It's not that simple to fire unvaccinated workers

Potential for Human Rights Damages

A documented health issue is considered a disability under the Ontario Human Rights Code (the Code) and the Canadian Human Rights Act (the Act). Both disability and religion are protected grounds under the Code and the Act for which an employer cannot discriminate against their employees. The Code and the Act therefore require employers to accommodate the employee’s relevant grounds for not getting vaccinated to the point of undue hardship. 

Many people have legitimate and documented health reasons for not getting their COVID-19 vaccines. There are also some who also have religious and spiritual contentions about how specific vaccines were created and tested. As a result, firing an employee who did not get vaccinated for medical or religious reasons could lead to a discrimination claim against the employer, with the potential for significant legal expenses for the employer and damages awarded to the employee. 

Issues of Personal Choice Not to Get Vaccinated

While individual freedom and autonomy are very important topics that go to the heart of our political and legal system, most employers in the private sector have no legal obligation to respect an employee’s personal decision to not vaccinate against COVID-19. Political beliefs are not a protected human rights ground under the Code or the Act, and constitutional rights entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are limited to government action and government workplaces.

However, there is the potential circumstance where an employee does not want to provide their employer any private medical information but may still have legitimate health or religious reasons for not getting vaccinated. In this scenario, an employer may still be liable for human rights damages if they terminate the employee for not getting vaccinated without taking crucial steps to inquire.

Given the substantial risks an employer may face when deciding to terminate an unvaccinated employee, they should consult an employment and human rights lawyer to determine the best course of action.

The health sector is going ahead with it anyway

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/unvaccinated-employees-at-toronto-hospital-network-told-they-will-be-fired-1.5555653



Btw if someone already had Covid and has natural anti bodies, should they be fired if not vaccinated?

What happened to those antibody tests anyway? Instead of mandating regular Covid screening tests for the unvaccinated, it seems more useful to measure the level of protection (in the form of antibody response) you have.

(Of course if you allow that loophole, there will be people that opt for getting Covid over the vaccines...)


Education works better than enforcement. Incentives work better than punishment. Well should work better. Social media echo chambers are the main problem. And the fight against disinformation is a slippery slope one as well and can easily backfire. Convince the influencers, that works if done right. But how.

Doubt it. Most people understand and believe vaccines are effective, they just don't bother. Antivaxxes (the morons who don't believe vaccines actually works) are actually not the majority of unvaccinated people: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/us/virus-unvaccinated-americans.html

Only 37% answered to not believe in vaccines

Most of people just feel like they don't need it because they are young, healthy and because they find more bothersome to take a shot in the arms than to fall under the smaller number of odds of getting a severe disease (as most of cases are asymptomatic). There are also ones who understand getting vaccinated as some sort of political statement yikes

Ultimately, there isn't any sense of community os responsibility in big societies, this only works in small groups of people. Ultimately people will choose whatever feels more convenient for themselves, people are more afraid of getting an arm sore for a couple of hours (53% answered they are afraid of "side effect") than Covid that's nothing really to be done

For instance, overall USA citzens are far more educated than brazilians citzens (USA scored 0.9 in education IDH, Brazil scored 0.69). Yet despite being poorer and starting our vaccination campaign much later we already surpassed the number of vaccinated people with at least one shot and overall numbers are increasingly in a fast pace. So is really education correlated with vaccination rate? I'm forced to disagree 

What kind of education is that measuring?

The lack of social education is what causes this. Patriotism is abound (in the USA) yet only when it comes to outsiders, there is a lack of unity inside and no responsibility for being part of society. Hence the only thinking is about the effects on yourself. That needs to change with education.

Maybe there is a stronger sense of community in Brazil?

It's the same with masks. You mostly wear them to protect others, they're far less effective to protect yourself. But the narrative in NA has to be about your own protection or people don't really bother. It's the same with simple things like cleaning the shopping cart after you're done with it. Now the supermarkets are back to 'do it yourself' mode, I hardly see anyone taking the effort to simply wipe down the cart after use.

Hence I'm glad the kids are back to school. They can get good education through online learning as well, however that lacks all the important parts of living and working together. We're all in this together is something many people tend to forget.

Education, yes, however, the bigger problem is education for those on top calling the shots when it comes to management and execution.

One of the biggest problems by far is that this has been a more rare situation about life and death, which is not something that allows for much leeway when it comes to screwing up. Most times they can screw up the situation and it's not a huge deal because all it requires is a little more money or new leadership to fix it. Money doesn't fix death and (some) new leadership hasn't helped in this scenario.

Almost all those on top have done a poor job at best from the start. This alone is enough for plenty of people to be hesitant if not totally against the vax. It would be different if it was a poor start but that things got ironed out in a timely fashion and were straightforward now, but that's not the case.

When your boss or workplace sucks, you quit. If all bosses or workplaces based on your career suck after moving through them, you find a new career path. If 'getting out' isn't an option for whatever reason, you choose a workplace because you have to, and your work greatly suffers because you're not happy about the situation. When your boss sits you down and asks why you're 'so distant' and 'withdrawn', yet basically tells you there's no negotiating since they don't care and you need to just buck up and deal with it, well... we all know what most people would think about that. 'Tell your idiot boss to shove it', right? Well that's what's been happening since the pandemic first started.

