United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has sent a noteworthy memo to employees about the vaccination situation at the airline, and it contains some interesting statistics. As you may remember, United became the first major US airline to mandate that employees be vaccinated. There’s some bad news, and there’s also some very good news.
Continue reading: Wow: 3,000 United Airlines Employees Have Coronavirus, But Zero Are Hospitalized
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To add insult to injury, Scott Kirby himself said that United passengers would not be subject to the same disruptions that passengers of other airlines would face. He was clearly wrong.
We can debate the effectiveness of vaccines but ultimately businesses are interested in the least interruption to their operations and on that basis vaccine mandates failed.
Given that multiple states including CA are requiring that covid positive staff members return to work, the entire thesis around covid management in the workplace was and is flawed.
@Tim - “we can debate the effectiveness of vaccines…”. That’s what this article is for and it does a great job of showing why UA’s vaccine policy is effective and the right thing to do. To go from one death per week to none is pretty amazing. Every person I know who died from COVID was unvaccinated.
What is it you want to debate about vaccines? Let us know. I'm happy to have that debate here or anywhere.
So glad that those vaccine mandates has eliminated covid. Nice job destroying lives!
When will you bullies accept the reality, and what we have said all along: vaccination protects you and you alone from extreme symptoms, it does not protect you from getting or transmitting the virus. If you're vaxxed, you're probably actually increasing transmission, because now you don't even know you are infected.
Look at AOC, triple vaxxed and partying, in close contact with many people, and covid positive. Your leftist-fascism has permanently set back individual rights worldwide, all based on a lie.
Now if you could only accept the other obvious reality: cloth masks do absolutely nothing, surgical masks next to nothing, N95 only marginally effective. No mask is a substitute for social distancing, which is why masks are actually damaging. If mask mandates worked, then why are we still doing this 2 years later?
in order to determine whether vaccines are effective, you would need to know how many Southwest and American employees have died. Since they have not reported their vax rates, we don't know that info but AAL and LUV have both had far better holiday operations than UAL.
Delta didn't have a vax mandate, still achieved a 90%+ vax rate, but had significant operational issues - which have largely been corrected while UAL's operational issues have not. Delta is back to having some of the lowest cancellation and best on-time cancellation rates in the industry.
No, it isn't the role of this forum to debate the effectiveness of vaccines and we don't have the info to know whether UAL's strategy worked better at saving lives. It certainly has not produced a more reliable operation. They could have said that they are suffering from high covid case rates, presumably not to address other issues - including premium pay which American and Southwest offered
Just look at the statistics and deaths are way down now because of Omicron, whether vaccinated or not. I am vaccinated and boosted and an advocate and the only 4 people I know that died from COVID were vaxed, including my mom. I do not think you or I can draw and conclusions from our small sample size. Other countries have indicated serious illness and death in the vaxed population. I just wory we are not getting all the facts here in the US. Just look at the Supreme court that gave misleading facts and had to corrrect themselves.
United has already cancelled 7% of its mainline operation today, the highest percentage of any mainline carrier.
For whatever reason, they do not have the staff to operate the airline.
Arguments about vaccines or death rates miss the point that United is having to reduce its schedule.
The notion that a vax mandate would protect United's operation - which is precisely what Scott Kirby said - is patently false.
We’re still doing this because half of society chose to ignore the mask mandates, and it takes more than half of us to get anything done. Become a scientist and then you can do your own research.
Wait...so vaccines don't prevent transmission? "There's always going to be 'some' breakthrough infections" they said.
Is this still a pandemic of the unvaccinated? Well, at least the vaccinated folks are running around like they're gods, spreading their virus to those who can't get the vaccine. Good job everyone.
Go ahead and link us to those “studies” you mentioned. Otherwise you are just spreading false crap.
It really is the pandemic of the unvaccinated. The original vaccines were effective against infection again the original strains. The unvaccinated allowed the virus to mutate into delta and omicron.
0 hospitalization is not jut great for employees, it likely means they will be back to work much faster then non vaxxed which is what the carrier needs, again proving how Kirby was right on doing it
"To go from one death per week to none is pretty amazing. Every person I know who died from COVID was unvaccinated."
