Vaccine Passports - currently being considered in Scotland & Wales

[jumble]

Getting vaccinated is not authoritarian. It's the vaccine passports that are the problem.

So while I'll gladly get vaccinated, I would boycott any setting which demanded vaccine passports even though I'd meet their requirements.

I think the point being made was that anti vaccination attitudes are being used by those in favour of restrictions as a way to justify continuing restrictions. While they'll probably try to make this case no matter what, the more people who are vaccinated the weaker their arguments become.

Me too
I have been double vaccinated but am still going to make a pain of myself if any venue voluntarily tries to enforce ( just like I will not wear a mask on TFL because i do not appreciate paying for a service where they address me like I am 12 years old
Posters still proclaiming "Wear A Mask!" )

 

[island]

There are also 10 million people in the UK without a smartphone

most of whom are children so don’t need passes

so presumably any such plot would need to cater for them with a paper/card based version. Which would raise a lot of administrative/security challenges, and would need to ensure no counterfeiting were possible.

NHS England already issues paper certificates by post to the very small number of people who need them, bearing QR codes which can be scanned by an app provided by the NHS to verify they are genuine.

I have no problem with you or others being philosophically opposed to vaccine passports – I can’t say I’m a big fan myself – but making spurious logistical arguments doesn’t help your cause.

 

[MikeWM]

Getting vaccinated is not authoritarian. It's the vaccine passports that are the problem.

While that is generally true, the mechanisms now being used to try to get the 11% or so of adults who have not yet been vaccinated to do so, are very much authoritarian. The threat of vaccine passports are one of those but by no means the only one being used.

So while I'll gladly get vaccinated, I would boycott any setting which demanded vaccine passports even though I'd meet their requirements.

Good! It is important to continue to note that there are two separate issues here, both very problematic - the coercion/mandation of vaccination, and the proposals that we should have a 'health papers please' society. While I personally am opposed to both, it is an entirely reasonable position to support one and totally oppose the other.

I think the point being made was that anti vaccination attitudes are being used by those in favour of restrictions as a way to justify continuing restrictions. While they'll probably try to make this case no matter what, the more people who are vaccinated the weaker their arguments become.

I suspect that is optimistic, as they'll just use the 'booster' argument, and/or the emergence of 'variants' that the vaccine is less effective against (thus requiring more 'boosters', in a never-ending vicious cycle). I strongly suspect people getting these vaccines have effectively also signed up for never-ending 'boosters', probably every 6 months or so, quite possibly forever. And keeping the 'vaccine passport' up-to-date will almost certainly require having had the full set of boosters, not just the original vaccination.

 

[Merseysider]

most of whom are children so don’t need passes

I didn’t think of that *facepalm*

 

[HSTEd]

I can see an argument for coercing vaccination, not that I agree with it.

But if you are going to do that, just admit that you are going to coerce people and coerce them.

Don't create a giant police state apparatus to technically allow people not to volunteer.

 

[Skimpot flyer]

I beg to differ. I’ve seen a bunch of under-12s on a school trip, supervised by teachers on a train journey last week. Almost all the kids were glued to their smartphones, looking at stuff on TikTok and suchlike…

 

[NorthKent1989]

I wonder if they’ll force parents to vaccinate their healthy children in order to attend school? No jab no education, joking of course but nothing would surprise me at this point.

 

[MikeWM]

I wonder if they’ll force parents to vaccinate their healthy children in order to attend school?

I expect that will be very likely. Probably by January.

 

[35B]

I wonder if they’ll force parents to vaccinate their healthy children in order to attend school? No jab no education, joking of course but nothing would surprise me at this point.

You mean precisely what the state of California has mandated for the infant vaccination schedule for a few years now? It was amazing how a measles epidemic that killed several hundred people who couldn't have been vaccinated because others had chosen not to be vaccinated focused minds.

 

[MikeWM]

You mean precisely what the state of California has mandated for the infant vaccination schedule for a few years now? It was amazing how a measles epidemic that killed several hundred people who couldn't have been vaccinated because others had chosen not to be vaccinated focused minds.

Which as you know I fundamentally disagree with - but at least in that case the vaccination is well-established and understood, *and* is actually of benefit to those being vaccinated.

 

[Bantamzen]

You mean precisely what the state of California has mandated for the infant vaccination schedule for a few years now? It was amazing how a measles epidemic that killed several hundred people who couldn't have been vaccinated because others had chosen not to be vaccinated focused minds.

