England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says | Hacker News Reader

England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

bbc.co.uk

124 pointsKaibeezy442 comments

Note this is specific to England. Other countries in the UK are following their own course -- the Scottish government agreed in principle to introduce vaccine passports as of a week ago and will require them for entry to large venues from October 1st:

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-vaccine-passports-requir...

The NHS is a fully devolved issue, with separate NHS organizations in Wales, England, Northern Ireland, reporting to the devolved parliaments and legislative assemblies, and Scotland, leading to differing outcomes in handling COVID19. Vaccination and COVID19 control is not quite as crazily politicized as it is in the USA, but the conservative (right wing) government in England is handling it rather differently from the SNP/Green (left wing) government in Scotland.

This is very true. I personally find it mad that the UK is the nation with the highest covid infection rate in western europe, with ~30k new cases/day. Long covid is a real, debilitating condition and if anything is going to affect the young -- who are least vaccinated -- the most, thus creating a long-term disease burden and morbidity cost on both those individuals and the country as a whole. Ignoring the human cost of this, from an economic point of view alone, surely this is mad! -- it's very much not in the national interest.

I'd therefore naïvely think that the integrated burden would be greater than the short, sharp dip that comes with more conservative measures -- but this government is rolling ahead full-steam with pretending that the disease isn't there and telling us all to "get on with our lives". That makes me feel deeply, deeply unhappy. One in ~70 people nationally have covid at the moment. Nightclubs, etc, typically contain far more than 70 people!

You have the right to be unhappy. However, looking at the latest data from the UK at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/..., it is not clear whether pushing for more vaccines will change the situation in any way that makes you happy.

For example, that report says that 97% of the blood donors has some kind of antibodies, either from vaccine or previous infection. This number is almost 100% for older people. Maybe blood donors are not representative of the population, but if they are, it's not obvious that the extra 3% buys you anything, even if you could capture it.

For some age groups (Table 4), the vaccinated are more likely to be infected than the unvaccinated. I am sure there are good reasons for this, e.g. people more at risk may be more likely to be vaccinated, but whatever the reason is, the vaccine does not seem to be powerful enough to compensate for the extra risk.

Blood donors are going to be underrepresentative of people with a fear of needles, people who don't trust the medical system, and be overrepresentative of selfless people.

I suspect an extremely strong correlation between giving blood and being vaccinated.

I agree that there must be a strong correlation.

I had a classmate who was horrified to learn I checked the organ donor box in my driver's license. Their parents told them if you check that box, the medical staff will be more likely to let you die so they can reuse your parts. I did't have any authoritative answer but the point is there are people out there with fears that sound rational but are completely in the realm of conspiracy theory.

> fears that sound rational but are completely in the realm of conspiracy theory.

Sadly these fears in the UK are well-founded:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alder_Hey_organs_scandal

* https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/missing...

There were quite a few other similar scandals, particularly in England. The medical profession in this country, for a very long time, has had a remarkable contempt for the lives of people, probably steeped in the classism and elitism traditionally entrenched in university education in Britain. This might be different today (Alder Hey, in particular, triggered new legislation about organ handling in 2004), but it's hard to shake off such a history.

I used to carry a organ-donor card and I'm probably still on some register somewhere, but over the last decade I've kinda soured on the idea. As a clear outsider and a bit of a loner, living in the downtrodden North of England, there would likely be nobody who would oppose an over-eager doctor from pulling the plug on me without even trying to help first, just so that a few waiting lists can be shortened and he can look good with his boss.

> conspiracy theory

We don't call them that anymore. The new term is "spoiler alert"

In the US there are issues with the organ donation checkbox. I am fine with organs going to save the lives of people on waiting lists. I am less fine with my tissues veying harvested by corrupt "non-profits" that re-sell my bits in commodity markets while undermining the ethics of medical examiners and coroners. I wish there was a way to do one and not the other.

If you're not able to refute their statement why would you dismiss it as a 'conspiracy theory'?

In fact your classmate is correct, you also need to be 'alive' for your organs to be harvested, there's an entire ongoing field of debate in the medical community about the ethics of this, which a quick peruse of the literature will get you upto speed on.

To be honest, even if that was official policy, I would totally tick that box. You're much better off avoiding the kind of extreme intervention to prolong life that makes scrapping your corpse for parts seem like a good idea to a doctor.

I checked no for the same reason. Also I don’t want corporations to profit off my body parts. It would be different if they shared the money with my family or they at least got to choose who got them.

And, well, taking care of yourself.

Distancing, not going to parties etc etc

> pushing for more vaccines will change the situation in any way that makes you happy.

Given that even highly-vaccinated localities like Iceland (74% vaccinated) keep seeing waves of COVID cases and that COVID waves peak and decline without countries achieving the 90% rate vaccine proponents suggest as the threshold for herd immunity, we have to begin seriously questioning the public health case for mandatory universal vaccination. I wish more people would think critically about this issue instead of adopting an aggressive attitude of enforced conformity to an orthodoxy that doesn't appear to have all its facts lined up.

Looking objectively at experiences of countries around the world, one is forced to conclude that in the case of COVID, with the non-sterilizing vaccines currently available, vaccine passports are neither sufficient nor necessary for safeguarding public health and present serious challenges to privacy, civil liberties, and the rule of law.

Vaccines cut severity of disease and thus the societal burden of infection. While I agree these measures are potentially draconian it's wrong to say they convey no benefit.

Very true. Vaccines have helped in great measure. OTOH, there are other forces at play. The very existence of covid waves that come and recede much faster than the increase in the vaccination rate should be an indication that vaccines, while very helpful, are not the end all of covid pushback mechanisms. For example in US delta is receding after a couple months of mayhem. R is estimated <1 for most of the states, see https://covidestim.org.

There is a point after which the effect of human measures becomes marginal. If anything because most people would have been already exposed to covid, with or without vaccines. I can't say whether we've passed that point or not, but OTOH the draconians have not made their case either. What concrete benefit do people expect from an additional 10% of the population being forced to vaccinate?

Long term there are concerns of vaccine escape. Pfizer CEO raised them recently, it's not just the 5G conspiracists. A new strain emerges for which vaccines aren't that helpful against severe complications. Some people, myself included (I am vaccinated thank you very much) are concerned that creating a population with immune monoculture is likely to result in strains bypassing the monoculture. The nightmare scenario is the emergence of a strain for which the vaccines are a net negative. Hopefully nothing terrible happens. But we don't know. Nobody knows. Perhaps we should not be placing all our eggs in the same basket, e.g. not (force) vaccinate everyone against the exact same protein.

You're right to insist on looking at cost and benefit. Vaccines have indeed saved lives.

Problem is that the emergency authorization means that we don't yet know what the cost is aside from the adverse reactions. The latter are described as 'rare' by journalists who prefer that term to quoting freely available data which changes week by week as in the case of boys who we now know suffer x6 risk of myocarditis than the same risk if they contract Covid. Is there a further risk down the road? A number of peer-reviewed papers have pointed out that this cannot be ruled out. When the papers dutifully write 'very unlikely' we know we're looking at a lottery with unknown odds.

Well said, but I think the problem we're fighting is that people don't view these as vaccines so much as preventive treatment now. The Israel, Malta, and Iceland cases with very high vaccination rates and growing number of hospitalizations means we need to acknowledge that these things don't confer immunity, but that their benefit is still tangible and real in that it confers better outcomes to those that do contract the disease.

In the UK since we have barely any hospital beds I can see a strong case for universal vaccination to avoid inundating hospitals. One could also simply deprioritise the unvaccinated (though the privacy problem would arise.) The only politically palatable alternative has been lockdowns it seems.

> For some age groups (Table 4), the vaccinated are more likely to be infected than the unvaccinated.

This is some great lying with statistics. The age ranges you're referencing are groups in which the unvaccinated group is much smaller, insanely small comparatively. Of course a group with almost no people are going to show a reduced rate. You'd find a similar ratio if I took 50k people and split them by whether their name was Steve and then measured the likelihood that either group got covid. The Steve group is definitely going to have a lower rate.

Blood donors probably aren't a representative group regarding their own healthcare, but it should pose the question if all restrictions should be pulled back.

I think we are long past "short" anything related to COVID. It is now clearly endemic and will persist indefinitely. People need to make their own decisions on how to protect themselves and get on with their lives.

So should we invest in vastly increasing hospital staffing and facilities because the current ICU loads are the new normal?

ICU load is now much lower for a given level of cases and barring new variants it will likely decrease further with boaster shots and more people recovered from infection and possible new therapeutics. Moderately increasing ICU capacity would be expensive but not vastly so. See "people in ventilator beds" in the link

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

> barring new variants

I didn't know this was an option. How do we go about doing it?

If only there were some far less costly preventative measures that could be taken to limit COVID hospitalizations instead of building more ICU capacity…

why not? it seems absurd to think that at no point in the future will there be infectious endemic diseases.

hospital infrastructure hardly seems like the wrong thing to overbuild.

We already spend a lot on healthcare as it is, more so here in the USA than in countries with universal healthcare. Should we go from spending 17.7% of our GDP to 30%? Just because some people aren’t interested getting a vaccine?

Y'all had 1.6 years to do this. And no, the present ICU loads are not gonna be "the new normal".

Covid is here forever. We knew this way, way back in March of 2020. Only now are people finally getting the message. Life is short. We cannot play this game anymore. The time to go back to actual, 2019 pre pandemic normal is today.

I take your argument as “covid will be around forever so we should act like it doesn’t exist” which is nonsensical to me. I’m not sure I can come up with a more charitable interpretation: sometimes things change and societies need to adapt.

Hell yeah we should have done it 20 years ago but now is the second best time.

I think of restrictions as falling into three buckets— - restrictions we could put up with ~forever, - restrictions we could put up with temporarily while waiting for something (e.g., vaccines), - restrictions we could put up with temporarily to mitigate some disaster by delay tactics (e.g. March lockdown.)

Now the question is what further restrictions now would do.

I think there are some things we should definitely encourage as not very intrusive (especially when it’s encouragement not law)—e.g., using FFP stuff rather than surgical/cloth masks in crowded spaces when possible, ventilation, &c.

I don’t think that we’re really waiting for anything though. We are not throwing everything at getting better vaccines. Nor are we going to massively boost vaccine uptake. (Maybe we should wait for the 12-15 category I suppose, since then we’d be closer to herd immunity.)

Finally, the NHS is not imminently going to be inundated. This might change in a few weeks. But delay right now isn’t necessary to avoid a March 2020/December 2020 apocalypse.

So in my view restrictions now would merely delay the inevitable since nothing would actually change. This is in contrast to last year when we were waiting for the enormous breakthrough of vaccines, or in February/March as we vaccinated the vast majority of adults. I do think it would be a plausible strategy to dampen things for a month whilst vaccinating those aged 12-15 though—I suspect vaccination would do nearly all the work there though. (On a tangent, I don’t see why we don’t just administer the first dose to them anyway—even if the second is too risky the first is much safer.)

The country has one of the highest vaccination levels in the world also.