Can United regulate the diet of its employee too? How about intercourse with high risk groups? Perhaps it could be that any out of wedlock relations results in termination, for the safety of the employee.
"0 hospitalization is not jut great for employees, it likely means they will be back to work much faster then non vaxxed which is what the carrier needs, again proving how Kirby was right on doing it"
So a company has carte blanche to dictate activities its employees engage in that raise the chance if morbidity / mortality?
Such a pledge of its staff not to engage in intercourse with groups that have a higher than average HIV risk should also be perfectly permissible and just?
This is why vaccine mandates are completely useless. The vaccine only provides protection from severe infection to the person who got vaccinated. My vaccine does not protect anyone else except me and does nothing to stop me being infected or spreading infection. Yet another reason why getting vaccinated should be a personal choice because you are in charge of your own health and you getting vaccinated does not help anyone else.
Bingo!
Not to mention Omicron is basically a cold for almost everyone catching it. It's time to start treating this like a normal respiratory virus. You don't quarantine and miss work for the sniffles.
I do agree with some of what you say. I know 3 people who currently have Covid and all three got their boosters within the last 6 weeks. One of them has had Covid twice. Once after being fully vaccinated and once after getting the booster so it is absolutely true that the vaccine does NOTHING toward lowering infections and transmission.
Meanwhile, most of my family members are unvaccinated and have never worn masks, stopped travelling, etc. Only 2 of them have had Covid, it was very early on in the pandemic, they had mild cases, and they have been perfectly healthy ever since. They also work jobs where they are face-to-face with people all day.
In my experience, natural immunity has seemed to be much more solid protection than vaccines.
I don't disagree with anything in his memo or the tone of the OMAAT story. Having said that I would note that most of the hospitalizations are with the very sick, elderly, and in more limited cases the very young with pre-existing conditions. In this regard United's workforce is unlikely to represent the demographics of the US so it's not a perfect comparison. A more accurate one would be to compare to 21-65 year old persons in the US. Hope everyone who can get vaccinated/boosted does.
Kirby's statement is to protect his employees - was never about the operations.
Very cool. With increasing confirmation of how successful these mandates are, hopefully we see more businesses/industries cracking down and saving lives.
Perhaps we should have helped the rest of the world then get vaccinated, so as to not mutate? Wait, that's impossible...
Also, honestly, stay at home if you are sick, regardless of coronavirus status. Nobody wants your germs since you are clearly not washing your hands and covering your mouths.
Your logic assumes someone with a severe infection spreads coronavirus similar to someone that is asymptomatic. That is nonsense.
No Mr Chang they are not “dictating “ anything. People are free to go work someplace else but this company is requiring it so they don’t have to deal with sick employees in the hospital
I agree that this is too small a sample size to say that the airline's vaccine mandate is the reason deaths have gone down to 0. Especially with a new, milder, variant.
But the science on vaccines significantly reducing mortality rates - at least for the previous variants - is pretty conclusive.
Many vaxxed people will still unfortunately die from covid and the vast majority of unvaxxed people will not die. But statistically you are much much more likely to be hospitalized or killed if you contract covid while unvaccinated.
Whether you agree with vaccine mandates or not that is a stone cold fact.
I swear some people just wake up, go read an article about vaccines saving lives and then just break out the diatribe that always includes:
"LIBERALS TOLD US WE WOULDNT NEED MASKS OR GET COVID AFTER VAX? LOL!!!!"
"WHY ARE WE STILL DOING THIS AFTER 2 YEARS????"
"WHY ARE YOU RUINING PEOPLES LIVES BY MAKING LESS PEOPLE DIE?!?!?!"
Its a really great indicator of who the lunatics are.
UA has around 95000 staff. 3000 is 3.15%. Why is this a headline ? What about all the other airlines worldwide ?
zero hospitilizatons means that most people are probably sitting home twiddling their thumbe for no good reason...
Kirby most definitely said United passengers would not face the operational mess that other airlines faced and it is revisionistic history to say otherwise
Except unvaxxed people overcrowd hospitals, to the point where they can no longer provide emergency care - or any care - for anyone else. Hoarding hospital resources due to one's "personal choice" does have major implications for society - it is not only selfish, it's dangerous. So, if you want to sign a waiver that says you waive hospital care because you want to stay unvaxxed, cool - that's your "personal choice," but depleting a shared, community resource isn't a "personal choice," it's selfish and endangers the lives of others.