You keep falling back on this one, but as I've said to you earlier just because another country or state does something does not mean that we should follow, or even that what they are doing is right. When it comes to medical healthcare, the US is something of a basket case with mandatory vaccines in California whilst healthcare is still one of the most expensive in the world.

You might want to try other cases to back up your argument.

 

[35B]

You keep falling back on this one, but as I've said to you earlier just because another country or state does something does not mean that we should follow, or even that what they are doing is right. When it comes to medical healthcare, the US is something of a basket case with mandatory vaccines in California whilst healthcare is still one of the most expensive in the world.

You might want to try other cases to back up your argument.

I cite it as a precedent, and one that unlike many in American healthcare that works.

Which as you know I fundamentally disagree with - but at least in that case the vaccination is well-established and understood, *and* is actually of benefit to those being vaccinated.

On the last point, I think the statistics would disagree profoundly. Yesterday, the BBC reported that 50% of hospital patients with Covid are in the under 34 group. At a time when Covid cases have fallen dramatically, that is 10 times the proportion of hospital patients in that age group that were hospitalised in January. Total patient numbers had fallen 90%, that age group only half. With restrictions lifting, I’m struggling to work out what else makes such a disproportionate difference if not vaccines.

 

[Bantamzen]

I cite it as a precedent, and one that unlike many in American healthcare that works.

With only one problem, it doesn't work. There is considerable resistance in the state against the vaccine laws, and not necessarily where you might expect it to come. There are a considerable number of educated, well financed people there not only pushing back but pulling away from them, including many taking kids out of public schools to educate at home.

You see the problem is that when anything like this becomes mandatory to access services, humans being human start to question why. And even when there is a good reason to promote the vaccines, forcing them onto people & especially their young children will cause concern and unrest. People will start to wonder why it should be forced, and what the motives behind them are. In the case of California people start to look at it and ask why is it in a country with such high medical costs that the public face, why do they then have no choice about MMR. This is where anti-vaxxers are born, and it isn't long before the crazy 5G conspiracies and their like are sown.

We don't need mandatory medical interventions, we need simple, calm, and adult conversations about vaccinations, treatments anything else that helps public health in general. Keeping things away from politicians and laws radically reduces the risk of these things entering the realms of conspiracy. Of course some people would not be happy with this, having fixed laws and rules suits some, it takes away responsibility and gives them someone to blame. But that is a culture we need to see the back off, because it causes more problems than it will ever solve.

 

[NorthKent1989]

You mean precisely what the state of California has mandated for the infant vaccination schedule for a few years now? It was amazing how a measles epidemic that killed several hundred people who couldn't have been vaccinated because others had chosen not to be vaccinated focused minds.

So what if California does it, Does that mean we have to? Covid has no risks in the young unlike measles.

I don’t know why you keep being California into this, and why should children have to be vaccinated against a respiratory virus that has very very few cases among that age group.

So does that mean you’re in favour keeping unvaccinated children out of education?

 

[35B]

With only one problem, it doesn't work. There is considerable resistance in the state against the vaccine laws, and not necessarily where you might expect it to come. There are a considerable number of educated, well financed people there not only pushing back but pulling away from them, including many taking kids out of public schools to educate at home.

You see the problem is that when anything like this becomes mandatory to access services, humans being human start to question why. And even when there is a good reason to promote the vaccines, forcing them onto people & especially their young children will cause concern and unrest. People will start to wonder why it should be forced, and what the motives behind them are. In the case of California people start to look at it and ask why is it in a country with such high medical costs that the public face, why do they then have no choice about MMR. This is where anti-vaxxers are born, and it isn't long before the crazy 5G conspiracies and their like are sown.

We don't need mandatory medical interventions, we need simple, calm, and adult conversations about vaccinations, treatments anything else that helps public health in general. Keeping things away from politicians and laws radically reduces the risk of these things entering the realms of conspiracy. Of course some people would not be happy with this, having fixed laws and rules suits some, it takes away responsibility and gives them someone to blame. But that is a culture we need to see the back off, because it causes more problems than it will ever solve.

There are some who are reacting as you say, and the result is that paediatricians who serve their nonsense are being (IMHO deservedly) struck off. Measured across the state, the effect is that the deaths caused by the selfishness of those who wouldn’t take vaccines or, worse, chose to lie about them, have fallen significantly; it’s that effect that I consider worth focusing on.

