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England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

bbc.co.uk

431–440 of 460 posts

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#431
post #101

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

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

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

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true. I personally find it mad that the UK is the nation with the highest covid infection rate in western europe, with ~30k new cases/day. Long covid is a real, debilitating condition and if anything is going to affect the young -- who are least vaccinated -- the most, thus creating a long-term disease burden and morbidity cost on both those individuals and the country as a whole. Ignoring the human cost…

You have the right to be unhappy. However, looking at the latest data from the UK at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... , it is not clear whether pushing for more vaccines will change the situation in any way that makes you happy. For example, that report says that 97% of the blood donors has some kind of antibodies, either from vaccine or previous infection. This number is almost 100% fo…

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

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#433
post #20

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

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

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

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida ICUs are full, has a peak COVID death rate right now, and there isn't much end in sight. https://www.local10.com/news/florida/2021/09/09/florida-adds... How is that "a place where everything has returned to normal"? Ya, some people are ignoring COVID, but it isn't ignoring them.

If they don’t care, so what? What business of it is yours? Perhaps there is more to life than a myopic fixation on exactly one very specific illness. By doing these mandates you are imposing your own values upon everybody else. For more than a year and a half! With no clear end goal! Indefinitely! Talk about selfish!

Your response is irrelevant to the query of “which many places are completely over this already?”.

Naming an individual United states state which clearly isn’t over it as one of the “many places” doesn’t really provide an answer.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#435
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of those are about organ donation. If you think that doctors aren't likely to do their level best to save your life and to act in your best interests, you surely have larger problems that you, being braindead at the time, having your organs potentially used to save the lives of others?

They are about organ misuse, which these days would likely include donations (less common at the time). >you surely have larger problems Maybe, but that's one more incentive, and not a small one either. Even the definition of "braindead" is somewhat controversial in many circumstances, nowadays, with doctors having the power to make some pretty radical choices - occasionally even against the explicit wishes of patien…

Birmingham Children's Hospital and Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool had also given thymus glands, removed from live children during heart surgery, to a pharmaceutical company for research in return for financial donations.

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

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#436
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As a European, I think it's completely insane not to have to provide an ID to vote. Of course it's a system that's ripe for fraud if you can't even identify and record voters reliably. I don't know how you can think this will introduce any more friction for low income people. You need an ID to drive. You may introduce friction for illegal immigrants and mentally handicapped homeless. Saying this will affect low incom…

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

In the UK (where a requirement for voter ID has been proposed), research shows that up to 3.5 million citizens (7.5% of the electorate do not have a suitable photo ID)[0].

That's a lot of people to disenfranchise.

There's going to be a scheme where people can get a free photo ID from the local government for voting purposes, but it seems questionable whether people will choose to get that when so many don't get something like a driving licence or passport, which you seem to think is essential for people to function in society.

[0] - https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/latest-news-and-research...

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> What concrete benefit do people expect from an additional 10% of the population being forced to vaccinate? An intact hospital / critical care system.

Generally speaking, worst case scenario notwithstanding, adults should get vaccinated (1) for their own good. OTOH, part of being adult in a free society is making choices for oneself, good or bad. We have plenty of bad choices leading to heavy costs in the medical system. Obesity and intense end-of-life procedures (that doctors themselves eschew by a large margin) come to mind. Or skiing, or riding a motorcycle down the freeway. Or sexual promiscuity. Sadly, some of these choices strongly overlap with susceptibility to covid (2). Do we really want to open the can of worms of blaming individual patients for overall medical system costs? That's a heavy load.

The nurse enters the ER triage room. 'Smoker? Exercise 2 hours a day? Fast food in the past 2 weeks? Drink beer? BMI over 30? Diabetes? Below average safe driver? Cardiac problems in the family?'. God forbid you tick the wrong answer on any of these questions, you are now an undesirable straining the hospital system and we should righteously kick you to the curb to squirm in your earned misery. The 'preexisting conditions' rubric in American medical system is already dark, not sure we want to push harder in the wrong direction.

Most of us are in favor of helping those in need. See the push for single payer health care system. Maybe there is hope.

(1) Hoping for traditional vaccines, to mitigate the monoculture problem. E.g. https://www.novavax.com/covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-candida....

(2) Cue in the 'obesity is not a choice' crowd. Whatever we think the causes are, it was an order of magnitude less of a problem 50 years ago, and I know for a fact that I often have a poor diet and I am unable to incorporate enough physical movement in my own daily routine. So there.

PS. As you are reaching for the flamethrower, try save a bit of that energy to craft a 'getting vaccinated is good for you and your loved ones' message coming from a place of care and not smug vindictive superiority. <3

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#438
post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

It is other people's business. You are a danger to others if you are unvaccinated.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#439
post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> confidentiality of vaccine status The requirement to provide the information says otherwise. Your sexual orientation is private information your employer can’t ask about, your vaccination status isn’t protected. Providing it can be required for employment. Your third link even says: The EEOC confirmed “there’s no indication that there’s any federal law that would be violated by the employer asking this question.” .…

> The requirement to provide the information says otherwise. Which requirement? > Your sexual orientation is private information your employer can’t ask about, your vaccination status isn’t protected. Providing it can be required for employment. Your third link even says: The EEOC confirmed “there’s no indication that there’s any federal law that would be violated by the employer asking this question.”. It also in mo…

> Which requirement?

The requirement to provide vaccination status to go to school or be employed.

I think you have some basic confusion here. HIPPA covers your Name, but that’s not in any way inherently protected information. It becomes so in a medical setting because having your name associated with for example an AIDS clinic lets people infer things. As such it’s the association that’s protected not your name.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#440
post #39

> "I've never liked the idea of saying to people you must show your papers or something to do what is just an everyday activity, but we were right to properly look at it. We regularly show papers for everyday activities - library card for reading books, ID for a hotel stay, driving license for driving a car, ID to pickup a parcel etc.

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