I am trying to feel out if anyone else has declined the Covid vaccine and feeling backlash or tension with other co-workers? I have never heard so much discussion regarding nurse receiving or declining a vaccine in the 12 years I've been a nurse. Not sure why it should even matter but, I am getting a lot of pressure about it. I do not see why I am "crazy " if I made the decision against receiving the vaccine. I also do not understand co-workers pushing the vaccine on me and others, or insisting we are out of our minds. This is coming from management level as well as staff nurses. I am just appalled at the treatment and many of us who have declined the vaccine have kept to ourselves. For me, personally, I made the choice not to get it and I was done at that. It's been a month into our hospital vaccines and people will not just shut up about it.
Specializes in Educator, COVID Paperwork Expert (self-taught).
1 hour ago, Daisy Joyce said:
Has there been another vaccine where people still had to wear masks and social distance from *everybody* before?
Has there ever been another illness where people with absolutely no symptoms are forced to be tested multiple times? And then forced to isolate for 10 days regardless of symptoms or lack of symptoms? Has there ever been another illness where just being in contact with a person who has it requires a 14 day quarantine?
Long term care Infection Control nurse here-we had a staff member—routine testing, no symptoms—test positive yesterday. All staff have been wearing masks & goggles for almost a year. All the residents on the hall she worked on yesterday have received both vaccines, more than 2 weeks ago. Guidelines forced us to put all of the residents on that hall into isolation—no leaving their rooms for 2 weeks, all direct caregivers wearing N95 masks & gown & gloves when going into their rooms. No more family visits. No going out in the hall. No going to the dining room.
No residents on ANY hall can go to the dining room—we had opened modified dining last month, where where we had one resident at a table & tables 6 feet apart. There’s no end insight with these restrictions, no matter what we do.
Why is everyone being forced to quarantine? The CDC has said that fully vaccinated people who are asymptomatic do NOT need to quarantine following exposure. Who wrote these guidelines? They don't seem to be in line with current CDC guidelines. I would bring this up with the Powers That Be in your LTC because this seems like really needless, and emotionally harmful, isolation.
So we've got Abbott in Texas recinding mask mandates. What's going to follow? Enabling the people on the fence re taking the vaccine? Apparently all of the rest of the world are idiots for taking the vaccine or mask wearing! Non vaxxers know better than everyone else in the entire world!
Is Texas separated from the rest of the United States? Covid came from overseas, how much easier will it be to further set back the progress we've made because in today's world re travel?
Just as we quarantine the ill or the infectious for all other communicable diseases, I think if you haven't been vaccinated especially if it was offered, you should be charged and fined and not allowed to mix with society until you take the vaccine.
There are many things that I don't agree with but I conform for society's and jobs, requirements because it's conducive. I don't believe in mitigating stupidity regardless of feelings. If I need to bake a cake, I look for a recipe because it's knowledge I don't have. When I need specific medical attention I go to the experts. Luckily as a nurse I can porifice the advice and know what questions to ask.
In real life anyone who demonstrates stupidity on a regular basis, I distance myself from them because INEVITABLY they will impact my life with their idiocy!
Has there ever been another illness where just being in contact with a person who has it requires a 14 day quarantine?
Quarantine length varies by disease, but many airborne diseases recommend it. 3 weeks for Ebola and measles are the first 2 that come to mind. Diphtheria is 48 hours after starting antibiotics.
2 hours ago, turtlesRcool said:
Why is everyone being forced to quarantine? The CDC has said that fully vaccinated people who are asymptomatic do NOT need to quarantine following exposure. Who wrote these guidelines? They don't seem to be in line with current CDC guidelines. I would bring this up with the Powers That Be in your LTC because this seems like really needless, and emotionally harmful, isolation.
The CDC also says that state guidelines may supersede the CDC guidelines. In my state, the department of health has not updated quarantine guidelines since November, so they don't even address vaccines. Dumb, in my opinion.
I sense this thread is winding down. A few takeaways:
Having spent time in two careers, one almost exclusively male, another almost exclusively female, I've come to realize that "bullying" is an exclusive concern of the latter. Even though it occurs in both.
On 2/24/2021 at 11:34 PM, SmilingBluEyes said:
Please explain, as this seems contradictory. I have spent time in male dominated military work and now a nurse and I tend to disagree if you are saying nursing, being female is exclusively a "bullying" profession. I saw PLENTY of it in the military. Sorry to digress but this stood out to me.