> short, sharp dip

Short? It’s been a year and a half with no end in sight.

the CDC recognizes long covid, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/..., but not necessarily as a result of mild infections.

it is also worth noting that the CDC, so far, does not recognize vaccine-induced long haul syndrome as a real syndrome.

edit: re vaccinating the young, you need to pay special attn to the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, which can potentially outweigh the benefits of the vaccine. vaccine advocates already made this mistake of ignoring vaccine risks with young women / GBS previously in the context of another vaccine and it would be a tragedy to needlessly maim the young with these new innovative vaccines.

edit: dear creeps who are downvoting me without a reason, please take note of another HN submission at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-r...

So don't go out yourself, but don't tell others what they can do.

How do you distinguish between the symptoms of “long covid” from the effects of being locked inside for a year? There have been over a billion covid infections globally (assume confirmed cases are 1/5 infections, which is a low estimate according to John’s Hopkins) so if “long covid” is so real, where are all these sufferers? If 1% have long covid, there should be at least ten million sufferers.

Before Covid started, when a person had a particularly bad flu, it sometimes happened that they'd feel like crap and weak for a good long while after recovering: sometimes for weeks and months.

I'm not completely certain about what "long-covid" is, but this phenomenon could be a combination of this known effect as well as the after effects of the inhuman living conditions society is forcing on people: unnatural social isolation, constant media induced fear and stress, lack of sunshine and exercise, bad diets (because there's fewer fun entertainment options), etc.

The official symptoms list of Long Covid, according to Mayo Clinic, includes “depression” and “headache and muscle pain” and “confusion.” This is lockdown-driven depression. If the virus had lingering physical effects, there would be tens of millions of sufferers seeking treatment, and there arent.

The purchase (and maybe rollout?) of the vaccines was done at the nation level rather than individual country.

Purchase was national, rollout per-country (though they did all do it pretty much the same way, with broadly similar results)

This is hopeful news, because the passport plans completely debased the practical, pro-social, and even altruistic aspects of the vaccine program.

However, provincial and federal politicians in Canada have also very cynically lied about this in the recent past, where they said they were against them and they wouldn't happen, to making snap announcements that they were implementing them with hard deadlines, so let's see how this plays out.

Same in the US. Both Biden (later confirmed by his press secretary) and Fauci previously stated they would not mandate vaccines.

The strategy was to vaccinate over half of the people, so that it'd be easier to pressure the remaining half later. People who already got vaccinated will ask what's the big deal... until their 'vaccine passport freedoms' get revoked because they only had two doses instead of three, four and however more are planned.

> "I've never liked the idea of saying to people you must show your papers or something to do what is just an everyday activity, but we were right to properly look at it.

We regularly show papers for everyday activities - library card for reading books, ID for a hotel stay, driving license for driving a car, ID to pickup a parcel etc.

> We regularly show papers for everyday activities - library card for reading books, ID for a hotel stay, driving license for driving a car, ID to pickup a parcel etc.

This is a classic demonstration that "slippery slope" isn't a fallacy.

First you need a driving license. Privacy conscious people objected. You don't need to show your driving license to drive, was the response, only if you break traffic laws or get into an accident. There's no one using it to track everywhere you go or anything.

Then comes the vaccine passport. Privacy conscious people object. Now the response is, hey, you already have to show your driving license if you get pulled over for speeding, what's the difference? And you don't have to show your vaccine passport if you, um, never go outside again.

Meanwhile we now have ALPR cameras recording the location history of every vehicle on the roads. Because some slopes are actually slippery.

>Privacy conscious people object. Now the response is, hey, you already have to show your driving license if you get pulled over for speeding, what's the difference?

The main objections to vaccine passports in England aren't privacy, they're that it discriminates against those who refuse to get vaccinated.

>And you don't have to show your vaccine passport if you, um, never go outside again.

You'd have to show your vaccine passport if you want to partake in proportionately high risk activities where you not only have risk to yourself, but you also pose a risk to others. And it's [almost] always places you have to take ID anyway, to prove your age.

Why should those who chose to not do the socially responsible thing of getting vaccinated, get to amplify the risk to those who do?

>The main objections to vaccine passports in England aren't privacy, they're that it discriminates against those who refuse to get vaccinated.

Plenty of Canadians, like myself, have huge objections to the privacy implications of our passport program.

what is the privacy concern, other than the private info of whether you chose to get a vaccine or not?

The reason people do not want to show their immunization status in public is nobody's business. There is no need to justify concern in the first place. Medical information secrecy is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution in the US and the Charter of Rights in Canada and for very good reasons.

>This is a classic demonstration that "slippery slope" isn't a fallacy.

What's ironic is that people who usually call out slippery slope as being a fallacy are participating in the fallacy of cherry-picking. Because slippery slope is only a fallacy when there is no prior evidence of the proposed events occurring, and 99.9% of the time people say "that's a slippery slope", it's in response to events that are similar to past events.

But those are largely proving your identity in a situation where you wish to identify yourself.

Proving an unrelated fact about yourself solely because the government thinks so is a different thing.

Showing your ID to buy alcohol because the govenment has decided that under 18's cannot buy it. That's widely practiced and accepted without issue

>That's widely practiced and accepted without issue

There's two components to this.

1. It's widely accepted because in most cases the cashier just glaces at the ID. How is the vaccine passport going to be implemented? Are they going to give you a laminated ID card, or is it going to be some QR code thingy on your phone? The latter would necessitate some sort machine scanner, which would mean it's trivially easy to turn this into some sort of a tracking system.

2. "being 18" isn't a medical intervention that's forced onto people.

The last time I was asked for ID to buy alcohol in a supermarket in the UK was over 15 years ago (and the last time I was asked in a pub was probably 20 years ago). It's not like parts of the US where venues are required to check literally everyone - it's only people who look like they might be underage.

> Showing your ID to buy alcohol because the govenment has decided that under 18's cannot buy it. That's widely practiced and accepted without issue

The situation is likely different in the United States, but in Germany the youths solve this problem (under 16's/18's cannot buy alcohol) simply by the fact that always some friend has an older brother or sister.

No, there's a "Think 25" rule where if the person looks above 25 you don't have to check.

I would say the hotel stay situation is more like a "papers please" than a "situation where I wish to identify myself".

Last time I booked a hotel via an app at the last minute for an overnight stay after going to the pub in a city away from home, the booking process didn't mention we needed to show our passports at reception. It was a new policy for that hotel.

When we went to the hotel, about midnight, of course we didn't have passports with us, why would we? It's not normal to take your passport when visiting a neighbouring city for a night out.

I've stayed at countless hotels, and never had this problem before. But I understand the UK is becoming more draconian so perhaps a rule had kicked in since the previous time I went to a hotel. But I had the impression, it was a recent policy change by this hotel, and "oh, we should update our website".

It was pouring with rain, there were no other hotels accepting bookings by then, and the last train home would be in a few hours. Our Uber had dropped us off, and hotel reception was telling us we had to go outside into to the pouring rain as we couldn't stay despite having paid.

They knew perfectly well who we were. It wasn't an identity thing. We were able to show booking numbers, credit cards, confirm emails, and other forms of identity. But not the type their new policy required.

They required every guest's passport, not just one person. As luck would have it, we each spent about an hour trawling through the contents on our electronic devices and online, and we each found images of our passports in some location or other because of the ubiquitous requests for photos of passports these days, and those photos were accepted by the hotel.

It varies in the US. Some is probably locality. Some is probably chain policy. Although hotels don't in general do the copy of passport things that is common in many places.

A few years back, I got in a tight situation. I had a last minute trip and, among other things, didn't grab the little travel folder which I have with backup ID, credit cards, etc.

Get my license out in the back of the car for TSA. Somehow I managed to lose it between there and the airport doors. Called the driver. They looked no luck. No idea what happened.

To my considerable surprise, the TSA let me fly with no real hassle. (Rules may have tightened.)

But when I got to the crappy Travelodge motel on the other side--no luck. I assume I would have had better luck at one of my regular chains but they didn't want to budge in spite of a wallet full of other cards and a photo company ID.

I wasn't sure where I was going to sleep but they eventually relented so long as I paid cash. Fortunately the cost was relatively low enough I was able to get enough of an ATM. (I didn't have photos on my phone.)

Airbnb is usually good for those scenarios, they have your details already, and hosts will not ask any further.

It was a bit late at that point. I was near SFO in the evening and needed a room.

Providing ID to enter a bar or nightclub (where some have these machines which no doubt capture and store that data) is commonplace even though the venue has no business knowing who the person is.

I mean the reason you do this is to prove you are 21. Requiring anybody who enters any random business on the street to show a vaccine card is not even close to an apt comparison.

The vaccine card is to prove you are vaccinated. In both cases they're merely after a boolean (is_over_18? vs is_vaccinated?).

But we're clearly accepting the idea of giving up way more information in the former case even though all that's needed is the boolean, so why the fuss around the vaccines when they're ultimately also after a boolean?

I don't understand the downvotes. This is a legitimate distinction.

Discussions generally don't sway people. When someone has a fixed worldview and you present facts that undermine that worldview, he perceives you as a threat (like he would a large bear) and reacts to those facts with the same fight-or-flight response that threats generally elicit.

Online, this fight-or-flight response manifests as people downvoting you, flagging you, doxxing you, and so on for presenting hard-to-refuse facts and arguments contrary to any entrenched but incorrect narrative.

The problem is exacerbated on HN by high-karma accounts having the ability to flag discussions to death without engagement and essentially end them unilaterally.

It’s not about disagreeing with them. I generally downvote pedantic exceptions because you should respond to an argument in the most generous terms. largely proving your identity did apply to the examples given but doesn’t address the thrust of their argument.

Showing an ID to drink or get a senior discount isn’t about identifying you specifically just something about you and that is completely accepted by the general public. Show your military ID to get a discount is another.

The issue I take with such pedantic exceptions is they derail the thread.

Edit: This is a far more direct response which I upvoted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28501323

That's not true: people in the peanut gallery can be swayed. sub-midwits like myself only form opinions based on what smarter people have convinced us about areas we're not experts on.

> We regularly show papers for everyday activities - library card for reading books, ID for a hotel stay, driving license for driving a car, ID to pickup a parcel etc.

I don't think you live in the UK - because none of those things are true.

You can go into just about any library and read a book without showing a library card.

I've never had to show ID for a hotel stay.

My driving licence stays at home. If I want to hire a car, I generate a one-time code.

I can pick up a parcel by showing some non-ID like a bank card, utility bill, etc.

> If I want to hire a car, I generate a one-time code.

The GP comment said "driving a car," not hiring one. It's not clear to me why you responded to a different assertion, and I can't find anything that supports the idea that you don't need to show a driving license while driving if it's requested.

https://www.gov.uk/stopped-by-police-while-driving-your-righ...

"If you do not have these documents with you, you have 7 days to take them to a police station. You’re breaking the law if you do not show the requested documents within 7 days."

> You can go into just about any library and read a book without showing a library card.

If I may be so bold, I think it's fairly reasonable to understand their comment (in the context of requiring ID) as referring to checking out/borrowing books from a library to read, rather than simply reading them in a library.

