Should You Ask If a Service Provider Has Been Vaccinated

Your money, your health, your choice whom you choose for your service providers.
 

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What I understand is that the shots and masks will help keep us out of the Hospital which is why I do it. Our Med Center here in Houston is filled with covid patients who did not get the shots. So I will do everything I can to stay out of the Hospital.
 
Judycat said:
Last year before any of this anti-vax stuff I did ask my chiropractor if he had Covid. I think I'd ask that before I'd ask if someone is vaccinated.
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Many people may have had Covid without knowing they had it; they would pass it off as a cold or flu. People don't go to the hospital whenever they're sick; it depends on how sick they are.
When I heard about losing the sense of taste or smell, I recalled a bad cold I had years ago. When all the congestion was completely gone & I could breathe freely through my mouth and nose, I realized that I had absolutely no sense of taste or smell. That lasted 4-5 days.
 

Aunt Bea said:
I don’t ask I just assume that everyone I come in contact with isn’t vaccinated.
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This is along the lines of what I do as as well since anyone--vaccinated or not--can transmit the disease if even mildly ill.

The only personal health info that someone could provide to make me feel safe from Covid is a recent antibody titer lab report.


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I asked the nurse at radiation oncology whether she had been fully vaccinated. She said she doesn't discuss her personal medical history with patients.

I thought about that for a few seconds. Then I told her it was a public health issue, not a personal one.

She replied, Well I think there are valid arguments on both sides.

Next, I am sending registered mail to the hospital administrator, each of the two doctors who work at radiation oncology, and the cancer center medical director. I am furious that some of the people who treat me for cancer may not be vaccinated, and that the hospital allows them to do so.

First, of course, I will find out if the hospital requires workers to be fully vaccinated for Covid, If not, why not? And if the answer is that there is a nursing shortage, I will suggest that they put a limit on how many unvaccinated people can be treated in the hospital at one time. That number would be based on how many vaccinated medical personnel they have in the hospital, since all the unvaccinated ones would have been fired. And it will also leave plenty of room for vaccinated people to be treated at the hospital.
 
WheatenLover said:
I asked the nurse at radiation oncology whether she had been fully vaccinated. She said she doesn't discuss her personal medical history with patients.

I thought about that for a few seconds. Then I told her it was a public health issue, not a personal one.

She replied, Well I think there are valid arguments on both sides.

Next, I am sending registered mail to the hospital administrator, each of the two doctors who work at radiation oncology, and the cancer center medical director. I am furious that some of the people who treat me for cancer may not be vaccinated, and that the hospital allows them to do so.

First, of course, I will find out if the hospital requires workers to be fully vaccinated for Covid, If not, why not? And if the answer is that there is a nursing shortage, I will suggest that they put a limit on how many unvaccinated people can be treated in the hospital at one time. That number would be based on how many vaccinated medical personnel they have in the hospital, since all the unvaccinated ones would have been fired. And it will also leave plenty of room for vaccinated people to be treated at the hospital.
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Very intelligent nurse. It's not often when a medical professional doesn't "Go with the flow."
And she's right. It ain't none of your business. Covid is not an excuse for rudeness.
 
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WheatenLover said:
I asked the nurse at radiation oncology whether she had been fully vaccinated. She said she doesn't discuss her personal medical history with patients.

I thought about that for a few seconds. Then I told her it was a public health issue, not a personal one.

She replied, Well I think there are valid arguments on both sides.

Next, I am sending registered mail to the hospital administrator, each of the two doctors who work at radiation oncology, and the cancer center medical director. I am furious that some of the people who treat me for cancer may not be vaccinated, and that the hospital allows them to do so.

First, of course, I will find out if the hospital requires workers to be fully vaccinated for Covid, If not, why not? And if the answer is that there is a nursing shortage, I will suggest that they put a limit on how many unvaccinated people can be treated in the hospital at one time. That number would be based on how many vaccinated medical personnel they have in the hospital, since all the unvaccinated ones would have been fired. And it will also leave plenty of room for vaccinated people to be treated at the hospital.
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I think the nurse gave you her answer, loud and clear. She should be fired immediately, nursing shortage or not. Of course, people who are in such close contact with cancer patients should be required to be vaccinated.
 
WheatenLover said:
I asked the nurse at radiation oncology whether she had been fully vaccinated. She said she doesn't discuss her personal medical history with patients.

I thought about that for a few seconds. Then I told her it was a public health issue, not a personal one.

She replied, Well I think there are valid arguments on both sides.

Next, I am sending registered mail to the hospital administrator, each of the two doctors who work at radiation oncology, and the cancer center medical director. I am furious that some of the people who treat me for cancer may not be vaccinated, and that the hospital allows them to do so.