Haha, I'm back here after a week. I guess the thread was not winding down!
Anyhow, we're in agreement. Maybe I was not clear. Bullying occurs in both. Absolutely. However, the female profession seems to be more obsessed about it. In this thread alone, the term has been used dozens and dozens of times. I never heard it used once during the twenty-five years I spent in my prior career. It's just an observation. Perhaps we just called it something different.
Saying you're being "bullied" implies victimhood. Among most males, proclaiming yourself bullied, much less, being perceived as a victim, is a fate far worse that being bullied.
Just as we quarantine the ill or the infectious for all other communicable diseases, I think if you haven't been vaccinated especially if it was offered, you should be charged and fined and not allowed to mix with society until you take the vaccine.
Wow, that's a very extreme viewpoint. Fine and jail/forced isolation for not taking a vaccine? Do you even understand how our laws work in the U.S.?
I would not take a single order from Dr. Fauci if my life depended on it because I have zero trust for a person who lies and then tries to justify the lies when caught vs. apologizing and stopping the bheavior.
Funny because this virus is going to be around long term and by then they will no longer be "young and healthy" just older and needing a shot.
Of course it will be around long term, the common cold has been as well, and will continue to be. Did they ever figure out a vaccine for the common cold? Not a chance.
It amazes me how infrequently the discussion on here between nurses ever mentions our immune systems and how to build it up so it can do it's job. Without a sufficient immune response, anyone can die from any potential pathogen. Especially if vitamin deficient. It's important to at least realize that our healthcare system is more focused on taking a pill to correct a problem rather than addressing the problem at its core and attempting to resolve it before medication because that will have the best results in the end similarly to infectious diseases where the media, our employers , the institutions all promote getting a vaccine and you don't hear a word about how much vitamin d , how much iodine, how much chromium you should how much magnesium and zinc you need and exercising , sleep and a balance of everything. It's just the mob mentality best with promoting the vaccine and shaming people who aren't wearing a mask. I think nurses are more in tune to the theater of the masks but the general public don't necessarily know that surgical masks are not intended to prevent viral transmission of the respiratory system. Even if you try explaining that for some people it's no use because they hear the so-called experts on TV talking about masks and how they save lives. I mean for crying out loud even the surgical mask manufacturers box states this mask "does not protect against coronavirus"
Well thank you! I work in long-term care & almost all of the residents got the vaccine, thankfully w/few side effects/reactions....Staff members have to gown & glove (in addition to the mask & goggles we already wear—masks for at least 3 days & goggles which may protect staff but do absolutely nothing to protect residents). ...I guess this long answer is out of the extreme frustration & helpless feeling we all have; these directives come from the health dept & way above the local level so we have no control over the issues I’ve listed above. ...
**thanks for reading my rant...it’s discouraging more than you can imagine to be in Lo g term care right now.
I started out in Long Term Care. 20-40 patients per shift, depending on who called out sick that day. I can't imagine what you folks went through this past year.
It's reasonable to differentiate between inferred or indirect evidence and direct evidence, but there is no evidence of any kind to support your claim that the vaccine does not prevent infection or transmission.
Sometime last century, I posted a link in this thread to a pre-peer reviewed study from Israel that indicated that, yes, the vaccine significantly reduced transmission. I linked to the actual study, but am too lazy to search a few hundred messages. Here's a media report referencing the same. Since then another study from Israel, with real world data, has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine (I admit, I have yet to read it).
The vaccine side effects are gnarly. I'm not surprised people are declining it.
I had "gnarly" side effects (basically flu symptoms, fever, vomiting, feeling like you fell down a flight of stairs) for 12-18 hours after Pfizer #1. Nothing after Pfizer #2. Nothing after Johnson and Johnson. Feeling out of it for a day was well worth it. In reviewing tales from co-workers, there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason, other than more people had side effects after #2 of the mRNA vaccines. Maybe some people's immune systems are just more ramped up, looking for a fight. I'm the only one I know who's had the J&J, so don't have even a meaningless anecdote.
love2banurse89, BSN, RN
59 Posts
Has there ever been another illness where people with absolutely no symptoms are forced to be tested multiple times? And then forced to isolate for 10 days regardless of symptoms or lack of symptoms? Has there ever been another illness where just being in contact with a person who has it requires a 14 day quarantine?