As that link says, you do not need to routinely carry your driving licence in the UK even if driving. If stopped, you are required to give your name and address and police have the option of giving you a "presenter", a notice that you must turn up at a police station within 7 days with your licence (with some exceptions eg it's been stolen or with the DVLA for changes to be applied). But in my experience it's unusual to be given one of these.

> You’re breaking the law if you do not show the requested documents within 7 days

Many people might also not know that it's against the law to carry a driving licence that is not perfectly up-to-date regarding your address details.

Coming from Italy, a country with strong ID card requirements (because of Napoleonic attitudes compounded by actual Fascism), the UK situation looks to me idealistic, naive, pragmatically disastrous, and only very occasionally safer (ID-card fraud in Italy is an actual problem the UK does not have, but the practice of validating identity with house bills in the UK is even more open to abuse). I expect we'll eventually get something that works like an ID card, looks like an ID card, but it's not called an ID card - possibly owned and operated by banks, who are the real authorities here.

I don't need to show my licence to get in my car and drive. For any normal use of a car, there is no requirement to show a licence before doing so.

Have you ever applied for a library card? Most libraries will give you one without any verifiable form of ID. And the card itself certainly isn't ID.

> I don't need to show my licence to get in my car

It would likely be difficult to buy a car without it, and obviously you could not rent it (yes, code and blabla, it's just a proxy for it).

> Have you ever applied for a library card?

Yes, and in fact they were pretty fastidious with validating that I lived in the area they serve (that might be because I have a funny accent, but still). I don't remember how I managed to get it, eventually - likely with the usual utility bills, which here work exactly as ID would, as long as you have a pair of them. Their use for this is extremely problematic.

It would likely be difficult to buy a car without it

Did you definitely mean this? I have never had to present a driving license to buy a car. I don't see the link; the license isn't to own a car, it's to drive one. Unless you're thinking of places where one does need a license just to own a vehicle?

By the same token, you don't show your id to buy groceries, or your license to enter a party. Gattaca was a dystopia, not a goal.

I've never had to show any ID to buy groceries. Not sure what point you're making.

Indeed. Bear in mind that that before becoming Health Secretary, Javid was very recently Chancellor of the Exchequer. Perhaps his motivations lie somewhere other than public health.

I've generally regarded his motivations as "be supine" and "pander to the right", whatever his role. His position on "papers please" type issues is mixed, saying one thing and doing another. I can't tell if that's because of his own personality, or because of ongoing prejudice in the British system and in the Conservative party, requiring him to not be too challenging. The way he was pushed out of the Chancellor position by Dominic Cummings sounded awful; I'm surprised he accepted another job under the present governent.

He was Home Secretary before being Chancellor, and in that role opted to keep up the Hostile Environment policies and Deport First, Appeal Later policies.

I mention those two, because they are indicative of a "papers please" type of culture.

The former requires every minor landlord to perform a "right to rent" check on every tenant or lodger they suspect to be not British, or face a large fine. Inevitably leading to landlords choosing not to rent to non-British people to avoid the hassle and risk of getting it wrong, an increase in homelessness among people without the right papers to prove they're allowed to pay for a home, and an increase in abusive housing relationships.

The latter ensure that illegal actions by the Home Office go unchallenged despite statistics showing the Home Office often acts unlawfully and often loses in court. It's very difficult for a person to conduct an appeal after they're removed from their own documents at home, legal support, income, friends, and other resources; this is also borne out in statistics: No appeal lodged in this way has succeeded, which stands in stark contrast to appeals lodged in country. (The UK Supreme Court just ruled this policy unlawful. I expect the Home Office will try to continue the policy anyway.)

Point is, Javid said he was going to address injustices in the immigration department when he became Home Secretary, and then he didn't.

Not to go into a restaurant to eat. Which is what is now being asked in many places.

Unless you are a young person (or look like one) and decide to have alcohol with your meal. As much an optional act as going to a restaurant in the first place.

Well, now we do. At least in Hamburg, Germany. It was very quick to adapt, you flash your QR code and that’s it, we are back to supporting our local restaurants and other businesses we love.

The alternative was to see them close one by one, I’m personally very happy with the way the EU vaccine pass has been implemented.

You understand that the restaurants were closing “one by one” because the government was closing them, and not because patrons were not attending them? It was a self-inflected wound.

What is your evidence for the implied counterfactual?

I'm not the parent poster, but to answer: All the countries in which restaurants, bars etc. are open as normal, no "health passports" and other newspeak gadgets are needed, and the apocalypse still hasn't happened.

Would you be okay with a card showing your religious affiliation before being allowed into a crowded public space? Or before being allowed to rent a truck, or buy fertilizer?

Even though this would likely make the world safer: I wouldn't, and even though it wouldn't prevent me from doing anything, I would still resist it.

But it would increase my safety, even though it would inconvenience some other people based on the choices that they have made.

Why do you think it would increase your safety? That's not at all obvious to me.

That is the thing I don't understand. Who do these vaccine cards protect?

Anybody can get a vaccine that keeps them out of the hospital or dying. There is no reason for a vaccinated individual to give a single hoot about the vaccination status of person next to them.

The idea that the vaccinated population needs to be "protected" from all the unvaccinated individuals is absurd. Covid is here forever and we will all probably catch it at some point. If you are vaccinated you'll at least not have any serious complications from it, which is pretty damn good...

So yeah, I haven't the faintest idea who vaccine passports actually protect?

Also, all these pro-mandate arguments never discuss if boosters will be required to remain a "vaccinated" status. Does that mean we are now obligated to get a booster every time it comes out?

And when does this all go away? At what point to we drop this stuff? Or are we seriously gonna be "carded" at the door of every business from here on out? Again, covid is here forever and there will always be some level of "cases" provided we continue testing for it...

There is a well known trade off between public safety and personal freedom. I believe that is the point the parent comment is trying to make.

> Would you be okay with a card showing your religious affiliation

If there was a good reason for it, possibly. But this is a ridiculous analogy, because there is no plausible reason for this. On the other hand, there is a good reason for strongly encouraging people to get the vaccine, as well as an excellent reason to restrain pro-virus people from spreading it more.

> We regularly show papers for everyday activities

When is the last time you had to show papers to go to a McDonalds, a clothing store or a museum?

Those IDs are not meant to 1) show your medical history which is a protected right and 2) is used as a way to coerce a medical intervention which is against free and informed consent.

Forcing medical interventions in the name of the public good has always degenerated in the worse atrocities and abuses in history.

> against free and informed consent

This is a problem - it is often not very informed.

As for medical history, we have to show vaccination records for a number of things - school, travel sometimes, certain lines of work.

Proof of vaccination against a highly mutation-prone virus in the midst of a pandemic doesn't reveal anything more about you than it would about anyone else - which is specifically allowed via HIPAA, for example. It's no more medical history than knowing your age.

These points don't really stand up for me. It's like saying "I choose to believe they cause autism, I've been informed by my other Facebook Mom group members, thus I do not consent."

None of it is based on science or rationality, in my opinion.

What about waiting for full FDA approval? I agree that your Facebook Mom groups are full of BS but why are PhD earners more hesitant than only high school educated [1].

[1] - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v...

> What about waiting for full FDA approval?

Because it's pointless, and because the pandemic is killing people right now, not whenever some arbitrary administrative milestone is achieved. But most importantly, because people who bring that point up are typically completely ignorant of what medicine approval entails, why the process is there in the first place, and why it normally takes so long.

Just one element among several: it usually takes a long time because diseases take time to develop and we lack test subjects. Here the disease spread very rapidly, develops insanely fast, and thus judging the efficacy is nearly immediate. As for safety, vaccines almost never have long term side effects, so the risk is low to begin with, whereas the risks of the disease are huge.

In short, this is a specious argument, and a ridiculous proposition on the face of it born of ignorance and motivated by a rebeliousness as callous as it's puerile.

Full FDA approval has happened though. It was basically just a formality that anti-vaxxers managed to find. At this point the vaccines are known to be safe, they have billions of doses given.

There are no way to know the long terms effects (if you do please provide the plans of your time traveling machine to nearest patent office).

The drug companies are not only under total immunity but also will get paid regardless if the vaccine works or not in the long term. The reporting of adverse effects is probably getting suppressed, for example OSHA is now admitting it won't record vaccines adverse effects so it doesn't discourage vaccinations (https://ogletree.com/insights/osha-revokes-guidance-on-recor...). There were vaccines that were deemed "safe" yet were scrapped because they weren't (Dengue vaccine, Guillain-Barré of the 1979 flu vaccines).

The immunity of the vaccines is fading after a few months and Pfizer is now talking about bi-annual booster shots and daily pills.

Personally I got my two shots of Pfizer, which is considered the safest, because it made sense to me. But even then I got adverse effects making me not want another booster shot. Calling people "anti-vaxxers" is because they do not want to take an experimental vaccines (mRNA vaccines are not vaccines in the traditional definition) is just intellectual laziness.

FDA approval is worthless.

The chance of long term effects is not very high. You'll likely survive covid without pneumonia and you'll likely survive the vaccine without an aneurysm.

The reason I was hesitant was: - It doesn't stop the spread - I already had covid / the risks of covid are mostly minuscole for healthy young people - New variants will drop the efficacy

In the end, I did it only because I was planning to travel (which ended up being wise, given the requirements). And I still had to waste money getting tested.

If it’s not a PhD in biochemistry or something similar, then it’s not relevant to their decision making abilities. FDA approval is based on having enough data to determine efficacy and safety - with so many administered doses at this point there is no question about either of those things.

Is your argument that only "PhD in biohemistry or something similar" can make decisions about the vaccine? I think that's incredibly patronizing to the vast majority of humanity. There is literally vaccines that earned FDA approval in recent memory that were later found to cause problems in babies [1]. If people are concerned about vaccines, the best way to deal with it is to address concerns, show them the data. Not calling them stupid for not having a PhD.

[1] - https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history....

The Pfizer vaccine has already received full FDA approval, and Moderna is expected to get it shortly.

Exactly, I'm just pointing out that there were (and still are in my opinion) valid scientific and rational thinking for being hesitant of getting the vaccine.

While this is technically true, it's only because the FDA abandoned all previous procedure for full approval.

> 1) show your medical history which is a protected right

Your medical history is not a "protected right." The people who provide medical care to you are not allowed to release your medical records without your consent.

> Your medical history is not a "protected right."

What are you talking about? It is under the 5h and 14th amendments and under similar rights in other jurisdictions.

https://healthcare.uslegal.com/records/sources-of-protection...

Not in case of vaccinations. https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/school-immunization-exe...

Medical data does have various protections in the US, but it’s far more limited than just blanket protection.

Your link doesn't say anything about the confidentiality of vaccine status. What are you even talking about?

Immunization status is considered protected information according to the HIPAA and the ADA, and similar laws exist in other jurisdictions.

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...

https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-covid-1...

https://www.hipaajournal.com/is-it-a-hipaa-violation-to-ask-...

> Forcing medical interventions in the name of the public good has always degenerated in the worse atrocities and abuses in history.

