One strange issue is that the combination of testing and the volumes being done now and proposed in the future, combined with border controls and "Covid certification" probably would have worked as a 'zero covid' alternative to vaccines.
But we have vaccines, not only do we have them but they're very, very effective ones.
So zero Covid restrictions are not only massively illiberal but they're not necessary either.
I can understand why a government would develop these ideas in parallel to others in case vaccines didn't work out. But they did.
Illiberal and unnecessary is not a good combination.
Why is it illiberal to make the condition of entry to a nightclub or a bar with minimal or no restrictions inside that you show that you have been vaccinated? Don't you want to go back to normal? How do we achieve this if there is an element in our country, roughly 10%, who refuse the vaccine freely offered? Is it not an intrusion on my liberty if i am unknowingly exposed to them in an inside environment?
Vaccination is not 100% protection. Its very good but its not that good. 200 vaccinated people in a club are very safe. But if 20 of them are not vaccinated the risks are proportionately much greater and not just for those 20.
Why stop at Covid? Why not make it a condition of entry into Wetherspoons that you can prove you don't have HIV, or didn't vote Remain, or have the required 27 union jacks on your profile?
Because getting HIV involves an exchange of bodily fluids that isn't likely to happen by accident. For Covid all people need to do is breath. Surely you can see that the risks are different?
To be clear I am not suggesting that they are mandatory because I do not believe vaccination should be mandatory. I do not believe that they should be used for any other purpose other than gaining access to places you can choose not to go. Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated.
Do you believe that anybody hosting a large student house party should be required to place somebody on the door to insist on a vaxport? Or hotels should restrict movement to gain access to the bar? Or people getting married should restrict their guest list to those who meet the threshold? Or...
All under penalty of large fines for non compliance?
Or is it just that we should have vaxports for some mass gatherings but not others?
Student house party no, its a private event. Hotel bar yes, its a public place and those working there are entitled to a safe place of work. Wedding ceremonies, that's trickier but if invite only then I would say no. If they then have a reception in a public business establishment then yes for that part. Any fines would be on those who are offering a public service and failing to protect those using it and their own staff.
Think of it another way. If your local somehow opts out of such restrictions would you still go? I don't think I would. As we saw with earlier lockdowns there is a natural business incentive to show that your establishment is safe.
Re: hotel bars. So this is about protecting the staff now? I thought it was about preventing spread of virus in a crowded environment!
Why should hotel bar staff get some sort of special protection? Protection that they don’t get when serving at breakfast? And if it’s about the staff why is it restricted to bars? Why not shops etc?
I should also point out that the burdens you are placing on businesses is incredible. Staff manning every entrance. Not to mention the fact that these will need to be additional staff trained in dealing with recaltitrant customers.
Such establishments already have a legal duty to ensure that those entering are of age (for which photographic ID is required in marginal cases) and not already intoxicated. If they don't they lose their licence and get closed down. They also have some considerable experience of recalcitrant customers.
Children can't enter bars?
News to me, I've taken my children to family-friendly bars before.
Establishments have a duty not to serve alcohol to children, not to police their doors.
I think they can’t enter some bars at certain hours. But I’ve never seen it be policed strictly in this country.
Indeed certain bars may have it as a restriction, whether as a matter of policy, or a matter of their own licence conditions. But its not a legal restriction for all bars at all times, which is why policing doors is very much an exception and not the norm
There's also quite simply a massive different between policing a couple of entrances for 5-6 hours on a Friday and Saturday night (paid for by the vastly increased numbers frequenting at those times) and policing ALL entrances to an establishment from 8am to 11pm. Fortunately i take the complete and utter unpracticality and financial cost of such a measure to presume that it can't and won't happen. But the moment you start making vast numbers of exceptions due to "unpracticality" the whole purpose of the scheme as a Government mandated supposed public health measure becomes even harder to justify.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Ah, good reminder.
I’m presuming, given that the story seems to have died, that he was indeed just a random loon.
Of course, since the police do indeed operate under cover in civil society, and now even have carte blanche to commit crimes while doing so, perhaps we’ll never know.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
The sort of people to scared to go the pub post Covid never went anyway.
Ditto nightclubs. Ditto cinema.
Ditto stepping more than 30 mins or 1 miles beyond the mental leash that ties them to “Homes Under the Hammer” and Nigel Farage Cameo videos.
I suppose if the still-terrified really need additional reassurance then we could introduce a system for issuing paper vaccine certs for use on a voluntary basis. The theory works as follows:
1. These people will disproportionately be the old and a lot of them would rather have papers anyway, many being unfamiliar with or incapable of using modern technology (and that's not my being ageist - my parents, for example, are both fine with computers but my mother-in-law can barely cope with text messaging) 2. Businesses that have a serious stake in reassuring frightened ducks (e.g. frilly olde tea shoppes) can then ask for the certs on the door, which gives their target clientele the reassurance that the diseased have been banished 3. The rest of us, consisting of businesses that wouldn't typically attract the still-terrified and people who wouldn't typically patronise ye olde tea shoppes, are then free to ignore the papers, and are not put to inconvenience, subject to unnecessary intrusion or forced to change our behaviour to placate the terror of the minority
That I could live with.
Yes voluntary works.
There will be some companies that, without coercion, would want to take part. Because they will find it popular with their customers to make them feel safe. That is fair enough.
There will be others that don't. That too is fair enough.
Let the company choose. Let the consumer choose. No coercion.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
A great shibboleth of Scotnatism is 77 Brigade and its nefarious attempts to subvert the cause. I always took it with a largish pinch of salt, but the number of low follower accounts that lurch into Twitter & FB threads with inflammatory, aggressive stuff is getting ridiculous. The respectable spinsters with cat pictures are the worst.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
I’m amazed this lot are organised enough to run such an operation.
I would have thought getting a couple of comments on ConHome would be beyond them.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Not that much discussion in the story about the Govt offering free twice weekly tests to all (i think last night most were of the view that the Govt was stuck having spent £multi-billion on them last year, and now had nothing to do with them...)
Who they think is willingly going to participate in taking these tests is a bit of a mystery (absent the link with Vaxports). They are saying it is a measure intended to "hasten the departure from lockdown" (without anything further indicating either that they intend to bring dates forward, or are intending to delay existing timetable). It is also a classic example of freeloading - any individual knows that to take a test themselves will have no impact on anything in the wider unlocking. But plenty of downsides if they test positive - i presume the requirement to self isolate is still in existence.
So i assume at present it comes down to employers using them to get people back into the office. To which many staff will say, "thanks, but no thanks".
Hopefully this will die a death as most people say 'no thanks' as you say. I have no problem with the tests being available at chemists for those who want them.
But I deeply suspect that once it is clear no one much is bothering and the sinister vaxport app is nearer going live then these tests will become more compulsory. They have form - see the schools situation. Maybe all government employees will be next. All transport workers that kind of thing.
I am increasingly of the opinion that the months in the bunker dealing with the crisis have sent Johnson and Hancock utterly off their heads and they are no longer making proportionate and reasonable decisions.
One strange issue is that the combination of testing and the volumes being done now and proposed in the future, combined with border controls and "Covid certification" probably would have worked as a 'zero covid' alternative to vaccines.
But we have vaccines, not only do we have them but they're very, very effective ones.
So zero Covid restrictions are not only massively illiberal but they're not necessary either.
I can understand why a government would develop these ideas in parallel to others in case vaccines didn't work out. But they did.
Illiberal and unnecessary is not a good combination.
Why is it illiberal to make the condition of entry to a nightclub or a bar with minimal or no restrictions inside that you show that you have been vaccinated? Don't you want to go back to normal? How do we achieve this if there is an element in our country, roughly 10%, who refuse the vaccine freely offered? Is it not an intrusion on my liberty if i am unknowingly exposed to them in an inside environment?
Vaccination is not 100% protection. Its very good but its not that good. 200 vaccinated people in a club are very safe. But if 20 of them are not vaccinated the risks are proportionately much greater and not just for those 20.
Why stop at Covid? Why not make it a condition of entry into Wetherspoons that you can prove you don't have HIV, or didn't vote Remain, or have the required 27 union jacks on your profile?
Because getting HIV involves an exchange of bodily fluids that isn't likely to happen by accident. For Covid all people need to do is breath. Surely you can see that the risks are different?
To be clear I am not suggesting that they are mandatory because I do not believe vaccination should be mandatory. I do not believe that they should be used for any other purpose other than gaining access to places you can choose not to go. Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated.
Re: Last paragraph: "Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated".
The idea that vaccination prevents transmission has taken hold but do we have evidence for this belief? Personally, I'd be much more concerned about being in the vicinity of someone who is coughing whether or not they have a certificate to say they have been vaccinated.
I can see where this is going: Vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean.
Yes we do have evidence for it, lots of evidence for it, and yes vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean is a fair representation.
If you're eligible for a vaccine and choose not to take it then that's about as unclean as having a shit then not washing your hands afterwards.
I oppose government vaxports on civil liberties grounds, but lets not pretend that antivaxxers are anything other than selfish dirty shits.
To be clear, PT, I'm not defending the antivaxxers. (I wrote a header a while back taking the piss out of them.) Not everyone who can't have a vaccine are anti-vaxxers though.
What I find curious is the wish to be in an environment purely with others who have been vaccinated when the deaths and hospitalisations have plummeted when being vaccinated doesn't mean that one can't have and transmit Covid (I accept it reduces the risk).
Because vaccines don't work 100% and you can be severely hurt or die if you catch it. If the person next to you is vaccinated they're both much less likely to have the plague themselves, and much less likely to be spreading it even if they do.
If you've been vaccinated and everyone else has been too, then you can relax much more than if a quarter of the people near you have refused the vaccine and are potentially carrying the plague. Which is why a voluntary scheme could be popular without the need to add legal restrictions on those that refuse the scheme.
I did suggest this might happen but MalcolmG called me a turnip or something.
Its a sensational piece of electioneering by handy Alex (who was NOT conspired against by the government as DavidL claims). The SNP are the progressive soft left of independence politics. Pro-Scotland but probably not a Scotland that many would like to see.
Happily if you are a regressive soft right voter who is also patriotic now you have a new choice for your independence - vote for an independent Scotland modelled on Hungary.
I suppose it also sets the parameters for a vibrant democracy under an independent Scotland. Once you have two Independence parties of differing political philosophy, then you create the conditions for pro and anti Unionism to no longer be the key dividing line (or at least the only important dividing line - depending on how long it takes for Unionists to come round to the idea of no going back). Think Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.
The sort of people to scared to go the pub post Covid never went anyway.
Ditto nightclubs. Ditto cinema.
Ditto stepping more than 30 mins or 1 miles beyond the mental leash that ties them to “Homes Under the Hammer” and Nigel Farage Cameo videos.
I suppose if the still-terrified really need additional reassurance then we could introduce a system for issuing paper vaccine certs for use on a voluntary basis. The theory works as follows:
1. These people will disproportionately be the old and a lot of them would rather have papers anyway, many being unfamiliar with or incapable of using modern technology (and that's not my being ageist - my parents, for example, are both fine with computers but my mother-in-law can barely cope with text messaging) 2. Businesses that have a serious stake in reassuring frightened ducks (e.g. frilly olde tea shoppes) can then ask for the certs on the door, which gives their target clientele the reassurance that the diseased have been banished 3. The rest of us, consisting of businesses that wouldn't typically attract the still-terrified and people who wouldn't typically patronise ye olde tea shoppes, are then free to ignore the papers, and are not put to inconvenience, subject to unnecessary intrusion or forced to change our behaviour to placate the terror of the minority
That I could live with.
Said tea shoppe would no doubt only cursorily as for the relevant bit of Basildon Bond and accept a wink from those who hadn't got one or "forgot it". Pointless then. Maybe the fearful tea-sippers will themselves demand evidence while brandishing pitchforks?
The sort of people to scared to go the pub post Covid never went anyway.
Ditto nightclubs. Ditto cinema.
Ditto stepping more than 30 mins or 1 miles beyond the mental leash that ties them to “Homes Under the Hammer” and Nigel Farage Cameo videos.
