So the vaccine is going to be compulsory then?

[Gigheimer]

There was a thread ages ago about the fact people were being tin foil hat about a vaccine being compulsory.

Latest news out they are considering “vaccine passports”, which lets face it, on our news cycle throughout this entire thing it’s been ... prepare them gently with maybes, odd leak here or there, test the messaging, oh look the guesses were right

So no one is going to pin anyone down and spear them, but it’s basically the same thing. If you can’t enter a shop/leisure/work place domestically without a vaccine. It’s fucking compulsory.

Where did free will go? Where did vaccine uptake because we have trust go? I’m not anti-vaccine, had them all, even TB. But this isn’t on I terms of civil liberties. Does no one else feel concern at a general use of this crisis into nanny state?

I don't know how many more times I can say this - even the most pro vaccine person ever should have grave concerns about this direction of travel. Vaccines like all medications have potential side effects. "Put this in your body or you can't have your freedom" is not freedom and it's a breach of human rights. Once this starts it ends in a very bad place indeed. Anyone fine with this because they were planning to have the vaccine anyway needs to think much harder about why compelling it in this way is a massive problem.

Separately, this is a crazy way to go. Transparency and openness about pros and cons would have led to a greater takeup. Compulsion by the backdoor will fuel mistrust

It’s being rolled out after only a few months of testing?

The process has been fast because of the unlimited money and resources thrown at it. Getting funding for research and development usually takes years of applications and red tape. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in trials. The scientists haven't just jabbed a couple of people and hoped for the best.

www.nihr.ac.uk/news/200000-participants-take-part-in-the-uks-world-leading-covid-19-research/25790

[quote trulydelicious]@Coyoacan

I worry that first world countries are planning to buy up all the vaccines so that they can vaccinate lots of people who are minimally at risk and leave the vulnerable in the third world without a vaccine.

Maybe thirld world countries will have a lucky escape with this one[/quote]
Some 'third world' countries have already begun producing the vaccines. An Indian company is actually the world's largest vaccine manufacturer and has already manufactured 40 million doses. www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-vaccine-india-idUSKBN27S0J1 I have my doubts about their methods of trial, but overall vaccine scepticism is not widespread in India and most people do not want a "lucky escape".

@PinkFondantFancy

I don't know how many more times I can say this - even the most pro vaccine person ever should have grave concerns about this direction of travel. Vaccines like all medications have potential side effects. "Put this in your body or you can't have your freedom" is not freedom and it's a breach of human rights. Once this starts it ends in a very bad place indeed. Anyone fine with this because they were planning to have the vaccine anyway needs to think much harder about why compelling it in this way is a massive problem.

Separately, this is a crazy way to go. Transparency and openness about pros and cons would have led to a greater takeup. Compulsion by the backdoor will fuel mistrust

Freedom to spread a deadly virus? Great idea.

These vaccines use new technology never used before. It's incorrect to assume that they will behave in the same way as traditional tried and tested vaccines

They've been tested in a large scale and have so far proved safe. Adverse vaccine reactions tend to be fairly immediate and happen quite soon after delivery, they don't just suddenly show up years later because thats not how vaccines work.

[quote pinkearedcow]It’s being rolled out after only a few months of testing?

The process has been fast because of the unlimited money and resources thrown at it. Getting funding for research and development usually takes years of applications and red tape. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in trials. The scientists haven't just jabbed a couple of people and hoped for the best.

www.nihr.ac.uk/news/200000-participants-take-part-in-the-uks-world-leading-covid-19-research/25790[/quote]
Oh apologies, that article refers to treatments.

www.nihr.ac.uk/news/over-250000-volunteers-now-registered-for-new-covid-19-vaccine-trials-as-recruitment-begins-for-novavax-study/25731

@Pechanga

I have no understanding why anyone wouldn't want a vaccine that saves lives - theirs and others. So weird....

A lot of us don't require out lives saving because the risk to them was so tiny. Others can get the vaccine if they want their own life saving can't they?

The government are saying that a vaccine doesn't = freedom anyway, at the moment so why would you rush when it doesn't actually provide you any benefit at all?

@ShrikeAttack
I've unregistered myself as a donor, just because presumed consent became law
I think it's very important to recognise ourselves as individuals. It's always informed my politics. People matter. Individuals matter. You matter.

If you've unregistered yourself as a donor just on a point of political principle, then clearly people don't matter to you.

You can't have total freedom without taking away other people's freedom. You are free to find an uninhabited part of the world and manage alone.

This is what so many people in Britain just don't get. They don't understand that one person's liberty infringes on somebody else's. When they talk about freedom, they're invariably talking about their freedom, without acknowledging how it impacts on others.

If people choose not to have the vaccine but still want to go to the theatre, for instance, they are impacting on other people's ability to go who may not be able to have the vaccine because they are immuno compromised, for example. To say that children don't need to have it because they don't get that ill is ridiculous if they're the ones spreading it.

We all have to make a choice, we can't continue to screw our economy and curtail people's lives ad infinitem. When you say you have no choice, that's not true. You do have a choice, you just don't happen to like the options. If we continue as we're doing without hard decisions having to be made, we won't have cinemas, theatres or shops to go to because they just won't survive. Personally I don't put your choice to carry on as you wish, going wherever you like, without the vaccine above our whole way of life and people's livelihoods and futures.

Not all of the vaccines are mRNA vaccines - the Oxford one is not and as a pp has said, that one is based on a vaccine that has been widely used for a long time to combat SARS. So not untried at all.