Then you have examples of the "worst atrocities and abuses in history" that were due to schools requiring vaccinations?

Is this a joke?

Japan's Unit 731

The Nazi medical experiments

MK Ultra in the US and Canada and elsewhere in the world

Lobotomy and the other psychiatric abuses

The human atomic bomb and nuclear radiation experiments

Tuskegee syphilis experiments

Buck v. Bell which game way to +70k forced sterilizations, which by the way relied upon Jacobson v. Massachusetts where the State forced vaccination upon someone who had adverse effects.

Every one of those examples has nothing to do with requiring vaccinations to attend schools. Only the last one has any relation to vaccine mandates at all and the causal link there is somewhat tenous given the sordid particulars of Buck v Bell (including the deliberate incompetence of Buck's lawyer). It isn't clear that case would have gone differently without the Jacobsen v. Massachusetts precedent.

Given the strength which which you made your claim, I thought you would have better evidence to support it.

I do think that the medical attrocities you list have had a lasting and deleterious effect on public trust of government medical ethics and contribute significantly to vaccine hestitancy.

> Every one of those examples has nothing to do with requiring vaccinations to attend schools.

You're making a distinction without making a meaningful difference. They have everything to do with requiring a medical intervention by the state, which has led to abuse in the past. Jacobson led to Bell v. Buck which led to forced sterilizations. And I should have mentioned King Leopold using Congolese as vaccine test subjects.

> Only the last one has any relation to vaccine mandates at all and the causal link there is somewhat tenous given the sordid particulars of Buck v Bell (including the deliberate incompetence of Buck's lawyer). It isn't clear that case would have gone differently without the Jacobsen v. Massachusetts precedent.

Having a bad lawyer is irrelevant the judges still have to know the law. And Jacobson was crucial in the decision because it negated the limit the State has on bodily integrity. Also given that you backup your claims with no arguments, they could simply be dismissed with no arguments, but they needed to be addressed nonetheless.

> Given the strength which which you made your claim, I thought you would have better evidence to support it.

Forced medical procedures lead to abuses. I've given many historical examples. Your counterpoints are not supported by any meaningful counter-examples.

> I do think that the medical attrocities you list have had a lasting and deleterious effect on public trust of government medical ethics and contribute significantly to vaccine hestitancy.

Coercion and total lack of accountability aren't exactly the best marketing strategy.

Vaccinations are already forced on e.g. school-going kids in the name of the public good, for very good reasons!

They're often not forced for mundane tasks such as going to the restaurant or the gym. And the vaccines were administered for decades prior and for diseases far more dangerous than Covid19.

Both of them are nonessential tasks, definitely far less essential than school.

Freedom and the pursuit of happiness are also essential.

Voting?

In America it’s widely controversial to require ID when voting, but not so in the rest of the world.

This is not true. In the UK there is currently no requirement to show ID when voting.

There may be soon - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57723200 - but it certainly isn't common in the UK.

In Germany it's either the voting papers sent to your primary residency (same database used to issue ID cards and passports) or your passport / ID card in case you forgot / lost your voting papers. Easy enough, even if the voting papers are a lot easier in practical terms.

> In America it’s widely controversial to require ID when voting

Yes, one party seems to think those of a non-white skin color are unable (through ignorance or lack of access) to obtain any form of ID so they can vote.

That's rather one-sided. Both major US parties recognize (almost certainly correctly) that the more friction you put in the voting process, however seemingly reasonable, the fewer low-income people will proportionately vote. And one party considers that a bug while the other considers it a feature.

ADDED: Is there anything in this statement that is remotely controversial?

As a European, I think it's completely insane not to have to provide an ID to vote.

Of course it's a system that's ripe for fraud if you can't even identify and record voters reliably.

I don't know how you can think this will introduce any more friction for low income people. You need an ID to drive. You may introduce friction for illegal immigrants and mentally handicapped homeless.

Saying this will affect low income people doesn't make any sense. Saying this will affect black people is plain racist.

No, they think the poor are less likely to be able to get ID. You probably also think that, because it is obviously true. You don't need to transform it into a reverse-wokeness argument.

Not American or OP, in my country it is lot more likely the poor to have such IDs as without IDs they are not eligible for a lot of social benefits so that correlation is not necessarily obvious to many.

I'm confused. The NHS app already has QR codes to show proof of vaccination. I've been to public events that required the QR code to get in (though I don't think they scanned it.) You can generate new codes whenever you like and they are valid for 30 days if, for example, you wanted to print it out instead of taking your phone.

Wasn't this the passport scheme?

tbh the document and qr code are trivial to generate and forge from what i remember. I'm not condoning it i'm just pointing out its weakness.

They're not based on public key crypto like in the rest of the world?

They are. They’re trivial to create with your own issuer but not to forge an existing issuer, unless their private key is leaked.

And what's the point of that? Aren't the verification apps going to check the issuer?

Verification apps should check the issuer. But you can issue and sign your own vaccine codes trivially.

Some apps will go a step further to check that the issuer is “trusted.” For example, there is a good list of issuers considered trusted here:

https://github.com/the-commons-project/vci-directory/blob/ma...

The most popular reader app I know of will mark issuers that are not on this list as “Partially-verified.”

I’m not going to get too deep into this because it’s clear that HN is, for some reason, very antagonistic toward any discussion on the matter unless some correct permutation of words is used. Nonetheless, I’ve researched this quite a bit. Anyone can make and issue their own SMART Health Card.

Good. There is no evidence to support them. You can still transmit the virus whilst double vaccinated. They do not slow spread only hospitalisation.

Dr. Drosten [0], maybe Germany's most well known virologist at the moment, recently commented on rules to only allow vaccinated/recovered (but not unvaccinated but tested) people into restaurants and venues [1]. The reasoning behind that is a lot different than you would expect. It is not because unvaccinated would pose a threat to others but because they are at risk of catching the disease from a vaccinated, infected but asymptomatic guest (you would only find these if everyone would be tested).

[0] He's co-discoverer of SARS-Cov1 and co-developed the first workflow for the realtime PCR test that was approved for SARS-Cov2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Drosten (en), https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Drosten (de)

[1] Here is a transcript of the interview that he made these comments in, in german language. I linked directly to the page that it is on: https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/coronaskript324.pdf#page...

They could ban elderly and overweight people and other such undesirables^Wvulnerable people from civil society too. For their own good.

This is snarky but poses a real question. If we ban people from spaces or events due to their vulnerability to COVID then why do we not do the same for those vulnerable to other diseases? Flu is a good example for the young and elderly since it poses a significant risk. It would strain the argument but you could make a case for banning the obese from fast food restaurants based on this reasoning as well.

Don't forget what makes COVID19 so insidious: without testing, it takes time before an infected contagious person shows symptoms. By the time they decide to stay off public spaces, they have already potentially spread the virus.

With the common flu, you know almost instantly so you stay home to recover.

Fat people know their condition and it's their choice to eat fast food anyway. And obesity is also non contagious.

Because covid is 10-50x more deadly than the flu, it makes more sense to advocate for precautions against it.

Just got my flu shot this week, but even for the young and healthy covid is more dangerous than the flu, except possibly in young children ages 0-12.

Overweight and elderly is not something you can fix in an hour with a free vaccine shot. Don’t you see the obvious difference?

The shot doesn’t work in an hour nor does it fix the actual problem.

Nor is it really as simple as just trying to bully everybody into getting injected with vaccines that have been developed and pushed trough regulatory approval in record times.

The last time something like that happened, during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, it turned out the people skeptical of rushed vaccinations were actually the ones with the right idea.

While many others ended up suffering for the rest of their life’s for it, among them a whole lot of children.

So? It's for their own good. Don't you care about what is best for the undesirables?

It is not because unvaccinated would pose a threat to others but because they are at risk of catching the disease from a vaccinated, infected but asymptomatic guest

Haven't read your link yet but I'd expect a double vaccinated 65 year old is still waaaaay more vulnerable than an unvaccinated 18 year old.

> You can still transmit the virus whilst double vaccinated. They do not slow spread only hospitalisation.

With the disclaimer that I'm not an expert: that's wrong. The vaccines are extremely efficacious in preventing hospitalisations and deaths, and are moderately efficacious in reducing transmission.

I'm not sure that's the case: the iceland, malta, and israel results (very highly vaccinated population) are worrying in the extreme; take a look and see if you agree that transmission might actually be worse. As to why that is, perhaps because they think they're not a spreader? Are we actually typhoid mary/joe when we go out thinking that we're not putting people at risk? I think this means wearing masks for the entire population is a good idea.

Either way, everyone should get the vaccine for the health benefit when they actually acquire covid (when not if). The better outcomes are without question, but what is questionable is the rate of spread, especially of delta and the new... is it called lambda(?) variant.

We need to be honest about this: the benefit of the vaccine is clear due to the milder outcomes across even low risk groups. That itself makes it worth it.

And if the vaccine prevents hospitalization and death Covid will become just like any other virus making turns in our societies. IF enough people are vaccinated, that is. if it wasn't for the people unable to be vaccinated, kids under 12 for now, medical conditions and so on, I'd say get rd of restrictions. If it was only the unvaccinated that are at serious risk, well, it was their decision and I don't really care. they are still putting others at risk, and that is simply not acceptable.

That's wrong. The vaccine is moderately effective at preventing the spread of early variants. It's not very effective at preventing the spread of Delta from an infected person, but it's quite effective (but far from perfect) at preventing people from getting infected in the first place, thus overall significantly slowing spread .

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02187-1

Vaccine passport proponents routinely cite "slowing [the] spread" as a reason to impose vaccination requirements despite discoveries earlier this year showing that vaccinated individuals can still spread the disease. In light of these discoveries, vaccine passports and other coercive measures don't make any dense.

Delta has an R value of 8. That makes it one of the most infectious diseases we know about. Future variants are likely to be even more contagious. (That's the evolutionary pattern we see in other diseases.) Even if universal vaccination were to somewhat reduce the R value, the R value would remain above the critical threshold value of 1.0 regardless --- because R starts out so high naturally. We know R is above one post-vaccination because highly-vaccinated places like Iceland and Gibraltar see COVID waves despite near-universal vaccination. If R is above one, everyone will get the virus sooner or later anyway no matter what, and we are not operating in the regime in which universal vaccination has the kind of large positive externalities that might justify a universal vaccination program for other diseases (e.g. measles).

It's only large positive externalities that can justify state intervention in individual health. (The 1905 SCOTUS case that people have been citing discusses the issue in detail.) Current COVID vaccines, due to the R-value threshold effect, don't have the large positive externalities attached to previous vaccines.

As an analogy: a leather jacket might reduce a bullet's velocity to some extent, but that bullet will still penetrate and kill you. Nothing short of body armor that can actually stop the bullet is effective. Likewise, unless the vaccine can reduce R below 1 --- and no current COVID vaccine can do that --- universal vaccination cannot stop the spread of the disease.

The vaccines may be beneficial, but being beneficial, by itself, doesn't present a case for coercive state action. If it did, we'd probably all eat healthier and exercise more --- and we'd be less free as a people.

