I understand why people are against vaccine passports but...

[User135644]

I understand why people are against vaccine passports, but a lot of those most vocal against it are the usual crowd who have been anti-lockdown and anti-mask throughout (and often anti-vaccine). They won't accept vaccine passports but will be the first to complain if and when nightclubs are forced to close again due to the impact of the virus which without vaccines would already be a lot worse with the Delta variant.

They can't always have it both ways.

Speaking only for myself, and as a double jabbed person, I simply think this is a way to put "good citizens" (jabbed people) against "bad citizens" (unjabbed people) and pitting them against each other in order to "divide and rule". It's a tactic as old as time.

In France President Macron tried to bring in laws restricting freedoms for unjabbed people and the country went out and protested.

Waveafterwaveslowlydrifting, we were having this conversation last night - Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Spain all have ID cards - well over half the countries in the world have ID cards.

We have driving licences, passports, NHS numbers, tax numbers, NI numbers. Many people have ID cards for work.

Many people overshare on social media (usually the ones who don't like their privacy being invaded .

I suppose the argument is that the ID cards will start by having basic information but as we become more techy they'll start to add more info/biometrics.

Absolutely agree, @EnidSpyton

'Crowded indoor venues' can be lots of places - I feel the mandatory double jab will apply to far more than just nightclubs. Thin end of the wedge.

Well as someone who falls into that age bracket and was already hesitant about being vaccinated, this has made me double down on my concerns.

@PiccalilliChilli

Speaking only for myself, and as a double jabbed person, I simply think this is a way to put "good citizens" (jabbed people) against "bad citizens" (unjabbed people) and pitting them against each other in order to "divide and rule". It's a tactic as old as time.

In France President Macron tried to bring in laws restricting freedoms for unjabbed people and the country went out and protested.

So as an unvaccinated pregnant lady, who feels the risk of the vaccine to my baby potentially outweighs the benefit, I'm a 'bad citizen'?

I don't intend to go clubbing, but as a minimum I can see this getting extending to theatre, concerts, and cinemas. Maybe by Christmas even extended to restaurants.

I will get vaccinated. But if clearer guidance, isn't made available, I'll wait until after the pregnancy. This means I won't be eligible for a vaccine passport until March, so potentially 6 months of my freedom being restricted.

This could mean being banned from taking DC to the pantomime at Christmas, missing my sisters hen do, and maybe even her wedding.

@leafyygreens

To use my example from upthread, it's possible that excluding HIV positive people from certain activities would prevent then infecting others with HIV. This is a vaguely plausible hypothesis but I have no idea if it's true.

@Chessie678

It is now illegal to have unprotected sex with someone if you haven't told them you are HIV+. You could argue this is unfair and discriminatory, and no one should be forced to disclose a medical condition in order to take part in a normal activity that others do.

Restrictions and laws need to be proportional to the situation which they apply. I don't see how domestic COVID passports (to include negative tests as an alternative to vaccination) are disproportionate to the risk of coronavirus transmission, and this feeling is echoed in many other countries worldwide.

@Chessie678 could you expand on your comment please or are you just guessing?

@leafyygreens perhaps you could give more context to your comment. In the U.K. 98% of people who know they are HIV+ are on effective treatment with 97% of those being virally suppressed. So legally no requirement to disclose to any partner if they don’t wish to.

Seeing HIV, a health condition that can be stigmatised, continually compared to COVID, really isn’t helpful, and for the most part incorrect/irrelevant. Perhaps pick another respiratory virus that can kill instead?

And if government are just going to do as they want then what is the point in having these committees?

Just a little snippet

In its report, the Committee said that the Government has so far failed to make the scientific case in favour of the system. The Committee found little evidence that the introduction a Covid-status certification regime would actually increase public confidence.

committees.parliament.uk/committee/327/public-administration-and-constitutional-affairs-committee/news/155788/no-justification-for-covid-passports-say-committee/

It’s bad enough for adults that this is happening - nightclubs is one thing, but indoor crowded places also include cinema, theatre, library’s, supermarkets, shopping centres, swimming pools, gyms, soft play, indoor children’s activities and sports, pubs, restaurants many many places could be considered crowded indoor places esp in winter. No one should be restricted to this degree if they have chosen not to have it. There is a risk with the vaccine. No one here or in the world knows 100% if there will be any longer term effects. No one can claim that yet.

