Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

The Everyone must agree with me crowd rely on lack of knowledge and ignoring reality because they don’t get the simple concept that people who don’t have jobs and can’t feed their family is causing health, psychological and financial hardships for everyone.  They are quite comfortable with the government supporting those folks, and ignore the fact that The government can’t give anything to anyone without first taking it from someone else.

There is plenty of evidence.  Did you not see the nearly complete shutdown of Southwest Airlines?  Did you see how many millions of dollars they lost?

Have you not been watching how many hospitals have stopped doing certain procedures or are reporting staff shortages due to workers not being vaccinated? Or Police departments who have openly told their community to not call 911 unless it is dire, or to expect much slower response times?  Have you not seen the heartbreaking reports of small businesses who can’t function because of employees leaving over mask or vaccine mandates?

if not- PM me and I will send links. They are out there everyday. 

Last I checked, Southwest is still operating, they were not completely shutdown.  In that case, the company chose to require their employees to be vaccinated.  Yes, they were forced to cancel a LOT of flights, and they backed off requiring vaccines.  The hospitals have been short-handed and overworked long before any vaccine mandates came out.  Given that hospitals take care of sick people, that is one area I fully support a vaccine mandate.

Last I checked, Southwest is still operating, they were not completely shutdown.  In that case, the company chose to require their employees to be vaccinated.  Yes, they were forced to cancel a LOT of flights, and they backed off requiring vaccines.  The hospitals have been short-handed and overworked long before any vaccine mandates came out.  Given that hospitals take care of sick people, that is one area I fully support a vaccine mandate.

Yes that’s why I use the term “brought them to the knees“ as opposed to saying they were put out of business.  It cost them millions and will cost them millions more in the future as they permanently lost quite a few clients. All you have to do is drive through strip malls, fast food restaurants or any other industrial area to see how many businesses are now out of business due to all of this. It’s not hyper bole by any means.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with vaccine mandates in hospitals. I was simply pointing out that the economic and other outcomes are potentially as bad or worse from the vaccine mandates as opposed to the original post which basically said that people not being vaccinated are a greater economic problem.

A government entity or a business has the right to have a vaccine mandate for its employees. The courts have clearly shown they support that.

Whether or not it’s the right thing to do is open to everybody’s differing opinions. If you live in a city where 25 or 35% of the police department refuses to get vaccinated and therefore loses their jobs, how do you feel about that? I don’t know the answer because it doesn’t apply where I live. I imagine it’s pretty difficult. 

Southwest Airlines' October flight cancellations cost carrier $75 million (cnbc.com)
Southwest Airlines' October flight cancellations cost carrier $75 million (cnbc.com)

Dallas-based Southwest canceled more than 2,000 flights between Oct. 8 and Oct. 13. It blamed the meltdown on bad weather in Florida and air traffic control issues, which was compounded by staffing shortages. Its closest rivals, including those in Florida, had relatively minimal cancellations.

The hit came from flight cancellations, customer refunds and “gestures of goodwill.”
The airline reported a third-quarter profit of $446 million on Thursday thanks to a boost from federal aid and voluntary leaves of absence by employees, but it said staff shortages led to operational problems that hurt its bottom line.
“Our active (versus inactive) and available staffing fell below plan and, along with other factors, caused us to miss our operational ontime performance targets, and that created additional cost headwinds,” Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said. That along with a surge in Covid-19 cases led to a revenue hit of $300 million, he said.

You guys realize that mask mandates are a message, right?  It's an attempt to coerce the unvaxxed to "git 'er done" and be welcome everywhere.  It's not a draconian restriction on our freedoms.  It's simply making public life too much of a hassle without being vaccinated. 

I've tried to explain the problem with mask mandates, because I see it here in California.

California has a statewide mask mandate that states that the unvaccinated must wear masks. Those who are fully vaccinated are recommended but not required. (Note: LA County and 7 Bay Area Counties have more strict local rules saying everyone must be masked regardless of vax status.)

So what happens? The people who are vaccinated have taken off their masks. And, quite predictably, the people who are unvaccinated have taken off their masks, because no business is going to accost someone without a mask and demand to see their vax card.

So if you have a disparate policy, that policy does not incentivize the unvaccinated to get the jab.

So you could go the other way. You could be like LA County or those Bay Area counties which are now requiring masks for everyone, regardless of vaccination status. That also doesn't lead the unvaccinated to get the jab, because there's no incentive (the ability to take off the mask) to getting it. I think they just figure they'll wait it out until the vaccinated get fed up enough to force a policy change.

I'm attaching the vaccination rates over time for Orange County, where the [unenforced] rule is that masks are required for the unvaccinated. I'm also attaching the vaccination rates over time for Los Angeles County, where the rule is that masks are required for everyone.

I don't see much difference in the graphs, leading me to suggest that mask mandates don't really affect vaccination rates to any appreciable degree. 

When was there bad weather in Florida?

I don't know that any significant outages were weather related, perhaps locally there could have been some thunderstorms.

It's probably a lame excuse, but the hit to their earnings is pretty modest, if temporary.  Our two flights were on time and I didn't notice delays around the airports.  We were on Delta, the wife won't fly anything else without there being no other option.

The airline reported a third-quarter profit of $446 million on Thursday thanks to a boost from federal aid and voluntary leaves of absence by employees, but it said staff shortages led to operational problems that hurt its bottom line.

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Geeeeezzzz

I feel bad for them.  How will they ever go on???

Well they lost $300mm- conservatively. Long-term loss is probably far greater.

it has nothing to do with whether or not you or anyone feel sorry for them. Their shareholders and Board of Directors will not stand for revenue losses of that size which are extremely significant. They had to fix the problem and so they did. They changed their position on the vaccine mandate.

and coincidentally and suddenly all the weather problems that only they were being impacted by, cleared up. 😂😂

I wonder how much it's actually enforced. By that, I mean, if the business halfheartedly asks and consumers halfheartedly do it, probably becomes a big whatever.

Of course, the flip side is once you put a law in place, someone somewhere is gonna take the brunt of it, so I can buy that. (I wear a mask into the grocery store and while walking into restaurants because I have no desire to talk to someone who might ask about it. I kinda like having a mask for public restrooms. That's an upshot)

👍😊