I suppose if the still-terrified really need additional reassurance then we could introduce a system for issuing paper vaccine certs for use on a voluntary basis. The theory works as follows:
1. These people will disproportionately be the old and a lot of them would rather have papers anyway, many being unfamiliar with or incapable of using modern technology (and that's not my being ageist - my parents, for example, are both fine with computers but my mother-in-law can barely cope with text messaging) 2. Businesses that have a serious stake in reassuring frightened ducks (e.g. frilly olde tea shoppes) can then ask for the certs on the door, which gives their target clientele the reassurance that the diseased have been banished 3. The rest of us, consisting of businesses that wouldn't typically attract the still-terrified and people who wouldn't typically patronise ye olde tea shoppes, are then free to ignore the papers, and are not put to inconvenience, subject to unnecessary intrusion or forced to change our behaviour to placate the terror of the minority
That I could live with.
Yes voluntary works.
There will be some companies that, without coercion, would want to take part. Because they will find it popular with their customers to make them feel safe. That is fair enough.
There will be others that don't. That too is fair enough.
Let the company choose. Let the consumer choose. No coercion.
That, with no massive new computerised databases, no apps, no use beyond that suggested above.
The NHS sends out automated letters for shielding, hospital appointment reminders and Lord alone knows what else all the time. Arranging for letters to go out to the vaccinated saying "we confirm that you have been vaccinated" ought to be easy and, compared to establishing sophisticated new systems, cost next to nothing. Job done.
Amongst the Lib Dems, this case is VERY well known, because of a small detail that Cyclefree omits...
"On 7 December 1950, Willcock was stopped for speeding on Ballard's Lane, North Finchley, London. Police Constable Harold Muckle asked him to produce his card. Willcock refused, reportedly saying "I am a Liberal, and I am against this sort of thing""
I am getting a sense that the tide is turning for the Lib Dems, and even though its early doors, they will do better overall next month. Not least because on these issues they have such a long track record.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
Thank you Cyclefree. A few thoughts. Vaccine passports don’t seem to be something that Boris Johnson would personally favour, so who is pushing him? Priti Patel, Michael Gove or Sir Humphrey? Whereas I would assume that Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf will be jizzing themselves at the thought of their introduction. Papers please, Mr. Salmond.
“Willcock v Muckle” sounds very Private Eye, Have they used it?
@DavidL, the passports may not in themselves be a restriction of liberty. Their abuse by certain Police Officers and other jobsworths, e.g. in local councils, will be the cause of a potential restriction of liberty. Which brings us back to Willcock v Muckle.
Courts are currently shut to the public. In normal times if you want to go in you can but you have to go through a metal detector and your bag will be searched. With my pass I can go straight in. Is that a restriction of your liberty or a sensible precaution for the safety of all inside?
There is a lot of hysteria on here this morning, there really is. We live in a country where the government conspired to get someone locked up and nearly half the people are still going to vote for it, including you AIUI. And you claim to worry about the civil liberties of this?
It could be argued that not everyone who has to enter a Court chooses to do so, which is different to pubs and stadiums. I will be voting for the person who was conspired against, not the conspirers.
You’re be ignoring the great one’s entreaty to vote SNP in your constituency then? I’m beginning to think some of this supermajority stuff might be bullshit.
He can hardly vote for Alex on constituency TUD. Sturgeon does certainly seem against a su[permajority, desperately smearing in case she gets a real majority and is forced to actually do something other than procrastinate and blame Westminster , whilst Ollie does the book keeping.
Dunno Malc, I still don’t see what difference a supermajority makes to the fact that It’s down to BJ to grant an S30. I’m open to a consultative referendum run from Scotland but I don’t see how vague suggestions about civil disobedience or international pressure change things much.
I’d do a certain amount of nose holding to get rid of that useless dimwit Annie Wells from Holyrood, but certain diddies on Twitter telling me one minute that people should spoil their constituency ballot and then next minute saying I need to vote Alba for Indy aren’t doing a great job of persuading me.
TUD, I have not seen much on civil disobedience apart from the odd nutter. We have seen the SNP government are at best inept and more likely crooked. Sturgeon does not want independence, she is holding on to get a big gig elsewhere whilst her and Ollie line their pockets. There are other ways to go about it as many countries have proven , begging Boris will never get us there and that suits Sturgeon just fine. Rather than the creepy easily bought Greens we need a real Independence party in Holyrood to hold SNP feet to the fire. I would rather see Annie Wells in charge than the rank bad un that is there just now, Governments shouldl no be able to manipulate justice systems to try and jail innocent people for their political aims. Can only be a matter of time now, the constant police enquiries will get her in the end.
I did suggest this might happen but MalcolmG called me a turnip or something.
Its a sensational piece of electioneering by handy Alex (who was NOT conspired against by the government as DavidL claims). The SNP are the progressive soft left of independence politics. Pro-Scotland but probably not a Scotland that many would like to see.
Happily if you are a regressive soft right voter who is also patriotic now you have a new choice for your independence - vote for an independent Scotland modelled on Hungary.
You are usually quite sensible Rochdale but that is just bollox
Which bit is bollox? That its a sensational piece of realpolitic by Salmond? That he wasn't the target of a government conspiracy to jail him? Or that there are people in Scotland with a vote who aren't as progressive as Sturgeon is?
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
What is wrong with you
Deflect as much as you like but the Liverpool venue owner actually included in the scheme supports it and indicates the tests to be taken before and after will be recorded in the app and in a positive test before the event the app will refund the ticket money.
Sensible debate is one thing but you do not seem to be able to be sensible, just obsessed over Brexit
I'm still intrigued by this story. I'm not totally 100% ruling it out, but i would be astonished if the Government has developed an app, and a secure and reliable app at that, that could do all this - and in such a way that could accommodate thousands of "events" up and down the country. And what will it do for businesses like ticketmaster?
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
I’m amazed this lot are organised enough to run such an operation.
I would have thought getting a couple of comments on ConHome would be beyond them.
One thing missing in Ms Cyclefree's excellent opening piece is recognition that Harry Willcock was , in fact, a Liberal. More than that, a moderately prominent Liberal, having been a councillor and a Parliamentary candidate.
His first remark to the policeman - "I am a Liberal, and I am against this sort of thing" - is still quoted in Liberal/Lib Dem circles. .
Another interesting dynamic of this, even on here, is that it's another policy that breaks the leave/remain divide. It's been happening a lot lately and gives me a lot of hope that the nation is finally ready to move on from brexit outside of a few nutcases.
Vaxports seem to exercise a certain kind of PB-er the same way, say, Grenfell animates a particular brand of Guardianista. The arguments are worthy and sometimes interesting, but the shrill hysteria is too much, over-ripe, disproportionate, and shows something deeper at work in the psyche of the commenters.
Not sure what it is, however.
Jealousy that others are encroaching on your hyperbolic commentary?
I’m quite enjoying being the rare voice of reasoned moderation.
Vaxports are coming for international travel, so millions will get them anyway (perhaps most of us); domestically, they should be a temporary, voluntary scheme for industries and companies that they think they will reassure anxious customers (and thus boost a knackered economy). They will also be a useful nudge for youngsters. Then scrap them
Solid sensible policies from a sane centrist dad. Me
If voluntary, what is the point? They won't be, they will, in effect, become compulsory. Anyway, I've already got a little piece of cardboard post-vaccination. Shall I laminate it - will that do?
So, what, you would forbid companies from using them, even when they might save businesses and jobs?
Take West End theatres. What if they discover no one will come to shows, out of fear (however irrational), yet they WILL come if they are reassured by a vaxport policy? You would prevent those theatres from adopting a policy that might save the entire theatre business (and with them, a chunk of central London’s economy)
Your position is absurd, and it is doubly absurd because 90% of the theatre-goers will likely have some form of vaxport anyway, because they also want foreign holidays
I accept it for foreign travel but oppose it for domestic use. In the face of irrationality the government and the media should stop scaring people and the government should nudge people in the direction of rationality as they so "enthusiastically" and successfully did in the direction of fear.
I don't think companies should be banned from using them, but there should be no government guidelines to businesses in support of them.
Amongst the Lib Dems, this case is VERY well known, because of a small detail that Cyclefree omits...
"On 7 December 1950, Willcock was stopped for speeding on Ballard's Lane, North Finchley, London. Police Constable Harold Muckle asked him to produce his card. Willcock refused, reportedly saying "I am a Liberal, and I am against this sort of thing""
I am getting a sense that the tide is turning for the Lib Dems, and even though its early doors, they will do better overall next month. Not least because on these issues they have such a long track record.
They are invisible at present , no leadership and no policies, moribund. Also in Scotland at least tehy are the most illiberal and least democratic party in the country.
Another interesting dynamic of this, even on here, is that it's another policy that breaks the leave/remain divide. It's been happening a lot lately and gives me a lot of hope that the nation is finally ready to move on from brexit outside of a few nutcases.
These arguments for the introduction of the internal passport fall apart like a wet paper bag.
It's about protection of staff - in which case why has Johnson already said they won't be applicable for many venues?
It's because Covid is some unique emergency. Yes it's a nasty virus and can cause complications but now the vast majority of the vulnerable population have been vaccinated, you can apply the same argument to influenza and the flu vaccine.
It's sledgehammer to crack a nut stuff. And yes I'd much rather attend a venue that wasn't demanding to know whether I'd either been vaxxed, had Covid anti-bodies or taken a recent test.
As a society we seem to be totally unwilling to allow individuals to weigh up the risks for themselves as we emerge into a future where the virus will be a background issue but the protection of the health system has been achieved.
If its a public health policy, the very first place that should be included is the tube. There is nowhere else that comes close to its impact in spreading germs around not just London but as London is so inter connected also to the wider country.
That it is not included is clear evidence that it is not a public health policy, but at best theatre to encourage youngsters to take the vaccine in greater numbers, or more likely the start of a permanent ID card scheme.
This is (re: the tube) of course an excellent point. The Government's general approach for combatting the spread of Covid has been to ban all activities which are "non-essential" whilst mitigating the dangers of those which they have to treat as essential. Public transport of course being in the latter group. The basic mitigation (other than masks and some measures to impose social distancing by fencing off seats) being to reduce usage to essential workers (everyone else being required to work from home).
But once the working from home guidance, and limits on non-essential activities are lifted then they have to accept that public transports and the tube in particular will start to become very busy again. Yes they'll still probably have masks to hold the line, but really, what's the point in protecting people in nightclubs and other crowded venues, if the protections on the tube are so flimsy?
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
I’m amazed this lot are organised enough to run such an operation.
I would have thought getting a couple of comments on ConHome would be beyond them.
Remember, this lot are very good at obtaining and keeping power.
It's just that leaves them with minimal capacity to do anything positive with the power once they have it.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Another interesting dynamic of this, even on here, is that it's another policy that breaks the leave/remain divide. It's been happening a lot lately and gives me a lot of hope that the nation is finally ready to move on from brexit outside of a few nutcases.
Yes you and I would have been on different sides of the leave/remain divide, and no doubt have different views still on the EU.
We also usually divide on economics I suspect, but on this my left libertarian credentials are my north star.
There is also zero chance of the craven Starmer opposing this imposition. Note Reeves weasel words of "some reservations" this morning already giving space for the opposition to troop through the lobbies with the government.
One thing missing in Ms Cyclefree's excellent opening piece is recognition that Harry Willcock was , in fact, a Liberal. More than that, a moderately prominent Liberal, having been a councillor and a Parliamentary candidate.
His first remark to the policeman - "I am a Liberal, and I am against this sort of thing" - is still quoted in Liberal/Lib Dem circles.
PS. Apologies for the effective duplication. I have just seen that Mr Cicero has also taken up this point.
Your daily/hourly reminder that popular and ethical/wise/evidence-based are not synonyms.
But this is getting utterly tiresome now mate. Do you really want us to live our lives by opinion polls?
I think too that the popularity of "vaxports" will not survive contact with reality. When children are banned from football matches, cinema or the theatre, as are pregnant and nursing mothers, popularity will rapidly drop.
Vaccines are clearly effective, and even seem to mitigate against the variants. We need to rely on that, not on the paper protection of a vaxport.
These arguments for the introduction of the internal passport fall apart like a wet paper bag.
It's about protection of staff - in which case why has Johnson already said they won't be applicable for many venues?
It's because Covid is some unique emergency. Yes it's a nasty virus and can cause complications but now the vast majority of the vulnerable population have been vaccinated, you can apply the same argument to influenza and the flu vaccine.
It's sledgehammer to crack a nut stuff. And yes I'd much rather attend a venue that wasn't demanding to know whether I'd either been vaxxed, had Covid anti-bodies or taken a recent test.
As a society we seem to be totally unwilling to allow individuals to weigh up the risks for themselves as we emerge into a future where the virus will be a background issue but the protection of the health system has been achieved.
If its a public health policy, the very first place that should be included is the tube. There is nowhere else that comes close to its impact in spreading germs around not just London but as London is so inter connected also to the wider country.