And could people please stop using the thalidomide scandal as a reason not to have a COVID vaccine? Thalidomide led to the research criteria we have today, which are incredibly tight. By today's criteria, thalidomide would not have passed testing and been approved for use.

We really need to educate people about how health research works, there is so much ignorance on these threads.

I'm an NHS worker and will be having the vaccine (likely to be Pfizer) soon. And I can't bloody wait.

Lilybet I would suggest we don’t abandon the premise of free will within the U.K. and continue with voluntary vaccination programmes.

A combination of those already immune, those who are unlikely to be seriously ill from Covid, and those who are willing to take the vaccine through free choice is likely to put, what is in effect a virus that has a survival rate of over 99% , into the same realm as flu. Which we manage by an OPTIONAL vaccine (which by the way I and my children have every year). And which the NHS is set up and prepared for.

Sadly a risk still to some more vulnerable people who are unable to take the vaccine. Exactly in fact the same as other diseases.

We have an optional flu vaccine programme, and flu still kills 17,000 people a year, and yet isn’t compulsory and life isn’t restricted. Why?

Because allowing people free choice is both right, doesn’t allow the state to overstep its powers of bodily autonomy by the back door, and actually increases trust between the state and the population, leading to better medical and vaccine uptake in the long term. Sweden has managed without total economic destruction because there is a high level of trust between state and population, why erode the already Lower levels in the U.K. further? That effects compliance to EVERYTHING that sits under the social contract, and that’s potentially more damaging than Covid in the longer term.

We didn’t eradicate smallpox with compulsory vaccination, nor reduce the rate of any more infectious and deadly diseases. We did it via social contract and not losing the trust in the state.

Yes the anti vaxx movement and social media is an issue, but overstepping the boundaries of governments control isn’t the issue. You don’t counter a fear of force with more force because that way madness lies and it terrifies me people can’t see that.

The back door compulsory nature of this is the slim edge of the wedge - and no it’s not been said yet, but anyone with any PR experience can see it coming like a train and we need to question things BEFORE they happen.

The vaccine is almost irrelevant other than the fact it denies bodily autonomy so is a line that will be crossed.

Businesses having the right to refuse entry is their free choice, just like having or not having the vaccine is yours

@Tomorrowistomorrow

Vaccines are medical treatment that is irreversible.

Why are you comparing this to on-line deals, toast and driving tests?

A lot of us don't require out lives saving because the risk to them was so tiny. Others can get the vaccine if they want their own life saving can't they?

Having a vaccine also benefits your whole community through "herd immunity".

If enough people are vaccinated, it's harder for the disease to spread to those people who cannot have vaccines. For example, people who are ill or have a weakened immune system.

@Lovemusic33 I ask you the same question. That I’ve done to other posters and that nobody has replied (others are asking as well the same)

What is your solution Thwn ? To wait few years to see what are the side effects ? And what happens In the meantime ? Do we carry on with lockdowns ? For another 2-3-5-10 years ?

"it couldn't be policed" - it sure could. Have a google of china's social credit system. If you can't see where this is going, please have a read and sit with it. And then realise this is why this is a really bad direction of travel.

@Sertchgi123

A lot of us don't require out lives saving because the risk to them was so tiny. Others can get the vaccine if they want their own life saving can't they?

Having a vaccine also benefits your whole community through "herd immunity".

If enough people are vaccinated, it's harder for the disease to spread to those people who cannot have vaccines. For example, people who are ill or have a weakened immune system.

But they're not planning to vaccinate under 50s anyway are they so?

You only get herd immunity if it prevents transmission - they haven't tested or even studied that yet.

@Gigheimer yes, completely agree with you on all fronts

I think the under 50s will get the opportunity to be vaccinated next year, just not with current supplies of vaccine
under 18 not as the vaccine hasn't been tested on children

So are we going to stop under 50s travelling, accessing healthcare, going in shops then for over a year? And under 18s until they turn 18 and get it?

Or does that sound absolutely insane?

Oh and before we all forget, death and disease is a fact of life. The virus is never going away even with a vaccine. The start point of this was not “let’s save all lives and eradicate the virus”.

It was “let’s save the NHS which is critically underfunded and unable to cope with a low death rate viral infection.

Voluntary vaccination stops that. It does the job we started with. I may even take the damn thing as part of my commitment to our social contract who knows.

But we’ve been moved from the place we started to a nanny state and ha ding over freedoms wholesale with nary an eyebrow raised, and created a culture of vicious backlash to those who question.

[quote EasterIssland]@Lovemusic33 I ask you the same question. That I’ve done to other posters and that nobody has replied (others are asking as well the same)

What is your solution Thwn ? To wait few years to see what are the side effects ? And what happens In the meantime ? Do we carry on with lockdowns ? For another 2-3-5-10 years ?[/quote]
Im not saying people shouldn't get the vaccine, I just think people should consider if they need ot or not. If your elderly, vulnerable then the positives outweighs the risk? If your young and healthy then you may chose not to have it. Covid only kills 1% of people that get it, he's theres chances of complications and long covid but that again is a tiny %. Like tue flu vaccine I believe it should be offered to those at risk, those that work front line and should be optional for everyone else. The vaccine won't eliminate covid, its likely to be here to stay as no vaccine is 100%. And no, we shouldn't carry on with lockdowns.

@Lovemusic33
It’s being rolled out after only a few months of testing?

Oxford vaccine: How did they make it so quickly?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55041371