Test and Trace is 'working on making immunity passports to allow Brits to prove they have been vaccinated against Covid-19 using NHS app'

[trulydelicious]

Just seen this

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9000479/Test-Trace-working-making-immunity-passports.html#reader-comments

This is getting out of control now in my view and all this rethoric is disturbing and irresponsible.

Nobody should be coerced into having vaccines:

1. that use new technology
2. for which long term side effects are not known (precisely because the technology for most of them is new)
3. when pharmaceutical companies producing them are bearing no responsibility for potential side effects

The vaccines should not be touted as a 'passport' to recoup our 'freedoms'

Just to clarify, I'm not anti-vaxx (we have had all childhood vaccines and the flu vaccine)

I very much doubt religious leaders would be asked to say anything they're uncomfortable with saying. Presumably just asked to spread the word that vaccines are a Good Thing that save lives. I really have no idea why you are more scared of vaccine damage than Covid damage.

@longestlurkerever

I really have no idea why you are more scared of vaccine damage than Covid damage

I'm worried about both, but I want to be able to assess the risks myself

And you can. But you may not be able to travel everywhere whilst you do so. Foreign travel isnt a human right.

I just hope that they make whatever system it is available to those of us who don't have smartphones with the capability to run the NHS app.

@JS87 and @Nat6999

I’m interested to know how you’d react if you had flu or covid with an autoimmune disease? I presume it would’ve worse than your reaction to the vaccine? I just don’t see how a reaction to the vaccine would be worse than a reaction to the virus?

Since you ask. I have two autoimmune diseases.

I had flu in 2018 and I recovered

Later on I had a flu vaccine which was whole inactivated virus with no adjuvants and I was fine.

However, I'm very worried about the potential damage that a new vaccine like mRNA could do to my already temperamental, unreliable and overreactive immune system. So I try to be as cautious as possible.

And I'm mentioning mRNA because it's the one that I'm more concerned about (to me it looks complex with instructions, etc that could potentially go wrong), not because I have an agenda or any other nonsense against that particular treatment

It should be immunity though, not vaccination status. You can be immune from natural infection and may not be immune from the vaccine. If they’re trying to prevent spread/increase safety then the policy should actually make sense - not just be a tick box exercise.

I wonder how many people have actually now downloaded the app. I used it a few times and then it stopped working!

*@JS87 and @Nat6999

I’m interested to know how you’d react if you had flu or covid with an autoimmune disease?*

I'm already standing in line for the vaccine (dependent on what is available. I'll skip Sputnik-V :)), but I can answer that.

I also have autoimmune condition. I get very sick for 3 days after the flu jab. Had it last weekend. The one that has the dead virus parts in it. No logic, docs have scratched their heads for more than a decade on this as I'm not allergic to any other part. It's what it is. Still, happy to have it as alternative is worse.

If I get the flu, before the jab or regardless of the jab I end up in hospital. Always. 6 times in the past 20 years. For about 3-4 days.
A simple gastro virus that makes you puke 2 times will send me to hospital for 2-3 days.
A common cold -aka sniffles- from school will leave me moderately/slightly sick for months unending.

It's not fun to have an autoimmune condition but it also is very different for every person.

The 1918 flu pandemic caused very high mortality in under 5s and 20-40 age group. Over 90% of all those who died in the 1918 pandemic were under 65. There was a peak of deaths in those aged around 28 in the 2nd wave of the 1918 pandemic.

I wonder, if the same was the case with covid, whether we would be having the same conversation regarding whether or not to have the vaccine. I doubt it somehow - I think people would be climbing over each other to have the vaccine. Maybe it's just that the elderly and clinically vulnerable are seen as expendable - they don't matter, they can be left to die, just so long as everyone else is OK.

It has been explained many times on these threads and by people who know what they're talking about, that the reason the covid vaccines have been able to be rolled out so quickly is down to the £, $, euros/yen/yuan thrown at them - the fact that the researchers haven't had to wait, sometimes for years, between rounds of funding. Down to the fact that some of the research has been piggy backed on to previous tried and tested research. Thousands around the world, including many in the UK, brave, selfless people, have already had this vaccination so that it can be rolled out to protect billions of others.

You have no idea how long any drugs/vaccines you take have been trialled for, absolutely not a clue.