First, of course, I will find out if the hospital requires workers to be fully vaccinated for Covid, If not, why not? And if the answer is that there is a nursing shortage, I will suggest that they put a limit on how many unvaccinated people can be treated in the hospital at one time. That number would be based on how many vaccinated medical personnel they have in the hospital, since all the unvaccinated ones would have been fired. And it will also leave plenty of room for vaccinated people to be treated at the hospital.
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Do staff wear masks at all times? Asking because if they're vaccinated and have mild cases, they may be afebrile and think they've got an allergy flare up but the vaccinated ill are still capable of infecting others ....especially so for vulnerable cancer patients. If they're not all masked, they certainly should be in oncology. The long-term care facilites I do consulting work for started back with the masks for all staff regardless of vaccination status weeks ago.
 
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AnnieA said:
Do staff wear masks at all times? Asking because if they're vaccinated and have mild cases, they may be afebrile and think they've got an allergy flare up but the vaccinated ill are still capable of infecting others ....especially so for vulnerable cancer patients. If they're not all masked, they certainly should be in oncology. The long-term care facilites I do consulting work for started back with the masks for all staff regardless of vaccination status weeks ago.
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Yes. Many wear them improperly. There are several gaps along the sides. Not good.
 
So sorry you're battling cancer, @WheatenLover ...especially in these times. If you can wear a high quality mask and face shield, that's your best protection.

Vaccines have turned out to be a useful tool to mitigate severity of infection, but do not work well enough to prevent spreading Covid-19 to others which is super depressing. Those of us who have health conditions that make us vulnerable have to do as we've done from the start with social distancing and masks since we're at risk of infection from people with mild cases.
 
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AnnieA said:
Vaccines have turned out to be a useful tool to mitigate severity of infection, but do not work well enough to prevent spreading Covid-19 to others which is super depressing. We have to do as we've done from the start with social distancing and masks since we're at risk of infection from people with mild cases.
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So true, including the part about it being super depressing.
 
Several nurses I work with had antibodies drawn last week. Two had mild cases in December. One vaccinated x2 (Pfizer), age 38. 47 year old is unvaccinated.
Vaccinated nurse's levels were 170, unvaccinated 500. Neither overweight, both in good health.

That's why I think we need immunity passports for recovered, unvaccinated people based on their antibody levels.

Link to discussion.

Immunity Passports

.
 
win231 said:
First of all, medical information is as private as each individual wants it to be - legally and morally. That's the law, whether you like it or not.
It's no different than someone asking their beautician or chef if they had a TB test or Hepatitis vaccine, or flu shot.
Of course, you are free to leave if you don't like their answer.
When someone's dog approaches me, I don't ask if he had a rabies shot; I just start petting. I guess that makes me "Reckless."
And, if someone chooses not to get vaccinated, why would they want to hear all the crap that would follow if the person who asked was a controller who likes to make decisions for others?
Before the Covid vaccine was available & barber shops were closed, my hairstylist saw his customers in his back yard. When I showed up for my appointment, I put my mask on (as I always do out of respect for whatever fear they might have) & his wife said, "That's not necessary." Her husband didn't wear his mask, either. They're both in their 70's.
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You took the words right out of my mouth. I was thinking the same thing. Can they ask you if you have mental illness, bipolar disorder, STD? If you feel uncomfortable, wear a mask. I did not ask my beautician...but we were talking and she shared that she did not get the vaccine as of yet.. did not make me feel any different one way or the other. They still require customers to wear a mask and some of the beauticians in the salon are fully vaccinated. And you know... most people in relationships do not think twice in asking someone if they have an STD.
 
Ladybj said:
You took the words right out of my mouth. I was thinking the same thing. Can they ask you if you have mental illness, bipolar disorder, STD? If you feel uncomfortable, wear a mask. I did not ask my beautician...but we were talking and she shared that she did not get the vaccine as of yet.. did not make me feel any different one way or the other. They still require customers to wear a mask and some of the beauticians in the salon are fully vaccinated. And you know... most people in relationships do not think twice in asking someone if they have an STD.
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Reminded me of a similar question.
Under the guise of "Protecting Children," some doctors were required to ask a patient if they own any firearms.
One dad who brought his 12-year-old daughter in to see her female doctor who was in her 60's was asked that question & he replied:
"Do you wear a thong or granny panties?" 😂 She got the message - quickly.
 

