It was tragic news from the USA that the country surpassed 500,000 deaths this week from CV 19.Ā The President and Vice President commemorated the sad landmark in a moving ceremony and with appropriate words. The USA and the UK make daily announcements of the deaths attributed to the virus, with Ministers and Administration representatives making regular statements of sympathy for the relatives of those lost.
The EU passed through the 500,000 deaths before the USA. They have gone over to weekly reporting, and last announced 515,519 deaths. The incidence of the virus and the death rate has been very variable around the EU. Belgium’s death rate has beenĀ more than three times that of Greece. Luxembourg has had more cases relative to the size of its population than most, whilst Finland has low figures for cases and deaths. The world figures released daily on the world o meter does not include EU figures so you have Ā to add up all the relevant national figures. This is surprising given the leadership role the EU has adopted over responses to the pandemic in member states. It would be good to see more analysis of the reasons for the very different rates of cases and deaths amongst neighbouring states.
Asian countries led by Japan have had much lower case rates and lower death rates than the Americas and Europe. I have yet to see a good account of why the spread of the disease and the fatalities have been so much lower in much of Asia. It would be good to know if it wasĀ to do with the nature of the response, or to the treatments, or to greater natural immunity fromĀ past exposures to similar viruses or to diet or other Ā issues.
The U.K. after Israel has achieved much more in offering vaccines to people vulnerable to the virus and vaccinating most at risk. In both France and Germany misleading negative briefings against the Astra Zeneca vaccine has held up acceptance of Ā vaccination on top of the slower moves of the EU authorities to approve the jab and to buy enough for fast roll out.
We now learn that the U.K. is considering using vaccination certificates for other purposes. Ministers accept there are practical and moral problems with such an idea. I would be interested in your thoughts on this possible limitation on freedoms.
February 24, 2021
Good morning,
Your first sentence of last para, says it…”…for other purposes”. Government needs to clearly (that would be a change) define what purposes. Who is supposed to look at them ?
February 24, 2021
Peter, Internal covid19 vaccination papers in the UK amount to coercion to take the vaccine. Like internal passports they would also allow the tracking and management of us like cattle. Perhaps the government should go the whole hog and force (by law!) those of us who do not intend to have the covid vacccines to wear a star on our sleeves. How I despise this government’s lack of principles!
February 24, 2021
If you have a smart phone then the big internet companies know more about you than you do yourself and you can be tracked any time. You only have to search online for a product and immediately you are bombarded with adverts from every Tom Dick and Abdul. I think your fears are too late. What’s wrong with a certificate to say you are vaccinated anyway? You can’t drive a car without a licence which the police can ask to see at any time. Why should a few wrong headed individuals who think Bill Gates is implanting chips into them or that pork is in the vaccines place us all at risk? If you can’t have a vaccine for medical reasons, then a certificate to that effect is easy to produce. I don’t want to sit next to a person with Covid on the bus or in the boozer, thank you.
February 24, 2021
A vaccine passport in the end is fine. But it cannot come into effect until everyone who wants the jab has had both doses.
You may have had a jab already. Graham1946 is probably 75 after all – you are near the top of the list. But it would not be fair for you to be able to go to the pub because you have a vaccine passport when someone in their 20s wonāt have a vaccine passport because they will not even be offered their first jab for several more months.
The young put their lives on hold – often at great personal financial expense to protect the health of your generation. Your generation has suffered no significant financial effects from COVID as your pensions have still be paid in full throughout while vast numbers of others have had to accept 80% of their earnings.
You can now wait until the health of younger people is protected by the jab too until you can go to the pub. That is fair. And whilst your generation only believes in fairness if it is fair in your favour, you will have a riot on your hands if you free the elderly before the young.
February 25, 2021
And what happens when the immunity runs out next year ?- is “OUR” NHS going to vaccinate the entire population every year in a timely fashion to ensure that everyone required to carry a passport remains vaccinated and therefore able to access services requiring such a passport?
If you are vaccinated, you are protected, if not you are at risk. So why do those vaccinated worry about sitting next to someone who is not vaccinated? If they are at risk, what is the point of the vaccine?
Vaccinate as many people as possible, keep the vaccine programmes regular for those at risk and let us get on with our lives without further authoritarian interference.
February 24, 2021
Graham, Why is it a problem to sit next to a person with covid19 on the bus provided you are vaccinated? Are you going to ask the person next to you on the bus to produce their vaccine certificate? And how will you know whether that person even has covid19?
I purposefully have an old phone, and do not have Google, Fakebook, Apple, etc, accounts, precisely because I want to minimise tracking. However the government is more powerful than even bigTech – because it can make laws. Fakebook can’t. It’s the coercion that follows internal passports which is more objectionable than merely knowing where I live or what I buy.
February 24, 2021
We have a choice though
zorro
February 24, 2021
“I donāt want to sit next to a person with Covid on the bus or in the boozer, thank you.”
You are implying that an unvaccinated person would be more likely to have COVID even if they had already had it. You would be wrong.
zorro
February 25, 2021
The simple answer is that if everyone has the vaccine then the risk is minimised. I don’t want compulsion, but sensible people usually see sense. They are not 100 percent effective, but if the whole population is vaccinated the risk is negligible and the ‘passport’ wouldn’t be required. Why do people object to the vaccine? Mostly just a fear of some sort of totalitarianism they read about on the moronic Twitter, which probably does not exist, whereas Covid most certainly does. It’s like wearing a mask, not wholly for your own protection but to help protect others. Do you refuse to wear one of those too? This answer is to all who replied, not just you Zorro. As for Andy’s point, I agree on the fairness thing, but if we wait until the end of the year there will be no pubs. Mostly your hated pensioners keep them going in the week anyway and leave them for the younger ones at night and weekend, at least in my experience.
February 24, 2021
+1
February 24, 2021
Hear hear! Well said.
February 24, 2021
You are a funny guy. Do you not think that the government (just an example) if it really wanted could track you and your activities from your use of a debit/credit card, about when where and what you are interacting with your surroundings money-wise?
If not, can you confirm that you are always paying your pint, newspaper, groceries, petrol, car maintenance and repairs, vacation … with cash (obviously always taken from the same cash point near your address). Thanks in advance.
February 24, 2021
The difference being that until the appearance of internal passports the authorities only have power to demand that you present proof of your status where they suspect that you have committed a crime.
That’s a huge transfer of onus from officials having to produce I.D on demand to the public, to the public having to produce I.D on demand to officials. It changes the balance of policing by consent and by ordinary citizens conferred the powers of Constable entirely.
February 24, 2021
Hefner, You are being disingenuous. In the modern world it is not possible to avoid being tracked and photographed. But that does not make it good. Nor does it mean that the next increment should not be resisted. I see no reason why internal passports – including covid vax papers – with the specific aim of preventing access in a supposedly free country should be welcomed. As for obeying your list of strictures – no thanks in advance.
February 25, 2021
What is my list of strictures?
February 24, 2021
Yes, but they would need a warrant to do that.
zorro
February 24, 2021
Twitch, twitch, twitch go those curtains yet again…
February 24, 2021
āEach of us has allowed these central freedoms to elapse, and has been party to the creation of a new illiberal precedent that may imperil the meaning of liberty for decades to comeā.
General debate: Covid-19 – 22 February 2021
Richard Fuller MP
February 24, 2021
Sorry..that does not seem to be full quote.
āThis has been a year of ambiguous choices when each of us in Parliament has had to wrestle with our conscience to render judgements with many unknowns. Yet each of us, rightly or wrongly, has allowed essential freedoms to lapse and thus been party to the creation of a new, illiberal precedent that may imperil the meaning of liberty for decades to come. We should each reflect on our judgements to determine how we can repair our common heritage of freedomā.
General debate: Covid-19 ā 22 February 2021
Richard Fuller MP.
February 24, 2021
@Everhopeful +1 if only Central Command got it as well!
February 24, 2021
If only!
I just hope that these MPs who appear to side with freedom arenāt actually playing āgood cop, bad copā.
February 24, 2021
@Everhopeful; Indeed, some do need to reflect on their judgements during the pandemic, many appear to have placed political dogma before the needs of public health – those who have chosen to politicise the pandemic must be hoping for short memories amongst the plebs, I’m not so sure we will be forgetting…
February 24, 2021
If he is speaking truthfully thereās not much wrong with Mr Fullerās judgement.
February 24, 2021
@Everhopeful; In your opinion… I’m not so sure the majority actually care much about personal freedoms during a pandemic, comments such as those attributed (I have not checked Hansard) to Mr Fuller might be better made when and if such freedoms fail to return in due course.
February 24, 2021
The European Union has nearly twice the population of the US, so its deaths-per-million are considerably lower.
Also healthcare provision in each country is a national, sovereign matter, except where ad hoc agreements might be reached otherwise.
February 24, 2021
MiC do you have the recorded total death figures for the EU27?
A quick google search says the USA (50 States) has 328 million people. The EU27 446 million (figures from Eurostat.
There are no real comparisons to be reached because there are different counting methods, not every State is using the UK way of calculating and inflating every death.
February 24, 2021
Statistics are very interesting I loved studying the subject. You have to remember also that lots of Countries have a much lower life expectancy (not Japan at 84).
Just a couple of examples: Romania and Bulgaria 75; Hungary 76; Poland 77. It will be interesting when all these figures start to clarify, if they are ever released, what the average age from death of covid are around the world.
February 24, 2021
Please stop comparing us to New Zealand then !
February 24, 2021
Martin, The population of the USA is about 332m, compared to the EU’s c450m. So the EU has nowhere near twice the population of the USA. And healthcare provision is not solely under the control of each subject state. The EU vaccine fiasco is witness to that.
February 24, 2021
Iāve no problem with vaccination certification in fact letās go one step further and have some form of I.D cards that way we would be able to weed out the people who arenāt supposed to be in our country
February 24, 2021
Such a sensible common step as ID cards is more dangerous for our MPs than mans first steps on the Moon. We are experiencing the efficacy of the Covid jab, can one of our pharmaceuticals please create a vaccination against woolly PC thinking.
February 24, 2021
Well, to be distributed to everybody above … 60 years of age, with a 5-year differential for men vs. women obviously, as woolly thinking seems more prevalent with men than women.
February 24, 2021
Mick, We may be heading in the direction of the USSR, but internal passports would truly give the game away. We have supposedly got BINO so we hoped we’d escaped the EUSSR, but the attitude of the UK establishment is still the same – “old bums, new farts” as the Russians said about their changes of government.
February 24, 2021
According to a CW contributor who lives in Russia, everything is open and you can visit pubs with your mates. Not everyone has taken the Russian vaccine but there is no suggestion of compulsion or coercion. Say what you like about the methods Putin uses to stay in power, but he usually acts in the interests of the Russian people and not a globalist cabal.
February 24, 2021
I will boycott any organisation that tries to enforce a ‘vaccine passport’, and contribute to legal action against that organisation.
February 24, 2021
So it is allowed to let nightclubs ban people who are wearing trainers, but it should be illegal to ban them if they might be contagious with a potentially deadly disease?
February 24, 2021
Phillip P
I wouldnt just boycott it, I’d attack it.
February 24, 2021
Mick,
If ID cards were introduced then government would have even more control over citizens.
However, there is absolutely no chance that they would āweed outā those that are here illegally.
February 24, 2021
Thatās some guff really, as if a half-efficient government did not have already enough potential control over its citizens via the HMRC, NHS, DVLR and debit/credit card information.
