Vaccine Passport - Plan B

[Eddie Hitler]

1 minute ago, GreedyHarry said:

What like side effects twenty years hence??? No thanks. That argument means, that if we agree the volume of vaccine doses administered is large enough, we sit and wait for the last person that has been given it to die ‘naturally’. That could be 50 years or more. And then a card would come along and say, “yes but he could have had side effects if he’d lived just one more day.”

 

No, five years will be enough to flush out most of them.

So less than four years now.

For me anyway.

[Baba Yaga]

Judging by the number of people dying in South Africa this has all the makings of being the biggest political overreaction in living memory. The hype from the media is off the scale and the political solutions make little sense but rather they need to be seen to be doing something. Collective responsibility is looking like collective insanity.

[Lrrr]

3 minutes ago, Baba Yaga said:

Judging by the number of people dying in South Africa this has all the makings of being the biggest political overreaction in living memory. The hype from the media is off the scale and the political solutions make little sense but rather they need to be seen to be doing something. Collective responsibility is looking like collective insanity.

Well in UK what reason could the prime minister want for a distraction, he certainly hasn't been in the news lately to justify such a reaction....

FWIW boosters as a precaution though still well worth it if it keeps hospitalisations down and reduces pressure on the NHS.

[Eddie Hitler]

7 minutes ago, Baba Yaga said:

Judging by the number of people dying in South Africa this has all the makings of being the biggest political overreaction in living memory. The hype from the media is off the scale and the political solutions make little sense but rather they need to be seen to be doing something. Collective responsibility is looking like collective insanity.

 

It's more difficult this time around because this variant has such a rapid transmission rate that once you have a big problem with too many hospital admissions to cope with then it's too late.

This is the variant where I probably would choose to prefer risking overreacting to risking underreacting.

[Bristol Rob]

12 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

 

No, five years will be enough to flush out most of them.

So less than four years now.

For me anyway.

Is 5 years a proven scientific measurement, or just a period of time you have plucked out of thin air?

Given that it's known the effectiveness of the vaccine reduces over 12 months, do you not think any remaining particles would be gone long before the 5 years?

[bbew]

So with the MPs vote tomorrow, is anyone aware of any evidence being published to show the benefits the measures will have?  The likely scenarios with and without the measures?  The last evidence I was aware of was the Scottish report showing these measures did not really make a difference, and in Wales they said there is no evidence they make a difference, but make people feel safer.

As Savid Javid previously said "if we're going to pretty much take away people's freedom, you've got to have a really good reason to do it", so surely for such an important vote it cannot just be based on MPs voting based on their own assumptions.

It seems currently like the MPs are part of a jury, and are being encouraged to vote guilty just because the defendant looks a bit rough and crime rates are going up in the area, so better safe than sorry.

Edited December 13, 2021 by bbew

[Bristol Rob]

FOOTBALL RELATED POINT!!!!!!!

Appears there is now a national shortage of LFTs.

So, if you need one to get yourself in to football and you aren't sitting on a stockpile, suggest you consider when you decide to take it.

Obviously, this only applies to those without the Covid passport.

[Eddie Hitler]

6 minutes ago, Bristol Rob said:

Is 5 years a proven scientific measurement, or just a period of time you have plucked out of thin air?

Given that it's known the effectiveness of the vaccine reduces over 12 months, do you not think any remaining particles would be gone long before the 5 years?

 

I read that as being a standard timescale for field trials of new drugs and vaccines in the early days of Covid amid discussions of when vaccines might become properly certified; it's not my origination.

[Riaz]

22 minutes ago, IAmNick said:

Very telling you're so confused that people made a non political judgement of what to do.

I despise Boris, but that's completely separate from whether I agree with the restrictions. That's guided by the data and science.

But you ARE a conspiracy theorist.

Remember these from a few months ago?

PLEASE explain to me how that's "thinking for yourself", and not just repeating tired conspiracy theories. You're just blindly believing stuff from another source.

Going against the prevailing opinion is nothing to be proud of, nor any sign that you've thought more.

Two of those quotes were based on information from official sources

The bottom two was a prediction based on what i think is going on....  i was thinking for myself. No other source at all. In fact, i havent seen many people say their theory is that its going to affect birth rates?

[Eddie Hitler]

4 minutes ago, Bristol Rob said:

FOOTBALL RELATED POINT!!!!!!!

Appears there is now a national shortage of LFTs.

So, if you need one to get yourself in to football and you aren't sitting on a stockpile, suggest you consider when you decide to take it.