There are real social and economic costs to creating a "papers, please!" culture and setting a precedent for state intervention in individual medical choices. As it stands, the low risk posed by COVID and the insufficiency of current vaccines can't the coercive state programs being proposed around the world.

It's hard to unpick your argument but it seems that you say in a couple of places something similar to "eradication isn't possible therefore reduction has no benefit".

For example:

"Vaccine passport proponents routinely cite "slowing [the] spread" as a reason to impose vaccination requirements

Yep.

> despite discoveries earlier this year showing that vaccinated individuals can still spread the disease.

If you'd said "can still spread the disease as much as unvaccinated" then this would have made sense. From my understanding the jury is still out on this question with the consensus being "the vaccinated spread it less but we're not sure how much less".

> Likewise, unless the vaccine can reduce R below 1[...] universal vaccination cannot stop the spread of the disease.

Even if we accept this part (and I'm not sure I do) then you again seem to be conflating "can't stop it entirely" with "has no benefit"

Hey former coworker, it's been a while. What you're saying isn't quite correct: there are large positive externalities to reducing disease severity, disease spread, and the risk of long COVID, all of which vaccines help with. This isn't a binary between eradicating the disease and giving up completely.

Delta has an R value of 6 to 7.

Measles has a much higher R value of 12 to 18, yet the vaccination is highly successful.

You’re promoting disinformation.

The vaccine for measles is sterilizing. The vaccines for COVID are not. They're two completely separate classes of intervention. I'm not the one spreading disinformation here.

Just because substance A and substance B are both called "vaccines" doesn't mean that A and B have comparable effects and can be treated the same way.

It is simply not medically possible for COVID vaccination to stop the spread of COVID. We have to accept that and move on with our lives.

The government is not justified in mandating any medical treatment merely because that treatment is good for you. The vaccines seem beneficial, yes. This fact alone does not justify the use of state power. We have a 70-year-old taboo against involuntary medical treatment for a very good reason. The weak threat of COVID combined with the insufficiency of our vaccines suggests that we don't have a compelling case for breaking this taboo.

The vaccines may be beneficial on an individual level but I do not see a case for mandates.

>Delta has an R value of 8

no it doesn't.

While this sub may be a bit distasteful for some, I recommend spending some time reading through the countless examples documented there of folks who refused the vaccine based on this kind of thinking and then ended up dying often very unpleasant deaths while unable to breathe for days or weeks: https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/

This sub has seen extremely rapid growth, which is perhaps one of the most tragic "success" stories of a subreddit ever.

Selection bias. There are many people dying despite being vaccinated with 2 or 3 doses, but they just don't make fun stories for liberals.

Presumably, if your claim were accurate and such deaths were occurring on anywhere near the same scale, then the internet would be flooded with those stories. But it's not, and there are no statistics to back up the scale you're implying.

Rapid growth means absolutely nothing on Reddit when it's possibly the most the most astro-turfed platform on the internet. I came across a thread from that subreddit and it resembled a grotesque celebration that a 4-year old had died due to an anti-vax family member.

The sub’s content is based on actual examples of vocally unvaccinated people dying. Unfortunately, there has been an endless supply of new content. That’s not the result of astroturfing. It’s the result of large numbers of people refusing the vaccine and ending up in the hospital for weeks, often dying.

Frankly, the sub has probably saved lives by convincing some folks to go get vaccinated. My own parents refused to get vaccinated until my dad’s unvaccinated cousin got COVID and was dead within a week.

I can't find the example you're referring to. Feel free to link to it.

There is, the number of vaccinations in France jumped remarkably after vaccine passports were made mandatory for cinemas, theatres, restaurants, etc. Considering that's the main goal of such policies, it seems like a success.

And yes, the main point is to limit hospitalisations, because they're the main limiting factor ( at least in France, but probably in most other developed countries as well).

The same brand of ‘successes’ can be achieved by banning alcohol, tobacco, fast food or whatever vice you want.

Those who are downvoting this are being blatantly disingenuous. Tobacco alone kills over 480,000 people per year in the US. There is a very strong case for banning it if your fundamental concern is the health of others and the upkeep of the health system.

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...

Alcohol kills another 95,000 per year in the US

https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-death...

Obesity related deaths are around 300,000 per year.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/192032

No one can honestly look at these figures and come away with with the opinion that we need to protect the unvaccinated from themselves through mandates while turning a blind eye to these other self inflicted diseases. Argue for or against limiting personal choice to preserve health but be prepared to defend your position on all of these fronts.

Let's start with the simplest: tobacco. There is no way to make it disappear, you can only make it illegal. Our experiments with making other addictive drugs illegal had been a complete failure, I doubt you could even find convincing research that shows that making them illegal has led to less deaths due to them. Whereas vaccine passports appear to actually work. That is a major difference.

Which is why, in absolutely the same vein, there are regulations to incite people to consume less of those things - e.g. little branding, serious warnings and graphic pictures of the long term damage on tobacco packaging; a ban on advertisement for tobacco products; serious warnings and limitations on the advertisements for alcohol products; warnings/good advice on food-related advertisements, etc. etc.

And all of those, including the vaccination passports, work and achieve their goals.

Why do we accept mere warnings and labels on everything else, but vaccines are supposed to be mandated? That's a double standard and hypocritical. Let governments keep advertising and let people make their own decisions.

I’m not sure if I would consider the vice of drinking alcohol quite the same as the vice of infecting and potentially killing other people.

Every day 28 people die in the US from drunk driving crashes

https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving

261 per day from excessive alcohol use

https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-death...

Alcohol consumption directly affects people who do not consume it in a multitude of ways from the monetary cost of increased demand on the health care system, police, prisons and damage to public property to the emotional and psychological burden of interacting with the inebriated or dependent to the physical impact of abuse and accidents caused by intoxication.

I think alcohol might be even more dangerous to others than being unvaccinated. Violent drug users are well known ending up in fights and even causing death or permanent damage when they attack randomly at others during night. Or even kill them sometimes. So I think we should apply the new standard to it and ban it totally.

If vaccinated people can spread the virus, which they can, going to a bar they can also infect and ‘kill’ people. So yes, it’s pretty much the same.

>Considering that's the main goal of such policies, it seems like a success.

The ends justifies the means right?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. In a democracy there is a way to make your point for every particular case in question: voting. Or demonstrations, which were held against Covid measures basically since the first wave all across democratic nations.

> You can still transmit the virus whilst double vaccinated. They do not slow spread

That's not correct.

I can win the lottery, but I probably won't. Don't think of it as black or white, binary, can/can't. Unless you talk about the probability of getting and transmitting COVID, and how vaccination reduces these, you will come to false conclusions like that.

Hospitalisation is what actually matters

Meanwhile hospitals fill with the unvaccinated...

Just goes to show how weak this current government is. Polls show 60% approve of the idea, with 27% opposed. Yet they still can't get their own policy done due to infighting in the tory party.

> Polls show 60% approve of the idea, with 27% opposed.

Tyranny of the majority. Just because 60% support some crazy idea doesn't make it right.

Also the average american thinks if they catch covid the chances of dying are 10%[0]. For most age groups that is 100 or 1000 times off. People are wildly off on their estimates of how bad covid is. How can the average person make an informed, rational decision about public health policy if they think Covid is Black Plague v2.0?

[0] https://covid19pulse.usc.edu/

I’m not sure if it’s something I want to get into but I don’t really agree.

All I was saying is a policy supported by a large majority, proposed by this government, had to be walked back because of their inability to control the back benches. Boris is a piss poor leader.

Irony is you have to show your papers (id showing proof of age) to get into nightclubs anyway.

So for the two sibling comments. This article is clearly about nightclubs and events. "Plans to introduce vaccine passports for access into nightclubs and large events in England will not go ahead, the health secretary has said."

"Under the scheme, people would have been required to show proof - whether of double vaccination, a negative Covid test or finishing self-isolating after a positive PCR test - in order to gain entry to clubs and other crowded events."

"The Night Time Industries Association had said the plans could have crippled the industry and led to nightclubs facing discrimination cases."

Showing proof of age so you can drink alcohol and participate in the sexualized activities at a club are nowhere near in the same ballpark as "paper's please" tyranny in order to participate in society.

When is the last time you needed to show your papers to enter a mall? Or a library? Or a museum? Or a public restroom? Or a McDonalds?

Vaccine passports are less offensive than regular passports.

How come? So it's much more offensive for countries to control who enter them than what goes inside them?

Restricting people's freedom of movement based on their liability to spread dangerous diseases is much more reasonable than restricting their freedom of movement based on where they were born.

Some people don't like the idea of national borders (usually extreme libertarians and leftist-utopians).

No point now, who would go to a nightclub now that we know there is a risk that you find yourself dancing with Michael Gove

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toYL4jjl4q4

Don’t worry everyone. The unilateral powers created by our government during covid is a one time thing.

Surely covid will one day “go away”, and with it the surveillance state will dismantle their powers and stop trying to control what their citizens think and do!

I believe everyone should be vaccinated but your point worries me. This doesn't seem 'right.' I don't believe in conspiracy theories of people pushing anti vaccination propaganda just to bring this state of affairs about as some are suggesting: that said, I don't want us to be in this place, but I also want everyone vaccinated so the vaccines can actually work and we can eradicate this thing.

I can't help but feel manipulated in this state.

Being pro vaccine and anti-government “emergency powers” is a perfectly reasonable position to take.

The media and the government forces the false dichotomy on people. They say you’re either all-in surveillance state or you’re antivax. It’s part of their design.

This is exactly my position, I’m very pro-vaccine but I despise the surveillance state as the apparatus of tyranny.

I haven’t seen much about this but I assume the passport systems are a potentially huge security risk. The ones I’ve seen require personal identifying information (yet again) which you know is stored in a new database (again).

> which you know is stored in a new database (again).

The (european) vaccination certificates include all necessary information in a QR code that is stored locally, either digitally in an app or as actual print-out of the QR code. You only have to show an id card to proof that this QR code belongs to you then (it also encodes your full name and date of birth for making the connection).

Wouldn't work in the UK since we don't have ID cards.

How do you identify yourself if required for some reason? For example when interacting with an office or when you have to cast your ballot in an election?

For offices, typically a utilities bill (with your name and address on it) will suffice. Voting only requires a voting card which is sent to your address. Registration to vote is mandatory and requires your National Insurance number, but the penalty for not registering is small (a fine of £80 IIRC) and rarely enforced.

At least in the UK the vaccine passports are made available through the NHS App, and stored AFAIK the same way any other health information on your person is stored already. At least they show up the same way like all other healthcare appointments, prescription s, etc. The only unique things are the QR codes to "export" that information - the validity of this is not checked against a (separate) database to my knowledge.

Other countries that have nationwide systems should have been able to do something similar - of course there's a good chance they didn't, but that's really not an argument against Covid passports but against bad security practices.

Ditch the plans everywhere. No more mandates.

I concur, good on England

As they should be, considering that the vaccines do not stop people from getting infected and infecting others. Making sure there are only vaccinated people in a bar does not mean the people inside can’t get infected so this measure does not help achieve that goal.