My cold blooded fear is though that if (and when) your children need to be vaxxed to do anything. When it’s approved for the 12+ age and then for the 6+ age and then for all children. The fear of potentially putting your child in harm so they can get an education or participate in any indoor activity. Feeling forced to do that. It’s just not a world I want to live in at all.

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it' - George Santayana

I'm not part of the anti-lockdown or anti-mask crowd.

However, for me, wearing a mask isn't an inconvenience.

Being forced to queue up for ages to fiddle about with my mobile phone to show a vaccine passport is. And if you don't want to take the risk of being vaccinated, you should be forced to. The uptake of the vaccine is very high in the UK and the focus should be on persuasion for those who are nervous, not compulsion.

As far as nightclubs are concerned I am less bothered because (a) I won't go to one and (b) you have to queue up to get in and show proof of age anyway. But I will be really cross if it gets widened out to other venues like cafes or outdoor events.

should NOT be forced to!

A vaccination is a medical procedure. Banning people from large scale events (and let’s face it we don’t know where the line will be drawn on that considering the French are banning the non-vaccinated from bars and restaurants) is coercion. It may not be direct coercion like dragging someone out of their house and pinning them to the floor stuff. But it’s indirect and coercion all the same.

How does one define a medical procedure exactly? I have never considered a vaccine one.

@HIVpos

For what it's worth I am not suggesting that we would go down the route of banning HIV positive people from anywhere. I would hope that most people would find this abhorrent and that is sort of the point.

I was just trying to demonstrate that you can come up with all sorts of policy ideas which you think might plausibly reduce transmission of a particular disease. However, given the negative affects of such policies on a portion of the population, you shouldn't be implementing these policies without very strong evidence that they would be of substantial benefit (and even then I think there are lines you should not cross in terms of excluding certain people from society). Most covid policies seems to be made in this way - a minister has a hunch which might have some plausible sounding logic behind it but with zero evidence of its effectiveness at achieving the intended outcome and zero consideration of the collateral damage.

I could, and probably should, have used another example. E.g. I have a hypothesis that banning playgroups will reduce spread of respiratory viruses. I know that viruses spread at playgroups but I don't really know if closing them will reduce spread of viruses overall and the policy is quite random and damaging for a particular portion of society. I shouldn't just implement it without any evidence of its effectiveness and without considering softer alternatives.

@HIVpos

@Chessie678 could you expand on your comment please or are you just guessing?

@leafyygreens perhaps you could give more context to your comment. In the U.K. 98% of people who know they are HIV+ are on effective treatment with 97% of those being virally suppressed. So legally no requirement to disclose to any partner if they don’t wish to.

Seeing HIV, a health condition that can be stigmatised, continually compared to COVID, really isn’t helpful, and for the most part incorrect/irrelevant. Perhaps pick another respiratory virus that can kill instead?

As I've said in a PP I was responding to the previous comment where a poster was attempting to compare coronavirus to HIV using some kind of "slippery slope" argument. As I said then, they are completely different and it is grossly offensive to try and use discrimination against people with HIV as one of your arguments against vaccine passports.

My point about it being illegal to have unprotected sex without disclosing your status (which results in HIV being transmitted to the other person) was to demonstrate how this is a reasonably proportionate restriction placed on people with HIV, whereas clearly the other examples given by the other poster are not. Of course with the new drugs this has become far less of an issue as your viral load is so low you can't actually pass the virus on, but I thought it a relevant example given the previous comments - and transmitting the virus is a caveat of it being against the law.

As I said,

Restrictions and laws need to be proportional to the situation which they apply. I don't see how domestic COVID passports (to include negative tests as an alternative to vaccination) are disproportionate to the risk of coronavirus transmission, and this feeling is echoed in many other countries worldwide.

@EnidSpyton

Excellent post.

Discussion along these lines is not tolerated much however due to accusations of tin foil hattery and hyperbole. It is a slow creep and most people will tolerate it until one day some new piece of legislation directly impacts their lives in a way they object to. But by then it's too late....