Obviously, this only applies to those without the Covid passport.

 

I don't have a stockpile but have some unused, they were ordered a couple if weeks ago and arrived the next day.

[Bristol Rob]

5 minutes ago, bbew said:

So with the MPs vote tomorrow, is anyone aware of any evidence being published to show the benefits the measures will have?  The likely scenarios with and without the measures?  The last evidence I was aware of was the Scottish report showing these measures did not really make a difference, and in Wales they said there is no evidence they make a difference, but make people feel safer.

As Savid Javid previously said "if we're going to pretty much take away people's freedom, you've got to have a really good reason to do it", so surely for such an important vote it cannot just be based on MPs voting based on their own assumptions.

It seems currently like the MPs are part of a jury, and are being encouraged to vote guilty just because the defendant looks a bit rough, and better safe than sorry.

Aside from their being less social interaction as a result of working from home, I'll be surprised if Plan B does much to curb the spread.

My view is that they should have either locked down harder, or not bothered at all. 

Not surprised there is opposition to where we're going.

[Bristol Rob]

1 minute ago, Eddie Hitler said:

 

I don't have a stockpile but have some unused, they were ordered a couple if weeks ago and arrived the next day.

We have some as well, but it seems they country has gone mad over them in the last few days.

Probably as we move nearer to passport status.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/13/no-more-home-covid-tests-available-says-nhs-england

 

[Baba Yaga]

Just now, Lrrr said:

Well in UK what reason could the prime minister want for a distraction, he certainly hasn't been in the news lately to justify such a reaction....

FWIW boosters as a precaution though still well worth it if it keeps hospitalisations down and reduces pressure on the NHS.

Possibly but I believe one third of the country have already been boostered and that will include most of the at risk people. At this point I am not sure that the upscaling will do as much as you might think, I would argue that there could be a lot of pointless vaccinations to act as a distraction. 

Just now, Eddie Hitler said:

 

It's more difficult this time around because this variant has such a rapid transmission rate that once you have a big problem with too many hospital admissions to cope with then it's too late.

This is the variant where I probably would choose to prefer risking overreacting to risking underreacting.

I believe they said initially that it would take a couple of weeks to find out how serious omicron is, I think that deadline has now passed and South Africa don't seem to be suffering on the scale that we have seen in previous waves. That has been forgotten and any cautious optimism has been pushed to one side and instead the pushing of fear has been ramped up massively. We will see how it plays out with UK hospital numbers but I think that trying to get as many people scared as possible/ramping up testing will exacerbate the problem, there seems to be a massive disconnect between reality and the media narrative it will be interesting to see how that develops.

[Fordy62]

46 minutes ago, IAmNick said:

Very telling you're so confused that people made a non political judgement of what to do.

I despise Boris, but that's completely separate from whether I agree with the restrictions. That's guided by the data and science.

But you ARE a conspiracy theorist.

Remember these from a few months ago?

PLEASE explain to me how that's "thinking for yourself", and not just repeating tired conspiracy theories. You're just blindly believing stuff from another source.

Going against the prevailing opinion is nothing to be proud of, nor any sign that you've thought more.

Well this is awkward!

[BUTOR]

29 minutes ago, Tafkarmlf said:

With several games in doubt, i can see the league being suspended soon enough. 

I'm guessing that shortages of LFTs and people reluctant to 'admit' they've got Covid will see reported and actual numbers flux and cause further issues, sadly. 

Maybe teams will have to go through a postponement or two but beyond that there will be natural immunity for said teams no? A tricky month or two ahead but I highly doubt an entire league suspension. 

[Red-Robbo]

4 hours ago, BTRFTG said:

I'm afraid you did as you have here, conflating personal and commercial taxation.

You've actually answered your own question as to why commercial taxation is useless in underpinning the costs of running a health service - there's no way to guarantee income. Turnover is already taxed by VAT so driving away business isn't a good idea, profits targeted by corporation tax, but you can't guarantee how much profit a company makes in any given period. If companies chose to reinvest in the business then whilst shareholders benefit the Chancellor sees nothing.

I didn't conclude increasing commercial taxation was out of the question but the types of money you'd need for the NHS would require legislation beyond these shores and I'm uncertain (other than declaring war) how any UK Government might guarantee delivering that? Government could unilaterally increase tax at risk businesses would decant elsewhere, as they've indicated they would.