That it is not included is clear evidence that it is not a public health policy, but at best theatre to encourage youngsters to take the vaccine in greater numbers, or more likely the start of a permanent ID card scheme.
This is (re: the tube) of course an excellent point. The Government's general approach for combatting the spread of Covid has been to ban all activities which are "non-essential" whilst mitigating the dangers of those which they have to treat as essential. Public transport of course being in the latter group. The basic mitigation (other than masks and some measures to impose social distancing by fencing off seats) being to reduce usage to essential workers (everyone else being required to work from home).
But once the working from home guidance, and limits on non-essential activities are lifted then they have to accept that public transports and the tube in particular will start to become very busy again. Yes they'll still probably have masks to hold the line, but really, what's the point in protecting people in nightclubs and other crowded venues, if the protections on the tube are so flimsy?
The tube has about 100m passenger journeys per month in normal times. A decent proportion of those will be in more cramped and close conditions than any nightclub dancefloor let alone a bar, pub, theatre, sports stadia. It has poor ventilation.
That is before considering similarly crowded trains, trams and buses throughout the country.
If covid spreads again as we open up, it will be mostly from public transport, not hospitality venues.
Not that much discussion in the story about the Govt offering free twice weekly tests to all (i think last night most were of the view that the Govt was stuck having spent £multi-billion on them last year, and now had nothing to do with them...)
Who they think is willingly going to participate in taking these tests is a bit of a mystery (absent the link with Vaxports). They are saying it is a measure intended to "hasten the departure from lockdown" (without anything further indicating either that they intend to bring dates forward, or are intending to delay existing timetable). It is also a classic example of freeloading - any individual knows that to take a test themselves will have no impact on anything in the wider unlocking. But plenty of downsides if they test positive - i presume the requirement to self isolate is still in existence.
So i assume at present it comes down to employers using them to get people back into the office. To which many staff will say, "thanks, but no thanks".
Hopefully this will die a death as most people say 'no thanks' as you say. I have no problem with the tests being available at chemists for those who want them.
But I deeply suspect that once it is clear no one much is bothering and the sinister vaxport app is nearer going live then these tests will become more compulsory. They have form - see the schools situation. Maybe all government employees will be next. All transport workers that kind of thing.
I am increasingly of the opinion that the months in the bunker dealing with the crisis have sent Johnson and Hancock utterly off their heads and they are no longer making proportionate and reasonable decisions.
I think, in Johnson's case anyway, he no longer trusts himself to make reasonable and proportionate decisions. He thought he was doing the reasonable and proportionate thing last year, got the line wrong, and it blew up in his face. All this stuff about him being "an instinctive libertarian" may be justified, but i think that he is now just using that to provide a necessary counter argument for him to constantly over-rule. But convincing himself that he's doing it for the right reasons.
Your daily/hourly reminder that popular and ethical/wise/evidence-based are not synonyms.
But this is getting utterly tiresome now mate. Do you really want us to live our lives by opinion polls?
I think too that the popularity of "vaxports" will not survive contact with reality. When children are banned from football matches, cinema or the theatre, as are pregnant and nursing mothers, popularity will rapidly drop.
Vaccines are clearly effective, and even seem to mitigate against the variants. We need to rely on that, not on the paper protection of a vaxport.
The fact that they are as useful as a chocolate teapot against variants is another reason not to bother.
I did suggest this might happen but MalcolmG called me a turnip or something.
Its a sensational piece of electioneering by handy Alex (who was NOT conspired against by the government as DavidL claims). The SNP are the progressive soft left of independence politics. Pro-Scotland but probably not a Scotland that many would like to see.
Happily if you are a regressive soft right voter who is also patriotic now you have a new choice for your independence - vote for an independent Scotland modelled on Hungary.
You are usually quite sensible Rochdale but that is just bollox
Which bit is bollox? That its a sensational piece of realpolitic by Salmond? That he wasn't the target of a government conspiracy to jail him? Or that there are people in Scotland with a vote who aren't as progressive as Sturgeon is?
The part where it was not Sturgeon , her close pals in SNP and civil service who tried to have him jailed for made up stories, all but the one consensual encounter being shown to be lies and the worst one the claimant was not even on the premises. That she was able along with civil service, police and Crown Office to get away with all this , so far at least is very alarming. Hopefully the forthcoming police enquiries and the civil court cases and missing funds investigations will be better handled.
There is still a valid question of how much of the decline in death and hospitalisation is due to vaccines and how much to lockdown. We have been in lockdown since the start of January. Just as last year cases, deaths and admissions have crashed to the floor. While so many have not been vaccinated it’s fair to look at how to stay safe while opening up. Personally I think we are being over cautious, but you can understand why after the last year. I would stick to the current not before dates, but have no truck with vaccine passports/tests on entry. Either we are back to normal or not.
There’s no point in holding a party when no one wants to go. I am very confident that a large measure of our current decline in cases is through vaccination. But “very confident” isn’t good enough for a lot of people. As a liberal I hate, absolutely hate, the idea of vaccine passports or tests on entry (the latter I think is unworkable anyway) but the reverse complacency of “well we’ll all be vaccinated by July” is also utterly wrongheaded.
Vaccination means this virus will ultimately become one of the cornucopia of irritants to the human race but we are a year or two off that at best. Until then we want to reopen and we want people to become comfortable enough to spend their money and restart the economy ASAP. Sadly polling suggests that these measures may be the way to do that. People are scared. What’s the point in reopening cinemas, nightclubs, theatres if people are too nervous to go? Nationally we have lost the equivalent of the population of my whole local authority area, which is staggering.
We are not alone - Israel and that notoriously authoritarian state, Denmark, are also doing this and there is (as I’ve pointed out) an element of “nudge” thinking here. The mixed messaging on this over the last two days (when, who, how?) really does reinforce my view that the Govt believes the vaccines work and wants to persuade us all to get them. Polling suggests the most resistant cohort is the under 30s.
I hate the principle and will accept them for only as long as necessary but, for the reasons I set out, in the short term, they probably are necessary as a public confidence measure more than a public health measure.
You say "What’s the point in reopening cinemas, nightclubs, theatres if people are too nervous to go?" - if people remain fearful when new infections and hospitalisations are minimal what make you think their fear (which has been rendered irrational) will be assuaged by vaccination documentation?
Removing risk, if that is what we want to do, is to do with Covid testing to filter out those who have it and those that don't not vaccination passports.
Have any of these posters who argue that people are “too scared to go out” tried booking a good restaurant in London recently?
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
One strange issue is that the combination of testing and the volumes being done now and proposed in the future, combined with border controls and "Covid certification" probably would have worked as a 'zero covid' alternative to vaccines.
But we have vaccines, not only do we have them but they're very, very effective ones.
So zero Covid restrictions are not only massively illiberal but they're not necessary either.
I can understand why a government would develop these ideas in parallel to others in case vaccines didn't work out. But they did.
Illiberal and unnecessary is not a good combination.
Why is it illiberal to make the condition of entry to a nightclub or a bar with minimal or no restrictions inside that you show that you have been vaccinated? Don't you want to go back to normal? How do we achieve this if there is an element in our country, roughly 10%, who refuse the vaccine freely offered? Is it not an intrusion on my liberty if i am unknowingly exposed to them in an inside environment?
Vaccination is not 100% protection. Its very good but its not that good. 200 vaccinated people in a club are very safe. But if 20 of them are not vaccinated the risks are proportionately much greater and not just for those 20.
Why stop at Covid? Why not make it a condition of entry into Wetherspoons that you can prove you don't have HIV, or didn't vote Remain, or have the required 27 union jacks on your profile?
Because getting HIV involves an exchange of bodily fluids that isn't likely to happen by accident. For Covid all people need to do is breath. Surely you can see that the risks are different?
To be clear I am not suggesting that they are mandatory because I do not believe vaccination should be mandatory. I do not believe that they should be used for any other purpose other than gaining access to places you can choose not to go. Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated.
Re: Last paragraph: "Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated".
The idea that vaccination prevents transmission has taken hold but do we have evidence for this belief? Personally, I'd be much more concerned about being in the vicinity of someone who is coughing whether or not they have a certificate to say they have been vaccinated.
I can see where this is going: Vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean.
Yes we do have evidence for it, lots of evidence for it, and yes vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean is a fair representation.
If you're eligible for a vaccine and choose not to take it then that's about as unclean as having a shit then not washing your hands afterwards.
I oppose government vaxports on civil liberties grounds, but lets not pretend that antivaxxers are anything other than selfish dirty shits.
To be clear, PT, I'm not defending the antivaxxers. (I wrote a header a while back taking the piss out of them.) Not everyone who can't have a vaccine are anti-vaxxers though.
What I find curious is the wish to be in an environment purely with others who have been vaccinated when the deaths and hospitalisations have plummeted when being vaccinated doesn't mean that one can't have and transmit Covid (I accept it reduces the risk).
Because vaccines don't work 100% and you can be severely hurt or die if you catch it. If the person next to you is vaccinated they're both much less likely to have the plague themselves, and much less likely to be spreading it even if they do.
If you've been vaccinated and everyone else has been too, then you can relax much more than if a quarter of the people near you have refused the vaccine and are potentially carrying the plague. Which is why a voluntary scheme could be popular without the need to add legal restrictions on those that refuse the scheme.
Not the silver bullet that was promised then?
Let me get this straight: a chunk of the population;
1) Will remain scared even when Covid is very largely squashed to the extent that it is one among many other risks in life 2) understand that though they are vaccinated they may be one of the unlucky ones who are not protected from Covid if they caught it and 3) will happily sit in an indoor environment with others only on condition that 100% of said others have a vaccination which will, (see 2)), not be effective for those others either.
These arguments for the introduction of the internal passport fall apart like a wet paper bag.
It's about protection of staff - in which case why has Johnson already said they won't be applicable for many venues?
It's because Covid is some unique emergency. Yes it's a nasty virus and can cause complications but now the vast majority of the vulnerable population have been vaccinated, you can apply the same argument to influenza and the flu vaccine.
It's sledgehammer to crack a nut stuff. And yes I'd much rather attend a venue that wasn't demanding to know whether I'd either been vaxxed, had Covid anti-bodies or taken a recent test.
As a society we seem to be totally unwilling to allow individuals to weigh up the risks for themselves as we emerge into a future where the virus will be a background issue but the protection of the health system has been achieved.
If its a public health policy, the very first place that should be included is the tube. There is nowhere else that comes close to its impact in spreading germs around not just London but as London is so inter connected also to the wider country.
That it is not included is clear evidence that it is not a public health policy, but at best theatre to encourage youngsters to take the vaccine in greater numbers, or more likely the start of a permanent ID card scheme.
This is (re: the tube) of course an excellent point. The Government's general approach for combatting the spread of Covid has been to ban all activities which are "non-essential" whilst mitigating the dangers of those which they have to treat as essential. Public transport of course being in the latter group. The basic mitigation (other than masks and some measures to impose social distancing by fencing off seats) being to reduce usage to essential workers (everyone else being required to work from home).
But once the working from home guidance, and limits on non-essential activities are lifted then they have to accept that public transports and the tube in particular will start to become very busy again. Yes they'll still probably have masks to hold the line, but really, what's the point in protecting people in nightclubs and other crowded venues, if the protections on the tube are so flimsy?
The tube has about 100m passenger journeys per month in normal times. A decent proportion of those will be in more cramped and close conditions than any nightclub dancefloor let alone a bar, pub, theatre, sports stadia. It has poor ventilation.
That is before considering similarly crowded trains, trams and buses throughout the country.
If covid spreads again as we open up, it will be mostly from public transport, not hospitality venues.
Once again, that's missing the point a bit. Does it matter if a million people per day get COVID it only 100 of them turn up in hospital? The vaccines are primarily a tool to stop people needing hospital treatment and they are extremely effective at that.
Vaccine passports have got no utility that scenario.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
What is wrong with you
Deflect as much as you like but the Liverpool venue owner actually included in the scheme supports it and indicates the tests to be taken before and after will be recorded in the app and in a positive test before the event the app will refund the ticket money.
Sensible debate is one thing but you do not seem to be able to be sensible, just obsessed over Brexit
I'm still intrigued by this story. I'm not totally 100% ruling it out, but i would be astonished if the Government has developed an app, and a secure and reliable app at that, that could do all this - and in such a way that could accommodate thousands of "events" up and down the country. And what will it do for businesses like ticketmaster?