Psychological manipulation is an art form and depends on an insidious drip drip drip of repetitive "reasoning" laced with fear. Getting people to accept new rules and regimes is now almost dependent on convincing you that it was something you wanted all along deep down. The peer pressure tactic is something we advise our children against succumbing to, yet it is being applied to us all now.

There was quite alot of interesting information in an old thread or two about biometric ID etc when this sort of idea was floated months ago, and then it all went suspiciously quiet in the media.

But the worst thing is the constant lying by the government - saying that domestic vaccine passports would never be required and then an announcement like this. It undermines faith in authority and destabilises people and turns them against each other. Which they know, as they are advised by behavioural psychologists. If chaos is created, at some point many people will be relieved if more control is applied because it is exhausting, and every day life can be pretty stressful anyway. And those who push back just have to be publicly characterised negatively regardless of the validity of their concerns on whatever subject and will be seen as irrelevant. A hive mind is not a healthy human concept.

@EnidSpyton I like you.

igelkott2021

Its going to be a pain in the arse…i quite often dont have my phone

@MistressoftheDarkSide

But the worst thing is the constant lying by the government - saying that domestic vaccine passports would never be required and then an announcement like this. It undermines faith in authority and destabilises people and turns them against each other. Which they know, as they are advised by behavioural psychologists. If chaos is created, at some point many people will be relieved if more control is applied because it is exhausting, and every day life can be pretty stressful anyway.

You think the flip flopping and backtracking is a deliberate ploy devised by behavioural psychologists in order to create "chaos" and exert control? When has this previously been used as an effective technique in dictatorships?

I think it is far more likely that BJ is a weak leader who has no idea what he is doing, who wants to give guidance that will make him popular, and so consistently flounders and backtracks. I think for some people it can be comforting to think there is some sinister master plan happening, but honestly Hanlon's razor seems pretty appropriate here.

"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

It's hardly comforting to think there is a sinister master plan.

This level of stupidity, constantly repeated and unchallenged by the rest of government is baffling.

But a destabilised and exhausted population who just want some "normality" are ripe for accepting measures that may appear to confer that.

At the moment there is a big hoo ha going on politically about spyware - Pegasus - which has been revealed as a surveillance tool and used to monitor political rivals, activists and journalists. Surveillance capitalism is a thriving industry with endless scope.

It's comforting perhaps to think of Boris and co as gently bumbling incompetents, but it's a fact that corporate influence and cronyism are relevant in this discussion, and I don't think it's unreasonable to question all possible motivations behind government activity.

AlecTrevelyan006

A vaccination is a medical procedure. Banning people from large scale events (and let’s face it we don’t know where the line will be drawn on that considering the French are banning the non-vaccinated from bars and restaurants) is coercion. It may not be direct coercion like dragging someone out of their house and pinning them to the floor stuff. But it’s indirect and coercion all the same

It is where this all leads.
Does anyone believe that there won’t be people being dragged from their houses and this vaccination forced on them.

Or do we think that it is going to stop with vaccine passports if they still don’t get everyone jabbed

@IRanSoFarAway1

Mistress "It's hardly comforting to think there is a sinister master plan"

Exactly.

It's a fairly established rationale for why conspiracy theories flourish:

Conspiracy theories provide people with a feeling of control when presented with troubling and disturbing information, calming our fears of the inevitable or unknown. “A lot of these conspiracies detract from some scary themes in the world,” van der Linden told me. “Climate change, coronavirus. It’s just another way to deny reality and having to think about your own fragility in the world. It’s an escape for people who are not so tolerant of uncertainty.”

For people who want a sense of order, conspiracy theories may provide a belief framework — even if it’s a negative one. “It tells people the world isn’t just random,” Radford said. “The world’s going to hell, but there is some master plan. People take comfort in that, in a sort of perverse way.”

www.vox.com/21558524/conspiracy-theories-2020-qanon-covid-conspiracies-why

Out of interest why are people anti - ID cards? Having lived in Europe where everyone has an ID card, I'm not sure what the big deal is? Most of us have either a passport or a driving licence anyway?