As for Northern European healthcare, which countries were you thinking of? In respect of the larger nations UK public funding is on a par if not higher than most (save in those nations a far higher percentage of citizens additionally contribute via the private sector, which is what we in the UK appear reluctant to do.) In places like Scandinavia you first have to factor in population size and demographics, they're very small cf UK, but other than Norway and it's vast oil wealth, public investment isn't so dissimilar, though they, too, pay more than UK via private charging as, slightly more than here, not all 'free at point of access' is actually 'free'.

Remember, the USA has by a country mile the highest per capita PUBLIC funding of healthcare in the world (more than double the UK,) yet folks love to deride what's on offer there. We moan how expensive healthcare is there , the same expense over here most don't wish to pay via direct taxation.

 

I'm not sure you grasped my point which was that it IS possible to increase health spending without clobbering low-income taxpayers as you suggest.  Closing the plethora of tax loopholes from phony non-dom status to phony charitable trusts to dodgy licencing deals etc etc etc would achieve this. See Zucman, Stiglitz, Piketty, Advani et al 

It simply is not true that you cannot tax the wealth of rich individuals or the income of multinational corporations. It requires the will, a will that isn't possessed in this country. And who could be surprised, with a Cabinet full of those getting fat in the tax avoidance business.

All companies seek to minimise their taxation exposure. Mine does. But it's to do with acceptable levels of such and fairness.

We've gone right off the point of this thread, so if you want to continue a discussion on taxation policy I suggest we take it onto the already running thread in the Politics Sub-forum.

One point I do want to make is the US has almost the world's highest public health spend (Japan and some Gulf states are higher) precisely because their system is entirely run-for-profit and overwhelmingly in private hands, with no large purchasing superstructure like the NHS. To run the limited public health programmes that the US government does, Washington has to pay vastly more for doctors, vastly more for equipment, vastly more for hospital bed space and colossally more for medicines.

It is one of the reason's why the US has the highest healthcare spend as a percentage of GDP - 50% higher than Germany, the next highest spend in the OECD.  Yet outcomes in the US are not the best. Colombia, Peru, Turkey, Ecuador, Poland, Greece, Costa Rica, the Maldives and Croatia are among the countries with higher life expectancy than the US (as are we of course) and they also perform badly on other performance indicators.

Speaking as someone who has a close interaction with US health system -and at one point worked within it - I don't think anyone in the UK would ask to see that model implemented, no matter how clean and shiny the hospitals there are. 

 

[Eddie Hitler]

29 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

Speaking as someone who has a close interaction with US health system -and at one point worked within it - I don't think anyone in the UK would ask to see that model implemented, no matter how clean and shiny the hospitals there are. 

 

I would say that the NHS is dreadfully run but that epithet should really be reserved for the US health system which is far worse.

Neither is fit for purpose.

[Bob Turnip]

2 hours ago, Eddie Hitler said:

or there could be horrendous long term side effects

 

The fact that you think this is even possible proves you have no idea how vaccines work.

 

[Eddie Hitler]

32 minutes ago, Bob Turnip said:

 

The fact that you think this is even possible proves you have no idea how vaccines work.

 

 

Took about two minutes; a particular influenza vaccine causing long term increase in diabetes risk.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1114674/

 

I of course have no deep understanding as to how vaccines work.

Something which I share with you Professor.

 

[BTRFTG]

3 hours ago, Eddie Hitler said:

 

I don't know why that's in quotes; we all have brains and the opportunity to use them if we choose to do so.

The basic mechanism of the influenza vaccine has been in place for decades and is very safe; all that changes each year is the selection of the particular four strains to bundle into it.

There are currently multiple competing Covid vaccines; trials are not even sufficiently far advanced to have selected which is the safest.

They are experimental vaccines by any reasonable standards.

I wear a mask in shops, observe lockdown rules and take a LFT when required.

That I don't wish to form part of a medical experiment is a legitimate personal choice; and also one which you can't unmake when further information comes to light.

It highlighted there is no science based logic in your argument.

Ditto your thoughts on flu vaccines, and they aren't simple mix and match. Like corona they isolate and use the latest mutations to inform changes, but all are discrete. Some flu strains are far more deadly than others. That was one of the reasons all the numpties who criticised the Government early doors for having supposed higher death rates when covid first hit neglected that when H3N2 hit in 2018, Germany (amongst others) had significantly higher deaths amongst the vulnerable than the UK as, getting in early when purchasing their annual flu vaccines, they missed out on the additional 'aussie flu' components added to the late UK orders. Many elderly Germans didn't die of Covid as they'd died two years earlier from H3N2.