There’s a perfectly valid question about the American healthcare system, and the ridiculous costs it causes, but that is something that no state can address significantly because of how the USA is set up. Meanwhile, compulsion starts to emerge because the simple, calm, and adult conversations you support are subverted by the sort of cranks and charlatans who promote anti-vaxx, Great Reset, 5G and other sorts of anti-scientific nonsense. The tragedy is that when they start lying and myth making, they create the climate of hype that makes those sensible conversations almost impossible to hold.

So what if California does it, Does that mean we have to? Covid has no risks in the young unlike measles.

I don’t know why you keep being California into this, and why should children have to be vaccinated against a respiratory virus that has very very few cases among that age group.

So does that mean you’re in favour keeping unvaccinated children out of education?

I use it, as I’ve repeatedly said, as an example of where it’s a policy that has worked to achieve a particular health objective, and where for all the noise about “compulsion”, the courts have upheld the legitimacy of the policy on human rights grounds.

Whether it’s relevant to Covid, I don’t know. I hope that enough people do take the vaccine that the question becomes academic, and that the damage it does gets suppressed by the benefit of vaccines across the population, here initially and then worldwide.

As for your final question, I’ve no philosophical issue with childhood vaccines being made mandatory and access to public facilities including schools being part of the enforcement process; if Covid vaccination were authorised for children then I’d have no more issue with a child of mine having that than I did with their other childhood vaccines. My questions would be purely practical, and about whether the policy would make a material difference to the incidence of and damage from the disease being vaccinated against.

More generally, I simply don’t understand the logic that vaccination for a disease that carries no moral baggage for the infected is such a private matter that no one else has any legitimate interest. As John Donne wrote:

No man is an island,
entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.
[…]
Any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee

 

[NorthKent1989]

There are some who are reacting as you say, and the result is that paediatricians who serve their nonsense are being (IMHO deservedly) struck off. Measured across the state, the effect is that the deaths caused by the selfishness of those who wouldn’t take vaccines or, worse, chose to lie about them, have fallen significantly; it’s that effect that I consider worth focusing on.

There’s a perfectly valid question about the American healthcare system, and the ridiculous costs it causes, but that is something that no state can address significantly because of how the USA is set up. Meanwhile, compulsion starts to emerge because the simple, calm, and adult conversations you support are subverted by the sort of cranks and charlatans who promote anti-vaxx, Great Reset, 5G and other sorts of anti-scientific nonsense. The tragedy is that when they start lying and myth making, they create the climate of hype that makes those sensible conversations almost impossible to hold.


I use it, as I’ve repeatedly said, as an example of where it’s a policy that has worked to achieve a particular health objective, and where for all the noise about “compulsion”, the courts have upheld the legitimacy of the policy on human rights grounds.

Whether it’s relevant to Covid, I don’t know. I hope that enough people do take the vaccine that the question becomes academic, and that the damage it does gets suppressed by the benefit of vaccines across the population, here initially and then worldwide.

As for your final question, I’ve no philosophical issue with childhood vaccines being made mandatory and access to public facilities including schools being part of the enforcement process; if Covid vaccination were authorised for children then I’d have no more issue with a child of mine having that than I did with their other childhood vaccines. My questions would be purely practical, and about whether the policy would make a material difference to the incidence of and damage from the disease being vaccinated against.

More generally, I simply don’t understand the logic that vaccination for a disease that carries no moral baggage for the infected is such a private matter that no one else has any legitimate interest. As John Donne wrote:

You’ve ignore the fact that Covid has barely dented children and teens in the same way it’s effected adults, vaccinations for TB and Measles are necessary because they do adversely effect children, we don’t even make flu vaccinations for children mandatory, so why this particular virus must unvaccinated children be excluded from spaces?

Yeah nice poem, but I shan’t be guilt tripped any longer, I’m not seeing any altruism from locktavists in regards to other issues stemming from lockdowns

 

[Bantamzen]

There are some who are reacting as you say, and the result is that paediatricians who serve their nonsense are being (IMHO deservedly) struck off. Measured across the state, the effect is that the deaths caused by the selfishness of those who wouldn’t take vaccines or, worse, chose to lie about them, have fallen significantly; it’s that effect that I consider worth focusing on.