Yes, you are absolutely correct on all these "facts". Please, on behalf of America, accept this honorary Herman Cain Award for fighting the great fight.
"In my experience, natural immunity has seemed to be much more solid protection than vaccines."
Well, I've worn an N95 since the start of the pandemic and got boosted in October 2021...haven't gotten COVID since the start, nor have I gotten so much as a cold or even seasonal allergies, which always get me at the same time, every year. So, "in my experience," vaccines and masks work. Guess we're both right!
It's not 3000 people with covid - it is 3000 people who are off due to covid (ie exposed/ self isolating/ pretending to be exposed) Basically a number that sounds good and has no real value besides a tweet. Lucky you are not in the stats gig.
This is so dumb.
-Yes, that was the plan with original Covid. The studies showed that if you were vaccinated, it was difficult to get infected and if you did, infected people couldn't really spread it. That's what made Delta (and now Omicron) so dangerous. The virus mutated and those facts no longer applied, it changed everything. Stop parroting outdated info from 2020 to try and support your ignorant/ill-informed worldview.
-Because we're still in a pandemic. Enough people are still unvaccinated to the point that if we dropped preventive measures, hospitals would be overrun. I mean, they're full to bursting now in many areas already. Funny how people don't trust the medical community's advice that vaccines and masks save lives, but will trust them as a backstop to keep them from dying when Covid wrecks their lungs and they can't breathe.
-No idea what you're trying to say with this one.
I try my best to stay out of cesspools like this but am occasionally inspired to do my bit to fight misinformation.
Btw Ryan I misunderstood your comment, I agree with you and hate when people say stuff like that
I included the link to the Wall Street Journal that references these studies, sorry if you have trouble reading.
Studies have shown with every variant that you are contagious with or without symptoms and equally contiguous with or without vaccines. The vaccines help reduce illness they do not stop or slow down one's ability to spread it this have been proven in countless studies.
@MikeL1986 that is correct. Vaccines are a personal choice. They do nothing to stop other people from being infected they just reduce one's likelihood to get severely sick. I took the vaccines for to protect myself. I dont get how people fail to understand such a simple concept and disregard every study on the transmission of this virus and how asymptomatic vaccinated people still spread this.
@Mm there are plenty of countries where mask usage is over 95% and vaccinations are over 90% and guess what they still have covid. A countries death total and % is not a function of masks or vaccines but a function of obesity and how healthy of a society they have. Keep wearing your useless mask, I will keep exercising and will exercise more than i did pre-covid and i will never have to worry about getting ill because im not overweight.
Vaccines and boosters provide an incredible level of protection against infection for 20-35 days..... then it drops off severely against Omicron. Natural immunity provides greater protection for longer but you risk getting sick or death from covid. So ideally you have both or at least one or two of the first doses. Boosters only going to work if you get them every 2 months indefinitely.
Um.. no. We're still doing "this" because a lot of leftist bureaucrats lied about the vaccine's effectiveness (and kept trashing viable alternatives that would have prevented many deaths and job losses).
OK, to hell with mask mandates for the vaccinated. Let the rest deal with their poor choice and leave the rest of us alone.
Yes, Jeffrey Chang. This is America, where the vast majority of employees are "at will," private employers can impose just about any conditions they want on continued employment. All they cannot do is discriminate against a protected class of individuals, which is why your suggested requirement would almost certainly be illegal. (Though, to ptahcha's point, the Supreme Court has given some religious employers a free pass to discriminate against otherwise protected classes of individuals under certain circumstances.)
There is nothing debatable about the effectiveness of vaccines at preventing deaths. Kirby’s vaccine mandate, beyond the public health benefits, is a sound business decision. If you have a problem with that either don’t work for United and/or fly them.
Not really shocking. Vaccines are known to be very effective at keeping people out of the hospitals. 90% of people hospitalized for covid are the unvaccinated.
Approximately 90% of the people hospitalized with covid are unvaccinated. While it impacts older people harder young people are being hospitalized by it and even dying. Some are hospitalized without underlying conditions. The evidence is pretty overwhelming that vaccines keep people out of the hospitals for covid.
