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Vaccine passports – the first major political divide in the fight against COVID? – politicalbetting.
Vaccine passports – the first major political divide in the fight against COVID? – politicalbetting.com
After more than a year when there has been broad political support for the anti-COVID strategy it looks as though the idea of vaccine passports could become the first party political issue with both the LAB and LD leaders opposing.
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However, there is no reason why vaccine passports should include any other biometric than the vaccination status and there is widespread majority support for such a system amongst the public.
It's good that the LibDems are standing against this as I think it's in their ethos. I expect and hope the Lib Dems (the clue is in the word liberal) to make a principled stance like this.
But I fear that this is another example of Labour being out of touch with the kind of base they need to win power?
I suspect people would answer the question very differently, depending on exactly what was being proposed.
Good on the opposition parties for this one, it’s the sort of issue where there will be enough of a rebellion on the government side, to make winning votes for some of the more ludicrous schemes difficult.
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/03/cnnix-steership/
People in the UK must self-isolate for 10 days if they have Covid, with the period beginning from the onset of symptoms or, if there are no symptoms, from the day of a positive test result.
However, data from the Covid-19 rapid survey of adherence to interventions and responses (Corsair) study, conducted by researchers from institutions including King’s College London, Public Health England and University College London and published in the BMJ, suggests compliance is far from universal.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/pfizer-covid-vaccine-shows-100-efficacy-in-adolescents-12-15/
Jabbing secondary schoolkids in July and August?
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lockdown-loneliness-neuroscience
Without a ouija board, anyway....
As for the variants fear, that's what happens with flu and we have annual jabs for that.
It has been a nasty pandemic but vaccinations are the route out of it. Well done to the UK.
https://twitter.com/akmaciver/status/1377500979772416001?s=20
The amount of flapping about the prospect of 'vaccine passports' seems overdone to me.
Politicians need something to politic about, so they are going to find something....
A sign of a return to normal.
One jab I've never been offered is flu
And, as far as N Essex is concerned, what's happened to the sun this April morning.
https://twitter.com/pickledpuffin/status/1377505369765863425?s=19
Makes me wonder why they've been drawing their salaries for the last year, though. A rubber stamp could have done the job just as well as the Parliamentary Labour Party in the last year and we'd have saved 200 salaries.
[if] we get the virus properly under control, the death rates are near zero, hospital admissions very, very low, that the British instinct in those circumstances will be against vaccine passports.
Define “low”. Tricky by saying “near zero” isn’t helpful. That may come to pass, but we shouldn’t be worried so long as the NHS isn’t suffering and there isn’t the prospect of numbers exploding as they have before.
It has long been argued that a better measure of covid mortality is excess death against a mean, NOT those reported as dying within 28 days of a positive covid test. Why? Because with the latter measurement we simply don't know the extent of other pre-existing contributory causes.
That's all the more the case with this research.
Excess death against a mean is really the only objectively sound measurement.
Perhaps the 28 day cut-off is missing some deaths, but isn’t many.
This is quite a significant piece of work by University of Leicester and ONS. I think the same group is looking at less severe disease not requiring admission. 5% of inpatient survivors developing new diabetes within months has quite a lot of implications if similar in outpatients.
I think the headline is trying to imply it’s younger people who are damaged by Covid who then expire later. I’m not sure this is right.
In addition the 28 days cut off is perforce a compromise. If Derek draper passed today it would surely be from Covid, but not officially. Coroner might say different.
This "Covid Passport" seems to have got itself a PR firm....
I don't think this is an April fool joke but ..
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n693
This graphic shows the important findings:
The controls were from the general population, matched for age and co morbidity.
It was interesting the leverage that could be obtained from NHS big data in the study.
That looks like a scientific competitive advantage for the UK, and a lesson to learn where electronic records are not yet started.
https://twitter.com/JackTwigg4/status/1377267293961486336
Also some have argued that a significant percentage of deaths in care homes were people who often wouldn't have lived many months longer which would also have a bit of an effect if looking at excess deaths over a longer period.
Excess deaths is useful, but not necessarily more accurate than other ways of counting in places like the UK. But the main criterion for whether to focus exclusively on excess deaths or not for half of PB will be whether it improves the comparison of the UK with Germany or not.
Which is the way to keep customers.
Why is the discussion around limited UK citizen's freedoms rather than the measures we should demand from non-UK citizens visiting the UK? I find that very curious. We seem content to beat up our own (not new in this pandemic).
My neighbour emigrated to the Philippines a year or so ago. We are still in contact and he and his wife are currently pontificating about whether to visit the UK in May or June this year to visit family and for their Covid jabs (which they are still eligible for). In May and June it will remain illegal for us to leave the country.
We are in danger of allowing foreign nationals more freedoms that our own citizens enjoy and this is not the position for a UK government to be in.
