894 City Workers Vax’d; 247 Opt For Testing

@Tom for those who opt for weekly testing, are they permitted to get tested on work time or do they need to do it on their own time?

[Reporter's note: Thanks for the question! Here's what the vax-or-test policy has to say about that. Based on my reading, looks like they can get tested on work time. "Testing: any employee who does not present proof of being Fully Vaccinated as of the effective date of this policy, is required to be tested weekly for COVID-19 or more often as recommended by the City's Department of Public Health. Testing will be provided at no cost to the employee or through City provided medical insurance for those covered. Employees shall be released from work with pay for a reasonable amount time taken to receive testing. Employees are to coordinate with their managers or supervisors to schedule appropriate time to be tested subject to the operational needs of their department."]

How many of these City Employees are NH Police Officers?

As I have mentioned before, weekly testing is inadequate for 'city workers' who have such regular close-contact with the Public-at-Large.

As a Public Service, maybe Tom Breen can quantify the department numbers where people are 'opting out' of the vaccine. Police, Teachers.....it is important for us all to know!

Does the city report on how many of the unxazed have immunity from having already had the illness?

So all the employees that met the deadline to register on the portal are good conscientious people. The ones that didn't aren't concerned? Why not? Do they know not one darn thing will happen to them like usual?
And what type of disciplinary action will happen to anyone who isn't vaccinated and not taking a test? What if 75 turned out to be police? Whatcha gonna do, huh? Or 75 are fire? Watcha gonna do, huh? LOL.
Lets just see if this is all talk and no action. I certainly would be interested in the progression of all this. So NHI please do follow up I think the residents are counting on you.
Oh by the way Tom! Any departments have 100% compliance for registering at the portal? Any department have 100% vaccination of their employees?
Sure would love for you to be able to answer that. It would be appreciated!

Dennis: The problem with "natural immunity" is that we do not know what density of antibodies is required for actual immunity. We know that density generally declines over time, but we do not know what level is too low. (My wife's actually increased over time, which we attributed to continued low level exposure in her health care job. For those who have had CoViD-19 and recovered, being continuously exposed may be the safest thing.)

Dennis, I should add that the latest research is that those who have both had and recovered from CoViD-19 and were subsequently vaccinated have the highest resistance of all.

When these employees are made to pay for their weekly testing (even just the co-pay) and their medical benefits premium goes up $300 per month (because they are unvaccinated therefore present higher risks) all this "I'm not sure" or "I need more info" nonsense will stop real. quick!

the city sent out a letter that states this is a mandatory policy ,then at the bottom of the letter it states AS A CITY EMPLOYEE I VOLUNTEER TO PROVIDE THIS INFORMATION !!! if the city is this incompetent in making this policy why should city employees trust the city with there medical records ?? what's next ? when a city employee stubs his toe he needs to divulge this info to the citys web site !!!! this is the most egregious invasion of personal privacy !! again this policy makes no sense because if your vaccinated you can still get covid and still spread it to others !!!!! the city of NEW HAVEN HAS NOW BECOME A DICTATORSHIP !!!!

Based on Tom's response to mcg2000's question, I wonder if there are some employees gaming the system who chose not to disclose their fully vaxxed status, instead opting for 1-2 hours a week of paid time for a leisurely trip out of the office to go get tested. Or if the paid time off is even incentivizing some particularly lazy city employees to stay unvaxx'd

"Does the city report on how many of the unxazed have immunity from having already had the illness?"

Leave it up to Dennis to provide misinformation on the vaccine here.

I think it's shameful that hundreds of city employees have declined to get vaccinated and are taking weekly covid tests instead. They are putting their colleagues and families at risk. If they are tested and found to be positive, they will have already infected others. Each test costs the government hundreds of dollars, which comes from our taxes. To me, if you refuse to get vaccinated and you don't have a valid medical excuse, you should be suspended from your job without pay until you get vaccinated. Why do we as a society tolerate this antisocial behavior?

1644 - Thanks, that's helpful.

