England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says • Hacker News Board

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#171

Post by bserge » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

new_guy wrote: post #122

mcny wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you're not able to refute their statement why would you dismiss it as a 'conspiracy theory'? In fact your classmate is correct, you also need to be 'alive' for your organs to be harvested, there's an entire ongoing field of debate in the medical community about the ethics of this, which a quick peruse of the literature will get you upto speed on.

Hmmm, how would they deal with a card that says both "Do Not Resuscitate" and "Organ Donor"?

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#172

Post by fy20 » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

isoskeles wrote: post #121

tonfa wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

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

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#173

Post by h_anna_h » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #125

thepasswordis wrote: post #94

The thing that people seem to be ignoring in all of this is that people like having power. The vaccines are helpful to the recipient, but unless you are successful at completely shutting down travel to the rest of the world: not really that helpful to the people who haven't taken them. In fact, there is an argument for how over-vaccinating will be harmful to the unvaccinated. If you're vaccinated, you can still get a…

It's completely and incontrovertibly bullshit that vaccines don't help unvaccinated people. Vaccines drastically reduce hospitalisation. That frees up medical resources for everyone, especially those who aren't vaccinated and those that need care. We are already seeing medical procedures get postponed and hospital staff being pushed at the breaking point. The help to your community of being vaccinated is simply huge.

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

Don't hospitalise unvaccinated people who have covid then, problem solved.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#174

Post by throwawayfear » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

Ditch the plans everywhere. No more mandates.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#175

Post by gruez » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

oakesm9 wrote: post #88

roenxi wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But those are largely proving your identity in a situation where you wish to identify yourself. Proving an unrelated fact about yourself solely because the government thinks so is a different thing.

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

>That's widely practiced and accepted without issue

There's two components to this.

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

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

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#176

Post by howinteresting » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #82

bryanlarsen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's wrong. The vaccine is moderately effective at preventing the spread of early variants. It's not very effective at preventing the spread of Delta from an infected person, but it's quite effective (but far from perfect) at preventing people from getting infected in the first place, thus overall significantly slowing spread . https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02187-1

Vaccine passport proponents routinely cite "slowing [the] spread" as a reason to impose vaccination requirements despite discoveries earlier this year showing that vaccinated individuals can still spread the disease. In light of these discoveries, vaccine passports and other coercive measures don't make any dense. Delta has an R value of 8. That makes it one of the most infectious diseases we know about. Future varia…

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

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#177

Post by throwawayfear » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

reillyse wrote: post #22

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

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

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#178

Post by kuraudo » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

dia80 wrote: post #150

quotemstr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pushing for more vaccines will change the situation in any way that makes you happy. Given that even highly-vaccinated localities like Iceland (74% vaccinated) keep seeing waves of COVID cases and that COVID waves peak and decline without countries achieving the 90% rate vaccine proponents suggest as the threshold for herd immunity, we have to begin seriously questioning the public health case for mandatory univers…

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

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

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#179

Post by anthomtb » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #123

paul_f wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

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

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#180

Post by gruez » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

skytreader wrote: post #86

throwaway316943 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Don't forget what makes COVID19 so insidious: without testing, it takes time before an infected contagious person shows symptoms. By the time they decide to stay off public spaces, they have already potentially spread the virus. With the common flu, you know almost instantly so you stay home to recover. Fat people know their condition and it's their choice to eat fast food anyway. And obesity is also non contagious.

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

but AFAIK even vaccinated people can spread the virus?