In the end, most people just get the damn shots. The rest is sound and fury.
Protests, lawsuits and national media coverage surrounded Houston Methodist Hospital in June when it became the country’s first major health system to require a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment.
Now, as other Houston healthcare providers begin to enforce similar mandates, the drama has faded into the background. Hospitals are not facing the same pushback, officials say, and only a small portion of employees are holding out on the vaccine.
“There is a lot of noise around (mandates), and the anti-vaxx movement has been vociferous, but this is more of an outcry from the community rather than when it comes down to the brass tacks in facilities,” said Carrie Kroll, vice president of advocacy, quality and public health at the Texas Hospital Association.
Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine were the first to reach their vaccine mandate deadlines following Methodist.
Baylor required its roughly 9,000 faculty and staff members to be fully vaccinated by Sept. 15. Those who did not attest to receiving their vaccine were subject to “progressive discipline,” which includes a series of warnings that ends in firing, according to a statement. The vast majority of employees complied, while about 3 percent were granted an exemption, according to numbers provided by the school.
One employee resigned. Another five will be fired after facing warnings.
[…]
Texas Children’s Hospital also passed its first-dose deadline on Sept. 21. Its doctors are employed by Baylor and already covered by the school’s mandate. In a statement, the hospital said “a very small number of employees did not receive the vaccine and therefore chose to leave the organization.”
Texas Children’s spokesperson Natasha Barrett said the hospital could not disclose a specific number of people who left or whether any exemptions were granted.
See here, here, and here for some background. A lawsuit by the (very small number of) fired Methodist employees was dismissed, though it is being appealed. There’s growing evidence from around the country that this is what happens pretty much everywhere that there’s a vaccine mandate – lots of loud whining and complaining and threats to quit, followed by near-universal compliance. This is why I’m happy for the San Antonio ISD vaccine mandate fight to move slowly through the courts, because regardless of outcome it’s going to cause people to get the damn vaccine. And don’t anyone tell Greg Abbott, but Southwest Airlines is doing a mandate now, too. The more, the very much better.
The mandates work, but the vaccines don’t….look at Harvard Business School. Sweden and Denmark are suspending the Moderna vaccine in people under 30, how would you feel if you took your kid to get vaccinated and he died due to your selfishness?
Another thing, is that people have quit and been fired, nurses, etc. meanwhile the hospitals are crying that they are overwhelmed…but it’s self inflicted. Or are they exaggerating?
We must remember the key point: these Trump vaccines are a giveaway to Trump’s pals. The Pfizer and Moderna executives are New Billionaires. I hope no more progressives complain about Big Pharma and its greed. It’s your fault, after all….
Jason,
The vaccines do work. The risk of injury from a vaccine is infinitesimally small compared to the real risk of death and long term COVID effects on those who fail to get vaccinated. I have had nearly a dozen COVID deaths touching my co-workers and church family for unvaccinated folks in the past few weeks.
The few stragglers among the nurses who refuse to get vaccinated are not significant in number. As I recall in the case of Methodist system, it was about 150 out of a work force of 40,000. The folks overwhelming our ERs are a subset of the million or so in the area who have not gotten vaccinated, and 150 nurses will not reverse that situation.
It is sickening to see the White House crowing about how they have coerced the public. What happened to Captain Empathy? What happened to the promise that vaccine mandates wouldn’t be necessary? Obviously the president has failed, his plan was ill conceived, since he had to change his plan.
The vaccines “work” as a symptom mitigation treatment. They don’t stop you from getting and/or spreading COVID. Look at the infections in Israel, look at Harvard Business School, many places with high vaccination rates have “outbreaks.” The vaccines do work to help the billionaire pharma executives get more billions.
At some point, a line will need to be held. Anyone can get the vaccination if you feel you are a high risk person, but you should not be coerced to get it, if you choose not to. The line needs to be held, they have continued to move the goal posts from two weeks to flatten the curve, to shut down everything, to wear a mask, to get a vaccine or else. They aren’t just going to stop taking more and more away. That’s what makes them tyrants.