medicos and lawyers to reach any sort of half sensible decision. When the time comes doctors may need to make hard choices but my understanding is they choose based on likelihood of recovery and not the patients medical background.

The people that believe others should NOT be given equal medical treatment when presenting to a hospital are IMHO starting to exhibit behaviour a bit like some vax deniers .

Originally Posted by BobL

It's too bloody hard to untangle most of these things as we never can know the full backstory in sufficient detail and it will take a room full of medicos and lawyers to reach any sort of half sensible decision. When the time comes doctors may need to make hard choices but my understanding is they choose based on likelihood of recovery and not the patients medical background.

Bob

The essence of "triage" I think. Triage does not come into effect while ever there are sufficient beds and sufficient doctors.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by BobL

That's a VERY slippery slope to start on.

Consider the obese person who ends up taking up an ICU bed for a heart operation, should they have taken more care of their eating habits?
Or the smoker who a has a stroke.
What about the alcoholic with or without mental health issues ....
Or the woodworker who for years didn't use PPE
Or the baby that wasn't vaxed.
Or the speeding driver.
ETC

Exactly as I said a few posts ago, who makes the call as to whether "self inflicted" conditions get treated when "no fault" conditions are already queueing up?

Originally Posted by BobL

..... and it will take a room full of medicos and lawyers to reach any sort of half sensible decision.

Leaving it to the two groups of people who stand to make financial benefit from the situation is a sure-fire recipe for a time consuming process ending with bad decision!

... It's too bloody hard to untangle most of these things as we never can know the full backstory in sufficient detail and it will take a room full of medicos and lawyers to reach any sort of half sensible decision. When the time comes doctors may need to make hard choices but my understanding is they choose based on likelihood of recovery and not the patients medical background. ...

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Bob

The essence of "triage" I think. Triage does not come into effect while ever there are sufficient beds and sufficient doctors.

Regards
Paul

Well put, Bob and Paul. But I think they do take a person's medical background into account insofar as it affects their future recovery. For example, if two patients are vying for a single "treatment spot", both have an equal chance of recovery, but one then has a life expectancy of one year and the other twenty years, then the latter may get preference. It is a very difficult moral and ethical choice. But failure to make that choice quickly may mean both die - an even worse option.

Triaging still occurs even when there is full staffing. For example, suppose you have a fully staffed hospital ward in a routine situation and there is a Code Blue Alarm - patients heart has stopped and they need resuscitation - time is of the essence. All nurses and doctors respond immediately and begin resuscitation; if more staff there than needed they prioritise amongst themselves who returns to the ward - This is essentially a series of triaging decisions. The cardiac arrest gets top priority because it is so time sensitive, then other patients are prioritised in the order that nurses return to them.

Perhaps a note on their medicare record?

"I have wilfully declined Vaccination and decline hospital treatment for when/if I get COVID"..... Tick the box, press the thumb-print....

THAT would focus the mind....