Very much "one app to rule them all"!
I'd have thought the govt would definitely be in discussion with Ticketmaster right now
On thread, I don't have a problem with any requirement to be vaccinated as a condition of being allowed to go on holiday abroad. We already have national identity cards for doing that - and they're already called passports. And it is very likely to increase the vaccination rate, targetting in particular the younger adult cohort where vaccination rates are poorest, and so reduce the risk of onward transmission by this group. A group more likely to be swayed by anti-vaxxer falsehoods and apparently motivated also by the very low risk to them regardless of what they might pass on to other people.
However, the idea of some form of identity check to regulate what used to be normal day to day life within this country's borders is a very different prospect. It's not obviously necessary and indeed alien to the British identity. So no to that and let's hope that the prospect of a potential parliamentary defeat heads it off.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
He's a well known far left "Antifa" extremist activist with "journalist" credentials.
So how was he protected by the police? A "journalist" filming a protest is nothing surprising, nor being behind police lines if you have "journalist" credentials.
Your daily/hourly reminder that popular and ethical/wise/evidence-based are not synonyms.
But this is getting utterly tiresome now mate. Do you really want us to live our lives by opinion polls?
I think too that the popularity of "vaxports" will not survive contact with reality. When children are banned from football matches, cinema or the theatre, as are pregnant and nursing mothers, popularity will rapidly drop.
Vaccines are clearly effective, and even seem to mitigate against the variants. We need to rely on that, not on the paper protection of a vaxport.
The key phrase in your post is “even seem to mitigate against the variants”. This times a million. We have no sober sensible messaging about variant risk. Yes, they are a real concern, but this reassurance is nowhere to be found.
On thread, I don't have a problem with any requirement to be vaccinated as a condition of being allowed to go on holiday abroad. We already have national identity cards for doing that - and they're already called passports. And it is very likely to increase the vaccination rate, targetting in particular the younger adult cohort where vaccination rates are poorest, and so reduce the risk of onward transmission by this group. A group more likely to be swayed by anti-vaxxer falsehoods and apparently motivated also by the very low risk to them regardless of what they might pass on to other people.
However, the idea of some form of identity check to regulate what used to be normal day to day life within this country's borders is a very different prospect. It's not obviously necessary and indeed alien to the British identity. So no to that and let's hope that the prospect of a potential parliamentary defeat heads it off.
Amongst the Lib Dems, this case is VERY well known, because of a small detail that Cyclefree omits...
"On 7 December 1950, Willcock was stopped for speeding on Ballard's Lane, North Finchley, London. Police Constable Harold Muckle asked him to produce his card. Willcock refused, reportedly saying "I am a Liberal, and I am against this sort of thing""
I am getting a sense that the tide is turning for the Lib Dems, and even though its early doors, they will do better overall next month. Not least because on these issues they have such a long track record.
Go back to your constituencies...
Telling a police officer in 1950 that you were a liberal was probably a brave thing to do
"Big G” actually reports to an agit-prop regional co-ordinator in Droitwich.
Do not be so ridiculous
I report to only one person, my dear wife of near 60 years
I have held many offices in local organisations, charities and indeed at one time was the youngest captain of a golf club in Wales
I have not had the inclination to be involved with the organisation of the conservative party other than on a few occasions acted as chauffeur to the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and once for David Jones, at General Elections
These arguments for the introduction of the internal passport fall apart like a wet paper bag.
It's about protection of staff - in which case why has Johnson already said they won't be applicable for many venues?
It's because Covid is some unique emergency. Yes it's a nasty virus and can cause complications but now the vast majority of the vulnerable population have been vaccinated, you can apply the same argument to influenza and the flu vaccine.
It's sledgehammer to crack a nut stuff. And yes I'd much rather attend a venue that wasn't demanding to know whether I'd either been vaxxed, had Covid anti-bodies or taken a recent test.
As a society we seem to be totally unwilling to allow individuals to weigh up the risks for themselves as we emerge into a future where the virus will be a background issue but the protection of the health system has been achieved.
If its a public health policy, the very first place that should be included is the tube. There is nowhere else that comes close to its impact in spreading germs around not just London but as London is so inter connected also to the wider country.
That it is not included is clear evidence that it is not a public health policy, but at best theatre to encourage youngsters to take the vaccine in greater numbers, or more likely the start of a permanent ID card scheme.
This is (re: the tube) of course an excellent point. The Government's general approach for combatting the spread of Covid has been to ban all activities which are "non-essential" whilst mitigating the dangers of those which they have to treat as essential. Public transport of course being in the latter group. The basic mitigation (other than masks and some measures to impose social distancing by fencing off seats) being to reduce usage to essential workers (everyone else being required to work from home).
But once the working from home guidance, and limits on non-essential activities are lifted then they have to accept that public transports and the tube in particular will start to become very busy again. Yes they'll still probably have masks to hold the line, but really, what's the point in protecting people in nightclubs and other crowded venues, if the protections on the tube are so flimsy?
The tube has about 100m passenger journeys per month in normal times. A decent proportion of those will be in more cramped and close conditions than any nightclub dancefloor let alone a bar, pub, theatre, sports stadia. It has poor ventilation.
That is before considering similarly crowded trains, trams and buses throughout the country.
If covid spreads again as we open up, it will be mostly from public transport, not hospitality venues.
Once again, that's missing the point a bit. Does it matter if a million people per day get COVID it only 100 of them turn up in hospital? The vaccines are primarily a tool to stop people needing hospital treatment and they are extremely effective at that.
Vaccine passports have got no utility that scenario.
I concur, we don't need vaccine passports (with probable exception of international travel) and need to get on with life as normal.
But the govt is saying vaccine passports are essential for public health. This is logically inconsistent with saying they are needed for hospitality but not public transport.
There is still a valid question of how much of the decline in death and hospitalisation is due to vaccines and how much to lockdown. We have been in lockdown since the start of January. Just as last year cases, deaths and admissions have crashed to the floor. While so many have not been vaccinated it’s fair to look at how to stay safe while opening up. Personally I think we are being over cautious, but you can understand why after the last year. I would stick to the current not before dates, but have no truck with vaccine passports/tests on entry. Either we are back to normal or not.
There’s no point in holding a party when no one wants to go. I am very confident that a large measure of our current decline in cases is through vaccination. But “very confident” isn’t good enough for a lot of people. As a liberal I hate, absolutely hate, the idea of vaccine passports or tests on entry (the latter I think is unworkable anyway) but the reverse complacency of “well we’ll all be vaccinated by July” is also utterly wrongheaded.
Vaccination means this virus will ultimately become one of the cornucopia of irritants to the human race but we are a year or two off that at best. Until then we want to reopen and we want people to become comfortable enough to spend their money and restart the economy ASAP. Sadly polling suggests that these measures may be the way to do that. People are scared. What’s the point in reopening cinemas, nightclubs, theatres if people are too nervous to go? Nationally we have lost the equivalent of the population of my whole local authority area, which is staggering.
We are not alone - Israel and that notoriously authoritarian state, Denmark, are also doing this and there is (as I’ve pointed out) an element of “nudge” thinking here. The mixed messaging on this over the last two days (when, who, how?) really does reinforce my view that the Govt believes the vaccines work and wants to persuade us all to get them. Polling suggests the most resistant cohort is the under 30s.
I hate the principle and will accept them for only as long as necessary but, for the reasons I set out, in the short term, they probably are necessary as a public confidence measure more than a public health measure.
You say "What’s the point in reopening cinemas, nightclubs, theatres if people are too nervous to go?" - if people remain fearful when new infections and hospitalisations are minimal what make you think their fear (which has been rendered irrational) will be assuaged by vaccination documentation?
Removing risk, if that is what we want to do, is to do with Covid testing to filter out those who have it and those that don't not vaccination passports.
Have any of these posters who argue that people are “too scared to go out” tried booking a good restaurant in London recently?
Good point. We can't get a pub booking round here.
Your daily/hourly reminder that popular and ethical/wise/evidence-based are not synonyms.
But this is getting utterly tiresome now mate. Do you really want us to live our lives by opinion polls?
I think too that the popularity of "vaxports" will not survive contact with reality. When children are banned from football matches, cinema or the theatre, as are pregnant and nursing mothers, popularity will rapidly drop.
Vaccines are clearly effective, and even seem to mitigate against the variants. We need to rely on that, not on the paper protection of a vaxport.
And yet, there doesn’t seem to be much public opposition to vaxports in Israel. Where they have been in use for some time. A few libertarian murmurs, but that’s it
‘As Israel celebrates the reopening of its economy spurred by the world-breaking speed of its vaccination drive, restaurant reservations are booming while bars and cafes are teeming. Additionally, a number of countries have said they will recognize Israeli vaccination certificates.
‘Eying the successful program, the EU has also proposed a European vaccine pass to ease travel, an idea pushed by tourist hotspots such as Greece that are desperate to save their crippled economies.’
On thread, I don't have a problem with any requirement to be vaccinated as a condition of being allowed to go on holiday abroad. We already have national identity cards for doing that - and they're already called passports. And it is very likely to increase the vaccination rate, targetting in particular the younger adult cohort where vaccination rates are poorest, and so reduce the risk of onward transmission by this group. A group more likely to be swayed by anti-vaxxer falsehoods and apparently motivated also by the very low risk to them regardless of what they might pass on to other people.
However, the idea of some form of identity check to regulate what used to be normal day to day life within this country's borders is a very different prospect. It's not obviously necessary and indeed alien to the British identity. So no to that and let's hope that the prospect of a potential parliamentary defeat heads it off.
Satisfied with a vaccine passport to travel abroad as long as everyone has been offered the vaccine. If not, then j am strongly opposed because that’s putting my life on hold longer for a bunch of old farts to jet off on holiday.
There is still a valid question of how much of the decline in death and hospitalisation is due to vaccines and how much to lockdown. We have been in lockdown since the start of January. Just as last year cases, deaths and admissions have crashed to the floor. While so many have not been vaccinated it’s fair to look at how to stay safe while opening up. Personally I think we are being over cautious, but you can understand why after the last year. I would stick to the current not before dates, but have no truck with vaccine passports/tests on entry. Either we are back to normal or not.
There’s no point in holding a party when no one wants to go. I am very confident that a large measure of our current decline in cases is through vaccination. But “very confident” isn’t good enough for a lot of people. As a liberal I hate, absolutely hate, the idea of vaccine passports or tests on entry (the latter I think is unworkable anyway) but the reverse complacency of “well we’ll all be vaccinated by July” is also utterly wrongheaded.
Vaccination means this virus will ultimately become one of the cornucopia of irritants to the human race but we are a year or two off that at best. Until then we want to reopen and we want people to become comfortable enough to spend their money and restart the economy ASAP. Sadly polling suggests that these measures may be the way to do that. People are scared. What’s the point in reopening cinemas, nightclubs, theatres if people are too nervous to go? Nationally we have lost the equivalent of the population of my whole local authority area, which is staggering.
We are not alone - Israel and that notoriously authoritarian state, Denmark, are also doing this and there is (as I’ve pointed out) an element of “nudge” thinking here. The mixed messaging on this over the last two days (when, who, how?) really does reinforce my view that the Govt believes the vaccines work and wants to persuade us all to get them. Polling suggests the most resistant cohort is the under 30s.
I hate the principle and will accept them for only as long as necessary but, for the reasons I set out, in the short term, they probably are necessary as a public confidence measure more than a public health measure.
You say "What’s the point in reopening cinemas, nightclubs, theatres if people are too nervous to go?" - if people remain fearful when new infections and hospitalisations are minimal what make you think their fear (which has been rendered irrational) will be assuaged by vaccination documentation?
Removing risk, if that is what we want to do, is to do with Covid testing to filter out those who have it and those that don't not vaccination passports.
Have any of these posters who argue that people are “too scared to go out” tried booking a good restaurant in London recently?
Indeed. If a few oldies or hypochondriacs are too afraid of their own shadows to step outdoors that's their problem, not ours. One of my friends has emailed our favourite late night spot and they're essentially just waiting for the review so they have a firm reopening date. The owner told her that they expect to be packed all summer.
There's this odd sort of belief that something is only safe because Boris has deemed it so. Its completely ridiculous.
One strange issue is that the combination of testing and the volumes being done now and proposed in the future, combined with border controls and "Covid certification" probably would have worked as a 'zero covid' alternative to vaccines.
But we have vaccines, not only do we have them but they're very, very effective ones.
So zero Covid restrictions are not only massively illiberal but they're not necessary either.
