For those of you who have recognized your employer can terminate you for not taking the COVID vaccine and have decided on or are considering employment elsewhere please share your experiences here. How do you feel about having to make that choice?
The purpose of this thread is not to condemn those making this decision or debate whether they should vaccinate or not.
4 hours ago, jive turkey said:Fair enough, let's consider this:
Vax or unvax the virus can be spread. Vax or unvax everybody has to wear a mask. Looks like we are going back to mandatory n95/100. The counter to that is one of those is "more likely" to spread. Wouldn't surprise me if we find out later that's not true or not as true as believed. Remember we were told the vaccinated could take their mask off? And it may very well be true unvax spread it more. I won't take that away. No nurse has gone to work without masks in a long time.
What I argued elsewhere is mandate rapid testing before each shift instead of the drug. That's a great way to protect the patient ; knowing everyone on the floor tested negative that day. The NBA did something like this. It may be challenging and inconvenient, but why else not?
Even prior to Covid, vaccines have been well established to be able to end pandemics, primarily through reducing the ability of viruses to spread, it's certainly worthy to consider that Covid might be the exception, but the vast majority of research specific to Covid has reaffirmed this to be true.
In order to spread, viruses need to replicate, to replicate they need a suitable host, and we know that vaccines inhibit a viruses ability to replicate. We measure this through studying viral loads in the vaccinated vs unvaccinated, and by looking at the rate of community transmission relative to the rate the community is vaccinated.
The NBA did daily PCR tests, which involved having a service that went to each player's house (home team) and getting a swab the morning of each game, that doesn't seem practical for entire hospitals to do for their staff on a day to day basis.
And correct my if I'm wrong, but what you seem to be questioning is whether there is enough solid evidence in yet of the benefit to others of getting vaccinated. Since we're only now getting into the worst part of the current Delta wave, we're not going to know until it's too late how much death and harm we could have avoided had more of us been vaccinated. But there's clearly enough data so far to say that to give us the best chance of avoiding a catastrophic outcome with this wave, we all need to get vaccinated.
In 10 years in the ICU I've had to put only two patients younger than me into body bags. I have had to put 2 patients in their early 40's into bags in the last 3 days, one of which I at least managed to facetime with his daughters before he got intubated, one was 8, I have a 9 year old, that was brutal but not as brutal as when he died.
The other day I had a married couple, in their 40's, with 3 young children, 2 of which are younger than 10. We put them in a double room so they could be together, the wife then got intubated. She was doing OK on the vent, not paralyzed, under mild sedation. The husband then coded, got tubed, all while the wife looked on. We've since been having to figure out who is going to take the kids at some point since neither will likely survive, and if they do will like go to a vent farm.
So my question is, what's the threshold? Is this not yet a bad enough situation to justify the push for everyone to get vaccinated?
Effectiveness of vaccine is waning with the prevalence of the Delta variant. It is now estimated at 66%. From the latest CDC report
During December 14, 2020–August 14, 2021, full vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines was 80% effective in preventing RT-PCR–confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection among frontline workers, further affirming the highly protective benefit of full vaccination up to and through the most recent Summer U.S. COVID-19 pandemic waves. The VE point estimates declined from 91% before predominance of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant to 66% since the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant became predominant at the HEROES-RECOVER cohort study sites; however, this trend should be interpreted with caution because VE might also be declining as time since vaccination increases and because of poor precision in estimates due to limited number of weeks of observation and few infections among participants. As with all observational VE studies, unmeasured and residual confounding might be present. Active surveillance through the cohort is ongoing and VE estimates will be monitored continuously.
https://www.CDC.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e4.htm?s_cid=mm7034e4_w
This is based on the weeks where Delta was greater than 50% of the cases. Delta is now estimated at 98% of cases. It looks like, as predicted by some, that efficacy is waning.
I am a nursing student, with a medical exemption for the vaccine, just praying I make it through school. I am often afraid of sharing my perspective because so many people express some of the views in this thread. Fortunately, I don't plan to work in any of these institutions when I am done so I just need to make it through school.
Good point about
4 minutes ago, MunoRN said:We measure this through studying viral loads in the vaccinated vs unvaccinated, and by looking at the rate of community transmission relative to the rate the community is vaccinated.
Ah yes, and here's a preprint study from the Lancet (still undergoing peer review) that shows viral load in fully vaccinated is 251 times higher than unvaccinated.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3897733
2 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:You have more options if you are vaccinated. I hurt for patients who must have close contact with unvaccinated staff. That increased risk while they are already in care is undeserved.
Why do you think that those promoting widespread vaccination don't think that this situation "sucks". The fact that it "sucks" motivates us to mask, distance, vaccinate and encourage vaccination. It apparently doesn't suck enough to motivate some nurses to vaccinate or to stop arguing against vaccination.
You don't care. You ARE "safe and effective". No. Your side doesn't think it sucks. You're side thinks the OPPOSITION sucks. A fully vaccinated population gets infected. What do you have to say? Nothing. You don't care. All you and the government wants is compliance. My side wants questions answered. MY SIDE demands respect. You refuse to give it. Thus my side ignores you.
