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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

#291

Post by skytreader »

gruez wrote: post #180
skytreader wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As I mentioned in another comment, let's not forget that preventing spread through all these measures is all in service of a greater goal: avoiding strain on public health infra.

To put it another way, it doesn't matter if vaccinated people can still catch and spread the virus (any virus, even) as long as this infection chain does not result to an unmanageable pipeline of people who might need intensive medical care. In this context, the main benefit (but by no means only) of vaccines is the decreased hospitalization rate.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#292

Post by pbourke »

tomp wrote: post #120
xphilter wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t another reason be to reduce cost? It’s expensive to treat covid patients and the vaccine is proven to reduce the incidents of hospitalization. But I’m willing to forgo all vaccine mandates, mask mandates, etc if we can all agree that unvaccinated have to pay for their own treatment or buy bespoke covid insurance.

As an unvaccinated (but protected by naturally-acquired immunity) I completely agree with this. As long as the same is true for car accident victims (except pedestrians), HIV patients (except those that got it via birth/rape), obese people, smokers, drinkers, skiers, ... All these are 100% voluntary activities that put undue burden on the medical system.

If I’m in my home and you get into a car accident across town, you can’t injure me. The same is not true if you contract and spread the virus.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#293

Post by junon »

hervature wrote: post #238
arrosenberg wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s not a PhD in biochemistry or something similar, then it’s not relevant to their decision making abilities. FDA approval is based on having enough data to determine efficacy and safety - with so many administered doses at this point there is no question about either of those things.

Is your argument that only "PhD in biohemistry or something similar" can make decisions about the vaccine? I think that's incredibly patronizing to the vast majority of humanity. There is literally vaccines that earned FDA approval in recent memory that were later found to cause problems in babies [1]. If people are concerned about vaccines, the best way to deal with it is to address concerns, show them the data. Not…

> Not calling them stupid for not having a PhD.

GP simply stated that we should be consulting experts in the fields, not laypeople, when it comes to things of a scientific nature.

These were your words, not theirs.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#294

Post by chana_masala »

h_anna_h wrote: post #173
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.

> 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.

Sure, also don't offer services to the obese or smokers either (/s)

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#295

Post by jlokier »

commandlinefan wrote: post #232
libertine wrote: post #9

Well, if the large majority of your population is already vaccinated, I guess these passports could potentially be dismissed, if masks are still mandatory, but for some countries - like Portugal where we have +80% of the pop. vaccinated - the main concern are tourists that completely disregard any etiquette or measures in place. So I think keeping passports is a good measure, not perfect due to breakthrough infection…

> if masks are still mandatory Cloth masks provide no protection against viruses. If you don’t believe me, just read the warnings on the box itself.

If it's a good quality mask, that would be misunderstanding the words on the box.

Masks provide some protection against the spreading of liquid droplets, as it says on the box. (Quality of mask varies a lot, though.)

In the case of Covid-19, droplets are believed to be the primary way it is suspended in air and breathed in by the next person.

Although that type of mask doesn't protect against pure airborne virus transmission without droplets, that is more applicable to other viruses than Covid-19.

The key difference: "Airborne virus" means virus without droplets (or such tiny ones that it's not what we mean by droplets); it does not mean the same thing as virus carried by small liquid droplets of the size normally breathed out by humans, and attenuated by cloth masks.

Maybe some Covid-19 is transported without droplets, but quantity of exposure matters, and suppressing droplet transmission, as done by good cloth masks, still has a significant effect. There are better, more thorough mask types available, of course.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#296

Post by ghoward »

pbourke wrote: post #289
angelzen wrote: post #219

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.

> An intact hospital / critical care system.