We're currently announcing under 100 deaths a day due to some sort of mention of covid in a 28 day period. It's frankly pointless.
They should stop all daily death announcements given the dribbling number of them (thankfully) and publish monthly excess deaths instead.
It's time to cease this scaremongering.
Now they aren't.
Friend of mine's father died in a care home and counts as a covid death. My friend's comment? 'He was about to die soon anyway.'
The whole thing has become bloody silly.
My view is that we really do not have the capacity to dick about with this. If vaccine passports are required for mass attendance events or access to nightclubs the pressure on those who are currently resisting vaccination will increase. We want everyone vaccinated so this pernicious disease is eliminated from our society and so we can concentrate on dealing with the aftermath which is going to be very hard.
Edit: I’ve never heard of either the minister or him, mind!
Small, strategic acts.
But not confrontational to sound off to the press?
First off I think it's a good thing if the opposition parties oppose. It will be a welcome change for them.
Secondly the govt has presumably done the math to optimise people returning to be economic contributers. If they have determined that more people will get out and spend if there is a VP then that's what is motivating them I presume and hope.
But where does that leave the compulsion? This is where it's going to fall down. The market will or should dictate whether we have them but then they could presumably do that without govt input. Or would that be discriminatory?
Deaths are inexorably going down to zero now. Which do you think will do more to end scaremongering: deaths abruptly not being reported, or the national media reporting next to no deaths and the local media reporting there have been zero deaths locally?
Deaths are inexorably going down to zero now. Which do you think will do more to end scaremongering: deaths abruptly not being reported, or the national media reporting next to no deaths and the local media reporting there have been zero deaths locally?
Like it or not, international travel is going to be a total and utter pain in the arse for the next 12-18 months.
I want our society back to normal. I want a hair cut. To go to the pub with my pals. To go to restaurants and cafes. Even to visit the odd shop. I completely agree that we should be pushing forward with all of this. If vaccine passports facilitate that change back to normal, give more confidence, make opening up easier to insure, for example, then I am on. Let's get this done.
Especially if you add to the mix of that the promise of removing all legal restrictions on social distancing on June 21 and also the promise that no such passports would be offered domestically until all the adult population had been offered a jab.
More interesting perhaps is he is giving an exclusive interview to the Telegraph.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-new-opposition-an-interview-with-ed-davey?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK 20210403 AL+CID_5633028eefb29e917c09f85d5843a209
So far as opening up is concerned there are 2 different aspects. Firstly there is the criminal law. It will no longer apply. Secondly there is public confidence and the willingness of insurers to take on risk. For the latter vaccine passports clearly have a role.
I am not saying that they should be compulsory but I am saying that if people or businesses want to restrict their services to those who have them that is absolutely fair enough.
This editorial summarises the views of many of us, not only those who routinely expound on these issues.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/31/the-guardian-view-on-boris-johnsons-race-review-you-cannot-be-serious
It's simply a missed opportunity. It is clearly true that there are many causes of inequality, not only racism But it is laughable to dismiss it, since it alienates ordinary people who experience everyday hassle for being black - being routinely stopped to prove you own your car is a well-known example. It's one thing to put up with systematic unfairness without letting it dominate your life. It's something else for a Government-appointed body to tell you the problem doesn't exist.
If Starmer wants a good angle without upsetting his authoritarian ID card-loving supporters, then phone apps are massively exclusionary - especially to the bottom 10%, the elderly and the vulnerable.
If you have been vaccinated, you have say 70% protection against any COVID symptoms whatsoever and near enough 100% protection against severe disease. For all intents and purposes you are protected. In that circumstance, what benefit does a vaccine passport give you? Nothing. Any fears or anxieties are irrational.
Let's say you haven't been vaccinated by choice. A vaccine passport isn't going to protect you because (1) you don't want protecting and (2) you are probably happy to take risks in any case. That's personal choice.
Finally — people who can't get vaccinated for whatever reason. The hardest category. The problem is that there will always be people with compromised immune systems. I'm one of them. We cannot eliminate all risk and pubs and restaurants are always going to be dangerous for people with compromised immune systems. There's no rational reason why the whole population should be constrained for the benefit of a tiny amount of people. There will always be a risk, vaccine passport or no vaccine passport.
The fact is I fail to see any logical justification for vaccine passports.
With all due respect to those who support them, I truly believe it is a case of "that sounds good, let's have that" rather than having thought it through properly.
They did have a control group:
Results
Over a mean follow-up of 140 days, nearly a third of individuals who were discharged from hospital after acute covid-19 were readmitted (14 060 of 47 780) and more than 1 in 10 (5875) died after discharge, with these events occurring at rates four and eight times greater, respectively, than in the matched control group.
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n693
Hence the pretty good match between the 28 days numbers and the excess deaths numbers.
Halligan, Telegraph.