Thanks to vaccines, the threat is reduced - so we will no longer be requiring vaccination. Ba dum bump.
This is the message that healthcare providers are giving as the scientific reasoning to drop vaccination requirements for staff: “The vaccines work, so we will no longer be vaccinating.”
I’m not even sure if you’d call this circular logic or just plain nonsense. They sometimes claim they’re following the science, but they seem to actually be following the politics.1
The other justification some healthcare systems make for dropping infection control measures is to say “other facilities are doing it too” - referring to whatever other clueless anti-vax anti-mask healthcare providers are out there dropping various infection control measures. If another facility somewhere decided to drop indoor plumbing and hand washing, would they do that too? Using right-wing anti-vax peer pressure to justify imprudent dropping of pandemic mitigation is really concerning. Is right-wing social network persuasion2 really the appropriate impetus to guide critical medical decisions?
And then they always include a statement of reassurance, insisting that their top priority is the safety of staff and patients. But dropping safety measures is clear evidence to the contrary.
We didn’t stop using child car seats once fatalities from infants being ejected from cars dipped a bit. We didn’t go back to drinking potentially poo laden water once cholera was under control - we prevent it now. So why would we stop requiring vaccination if vaccination is the reason the pandemic situation has improved? We should not normalize negative outcomes3 and settle for waiting for severe covid and deaths to ramp back up before acting, when we can curb nosocomial transmission in healthcare settings with vaccination and universal masking.4 Hospitals have imprudently dropped masking.5 Requirements are beneficial because they set a norm to improve vaccine uptake.6
It’s not science the healthcare corporations are doing. It’s BUSINESS. And bad business at that. For whatever reason they don’t want to spend the money and effort on safety protocols, and so they’re making nonsensical excuses to justify their business decisions. And they’re using the psychological it’s mild PR tactics of Big Tobacco.7 This is coming from our hospitals and doctors offices!
When booster uptake among healthcare workers drops, and deaths and hospitalizations rise, it’s too late to prevent needless suffering. We should be able to expect better signals from healthcare providers, but they’ve shown us clearly that we need government oversight, and for civilian patient advocacy to intervene. We have to press representatives on this.
“If you are trying to convince people to take the [booster] vaccine and at the same time declaring that the pandemic is over … you can’t then complain that people aren’t taking the vaccine” — Rob Wallace in CT Insider January 2023
References
Teams Human - Following the Politics instead of Following the Science. Healthcare providers and others are making critical medical decisions about masking based on a political football. By CHLOE HUMBERT, MAR 21, 2023 The evidence is all over the news, typically coming from the hospital spokesperson directly to the reporters, clearly stating that they are not basing their mask protection protocols on any medical concerns or ethical concerns, they’re basing medical decisions on a political football - the ending of the National Public Health Emergency declaration.
David Troy: Disinformation and its effects on social capital networks, 2023 Culture (i.e. the network) is upstream of politics. The Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci noted that “culture is upstream of politics,” a quote since co-opted by Andrew Breitbart and Steve Bannon. These political technologists understand that they are working at the network level on altering culture, while many people are focused on politics, which is a losing strategy. Relationships determine public health outcomes. Most of the information about a society is found in relationships. Speaking mathematically, a graph depicting a meshed network of 50 people will contain 1,225 relationships. When people talk about “individual” rights, they are willfully discounting the many relationships that may be affected by the behavior of individuals. This should serve as a reminder that any effort to promote specific human behaviors must be evaluated through the possible effects on human relationship networks, and whether those changes are positive or negative.
Rand Waltzman on Linkedin: Strategies for Manufacturing Doubt (6) Strategies for Manufacturing Doubt (6) - Appeal to Mass Media, - Appeal to journalistic balance - Develop relationships with media personnel - Prepare information for media personnel - Invoke the Fairness Doctrine, Take Advantage of Target's Lack of Money / Influence - Silence or abuse individuals by - out-spending - exploiting a power imbalance, Normalize Negative Outcomes - Normalize the presence of negative effects - Reduce importance - Make them seem inevitable
Teams Human - Universal masking in healthcare as a disability accommodation. My letter to Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, including footnoted references. By CHLOE HUMBERT, APR 19, 2023 The virus has not changed in nature, it is still dangerous, it’s still airborne and moves through doorways and vents. High risk people are still at risk, high risk settings are still high risk settings. Especially since around half of healthcare workers work while sick. People are still hospitalized and dying of covid, and suffering long covid and post-covid complications. This knowledge must be well known to healthcare providers, so it would seem to be an admission that my healthcare providers no longer care about the health and life outcomes of people such as myself. One wonders why y’all went into medicine in the first place. I do everything I can to avoid getting infected, and being forced into exposure at healthcare settings is like a kick in the face. People go to healthcare to get better - not to get worse conditions than we already have, or acquire new disabilities, from preventable infections, and become higher risk, just from seeking preventive care in your facilities. Spreading communicable diseases deliberately, when the mitigation is well understood, is not even a reasonable business practice, let alone humane or scientifically sound medical practice.
People’s CDC - Masks in Healthcare - February 23, 2023 REMOVING MASKS IN HEALTHCARE IS DANGEROUS. Clinics and hospitals are sites for COVID patient care, so even if transmission rates are low, they will remain among the most likely locations to encounter people infected with COVID, and also people who are vulnerable to severe disease or death from COVID. Contagion in healthcare settings is already a problem even in well-equipped US academic medical centers.2 Removing masks in healthcare puts both patients and healthcare workers at risk, which could place even more strain on the healthcare system amidst severe staffing shortages. REMOVING MASKS IN HEALTHCARE IS UNETHICAL. Failing to require masks in healthcare settings violates medical ethical principles.3 Patients come to clinics and hospitals to improve their health. Healthcare providers have an ethical responsibility to DO NO HARM and ensure that they do not expose patients to COVID.
A Precautionary Path with Kaitlin Sundling, MD, PhD - Vaccination Requirements Support School Staff Health, JUN 25, 2023 Many people who are young and healthy do not understand that they are at risk of severe consequences of COVID and are not aware that long COVID impacts about 10% of people [2]. Repeated infections further increase the risk of long COVID and organ damage from COVID [2,3]. Vaccination reduces these risks. Maintaining a requirement may require some creative thinking as far as getting the appropriate resources. However, a vaccination requirement sends a clear, science-based message and establishes the norm that all of us need to protect ourselves from COVID infection and its potentially devastating impacts. This approach not only supports workplace safety but is also a win-win for maintaining staffing during ongoing challenges, as vaccination will lead to reduced sick time for staff.
Pollay RW, Dewhirst T - The dark side of marketing seemingly “Light” cigarettes: successful images and failed factTobacco Control 2002;11:i18-i31. The international headquarters of B&W's parent firm, British American Tobacco, counselled that new marketing approaches should “create brands and products which reassure consumers, by answering to their needs. Overall marketing policy will be such that we maintain faith and confidence in the smoking habit . . . All work in this area [communications] should be directed towards providing consumer reassurance about cigarettes and the smoking habit . . . by claimed low deliveries, by the perception of low deliveries and by the perception of `mildness'. Furthermore, advertising for low delivery or traditional brands should be constructed in ways so as not to provoke anxiety about health, but to alleviate it, and enable the smoker to feel assured about the habit and confident in maintaining it over time”
This column is brilliant. Thanks