I can understand why a government would develop these ideas in parallel to others in case vaccines didn't work out. But they did.
Illiberal and unnecessary is not a good combination.
Why is it illiberal to make the condition of entry to a nightclub or a bar with minimal or no restrictions inside that you show that you have been vaccinated? Don't you want to go back to normal? How do we achieve this if there is an element in our country, roughly 10%, who refuse the vaccine freely offered? Is it not an intrusion on my liberty if i am unknowingly exposed to them in an inside environment?
Vaccination is not 100% protection. Its very good but its not that good. 200 vaccinated people in a club are very safe. But if 20 of them are not vaccinated the risks are proportionately much greater and not just for those 20.
Why stop at Covid? Why not make it a condition of entry into Wetherspoons that you can prove you don't have HIV, or didn't vote Remain, or have the required 27 union jacks on your profile?
Because getting HIV involves an exchange of bodily fluids that isn't likely to happen by accident. For Covid all people need to do is breath. Surely you can see that the risks are different?
To be clear I am not suggesting that they are mandatory because I do not believe vaccination should be mandatory. I do not believe that they should be used for any other purpose other than gaining access to places you can choose not to go. Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated.
Re: Last paragraph: "Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated".
The idea that vaccination prevents transmission has taken hold but do we have evidence for this belief? Personally, I'd be much more concerned about being in the vicinity of someone who is coughing whether or not they have a certificate to say they have been vaccinated.
I can see where this is going: Vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean.
Yes we do have evidence for it, lots of evidence for it, and yes vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean is a fair representation.
If you're eligible for a vaccine and choose not to take it then that's about as unclean as having a shit then not washing your hands afterwards.
I oppose government vaxports on civil liberties grounds, but lets not pretend that antivaxxers are anything other than selfish dirty shits.
To be clear, PT, I'm not defending the antivaxxers. (I wrote a header a while back taking the piss out of them.) Not everyone who can't have a vaccine are anti-vaxxers though.
What I find curious is the wish to be in an environment purely with others who have been vaccinated when the deaths and hospitalisations have plummeted when being vaccinated doesn't mean that one can't have and transmit Covid (I accept it reduces the risk).
Because vaccines don't work 100% and you can be severely hurt or die if you catch it. If the person next to you is vaccinated they're both much less likely to have the plague themselves, and much less likely to be spreading it even if they do.
If you've been vaccinated and everyone else has been too, then you can relax much more than if a quarter of the people near you have refused the vaccine and are potentially carrying the plague. Which is why a voluntary scheme could be popular without the need to add legal restrictions on those that refuse the scheme.
Not the silver bullet that was promised then?
Let me get this straight: a chunk of the population;
1) Will remain scared even when Covid is very largely squashed to the extent that it is one among many other risks in life 2) understand that though they are vaccinated they may be one of the unlucky ones who are not protected from Covid if they caught it and 3) will happily sit in an indoor environment with others only on condition that 100% of said others have a vaccination which will, (see 2)), not be effective for those others either.
And they would prefer this to LFTs before entry?
You want to pander to these folk?
Nothing is a silver bullet in isolation. Vaccines are as good a silver bullet as you can get, especially if everybody has taken them.
1) Polls say yes currently. 2) Yes, which is true. 3) Polls say yes currently.
How is it "pandering" to let the business decide? Businesses decide which customers to try to attract and appeal to all the time, its part and parcel of running a business. Businesses decide how to market themselves too. If a business wants to advertise itself as only having vaccinated people inside then that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
If a different business decides they want nothing to do with this and are happy to have anyone inside that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
Liberalism means not making other people's decisions for them. What is wrong with that?
There is still a valid question of how much of the decline in death and hospitalisation is due to vaccines and how much to lockdown. We have been in lockdown since the start of January. Just as last year cases, deaths and admissions have crashed to the floor. While so many have not been vaccinated it’s fair to look at how to stay safe while opening up. Personally I think we are being over cautious, but you can understand why after the last year. I would stick to the current not before dates, but have no truck with vaccine passports/tests on entry. Either we are back to normal or not.
There’s no point in holding a party when no one wants to go. I am very confident that a large measure of our current decline in cases is through vaccination. But “very confident” isn’t good enough for a lot of people. As a liberal I hate, absolutely hate, the idea of vaccine passports or tests on entry (the latter I think is unworkable anyway) but the reverse complacency of “well we’ll all be vaccinated by July” is also utterly wrongheaded.
Vaccination means this virus will ultimately become one of the cornucopia of irritants to the human race but we are a year or two off that at best. Until then we want to reopen and we want people to become comfortable enough to spend their money and restart the economy ASAP. Sadly polling suggests that these measures may be the way to do that. People are scared. What’s the point in reopening cinemas, nightclubs, theatres if people are too nervous to go? Nationally we have lost the equivalent of the population of my whole local authority area, which is staggering.
We are not alone - Israel and that notoriously authoritarian state, Denmark, are also doing this and there is (as I’ve pointed out) an element of “nudge” thinking here. The mixed messaging on this over the last two days (when, who, how?) really does reinforce my view that the Govt believes the vaccines work and wants to persuade us all to get them. Polling suggests the most resistant cohort is the under 30s.
I hate the principle and will accept them for only as long as necessary but, for the reasons I set out, in the short term, they probably are necessary as a public confidence measure more than a public health measure.
You say "What’s the point in reopening cinemas, nightclubs, theatres if people are too nervous to go?" - if people remain fearful when new infections and hospitalisations are minimal what make you think their fear (which has been rendered irrational) will be assuaged by vaccination documentation?
Removing risk, if that is what we want to do, is to do with Covid testing to filter out those who have it and those that don't not vaccination passports.
Have any of these posters who argue that people are “too scared to go out” tried booking a good restaurant in London recently?
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
What is wrong with you
Deflect as much as you like but the Liverpool venue owner actually included in the scheme supports it and indicates the tests to be taken before and after will be recorded in the app and in a positive test before the event the app will refund the ticket money.
Sensible debate is one thing but you do not seem to be able to be sensible, just obsessed over Brexit
I'm still intrigued by this story. I'm not totally 100% ruling it out, but i would be astonished if the Government has developed an app, and a secure and reliable app at that, that could do all this - and in such a way that could accommodate thousands of "events" up and down the country. And what will it do for businesses like ticketmaster?
Very much "one app to rule them all"!
I'd have thought the govt would definitely be in discussion with Ticketmaster right now
And what about the miriad of vendors of all those third party sales of tickets for wildly inflated prices, that seem to be the norm now rather than the exception? Maybe as a first step they will require them all to have a vaccine passport in order to put them into Wembley Stadium for a big group discussion on how the government is magically going to put them all out of business.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
I did suggest this might happen but MalcolmG called me a turnip or something.
Its a sensational piece of electioneering by handy Alex (who was NOT conspired against by the government as DavidL claims). The SNP are the progressive soft left of independence politics. Pro-Scotland but probably not a Scotland that many would like to see.
Happily if you are a regressive soft right voter who is also patriotic now you have a new choice for your independence - vote for an independent Scotland modelled on Hungary.
You are usually quite sensible Rochdale but that is just bollox
Which bit is bollox? That its a sensational piece of realpolitic by Salmond? That he wasn't the target of a government conspiracy to jail him? Or that there are people in Scotland with a vote who aren't as progressive as Sturgeon is?
The part where it was not Sturgeon , her close pals in SNP and civil service who tried to have him jailed for made up stories, all but the one consensual encounter being shown to be lies and the worst one the claimant was not even on the premises. That she was able along with civil service, police and Crown Office to get away with all this , so far at least is very alarming. Hopefully the forthcoming police enquiries and the civil court cases and missing funds investigations will be better handled.
I simply do not believe the core of this - that 9 women decided to pervert the course of justice and perjure themselves in court for some hope that a faction of a party they may or may not support may somehow win over additional support over someone who had already left the stage.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
lol. He’s Antifa. He admits it himself.
If he is Antifa - he will say he is Antifa. If he is undercover police in Antifa - he will still say he is Antifa.
Totally agree with the spirit of this article. But it is slightly less clear than it might be.
There are no plans to introduce an ID card AIUI.
A cop can stop my car (without a reason) and demand to see my licence. If it's not on me, I have 7 days to produce it. Otherwise it's an offence. Is Cyclefree saying that law is wrong.
Suppose there are vaccine 'passports'. Like driving licenses these will not be compulsory, but like driving licenses may be needed to do certain things. Driving licence for cars. Passports, again not compulsory, for foreign travel.
As a centrist liberal libertarian I completely agree with Cyclefree's general tone; but I am not sure exactly what is being asked for here.
NB Goddard was not a particularly satisfactory person in a number of ways.
I want no ID cards or vax passports. Private businesses can do whatever they like. But the state butts out.
We will never have zero Covid. So we will have to live with it.
I want the excellent vaccination programme to continue and all adults offered a vaccination so that we get herd immunity (and eventually children vaccinated if this is safe) and a booster vaccination if this is medically advised.
One strange issue is that the combination of testing and the volumes being done now and proposed in the future, combined with border controls and "Covid certification" probably would have worked as a 'zero covid' alternative to vaccines.
But we have vaccines, not only do we have them but they're very, very effective ones.
So zero Covid restrictions are not only massively illiberal but they're not necessary either.
I can understand why a government would develop these ideas in parallel to others in case vaccines didn't work out. But they did.
Illiberal and unnecessary is not a good combination.
Why is it illiberal to make the condition of entry to a nightclub or a bar with minimal or no restrictions inside that you show that you have been vaccinated? Don't you want to go back to normal? How do we achieve this if there is an element in our country, roughly 10%, who refuse the vaccine freely offered? Is it not an intrusion on my liberty if i am unknowingly exposed to them in an inside environment?
Vaccination is not 100% protection. Its very good but its not that good. 200 vaccinated people in a club are very safe. But if 20 of them are not vaccinated the risks are proportionately much greater and not just for those 20.
Why stop at Covid? Why not make it a condition of entry into Wetherspoons that you can prove you don't have HIV, or didn't vote Remain, or have the required 27 union jacks on your profile?
Because getting HIV involves an exchange of bodily fluids that isn't likely to happen by accident. For Covid all people need to do is breath. Surely you can see that the risks are different?
To be clear I am not suggesting that they are mandatory because I do not believe vaccination should be mandatory. I do not believe that they should be used for any other purpose other than gaining access to places you can choose not to go. Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated.
Re: Last paragraph: "Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated".
The idea that vaccination prevents transmission has taken hold but do we have evidence for this belief? Personally, I'd be much more concerned about being in the vicinity of someone who is coughing whether or not they have a certificate to say they have been vaccinated.
I can see where this is going: Vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean.
Yes we do have evidence for it, lots of evidence for it, and yes vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean is a fair representation.
If you're eligible for a vaccine and choose not to take it then that's about as unclean as having a shit then not washing your hands afterwards.
I oppose government vaxports on civil liberties grounds, but lets not pretend that antivaxxers are anything other than selfish dirty shits.
To be clear, PT, I'm not defending the antivaxxers. (I wrote a header a while back taking the piss out of them.) Not everyone who can't have a vaccine are anti-vaxxers though.
What I find curious is the wish to be in an environment purely with others who have been vaccinated when the deaths and hospitalisations have plummeted when being vaccinated doesn't mean that one can't have and transmit Covid (I accept it reduces the risk).
Because vaccines don't work 100% and you can be severely hurt or die if you catch it. If the person next to you is vaccinated they're both much less likely to have the plague themselves, and much less likely to be spreading it even if they do.
If you've been vaccinated and everyone else has been too, then you can relax much more than if a quarter of the people near you have refused the vaccine and are potentially carrying the plague. Which is why a voluntary scheme could be popular without the need to add legal restrictions on those that refuse the scheme.
Not the silver bullet that was promised then?
Let me get this straight: a chunk of the population;
1) Will remain scared even when Covid is very largely squashed to the extent that it is one among many other risks in life 2) understand that though they are vaccinated they may be one of the unlucky ones who are not protected from Covid if they caught it and 3) will happily sit in an indoor environment with others only on condition that 100% of said others have a vaccination which will, (see 2)), not be effective for those others either.
And they would prefer this to LFTs before entry?
You want to pander to these folk?
Nothing is a silver bullet in isolation. Vaccines are as good a silver bullet as you can get, especially if everybody has taken them.
1) Polls say yes currently. 2) Yes, which is true. 3) Polls say yes currently.