Just for fun: ever heard of Experian or Equifax? or for that matter the previously āEU Credit Rating Agenciesā now safely on-shore on these isles since the 1st of January 2021.
In what year do you think you are living? The ā50s? the ā70s?
February 24, 2021
@Mick; Would the carrying of your proposed ID cards be a legal requirement, failing to do so being a criminal offence necessitating immediate arrest and detention until ones ID can be confirmed? If not, how would a non card carrying illegal-migrant be detected, by the time they had failed to ‘produce’ their ID at a police station they would have simply moved on to another areas.
The last thing we need are populists knees jerks, all that does is produce bad unworkable laws; the Dangerous Dogs Act, “Section 28” or ASBO’s for example.
February 24, 2021
They will arrive with ID Cards and vaccination certificates in the dinghy so the āborder forceā can wave them in unquestioningly.
February 24, 2021
When Labour proposed exactly that you and the Tories raged against it, and with the help of Labour rebels prevented an ID card scheme.
Cash-in-hand tax-dodging traders don’t want them, besides Tory libertarians.
February 24, 2021
If a vaccination certificate gets me to France and Spain and my local pub then I want it.
February 24, 2021
Agree totally.
February 24, 2021
+1, that could be easily done by a mention of the Covid vaccine injections in my yellow International Certificate of Vaccination.
February 24, 2021
Might also get you elsewhere not so pleasant.
February 24, 2021
And where is that, Lynn? Guantanamo?
February 24, 2021
Only PC.infected ministers and their civil service staff could invent reasons for not issuing a covid vaccination certificate to those who have recieved two injections. What misbegotten thinking has entered their heads since their predecessors happily issued yellow fever certificates in days past. I can see a losing face level of problem for the EU accepting such a certification, but not European countries wishing to get their tourist industry restarted.
As for its domestic use, where is the moral responsibility in not being vaccinated, but expecting to be able to attend a range of group events from visiting a bar or a soccer match. It is a case of one persons freedom only being acceptable to the point where that freedom impinges on that of others, to the point of actually causing death. Where is the difficulty in making that moral decision. Only a minister, fearful of his own shadow would find it a problem.
February 24, 2021
Itās a shallow and dangerous argument that only relies on the good of the collective and morals. You can argue the necessity of any horrific treatment of others for the greater good, and morals are subjective. Are you immoral for not having the flu jab every year? Surely, anyone who hasnāt been doing that is morally responsible for tens of thousands of flu deaths. How about the millions of people who are vulnerable to all sorts of viruses? Have you been getting vaccines against a plethora of diseases to protect those people? If not, why not?
The argument against domestic passports is that it fundamentally changes the relationship between government and the individual. The rules can be changed at will – as weāve seen in the past year; and you can go anywhere from there:
Possibly you havenāt met your companyās legally binding corporate responsibility (i.e. volunteering) target for the month so permissions to pubs, theatres, and restaurants are restricted until you do. And who could argue with that? Volunteering to help those less fortunate is morally right and in the interest of the community as a whole.
Or perhaps you were at a protest against a government policy and identified by facial recognition or are recorded as having committed a non-hate non-crime. We canāt be letting people like that into polling stations; it could destabilise the country. Nope, much better your permission to enter polling stations is rescinded. For the greater good, naturally.
People may think theyāre whiter than white, but just because something isnāt a crime today doesnāt mean it wonāt be a crime tomorrow.
February 24, 2021
+1
February 24, 2021
This doesn’t seem to make sense. Once you are vaccinated against disease X, and supposing I’m not, I don’t pose a threat of infecting you with that disease, if we’re both at a football match, say.
Otherwise there’d be no point in vaccination.
February 24, 2021
Exactly. I’ve had long standing tried and tested vaccines for travel to areas with various diseases.
I was never told that I’d need to keep my distance from the locals who carry these diseases. I walked around freely, travelled around on their public transport, goats chickens an’ all.
Came home, walked through customs and not an ounce of hysteria that I may have caught a mild dose to pass around.
I’m reading more and more comments from those asking why they are having the ‘vaccine’ that seems to be coming with a ‘we don’t yet know’ caveat. If they don’t yet know whether or not you can still catch a mild dose, severe dose or whether you can still pass it on, then they don’t yet know what effects may occur as a result of the experimental vaccine later down the line.
February 24, 2021
That has been my argument: if person a/ has been jabbed why are they worried about person b/ not being jabbed? It makes no sense. There seems to be an element of totalitarianism in the possibility of vaccine passports for domestic use. There are many reasons a person may choose not to be vaccinated, only one of which is being anti-vax. There should always be choice where having a drug/chemical/vaccine introduced into oneās body is involved. Always.
February 24, 2021
Do you get a choice as to Covid being introduced into your body always? The vaccines are not 100 percent – no vaccine is, but if it stops the worst happening and if it proves to help stop transmission, then why would any sane person not want it? Totalitarianism is overblown by the conspiracy theorists. They already have all the info on you required and the big internet globalist firms are the danger, not a puny government who can’t even rule properly with an 80 seat majority which would permit them to do anything they liked.
February 24, 2021
What about the vulnerability of the other 50,000 at the football match. I might be alright jack because I don’t go to crowd events. Who knows who you would kill by being irrespknsible.
February 24, 2021
My moral responsibility in not being vaccinated ?
To hold Boris’s feet to the fire. He needs to realise that getting us out of lockdown is now more urgent.
Young people and fit people who have little to fear from the virus are being held under house arrest under the whims of SAGE. Their lives and livings ruined.
There is the threat of a vaccine strike if Boris doesn’t start changing the mood music – the counting needs to switch from *infection rate* to *hospitalisation because of CV-19 rate* now. The vaccine will reduce hospitalisation rates dramatically, but maybe not infection rates and if we continue to measure by infection rates we’ll never be out of lockdown.
Also Zero Covid is unacceptable. Now that there are no flu deaths being recorded we should be prepared to accept at least 30,000 Covid deaths a year. The net being the same.
Otherwise Boris can quit and we’ll just let SAGE run the country instead.
February 24, 2021
Absolutely no to vaccine passport.
February 24, 2021
Totally agreed. Who will find those 21 who arrived and ran off yesterday to jab them?
Certainly not our ( totally incompetent ) immigration people. The invasion continues — and none sent back.
February 24, 2021
Its terrifying that so many are just landing here, we donāt know who they are or what their purpose is. Itās time to stop pussyfooting around.
February 24, 2021
Then Iain, stay incarcerated.
February 24, 2021
So we are in prison then?
Zorro
February 24, 2021
Agricola, Why should anyone stay incarcerated? Anyone who decides the disease is worse than the vaccine, gets vaccinated, and is then protected. What is the matter with you?
February 24, 2021
@Iain gill +1
As always with seemingly benign ideas they blossom into a more sinister means of control. The Salami effect of a State in fear of its people.
February 24, 2021
Actually..since you are into stats and all that you should have a read of UK Medical Freedom Alliance website.
February 24, 2021
I recall having to have had yellow fever and other jabs, with certificate, to enable trips to countries where risks were deemed high. If a country thinks the public health risk is high then it is entitled to require vivid vaccination certificates – just don’t expect the EU (it at least France or Germany) to regard the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccination as adequate! Within the UK it is a matter for individuals, employers and venues to make up their own minds – not for state decision.
February 24, 2021
Everhopeful,
thanks for this resource.
February 24, 2021
Ten years ago it was ID cards. Now its vacs cards.
We’re turning into the 4th Richard.
No problems for overseas travel but to go to a pub, definitely not.
February 24, 2021
Overseas travel is OK – so long as they come here by dinghy.
February 24, 2021
Ian
That argument has now been lost, you need a passport to travel abroad, you need identification to get your own money out of the bank, sometimes to even pay money in.
Report in the media that surgeons need a vaccine certificate for hepatitis B before they can operate on anyone.
You need photographic evidence to use a bus pass, and so it goes on.
A large holiday company did some market research recently about what precautions passengers wanted on future cruise holidays, 98% suggested all passengers should have had a covid vaccination before being allowed to board.
I believe a so called vaccine passport of some sort will be on its way before long, like it or not.
Will it be demanded by employers ?
Quite possibly in some cases where perhaps very vulnerable people are being cared for.
February 24, 2021
Methinks there will be the usual trade in fake certificates if they are to be required, just like there is for many other fake documents etc.
February 24, 2021
JR posting. if this is being held in moderation because of my comment about Surgeons, that statement was made by a practicing surgeon in a main Tv news broadcast a couple of days ago, when vaccination certificates were being discussed.
February 24, 2021
Good morning
And I still do not know anyone who has died of this. And I do not know anyone who knows someone who has died. Funny that.
Now we are to have sudo ID Cards.
We can all see the true purpose of this.
February 24, 2021
Mark B
You may not know of anyone who has died of Covid, but my husband spent three weeks in hospital over Christmas with Covid. It was a horrible experience and people did die from it.
For most people it is a mild disease, but for others itās bad.
But I still think the way the WHO instructed countries to record the deaths, is fraudulent . We have no clue as to who really died of it rather than with it. Itās a system designed to make the death numbers look higher, or at the least itās a just chaotic system.
Travel vaccine passports – yes, domestic NO. And Iām very against a vaccine passport domestically, because I do not trust the government and I certainly donāt trust their ulterior motives on this.
They have openly lied about so much, and denied things wonāt be introduced, but then āreluctantly ā have! Already, Borisā pathway to freedom isnāt guaranteed to be over on June 21st. But like all announcements, came out later in the day!
So, NO to domestic health passports!!
February 24, 2021
An elderly (well over eighty) male relative of mine died of it. He went into hospital with a minor stroke, was infected with Covid in hospital, dumped untested into a nursing home to infect others then back to hospital finally tested positive and died the next day. Well done the NHS! On the other hand all six of my daughters university flat had it with minimal or even no symptoms at all.
Still those who have died have died and cannot be brought back. We can however still save many lives by getting the vaccine out faster and by opening us as soon as possible as lock down and economic damage will surely kill more people that opening up.
Give the vaccines to men circa five years younger than women as risk and gender fairness dictates. This would even now, still save hundreds of lives. Do not waste vaccine on those who already have antibodies yet either. These two simple things would even save hundreds more lives and allow an earlier opening up (about two weeks). This as the available vaccines would be used 20-30% more efficiently to saving lives, more transmissions and reducing NHS admissions. Why on earth do JCVI/Hancock/Zahawi not do this now? Can they explain please. Is it just idiotic group think, a reluctancy to admit their error and death causing inertia?
The single shot first policy (That I suggested week before Blair was thankfully adopted and has saved many lives. Not doing this gender adjustment is criminal to my mind. What are JCVI, Hancockās reasons for killing these extra people? Please explain.
February 24, 2021
@Mark B +1 – exactly
February 24, 2021
Vaccination by enforcement or coercion would give support to conspiracy theories of what this Covid crisis is all about. Not sure that’s a good idea.
February 24, 2021
Mark B, Look at the ONS “all deaths” graph. Three things stand out over the last year: there are significant excess deaths above the 5 year average; secondly, the inflexions on the graph do not coincide with the lockdowns (taking account of the c4 week infection to death cycle, of those who die); and the excess deaths are clearly seasonal.
The lack of correlation shows that the untargeted national lockdowns have not worked. The seasonality shows covid19 is endemic, and an opportunistic winter disease. The use of the “all deaths” graph eliminates the argument about what is a covid death and what isn’t.
February 24, 2021
Look at the age standardised mortality rates on ONS and there is nothing exceptional.