Alabama man dies after being turned away from 43 hospitals as covid packs ICUs, family says​

By
Timothy Bella
Yesterday at 5:01 p.m. EDT

When Ray DeMonia was having a cardiac emergency last month, his Alabama family waited anxiously for a nearby hospital with available space in its intensive care unit.
But in a state where coronavirus infections and unvaccinated patients have overwhelmed hospitals in recent months, finding an available ICU bed was an ordeal. It was so difficult, his family wrote this month, that the hospital in his hometown of Cullman, Ala., contacted 43 others in three states — and all were unable to give him the care he needed.
DeMonia, who was eventually transferred to a Mississippi hospital about 200 miles away, died at 73 on Sept. 1 — three days shy of his birthday.

Raven DeMonia, his daughter, told The Washington Post on Sunday that it was “shocking” when the family was told that dozens of ICUs were unable to treat her father.

“It was like, ‘What do you mean?’ ” she said when she found out her father was being airlifted to a Mississippi hospital. “I never thought this would happen to us.”
Now, in DeMonia’s obituary, his family is urging those who remain unvaccinated to get immunized to help hospitals that have been pushed to their limits and struggling to treat emergencies not related to the pandemic. His daughter told The Post he was vaccinated against the coronavirus.
“In honor of Ray, please get vaccinated if you have not, in an effort to free up resources for non COVID related emergencies,” the family wrote. “He would not want any other family to go through what his did.”

Jennifer Malone, a spokeswoman for Cullman Regional Medical Center, confirmed to The Post that Ray DeMonia was “a patient in our care and was transferred to a different facility.” She declined to offer specifics of his situation, citing privacy reasons.

“The level of care he required was not available at Cullman Regional,” Malone said.

Coronavirus variants are prolonging the pandemic. Here is how we can slow new strains. Coronavirus variants like are an expected part of the virus's lifecycle, but vaccines and other methods can prevent more infectious strains from developing. (John Farrell, Hadley Green/The Washington Post)

DeMonia’s case comes as Alabama hospitals grapple with a lack of ICU resources amid a surge in patients — many of whom are unvaccinated. Scott Harris, head of the Alabama Department of Public Health, said Friday that while the state’s increase in hospitalizations appears to have stabilized, there are still more patients who need ICU care than there are available beds.

“We continue to have a real crisis in Alabama with our ICU bed capacity,” Harris said at a news conference, adding that there were about 60 more ICU patients than there were open beds in the state last week.
Nearly 2,800 people in the state were hospitalized with covid-19 on Sunday, including 768 in the ICU, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. The number of total hospitalizations over a seven-day average decreased by 4 percent compared with the previous period. Although Alabama is averaging 3,641 new infections a day, that is also an improvement compared with its latest seven-day average for daily cases


Vaccinations are also up, but with just 40 percent of residents fully immunized, Alabama still has the fourth-lowest vaccination rate among all states — ahead of Idaho, West Virginia and Wyoming, according to tracking by The Post.

Jimmy Kimmel suggests hospitals shouldn’t treat unvaccinated patients who prefer ivermectin
After President Biden promised last week to use his power to circumvent the actions of Republican governors and elected officials who were “undermining” pandemic-relief efforts, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) challenged the president to “bring it on.” Ivey, who has pushed for the unvaccinated to get their shots but said the state would never mandate it, allocated $12 million in federal funding this month to bring travel nurses to Alabama hospitals experiencing staffing shortages, such as the ones that DeMonia’s family encountered.

Born on Sept. 4, 1947, DeMonia followed his father’s path in appreciating, finding and selling antiques at furniture auctions, according to the Cullman Times. When he married his wife, Patricia, in 1972, he joked to the newspaper that he “had to indoctrinate her into antiques.” He would eventually also become an auctioneer, a career in which his jovial spirit and recognizable calls — “Hey, bidda, bidda, bidda!” — would make him a decades-long community stalwart in Cullman, 50 miles north of Birmingham.

As the owner of DeMonia’s Antiques and Auctions for about 40 years, he would go as far as Chicago or New Jersey if it meant there was a good find, his daughter said. He once found a painting by French impressionist Claude Monet in an estate sale that eventually sold at an auction in Huntsville for $38,000.
“Not many people can say they’ve held a Monet,” he told the Times.

Raven DeMonia, 38, of Raleigh recalled how he loved Alabama Crimson Tide football and the music of Kiss, the Allman Brothers Band and the Eagles. She reveled in watching “Antiques Roadshow” with her father, saying he treated it like she approached “Jeopardy!” and would nail the pricing estimates.
“I always got a kick out of him doing that because he was always right on the money,” she told The Post. “He knew so much about antiques, and I was always trying to learn from him.”

Howard Stern criticizes unvaccinated Americans, casting vaccine mandate as ‘freedom to live’
Ray DeMonia suffered a stroke in April 2020 during the early days of the pandemic, she said, but was able to find care within three hours at a Birmingham hospital that was “covid-free.” He called her from his hospital bed last year and sounded like his normal self, his daughter said. He was eventually vaccinated, and he hoped the coronavirus situation in the community would improve so he could get back to in-person antique shows and auctions.