And in the future? What if compulsion makes more and more people push back? You can't have escaped to notice how anti-vaxxing has become more and more of a political issue particularly in the US? So why do you imagine that is? Because states like California were pushing hard for compulsion. It moved from the medical practioner's office to the hallways of power, and with it came more unease & more suspicion.

There’s a perfectly valid question about the American healthcare system, and the ridiculous costs it causes, but that is something that no state can address significantly because of how the USA is set up. Meanwhile, compulsion starts to emerge because the simple, calm, and adult conversations you support are subverted by the sort of cranks and charlatans who promote anti-vaxx, Great Reset, 5G and other sorts of anti-scientific nonsense. The tragedy is that when they start lying and myth making, they create the climate of hype that makes those sensible conversations almost impossible to hold.

The other facet of the US healthcare system is just how much big pharma push themselves onto the ordinary public. Even just watching half an hour in a hotel room, or noticing it on the screens in bars, it was shockingly obvious to me just how much drugs for literally any condition you could imagine are relentlessly rammed down their throats. So when government comes along and demands all it's citizens have a needle shoved into them, what do you imagine some people start to think? Much of the conspiracy & hysteria you see today is a product of this ramming.

Take away choice & you get unrest.

 

[Smidster]

I am not convinced that Vaccine passports in this country will actually come to pass as I think the technological challenges are too great
Again how does a foreign tourist prove anything to a security guard?

The technology is a doddle - we are already in the minority in Europe in not having them for very routine things.

As for Overseas visitors - there would likely be some recognition between apps of what is acceptable - for example the UK Covid Pass can now sync with the French health pass that is needed to access cafes etc


Right now the reason it won't happen is purely political...a system could be introduced tomorrow if the will was there.

 

[MikeWM]

On the last point, I think the statistics would disagree profoundly. Yesterday, the BBC reported that 50% of hospital patients with Covid are in the under 34 group.

I have about as much trust in the BBC at this point as you have in HART.

Nevertheless, let's look at what data we can find. There's a spreadsheet right at the very bottom of this page
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/
that breaks down hospital admissions by age.

So in the last 10 days of July (cumulative):

0-17 : 498
18-34 : 1685
35+ : 5740

That's categorically *not* 50% in under-34s. Actually it is about 27% on those figures.


Compare the first 10 days of January:

0-17 : 410
18-34 : 1777
35+ : 31739

There the under-34s were 6.5%.


So yes, no-one (sensible) is arguing that, in the short-term, the vaccine has had a positive effect on reducing serious illness. (The figures from Israel, where the vaccine rollout advanced more quickly than here, are rather less positive as to the prospects of the vaccine doing so after more than a few months, but that's a different topic).

But the risk to the young is small and has always been small. The % of total hospital admissions in that cohort has increased precisely because the vaccines have been successful - so far - in preventing severe illness in those that it needed to.

 

[Annetts key]

I think you will find that the BBC reported 1 in 5 of admissions are aged between 18 and 34.

Covid: Fifth of England hospital admissions aged 18-34

The new NHS chief executive urges unvaccinated young adults to get jabbed, saying it is "so important".

www.bbc.co.uk

But the risk to the young is small and has always been small. The % of total hospital admissions in that cohort has increased precisely because the vaccines have been successful - so far - in preventing severe illness in those that it needed to.

No, the risk of being seriously ill is smaller. But the risk of infection is not small. The symptoms may well be less, but that does not mean that all young people will not suffer from worse symptoms. That’s a big difference.

And the smaller risk, is the risk level compared to older adults.

 

[MikeWM]

I thing you will find that the BBC reported 1 in 5 of admissions are aged between 18 and 34.

Covid: Fifth of England hospital admissions aged 18-34

The new NHS chief executive urges unvaccinated young adults to get jabbed, saying it is "so important".

www.bbc.co.uk

That fits the figures I found rather better, thanks.

Though while the headline is apparently accurate, the rest of the article strikes me as a great example of how to 'tell the truth' but still mislead. Not that I'd expect anything better from the BBC at this point.

She added the level of young adults being admitted to hospital was four times higher than the peak last winter.

...which to me very clearly makes it sound like 4 times as many young adults are being admitted now than in the winter. But that's not the case - the *proportion* is 4 times as much, but that's of a much lower total, and in fact (as per the figures I posted above) the actual numbers are about the same.