Zorro
February 24, 2021
+1
February 24, 2021
@Mark B; “I still do not know anyone who has died of [Covid 19]”
I don’t know of anyone who has died due to a ship sinking, doesn’t stop me accepting the facts though, ships do sink, the Titanic did sink…
February 24, 2021
A vaccine passport wasnāt necessary on the Titanic…..
Zorro
February 24, 2021
Exactly Jerry. Nobody can guarantee how they will react to infection. Even if people don’t die there are many that now have long lasting health problems. I know someone that had Covid last Spring and even now she can only walk half the distance she could. As the medical profession have said, this virus is not the same as the flu.
February 24, 2021
Fedup, Long term effects from viral infections are nothing new. Some of the viruses which can cause latent infections include herpesviruses, Hepatitis B and C, and HIV. Unfortunately it does happen sometimes. Whether long term effects are more common with the SARS-CV-2 virus (covid19 disease) than with other viruses we do not know yet. In comparison to your friend, I believe I had covid19 last May – I was flat on my back for a week with the classic covid19 symptoms, but recovered fully after a month, with no long term effects.
February 24, 2021
I wish I had a pound for every person that has asked me if I know of someone who has had the virus or died of it.
I have to say, no I don’t personally to which they reply, me neither.
Even before the first ‘lock down’ I had heard a few elderly people ( these were relatively healthy retired and semi-retired) saying they had had the virus. All the classic symptoms. None were hospitalised, but stayed home. Yes, it did knock them for six for about a week but then virus’s do, our immune system uses a lot of energy to fight them.
Going forward I have heard others mainly elderly, by that I mean 60’s plus and healthy having had the virus but no deaths.
I know of two younger people who have allegedly had the virus, but they are both the sort that always have something wrong with them anyway so would be full on candidates to catch anything going.
The woman, did go into hospital I’m told she was treated with antibiotics.
The young man stayed home, and again the upshot seemed to be being knocked for six for a week, but back to work now apparently.
I don’t know any of these people personally, only via other people, and much from conversations I’ve heard while out and about or those you casually strike up a conversation with.
A lot of people think they may have had this virus long before the first lock down. They are still alive and kicking.
Much is made of the hospital situation, and the NHS can’t cope. Let’s face it when can it?
We have heard so many times of NHS inability to cope in normal times, people on trolleys in aisles etc. that even a small spike in use would push it over the edge.
Shortage of beds, yet no shortage of management, and now money going into ‘diversity training’ etc.
A good selection of articles on Conservative Woman on these topics.
February 24, 2021
Nor do I know anyone who’s died and nor anyone who knows anyone…
The experience must be common unless each of the victims (most over 80 in ever decreased circles) knew a heck of a lot of people.
February 24, 2021
On the subject of statistics from around the World I would comment as follows. There are countries whose collection of figures is totally unreliable, others that could be deliberately misleading, and a few you can believe. No great surprise.
There is one factor that merits further investigation. How is it that the Japanese, whose figures I am willing to believe, seem to have a lower infection rate than say the British. Why is there great variation in the UK population between various ethnic groups. Is it genetic difference or social difference that causes greater or lesser susceptability to getting infected. A great opportunity for a Phd., study to get at the truth. It is only by actually knowing the reasons that the threat to all can be reduced.
February 24, 2021
One of the main differences is that males have nearly double the risk as women. Blood group O, being overweight, age and baldness are also risk factors. I suspect that the lower figures in East Asia reflect some earlier acquired immunity from similar infections.
February 24, 2021
You neednāt suspect: the 2002-2003 coronavirus SARS infection was prevalent in China (5,327 cases), Hong Kong (1,755), Taiwan(346), Singapore (238), Vietnam (63). The 251 cases in Canada and 27 in the USA were practically all related to people having travelled to the Far East. I would think it can be debated whether it really is acquired immunity or possibly simply a more general acceptance of sanitary āregulationsā, something that has not, up to now, percolated down into the conscience of our fellow Britons.
February 24, 2021
hefner, you seem to constantly run down your fellow Britons, we have used all the suggested precautions as do the majority of people I know and work with. We have all worked throughout and had no treatments for covid.
We are told the majority are catching this in care homes and hospitals so is that really under their handwashing and mask-wearing control! I would like to see a full investigation on all the people contracting it outside of those establishments in the second wave. Once the WHO guidance changed to mask-wearing indoors and the increased tier restrictions lockdowns to place.
February 24, 2021
I have said this for some time, it is the only logical explanation to explain the lower death rates in Asiatic countries close to China. The other factors such as obesity and older societies does not help either.
Zorro
February 24, 2021
Lifelogic, There may be racial differences, but the obvious ones are that East Asian countries have less obesity, lower average ages, and the use of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ – entirely synthetic, but based on the structure of natural quinine) is widespread as a prophylactic for malaria. Of course we haven’t used HCQ as a prophylactic because . . . . . . . orange man bad.
February 24, 2021
+1
February 24, 2021
In the UK is is fairly clear that in the March to May wave Covid deaths were undercounted (we had nearly 70,000 excess deaths in this period but far less were put down as Covid. In recent months we have had nearly double the number of excess deaths being put down as Covid. It is highly unlikely that the NHS now has improved hugely and thus saves thousands of deaths a week from other causes especially as they are largely shut.
February 24, 2021
Yes there are countries whose collection of figures are totally unreliable. Like the U.K.
February 24, 2021
+1 though to be fair they do just report these as ādeaths with in 28 daysā of a positive test rather than claiming these were as a result of Covid. You can take this as you choose to currently they are claiming about twice the recent excess death figures were Covid positive.
It is clear that NHS hospitals are or were a very major cause of infection spread.
February 24, 2021
Agricola – it would be interesting to know if the high-risk groups received visitors into their home from abroad or came into regular contact with people that did.
Who are these 10,000 people arriving daily into Heathrow because they certainly aren’t business people? The big flights arriving daily into Manchester – it can’t be true that the virus isn’t spreading around from these returnees carrying different strains. Most big businesses have stopped foreign visits so they don’t get sued if a staff member catches covid from a business trip.
February 24, 2021
For overseas travel, yes, an certificate is acceptable Yellow Fever is a good example.
However, NO to a certificate for local/domestic use!
February 24, 2021
Radar,
No yellow fever is not a good example.
It is a very slowly evolving virus, WHO states a single dose vaccine gives lifelong immunity, and a few countries with zero yellow fever but with suitable mosquito populations do not want it brought in from other countries (as the Atlantic slave trade introduced it into the Americas from Africa). Mostly ‘we’ have the yellow fever jab to protect us, when visiting countries in which it is endemic, but ‘we’ have less immunity than the indigenous population.
February 24, 2021
The requirement to carry proof of vaccination or anything similar must not be allowed. I oppose it on principle but also because inspections will be abused by all manner of organisations and authorities.
‘Borus’ is sitting on the fence, probably waiting for guidance from his world order directors. We know he will back down if there is pressure to accept the system.
We don’t have any requirement to carry for ‘flu, why covid? That will of course be turned on its head and ‘flu added.
And it’s no good saying we will have to accept it if the requirent is introduced by prvate businesses. No. They should be told it will not be accepted and will not be enforcable. Trouble is ‘Boris’ is too weak for a fight.
February 24, 2021
Boris is letting other people do his bidding such as:
Care-home owners;
Large plumbing company bosses;
Other big company bosses such as meatpacking factories will follow suit to keep fellow workers safe;
The government won’t have to lift the authoritarian finger, will the NHS operate if you are not vaccinated? Will a dentist see you if you don’t have a vaccine certificate? If you can’t enter a shop without a certificate…etc.
February 24, 2021
1. I was interested to read a non-hysterical personal account by journalist Bel Mooney of the recent death of her 96yr old father (available online). Briefly, he had dementia and other c0-morbidities, had been tested for Covid and been found negative 3 times just prior to his demise, but the doctor still insisted on listing the primary cause of death as Covid. Having heard from a personal friend that the same thing had occurred to her father-in-law some months ago, and read other similar though If it unverifiable accounts, I really do worry about comparisons of national/international data.
2. No matter what decision is taken about vaccination certificates, there will be loud clamour and antagonism. There will inevitably be individuals who for medical reasons cannot be vaccinated – will they be rejected by shops, hotels, travel agents and so on? In these days of technological wizardry, how long will it be before there is a lucrative trade in fake certificates? If it becomes obligatory to produce Covid vaccination certificates on demand, how long will it be before one is required to demonstrate one has had the flu vaccine, or a TB inoculation, or that one takes HIV medication?
February 24, 2021
I have had a nurse tell me the same thing happened at the hospital where she works. Blatant FALSE shoving of Covid.
February 24, 2021
All good points, SM.
Those people under 50 do not need the vaccine, just like with flu. Governments dare not admit that lockdowns were a mistake and only the elderly were at risk.
February 24, 2021
That will have to wait for the public enquiry. The evidence from around the world is startlingly clear. Whether a state/country locked down or not had little effect on figures (North Dakota/South Dakota, California/Florida) or UK/Sweden.
Zorro
February 24, 2021
SM , I have long advocated that individuals should carry their medical records on a dongle around their neck or on a key ring. It could save your life in a road accident and be helpful when changing medical jurisdictions. Would also cost less than the NHS computerised medical records fiasco. If encoded only medical establishments could interrogate it.
February 24, 2021
@SM I also read Bel Mooney’s account. It further demonstrates the fear being generated in the name of Science, when that science itself is not open to peer review, accountability or challenge.
We must encourage ‘fake’ certificates and passports or our freedoms will be trashed
February 24, 2021
+1 I agree about the fake pop certificates,
February 24, 2021
My uncle had the same. Last stages of prostate bone cancer but went down as a CV-19 death.
The counting has been woeful and is the reason we have one of the highest death rates.
The counting needs to be changed. We are still counting infections rather than hospitalisations despite the arrival of the vaccine. We now need to be counting those hospitalised *of* CV-19 otherwise we are never getting out of lockdown.
As far as I’m aware the vaccines don’t stop you being infected *with* CV-19 but they make you far less likely to get seriously ill because *of* CV-19.
February 24, 2021
@SM; “Tested just prior to death”, how much before, are we told? If longer than three days and there was CV19 amount nursing home staff or residents and death was unexpected perhaps an understandable assumption if death was due to a non co-morbidities respiratory tract problem. Also a local lateral flow test might have been carried out post-mortem that returned a positive result.
Anyway, the general thrust of your argument is wide of the mark, the govt only counts CV19 deaths when there has been a positive test, and the death has to be within 28 days of that test, as I understand it such tests should be notified as CV19 is a notifiable disease.
February 24, 2021
It appears that the last Covid test (result: negative) had been carried out less than a month before death. The gentleman was in fact 99 (my typo previously), had vascular dementia and had had severe COPD for months. Yes, there had been a small outbreak of Covid in the care home. There appears to have been no autopsy nor post-mortem Covid test. When the ’cause of death’ was queried by Ms Mooney, the Registrar said there had been no deaths attributed to flu since the onset of winter, which was unusual to say the least.
February 24, 2021
The ONS collates data from death certificates Jerry which shows a greater figure for Covid mentioned on the death certificate than the 120K.
Historically the death certificate will become the measure I imagine
February 24, 2021
@NS; “Historically the death certificate will become the measure I imagine”
I hope so, but I suspect this govt will do something to stop that happening, otherwise their statistics around the 28 day figure is going to look very suspect, akin to statistical-plasticine, moulded to what whatever shape one wants (just as the unemployment figures have been in the past). I strongly suspect there are a lot of people dying with or due to CV19 long after 28 days, why otherwise bring in such a counting cut off date?