How is it "pandering" to let the business decide? Businesses decide which customers to try to attract and appeal to all the time, its part and parcel of running a business. Businesses decide how to market themselves too. If a business wants to advertise itself as only having vaccinated people inside then that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
If a different business decides they want nothing to do with this and are happy to have anyone inside that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
Liberalism means not making other people's decisions for them. What is wrong with that?
There is a big difference between allowing an individual business to decide to ask for evidence that its customers have been vaccinated and the apparatus of the state producing a complex and expensive solution.
Curious that Ms Cyclefree thinks that having a venue entirely closed increases our liberty.
"Restrictions end 21 June" don't they? 🤔
Who would be closed and why?
As I patiently explained on the previous thread, vaccine passports are potentially beneficial in the scenario where vaccines are effective but not totally so, and take-up is high but not near-complete. In that scenario it might not be safe to allow all restrictions to be ended, and vaccine passports might allow venues to be open. Of course we can't currently know if we'll be in that scenario.
This really isn't hard to understand, so it's clear that those refusing to understand it do so because they don't want to.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
He's a well known far left "Antifa" extremist activist with "journalist" credentials.
So how was he protected by the police? A "journalist" filming a protest is nothing surprising, nor being behind police lines if you have "journalist" credentials.
He is in this video being protected by the police:
Why are you surprised at the thought of him being an under cover policeman? There is a long history of police intelligence officers infiltrating demonstrations, both left and right, both violent and peaceful. Indeed just read the history of Mark Stone.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
lol. He’s Antifa. He admits it himself.
If he is Antifa - he will say he is Antifa. If he is undercover police in Antifa - he will still say he is Antifa.
It tells us nothing, either way.
He's an American with a decade long track record including jail time for committing offences on behalf of Antifa.
If he's undercover then he's been deep state undercover for a decade now and has bizarrely been transferred from America.
I wouldn't be surprised if the attraction to at least some in Government is all the "spin-off" benefits which would happen as a result, and without any direct expansion of the scope of the app (ie. currently unenforceable crimes suddenly being made impossible). A few mentioned on this thread.
eg. for starters, impossibility of U18s getting access to pubs to buy alcohol and difficulty of ticket touting
It wouldn't take too long to come up with another dozen i imagine.
Totally agree with the spirit of this article. But it is slightly less clear than it might be.
There are no plans to introduce an ID card AIUI.
A cop can stop my car (without a reason) and demand to see my licence. If it's not on me, I have 7 days to produce it. Otherwise it's an offence. Is Cyclefree saying that law is wrong.
Suppose there are vaccine 'passports'. Like driving licenses these will not be compulsory, but like driving licenses may be needed to do certain things. Driving licence for cars. Passports, again not compulsory, for foreign travel.
As a centrist liberal libertarian I completely agree with Cyclefree's general tone; but I am not sure exactly what is being asked for here.
NB Goddard was not a particularly satisfactory person in a number of ways.
I want no ID cards or vax passports. Private businesses can do whatever they like. But the state butts out.
We will never have zero Covid. So we will have to live with it.
I want the excellent vaccination programme to continue and all adults offered a vaccination so that we get herd immunity (and eventually children vaccinated if this is safe) and a booster vaccination if this is medically advised.
What she said. (Will be one for international travel though.)
One strange issue is that the combination of testing and the volumes being done now and proposed in the future, combined with border controls and "Covid certification" probably would have worked as a 'zero covid' alternative to vaccines.
But we have vaccines, not only do we have them but they're very, very effective ones.
So zero Covid restrictions are not only massively illiberal but they're not necessary either.
I can understand why a government would develop these ideas in parallel to others in case vaccines didn't work out. But they did.
Illiberal and unnecessary is not a good combination.
Why is it illiberal to make the condition of entry to a nightclub or a bar with minimal or no restrictions inside that you show that you have been vaccinated? Don't you want to go back to normal? How do we achieve this if there is an element in our country, roughly 10%, who refuse the vaccine freely offered? Is it not an intrusion on my liberty if i am unknowingly exposed to them in an inside environment?
Vaccination is not 100% protection. Its very good but its not that good. 200 vaccinated people in a club are very safe. But if 20 of them are not vaccinated the risks are proportionately much greater and not just for those 20.
Why stop at Covid? Why not make it a condition of entry into Wetherspoons that you can prove you don't have HIV, or didn't vote Remain, or have the required 27 union jacks on your profile?
Because getting HIV involves an exchange of bodily fluids that isn't likely to happen by accident. For Covid all people need to do is breath. Surely you can see that the risks are different?
To be clear I am not suggesting that they are mandatory because I do not believe vaccination should be mandatory. I do not believe that they should be used for any other purpose other than gaining access to places you can choose not to go. Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated.
Re: Last paragraph: "Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated".
The idea that vaccination prevents transmission has taken hold but do we have evidence for this belief? Personally, I'd be much more concerned about being in the vicinity of someone who is coughing whether or not they have a certificate to say they have been vaccinated.
I can see where this is going: Vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean.
Yes we do have evidence for it, lots of evidence for it, and yes vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean is a fair representation.
If you're eligible for a vaccine and choose not to take it then that's about as unclean as having a shit then not washing your hands afterwards.
I oppose government vaxports on civil liberties grounds, but lets not pretend that antivaxxers are anything other than selfish dirty shits.
To be clear, PT, I'm not defending the antivaxxers. (I wrote a header a while back taking the piss out of them.) Not everyone who can't have a vaccine are anti-vaxxers though.
What I find curious is the wish to be in an environment purely with others who have been vaccinated when the deaths and hospitalisations have plummeted when being vaccinated doesn't mean that one can't have and transmit Covid (I accept it reduces the risk).
Because vaccines don't work 100% and you can be severely hurt or die if you catch it. If the person next to you is vaccinated they're both much less likely to have the plague themselves, and much less likely to be spreading it even if they do.
If you've been vaccinated and everyone else has been too, then you can relax much more than if a quarter of the people near you have refused the vaccine and are potentially carrying the plague. Which is why a voluntary scheme could be popular without the need to add legal restrictions on those that refuse the scheme.
Not the silver bullet that was promised then?
Let me get this straight: a chunk of the population;
1) Will remain scared even when Covid is very largely squashed to the extent that it is one among many other risks in life 2) understand that though they are vaccinated they may be one of the unlucky ones who are not protected from Covid if they caught it and 3) will happily sit in an indoor environment with others only on condition that 100% of said others have a vaccination which will, (see 2)), not be effective for those others either.
And they would prefer this to LFTs before entry?
You want to pander to these folk?
Nothing is a silver bullet in isolation. Vaccines are as good a silver bullet as you can get, especially if everybody has taken them.
1) Polls say yes currently. 2) Yes, which is true. 3) Polls say yes currently.
How is it "pandering" to let the business decide? Businesses decide which customers to try to attract and appeal to all the time, its part and parcel of running a business. Businesses decide how to market themselves too. If a business wants to advertise itself as only having vaccinated people inside then that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
If a different business decides they want nothing to do with this and are happy to have anyone inside that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
Liberalism means not making other people's decisions for them. What is wrong with that?
I suspect somebody might try to construct a legal discrimination case based on a linkage between principled unvaccinated populations and race. Although probably could only get anywhere if the "option" of testing is not available.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
He's a well known far left "Antifa" extremist activist with "journalist" credentials.
So how was he protected by the police? A "journalist" filming a protest is nothing surprising, nor being behind police lines if you have "journalist" credentials.
He is in this video being protected by the police:
Why are you surprised at the thought of him being an under cover policeman? There is a long history of police intelligence officers infiltrating demonstrations, both left and right, both violent and peaceful. Indeed just read the history of Mark Stone.
He's not being protected by the police, he's standing near them. There's a big difference.
Yes police do inflitrate demonstrations, but that doesn't mean that people with a decade of organising extremism and going to jail for doing so are doing that. Quite frankly to believe that just from a second of him standing near the police is a ridiculous conspiracy theory - indeed if he was undercover you'd think he'd do a better job of not doing that, whereas a "hacktivist" extremist with credentials could.
This quote really struck me as a student of history, (as I think Boris is). A certain leader of the German Reich used to conduct his goverment in this way, playing his ministers off against each other, and letting the strongest have their way in a form of Darwinism.
One strange issue is that the combination of testing and the volumes being done now and proposed in the future, combined with border controls and "Covid certification" probably would have worked as a 'zero covid' alternative to vaccines.
But we have vaccines, not only do we have them but they're very, very effective ones.
So zero Covid restrictions are not only massively illiberal but they're not necessary either.
I can understand why a government would develop these ideas in parallel to others in case vaccines didn't work out. But they did.
Illiberal and unnecessary is not a good combination.
Why is it illiberal to make the condition of entry to a nightclub or a bar with minimal or no restrictions inside that you show that you have been vaccinated? Don't you want to go back to normal? How do we achieve this if there is an element in our country, roughly 10%, who refuse the vaccine freely offered? Is it not an intrusion on my liberty if i am unknowingly exposed to them in an inside environment?
Vaccination is not 100% protection. Its very good but its not that good. 200 vaccinated people in a club are very safe. But if 20 of them are not vaccinated the risks are proportionately much greater and not just for those 20.
Why stop at Covid? Why not make it a condition of entry into Wetherspoons that you can prove you don't have HIV, or didn't vote Remain, or have the required 27 union jacks on your profile?
Because getting HIV involves an exchange of bodily fluids that isn't likely to happen by accident. For Covid all people need to do is breath. Surely you can see that the risks are different?
To be clear I am not suggesting that they are mandatory because I do not believe vaccination should be mandatory. I do not believe that they should be used for any other purpose other than gaining access to places you can choose not to go. Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated.
Re: Last paragraph: "Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated".
The idea that vaccination prevents transmission has taken hold but do we have evidence for this belief? Personally, I'd be much more concerned about being in the vicinity of someone who is coughing whether or not they have a certificate to say they have been vaccinated.
I can see where this is going: Vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean.
Yes we do have evidence for it, lots of evidence for it, and yes vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean is a fair representation.
If you're eligible for a vaccine and choose not to take it then that's about as unclean as having a shit then not washing your hands afterwards.
I oppose government vaxports on civil liberties grounds, but lets not pretend that antivaxxers are anything other than selfish dirty shits.
To be clear, PT, I'm not defending the antivaxxers. (I wrote a header a while back taking the piss out of them.) Not everyone who can't have a vaccine are anti-vaxxers though.
What I find curious is the wish to be in an environment purely with others who have been vaccinated when the deaths and hospitalisations have plummeted when being vaccinated doesn't mean that one can't have and transmit Covid (I accept it reduces the risk).
Because vaccines don't work 100% and you can be severely hurt or die if you catch it. If the person next to you is vaccinated they're both much less likely to have the plague themselves, and much less likely to be spreading it even if they do.
If you've been vaccinated and everyone else has been too, then you can relax much more than if a quarter of the people near you have refused the vaccine and are potentially carrying the plague. Which is why a voluntary scheme could be popular without the need to add legal restrictions on those that refuse the scheme.
Not the silver bullet that was promised then?
Let me get this straight: a chunk of the population;
1) Will remain scared even when Covid is very largely squashed to the extent that it is one among many other risks in life 2) understand that though they are vaccinated they may be one of the unlucky ones who are not protected from Covid if they caught it and 3) will happily sit in an indoor environment with others only on condition that 100% of said others have a vaccination which will, (see 2)), not be effective for those others either.
And they would prefer this to LFTs before entry?
You want to pander to these folk?
Nothing is a silver bullet in isolation. Vaccines are as good a silver bullet as you can get, especially if everybody has taken them.
1) Polls say yes currently. 2) Yes, which is true. 3) Polls say yes currently.
How is it "pandering" to let the business decide? Businesses decide which customers to try to attract and appeal to all the time, its part and parcel of running a business. Businesses decide how to market themselves too. If a business wants to advertise itself as only having vaccinated people inside then that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
If a different business decides they want nothing to do with this and are happy to have anyone inside that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
Liberalism means not making other people's decisions for them. What is wrong with that?
Quite. This is the reasonable free market position. Let people and companies choose for themselves. I can see that in certain sectors - big West End musicals with lots of singing and clapping, and vulnerable older customers, ie major potential vectors - vaxports could be economic life-savers. So let these businesses survive, via vaxports, if they wish
I doubt many pubs, shops or restaurants will bother
These arguments for the introduction of the internal passport fall apart like a wet paper bag.
It's about protection of staff - in which case why has Johnson already said they won't be applicable for many venues?
