Oenologists & Covid

[dstgolf]

The Union of Oenologists of France - The Union of Oenologists of France has called for "priority vaccination" for wine professionals. In a press release the union said that wine professionals had been "particularly impacted" in their profession by the loss of taste or smell caused by Covid-19. The Union underlines that in its unprecedented study carried out in the summer of 2020 out of 2,625 wine professionals in 37 countries including France, nearly 38% of wine professionals had lost their taste or smell because of Covid-19.

Unfortunately I can't disagree with their plight/request but there are a huge number of workers in society that have similar issues and can make claims to be vaccinated ahead of others. Governments have difficult choices as to who gets priority but its about risk to the individual and the population not necessarily to their effected senses. They aren't the only group who's livelihoods rely on their sense of smell or taste. Virtually anyone in the food and drink industry, tasters/smellers of any kind etc but ahead of medical personelle, store/food service workers, police, fire, transportation etc. Just not enough vaccine to go around at the moment. Even our 2nd doses have been delayed by 16 weeks instead of 4 to allow more people to get partial immunity with the onslaught of the variants entering the system and being more aggressive just when the vaccination program is gaining steam here and through most of the world but not fast enough for anyones comfort level. Unfortunately this looks far from over.

[jckba]

In the US, I have a good friend who manages a wine store and since he was deemed an ‘essential’ customer facing worker he was able to get vaccinated in the initial go round stage and all he had to do was provide a paystub as proof.

For some reason, this topic made me think of when Robert Parker had a million dollar insurance policy on his nose because of the huge sums of money that were dependent on his olfactory senses.

[SF Ed]

Wine is deemed an essential industry in California and those in any part of the industry that can't work remotely were eligible for vaccination just after health care workers and over 75s, which means they have been eligible for vaccination for at least a month at this point, so they mostly should be fully vaccinated now.

California has made lots of exceptions for industries and conditions which has made their age-based vaccinations later than in many other states. I get it, but it means the 50-64 group without comorbidities and not working in food/agriculture isn't up yet. Counties around me have opened up for 50-64, so I should be up soon.

[stefan]

Um. Rather, 38% of those who lost their sense of taste or smell due to Covid were were unable to continue their profession. 2.7% of those surveyed had had Covid, and of those, 68% had lost their sense of smell and 56% suffered from taste disturbances.

Source

https://www.euronews.com/2021/03/23/fre ... id-vaccine

[Tom In DC]

From what I've read, nearly all recover their senses of smell and/or taste after a short period of time. See for instance:

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/how-covid- ... loss-smell

I wonder if "unable to continue their profession" was more of a short term situation rather than the permanent disability suggested by the president of the union.

[JimHow]

My second and final Pfizer shot is on April 8th.
Hopefully we can come up with a "vaccine passport" soon:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 21421.html
Sounds like Emirates, AA, and others are amenable to it.
If those are the airlines on which I have to travel, then so be it.
We have like nearly 30% vaccination here in the Great State of Maine, and 50-70-80% not far off, but of course we are usually ahead of the rest of you American dummies who bring the rest of us down.
It's time to bring this to an end.
Herd immunity is here. Let's get back to work:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/herd-immun ... opin_pos_1