February 24, 2021
Freedom vs. Safety. Convenience vs. Privacy. Anonymity vs. Accountability.
There are no easy answers.
At any moment in time there are different demographics, behaviour, social acceptance, expectations and available technology. The balance struck between conflicting objectives need to evolve.
Three important principles to keep in mind:
– the ratchet effect: once a limit to freedom is introduced it is very hard to reverse.
– minimalism: requirements to keep or show data should be the absolute minimum required for its purpose and only retained and shared accordingly
– universalism: any rules on freedom must apply to everyone – no exceptions for emergency workers, for MPs(!), for any ethic group or religion, for any age group. Etc etc If the rule doesnāt work for some group, then donāt apply the rule to anyone at all.
February 24, 2021
I oppose vaccine passports utterly. I am also puzzled what purpose they will provide. Vaccines, ALL of them, are to protect yourself. Although there is some evidence that they MAY reduce an infected person passing the virus on that is not their intended function. So why on earth would I have to show a bit of paper, or something on my smartphone that I do not possess, to enter somewhere when in the worst situation it would be I, and only I, who could catch a virus from somebody else.
OK, I have had the vaccine, or at least my first dose, but why should I have to share that information with somebody at a pub? It is my private medical information and only known by me and my GP.
February 24, 2021
Vaccination certificates are appropriate to allow foreign travel similar to the requirement to produce a passport but should not be required for any other purpose such as attending football, church, a restaurant, the theatre or a pub.
Death rates should be compared on an age standardised mortality basis when it will be seen that 2019 + 2020 mortality added together for the UK is not very different statistically speaking from a five year average.
Death rate comparisons between different countries are pretty meaningless without the PCR threshold being taken into account.
This is because a PCR test has to amplify samples through repetitive cycles and the lower the virus concentration in the sample, the more cycles are needed to achieve a positive result. Many US labs work with 35 to 45 cycles , while many European labs work with 30 to 40 cycles. The higher the cycle threshold used to detect a positive sample, the lower the probability that any positive sample is in fact infectious. This relationship is exponential in nature and research to demonstrate this has recently been confirmed by the WHO.
Since the cycle threshold being used is so very different internationally, it males no sense to make comparisons between different parts of the world unless we can (1) take the cycle threshold into account and (2) we use a similar method for attributing death to a positive test.
February 24, 2021
And just like that .. we are being asked to discuss stuff the Stasi & Mengele could only dream of. Happening to us, today, what will tomorrow bring ?
February 24, 2021
+1
February 24, 2021
Vaccination ‘passports’ have real political, technological and ethical problems. They must not be the thin end of a Blairite style move to national ID cards, then they need to be universally available, meaning they can not be based on technoligy (such as smart-phones), and of course there needs to be high security of personal data and be counterfeit free. Then of course proof of vaccination doesn’t actually mean the owner is CV19 free, just that they will not get seriously sick from the virus, this is important until virologists know for sure if vaccines stop transmission. Will there be a similar vaccination exemption passport for those who, for medical reasons, can not have a CV19 vaccine?
February 24, 2021
“The EU passed through the 500,000 deaths before the USA.”
The “EU” is not a country (so the Brexit argument went), there are 26 separate countries. Careful when trying to conflate death rates to boost a rant, someone might conflate the whole of the (NAFTA) North America region for similar effect… All of the EU26 appear to have taken individual actions, only vaccine approval appears to have been a central EU competence, and even then some member states went their own way (hasn’t at least one of the EU26 States has deployed the Russian vaccine?).
Asian countries have fared better, as has been mentioned many times by both politicians and virologists, because they had learnt from the 2002-04 SARS outbreak, mask wearing was already common, along with a more compliant population. In many Asian countries, capitalist or communist, when their govt says jump the peoples only question is to ask ‘how high’, before immediately complying.
February 24, 2021
Nor is it helpful to compare the USA’s death rates with, say, Germany’s – but the BBC did it nonetheless.
February 24, 2021
jerry, we are told the EU are dealing specifically with the covid vaccine program as a group, the ordering of vaccines, insisting the Countries keep their borders open and threatening court action against those countries in the block who won’t comply.
How many of the others like NAFTA as you suggest have done this?
February 25, 2021
@a-tracy; The eurocrats in Brussels tell us many things about their members collective unanimity, but what’s actually happening on the ground is all to often quite different! During the pandemic borders have been closed, and indeed the EU’s own rules allow for that, whilst at least one member state appears to be going its own way on sourcing vaccines.
My comment about NAFTA was in response to the conflation of 26 individual European countries into just one overall statistical figure, no one would seriously combine such statistics from Canada, Mexico and the USA.
February 24, 2021
The government’s considering of vaccine passports only now is another telling indictment of the project management chaos afflicting our COVID response. What has it been doing for the past year? Why isn’t there now a common ‘vaccine passport’ approved by IATA and ready for deployment? It shames this government that it is, seemingly, always two or three steps behind where it needs to be and with big chunks of work not even considered.
P.S. I have no problem with the idea of ‘vaccine passport’ if it helps me getting on with a normal life.
P.S.2 Why are golf-courses still shut? What public health risk to they pose?
February 24, 2021
The WHO International Vaccination Certificate (yellow booklet) has been available since at least 2005. You usually get one if you get a Yellow Fever jab, and if like me you get it from a friendly NHS surgery the nurse is likely to report all your previous jabs in it.
February 24, 2021
On https://www.who.int/ihr/ports_airports/icvp/en
Then clicking on āInternational certificate of vaccination or prophylaxisā one can download and print the 16 pages of the WHO yellow booklet.
After that, it will be up to you to convince your doctor or nurse to write down the references of the Covid-19 vaccines on one of the pages 4, 6, 8, 10 or subsequent pages, possibly with previous vaccinations you might have had (e.g., as a child).
Good luck.
February 24, 2021
Indeed, it is good to see that the latest national lockdown here has had such a positive effect on the case rate – and is now bringing down hospital fatalities quite dramatically. Now that the demands from the far right of the party to prematurely re-open the economy have been decisively denied by the PM, we have an opportunity to tame the beast using the vaccines and finally bring the Chinese plague virus under control.
EU countries with high densities of population seem to have suffered more than those whose people are more dispersed, as do countries that failed to implement effective lockdowns. In the far east and the Antipodes those countries who had experience of the SARS epidemic closed their borders early and prevented the virus from becoming established. Coupled with aggressively enforcing quarantine for returning nationals and hunting down their contacts with an effective test and trace scheme, they have protected their populations.
Vaccine passports for international travellers are probably inevitable. Whether they should be demanded here as proof before allowing access to venues etc. seems a bit extreme. Such a system would invite forgery and may become counter-productive. Where would it end? Having to show a vaccination passport before allowing access to supermarkets?
February 24, 2021
If other countries are demanding proof of vaccination then we will have no choice but to accept it and get on with it rather than moaning about it. Showing a passport and having your luggage searched is already accepted so why not vaccination certificates? We can be tracked by our phones and other details handed over with a driving licence. I’m more than happy to have it for travel but allowances have to be made for those with a medical condition that cannot have the vaccine. With so many young people saying that they are not going to bother because their chances of getting ill with Covid are low, it could ensure more take the vaccine to enable them to take their many hen and stag parties on the continent. I can’t see them giving up travelling abroad as they are used to.
February 24, 2021
An absolute and definite ”NO” to a domestic vaccination passport but if some countries round the world want it for their visitors, like Yellow fever, then fine. End of conversation.
February 24, 2021
They keep going on about the death rate in the States but it is no worse than many other countries when you take their population into account.
February 24, 2021
Worldometers.info 23/02/2021
Infection/million. Death/million
USA………. 86,873 …………….1,550
UK………….60,699…………….1,781
France……55,531………………1,301
Spain……..67,600……………..1,456
Italy……….46,887……………..1,595
Germany..28,648……………….824
Poland……43,922………………1,132
Czechia….110,461……………..1,836
Netherlands 62,041……………894
Belgium….65,193………………1,889
Sweden……63,323……………..1,254
…
Japan…………3,379………………….60
S.Korea………1,718…………………..31
Singapore…10,185……………………5
Australia…….1,126………………….35
Hong Kong…1,448…………………26
Vietnam…………25………………….0.4
New Zealand ..473……………………5
February 24, 2021
Perhaps most damning for the state monopoly NHS health system is death per positive case. UK 3% (the highest rate) , Sweden 1.9%, USA 1.7% Netherlands 1.4%, Singapore 0.04% from your figures above.
So had the UK’s healthcare system performed as well as NL we would have saved perhaps 65,000 more lives (over half), as Sweden perhaps 45,000 lives, as the USA 52,000 and at Singapore rates nearly every lives with only 1600 victims.
But the BBC propaganda outfit and UK politicians will still tell us how the NHS is “The Envy of the World”! Free at the point of rationing, delay and large numbers of excess deaths.
February 24, 2021
Harris, the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. Mr Redwood’s nauseating endorsement of this thug of a politician shows how far we have fallen and how close we are too tyranny
I’m sick of the bullshit from spineless politicians. Do what needs to be done. Dismantle democracy. Smash freedom of expression and impose authoritarian rule rather than this slow creep towards such a state of affairs hoping we won’t notice what you’re doing
These Oxbridge types really are snakes in the grass
I don’t need Mr Redwood and his colleagues to patronise me and keep me safe. I can do that for myself. Just get out our faces because it’s becoming exhausting
February 24, 2021
Message to JR – we do not want to live in a wannabe China state whose populace is constantly surveilled and at the service of the state.
Zorro
February 24, 2021
DOM
Excellently put……bang on.
February 24, 2021
Absolutely YES to a āvaccine certificateā. On one level it I is proof of a simple fact – have you been vaccinated?
If I run a pub and donāt want to serve people who have not been vaccinated- that is my right and a reasonable question
We live in, and as, a society. We have a National Health Service. If there is a virus about which can kill members of our society – and there is a vaccination for that virus – it is perfectly fine with me if the government restricts access to society for those that refuse to be vaccinated. At least until nearly all of us are immune one way or the other.
As for ID cards – why not? If you want to stamp on illegal immigration, introduce impossible to forge ID cards and really draconian measures for anyone, business or householder, caught employing people without an ID.
February 24, 2021
Vaccination won’t mean that you can’t have CV-19. It just means that you’re less likely to go to hospital with it.
February 24, 2021
Yes, we live in society, what I was brought up to call a _free_ society. If you run a pub where you start discriminating against people on grounds of their medical histories, as you’ve never done before, you can keep your pub. If you can…
February 24, 2021
I presume that Parliament will no longer feel an obligation to defend the laws on discrimination? Not everyone will be in a position to have the jab and not everyone has a mobile. What happens when we’ve had the “wrong sort” of vaccine? In truth, the strength of the virus will diminish over time and we’d still be required to show ID. Travel abroad is a choice and acceptable, but are we going to, say, ban hospital treatment for those who haven’t had the jab?
February 24, 2021
As a thought experiment, what would have been the reaction if in the early days of HIV, a HIV negative passport had been mooted for entry to jobs, shops and entertainment?
February 24, 2021
Apparently in most occupations it is illegal for the employer to even ASK if you are HIV-positive. So according to the vaxtremists you should be protected against discrimination if you are known to carry a disease dangerous to others but made a pariah if you decline an experimental medical procedure at slight (for most) risk to yourself.
