Mike Peterson
Apple will reportedly ask all of its employees to provide their vaccination status in an effort to better inform its Covid-19 policies, but it isn't mandating the reporting or vaccination in general.
The Cupertino-based company is asking staffers to "voluntarily" report vaccination status by the middle of September, regardless of whether they are working in-office or remotely, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
"As Apple's Covid-19 response continues to evolve, our primary focus remains keeping our team members, their friends and families, and our entire community healthy," Apple said in an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg.
According to the memo, Apple said that it will use the employee vaccination data to inform its Covid-19 response efforts and work policies. Previously, the company asked for vaccination status in California, Washington, and New Jersey in compliance with location regulations.
The company says it will keep vaccinate data "confidential and secure," and won't inform managers of the responses. However, it did note that vaccination status "may be used in an identifiable manner, along with other information about your general work environment such as your building location, if we determine or, if it is required that, this information is necessary in order to ensure a healthy and safe work environment."
Apple has been ramping up its Covid-19 response in recent months as the more infectious delta variant surges. Back in August, the company began encouraging its employees to get vaccinated and expanded its Covid-19 testing programs.
Unlike other major tech companies, however, Apple is not currently mandating vaccinations among its employees. However, it does appear to be mulling such a requirement.
Apple initially planned to bring back corporate employees to offices in September, but delayed the return — first to October and then to at least January 2022 — because of an uptick in cases across the U.S. largely caused by the delta variant. Although employees have pushed back against the return to in-office work, Apple appears to be pressing on ahead with those plans.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
48 Comments
We had one a-hole coworker here that died a couple weeks ago. She was anti-vaccine. Now, I couldn't care less that COVID is thinning the herd of these Darwin-award winners, but the prior week before she died she was at the office, without a care in the world. Her ignorant, stupid, selfish decision that it was "my body, my choice" affected others in her department. We had to shut down the entire department she worked in, which was a vital, production department and all the employees had to quarantine because of it.
Volunteer reporting is about as useless as self-nominating surveys. There is no way that volunteer reporting will produce any worthwhile data concerning the status of employee vaccinations. Even if Apple were to mandate a response people would lie through their teeth, especially the hard corp anti-vaxxers. The only way to get any semblance of accurate data would be to require employees to show proof of vaccination. Sure, there might be few that would resort to counterfeit vaccination cards but it would be much harder than simply lying on a survey.
The people who run surveys and volunteer reporting always forget about human nature. Personally I love screwing around with telephone surveys. I always respond to their crafted questions with answers that go against what they want to hear. Political surveys from politicians are the most fun to mess with.
i’m glad they aren’t forcing employees to get vaccinated. no one should be forced to take the vaccine.
Science does not care what your politics are or where you go to worship (or not).
I work in healthcare and am directly exposed to confirmed positive and potential Covid infected people every shift I work and I am quite tired of these people who will believe everyone but a qualified and informed scientist or Physician. I had to throw a family member out of our ER last week who refused to comply with our policy and opposed the most polite and reasonable requests to conform. It is tedious to repeatedly deal with this and their behavior is dangerous to staff, visitors and patients.
I am not the lawyer of the family but it seems such a policy could open Apple to potential lawsuits later on. Tim should plainly tell them to get vaccinated or find other work and that they will not be eligible for rehire for refusing to follow policy.
We are far from done with Covid as most of the people on our planet are not vaccinated and the virus will continue to mutate. The Delta variant that is the current dominant one in the US came from India. Expect more waves later on until the bulk of humanity has been vaccinated.
Nobody is more tired of PPE and all the rest than I, but it is well past time we all start acting like responsible adults and do what is necessary to protect the vulnerable and get this virus under control.