BevHills730 - Thanks for nothing, that's not helpful as usual.

roger roy:

Dennis is right: a recent large scale study in Israel, and corroborated by another from Yale, showed that natural immunity is more effective than getting the vaccine (https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-once-confers-much-greater-immunity-vaccine-vaccination-remains-vital). Vaccines are still important for those at risk and should be encouraged.

If the point of getting vaccinated is to produce antibodies, but natural infection already does that, why not require a vaccine or previous positive test along with the testing option? We know the vaccinated can spread covid and be reinfected, so even with an employee vaccination rate of 100% people can still get it.

I also find some comments (e.g. stevehamm) to be, let's say shortsighted, in the context of our knowledge of Covid today vis a vis 18 months ago. When we had little information on the risk factors and lethality of this disease (age/obesity/co-morbidities), my fellow officers, fire fighters, EMS, nurses and medical staff STILL SHOWED UP TO WORK. Many of us, myself included, got infected and/or were quarantined. There were no mass walk offs or strikes; I think the city actually did a good job with managing what was a highly fluid situation and still maintained functioning emergency services. Protocols changed but we showed up to calls while most of society stayed home. For people to now turn around after that and call us shameful and antisocial from the safety of their living rooms for making medical decisions for ourselves is not only disheartening but is ignoring the science as noted above.

So the voluntarily unvaccinated get to get tested on work time, but what if a fully vaccinated person needs to get tested bc they are experiencing Covid symptoms, were exposed to a Covid positive person, etc? Do they have to go on their on time? Why should the unvaccinated get better testing accommodations? It's wrong to treat the vaccinated worse than the unvaccinated.

@Roger Roy, if you stub your toe on the job, you go through workers' compensation to deal with your medical care, time off from work, any settlements, etc. So the city will get your health info.

@Christian while we appreciate the work first responders did during the height of the pandemic, many of us feel it is safer for both the public and the first responders for the first responders to be vaccinated. As an aside, in my own dealings with firefighters and EMT's in New Haven, there was way too much maskless-ness. Are the unvaxed scrupulous about masking when dealing w the public including in indoor spaces or someone getting medical attention? Also, If vaxing isn't a big deal to you, why do 911 operators ask you if you have Covid symptoms when you call them?

As usual Dennis isn't right. Once again he is advocating a cause that is against the public's interest.

Certainly the beating an infection from a virus provides immunity. The vaccine also provides immunity. There is evidence that both together provide even more immunity (https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2101667). It is beyond foolish to draw inferences on a city policy based off of one study

Vaccines are safe and effective. They have been now tested with millions of people. There might be very narrow medical reasons or religious reasons for not getting vaccinated. Prior infection is not among these reasons.

Police officers and wannabe vigilantes alike should not be on here or any public forum suggesting otherwise.

Get vaccinated, so we can all get back to our lives!

Christian Bruckhart: You are missing the money quote in the study: "people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated." Moreover, the conclusion that you cite, that natural immunity is stronger than mRNA vaccine induced immunity, is based on just 9 infections out of 32,000 people studied. Please, get vaccinated.
Yes, vaccinated people can get infected and spread it, but at a much, much lower rate than unvaccinated people, about a tenth as likely. Please, do not think that the vaccinated are just as dangerous as the vaccinated. As for yourself, do you know your anti-body level? Do you know if it's dense enough to protect you?
As you point out, health care workers, including my wife, worked through the thick of it, often at much higher risk than cops. They are all vaccinated now. Cops should be, too, both for themselves and the public. As I have stated before, CoViD-19 remains far and away the highest cause of on-duty deaths for cops. https://www.odmp.org/search/incident/covid-19

I think there's a general frustration that a New Haven employee who doesn't wish to vaccinate does not have to apply for a medical or religious exemption (and religious exemptions that are just stand ins for personal choice not to vaccinate and not belonging to a religion that forbids vaccines bothers me) but simply can opt for testing. So this ends up not only being a less safe situation for New Haven tax payers but these tax payers are forced to shoulder the burden of these unvaccinated employees getting tested on work time and dime.

Lets be honest here….if this was really about stopping the spread, EVERYONE would be getting tested regularly regardless of vaccination status. Both still contract and spread it.