February 24, 2021
Not much thought in your comment: as far as I know it was not and still is not possible to catch HIV through āthin airā.
February 24, 2021
Then Iain, stay incarcerated.
February 24, 2021
I can see problems with fraudulent obtaining of these vaccination passports if they come into being. It would have been better to have had them ready at the moment of giving the second dose. I foresee administrative difficulties in people claiming them weeks or months after the event.
Nevertheless, I am in favour of them in principle. I would choose to go to a theatre where the person next to me could be guaranteed to be vaccinated.
February 24, 2021
I am all for them however completely impossible to administer. The first thing that will happen is we will be awash with forgeries, pubs etc wonāt administer it because they will not turn away business and, of course, the police will either be overly heavy handed, my main worry given their track record, or claim not to have the necessary resources.
Certainly yes re foreign travel. Questions for you sir. If/when I have my jabs why should I have any restrictions placed on me whatsoever? Certainly why are we looking end if May or later? Again why if protected, should I have to quarantine on return. It makes no sense.
February 24, 2021
Because your ‘jab’ doesn’t prevent you from catching, carrying or transmitting the virus, and certainly not an exotic vax-resistant strain which you may have contracted abroad.
February 24, 2021
Of course it makes no sense, Nigl, if you think this is about controlling a virus. But try to be open-minded to a different viewpoint, and it may make sense.
February 24, 2021
It should be for the owner or provider of any goods or services to decide what (if any) certification is required.
February 24, 2021
+100
February 24, 2021
‘moral problems with such an idea’.
Yes, it’s called totalitarianism. There you go, solved it for you
Have the decency to call it for what it is and stop soft soaping your readers. I might be an idiot but most of the other contributors who frequent this site are most definitely not
We are witnessing the construction of a surveillance State right in front of our very eyes and what is most ironic is that voters HAVE VOTED FOR IT.
Fascist Labour (their allies including NHS, police etc etc) and the now despicable Tories in partnership working hard to destroy our nation, our freedoms and our liberties
February 24, 2021
Being confirmed clear or having a vaccination when taking up new employment is total different from State Control of the individual.
February 24, 2021
Then again, you are only clear on the ‘day’. Having a vaccination just gives you as an individual hope that any contact with virus will be minimal, it doesn’t definitively prove you cant carry and transmit it.
February 24, 2021
Some countries will require proof of vaccination before you can travel there. It is currently the case for Yellow Fever in some countries. So the government will need to provide some form of vaccunation passport to travellers.
Demanding a vaccination passport to attend (say) major sports events in this country seems like confused thinking. What would be the point ? If I am unvaccinated and I attend an event where everyone else is vaccinated then overwhelmingly only I am at risk. Even if there are several unvaccinated people there they are the only ones at real risk – and it is their choice to acccept that risk.
If people are there who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons then even if everyone else is vaccinated they are still at risk because vaccination only reduces transmission risk (by about 60% it seems) so with potentially thousands of people there the unvaccinated people are still at risk. Again, it is their choice to accept that risk and attend.
In reality the idea of vaccination passports is probably just to try to persuade the younger age cohorts to get vaccinated rather than having any health benefit in itself. If we’re having them how about demanding one before anyone can claim state benefits ? On the basis that our NHS needs to be protected.
February 24, 2021
Re: why Asian countries were not so badly affected is possibly because they didn’t ban Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.
No, I do not agree with the governments talk of ‘passports’.
1. Passports are required for when going abroad and some countries require proof of various inoculations.
2. However, this government has admitted these vaccines do not stop you catching this virus, or it being passed on to another. Therefore, this injection is less of vaccine and more of a therapy.
3. To then insist on this being rolled out when you are not even leaving the country, then this ‘paper’ is better described as a permit. Which, effectively, unless you have one, you will be denied the right to carry on your life in the same way, before all this costly fear mongering started.
4. More concerning, is the implication that unless you have this permit you will have difficulty/may be denied the right to exercise in gyms, sports halls, swimming pools or visit other places of leisure. There are even comments you will denied the right to work, medical care or even the ability to buy food without one! All because you have declined to have a ‘vaccine’ for a virus with a 99% survival rate. A vaccine that is still in its experimental phase, as stages 1 and 2 of its trials have not been completed.
I am gobsmacked by the draconian behaviour of what is supposed to be a conservative government. Its antics are more synonymous with the way the CCP operate.
February 25, 2021
J Bush, Excellent points. I completely agree with you that internal passports (vaccination passports) used to discriminate against free movement within our own country are abhorrent. I am dismayed by the rush to totalitarian control exhibited by some on here, even some Leaves.
February 24, 2021
Having had considerable experience of South East Asia, I would venture that much of the population there has a natural immunity to Covid. The reason for this is that the populations there are exposed to all kinds of serious illnesses from babyhood to old age. Illnesses such as malaria, dengue fever, SARS and others.
I myself have had dengue fever four times. Whilst not recommending it, it does have the attribute of destroying the platelets of the white blood cells. These are then rebuilt naturally as one recovers, giving, in my view, something like a transfusion.
The practice of close knit communities, spanning the age groups, means that there is wide exposure to infections that build their own immune responses. A theory, but worth investigation by those more qualified than me.
February 24, 2021
what you describes ignores the many deaths who succumbed to diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, SARS and others. Yes, the survivors in the gene pool are better equipped to cope with such threats, but perhaps if vaccines were available those unfortunates would not have perished?
February 24, 2021
Would any one fully trust a Government when it relies on ‘spin’ This administration trashed Brexit, they gave the EU all the trade they needed into the UK, while excluding UK trade to the EU.
They agreed to break up the UK and start the integration of the island of Ireland fully into the EU.
They agreed that the EU could keep plundering UK fishing stocks in UK territorial waters for ever and a day. Meaning the EU could take what it wants from UK waters while at the same time denying the UK the right to catch and export those same fish stocks, ‘simples’- why would the EU import something they can just take.
So Government Control of certificates, passport’s, ID’s? Who long would it take them before they get to use it as a controlling force to quell dissention.
February 24, 2021
You may need an EU-approved certificate of vaccination if you want to visit Northern Ireland.
https://euobserver.com/political/151037
“Covid-19 certificates back on EU leaders’ agenda”
“Travel certificates for those vaccinated against Covid-19 will be on the agenda again when EU leaders speak on Thursday (25 February).
EU countries whose economies are dependent on tourism are pushing for the introduction of passports that would allow holiday and business travellers to move between countries.”
https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/0223/1198902-eu-northern-ireland/
“EU says UK must implement obligations of NI Protocol agreement”
“In a strong signal that the EU will not agree to any major concessions during tomorrow’s meeting, Mr Sefcovic warned: “Not everything can be solved. There are inevitable consequences of Brexit, and simply we have to follow EU law. We have to follow the agreement we just signed.”
Thanks, Boris, you could have found another and better way to be different from Theresa May.
February 24, 2021
My concern would be from a business perspective. Suppose we have mandatory vaccine passports. Then suppose a person, call him Mr Litigious, enters a shop. Then three weeks later, very sadly his elderly relative dies, and that death is recorded as a Covid death. Mr Litigious then sues the shop on behalf of his relative’s estate for not implementing proper measures to ensure all people entering the shop are Covid safe.
Now, I’m not suggesting who is in the right or wrong here, or even the level of risk Covid actually poses. But if there is a chance of this happening, then all business premises open to the public will have to check people on the door. They will have to keep records to show how they have protected their customers. Their legal indemnity policies will require all sorts of measures to be taken for the policies to be valid. What you are doing is adding hugely to red tape and the costs of an already savaged retail and hospitality industry.
The argument can be taken further to any place of business where you have people call will have to check people on entry in order to protect their work force. You will need to check everyone, from sales people, delivery personnel, the postman, health and safety inspectors, the VAT man or woman and so on. If you don’t you are not exercising proper duty of care over your workforce, and may be liable; more costs, more barriers to entry into the market place, lower returns on investment, less economic activity. Do we really want that right now?
That of course is for Covid. If the infrastructure is in place for Covid, what happens when the next bad flu epidemic comes along? The Government has taken liability for providing a system for keeping Covid lepers out, will they then be liable for not providing a system to keep lepers of a different sort out?
This is really not a good idea if we want any sort of functioning economy that isn’t conducted via Zoom.
February 24, 2021
I think the argument should be made to prohibit the travel and mixing of those who have been vaccinated , rather than those who have not.
There are two issues, the individual and society. For the individual, it is reasonable for those most vulnerable e.g. the aged or those working in more risky environments, to have the opportunity to be vaccinated. There have been recent pre-publications that after two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, not only is there an antibody response to earlier strains, but there is also some T-cell response to more recent strains. Thus, for some the opportunity to have the vaccine may be argued from the perspective of individual protection. This is not dissimilar to travel advised vaccinations for protection from disease when visiting particular regions, though this often relates to broader vaccination against slowly evolving viruses.
When less vulnerable people have a CV19 vaccination, then the potential societal impact has to be considered. There has been some data that, under some conditions, vaccination limits infectiousness at least in the case of the original strains. This supports the conventional argument that there may be a positive externality attached to broad vaccination. Sadly, this conventional argument is not valid. The current situation is one in which there are many virus cases about, and this virus is evolving somewhat rapidly. As such, widespread vaccination is likely to select and spread mutations (a very dangerous experiment). To be compatible with previous Govt decisions, it is much more reasonable to restrict the travel and mixing of those who have been vaccinated as these individuals are more likely to be the cause of selection and spread of mutations. One could even argue that it is morally reprehensible of those who are not in the most at risk cases to be vaccinated at this time, but I think the fault lies with the Govt not those individuals. A more considered approach would have been to ensure the most at risk had two doses for individual protection, whilst the less at risk went about there lives until the winter resurgence passed, and were then vaccinated in the summer when the chances of further misdirection of viral evolution were reduced (beyond that already caused by lockdowns of healthy people).
So, passports for the unvaccinated, restrictions for the vaccinated!
(Also there is no evidence that this Govt makes moral considerations).
February 25, 2021
Caterpillar, That is an intriguing point. And certainly the rapid mutation of the SARS-CV-2 virus (covid19 disease) is worrying.
February 25, 2021
I can only concur with NickC, thatās an intriguing point you make. However your point about āwidespread vaccination being likely to select and spread mutationsā is somewhat flimsy, as most the mutations discussed these last few months (English, Brazilian, South African variants) had been discovered before any substantial program of vaccination had started. Your point will only need to be given consideration if new mutations spring with/from vaccinated people. For the time thatās not the case.
February 24, 2021
Many years ago during my service in the Merchant Navy, we carried vaccination certificates in our Passport, Seaman’s Identity Card or Seaman’s Discharge Book. In those days, the vaccinations were for diseases such as Small Pox (yes I’m old enough to have had one), Cholera, Typhus and Yellow Fever. I never thought that my freedom or privacy was being eroded, on the contrary, these certificates reassured the authorities of the country visited that I would not become a burden on their health facilities. I saw nothing odd about that and I see nothing odd about requiring visitors to our country to carry appropriate proof of vaccination.
However, being required to prove vaccination in the UK, where there has been a national drive to vaccinate and will probably result in some 95% of UK adults being vaccinated by the end of the summer, followed by an annual booster programme is entirely a different matter.
February 24, 2021
Life was simpler then, noway as sinister as today.
February 24, 2021
Well said NOTA
February 24, 2021
NOTA do you think the UK will require a vaccine passport from the rest of the world? They don’t even ask for negative covid tests from foreign drivers, although France demand one from drivers going out of the UK and then still blame the ‘UK variant’ for outbreaks in Nice its a joke.