Saying 'the proportion of' would have been more honest. Saying 'the level of' strikes me as misleading.

 

[Annetts key]

Though while the headline is apparently accurate, the rest of the article strikes me as a great example of how to 'tell the truth' but still mislead. Not that I'd expect anything better from the BBC at this point.



...which to me very clearly makes it sound like 4 times as many young adults are being admitted now than in the winter. But that's not the case - the *proportion* is 4 times as much, but that's of a much lower total, and in fact (as per the figures I posted above) the actual numbers are about the same.

Saying 'the proportion of' would have been more honest. Saying 'the level of' strikes me as misleading.

Are you having a go at the news organisation or at Amanda Pritchard? I can’t remember exactly what she said. But if she said that, and the BBC just reported what she said, are you still sure that your criticism of the BBC is warranted?

 

[MikeWM]

Are you having a go at the news organisation or at Amanda Pritchard? I can’t remember exactly what she said. But if she said that, and the BBC just reported what she said, are you still sure that your criticism of the BBC is warranted?

Hard to tell, because as I said the article says

She added the level of young adults being admitted to hospital was four times higher than the peak last winter.

- not a direct quote - so I don't know if that's precisely what she said, or an interpretation of what she said.

Either way, I think it is misleading.

 

[takno]

Are you having a go at the news organisation or at Amanda Pritchard? I can’t remember exactly what she said. But if she said that, and the BBC just reported what she said, are you still sure that your criticism of the BBC is warranted?

When it comes to Covid, there is an almost limitless supply of experts, talking heads and other assorted muppets only too keen to appear on the telly and tell a tiny fraction of the story. The BBC chooses exactly which muppets are actually in the spotlight. So in essence, whichever name is against the quotes, the quotes always represent the opinion of the BBC (or at least the particular journalist writing the piece).

 

[Annetts key]

When it comes to Covid, there is an almost limitless supply of experts, talking heads and other assorted muppets only too keen to appear on the telly and tell a tiny fraction of the story. The BBC chooses exactly which muppets are actually in the spotlight. So in essence, whichever name is against the quotes, the quotes always represent the opinion of the BBC (or at least the particular journalist writing the piece).

You may want to look up the person that you are talking about… I don’t think most people would consider the NHS England chief executive as a muppet. See https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/board/nhs-england-board/members/

 

[takno]

You may want to look up the person that you are talking about… I don’t think most people would consider the NHS England chief executive as a muppet. See https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/board/nhs-england-board/members/

Wouldn't they? Would most people consider the NHS England chief executive as a muppet if Dido Harding were to get the job next (which seems entirely possible)?

 

[Annetts key]

Wouldn't they? Would most people consider the NHS England chief executive as a muppet if Dido Harding were to get the job next (which seems entirely possible)?

And when do you think the post will become vacant?

For those of you who think children don’t get seriously ill with COVID19 Corona virus, should watch Channel 4 news (on now) or watch on the Channel 4+1 channel.

 

[DustyBin]

For those of you who think children don’t get seriously ill with COVID19 Corona virus, should watch Channel 4 news (on now) or watch on the Channel 4+1 channel.

They're statistical outliers thought aren't they. Check the ONS data if you don't believe me. It's no different to anti-vaxxers (and I mean the real anti-vaxxers) using vaccine related deaths as an argument not to get vaccinated. The risk isn't zero but again it's statistically insignificant. Children become seriously ill for many reasons sadly, but I think Covid is the least of our concerns is this regard.

 

[NorthKent1989]

And when do you think the post will become vacant?

For those of you who think children don’t get seriously ill with COVID19 Corona virus, should watch Channel 4 news (on now) or watch on the Channel 4+1 channel.

It’s probably a minimal case quite frankly, we don’t mandate flu vaccines for children, why is Covid any different at this point?

The mainstream media are simply milking this at this point.

 

[Annetts key]

They're statistical outliers thought aren't they. Check the ONS data if you don't believe me. It's no different to anti-vaxxers (and I mean the real anti-vaxxers) using vaccine related deaths as an argument not to get vaccinated. The risk isn't zero but again it's statistically insignificant. Children become seriously ill for many reasons sadly, but I think Covid is the least of our concerns is this regard.

I’m not talking about the U.K. For more have a look at this site https://www.channel4.com/news/indonesias-covid-disaster-delta-variant-killing-150-children-a-week