Will a Covid Vaccine Drive a Return To The Workplace?

The FDA said J&J’s single-dose coronavirus vaccine is safe and effective, a good sign ahead of today’s meeting to discuss whether to approve it.

 According to data gathered by Blind, the largest anonymous professional network, 59% of professionals say they would like to see a combination of vaccination, mask-wearing policies, and limited office use before returning to the physical office. Will a Covid vaccine drive a return to the workplace? 

The anonymous app ran these two questions from 2/23 – 2/26/21 and gathered responses from over 4,000 professionals:

1. Would you be willing to do in-person meetings if your coworkers were vaccinated?
2. What precautions would you like to see before going back to the office:

While 32% of survey respondents say that just vaccinating coworkers is enough of a precaution they would like to see before going back to the office, only 2% say that a mandatory mask policy alone is enough. 

80% of Google employees say they would be willing to do in-person meetings if their coworkers were vaccinated. 100% of Dropbox employees, 81% of Facebook employees, and 65% of Apple employees also say they would do in-person meetings if their coworkers were vaccinated. 

Access some of the data here. 

A Blind user asked, “When will companies send all workers back to the office? Other than tech companies, which seem to be a bit more generous, when do you think EVERYONE will be sent back? Vaccine distributions have begun and, from what I hear, will be ramping up.”

A Blind user at IBM asked, “California is moving into phase 1b of covid vaccinations. What would be a realistic estimated timeline for us, tech workers, to go back to the bay area/office?”

Now that we are armed with multiple effective vaccines, countries are starting to think about reopening offices, school systems, and retail stores…for good. And employees across the country are showing their willingness to return.