Exactly between the anti vaxxer/anti-masker crowd that is what keeps the pandemic roaring.
To clarify--the CEO memo says that they were averaging *MORE THAN* 1 COVID-related death per week, whereas this article states that there was 1...although this may seem like a nitpick, the point is that more than 8 lives have been saved.
First of all, because the average was already more than 1 death per week, but secondly because the rate of contagion had accelerated--especially among the unvaccinated. So if UAL had not implemented a vaccination requirement, the rate of deaths would almost certainly have accelerated as well.
NYGuy24 - 100% agree with you on the effectiveness of vaccinations at preventing hospitalizations, just pointing out that the UA workforce is not representative of the US as a whole so a direct comparison isn’t particularly meaningful.
@Lucky/Tiffany - please don't let this site be overrun by anti-vax, misinformation spreading trolls like this Don chump. VFTW and LALF have sadly fallen prey to them. Don't join the amplification.
Vaccines protect you from severe illness and hospitalization. They protect society by lowering hospitalization rates, reducing consumption of medical resources. More debatable, but there’s good evidence that they also reduce the instance of long Covid, and long Covid is a long term burden on the medical system and productivity. Vaccines once did protect against infection and spread in the first instance, but variants have changed that. I don’t believe in vaccine mandates, but the majority of people who are electing not to get a vaccine are making a poor choice for themselves and harming society.
Absolutely ridiculous comment by their CEO with respect to their workers having a much lower rate of hospitalization. I do not remember the last time I saw a nursing home resident working for the airline, a 350 pound flight attendant, etc. For the most part their employees are younger and in better health than the average hospitalized American. Compare apples to apples before you give the vaccine credit. In fact, if it had worked as for its intended purpose, he would certainly not have 3000 workers all sick at the same time.
and 40% of those hospitalized are not hospitalized cause of covid just happened to test positive when at the hospital.
If you are vaccinated, Omicron is the flu (or maybe not even that bad).
Let's start treating it like that.
A lot of United flights were canceled due to weather in Chicago and Newark. Covid makes recovery longer and more difficult but Mother Nature started it.
Tim, United was offering triple pay to their pilots that picked up trips over the holidays. Unless it’s computer related almost all operational problems begin with bad weather affecting a hub. If it’s two hubs you are really screwed. Add in full flights due to the holidays, the holidays running from the end of one month to the beginning of the next and then add Covid to the mix and you have quite a mess on your hands. And, if you were a 20 plus year employee and finally got Christmas off or a 30 plus year employee that finally got vacation over Christmas and New Years how eager would you be to pick up some overtime knowing what a mess you would be walking into? Frankly I’m amazed they didn’t cancel more flights.
Curious: How may unvaxed were hospitalized for (not with) COVID and why so many contracted COVID if they were vaxed?
B.S. The CDC has been asked to release information on vaccinated spreading Covid to unvaccinated and the CDC has replied they have no information and it isn't being tracked.
There have been 3 cruise ships and a Navy ship that have had outbreaks with 95%-98% crew and passengers fully jabbed (the un-jabbed were children). All were tested for Covid at the terminal prior to boarding. How do you blame the dirty un-jabbed for that?
In our department we currently have 4 out sick with Covid symptoms. One is in Italy that has been in Covid jail for 14 days. All fully jabbed. Now the un-jabbed in our department must work harder to pick up their slack.
You don't know anything about viral mutations so stop spewing propaganda. My body adapts to fight off infection. Your jabs are designed to fight one strain then are useless against anything else. Hence the spin term "break through" cases.
I've had the first strain in Feb 2020 and whatever the latest strain is last month. Mild headache, chills, and slight fever the first day, slight headache the second day then done with it.
My company tested all employees monthly starting March 2020. I showed positive for antibodies for 13 months. How log will your jab protect you for?
The only people I have seen out sick in my company currently are the jabbed so the CDC propaganda machine does not match what I am witnessing.
The article focuses in on the fact there are no vaccinated employees hospitalized but does not state how many non-vaccinated employees are hospitalized? I'd be interested in knowing how many non-vaccinated employees are hospitalized? Maybe the decline in hospitalizations have to do with the fact that Omnicron is more contagious but less serious...hmmmm...