Given that there are many nurses protesting vaccine mandates, it could be that putting such mandates in place will lead to a lot of them quitting, which could make the hospital system less "intact" and resilient.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#297

Post by jlokier »

Loveaway wrote: post #54
libertine wrote: post #9

Well, if the large majority of your population is already vaccinated, I guess these passports could potentially be dismissed, if masks are still mandatory, but for some countries - like Portugal where we have +80% of the pop. vaccinated - the main concern are tourists that completely disregard any etiquette or measures in place. So I think keeping passports is a good measure, not perfect due to breakthrough infection…

No it's shit. Just let people decide if they want to get the vaccination or not, and go on with life as normal. By now everyone can get it and be protected against the virus. You now have the immunity, so act like it! Stop dragging this out with requiring passports, masks, and whatnot. The "main concern" aren't tourists - tourists are the lifeblood of many places, and they should be welcomed. They come to you to see…

> You now have the immunity, so act like it!

This is factually incorrect.

The Covid-19 vaccines significantly reduce symptoms, risk of hospitalisation, risk of death, and transmission rate. They are worth it on balance if you care about your own health, and/or the health of other people you interact with, especially those close to you, for almost everyone above a fairly low age.

But they do not provide complete immunity, which is called "sterilising immunity".

Which means other people's behaviour still affects you.

Some vaccines for other diseases do provide sterilising immunity. For example the smallpox vaccine does, which is why that disease is pretty much eradicated. But unfortunately none of the vaccines currently available for Covid-19 provide sterilising immunity.

Even so, if we are able to dampen the transmission rate in each community to below R < 1 by a combination of measures, which includes vaccination, the disease will gradually fade away instead of spreading to everyone. Probabilities are everything in this game.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#298

Post by gruez »

skytreader wrote: post #291
gruez wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

As I mentioned in another comment, let's not forget that preventing spread through all these measures is all in service of a greater goal: avoiding strain on public health infra. To put it another way, it doesn't matter if vaccinated people can still catch and spread the virus ( any virus , even) as long as this infection chain does not result to an unmanageable pipeline of people who might need intensive medical car…

> As I mentioned in another comment, let's not forget that preventing spread through all these measures is all in service of a greater goal: avoiding strain on public health infra.

If the ends justifies the means, what other public health interventions should we carry out, even in cases where there's no direct harm to society[1]? Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US. Should we have blood pressure/cholesterol "passports" to pressure people into being healthier?

[1] ie. you getting infected and infecting other people, as opposed to the more tenuous link of you getting infected, having to go to the emergency room, causing the emergency room to go over capacity and causing someone to die because of lack of care

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#299

Post by ghoward »

pbourke wrote: post #292
tomp wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an unvaccinated (but protected by naturally-acquired immunity) I completely agree with this. As long as the same is true for car accident victims (except pedestrians), HIV patients (except those that got it via birth/rape), obese people, smokers, drinkers, skiers, ... All these are 100% voluntary activities that put undue burden on the medical system.

If I’m in my home and you get into a car accident across town, you can’t injure me. The same is not true if you contract and spread the virus.

Not GP. You're comparing apples to oranges.

If I get into a car accident and you're across town, you're right, that doesn't affect you. Likewise, if I get COVID and you're across town, I can't infect you, so likewise, you're not affected.

However, if we're on the same side of town, and I get into a car accident, it could affect you because I might hit you. Likewise, if I get COVID, and we're on the same side of town, I could infect you.

You might protest that I could still infect you if I get COVID on the opposite side of town by infecting someone else who infects you. This is false. The person who actually infected you infected you. To claim it was my fault that you got infected means that we should all blame patient zero and China. I mean, we should blame China, but probably not patient zero.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#300

Post by _Microft »

jjgreen wrote: post #99
_Microft wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which you know is stored in a new database (again). The (european) vaccination certificates include all necessary information in a QR code that is stored locally, either digitally in an app or as actual print-out of the QR code. You only have to show an id card to proof that this QR code belongs to you then (it also encodes your full name and date of birth for making the connection).

Wouldn't work in the UK since we don't have ID cards.

How do you identify yourself if required for some reason? For example when interacting with an office or when you have to cast your ballot in an election?
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