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England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

bbc.co.uk

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Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#221

Post by vinay427 »

edent wrote: post #166
tchalla wrote: 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.

> 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. I don't think you live in the UK - because none of those things are true. You can go into just about any library and read a book without showing a library card. I've never had to show ID for a hotel stay. My driving licence stays at home. If I want to…

> If I want to hire a car, I generate a one-time code.

The GP comment said "driving a car," not hiring one. It's not clear to me why you responded to a different assertion, and I can't find anything that supports the idea that you don't need to show a driving license while driving if it's requested.

https://www.gov.uk/stopped-by-police-while-driving-your-righ...

"If you do not have these documents with you, you have 7 days to take them to a police station. You’re breaking the law if you do not show the requested documents within 7 days."

> You can go into just about any library and read a book without showing a library card.

If I may be so bold, I think it's fairly reasonable to understand their comment (in the context of requiring ID) as referring to checking out/borrowing books from a library to read, rather than simply reading them in a library.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#222

Post by isoskeles »

fy20 wrote: post #172
isoskeles wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Verification apps should check the issuer. But you can issue and sign your own vaccine codes trivially.

Some apps will go a step further to check that the issuer is “trusted.” For example, there is a good list of issuers considered trusted here:

https://github.com/the-commons-project/vci-directory/blob/ma...

The most popular reader app I know of will mark issuers that are not on this list as “Partially-verified.”

I’m not going to get too deep into this because it’s clear that HN is, for some reason, very antagonistic toward any discussion on the matter unless some correct permutation of words is used. Nonetheless, I’ve researched this quite a bit. Anyone can make and issue their own SMART Health Card.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#223

Post by pessimizer »

dia80 wrote: post #155
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

ICU load is now much lower for a given level of cases and barring new variants it will likely decrease further with boaster shots and more people recovered from infection and possible new therapeutics. Moderately increasing ICU capacity would be expensive but not vastly so. See "people in ventilator beds" in the link https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

> barring new variants

I didn't know this was an option. How do we go about doing it?

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#224

Post by makomk »

mapme wrote: post #100
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…

For me the major point of vaccinating others is ensuring hospitals are not overwhelmed and have enough capacity to treat other patients and perform elective procedures. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2021/...

The UK probably has a large chunk of the benefit it could ever possibly get in terms of stopping the hospitals from being overwhelmed - vaccination levels are very high in the age groups that're most at risk here.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#225

Post by ADSSDA »

thepasswordis wrote: post #194
sudosysgen wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, again this is a great talking point for those who are enjoying their newfound power, but unfortunately for them (and fortunately for the inhabitants of this country!) the numbers do not bare this out: https://www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19/hospitalization-utiliza... Do you know of a hospital system that’s overloaded in the way you are worried about? I’ve seen plenty of bloggers who talk about this, but they never…

Idaho has already implemented crisis standards of care:

https://healthandwelfare.idaho.gov/news/idaho-activates-cris...

And is absolutely overwhelmed. It seems incredibly disingenuous to only consider some random state that's doing well and ignore those doing poorly.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#226

Post by pessimizer »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #185
kryogen1c wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not? it seems absurd to think that at no point in the future will there be infectious endemic diseases. hospital infrastructure hardly seems like the wrong thing to overbuild.

We already spend a lot on healthcare as it is, more so here in the USA than in countries with universal healthcare. Should we go from spending 17.7% of our GDP to 30%? Just because some people aren’t interested getting a vaccine?

The USA doesn't spend the amount it does on healthcare out of necessity, it does it because of graft. If we're willing to spend twice as much as everyone else for no reason, why not four times as much?

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#228

Post by Bombthecat »

scrollaway wrote: post #81
MatteoFrigo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 are going to be underrepresentative of people with a fear of needles, people who don't trust the medical system, and be overrepresentative of selfless people. I suspect an extremely strong correlation between giving blood and being vaccinated.

And, well, taking care of yourself.

Distancing, not going to parties etc etc

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#229

Post by toyg »

mcny wrote: post #106
scrollaway wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blood donors are going to be underrepresentative of people with a fear of needles, people who don't trust the medical system, and be overrepresentative of selfless people. I suspect an extremely strong correlation between giving blood and being vaccinated.

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…

> fears that sound rational but are completely in the realm of conspiracy theory.

Sadly these fears in the UK are well-founded:

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

* https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/missing...

There were quite a few other similar scandals, particularly in England. The medical profession in this country, for a very long time, has had a remarkable contempt for the lives of people, probably steeped in the classism and elitism traditionally entrenched in university education in Britain. This might be different today (Alder Hey, in particular, triggered new legislation about organ handling in 2004), but it's hard to shake off such a history.

I used to carry a organ-donor card and I'm probably still on some register somewhere, but over the last decade I've kinda soured on the idea. As a clear outsider and a bit of a loner, living in the downtrodden North of England, there would likely be nobody who would oppose an over-eager doctor from pulling the plug on me without even trying to help first, just so that a few waiting lists can be shortened and he can look good with his boss.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#230

Post by longthrow1 »

edent wrote: post #166
tchalla wrote: 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.

> 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. I don't think you live in the UK - because none of those things are true. You can go into just about any library and read a book without showing a library card. I've never had to show ID for a hotel stay. My driving licence stays at home. If I want to…

By the same token, you don't show your id to buy groceries, or your license to enter a party. Gattaca was a dystopia, not a goal.
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