February 24, 2021
The EU is not a country. It is a collection of 27 sovereign states who manage their own affairs and release their own figures. Their responses to Covid have been very different. Some, like Finland and Greece, have excellent. Others, like Sweden, have been dreadful.
The 27 manage their own vaccination programmes too. Procurement was shared through the EU – a sensible decision for the vast majority of EU countries as they can buy more, faster and cheaper as a group. Where down the list would Malta have been if it bought alone?
As it is little Malta has fully vaccinated (2 doses) nearly 5% of its population. The U.K. has managed just 0.9%. Malta has also given one vaccination to nearly 15% of its population – and is likely to finish its programme well before we finish ours. Indeed, for all the Brexitist talk of the failed EU vaccination programme, several EU countries are likely to conclude their programmes before us. And isnāt it amazing that Estonia paid half the price for the vaccines than we did – and didnāt give up its liability.
Incidentally 25 of the 27 EU countries have now fully vaccinated (2 doses) bigger percentages of their populations than we have of ours. Only Bulgaria and Latvia have a lower rate.
It is also worth noting the wildly differing Covid death and vaccination rates across the United States. In overall numbers NY and California were worst hit but Arizona has an appalling death rate. Alaska is doing particularly well with vaccines.
February 24, 2021
@ Andy – What good news you relay about the efforts of the various countries.
If only the 27 been been free of Ursula’s maladroit hand how much better off they would have been.
February 24, 2021
‘The EU isn’t a country” – then why has Brussels recently been calling for full diplomatic status and recognition?
February 24, 2021
That can apply to US states too (pandemic policy differences) It is unhelpful that the US was compared directly with, say, Germany and not with a similar land mass and population size because the US (pro rata) tracked the EU’s death rates per million almost exactly. It may not be politically correct but it is interesting, you have to admit. The BBC didn’t even try to make the comparison.
February 24, 2021
Come on, Andy … are you not mixing (just a teeny weeny bit) apples and oranges?
February 24, 2021
OMG Andy, you get more bizarre by the day. You give Malta as an example of a successful vaccine rollout. Don’t make me laugh. Their population is around 515, 000. A far cry from 65 million.
February 24, 2021
The EU is 27 countries. Some big – like Germany and France.
Some middle sized – like Denmark and Finland.
Some small – like Luxembourg, Cyprus, Malta.
Some of these have handled the pandemic well. Others have not. Some are doing much better than others at vaccinations.
I know Brexitists love to whine about Germany or France. But the EU is much more than that. And its vaccination procurement scheme has been a great success – despite the unfortunate behaviour of British firm AstraZeneca. But the other vaccines are better anyway.
February 25, 2021
Andy said: The EU’s “vaccination procurement scheme has been a great success”. Oh hahahahaha . . . . . not even the EU believes that, otherwise there would not have been all the international legal and diplomatic threats, invoking Art16 of the NIP, etc. The EU embarrassed itself with its tantrums.
February 24, 2021
not worth a response – I’ll return to not bothering to read your contributions anymore.
February 24, 2021
People must not be coerced into having a medical treatment to which they would not otherwise consent. The fact that you and your colleagues are even discussing this is abominable.
February 24, 2021
+1
February 24, 2021
Agreed. Coercion to have a vaccine, which is unlicensed, not fully tested and with no long-term safety data, would be immoral.
February 24, 2021
So, Tony Blair is getting much press and air time in the media, and suddenly, ID cards are back on the table in the form of Certificate Of Vaccination ID card (covid) I wonder if there is any connection.
I think the state already has far too much control over all our lives, we should not give them yet another tool to control us with.
No 2 ID cards.
February 24, 2021
Some of the comments already posted betray ignorance of the facts about the inoculants. As Patrick Vallance said, they do not prevent you from getting, carrying, or transmitting the virus, but hopefully reduce the risk of the recipient developing severe symptoms. So those NOT inoculated are more at risk from the inoculated rather than the other way round, and there is no scientific argument for restricting the liberties of the former. Furthermore by preventing the healthy from developing natural immunity and passing it on to their children you are condemning humanity to an eternity of shuffling to and fro to vaccination centres. Before this is made de facto compulsory for the plebs, are YOU happy JR to have vax certificates made a condition of being an MP?
Reply I am not proposing such certificates
February 24, 2021
And let us recall that that typically 95+/- per cent. of those given the vaccine develop resistance to the virus for at least some period of time but, clearly, that is materially less than 100 per cent. and for ever more.
Accordingly, the worth of a certificate showing vaccination has been received reveals a very partial picture and not one that is of very much use in the context of deciding if a bearer is safe to be in close contact with others.
February 24, 2021
+1
A lot of people here seem to think you can’t get CV-19 after inoculation.
February 25, 2021
1. Fauci (CNN interview) has stated publicly that although he is sure (95%) that vaccination protects you from getting āclinically recognisable diseaseā it does not stop you harbouring the virus e.g. in your nose (this seems to chime with one manufacturerās statement that the vaccine does not actually stop you getting Covid but reduces the symptoms). Nor does it stop you passing that virus on, apparently. Fauci goes on to say that this justifies mask wearing and social distancing even after vaccinating, until herd immunity is reached.
February 24, 2021
Glad you are not proposing such certificates but will you actively oppose them?
February 24, 2021
A question please: if 4 out of 5 people in the UK are vaccinated and 1 in 5 declined vaccination, who is at risk of Covid, the 4 vaccinated or the 1 who declined?
Yellow Fever is mentioned a couple of times in today’s posts, so permit an example of it: a while ago, vaccination against Yellow Fever was required to visit some countries; and advised but not compulsory if visiting others. Take a country in the latter group: I could enter unvaccinated if I wished; if I did so, I was considered to be the person at risk, not the indiginous population who had built up varying degrees of immunity to the disease. (As I might contract the disease shortly before return to England and here mix with people who have no natural immunity to it, pre-travel vaccination was appropriate.)
Again, we offer to young girls innoculation against rubella, which I accepted for my daughters and I think that most parents here do similarly. But some decline. So who is at risk of rubella, the children of the majority of girls who have been innoculated or those of the minority who have not?
If it is the unvaccinated who are at greatest risk, why monitor all the vaccinated?
February 24, 2021
I have already expressed my view on this to you, Sir John, but I do think it’s important that the silent majority publicly states what it is thinking in private.
I am vehemently opposed to a vaccine passport/certificate/whatever. It is the thin end of the wedge. This is all about control and the end result can be seen in the so-called Social Contract in force in China. This is well documented, so I won’t go into how it operates.
I appreciate that other countries and perhaps commercial enterprises may wish to exclude people who have not been vaccinated. That is their right but we cannot allow this to happen in our country.
And please can be stop using yellow fever vaccination as a reason for introducing a vaccination passport? For starters it is only required in countries like Angola and The Republic of Congo, hardly first choice of holiday or travel destination. Secondly it is a one-off vaccine unlike the SARS-Covid 2 vaccine for which a new vaccine will no doubt be developed every year.
February 24, 2021
For foreign travel it is very simple for the vaccination data to be applied to your passport number so that border controls around the world can see you have been vaccinated. For those with an exemption the same could apply. If we want the freedom to travel again it is a no brainer.
For large venue entrance is it such a big deal to have to show a card saying you have been vaccinated compared to what the whole country has gone through for the past year both financially and emotionally. Over time as the whole world adjusts to the after effects of the pandemic the need for vaccination ID will reduce as more people are vaccinated so that only the few that arenāt become a risk only to themselves.
February 24, 2021
Being vaccinated does not reduce the risk you catch or pass on the virus. So why should you have to have a certificate to be allowed into say a sports or concert venue?
February 24, 2021
nonsense. If the carrier is riddled ( a technical term!) with a high viral load they will be far more likely to pass it on than a person with a very small load ( as in vaccinated).
February 24, 2021
PhilipB, lets say a big % of the UK pop feel that travelling abroad this year is a tad too risky to their health because even with a vaccine passport we read comments here saying it doesn’t stop you from catching covid, the government are ‘hoping’ it is just less serious if you do. There are some commentators above that want it forcing on everyone that they could come into contact with.
However, the other % of daredevils who value their foreign holiday in the sun more and off they travel all over the world to places with no 80%-100% vaccine take up program, fewer vaccines, different strains of the virus then they travel back to the UK with a ‘South African version’, a ‘South American’ version etc. and we have to start back at square 1 all locked up again, scared of our own shadows.
This everyone has to have a vaccine doesn’t follow then does it…what guarantee have we for example that the whole of Greece has been inoculated by May when they want to re-open to anyone with a vaccine passport?
February 24, 2021
The biggest problem with vaccination certificates is that it will create racial apartheid. So for that one reason it won’t be happening.
Boris needs to be very careful about this.
February 24, 2021
That is indeed the elephant in the room according to the vaccination staistics….
Zorro
February 24, 2021
NLA
“Boris needs to be very careful about this.”
Boris needs to see a lump of 4 x 2 coming his way, he’s an insane tyrant.
February 24, 2021
Prangwizard, do your principals allow those who refuse the vaccination to mingle with the rest of the population or arrive from overseas to infect the vulnerable they interact with and possibly kill them. Your fears of data creep are well founded, but it could be encrypted such that only those who need to know can interrogate the detail. All others who may need reassurance could get it visually. Do your principals assuage store cards, bank cards, mobile phones, chat apps, and passports. All of which tell all and sundry more about you than you can recall yourself. The owners of chat apps have become some of the wealthiest people in the World by selling your details to all and sundry. By comparison you could stretch your principals to protect your fellow man from disease and the UK with full ID ,from illegal residents, without being accused of personal gain.
February 24, 2021
You vaccine fanatics should see the German film (subtitled) āThe lives of othersā. Itās the story of life in East Germany. The author and film makers only made this one film because they had such a big story to tell. One man, for example, after the wall came down and the records were available for inspection, found his wife was informing on him.
You wonder how they could have descended into that pit. Then you look at Britain in 2020 and read many of the comment on this blog, and you know how, and that the film is a warning because we are repeating the whole disaster.
Watch the film if you can: āDas Leben der Anderenā
February 24, 2021
So, Lynn, are you, in your balanced point of view, comparing communist East Germany to the United Kingdom of 2021?
BTW I watched āLa Vie des Autresā (Das Leben der Anderen) and the following days āGood Bye Leninā and āRun Lola Runā during a German film festival (in south of France!). All three are great films, although quite different.
February 24, 2021
The UK is far more surveilled than East Germany ever was, and currently the UK is outwardly beginning to become repressive in the way it treats dissenters,notwithstanding the ongoing and doubtless continuing prohibition on demonstrations. And also the outrageous fines and ludicrous prison sentences being touted currently. This is a public health issue which is being enforced in an over-zealous manner.
Zorro
February 24, 2021
Hefner
“So, Lynn, are you, in your balanced point of view, comparing communist East Germany to the United Kingdom of 2021? ”
…..it’ll go that way, Hefner, if we let the bstds get away with it.
February 24, 2021
The UK is 4th out of 152 States with the most number of deaths per million population at 1,812. The USA is at 1,525 the EU at 1,150. Belgium is still top of the list with 1,912 deaths per million population. The Voice of America headline “Britain Hits Highest COVID-19 Death Rate Per Capita in the World” wasn’t quite true.
February 24, 2021
As soon as someone starts quoting numbers I pass on! A good statistician can make numbers say anything they want
February 24, 2021
Well, you might have missed the opportunity of a lifetime with such a view on statistics. I was not a āstatisticianā but used them for a good fraction of my āworking lifeā.