“He knew what the vaccine meant for his health and what it meant to staying alive,” she said. “He said, ‘I just want to get back to shaking hands with people, selling stuff and talking antiques.’ ”
On the evening of Aug. 23, Ray DeMonia had heart problems and was taken to Cullman Regional. The next morning, about 12 hours after he was admitted, his daughter said her mother got a call saying that the staff had tried 43 hospitals without any luck in getting him a specialized cardiac ICU bed. They were, however, able to find an open ICU bed at Rush Foundation Hospital in Meridian, Miss.
Malone, the Alabama hospital’s spokeswoman, said situations such as the one experienced by DeMonia have been an “ongoing problem” reported by doctors at Cullman Regional and hospitals throughout the state.

“When patients are transported to other facilities to receive care that they need, that’s becoming increasingly more difficult because all hospitals are experiencing an increased lack of bed space,” she said.

The family made the 200-mile drive back and forth from Alabama to Mississippi over the next week, where the Meridian hospital gave DeMonia “wonderful” care, his daughter said.
Then, the family got the call they feared: DeMonia had died.
When the time came to write the obituary, Raven DeMonia said, her mother wanted to add the line about vaccination as part of their remembrance. The move was similar to that of others across the country whose loved ones have died because of the resurgent virus or the toll it has taken on hospitals.

The daughter said the response to the obituary and her father’s story was not something she or any of the family had expected. She said she hopes the story of her father will be yet another warning to people that they don’t have to go through what his family experienced.

“Dad would just want everything to get back to normal,” she said. “If people would just realize the strain on hospital resources that’s happening right now, then that would be really amazing. But I don’t know if that’ll ever happen.”
 
win231 said:
Many people may have had Covid without knowing they had it; they would pass it off as a cold or flu. People don't go to the hospital whenever they're sick; it depends on how sick they are.
When I heard about losing the sense of taste or smell, I recalled a bad cold I had years ago. When all the congestion was completely gone & I could breathe freely through my mouth and nose, I realized that I had absolutely no sense of taste or smell. That lasted 4-5 days.
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I had the same, win, in Jan. 2020 only my sense of taste was impaired during the illness not after. Probably was covid.
 
win231 said:
Many people may have had Covid without knowing they had it; they would pass it off as a cold or flu. People don't go to the hospital whenever they're sick; it depends on how sick they are.
When I heard about losing the sense of taste or smell, I recalled a bad cold I had years ago. When all the congestion was completely gone & I could breathe freely through my mouth and nose, I realized that I had absolutely no sense of taste or smell. That lasted 4-5 days.
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Due to sinus surgery years ago.. I barely can smell anything. Feel like one side of my nostril is closed. I regret having surgery..don't feel like it had to be done..but listening to my ENT doc..I went ahead and had it done. When your gut speaks.... LISTEN!!
 
Jules said:
It’s my business if they’re providing a service very close to me. A hairdresser is near you for an hour. If they don’t want the vaccine they should give you the information so you have option to not deal with them.
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But since a mask protects, & if they're wearing one, why would you be concerned about whether or not they were vaccinated?
And, if they were vaccinated, you're aware of the many breakthrough cases?
 
Jules said:
Should you ask/should they tell you?
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You have every right to ask, and if its important to you then your should.

They have the right not to tell you, but whatever answer you get you have the right to decide if you want to see them. If it is important to you don't be timid, just ask.

I do believe that a vaccinated person is less likely to have the virus, and therefor less likely to transmit it. However like a lot of things their is no 100% certainty here. You just have to make the best decision for yourself.
 
win231 said:
Very intelligent nurse. It's not often when a medical professional doesn't "Go with the flow."
And she's right. It ain't none of your business. Covid is not an excuse for rudeness.
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I completely disagree with you. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center does not require its workers to be vaccinated. They will also not provide patients with vaccinated staff. I am being treated for a very aggressive cancer, and I do not appreciate unvaccinated people being around me without my knowledge.

I also, as do many cancer patients, have an immune system that is nearly worthless, due to the treatment. After going through treatment for more than a year, I am still stuck in my house and see no one except medical personnel daily, and my husband. I would be mad as hell if I caught Covid and died, after all that I have been through, and how extra careful I have been. I'd also be mad if my fellow cancer patients died because someone was too stupid to get vaccinated, especially for the reasons I have heard. I am fully vaccinated and so are the two people I spend time with (my daughter lives with me), except for medical personnel.

UPMC has 93,000 employees. 30% of them are not vaccinated.

Plus, I was not rude. I have a right to know whether medical personnel can kill me with Covid. It is a public health issue, all you have to do is read the news to find that out.
 
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