Vaccinated are actually at a lot lower risk to catch the disease and even less likely to actually develop symptoms and severe cases. Keeping unvaccinated out protects them from those who can spread it unknowingly.

Or you can not accept the nanny state and let people decide for themselves over things that affect themselves. Who knows, if you afford people that kind of respect they might even believe that states ideas on whether getting vaccinated is good for them.

Well, the issue with this approach is that one's actions don't only affect oneself. It's not like wearing a seatbelt, where in case of a crash, you're only killing yourself. Of course, it's more complicated than that, because if you only get badly wounded, then society's gonna have to foot your bill.

Here, however, we're talking about a highly contagious virus that's transmitted through air, which can be spread even if you don't have symptoms and even if you don't actively interact with someone (as opposed to, say, HIV). Vaccines seemed to lower the spread risk, although with the new variant that effect looks weaker. So deciding for yourself to not vaccinate has a high likelihood of effecting others.

To go back to the road analogy, this doesn't look so much like a nanny state as setting some ground rules. Like driving on the same side of the road, mandating lights, blinkers, etc.

You mean I could think for myself? OK, here is my reasoning:

I am in no position to make an informed decision on these vaccines and measures by myself, so I trust those who actually know what they are talking about.

I'm in your camp: the problem is the people we rely on as experts are said to be lying/wrong/stupid/evil/devils/.etc by the people against the positions they hold.

How do you fight that kind of thing?

Wow, you thought for yourself and your conclusion was you’re not going to think for yourself. Well that’s fine. Now try affording others that same privilege and allow them to draw their own conclusions.

How does this follow from your earlier point, or in any way answer the parent? It seems more like a change of topic.

> vaccines do not stop people from getting infected and infecting others. ... does not mean the people inside can’t get infected so this measure does not help achieve that goal.

This is absolutist thinking - "people can still get infected, so this does not help at all" - this not true in the slightest:

"it can still happen" is not the same "as it happens at the same rate as before". And "It's not perfect" isn't the same as "does not help".

vaccination reduces the rate of infection, a lot, so it does help, a lot. None of this is binary, thinking in absolutes will lead you to false conclusions.

It makes sense if vaccine reduces infection rate.

Thanks for the Covid misinformation, buddy! Thanks in part to your diligent work, many people will get sick and die! Give yourself a pay on the back! And whatever you do, suppress this: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effective...

> For people who are vaccinated and still get infected (i.e., “breakthrough infections”), there is a risk of transmission to others.

Not sure why you’d want to suppress that truth. It’s just a little vague on how big the chances are.

Of course the vaccination isn't a perfect shield -- not against covid infections nor transmission... who said it was? But wouldn't that be a pretty stupid bar to set?

You said the vaccine does not prevent people from getting infected. That is not true. The popular vaccines are about 95% effective. Also, people who are not infected do not transmit the virus -- that is a rather effective limit on transmission.

Apart from infections, the vaccine also reduces the severity of covid. The severity of covid-19 is the whole damn problem, BTW. If it wasn't making lots of people seriously sick we wouldn't be worrying about infections in the first place.

Of course! Now how is it logical to not allow person A, who has X*1.6 chance of infecting someone else, into a bar without a test, but do allow person B, who has X chance of infecting someone else? Is X chance not a problem, but X*1.6 is? And why is that? Just because the blessed action results in a chance of X?

edit by the way the magical number for how effective the popular vaccines are against getting infected and being able to infect others, is not 95%. It’s 42% and dropping for the Pfizer vaccine.

Nobody is suppressing anything. The vaccines help but not 100%. You're rounding everything down to "doesn't work". Would you say condoms "don't work" because they are not 100%?

I would if they worked 42%.

https://www.foxnews.com/health/pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-42-in...

Which is just a random result for searching. I’m sure there other numbers to be found, but they are nowhere near 100%.

Clearly only true solution to stop spread is permanent lockdown. And ban bars, restaurants, events and any sort of gatherings forever. I believe all pro-vaccine people already agree that no sacrifice of freedoms is too big for greater good.

After all, why wouldn't they support keeping the vulnerable safe? Cost is only small sacrifice in bodily autonomy and clearly most effective thing to do.

I didn't have the vaccine for the greater good. I had it because, for me, the risk vs reward balance was tilted that way. I have high blood pressure and I'm borderline diabetic. Not much of a choice for me.

Why would someone that is healthy risk ending up like that dead BBC presenter and leave their family behind for complete strangers?

Who gives you(or anyone) the right to decide what risks they should take and that their lives are worth less than anyone elses?

My mother is healthy even though she's almost 70 and she didn't have it. It's her choice. My wife didn't have it.It's her choice. Then again, she's in perfect health and 30 so for her the risks are next to none.

Small sacrifice? How about lock down the "vulnerable" like me(or worse) then and not screw up everyone else?

The chances of ending up dead from COVID is higher than the chance of dying from the vaccine for basically everyone right?

Even if you’re in your 30’s and in perfect health.

I absolutely agree that I’d much rather die from COVID than from the vaccine that is supposed to save me. But logically speaking, choosing to not take the vaccine doesn’t make any kind of sense.

It’s like choosing to drive a car because you might get hit by lightning if you take a walk.

>The chances of ending up dead from COVID is higher than the chance of dying from the vaccine for basically everyone right?

Your chances of catching COVID aren't 100%, your chances of getting vaccinated are if you choose to do so.

>It’s like choosing to drive a car because you might get hit by lightning if you take a walk.

This argument also works in reverse.

note: I'm double vaccinated and urge others to vaccinate if they are medically able to do so.

It is comparable to the right to refuse treatment, which is in many jurisdictions considered to be a basic civil right.

There are entire subreddits dedicated just to trying to keep up with stories of vocally unvaccinated people dying awful and scary deaths from COVID. These incidents are so common it's impossible to keep track of all of them -- 1k deaths a day in just the US, virtually all of which are unvaccinated.

If what you're saying is true and the vaccine itself is even more dangerous, the internet should be overflowing with countlesss stories of thousands of vaccine-induced deaths every single day. Instead, it's overflowing with stories of folks like your mother dying after spending weeks in complete agony not able to breathe on their own.

Tbh the whole reason I actually had the shots was because it would increase my chances of survival but that is not my point.

I'm not saying the vaccine is good or bad. What I am saying is: As long as it's not 100% safe people shouldn't be forced to have it (or coerced by any means).

Neither you or anyone else has the right to force(or coerce by limiting their freedoms) anyone to do anything that has even a 0,00000001 change of being detrimental to them. It's their life, their body, their choice.

If the excuse if to "protect the vulnerable" then lockdown people like me that are considered vulnerable and leave the healthy ones alone to mind their lives. I am aware that I'm at risk and it's my choice how I deal with it. What give anyone the right to make the decision for me?

If my mother chose not to have it... All I can and will do is respect her call. At the end of the day she paid for the priviledge to end up in a hospital bed if that is her choice. Her tax money at work. It's as simple as that.

> I believe all pro-vaccine people already agree that no sacrifice of freedoms is too big for greater good.

Just like the anti-vaccine/science people think any sacrifice they have to make is too much?

God forbid you’d do something that helps your fellow man instead of yourself.

This is a ridiculous straw-man take and you know it. Please aim for helpful discussion instead of empty sarcasm.

I'd argue this is not a straw man, but a clear summary policy and a lot of public belief. The prevailing attitude is so poor that it can be humiliated this easily by even the slightest sarcasm.

When passports do finally fail, it's going to shame a lot of people in managerialist roles who disinhibited their cruelty when they thought they were going to be able to shut the objects of their contempt out of society.

I take that support of vaccination passports and mandatory vaccinations or limiting people without vaccinations is also not helpful discussion. But still that sort of support goes on...

Well, of course it’s mostly about sacrifices other people have to make. You know, ‘I don’t go to festivals so I don’t mind if they’re banned’. But ‘it’s inconvenient if my children are quarantined from school so that should be lenient’.

The benefits of society from in person education are so much higher than the benefit of music festivals that your comparison is absolutely ridiculous.

A better comparison would be churches and bars.

Well, if the large majority of your population is already vaccinated, I guess these passports could potentially be dismissed, if masks are still mandatory, but for some countries - like Portugal where we have +80% of the pop. vaccinated - the main concern are tourists that completely disregard any etiquette or measures in place.

So I think keeping passports is a good measure, not perfect due to breakthrough infections, still better than nothing.

Last time I checked, the top 3 countries in terms of vaccination rates are also the top 3 countries in terms of number of active covid cases.

Israel is #1 in vaccination rates and #1 in daily cases.

I don't know where you getting that information, last time I checked Israel wasn't even in the top10 countries.

Last week Portugal was number 2, and our cases have been dropping (which is a good sign for winter, though it's still early), also deaths and hospitalizations are nowhere near pre-vaccine numbers.

We even had breakthrough cases in homes and care centers for the elderly, the majority seem to be mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic, very few deaths.

According to https://ourworldindata.org/ Israel is #4 in COVID cases right now (856.81/M) and #5 in vaccine doses per 100 people (163.74)

Well maybe vaccine doses per 100 people isn't the best benchmark, especially if they are already giving 3rd doses - it's way more important the share of full vaccination of the total population, because the goal is to get the imune system primed.

The reality is that Israel only has 63% of their population fully vaccinated, even if they keep giving extra doses, a large slice is still not vaccinated (people under 59 apparently).

Cases in Portugal are staying stable neither growing or diminishing. Looking at the curve for deaths there seems to be no correlation between deaths and the vaccination program.

https://expresso.pt/coronavirus/2021-09-10-Covid-19.-O-oitav...

I can't even take your comment seriously.

That must have been a while ago, because Israel is nowhere near top in vaccination rate anymore. They had a fast rollout, but are now stuck at around 61%.. Meanwhile, western Europe is around 80-90% vaccinated

Europe: 102.58 doses per 100

Israel: 163.74 doses per 100 (#5 in the world)

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

Doses don't mean much if a large portion of the population have taken none.

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=FRA shows more like 60%-70% for the total population (I turned on more countries than France).

Are your numbers percent of adults or including people that have recovered from infection or something?

Government numbers in France show 80.2% today ("The figure gives the share of the population over the age of 12 that are fully vaccinated (all required doses")

We crossed 60% on July 29, and 70% on August 20

No it's shit. Just let people decide if they want to get the vaccination or not, and go on with life as normal. By now everyone can get it and be protected against the virus. You now have the immunity, so act like it! Stop dragging this out with requiring passports, masks, and whatnot.

The "main concern" aren't tourists - tourists are the lifeblood of many places, and they should be welcomed. They come to you to see your culture, and you encumber them with your own burden and fears.

>Just let people decide if they want to get the vaccination or not, and go on with life as normal.

Uh, where did I say that people shouldn't decide? Do you think we got +80% (87% if you factor in single doses), at gun point?

If these passports had an influence on 5 percentual points I was being extremely generous.

It's all about education, being informed, and a sense of duty. Probably the majority where fearful and anxious to do it, but they did it anyway.

