Civic and human race duties

I am a resident of Coeur d’Alene for five decades, using many local businesses and services. Two things,

Excuses for not advocating virus protection with a series of shots:

• Recently we hired a franchise cleaning service, and I have nothing but praise for the ‘team’ that cleans my house. They are having staffing issues and many workers out, a common report, some isolating, some recovering. I have brought up the suggestion that their staff be vaccinated for COVID-19. This was the second time I brought it up, as there have been previous rescheduling situations due to ‘short staff.’ I was listening to NPR this morning, they reported that 90% + of the National Basketball Association, NBA, is thoroughly vaccinated as a condition for play, participation, pay and other privileges. Given that, we have a new goal, and famous examples for compliance with World Health recommendations.

As one of the NBA players, or team reps said, it is their obligation not only to their fans, but to their neighbors, communities and loved ones to protect themselves from a highly contagious fatal disease. Now, anti-vaxers, before you whip out your red pen: I am old, I have a fatal disease: Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus; and follow CDC guidelines for getting vaccinated, Moderna, staying home as much and as long as I can; using drive through or carry out shopping for food and medicine; and respecting the health of others.

To continue my conversation with the Spokane/Coeur d’Alene business supervisor, the first pushback I received from my suggestion that staff get vaccinated, at first there were HIPAA concerns. Though many companies do mandate vaccinations despite disinformation and objections, I told her before arranging the cleaning in my house, I would prefer that they be fully vaccinated.

She intimated first that people would quit and they are already scrambling to keep employees.

To their credit, my workers do wear masks, they uber clean and sanitize doorknobs and light switches as standard practice, thank you. (When they were in our home.)

Today, when I was asked again to rearrange our appointed time and day, I suggested it might mitigate the problem of quarantine. Lots of them have school age children, thus exposing the family when the students have to go home from school and isolate. This then contributes to lost time off work, sick days.

The second pushback was: they have fewer than 100 employees so they can’t be forced to mandate that. Their staff would object to that. I brought up disinformation, and pointed out that from a strictly business standpoint, it is a small sacrifice for the greater good, and for their bottom line. Administrative staff with many local businesses are working lots of extra hours with quite a bit of stress for all schedulers in the trades, in our family’s personal recent experience.

Suggestions for following national guidelines and the science:

• Do it for your profit margin! I don’t expect everyone to have the level of altruism that I have, but there is a matter of common sense, and a free-market economy. You are losing money if you are not advocating for protection for your employees. We had a pretty big fencing project that is nearly complete, and we feel fortunate to have it only two weeks past the expected finish. One of their staff, actually two, had a relative in the hospital with COVID. They had to skip days because they did not have the team of four that was needed, and they were behind. I am not pointing fingers at these businesses, and I am pointing out what I see as painfully obvious. If a member of their family is infected, and you have chronic staffing issues, would you not conclude that if we were vaccinated, we could substantially solve these real business problems?

Thank you.

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Judi K. Hanna is a Coeur d'Alene resident.