Taking the education of the masses into account, along with what info they've actually gotten and can handle, any potential spin on it, and their own bias in a world where medicine can't just be medicine on it's own, and you've got yourself one massive problem in a situation like this.

There's big problems that shouldn't be big problems that need to be dealt with before further, more serious big problems can be solved.

Fun fact, among George Washington's first actions as general of the colonial armies was to issue a lockdown preventing troops from going to water supplies due to the risk of spreading smallpox.

As the war effort continued Washington quietly vaccinated his troops (or more accurately infected them through putting puss into the skin which was less lethal then airborne infections) to prevent smallpox from decimating his army.

So, whatever other reasons there may be, lockdowns and forced vaccination (although in Washington's case it was forced in a literal sense as deserting was a no-no, and it was not just a "you can't go to the gym" kind of thing) are not some strange new infringement on American rights. In fact, the country very likely would never have existed without those things.

Oh fuck off with this excuse (not talking to you personally, so don't take this the wrong way). These people not getting the vaccine are the exception, and far less frequent than Covidiots/anti-vaxxers lead on. The overwhelming majority of unvaccinated are "puh science, I'm not gonna get the vaccine! Masks/vaccs are the bane of freedom!" tinfoil hattery asshats, and the stats show it. If it were simply people with legitimate medical concerns not getting the vaccine instead of the propaganda machine it actually is, then why are vaccination rates lowest in red states?

Also, those states tend to have the highest rates of infection and death, little FYI. It's no coincidence, either.

People who 'have a legitimate health concern' to get exceptions are no less full of shit than all these dopes getting their yappy, aggressive dogs registered as support animals. 99% of you know you're full of shit and are just doing what you can to get around rules and regulations that are there for a reason.

Loopholes, not exceptions.

Nice taking it out of context. It is a concern for employers, facing potential law suits when firing unvaccinated people.

It's not that simple to fire unvaccinated workers

Potential for Human Rights Damages

A documented health issue is considered a disability under the Ontario Human Rights Code (the Code) and the Canadian Human Rights Act (the Act). Both disability and religion are protected grounds under the Code and the Act for which an employer cannot discriminate against their employees. The Code and the Act therefore require employers to accommodate the employee’s relevant grounds for not getting vaccinated to the point of undue hardship. 

Many people have legitimate and documented health reasons for not getting their COVID-19 vaccines. There are also some who also have religious and spiritual contentions about how specific vaccines were created and tested. As a result, firing an employee who did not get vaccinated for medical or religious reasons could lead to a discrimination claim against the employer, with the potential for significant legal expenses for the employer and damages awarded to the employee. 


Interesting you picked the line about legimate and documented health reasons, and not the one about religious and spiritual contentions... That's better than being allergic to the vaccines?


But yes, the majority are not getting vaxxed for 'political' reasons, laziness, avoiding minor discomfort or simply believing they're young and healthy and nothing can happen to them. Maybe there are even some that actually belief the tinfoil hat conspiracy theories, another minority. Most simply use it as excuse, looking for reasons not to bother.


Yet, you can't simply fire all unvaccinated people, like you can't blame every obese person for their eating habits, or everyone with lung cancer for smoking.

Effin idiots everywhere

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/it-s-terrifying-police-on-hand-as-pandemic-protesters-picket-hospitals-1.5583017

Two police officers escorted Faye Doiron and Randy Longaphie as they left Toronto General Hospital on Monday, helping the pair make their way through a crowd of protesters denouncing pandemic measures.

Doiron, who came to Toronto from Prince Edward Island to wait for a lung transplant, was leaving after a physiotherapy session at the hospital, with Longaphie, her cousin, pushing her wheelchair.

The crowd of largely unmasked demonstrators parted slowly but peacefully to let them through as one officer led the way and another walked behind them.

"It's terrifying," Doiron said. "Doctors told me if I ever catch COVID, I won't make it."



https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/a-man-died-after-he-couldn-t-get-a-cardiac-icu-bed-in-43-u-s-hospitals-due-to-pandemic-family-says-1.5583446

Ray DeMonia wasn't seeking COVID-19 treatment when he arrived at an Alabama hospital with heart problems.

But the 73-year-old became an indirect victim of COVID-19 patients filling hospitals and ICU beds.

The cardiac patient from Cullman, Alabama, died in a Mississippi hospital ​about 200 miles (320 kilometres) from his home because there were no cardiac ICU beds nearby, his daughter Raven DeMonia told The Washington Post.



Good job Canada...
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/stress-staffing-shortages-brought-on-by-covid-19-causing-nurses-to-leave-the-front-lines-1.5582781

Many nurses report having left the front lines after the stress of COVID-19 made their jobs more difficult and less safe, creating a shortage of health-care workers in certain regions and even forcing rural areas to temporarily close hospital units.

RNs across Canada have taken to social media to sound the alarm over poor working conditions and aggressive, sometimes violent, patients brought on by the pandemic.



More lock downs will be inevitable, people simply cannot control themselves.

Well no, not all but pretty much everyone that has direct contact to customers (obviously not when that contact is phone-only).

And those who can't work from home permanently. Factory workers for example.

What's the alternative? You could try to relocate them within the same company but that's obviously not going to work for everyone.