> tourists are the lifeblood of many places, and they should be welcomed.

Being welcoming doesn't mean put up with shit, right? Wear a mask and have the vaccine passport at hand, not that hard now is it?

One is a tiny piece of cloth, the other is a tiny piece of digital paper.

No the tourists have to put up with YOUR shit.

You are immune for fucks sake, how hard is it to actually be welcoming and say: It's ok for unvaccinated to enter a restaurant. We can live without implicitly checking everyone. We don't need to be like that and can act like normal decent humans again! Is that so hard?

>No the tourists have to put up with YOUR shit.

If by shit you mean the law, yes. That's what you have to do when you visit another country - even though a lot of people don't act like it truth be told.

Psst, come here, I'll drop you a quick tip: if they don't want to abide by the laws and mandates... don't come?

I don't get why you're ok to enforce your choice onto others, yet others can't enforce their choices onto you just because you're a tourist and we should welcome you.

>You are immune for fucks sake, how hard is it to actually be welcoming and say: It's ok for unvaccinated to enter a restaurant.

Uh, I don't think you can even enter the country without vaccine passport or valid PCR negative test. So you have that for starters, and if you choose to not be vaccinated what's the problem of taking another PCR test to go to restaurants?

>We can live without implicitly checking everyone. We don't need to be like that and can act like normal decent humans again! Is that so hard?

You just need to realize this is temporary, and the faster we go through this, the better - that was the whole game plan. Some people are opting to get infected without vaccines, that'll just delay things, but the end will come eventually.

Also we check people on regular basis: drivers licenses, IDs, tickets, etc.

Human decency is alive and well, and the fact that 87% of a country population, so far, adhered to a cause to protect themselves and the next person is the proof of that.

Yo if someone wants to visit my house/town/city then fuck yeah they need to put up with my shit

So when I visit your house I can put my feet up on your couch like Rick James/Dave Chappelle? Take New Orleans for example. Do they have to let nonresident tourists determine their policies?

> You now have the immunity, so act like it!

This is factually incorrect.

The Covid-19 vaccines significantly reduce symptoms, risk of hospitalisation, risk of death, and transmission rate. They are worth it on balance if you care about your own health, and/or the health of other people you interact with, especially those close to you, for almost everyone above a fairly low age.

But they do not provide complete immunity, which is called "sterilising immunity".

Which means other people's behaviour still affects you.

Some vaccines for other diseases do provide sterilising immunity. For example the smallpox vaccine does, which is why that disease is pretty much eradicated. But unfortunately none of the vaccines currently available for Covid-19 provide sterilising immunity.

Even so, if we are able to dampen the transmission rate in each community to below R < 1 by a combination of measures, which includes vaccination, the disease will gradually fade away instead of spreading to everyone. Probabilities are everything in this game.

> Which means other people's behaviour still affects you.

We have multiple vaccines for well over 9 months now. Anybody who needs them can get them for free. Covid is never going away -- it is endemic. Dragging this pandemic game past vaccines is unethical as hell.

People need to accept that covid is always around now and get back to actual life. It may come as a shock to some people but there is an entire world of problems besides the myopic fixation on exactly one illness. Life is to be lived, not survived. Move on. Covid myopia is a disease much worse than covid itself.

Sure, you can weigh up your value system how you like.

My comment was to address the parent's serious misleading factual idea about immunity, and provide some nuanced background to readers who may find that useful, as the GP's summary is a false but attractively simplistic belief that a lot of people hold about the vaccines. For some people that misunderstanding is causing them to act against their own personal values.

Even if you believe people should act according to their personal values regardless of consequence to others, you probably believe people should be entitled to the correct basic facts if they want them.

I have met too many people who said "I've had the vaccine so I can't get Covid", "I've had the vaccine so I can't give anyone Covid", or "I've had Covid so I can't give anyone Covid", and then walked right up close to other people in confined spaces with other people (service workers etc) unable to leave.

Presumably some of those people believe what they are saying, and would choose based on their own personal values to act differently if they knew they had misunderstood that there are different kinds of vaccine immunity.

Read my comment carefully and you will hopefully see it does not contain value judgements about how people should choose to respond to Covid. (Even if other comments of mine do.)

I agree with you that "Covid is always around now". But that is an over-simplistic, black-and-white summary of something quite nuanced. I'll try to summarise my view in a black and white way (always misleading for a nuanced topic unfortunately):

There is "ok endemic" and "bad endemic". It can still go either way.

Most people want the "ok endemic" version instead of "bad endemic". And they don't know how to get it, so rely on government and other major actors to help chart a path.

To someone who gets that there is a difference, people who say "but it's going to be endemic" as though that settles everything, sound like they are saying "I don't care if it's bad endemic, and you shouldn't care either, stop bleating".

> if masks are still mandatory

Cloth masks provide no protection against viruses. If you don’t believe me, just read the warnings on the box itself.

If it's a good quality mask, that would be misunderstanding the words on the box.

Masks provide some protection against the spreading of liquid droplets, as it says on the box. (Quality of mask varies a lot, though.)

In the case of Covid-19, droplets are believed to be the primary way it is suspended in air and breathed in by the next person.

Although that type of mask doesn't protect against pure airborne virus transmission without droplets, that is more applicable to other viruses than Covid-19.

The key difference: "Airborne virus" means virus without droplets (or such tiny ones that it's not what we mean by droplets); it does not mean the same thing as virus carried by small liquid droplets of the size normally breathed out by humans, and attenuated by cloth masks.

Maybe some Covid-19 is transported without droplets, but quantity of exposure matters, and suppressing droplet transmission, as done by good cloth masks, still has a significant effect. There are better, more thorough mask types available, of course.

The thing that people seem to be ignoring in all of this is that people like having power.

The vaccines are helpful to the recipient, but unless you are successful at completely shutting down travel to the rest of the world: not really that helpful to the people who haven't taken them. In fact, there is an argument for how over-vaccinating will be harmful to the unvaccinated.

If you're vaccinated, you can still get and transmit covid. You just don't get as sick. The vaccine protects you.

So why these vaccine mandates? Vaccine passports? Etc.

Because people simply enjoy the act of getting to tell others what to do. Anybody who has ever interacted with an HOA will be familiar with this.

The data shows that these do not have a positive effect, but the people enacting them enjoy it, and the people who have found themselves on the enforcment side of the political divide enjoy the feeling of righteousness they experience because of them.

I can’t reply to everybody making the same incorrect point. Here is the graph of Texas’s hospital utilization: https://covid-texas.csullender.com/

(Luckily Texas gives us great data!).

The graph here you are looking for is the one that shows the percentage of staffed beds and icu beds occupied. Notice that it is entirely flat.

Here’s a really interesting statistic that suggests even less effectiveness of these control measures: the vaccines appear to have had no effect on hospital utilization.

It's completely and incontrovertibly bullshit that vaccines don't help unvaccinated people.

Vaccines drastically reduce hospitalisation. That frees up medical resources for everyone, especially those who aren't vaccinated and those that need care.

We are already seeing medical procedures get postponed and hospital staff being pushed at the breaking point. The help to your community of being vaccinated is simply huge.

It’s not really as black&white as that.

Vaccinated people are more prone to be asymptomatic when infected, which means they are less likely to notice the infection, thus less likely to isolate and go into quarantine.

This is made even worse by the fact how a whole bunch of countries have stopped testing vaccinated people, they are just assumed healthy and not contagious by default.

Now throw in vaccinated people demanding to be exempt from pandemic measures, like not having to wear masks anymore and being allowed into crowded venues, and vaccinated people have the biggest potential to become the new super spreaders.

Vaccinated people are less symptomatic because they have a lower viral load. Their infectivity window is lower. In the corresponding time frames, they have similar symptoms

If they had similar symptoms then there would be no point to the vaccination at all because it’s symptoms why people get hospitalized.

By now that’s even become the main argument for vaccinations: Less hospitalizations due to less severe symptoms. While all the talk about “herd immunity”, the original most pushed reason for mass vaccinations, has turned out to be not realistic.

None of your logic is valid if everyone gets vaccinated as it will be "as good as it can be". Some non controllable number of people will get the disease, but the number of people in ER and ICU will be way down and they can get the help they need instead of help from an exhausted, overworked ICU department that is far from in optimal condition to handle you and other non-covid emergency cases. Your "logic" simple falls apart at the seams.

Yeah, again this is a great talking point for those who are enjoying their newfound power, but unfortunately for them (and fortunately for the inhabitants of this country!) the numbers do not bare this out: https://www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19/hospitalization-utiliza...

Do you know of a hospital system that’s overloaded in the way you are worried about? I’ve seen plenty of bloggers who talk about this, but they never seem to actually link to the data backing up their stories.

Idaho has already implemented crisis standards of care:

https://healthandwelfare.idaho.gov/news/idaho-activates-cris...

And is absolutely overwhelmed. It seems incredibly disingenuous to only consider some random state that's doing well and ignore those doing poorly.

Idaho doesn't seem to be in trouble based on the capacity dashboard.

https://rationalground.com/hospital-and-icu-capacity-dashboa...

Also, if you go back in look for headlines of hospitals being overwhelmed, you will see they exist for the flu for almost every year as well.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01/24/Hospitals-overwhe...

Alberta, Canada right now is getting its medical system put through the ringer.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alber...

During Canadas third wave hospitals were overwhelmed the point that people were dying while waiting for care.

In this case 6 patients died while waiting for cardiac surgery because the ICUs were overwhelmed dealing with Covid patients.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/covid-19-stay-home-o...

What kind of argument is there to cite a single state's COVID ICU utilization as an argument?

First of all, that's not total ICU utilization, which is the metric that should interests you.

Illinois, the state you cherry-picked, has only 508 ICU beds remaining out of 3127. That's one doubling away from disaster.

Here's an example of people dying because they couldn't find an ICU bed : https://meaww.com/ray-demonia-cardiac-failure-dies-icu-beds-...

Right now the US is at the cusp of disaster with 78% nationwide ICU utilization. As we've seen some states are at functionally 100% utilization and turning away patients.

78% ICU utilization is about the base load for ICUs.

Hospitals are businesses. They don’t just create tons of empty ICU beds and then never use them.

If you are getting your information from for profit blogs and magazines then I’d suggest doing a quick analysis on their motivations. Do you think they have more motivation to get you to click on their products, or more motivation to give you valid (but boring) information?

Most of the states (all? I’ve looked at a lot of them) have some for of data dashboard that will give you a better overview of this. I’d highly suggest checking those instead of twitter/blogs/etc. It might not give the data that you are hoping for, but that’s kindof the behavior that is the problem (seeking out blogs and magazines that confirm your priors)

As the sibling comment pointed out, 78% ICU occupancy is not that high compared to baseline.

From a 2014 analysis:

>Issues pertaining to the utility, interpretation, and reporting of ICU occupancy measures were identified and there were indications that optimal ICU occupancy rates were around 70-75%

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24373914/

In addition to the power, don’t forget the pseudo celebrity status that many formerly ignored politicians and bureaucrats have enjoyed.

