Is there any truth in this? (Test and trace)

[CirqueDeMorgue]

I'm having a 'debate' with a coworker about the effectiveness of vaccines (he's basically saying they make no difference) but he's also saying the government is 'profiteering' from Test and Trace because they used taxpayers' money and essentially paid it to themselves. Can't find anything to back that up, kind of sounds a bit 'conspiracy theorist.' Can anyone more knowledgeable enlighten me?

I'm on day 5 of isolation and possibly a bit stir crazy.

He's probably referring to the tory ministers awarding various contracts (T&T, ppe etc) to family and friends businesses that they have interests in. Contacts that should have been put up for public tender. So he's right some have certainly profited personally. Hancock being one them.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/28/matt-hancock-broke-ministerial-code-over-family-firm-given-nhs-contract

There’s been quite a lot of profiteering from this government over covid (and other things tbh). They seem to be fairly incapable of doing anything above board.

Several companies with no assets receive multi million pound PPE contracts despite having no experience in that area and who failed to deliver. Either providing nothing at all or what was provided was sun standard.

There's a lot of people misusing various information about vaccines.
They say that viral levels in the vaccinated are the same as the unvaccinated, but what they don't say is that you are much less likely to catch it if vaccinated. There has also been some data to show that while you might still have high levels of virus there are actually a lot fewer infectious particles.
Ask him about the levels of hospitalisation & deaths compared to January.

Interesting, thanks! As I say, it had previously been a discussion about vaccines and how they apparently aren't 'the silver bullet everyone thinks they are.'

If you've got another 5 days of isolation, then byline times might be worth a look

bylinetimes.com/columns/boris-johnsons-crony-contracts/

This is their collection of articles on potentially dodgy contracts. There might also be a few bits in their covid section.

He's wrong about vaccines not making a difference, you could see the infection rate in each age group drop as they became fully vaccinated. Compare the graphs for now with the graphs for Christmas and the difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated/not fully vaccinated age groups.

He's right about them not being a silver bullet, Israel has demonstrated that they are not effective on their own at keeping infections low and also that boosters are needed..

He's right about the Tories pocketing taxpayer money.

@noblegiraffe oh, I know he's wrong about vaccines not making a difference, hence the 'debate.'

He'd just been going on about other governments doing better than ours but couldn't tell me why he thought that so I just thought it was a bit of government hating for the sake of it. He said scientists didn't expect covid to mutate and that's why vaccines weren't effective and what I found quite annoying was that he gave a whole lecture about continuing to 'tread with trepidation!' while refusing to take a PCR despite showing symptoms because he's double vaxxed.

So, I knew there was some rubbish being spouted, just wanted to know whether this was part of it. I've no business arguing about stuff I don't know about, unfortunately.

That's the thing with conspiracy theories is that they are often mixed in with things that are true which makes it really hard to disentangle the nonsense. It also builds trust with what is being said by bullshitters when something that sounds wrong is actually correct lending credence to other stuff.

It's also hard to argue with someone who spouts crap with confidence.

That's exactly it, really. I shouldn't really have engaged because I was irritable anyway but I don't have much else to do at the moment and he wouldn't send any links to reliable sources, just YouTube videos which is why I hoped people here would know more. And they did. 😁