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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

#301
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.

If you're in your home and don't invite anyone, then people who spread the virus also can't injure you.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#302
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idaho doesn't seem to be in trouble based on the capacity dashboard. https://rationalground.com/hospital-and-icu-capacity-dashboa... Also, if you go back in look for headlines of hospitals being overwhelmed, you will see they exist for the flu for almost every year as well. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01/24/Hospitals-overwhe...

You should use the actual state's dashboard: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/idaho.division.of.pub... And Idaho is absolutely overwhelmed. In past flu seasons they have not moved to crisis standards of care, I don't even see Idaho in the article you linked so I'm not sure what relevance it has here. Are you claiming the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is unaware of their own ICU utilization status?

Those numbers seem to match the numbers from the site I posted. The rational ground site also shows the numbers in relation to capacity. You can filter by state.

Based on the numbers and your original post, it doesn't seem to be a statewide issue. It is a localized issue of what seems an area covered by 10 hospitals.

The relevance is that hospitals having issues with capacity is not beyond the realm of normal.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#303

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…

Alberta, Canada right now is getting its medical system put through the ringer.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alber...

During Canadas third wave hospitals were overwhelmed the point that people were dying while waiting for care.

In this case 6 patients died while waiting for cardiac surgery because the ICUs were overwhelmed dealing with Covid patients.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/covid-19-stay-home-o...

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#304

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…

You are 100% wrong. The purpose of mandating the vaccine is to keep people from dying, particularly older, immune compromised people and kids who can't get the vaccine just yet. I'm tired of this damn limbo of somewhere in the middle. If you don't want to get a vaccine then don't work for one of the employers that will now be required to make sure their workers are immunized. Your rights end at the end of your nose. No one is going to come looking for you to drag you out to the street and get immunized. However if you want to participate with the rest of us then get vaccinated. Texas is currently a shit show of overcrowded hospitals, voter suppression laws, and pro-birther (but not pro life) people trying to install their theocracy. I know because I live here.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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

If you had reasonable actions available to you (wearing a mask, getting vaccinated) that you chose not to pursue, then yes, in my view you do bear some responsibility for continuing the chain of infection. If you had taken those reasonable actions then you bear no responsibility: it’s an act of nature that the chain passed through you.

If everyone who could get the vaccine did get it, then it’s almost certain that 10’s of thousands of people would be alive today just in the US and hospitals would not be under strain. Who are responsible for those 10’s of thousands of deaths if not those who chose not to act to protect their own lives and their communities?

You can choose your "freedom" over your life and your community, but you bear culpability for doing so. "Freedom isn’t free," as the saying goes.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#306
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/cho…

> Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US. Should we have blood pressure/cholesterol "passports" to pressure people into being healthier?

Is heart disease exponentially contagious with the potential to strain medical resources in a matter of days?

Again, these aren't interventions against social freedoms, rather an intervention to prevent a public service from being DDoSed, so to speak. The measures a matter of _hospitalization_. It's pointless to compare a "cause of death" metric to a "plain case count" metric.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#307
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?

Y'all had 1.6 years to do this. And no, the present ICU loads are not gonna be "the new normal".

Covid is here forever. We knew this way, way back in March of 2020. Only now are people finally getting the message. Life is short. We cannot play this game anymore. The time to go back to actual, 2019 pre pandemic normal is today.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#308

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.

It’s not really as black&white as that. Vaccinated people are more prone to be asymptomatic when infected, which means they are less likely to notice the infection, thus less likely to isolate and go into quarantine. This is made even worse by the fact how a whole bunch of countries have stopped testing vaccinated people, they are just assumed healthy and not contagious by default. Now throw in vaccinated people dema…

None of your logic is valid if everyone gets vaccinated as it will be "as good as it can be". Some non controllable number of people will get the disease, but the number of people in ER and ICU will be way down and they can get the help they need instead of help from an exhausted, overworked ICU department that is far from in optimal condition to handle you and other non-covid emergency cases. Your "logic" simple falls apart at the seams.

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#309
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

When is the last time you had to show papers to go to a McDonalds, a clothing store or a museum?

Re: England vaccine passport plans ditched, health secretary says

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe everyone should be vaccinated but your point worries me. This doesn't seem 'right.' I don't believe in conspiracy theories of people pushing anti vaccination propaganda just to bring this state of affairs about as some are suggesting: that said, I don't want us to be in this place, but I also want everyone vaccinated so the vaccines can actually work and we can eradicate this thing. I can't help but feel ma…

Being pro vaccine and anti-government “emergency powers” is a perfectly reasonable position to take. The media and the government forces the false dichotomy on people. They say you’re either all-in surveillance state or you’re antivax. It’s part of their design.

This is exactly my position, I’m very pro-vaccine but I despise the surveillance state as the apparatus of tyranny.
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