The hour long daily briefings rarely contain any new information and are nothing but pure ego and attention seeking.

Exactly like a movie star whose time is passing, you should bet they will do whatever it takes to stay in the spotlight and stay relevant.

The daily briefings in NSW (Australia) ceased this week and there was immediate criticism that it was a vital service that should've been maintained.

The media and public create that public brand; the health rep is generally just doing their job. In my state, the relevant person happens to have a recognisable hairstyle. It's not like she has a PR team going out telling people to dress as her for halloween or parties, people just do things like that, then the media covers that, and people send the link around and on it goes. Given the intense reactions that are the norm around this pandemic, I'm sure she'd feel safer without that level of attention.

I appreciate that you are able to give people the benefit of the doubt, but that isn’t human nature. Most people are not self sacrificing do gooders. Indeed, almost everyone is self interested.

Don’t be surprised when the person you cite above who will “feel safer without that level of attention” suddenly decides to step back into the limelight seeking some higher office or elevated position.

All the data suggests that vaccines significantly reduce transmission, both by decreasing the likelihood of infection and onward transmission from vaccinated individuals.

Additionally, anything that incentivizes more people to get the vaccine will result in higher uptake, which benefits everyone in terms of lower overall spread and hospital usage.

Exactly, the attack rate of vaccinated individuals who are infected is significantly lower.

All the current data suggests something very different.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/08/06/fully-v...

I can't find any source in there suggesting a lack of effectiveness. The underlying source linked by the article mentions a reduction of 80% in symptomatic disease, which is responsible for most transmission. I can't find anything very recent, but here's an analysis that takes Delta into account:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Finding 80+% protection against symptomatic disease and ~40% reduction in onwards transmission, from three different modelling groups.

Those estimates are based on modelling with assumptions to fill in missing information. Significant is the assumption of little waning immunity.

Current data trends don't look so optimistic.

https://dailysceptic.org/2021/08/22/latest-phe-data-shows-va...

You are 100% wrong. The purpose of mandating the vaccine is to keep people from dying, particularly older, immune compromised people and kids who can't get the vaccine just yet. I'm tired of this damn limbo of somewhere in the middle. If you don't want to get a vaccine then don't work for one of the employers that will now be required to make sure their workers are immunized. Your rights end at the end of your nose. No one is going to come looking for you to drag you out to the street and get immunized. However if you want to participate with the rest of us then get vaccinated. Texas is currently a shit show of overcrowded hospitals, voter suppression laws, and pro-birther (but not pro life) people trying to install their theocracy. I know because I live here.

Unfortunately you are also 100% wrong.

For example, a care home in London recently held a trip, all individuals in attendance were 'double jabbed', and were required to bring a negative PCR test. The attendees were not allowed to board the coach if they did not bring a negative PCR test. Attendees also had their temperatures taken before bording the coach and were also asked about how they felt, and encouraged not to come should they even feel like they have any symptom/s. The next day, a member of staff tests positive.

Simply being double jabbed isn't a solution, because the vaccine, fundamentally, doesn't work the way you think.

Whilst a jab may remove some affects of Covid, it does not stop transmission; Covid can and will be passed from those who are vaccinated to vulnerable people regardless. This results in a quandry where advocating for proof of a negative test can not actually be proof of a negative test, and being double jabbed does not stop an individual from catching Covid and stopping them from suffering.

Forcing people to be jabbed is unethical; boys have been reported to be 6x more likely to suffer vaccine-related myocarditis than ending up in hospital with Covid. What groups are deemed more precious? Are our young boys worth sacrificing, or should we sacrifice those who's age is greater than the average age of death?

Excluding people from society because they are not willing to take a drug which is still experimental; The CDC may have approved it, but in the UK has not its approval is temporary and that lasts one year:(https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4759).

It also quite frightening to hear power hungry individuals advocating agency over anothers body; I find your comment regarding Texas ironic given the current abortion issues present, but perhaps you agree with that removal as well.

When rights are removed, they do not come back. we still remove our shoes when travelling through airport security. It is important that we consider the our actions and implications for the long term, not just the current political cycle.

For me the major point of vaccinating others is ensuring hospitals are not overwhelmed and have enough capacity to treat other patients and perform elective procedures.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2021/...

The UK probably has a large chunk of the benefit it could ever possibly get in terms of stopping the hospitals from being overwhelmed - vaccination levels are very high in the age groups that're most at risk here.

Yeah this sure is a common talking point that comes up, but unfortunately for those who enjoy enforcing these things, it is not backed up by any data.

Daily deaths (which is the best proxy we have for hospitalization) is nowhere near any of the peaks we have had in the last year and a half.

If somehow deaths are down but hospital capacity is also down, that is the fault of the hospitals, not the vaccinated. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

You seem to be missing another option: that treatments get better so that hospitalization leads to fewer deaths than it did earlier. Which seems obviously true.

Why would deaths be the best proxy for hospitalization? Why don't you have actual hospitalization numbers?

Did you read the linked article? The governor of one of the largest US states asked hospitals to delay elective procedures to ensure hospital capacity.

> The vaccines are helpful to the recipient, but . . . not really that helpful to the people who haven't taken them.

This isn't true, though.

> The graph here you are looking for is the one that shows the percentage of staffed beds and icu beds occupied. Notice that it is entirely flat.

Compare June to September, total staffed beds is about even, total ICU beds grew somewhat, and usage of both jumped from about 80% to 88% for overall beds, and 90ish to 96% for ICUs (which is a bigger increase in use than it might seem because capacity increased)

If overall use increased 10% and covid users are 20% of overall and 40% of ICU, up from maybe 5% and 10%, it seems there are a lot of non-covid users whose care is being delayed or denied because of covid. There's some room for misleading statistical information, such as ICU patients in for something else that happen to have asymptomatic covid and are only tested because of other patients, but the difference in stats seems large enough to ignore that. Stats I've heard are that the vast majority of hospitalized covid patients in most states had not been vacinated, so it does seem useful to the person taking them, and by reducing the overall hospitalization rate, seem to have kept Texas within hospital capacity, if barely (I haven't heard stories of Texas hospitals running triage and tents in parking garage like some other states)

> If you're vaccinated, you can still get and transmit covid. You just don't get as sick. The vaccine protects you.

The vaccine reduces the chance you can get and transmit covid. 40-60% protection against infection, and even when there is a breakthrough case viral load declines faster than in an unvaccinated person meaning less chance and time to spread the virus to others.

> So why these vaccine mandates? Vaccine passports? Etc. Because people simply enjoy the act of getting to tell others what to do. Anybody who has ever interacted with an HOA will be familiar with this.

No, it’s because lots of people are literally dying. An HOA arguing with you over the color of your garage door or the height of your lawn is, at most, trying to protect property values or as you say just being a busybody.

> The graph here you are looking for is the one that shows the percentage of staffed beds and icu beds occupied. Notice that it is entirely flat.

So why did hospitals declare that they have no ICU beds available and that they are sending patients out of state?

> At least 53 Texas hospitals have no available ICU capacity, according to numbers reported to the federal government during the week ending Aug. 5. In Austin, five hospitals were at or above 90% of their ICU capacity during the same period, with two reporting no available ICU beds

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/10/coronavirus-texas-ho...

It could be related to staff shortages. Number of beds is not a literal figure, it also accounts for the number of staff that can treat patients in the bed. If you're short staffed you're short bed'd too

That still contraticts the sentence he quoted.

I don’t know. But what I do know is that data will speak much more clearly than somebody’s news article.

Those hospitals at 90%: what is their base load? The hospitals with no beds: what is their base load?

These things make very profitable news articles, but they don’t do a very good job of informing.

The news article is literally quoting hospitals saying they are out of ICU beds.

But you trust a dashboard more...

> If you're vaccinated, you can still get and transmit covid. You just don't get as sick. The vaccine protects you.

While you still can transmit COVID-19 if you're vaccinated against it, it's far less likely (the time during which you can transmit the disease is far shorter).

So while your statement might be technically correct, it is also very misleading.

> In fact, there is an argument for how over-vaccinating will be harmful to the unvaccinated.

What is over-vaccinating (and in a pandemic, no less)? And what is that argument you speak of?

> If you're vaccinated, you can still get and transmit covid.

If you are vaccinated you are less likely to get COVID, less likely to spread it at peak (except, apparently, with Delta) while you have it, and have a shorter contagious period (even with Delta).

So, yes, you can still get and spread it, but you are significantly less likely to.

> If you're vaccinated, you can still get and transmit covid.

Wouldn’t another reason be to reduce cost? It’s expensive to treat covid patients and the vaccine is proven to reduce the incidents of hospitalization. But I’m willing to forgo all vaccine mandates, mask mandates, etc if we can all agree that unvaccinated have to pay for their own treatment or buy bespoke covid insurance.

As an unvaccinated (but protected by naturally-acquired immunity) I completely agree with this. As long as the same is true for car accident victims (except pedestrians), HIV patients (except those that got it via birth/rape), obese people, smokers, drinkers, skiers, ... All these are 100% voluntary activities that put undue burden on the medical system.

I think the difference is effort to get the vaccine is very close to 0 - it’s free, you can get one at Costco.

And what’s the benefit or not getting it? As much as I despise cars you can at least go do something arguably beneficial with them. I think we should have fewer though because they do cause unnecessary deaths. But what is gained by not having the vaccine? If I have a car I can do something beneficial. If you don’t get the vaccine you can transmit the disease or wind up in the hospital and for what reason? Do you, or society get much pleasure from skiing? Seems like it. There’s an entire industry. Will there be COVID-19 resorts and YouTube videos showing who can get the sickest or something?

We do deprioritize smokers and drinkers BTW on the transplant list.

If I’m in my home and you get into a car accident across town, you can’t injure me. The same is not true if you contract and spread the virus.

If you're in your home and don't invite anyone, then people who spread the virus also can't injure you.

Not GP. You're comparing apples to oranges.

If I get into a car accident and you're across town, you're right, that doesn't affect you. Likewise, if I get COVID and you're across town, I can't infect you, so likewise, you're not affected.

However, if we're on the same side of town, and I get into a car accident, it could affect you because I might hit you. Likewise, if I get COVID, and we're on the same side of town, I could infect you.

You might protest that I could still infect you if I get COVID on the opposite side of town by infecting someone else who infects you. This is false. The person who actually infected you infected you. To claim it was my fault that you got infected means that we should all blame patient zero and China. I mean, we should blame China, but probably not patient zero.

Can you think of a solution that doesn't just allow government officials to profit even more?

If you build in a system where the government can extract profit by not complying with their actions, what makes you think you wont someday find yourself on the wrong side of those actions?

Keep in mind, your side might not always be the one in control and once you hand over extra power to the government it's extremely rare for them to hand it back to you.

How does the govt profit here? They are losing b/trillions due to covid in lost taxes, medical expenses, and individual sentiment. What is your solution if you don’t want people vaccinated? I couldn’t care less if people get vaccinated but I def don’t want to pay for them when there’s an easy way to lower those costs right now. (And, please tell me, who is “my” side? Logic and reason?)

The people self selecting into positions of power wanting more power?

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