Reply to Mandatory vaccines for teachers/staff and eligible students

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous]Funny how the coronavirus epidemic is supposedly serious enough to cancel school for a year and a half, but not serious enough to require teachers to get vaccinated. [/quote]

As of today, they are required to either get vaccinated or get tested weekly. [b]Realistically, we can't get better than that. A few posters who apparently have authoritarian tendencies think you can bludgeon people into compliance, but it just doesn't work that way.[/b]
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This is just wrong.

Vaccines have been freely available for months and yet a huge share of adults still aren't vaccinated (the vaccination rate in Ward 8 is 24 percent, which is lower than it is in Mississippi). It's probably safe to assume that by now that the vast majority of people who still aren't vaccinated have decided that they aren't ever going to get vaccinated.

That's why everyone from the White House to the city of New York to the NFL is considering much more drastic measures to get people vaccinated. If we don't crank up the pressure, the mutations of the virus will get ever more dangerous and the pandemic will never end. Wearing a mask and just hoping that it eventually ends is not going to solve anything.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-vaccines-delta/2021/08/05/4359ac76-f567-11eb-a49b-d96f2dac0942_story.html[/quote]

You are having trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality. In your fantasy world, you just have to snap your fingers and everyone complies. In reality, a lot of people don't really care what you do with your fingers. If the Mayor simply told employees that they either had to get vaccinated or be fired, there would be an immediate court challenge. The order would be put on hold while the issue was adjudicated, and we would be no better off than we were yesterday. Your idea that Bowser could use dictatorial powers ignores the realty that Bowser is not a dictator.

But, recognizing that any mandate had to include medical or religious exemptions, and by working with the unions, the Mayor achieved the best result that we were ever going to get (at least in a reasonable time frame). Employees can have all the objections to vaccines that they want to. They can believe that vaccines turn them into zombies (apparently one theory going around). But, they then have to be tested weekly. [b]I predict that it won't be too many weeks before that gets old and vaccines don't look so bad.[/b] But, regardless, most will get vaccinated and the rest will be tested. All around, not a bad result. [/quote]

It's not likely to be painful enough (not physically but from an inconvenience standpoint) to make anyone change their mind, at least not in the beginning. Last year DCPS sent out Fed Ex tests weekly to any school based employees working in person who requested the service (which was opt in and then they just kept coming.) The communication from DCPS to opt in for home delivered weekly tests is likely on its way. This means the pain point will be dropping off the Fed Ex box, and even then it can probably be arranged to be picked up from the school. DCPS probably needs to make the weekly mandated tests inconvenient to actually change behavior. The union probably also agreed to the mandate because DCPS probably agreed to the red carpet COVID testing service. I mean, DC/DCPS is swimming in Fed COVID relief money and Lap Corp and Fed Ex aren't complaining.[/quote]

I was thinking the same thing.  The people I know who won’t get the vaccine have really dug in their heels.  Testing every week if it’s convenient (as you described) wouldn’t make them get the vaccine.  If you made testing more inconvenient they might get the vaccine or they would skip testing for several weeks and get fired.  Kind of a win/win for COVID safety in schools either way.[/quote]

Ugh. If it works this way, what a waste of those COVID relief funds. We have real, extreme needs, particularly in Wards 7 & 8, and...to just waste it on accommodating antivaxxers...

I'm hoping it's not true, because it would make me sick.[/quote]

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