That you think this an 'experiment' when it's public health protection in extremis says it all.

[BTRFTG]

1 hour ago, Red-Robbo said:

 

I'm not sure you grasped my point which was that it IS possible to increase health spending without clobbering low-income taxpayers as you suggest.  Closing the plethora of tax loopholes from phony non-dom status to phony charitable trusts to dodgy licencing deals etc etc etc would achieve this. See Zucman, Stiglitz, Piketty, Advani et al 

It simply is not true that you cannot tax the wealth of rich individuals or the income of multinational corporations. It requires the will, a will that isn't possessed in this country. And who could be surprised, with a Cabinet full of those getting fat in the tax avoidance business.

All companies seek to minimise their taxation exposure. Mine does. But it's to do with acceptable levels of such and fairness.

We've gone right off the point of this thread, so if you want to continue a discussion on taxation policy I suggest we take it onto the already running thread in the Politics Sub-forum.

One point I do want to make is the US has almost the world's highest public health spend (Japan and some Gulf states are higher) precisely because their system is entirely run-for-profit and overwhelmingly in private hands, with no large purchasing superstructure like the NHS. To run the limited public health programmes that the US government does, Washington has to pay vastly more for doctors, vastly more for equipment, vastly more for hospital bed space and colossally more for medicines.

It is one of the reason's why the US has the highest healthcare spend as a percentage of GDP - 50% higher than Germany, the next highest spend in the OECD.  Yet outcomes in the US are not the best. Colombia, Peru, Turkey, Ecuador, Poland, Greece, Costa Rica, the Maldives and Croatia are among the countries with higher life expectancy than the US (as are we of course) and they also perform badly on other performance indicators.

Speaking as someone who has a close interaction with US health system -and at one point worked within it - I don't think anyone in the UK would ask to see that model implemented, no matter how clean and shiny the hospitals there are. 

 

Again you conflate issues that are not linked. Were Governments able to raise tax in the way you state they would. The fact they don't, despite running catastrophic deficits, confirms as much.

You may state US public healthcare is 'limited', though it's over double what we spend per head here. For sure costs are higher but that delivers higher standards of healthcare. You'll also be aware of the extraordinary levels of private health incentives offered by the US Government, forgoing tax collected such employees and employers may additionally invest in their own health. That's actually quite a smart move we should look at over here.

Similarly, you choose to directly correlate health outcomes with spending, when it's far more complex than that. Were it true we'd follow the Italians and slash health spending given their enviable longevity and frugally funded health system. One of the major reasons US and UK health outcomes appear worse than might be anticipated lies with ethnic composition, but few wish to talk about such matters as genetic predisposition to illness or consanguinity. One can't choose ones genes but differentially impact they sure do.

[Lanterne Rouge]

Important information for attending Bristol City Matches (bristol-sport.co.uk)

[RedLionLad]

10 minutes ago, Lanterne Rouge said:

Important information for attending Bristol City Matches (bristol-sport.co.uk)

I hope it doesn't rain

[big p]

And just like that, all double jabbed people are now classed as unvaccinated.

Them pesky conspiracy theorist were right again!

Edited December 13, 2021 by big p

[phantom]

I admire someone's optimism that offering 20% off up to 2pm will be an incentive to get people into the ground much earlier 

[Bristol Rob]

 

[The Bard]

E mail from club just arrived encouraging everyone to arrive early and take advantage of 20% off.  In the concourse.  
Nothing about face masks inside at all. So there will probably be a significant number of people carrying Covid inside the concourse on Saturday, but they're jabbed so it's okay.

[RedLionLad]

3 minutes ago, phantom said:

I admire someone's optimism that offering 20% off up to 2pm will be an incentive to get people into the ground much earlier 

Imagine being in the queue for food at 13:55 and not getting served until 14:01

[Strictly Obi]

For me it's all about risk assessment! And scientists and doctors far more qualified than myself have calculated your much more likely to contract and die of covid, than any possible side affect brought on by the vaccine itself. However I respect other people's decision to play Russian roulette and refuse the vaccine. I mean many people know the risk of smoking, yet continue to do so. My only gripe is if hospitals become clogged up with ant-vaxers, and that has a detrimental affect on others. 

[And Its Smith]

12 minutes ago, big p said:

And just like that, all double jabbed people are now classed as unvaccinated.

Them pesky conspiracy theorist were right again!

Eh? So with the covid passports is it triple jabbed or negative LFT?   I thought it was double jabbed