It's because Covid is some unique emergency. Yes it's a nasty virus and can cause complications but now the vast majority of the vulnerable population have been vaccinated, you can apply the same argument to influenza and the flu vaccine.
It's sledgehammer to crack a nut stuff. And yes I'd much rather attend a venue that wasn't demanding to know whether I'd either been vaxxed, had Covid anti-bodies or taken a recent test.
As a society we seem to be totally unwilling to allow individuals to weigh up the risks for themselves as we emerge into a future where the virus will be a background issue but the protection of the health system has been achieved.
If its a public health policy, the very first place that should be included is the tube. There is nowhere else that comes close to its impact in spreading germs around not just London but as London is so inter connected also to the wider country.
That it is not included is clear evidence that it is not a public health policy, but at best theatre to encourage youngsters to take the vaccine in greater numbers, or more likely the start of a permanent ID card scheme.
This is (re: the tube) of course an excellent point. The Government's general approach for combatting the spread of Covid has been to ban all activities which are "non-essential" whilst mitigating the dangers of those which they have to treat as essential. Public transport of course being in the latter group. The basic mitigation (other than masks and some measures to impose social distancing by fencing off seats) being to reduce usage to essential workers (everyone else being required to work from home).
But once the working from home guidance, and limits on non-essential activities are lifted then they have to accept that public transports and the tube in particular will start to become very busy again. Yes they'll still probably have masks to hold the line, but really, what's the point in protecting people in nightclubs and other crowded venues, if the protections on the tube are so flimsy?
The tube has about 100m passenger journeys per month in normal times. A decent proportion of those will be in more cramped and close conditions than any nightclub dancefloor let alone a bar, pub, theatre, sports stadia. It has poor ventilation.
That is before considering similarly crowded trains, trams and buses throughout the country.
If covid spreads again as we open up, it will be mostly from public transport, not hospitality venues.
Once again, that's missing the point a bit. Does it matter if a million people per day get COVID it only 100 of them turn up in hospital? The vaccines are primarily a tool to stop people needing hospital treatment and they are extremely effective at that.
Vaccine passports have got no utility that scenario.
Until WHO changed the definition of herd immunity, medics. recognised T cell immunity which is how a large population could mostly defeat a relatively new virus (SARS CoV 2 is ~80% similar to SARS 1 and of course some common colds are coronaviruses).
T cells are part of the reason why in a two week period only ~20% of passengers on the Diamond Princess became infected (NB in a longer period, it's thought that more would catch it but certainly not 100%).
The DP was an interesting trial because it was unintended and wouldn't normally be carried out due to 'ethics'. 0.37% died out of a ship population with an average age of ~60. There are proven treatments tested since then inclo Ivermectin, HCQ, vitamin D particularly.
Ioannidis recently published a paper estimating the IFR at 0.15%, or 0.05% if aged under 70.
Compulsory vaccination for an IFR of 0.15, let alone 0.05%? Go **** yourself, Gove and Johnson.
What an interesting and invigorating discussion this morning. Really brings out the differences between conservative and liberal ideologies I think. With added spice from the libertarians who seem happy to be governed by opinion polls.
One strange issue is that the combination of testing and the volumes being done now and proposed in the future, combined with border controls and "Covid certification" probably would have worked as a 'zero covid' alternative to vaccines.
But we have vaccines, not only do we have them but they're very, very effective ones.
So zero Covid restrictions are not only massively illiberal but they're not necessary either.
I can understand why a government would develop these ideas in parallel to others in case vaccines didn't work out. But they did.
Illiberal and unnecessary is not a good combination.
Why is it illiberal to make the condition of entry to a nightclub or a bar with minimal or no restrictions inside that you show that you have been vaccinated? Don't you want to go back to normal? How do we achieve this if there is an element in our country, roughly 10%, who refuse the vaccine freely offered? Is it not an intrusion on my liberty if i am unknowingly exposed to them in an inside environment?
Vaccination is not 100% protection. Its very good but its not that good. 200 vaccinated people in a club are very safe. But if 20 of them are not vaccinated the risks are proportionately much greater and not just for those 20.
Why stop at Covid? Why not make it a condition of entry into Wetherspoons that you can prove you don't have HIV, or didn't vote Remain, or have the required 27 union jacks on your profile?
Because getting HIV involves an exchange of bodily fluids that isn't likely to happen by accident. For Covid all people need to do is breath. Surely you can see that the risks are different?
To be clear I am not suggesting that they are mandatory because I do not believe vaccination should be mandatory. I do not believe that they should be used for any other purpose other than gaining access to places you can choose not to go. Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated.
Re: Last paragraph: "Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated".
The idea that vaccination prevents transmission has taken hold but do we have evidence for this belief? Personally, I'd be much more concerned about being in the vicinity of someone who is coughing whether or not they have a certificate to say they have been vaccinated.
I can see where this is going: Vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean.
Yes we do have evidence for it, lots of evidence for it, and yes vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean is a fair representation.
If you're eligible for a vaccine and choose not to take it then that's about as unclean as having a shit then not washing your hands afterwards.
I oppose government vaxports on civil liberties grounds, but lets not pretend that antivaxxers are anything other than selfish dirty shits.
To be clear, PT, I'm not defending the antivaxxers. (I wrote a header a while back taking the piss out of them.) Not everyone who can't have a vaccine are anti-vaxxers though.
What I find curious is the wish to be in an environment purely with others who have been vaccinated when the deaths and hospitalisations have plummeted when being vaccinated doesn't mean that one can't have and transmit Covid (I accept it reduces the risk).
Because vaccines don't work 100% and you can be severely hurt or die if you catch it. If the person next to you is vaccinated they're both much less likely to have the plague themselves, and much less likely to be spreading it even if they do.
If you've been vaccinated and everyone else has been too, then you can relax much more than if a quarter of the people near you have refused the vaccine and are potentially carrying the plague. Which is why a voluntary scheme could be popular without the need to add legal restrictions on those that refuse the scheme.
Not the silver bullet that was promised then?
Let me get this straight: a chunk of the population;
1) Will remain scared even when Covid is very largely squashed to the extent that it is one among many other risks in life 2) understand that though they are vaccinated they may be one of the unlucky ones who are not protected from Covid if they caught it and 3) will happily sit in an indoor environment with others only on condition that 100% of said others have a vaccination which will, (see 2)), not be effective for those others either.
And they would prefer this to LFTs before entry?
You want to pander to these folk?
Nothing is a silver bullet in isolation. Vaccines are as good a silver bullet as you can get, especially if everybody has taken them.
1) Polls say yes currently. 2) Yes, which is true. 3) Polls say yes currently.
How is it "pandering" to let the business decide? Businesses decide which customers to try to attract and appeal to all the time, its part and parcel of running a business. Businesses decide how to market themselves too. If a business wants to advertise itself as only having vaccinated people inside then that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
If a different business decides they want nothing to do with this and are happy to have anyone inside that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
Liberalism means not making other people's decisions for them. What is wrong with that?
I suspect somebody might try to construct a legal discrimination case based on a linkage between principled unvaccinated populations and race.
If someone did I would oppose that 100%.
A business should be free to make its own free choices. People should be free to make their own free choices.
If a person's choice means they're not meeting the businesses choices then so be it. They've both made their own decisions privately. It isn't on the state to make our decisions for us.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
What is wrong with you
Deflect as much as you like but the Liverpool venue owner actually included in the scheme supports it and indicates the tests to be taken before and after will be recorded in the app and in a positive test before the event the app will refund the ticket money.
Sensible debate is one thing but you do not seem to be able to be sensible, just obsessed over Brexit
I'm still intrigued by this story. I'm not totally 100% ruling it out, but i would be astonished if the Government has developed an app, and a secure and reliable app at that, that could do all this - and in such a way that could accommodate thousands of "events" up and down the country. And what will it do for businesses like ticketmaster?
Very much "one app to rule them all"!
I was very surprised that the app is, according to this participant, at the level of refunding tickets on a positive test and await further confirmation or otherwise
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
lol. He’s Antifa. He admits it himself.
If he is Antifa - he will say he is Antifa. If he is undercover police in Antifa - he will still say he is Antifa.
It tells us nothing, either way.
He's an American with a decade long track record including jail time for committing offences on behalf of Antifa.
If he's undercover then he's been deep state undercover for a decade now and has bizarrely been transferred from America.
That is an argument that has some weight suggesting he is Antifa and not undercover. My point was limited to whether he himself says he is Antifa tells us absolutely zero about is he undercover or not.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
He's a well known far left "Antifa" extremist activist with "journalist" credentials.
So how was he protected by the police? A "journalist" filming a protest is nothing surprising, nor being behind police lines if you have "journalist" credentials.
He is in this video being protected by the police:
Why are you surprised at the thought of him being an under cover policeman? There is a long history of police intelligence officers infiltrating demonstrations, both left and right, both violent and peaceful. Indeed just read the history of Mark Stone.
But, among other insidious effects, the knowledge that undercover cops *do exist*, and are fielded into civil society, makes people suspicious and start to doubt what they’re told.
It helps enable fake news and conspiracy theories.
What an interesting and invigorating discussion this morning. Really brings out the differences between conservative and liberal ideologies I think. With added spice from the libertarians who seem happy to be governed by opinion polls.
Off to dig the garden now.
I don't want to be governed by opinion polls.
I want companies to be free to liberally choose based on what is popular with their customers.
That's their free choice. If its redundant, expensive, inconvenient or unpopular then companies won't choose to do it.
I know there was a discussion a few days ago about the chances of snow at Easter v Christmas: what about Easter Monday? It has just started snowing here is the far north of the Chilterns.
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
One strange issue is that the combination of testing and the volumes being done now and proposed in the future, combined with border controls and "Covid certification" probably would have worked as a 'zero covid' alternative to vaccines.
But we have vaccines, not only do we have them but they're very, very effective ones.
So zero Covid restrictions are not only massively illiberal but they're not necessary either.
I can understand why a government would develop these ideas in parallel to others in case vaccines didn't work out. But they did.
Illiberal and unnecessary is not a good combination.
Why is it illiberal to make the condition of entry to a nightclub or a bar with minimal or no restrictions inside that you show that you have been vaccinated? Don't you want to go back to normal? How do we achieve this if there is an element in our country, roughly 10%, who refuse the vaccine freely offered? Is it not an intrusion on my liberty if i am unknowingly exposed to them in an inside environment?
Vaccination is not 100% protection. Its very good but its not that good. 200 vaccinated people in a club are very safe. But if 20 of them are not vaccinated the risks are proportionately much greater and not just for those 20.
Why stop at Covid? Why not make it a condition of entry into Wetherspoons that you can prove you don't have HIV, or didn't vote Remain, or have the required 27 union jacks on your profile?
Because getting HIV involves an exchange of bodily fluids that isn't likely to happen by accident. For Covid all people need to do is breath. Surely you can see that the risks are different?
To be clear I am not suggesting that they are mandatory because I do not believe vaccination should be mandatory. I do not believe that they should be used for any other purpose other than gaining access to places you can choose not to go. Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated.
Re: Last paragraph: "Live without one if you wish. But don't inflict your breath on the rest of us inside if you haven't been vaccinated".
The idea that vaccination prevents transmission has taken hold but do we have evidence for this belief? Personally, I'd be much more concerned about being in the vicinity of someone who is coughing whether or not they have a certificate to say they have been vaccinated.
I can see where this is going: Vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean.
Yes we do have evidence for it, lots of evidence for it, and yes vaccinated = clean, unvaccinated = unclean is a fair representation.
If you're eligible for a vaccine and choose not to take it then that's about as unclean as having a shit then not washing your hands afterwards.
I oppose government vaxports on civil liberties grounds, but lets not pretend that antivaxxers are anything other than selfish dirty shits.
To be clear, PT, I'm not defending the antivaxxers. (I wrote a header a while back taking the piss out of them.) Not everyone who can't have a vaccine are anti-vaxxers though.
What I find curious is the wish to be in an environment purely with others who have been vaccinated when the deaths and hospitalisations have plummeted when being vaccinated doesn't mean that one can't have and transmit Covid (I accept it reduces the risk).
Because vaccines don't work 100% and you can be severely hurt or die if you catch it. If the person next to you is vaccinated they're both much less likely to have the plague themselves, and much less likely to be spreading it even if they do.
If you've been vaccinated and everyone else has been too, then you can relax much more than if a quarter of the people near you have refused the vaccine and are potentially carrying the plague. Which is why a voluntary scheme could be popular without the need to add legal restrictions on those that refuse the scheme.
