Forcing vaccination

[Peaceiseveryrhing]

Just read this on the Beeb

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-55718553

Personally, I think it's outrageous that employees may insist on vaccination and airlines preventing travel.

A communistic approach!

@Inastatus

Government plans to issue vaccination passports being widely reported in the press today. Better roll up your sleeve if you want to go abroad on your hols in future!

Oh go away. You sound sad and spiteful.

@southeastdweller - what’s sad and spiteful about my comment?! I’m actually very jolly today. I’ve been reading all the positive news about the vaccine working etc and hopes of returning to normality. 😊😊😀😀😀😀😀

On the point of the original thread, no one is going to make anything compulsory. We have to rely on people not being selfish.
You have to rely on people not following a basic human instinct!? Really? May half a dozen videos of people who don't have the vaccine and think they are healthy explaining to the media how their spouses are dead might help wake up the 'it'll never happen to me' brigade.

We will get a few months out of the tightest levels of lockdown in the summer, and then we will be in stricter lockdown through autumn, with tighter firebreak lockdowns and finally full lockdown through Christmas and into next March/April.

I am happy to stay locked down for another few years. No fucks given here. But are the vaccine refusers? Do they care about the MH of their kids? And will they in a years time?

We don't know how long vaccine immunity will last so they are developing boosters.

Yes, but we still won’t know whether or not people getting on a plane with a vaccine certificate are immune or not. That’s why I said it would make more sense to ask for proof of immunity if what they are actually trying to do is ensure that there is a low risk of transmission on their flights.

It’s stupid to expect someone who is already immune to a disease to have to have a vaccine as well. Imagine if we all had to be vaccinated against chickenpox to travel even though most of us are immune because we had it when we were younger. It’s stupid. And a slippery slope IMO.

The funniest thing last year about people going on holiday was all the people who knew exactly what was going to happen, going anyway and either being locked in their hotels for two weeks, or having to buy emergency flights home. These are the biggest idiots, and if it wasn't for the fact that it was 'news' and they were voluntarily talking to the press, it would have been exploitation, up there with watching JK trying to talk sense into his guests.

It will be hilarious seeing the underprepared and the ill thought out doing the same thing again this summer, or next summer. As they say, a fool and their money are easily parted.

@ElliFAntspoo I think you’re being a bit silly. This disease is extremely low risk for the vast majority of people. Seriously. The Vast Majority.

I think lockdown might be making people lose their critical thinking skills.

@Inastatus

Government plans to issue vaccination passports being widely reported in the press today. Better roll up your sleeve if you want to go abroad on your hols in future!

I was listening to this being discussed on radio 4 this morning, and it seemed to me to be a case that some countries (may have been Cyprus, I cannot remember fully) may be willing to open their borders to visitors from the UK who have had a vaccine. The presenter was questioning if the government will provide proof to people to allow them to enter countries with this rule, the answer was very unclear, just a generic "it is being looked at".

The passports being reported today are not about our government stopping you from leaving if you haven't had a vaccine, but other countries having the vaccine as a requirement to enter, as is already the case for many countries for various vaccinations.

@bumbleymummy - you can’t compare COVID with chickenpox! We know that it’s rare to catch chickenpox twice but it’s looking increasingly likely that you can catch COVID twice, especially if you had a different strain of it first time. Chickenpox doesn’t mutate whereas Covid does, so Its going to be more like the flu vaccine which requires tweaking each year to adapt to any new strain. Scientists have no idea at the moment how long natural immunity lasts for but know that vaccine induced immunity is more reliable. It is rare that the vaccine would produce no immune response.

@Inastatus I’m using it to illustrate the ridiculousness of someone needed to be vaccinated against something they’re already immune to. A person immune to covid should not have to be vaccinated as well. The vaccine itself doesn’t guarantee immunity. The known immune person is less of a risk than then person who has had the vaccine because we don’t know if they’re immune or not.

Before anyone asks - immunity could be shown by an antibody test within a certain period of time. And before someone says ‘antibodies don’t prove you’re immune’ - how do you think they’re proving the effectiveness of the vaccine? Antibody levels.

@LoudBatPerson - yes, I realise it’s not about our govt stopping us from leaving but you won’t get very far if the rest of the world start closing it’s borders to the unvaccinated.

@bumbleymummy - I can see what you’re saying but I think I’ll leave it to the scientists to figure out how it will all work. I think they are doing an amazing job.

[quote bumbleymummy]@ElliFAntspoo I think you’re being a bit silly. This disease is extremely low risk for the vast majority of people. Seriously. The Vast Majority.