11 minutes ago, mdOldie said:Effectiveness of vaccine is waning with the prevalence of the Delta variant. It is now estimated at 66%. From the latest CDC report
During December 14, 2020–August 14, 2021, full vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines was 80% effective in preventing RT-PCR–confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection among frontline workers, further affirming the highly protective benefit of full vaccination up to and through the most recent Summer U.S. COVID-19 pandemic waves. The VE point estimates declined from 91% before predominance of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant to 66% since the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant became predominant at the HEROES-RECOVER cohort study sites; however, this trend should be interpreted with caution because VE might also be declining as time since vaccination increases and because of poor precision in estimates due to limited number of weeks of observation and few infections among participants. As with all observational VE studies, unmeasured and residual confounding might be present. Active surveillance through the cohort is ongoing and VE estimates will be monitored continuously.
https://www.CDC.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e4.htm?s_cid=mm7034e4_w
This is based on the weeks where Delta was greater than 50% of the cases. Delta is now estimated at 98% of cases. It looks like, as predicted by some, that efficacy is waning.
I am a nursing student, with a medical exemption for the vaccine, just praying I make it through school. I am often afraid of sharing my perspective because so many people express some of the views in this thread. Fortunately, I don't plan to work in any of these institutions when I am done so I just need to make it through school.
Thanks for sharing this info
33 minutes ago, 10GaugeNeedles said:You don't care. You ARE "safe and effective". No. Your side doesn't think it sucks. You're side thinks the OPPOSITION sucks. A fully vaccinated population gets infected. What do you have to say? Nothing. You don't care. All you and the government wants is compliance. My side wants questions answered. MY SIDE demands respect. You refuse to give it. Thus my side ignores you.
At least you are being honest about simply ignoring that the vaccines are safe and effective.
Your side wants respect while not respecting facts or evidence or expert public health recommendations. People who demand respect rather than earning it are often disappointed.
1 minute ago, toomuchbaloney said:At least you are being honest about simply ignoring that the vaccines are safe and effective.
Your side wants respect while not respecting facts or evidence or expert public health recommendations. People who demand respect rather than earning it are often disappointed.
Keep telling yourself that. You may start to believe it.
2 minutes ago, 10GaugeNeedles said:Keep telling yourself that. You may start to believe it.
Which part? That you ignore the facts and evidence or that people who demand respect that isn't deserved or earned are frequently disappointed? I already believe both of those things without repeating them, you told us that you ignore the stuff we present to you...shouldn't I believe that?
The vaccines are safe and effective and they will likely be required for most nursing jobs in the near future.
5 minutes ago, toomuchbaloney said:Which part? That you ignore the facts and evidence or that people who demand respect that isn't deserved or earned are frequently disappointed? I already believe both of those things without repeating them, you told us that you ignore the stuff we present to you...shouldn't I believe that?
The vaccines are safe and effective and they will likely be required for most nursing jobs in the near future.
Everyone deserves respect. You aren't better than us. I don't know what kind of nursing you practice, but it ain't familiar to me.
If the vaccine is required where I work, I'll move on to the next hospital until Novavax comes out.
52 minutes ago, mdOldie said:Good point about
Ah yes, and here's a preprint study from the Lancet (still undergoing peer review) that shows viral load in fully vaccinated is 251 times higher than unvaccinated.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3897733
From your link:
"Viral loads of breakthrough Delta variant infection cases were 251 times higher than those of cases infected with old strains detected between March-April 2020."
In other words, the Delta variant is far more virulent than previous strains, this is consistent with other studies comparing the Delta variant to previous variants.
The study did not find that given being vaccinated resulted in higher viral loads that being unvaccinated.
I get that it's fun to be contrarian, or just simply go against the flow, but I'm spending most days caring for people who are actively dying because of the same sort of misinformation you're peddling. I'm all for being oppositional to the norm but I draw the line at contributing to people dying.
19 minutes ago, 10GaugeNeedles said:Everyone deserves respect. You aren't better than us. I don't know what kind of nursing you practice, but it ain't familiar to me.
If the vaccine is required where I work, I'll move on to the next hospital until Novavax comes out.
Everyone may deserve respect but they aren't necessarily going to get it simply because they demand it after repeating untrue beliefs about these vaccines.
Apparently there are a few things that you aren't familiar with, researching and vetting vaccine information, according to your post. There will continue to be facilities which won't require vaccination as time goes on. There will be jobs for unvaccinated health care workers. It sounds like making that choice to change jobs isn't a big deal for you. That's good. It's your choice.
toomuchbaloney
16,085 Posts
You have more options if you are vaccinated. I hurt for patients who must have close contact with unvaccinated staff. That increased risk while they are already in care is undeserved.
Why do you think that those promoting widespread vaccination don't think that this situation "sucks". The fact that it "sucks" motivates us to mask, distance, vaccinate and encourage vaccination. It apparently doesn't suck enough to motivate some nurses to vaccinate or to stop arguing against vaccination.