Not the silver bullet that was promised then?
Let me get this straight: a chunk of the population;
1) Will remain scared even when Covid is very largely squashed to the extent that it is one among many other risks in life 2) understand that though they are vaccinated they may be one of the unlucky ones who are not protected from Covid if they caught it and 3) will happily sit in an indoor environment with others only on condition that 100% of said others have a vaccination which will, (see 2)), not be effective for those others either.
And they would prefer this to LFTs before entry?
You want to pander to these folk?
Nothing is a silver bullet in isolation. Vaccines are as good a silver bullet as you can get, especially if everybody has taken them.
1) Polls say yes currently. 2) Yes, which is true. 3) Polls say yes currently.
How is it "pandering" to let the business decide? Businesses decide which customers to try to attract and appeal to all the time, its part and parcel of running a business. Businesses decide how to market themselves too. If a business wants to advertise itself as only having vaccinated people inside then that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
If a different business decides they want nothing to do with this and are happy to have anyone inside that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
Liberalism means not making other people's decisions for them. What is wrong with that?
Quite right. The last line, anyway.
I must say I've seen absolutely nothing about needing bookings to go to pubs round here next week; indeed one is effectively saying '11am Monday 12th; come one, come all!' It's got quite a decent sized garden, though, and I gather they plan to spill out into their car park. Haven't seen any adverts for the other two, but talking to the landlord of one of them he's going to do the same; spill out onto his car park.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
He's a well known far left "Antifa" extremist activist with "journalist" credentials.
So how was he protected by the police? A "journalist" filming a protest is nothing surprising, nor being behind police lines if you have "journalist" credentials.
He is in this video being protected by the police:
Why are you surprised at the thought of him being an under cover policeman? There is a long history of police intelligence officers infiltrating demonstrations, both left and right, both violent and peaceful. Indeed just read the history of Mark Stone.
Head, desk. He’s literally identified himself as antifa, proved his long history of lefty activism, and comprehensively demolished the idea he’s an undercover cop. And no he’s not being protected by cops, he’s just filming within the melee
As discussed on the previous thread, I think this is all nudge.
There is only a very narrow band, in my view, when it is safe to open, say, restaurants or pubs, on a passport basis but not fully. This comes down to enforceability, compliance, and effectiveness of the vaccine.
Therefore I think the Government is doing the right thing in driving home the full vaccination programme by trying to convince stragglers that their pint rests on it.
The band is a little wider for concerts (particular indoor concerts), theatres and cinemas, and I could envisage passporting in those scenarios partly out of efficacy, but also to make good on the nudge.
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
Vaccines will end the pandemic. I 100% agree with you. I just wish there was some more measured discussion surrounding variants.
On a more serious note, while both my tips failed, they were both credible, which is a nice thing very early in the season. Better than being a million miles away.
Comments
I’m presuming, given that the story seems to have died, that he was indeed just a random loon.
Of course, since the police do indeed operate under cover in civil society, and now even have carte blanche to commit crimes while doing so, perhaps we’ll never know.
There will be some companies that, without coercion, would want to take part. Because they will find it popular with their customers to make them feel safe. That is fair enough.
There will be others that don't. That too is fair enough.
Let the company choose. Let the consumer choose. No coercion.
No thanks. The necessity is not proven, and potential abuse not worth the potential costs.
Sometimes better safe then sorry when it comes to threats to liberty.
I would have thought getting a couple of comments on ConHome would be beyond them.
So (probably) not a police agent provacateur, but a provacateur nonetheless.
But I deeply suspect that once it is clear no one much is bothering and the sinister vaxport app is nearer going live then these tests will become more compulsory. They have form - see the schools situation. Maybe all government employees will be next. All transport workers that kind of thing.
I am increasingly of the opinion that the months in the bunker dealing with the crisis have sent Johnson and Hancock utterly off their heads and they are no longer making proportionate and reasonable decisions.
If you've been vaccinated and everyone else has been too, then you can relax much more than if a quarter of the people near you have refused the vaccine and are potentially carrying the plague. Which is why a voluntary scheme could be popular without the need to add legal restrictions on those that refuse the scheme.
A week later the government is constructing a massive infrastructure of testing and certification which is a million miles from how we live with flu.
So much for the science driving the government.
The NHS sends out automated letters for shielding, hospital appointment reminders and Lord alone knows what else all the time. Arranging for letters to go out to the vaccinated saying "we confirm that you have been vaccinated" ought to be easy and, compared to establishing sophisticated new systems, cost next to nothing. Job done.
Lib Dems winning here isn't going to work....
https://twitter.com/Kartelbrown/status/1378620504832151553?s=19
Can only be a matter of time now, the constant police enquiries will get her in the end.
Very much "one app to rule them all"!
His first remark to the policeman - "I am a Liberal, and I am against this sort of thing" - is still quoted in Liberal/Lib Dem circles.
.
I don't think companies should be banned from using them, but there should be no government guidelines to businesses in support of them.
Your daily/hourly reminder that popular and ethical/wise/evidence-based are not synonyms.
But this is getting utterly tiresome now mate. Do you really want us to live our lives by opinion polls?
But once the working from home guidance, and limits on non-essential activities are lifted then they have to accept that public transports and the tube in particular will start to become very busy again. Yes they'll still probably have masks to hold the line, but really, what's the point in protecting people in nightclubs and other crowded venues, if the protections on the tube are so flimsy?
It's just that leaves them with minimal capacity to do anything positive with the power once they have it.
We also usually divide on economics I suspect, but on this my left libertarian credentials are my north star.
There is also zero chance of the craven Starmer opposing this imposition. Note Reeves weasel words of "some reservations" this morning already giving space for the opposition to troop through the lobbies with the government.
His first remark to the policeman - "I am a Liberal, and I am against this sort of thing" - is still quoted in Liberal/Lib Dem circles.
PS. Apologies for the effective duplication. I have just seen that Mr Cicero has also taken up this point.
Vaccines are clearly effective, and even seem to mitigate against the variants. We need to rely on that, not on the paper protection of a vaxport.
That is before considering similarly crowded trains, trams and buses throughout the country.
If covid spreads again as we open up, it will be mostly from public transport, not hospitality venues.
Hopefully the forthcoming police enquiries and the civil court cases and missing funds investigations will be better handled.
Who would be closed and why?
Let me get this straight: a chunk of the population;
1) Will remain scared even when Covid is very largely squashed to the extent that it is one among many other risks in life
2) understand that though they are vaccinated they may be one of the unlucky ones who are not protected from Covid if they caught it and
3) will happily sit in an indoor environment with others only on condition that 100% of said others have a vaccination which will, (see 2)), not be effective for those others either.
And they would prefer this to LFTs before entry?
You want to pander to these folk?
Vaccine passports have got no utility that scenario.
However, the idea of some form of identity check to regulate what used to be normal day to day life within this country's borders is a very different prospect. It's not obviously necessary and indeed alien to the British identity. So no to that and let's hope that the prospect of a potential parliamentary defeat heads it off.
So how was he protected by the police? A "journalist" filming a protest is nothing surprising, nor being behind police lines if you have "journalist" credentials.
@Gardenwalker
"Big G” actually reports to an agit-prop regional co-ordinator in Droitwich.
Do not be so ridiculous
I report to only one person, my dear wife of near 60 years
I have held many offices in local organisations, charities and indeed at one time was the youngest captain of a golf club in Wales
I have not had the inclination to be involved with the organisation of the conservative party other than on a few occasions acted as chauffeur to the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and once for David Jones, at General Elections
But the govt is saying vaccine passports are essential for public health. This is logically inconsistent with saying they are needed for hospitality but not public transport.
‘As Israel celebrates the reopening of its economy spurred by the world-breaking speed of its vaccination drive, restaurant reservations are booming while bars and cafes are teeming. Additionally, a number of countries have said they will recognize Israeli vaccination certificates.
‘Eying the successful program, the EU has also proposed a European vaccine pass to ease travel, an idea pushed by tourist hotspots such as Greece that are desperate to save their crippled economies.’
https://www.timesofisrael.com/concerns-in-uk-over-potential-introduction-of-israel-style-vaccine-green-pass/
That will ensure compliance falls to the floor.
There's this odd sort of belief that something is only safe because Boris has deemed it so. Its completely ridiculous.
1) Polls say yes currently.
2) Yes, which is true.
3) Polls say yes currently.
How is it "pandering" to let the business decide? Businesses decide which customers to try to attract and appeal to all the time, its part and parcel of running a business. Businesses decide how to market themselves too. If a business wants to advertise itself as only having vaccinated people inside then that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
If a different business decides they want nothing to do with this and are happy to have anyone inside that should be their free choice. Their premise, their choice.
Liberalism means not making other people's decisions for them. What is wrong with that?
If he is undercover police in Antifa - he will still say he is Antifa.
It tells us nothing, either way.
We will never have zero Covid. So we will have to live with it.
I want the excellent vaccination programme to continue and all adults offered a vaccination so that we get herd immunity (and eventually children vaccinated if this is safe) and a booster vaccination if this is medically advised.
been vaccinated and the apparatus of the state producing a complex and expensive solution.
This really isn't hard to understand, so it's clear that those refusing to understand it do so because they don't want to.
https://twitter.com/GrodeckW/status/1378597667522162690?s=19
Why are you surprised at the thought of him being an under cover policeman? There is a long history of police intelligence officers infiltrating demonstrations, both left and right, both violent and peaceful. Indeed just read the history of Mark Stone.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/28/secrets-and-lies-untangling-the-uk-spy-cops-scandal
If he's undercover then he's been deep state undercover for a decade now and has bizarrely been transferred from America.
eg. for starters, impossibility of U18s getting access to pubs to buy alcohol and difficulty of ticket touting
It wouldn't take too long to come up with another dozen i imagine.
They haven’t a hope in hell of enforcing anything. They are useless
It is snowing in Havering
Yes police do inflitrate demonstrations, but that doesn't mean that people with a decade of organising extremism and going to jail for doing so are doing that. Quite frankly to believe that just from a second of him standing near the police is a ridiculous conspiracy theory - indeed if he was undercover you'd think he'd do a better job of not doing that, whereas a "hacktivist" extremist with credentials could.
I doubt many pubs, shops or restaurants will bother
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22036-z
T cells are part of the reason why in a two week period only ~20% of passengers on the Diamond Princess became infected (NB in a longer period, it's thought that more would catch it but certainly not 100%).
The DP was an interesting trial because it was unintended and wouldn't normally be carried out due to 'ethics'. 0.37% died out of a ship population with an average age of ~60. There are proven treatments tested since then inclo Ivermectin, HCQ, vitamin D particularly.
Ioannidis recently published a paper estimating the IFR at 0.15%, or 0.05% if aged under 70.
Compulsory vaccination for an IFR of 0.15, let alone 0.05%? Go **** yourself, Gove and Johnson.
Off to dig the garden now.
A business should be free to make its own free choices. People should be free to make their own free choices.
If a person's choice means they're not meeting the businesses choices then so be it. They've both made their own decisions privately. It isn't on the state to make our decisions for us.
But, among other insidious effects, the knowledge that undercover cops *do exist*, and are fielded into civil society, makes people suspicious and start to doubt what they’re told.
It helps enable fake news and conspiracy theories.
I want companies to be free to liberally choose based on what is popular with their customers.
That's their free choice. If its redundant, expensive, inconvenient or unpopular then companies won't choose to do it.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death.
2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it.
3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim.
4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated.
5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
I must say I've seen absolutely nothing about needing bookings to go to pubs round here next week; indeed one is effectively saying '11am Monday 12th; come one, come all!'
It's got quite a decent sized garden, though, and I gather they plan to spill out into their car park.
Haven't seen any adverts for the other two, but talking to the landlord of one of them he's going to do the same; spill out onto his car park.
It’s sometimes hard to believe you’re a doctor
You may not like the polling but I assume you do not want to censor its publication
There is only a very narrow band, in my view, when it is safe to open, say, restaurants or pubs, on a passport basis but not fully. This comes down to enforceability, compliance, and effectiveness of the vaccine.
Therefore I think the Government is doing the right thing in driving home the full vaccination programme by trying to convince stragglers that their pint rests on it.
The band is a little wider for concerts (particular indoor concerts), theatres and cinemas, and I could envisage passporting in those scenarios partly out of efficacy, but also to make good on the nudge.
https://twitter.com/LukeSmithF1/status/1378999648522792961
On a more serious note, while both my tips failed, they were both credible, which is a nice thing very early in the season. Better than being a million miles away.