You also haven't answered my questions posed last night about what you'd have us all do if we don't have the vaccine. If our economic shutdown lasts for much longer the last 8 months will seem like a walk in the park.

If you don't want the vaccine, then don't have it, but please, please, stop with the scaremongering when it is so very obvious you don't have a clue and can't be bothered to do your own research.

@Nat6999 it's hard to imagine a situation where a vaccine makes you sicker than the actual disease. If that's how you react to a few dead strands of flu virus, what dies actual live flu do to you?

I have a whole range of autoimmune conditions. Covid made me sicker than anything I've ever had before and for far, far longer. I will embrace the chance to be vaccinated.

@JS87 and @Nat6999

I’m interested to know how you’d react if you had flu or covid with an autoimmune disease? I presume it would’ve worse than your reaction to the vaccine

And sorry @JS87 but your comment sounds manipulative and invested.

So please try to be more tactful next time

@diplodocusinermine I answered it.

I think people have forgotten that the reason we have all this restrictions is to reduce pressure on the nhs, not prevent anyone from ever catching it because, for the vast majority, this is a mild illness. When the more vulnerable patients who are more likely to get very ill and end up in hospital eg. elderly/underlying conditions are vaccinated then the hospitalisation rate will come down. We do not all have to stay in lockdown until everyone is vaccinated. Once the pressure is reduced on the nhs, we should be able to get things back up and running fairly quickly.

Js87 & Trulydelicious I had flu 10 years ago, was ill for a week & recovered with no lasting damage, I had an operation 3 weeks before & I honestly think that my immune system was a little run down at the time. We think I may have caught Covid around the time that the virus was first in the news but obviously there was no testing at the time, I had to have antibiotics for a week because I developed a chest infection but again I recovered, it just took me a little longer than most people. Neither were as bad as the pneumonia I got twice after being pressed to have the flu vaccination by my GP where I was in bed for a good couple of weeks, had to have several courses of antibiotics & steroids & narrowly avoided being admitted to hospital only because at the time I had a lovely GP who knew I had PTSD from when I gave birth to my son in hospital & treated me at home visiting me more often than many other Gp's would have done. He also advised me after the second dose to not have the flu vaccine again, something my current GP has ignored & every year I have to have an argument when they notify me of the need to have one done. I rarely get colds, I can count on one hand the number I have had in the last 10 years & even if I do they never last more than 5 days & are never more than a minor inconvenience where a lot of people end up having to spend a couple of days in bed, I haven't had a cold since 2017.

These* restrictions

Bumbleymummy, that doesn't work, does it? It still doesn't resolve the issue for those who can't have the vaccine. There'll be no herd immunity to protect them. Seemingly healthy people will continue to die of Covid, or be ill for months with long covid which seems to be affecting 10% of even younger people who contract covid (there are reports today of long term lung damage in young people) TBH, I don't know why I'm bothering - as I said upthread, if you don't want the vaccine, don't have it.

I just wonder about the ulterior motives of those who appear to be trying so hard to engender fear of the vaccine in others, without any specifics. Just look at the damage Wakefield has done. Any medication we take comes with a risk. Any medication we take has been new at some point.

@diplodocusinermine I’m haven’t said anything to make people afraid of the vaccine. If people want to have it, they should. I just don’t agree with it being compulsory and nor do I think it needs to be. Vaccination isn’t the only way to gain immunity - even those having mild/asymptomatic infections are become immune, reducing the number of susceptible people in the population and therefore contributing to herd immunity.

Yes, I've seen numerous threads where you've argued for herd immunity via the 'let everyone catch it method'

The immunity gained by those who contract covid appears to drop quite quickly - the sickest patients seem to have the strongest immune response, those who are asymptomatic or have a mild dose don't - in fact some studies report a 'rapid decline' in immune response. We also don't know what happens if people then go on to contract it again - there appear to be people who have been affected worse second time around, and some who have not been affected as badly. It's a bit of a risky way of boosting immunity I would have thought.

Do you have any links about the rapid decline in immune response?
Last I read, immunity in most was still strong .