I think lockdown might be making people lose their critical thinking skills.[/quote]
But not for the people who die from it, and not their spouses and their children. Now I understand that no one needs to give a F about them because it isn't their spouse or the children, but what about people who don't have a choice? People who have carers turn up in their homes who have refused the vaccine, people who have nurses at their bedsides who have refused the vaccine, children who take the virus home to their parents because their teachers choose to refuse a vaccine? People who go to work and are stopped by a policeman who has refused the vaccine? People in supermarkets that are assaulted by security guards who have not been vaccinated?

How do you justify someone who has refused the vaccine forcing themselves on other people against their will?

No-one seems to be willing to answer that. They are pretending that that doesn't happen because in their world they don't want the vaccine and they believe that their freedom to choose does not mean other people will be refusing vaccines and then infecting vulnerable people who cannot defend themselves. Their attitude seems to be, I don't want a vaccine, and if some else dies as a result, F them.

Actually bumbleymummy antibody levels are only a small part of the way vaccine efficacy is assessed. The main assessment is to look at the control group (who have received a placebo) and the vaccine group and look at how many in each group develop COVID as they get on with their lives.

Now that the vaccine is out there and being used, we can look at how case rates change as a larger and larger proportion of the population are vaccinated, and what % of cases are ending up in hospital or dying. This does rely on accurate testing and recording of cases, but it is by no means so that only antibody levels represent a measure of vaccine efficacy.

@bumbleymummy - You appear to be making the assumption that someone who has had Covid, or who is otherwise robust enough in their immune system, cannot catch, and transmit the virus. There is no evidence that this is the case.

ellipoo you have a lot of anger.

has anyone ever seen bumbley on a thread that isn't about vaccinations? It's so weird, she's been around since the dawn of mumsnet, with her faux "I'm not an anti-vaxxer" spie, yet she only ever appears on vax threads and always against any vaccination.

@pointythings yes, I know how clinical trials work. They were also measuring antibody levels to gauge the level of immune response it induced and to determine how long antibody levels persisted to find out when boosters may be required. If it’s a good enough measure for the effectiveness of the vaccine in an individual then why isn’t it a good enough measure for people who have natural acquired immunity? I still think everyone should have to have a negative test to travel anyway, regardless of vaccine status.

@ElliFAntspoo The small number of vulnerable people who can’t have the vaccine fall into the same category as all the vulnerable people that can’t/won’t have the flu vaccine every year. Some of them will get sick and die. We’ve accepted that for years. People die. Lots of them. Everyday. From lots of different things - many of which have been made worse by restrictions and lack of access to diagnosis/treatment. Those deaths are just as tragic as those of the people dying from COVID.

I’m not against vaccination, I’m against compulsory vaccination. There is a difference despite what some MNers think . And yes, I post on plenty of other threads or just vote on AIBU 😊

I think what people may be forgetting, is that some people think a covid vaccine may be unsafe.
So they dont want it until proven safe. And they dont want others to have a potentially unsafe vaccine either.

If all covid vaccines prove to be safe now and forever, then the vaccine hesitant people will have no need to be concerned for the safety of themselves and others.
Lets hope and pray there is never a problem with them

[quote ElliFAntspoo]@bumbleymummy - You appear to be making the assumption that someone who has had Covid, or who is otherwise robust enough in their immune system, cannot catch, and transmit the virus. There is no evidence that this is the case.[/quote]
Actually, there is evidence of that. Persistence of antibodies and the protective effect that offfered (limited number of second infections) from natural infection is what gave many scientists confidence that the vaccine would work.

bumbleymummy if you are suggesting that as well as proof of vaccination, a traveller could provide evidence of sufficient antibodies, I would not be a priori against that - but I would expect the would-be traveller to pay for that test themselves given that a safe and effective vaccine is available.

There are lots of ways of handling this situation - but vaccine refusers who do not have a legitimate medical exemption need to accept that their choices will have consequences. It is likely that we will see requirements for vaccine passports, and that there will have to be international negotiations and agreement on this. It will be an interesting lesson for the government; they will actually have to negotiate and not attempt to throw their weight around.

@pointythings I think it should be an accepted alternative, yes. I would also be happy to pay for it if required. The vaccine doesn’t guarantee immunity so it should not be considered superior to actual proof of antibody levels. (Or, as time goes on and we have more proof of low long immunity from natural infection lasts, then perhaps proof of a positive tests within a certain number of months of travel - obviously not within the infectious period!)

I am yet to catch "the gay" from someone.

lightand, I think that’s ok to a certain point - but when pressed, those people often can’t articulate what that ‘proof’ would consist of or set the standard so impossibly high that very few new-to-market vaccines would qualify.

And with due respect, they can fuck the fuck off with not wanting anyone else to have it. A vaccine that’s been through clinical trials and approved by more than one regulator is fine from my perspective. I wouldn’t compel them to have one (though I support the idea that there are some jobs where an unvaccinated person in the current pandemic may be an unacceptable risk to others), but Nigel who’s read a thing on Facebook can fuck right off with his opinions about whether I or my loved ones should be able to get it.