How do you think Sir John is able to write about comparisons between EU countries and the UK, about GDP, or the economic future of this country? He might not quote figures so often but I would bet he is at times looking at numbers and doing so is entering the ādreaded fieldā of statistics, whether as a MP or in his other activities.
Obviously working with statistics involves taking decisions about their quality, how they have been collected, whether the parameters measured are relevant to the question, whether all such relevant parameters have been included in the final results and the resultant discussion.
It is a shame that in this country the teaching of statistics is only practically done properly at the university level and not in the latest years of secondary school. So your reaction is not surprising as is the āgarbage in, garbage outā usually quoted as soon as modelling is involved in any discussion on this blog.
But well, why do I care, it is your loss.
February 24, 2021
You pass on Mike, I will collect the profits the statistics said were available and you ignored; thankyou.
February 24, 2021
Totally agree Acorn. With over 350 million in the USA the proportion of infected is no worse than in many other countries but of course Trump was leader then. Say no more.
February 24, 2021
acorn, do you believe all 152 states you mention are counting deaths last year in exactly the same way? Do you think these statistics you quote are 100% correct?
February 24, 2021
Is the leadership of the Conservative Party, and that of the Democrats, pro-life?
February 24, 2021
Sir John
Thank you for making the comparison between the USA’s death rates and the *whole* EU’s. I did this several times last year in response to Andy and MiC’s comments. I found that – pro rata – the USA’s death rate per million was identical to the *whole* EU’s.
The BBC refused to report it thus but now Biden is in charge please don’t give them ideas.
February 24, 2021
On a *whole* pre brexit EU 28 basis, the EU deaths are 1,212 per million population. The US rate is 1,525.
February 24, 2021
At the time the situation was different, Acorn. I did the calculations per million, pro rata and the two continents were virtually neck and neck. And it remains a fluid situation now and teams can slip up and down that league – it’s not over yet. I don’t want it to be a league competition but that’s what its turned out to be and we are the only nation that seems determined to diagnose CV-19 as the killer at the flimsiest opportunity and keep ourselves .
February 24, 2021
…keep ourselves at the bottom of the division.
February 24, 2021
Many businesses will want some assurance that people are less likely to have the virus so I can understand why the “passport” concept may happen, regardless of policy.
Personally I can’t see any great problem with it
February 24, 2021
No to any form of health discrimination. Vaccine passports are the thin end of the wedge. Wake up everyone.
February 24, 2021
Agreed. Especially given this virus has a 99% survival rate. This important fact appears to keep being ignored. I do wonder how many of those who clamouring for this, have lost their jobs or businesses and are struggling to pay their mortgages etc?
February 25, 2021
Well, it depends how you look at it: taking the UKās 60,699 infections (per million, as of 23/02) and the 1,781 deaths per million, one can get to a 2.9% death rate so a 97.1% survival rate (as pointed out by LL, above).
This is not a criticism of your post, it is just to point out that there are different ways to look at figures, and that sometimes it might be better to stop, think and interrogate the figures as titles in huge letters on the front page of oneās favorite newspaper might not be telling all there is to see.
February 24, 2021
You ask for our thoughts on “this possible limitation on freedoms”. Mine are unprintable.
Apart from this, the value of a vaccination certificate or passport once venues are deemed safe to open must be negligible, and illogical if no proof of vaccination against other dangerously contagious illnesses is to be required.
If, despite this, some sort of vaccination certificate or passport is to be needed, even for foreign travel or something else outside the UK government’s control, could I plead for it to be given automatically with the second jab? It can be in nobody’s interests to have to go to a GP’s surgery or fight computerised bureaucracy to get one later.
February 24, 2021
I am interested to know the purpose of a vaccination passport.
We have been interminably told that people who have no symptoms can transmit the virus and it is acknowledged that the vaccine does not stop transmission nor prevent symptoms. Therefore being vaccinated provides little transmission protection.
So a vaccine passport serves no purpose except to force vaccinations. As an over 50 year old I will accept my invitation to be vaccinated when it arrives (hoping that it is the Astrazenneca non-genetically modified version) but accept that others think the risk of the vaccine is greater than the risk of the virus. These people should not be discriminated against or coerced through passports.
Similarly when did it become acceptable to compel testing in the population? My school aged children will be mandatorily tested to attend something that government compels them to do. Surely some civil liberties infringement there. Where is the EHRC when we actually need it, oh yes off defending criminals.
February 24, 2021
How is it possible that a country the size of China can have only 89K cases and 4.6K deaths?
If the WHO really did believe the virus originated from eating wild animals bought in a wet market then they would be advocating the ending of such eating habits.
February 24, 2021
and supposedly test millions in several cities yet not find tens of thousands of false positives and false negatives? They don’t admit to finding any which indicated it is all nonsense.
February 24, 2021
Ps Mark Harper has shredded HMGs data analysis. Once again we deserve better.
February 24, 2021
As Margaret herself said (iirc) in the context of I.D. cards, “it is un-British”.
If vaccination certificates were used for other purposes I predict a risk of forged certificates. Combatting that risk would be necessary to avoid rendering the uses pointless and demand a high sophistication in certificate design and likely require inclusion of the bearer’s photograph. It soon becomes a complex and troubling exercise.
As for facilitating international travel, why not stamp up the “Observations” page of passports to show the bearer has been vaccinated?
Surely though, if we are all to be vaccinated soon, then whatever issues arise from not knowing if someone is vaccinated or not will be a short run problem?
February 24, 2021
John, this may answer your question about Japan:
The latest studies show that a gene inherited from our Neanderthals ancestors has a significant impact on how well our bodies deal with Covid. Another set of genes has a detrimental effect.
Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany have found that a group of genes reduces the risk of a person becoming seriously ill with COVID-19 by around 20% is inherited from Neanderthals.
As a result, today it occurs in about half of people living outside Africa and in around 30% of people in Japan. In contrast, the researchers previously found that the major risk variant inherited from Neanderthals is almost absent in Japan.
A similar study was carried out by Edinburgh University to identify the specific genes that cause a predisposition to the disease. The genome sequencing of up 20,000 people who have been in intensive care with Covid-19, and 15,000 who have mild symptoms has been conducted. I believe this research has found similar results to the Japanese study.
February 24, 2021
Interesting Christine, thanks for sharing.
February 24, 2021
To me, the requirement for a vaccination certificate is nothing more or less than common sense when one is dealing with a virus as contagious as this one, and certainly as far as foreign travel is concerned, there are plenty of precedents. I think the objections I have heard, centering round invasion or abuse of privacy, fall away when there is the potential for, and indeed the likelyhood of, harming others if un-vaccinated. A certificate must however, as others have said, be no more than a certificate and not a covert way of obtaining information on people’s every move.
February 24, 2021
Having the vaccine doesn’t stop you getting or carrying CV-19. It just reduces the risk of you getting seriously ill with it.
(Because of the vaccine we should switch to measuring only deaths/hospitalisations because of CV-19 – not deaths/hospitalisations *with* and not *infection rates*)
February 24, 2021
It is likely that the virus load acquired after vaccination will mean mild symptoms if any. The vaccine will enable the body’s defences to eliminate the virus in very few days, thus also reducing likely transmission if at all. The last point needs further evidence to be clearer.
As in any vaccination a small percentage of cases will exist where little benefit was achieved.
February 24, 2021
Of course we need vaccination certificates not only for CV-19 but other existing diseases which are preventable by vaccination and to protect ourselves from new ones which are again likely to come out of China.
I do not want to be treated in a hospital where all the staff have not been vaccinated or flying on a plane next to un-vaccinated passengers, just as I like the idea that everyone driving on our roads has passed a driving test.
It doesnāt have to be mandatory (ill health or suicide is not illegal and you donāt have pass a driving test if you donāt want to be able to drive) but non-vaccinated people should be excluded from a number of jobs such as health care jobs and busy confined spaces where they can easily spread the disease.
It took the deaths of 31 people at the Kings Cross fire in 1987 to finally ban smoking from public transport and elsewhere and I would hope that 100K+ deaths from a disease in the UK which is largely preventable by vaccination will lead to vaccination passports and improved health.
February 24, 2021
“I do not want to be treated in a hospital where all the staff have not been vaccinated or flying on a plane next to un-vaccinated passengers, just as I like the idea that everyone driving on our roads has passed a driving test.”
Yet again the same type of comment from a contributor.
As far as I’m aware (and from a Google search) the vaccines will not stop you getting CV-19, carrying it nor transmitting it. It will only reduce you getting seriously ill with it. And if you’re vaccinated what’s your problem ? Your doctor could be vaccinated and still infect you – and you he.
Perhaps Sir John could clarify in a future post as this is critical to the debate on vaccine passports and their necessity, or not.
And because of the low uptake in racial minorities this will cause racial apartheid in effect.
February 24, 2021
The only justification for vaccine passports would be if a large proportion of those vulnerable to the disease could not, for some reason, be vaccinated. If the vaccines are effective at preventing hospitalisation and death and only a small number of people can’t have them, then what benefit is there in knowing that the person next to you in the theatre has been vaccinated? We already have a situation that there are vulnerable people who can’t have the flu vaccine, but we don’t mandate a vaccine passport for flu.
In terms of practicalities, the most likely form for a vaccine passport – if it’s not to socially isolate those without smartphones – would be a printed QR code which encodes a URL to an entry on a government database. This means any fraud would be of the form of duplicating existing QR codes. This could have important implications if there is feature creep and the Government sees these passports as a form of tracking: a forged code would be effectively a form of identity theft and would have the same risks. We should be very wary of any government measure that allows us to be tracked in this way.
February 24, 2021
I fully support the right of individuals to refuse vaccination against this rather nasty disease but, if so, surely they must also accept any consequencies? Publicans have always had the right to refuse to serve customers if they consider it necessary so why should not other “open” organisations such as shops also have this right? Whether or not they choose to enforce it is up to them. All organisations have a responsibility to safeguard their workers and customers , so they must consider how far it is their duty to keep potentially “unsafe” people away from their other customers. For example, we accept being searched before boarding an aircraft even on an internal flight, so those who reject this search cannot fly and, of course we do not travel abroad without a valid passport. We also have to prove who we are across many activities, eg collecting a parcel from the Post Office.
I support the use of vaccine passpports for those who have had their second jab and for all adults in due course. Those who cannot have a jab because of health reasons should be able to obtain a medical certificate to that effect. There is no doubt a risk of fake documents but that is a problem across many areas.
Perhaps vaccine passports, if introduced, should have a sunset clause so that any requirement is lifted at the end of Spring next year, as the weather improves.
February 24, 2021
Having travelled extensively in East Asia my reasoning as to why they’ve had fewer problems is:
1) Much much lower rates of obesity, particularly in middle aged and older people. You rarely see older people in Japan who are not spry and with a height appropriate bodyweight. They often can be quite short in stature but are never that kind of “blobby” round shape that so many middle aged and older people seem to slump into here in the UK.
2) Middle aged and older people appear more active (and are able to stay active because of lower BMI). You see plenty of older people cycling around their neighbourhoods in Japan on utility type bikes.
3) there is a routine of mask wearing, particularly on public transport. Typically 20-30% will be wearing a mask before COVID was ever talked about. Masks are available everywhere.