Of course, because of how we designed, this will vary and so far only a small number have had a second confirmed case and symptoms have been a lot milder.

www.dw.com/en/covid-19-antibody-response-drops-in-uk-study/a-55410054

www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/risk-comms-updates/update-34-immunity-2nd.pdf?sfvrsn=8a488cb6_2 WHO report - page 17

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54696873

[quote trulydelicious]**@JS87 and @Nat6999

I’m interested to know how you’d react if you had flu or covid with an autoimmune disease? I presume it would’ve worse than your reaction to the vaccine

And sorry @JS87 but your comment sounds manipulative and invested.

So please try to be more tactful next time[/quote]
I assure you it wasn't meant to be which was why I wrote that I wasn't trying to make a point and was genuinely interested. Whilst my career is in immunology I don't work on autoimmunity so it's not my specialty.

In terms of the mRNA vaccine regardless of how you deliver the viral spike protein, all the vaccines end up doing the same thing; the viral proteins are broken down and presented on MHC molecules within antigen presenting cells to stimulate a T cell response. The expression of the spike protein on the cell surface will stimulate a B cell response and antibody production. I actually think an mRNA vaccine is likely safer if you have an autoimmune condition as you will have none of the other viral components expressed to stimulate immunity and the amount of viral antigen produced will be limited by the "shelf-life of the mRNA" in a limited number of cells in your upper arm. Infection with SARS-Cov-2 is more likely to lead to infection of a greater number of cells throughout the respiratory system as the virus replicates.
The vaccines may well be contraindicated for autoimmune conditions so I can't comment on that but my feeling is that mRNA presentation of the viral spike protein would be less likely to induce a severe immune response than the viral infection itself. The adjuvants in the different vaccines will also affect the immune response so it may well be that one vaccine is recommended over a different one. I have a feeling that if I had an autoimmune disease I would prefer an mRNA vaccine over the Oxford vaccine where you also mount an immune response to the adenoviral vector. I would guess that the cleaner the "vector" the better.

It is of course your decision to make but I made my comment as I feel like any vaccine would be safer than getting covid (unless you can be sure you can avoid covid infection in which case that would be safer than having a vaccine) and wanted to understand if that was the case or not based on experience of people with autoimmune conditions with flu versus the flu vaccines.

[quote bumbleymummy]@diplodocusinermine I answered it.

I think people have forgotten that the reason we have all this restrictions is to reduce pressure on the nhs, not prevent anyone from ever catching it because, for the vast majority, this is a mild illness. When the more vulnerable patients who are more likely to get very ill and end up in hospital eg. elderly/underlying conditions are vaccinated then the hospitalisation rate will come down. We do not all have to stay in lockdown until everyone is vaccinated. Once the pressure is reduced on the nhs, we should be able to get things back up and running fairly quickly.[/quote]
This. If you want the vaccination when it’s available and if you are entitled then go have it done. If you don’t want it done then don’t.

@diplodocusinermine hmm, I'm not sure which threads those are. I've been on several threads explaining that immunity from infection also contributes to herd immunity and that people should be allowed to have the choice of whether or not to be vaccinated. Is that what you have a problem with?

Prior covid infection offers protection for at least 6 months Oxford study on healthcare workers November 2020.

@JS87

That's good insight. I was talking with a immunologist friend the other day and expressed that I feel -as a layman- that the oxford is trickier for the body where the immune system is already messed up as it is and that wouldn't an mRNA be safer. She explained along similar lines the same thing and advised if I ever have a choice to go for the mRNA type.
It's good to hear it from another source though without any prompts :)

There is still a lot of time until under 65s/non HC workers are going to be vaccinated, so I have time to look around for research on the topic. The GP was totally useless in this question ...

@diplodocusinermine

Yes, I've seen numerous threads where you've argued for herd immunity via the 'let everyone catch it method'

The immunity gained by those who contract covid appears to drop quite quickly - the sickest patients seem to have the strongest immune response, those who are asymptomatic or have a mild dose don't - in fact some studies report a 'rapid decline' in immune response. We also don't know what happens if people then go on to contract it again - there appear to be people who have been affected worse second time around, and some who have not been affected as badly. It's a bit of a risky way of boosting immunity I would have thought.

Although we've had more time to study how long immunity lasts after actually being infected and getting ill than we have had to study how long the vaccine immunity lasts.

You have no idea how long any drugs/vaccines you take have been trialled for, absolutely not a clue.

A very important point that's worth repeating.