4) They accept the group ahead of themselves. They are much more accepting of rules and are significanttly more considerate of others eg in how the move about, go through stations, queue up for train doors etc. So if there were COVID Rules issued they’d be followed. There appear to be very few people who have what I see as the L’Oreal effect – “Because I am worth it”. People don’t think they’re special or things don’t apply to them. The Asian countries function very efficiently eg with high population density, close proximity to neighbours and in collectively manageing their environs. Nobody is above this or think “what do I care”.
5) In some Asian countries the state has much more information on their citizens and databases intersect. A Korean friend of mine said that the South Korean state not only knows who you are, your medical records, but where you live, the number of your mobile phone, your employment, your relatives etc. So if there is an outbreak of any disease all the databases relate to each other. Immediately you can be geolocated and there will be a knock at your door. Hence they could track and trace very easily. We seem unable or unwilling to accept that level of data transfer.
February 24, 2021
On compulsory vaccination it should be a matter of common or statistical sense. If one works for prolonged periods in a hospital ward or care home or as an itinerant carer because of the high risk to these people it is likely to be appropriate but if one works among fit for work people or just goes to a pub it is a disproportionate infringement of one’s liberty.
I would also point out that it is no use looking for causes to all the minutiae of why one country is doing better than another country, yet worse than some other country, partly because I wouldn’t trust most countries to tell the truth and partly because luck surely plays a substantial part in this.
Nor is it right to assume lockdowns necessarily have much effect because regardless of lockdowns in every plague or epidemic throughout human history disease has come to an area, infected a growing number of people but never all people, then decreased and eventually gone away. That happens naturally.
February 24, 2021
If it is required for international travel to some countries, i will have to live with it.
But no, no, no to domestic use. Where is the necessity and proportionality argument? This is not a High Consequence Infectious Disease according to the government. It is clear that we must be getting close if not at herd immunity. The vaccine programme is being rolled out and we should be opening up. I still suspect that the false hiding away from this disease has led to it perhaps developing in a way it would not have done if allowed to pass through naturally. But even so, the vaccines have been shown to be efficacious so we should put some trust in that. We donāt have a vaccine passport for flu so why for this?
Zorro
February 24, 2021
From May, it is going to be necessary to have a vaccine passport to fly anywhere outside the UK so the Woke fraternity had better get used to the idea. Similarly, it is inevitable that employers are going to want to see a vaccination passport or certificate before taking on workers in many industries : not least because customers and clients are going to demand it, and rightly so.
Once everyone has been invited to be vaccinated, those that have chosen not to take up the option will find some services and premises closed to them. Tough : they will have made a free choice and will just have to put up with it. After all, the vaccine is readily available, perfectly safe and free of charge. There is therefore no question of discrimination. The very tiny minority of people who cannot be vaccinated for genuine medical reasons can be given an exemption certificate. I would certainly not give an exemption to those who are just frightened of a needle.
Neither should the government spend large amounts of our more sensible taxpayers’ money trying to persuade those who are either too stupid or too irresponsible to be bothered to be vaccinated, whatever ethnic group they come from.
February 24, 2021
PS : We do not need a separate Vaccine Passport. All that is necessary is for our GP’s surgery to place a stamp in a standard UK passport with an expiry date. A small charge should be allowed for this to cover the direct cost of the Practice’s time. Anyone who hasn’t a passport should get one.
February 24, 2021
Dear Sir John,
My views on vaccination certificates? Absolutely appalled that they are even being contemplated. As the COVID crisis has unfolded I have slowly had to come to terms with the awful truth that the people currently in government have no commitment to protecting my health or wealth: instead they appear to be in the thrall of a utopian technocratic cult for whom systems matter more than individuals. The more propaganda and coercion that is deployed to promote mass vaccination for such a relatively non-lethal virus, the more I am forced to conclude there is a sinister purpose behind the vaccination.
February 24, 2021
+1
February 24, 2021
very lethal for the 120k that died with it, but might have had an extended life without the horrible manner of death? Sinister purpose for vaccination being to avoid us dying with it?
February 24, 2021
Peter, totally agree. Interesting times we live in.
February 24, 2021
Tell that to the relatives of the around 120,000 who have died to date from this relatively non- lethal virus. About the same number of aircrew of Bomber Command and the 8th Airforce combined who lost their lives during WW2.
February 24, 2021
I really do not see what the issue is here. You had to show a vaccination certificate when visiting countries with certain diseases. You have to show a pass to get a drink if asked to do so. ( don’t have this problem :))
The Spector of the id card and all that. Google, Facebook , Amazon has more information on us, and what we do in our life’s, than the Government.
Now if the first drink is free in the Pub if you show your pass that would help. I am happy to show my bus pass for a free ride on the bus. Your every move is tracked and stored by your mobile phone and passed to a central computer. When you use your bank card you are being monitored.
Showing a vaccination certificate is really old fashioned and not being recorded.
February 24, 2021
If other countries want proof of vaccination before allowing you to enter that is their right, and the government will then need to provide these ‘vaccine passports’ to us so that we can travel abroad.
There is NO need however for us to have any such document for ANY domestic purpose, and it would be both wrong and unnecessary to impose one. Once people are vaccinated they are safe, both personally and for others, as they are very unlikely to either catch or transmit the disease. So, if you have been vaccinated you shouldn’t care if others around you have been or not. And if you haven’t been vaccinated yet then it is your choice and your decision as to whether you want to take the risk of catching it by going to public places.
So either way, whether for the vaccinated or the unvaccinated, no such document is needed to control admission to any public place.
February 24, 2021
This country has rightly resisted the calls from those that would boss us about to impose mandatory identity papers, apart from during war, and it should resist vaccination passports for the same reasons. There is a lot of myth and fiction circulating as fact, but what we do know is that the vaccines are effective at protecting those that take it. More effective than ministers had been expecting. Which means that in practice a vaccine passport is unnecessary.
February 24, 2021
No to vaccine passports. Characteristic of a totalitarian state.
There are a significant number of individuals, including doctors and other health workers, who are strongly opposed to these “vaccines”‘(which are better described as a form of gene therapy) on safety grounds, with trials only monitoring short term reactions, and which excluded certain categories of the population in the trials. With a bit of persistence official data from the trials and the government figures on Serious Adverse Events from the current roll out can be found. Bear in mind that it is reckoned that only about 1% of a population will bother to go back to the vaccinators to register their side effects officially, so the actual figures for adverse reactions will in reality be even higher.
The Nuremberg principle should be protecting those who decline the vaccination, and our “Conservative” government should never have even contemplated going down the social credits path of the CCP, where you earn access to society but only on the government’s say so. A hugely dangerous direction for the “Conservatives” to be taking.
February 24, 2021
From the UK Medical Freedom website I found this snippet of information which stated that under English law:
1) An individual has the legal right to be free to accept or refuse any treatment.
2) The individualās decision should be voluntary and must not be influenced by pressure from medical staff, friends or family.
3) The Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights states that any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention must only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason WITHOUT DISADVANTAGE OR PREJUDICE.
Also a resolution passed by the Council of Europe states that
7.3.1) Citizens are to be informed that the vaccination is NOT mandatory and that no one is politically, socially, or otherwise pressured to get themselves vaccinated, if they do not wish to do so themselves.
7.3.2) No one is to be discriminated against for not having been vaccinated, due to possible health risks or not wanting to be vaccinated.
Vaccine passports would appear to be in contravention of the above.
The Nuremberg code contains something similar, although I believe this is more concerned with experimental drugs and procedures. Nevertheless, the new Covid-19 vaccines are based on a new mRNA biotechnology. They have been granted emergency approval but are not yet licenced because the long term safety tests have not been completed. I know quite a few people who are not “antivax loons” but nevertheless want to postpone taking the vaccine until more data is in and more is known about the long term effects. Until that time we are probably still “Beta testing” it and so Nurenberg code should apply.
February 24, 2021
No to having to āproduce your papersā to go about your own business.
February 24, 2021
I agree with the comments supporting a Vaccine style of passport or Vaccine ID card, simply because to stick our heads in the sand with the old argument about Civil Liberties and no ID card etc, simply means no travel.
I make that point because other countries and airlines will demand it.
I agree that all hospitality should also demand it.
Those who do not wish to comply with this can simply go camping in the wilds, its their choice. Even if the Gov does not do it the travel industry and other countries will, so there will be plenty of private companies prepared to sell a certificate based on personal vaccine information supplied. If no certificate means no flights etc the majority of people will demand it.
February 24, 2021
Some factual information SJR. The Tourism Minister of Spain Snr Reyes Maroto has already announced thst his country is actively working on a Covid vaccination Certificate for international travel. It will almost certainly be part of an EU wide requirement. So please wake up all you PC nay sayers or forget your summer break in Benidorm.
Can I suggest SJR that you get behind our government so that they accept the necessity of such documentation, talk to the EU and get the matter settled. It would be a good idea if we got on top of this rather than be caught playing catchup.
February 24, 2021
Vaccines have been developed far too quickly to be considered safe. I have no faith in government “scientists” when many well qualified and experienced medical people and experts in the field of vaccines urge caution.
Forcing us to be vaccinated to lead a normal life is against our human rights and must be resisted.
February 24, 2021
If you don’t mind me saying, JR:
It might have been a good idea to let this blog run a bit longer before superseding it with another.
It’s a very sensitive subject. As you may know Blair tried to get ID cards introduced and made mandatory – he failed. Why? because we British fought against and defeated the kind of state tyranny that forced everyone to ‘show their papers’ and we were having none of it from him.
One might ask why Blair wanted this, well the answer is as simple as it is obvious…..he hates the English and wished to alienate us in our own country.
We didn’t stand for this tyranny from Blair, and we won’t be having it from Johnson or anyone else.
Attempt to turn this county into an Orwellian nightmare, and we’ll be having you all out.
February 24, 2021
If you have any store cards, bank or credit cards, a mobile telephone, membership of Facebook et al, a driving license, or perchance a passport, you have already surrendered your privacy and at great profit to some of the above. An ID card and or a health covid visa certificate add little to what for your own convenience you have given away. At least have the generosity to make international travel safer and reassuring for those travelling with you.
February 24, 2021
What is the point in all of these comparisons- the important thing is that those in power, those at the very top, at the time did their best to alleviate the suffering of the people where they could- and we all know who didn’t match up.. we all know
February 24, 2021
Secondly’ what is the point in vaccine passports wten have nowhere to go to
February 24, 2021
On 27th January The Council of Europe signed Resolution 2361, which states that vaccines in EU member states should not be mandatory. Furthermore persons who have not been vaccinated may not be discriminated against in any way. I believe this is in line with the Nuremberg Code which was produced as a result of the Nuremberg trials at the end of the Second World War.
I would expect the British Government to follow the same moral principles. If they donāt, then we have clearly made a dreadful error in leaving the protection of the EU.
February 24, 2021
Internal vaccine passports would rapidly become a tool of coercion, and they would not stop at covid vaccination. Once you accept legal discrimination against those who refuse a particular medical procedure, then you can use the same tactic against any form of dissent. Landlords and employers could demand a medical certificate to prove you are a non-smoker, so you can get a job or rent a house. Universities could insist on a certificate to prove you are committed to ‘diversity’ and trans rights, before you can become a student. Businesses could make a lot of money providing various certificates to prove you have the ‘correct’ background and opinions.
February 24, 2021
500,00 deaths from CV19 in the USA. Manipulated figures. Same message in the UK. Control the masses with FEAR. Vaccine passports, no thank you but thousands will accept them and queue up for jab. There again that is what the establishment rely on. Wake up people for goodness sake.
February 24, 2021
500,000…..