Can someone explain the logic to me please

[ChristmasScrooge]

How does this make sense?

We have to mask up on public transport and shops... but you can go into a nightclub where people are hugging/mingling more and you don't have to wear one?

WHERE IS THE LOGIC?

Anyone else fed up of all coronavirus crap? Let us live, the death toll isn't correct. Whose to say those people didn't test positive but yet died of cancer? Or got hit by a bus or whatever?

And how does having a vaccine protect others? When you can still catch covid and pass it on?

None of it makes any sense.

[quote Happypootle]@CheekyHobson OK to call me ignorant and ill-informed though?

Anyway, as a means to ensure the safety of a venue then yes I think current LFT proof is better than proof of vaccination. I am fully vaxxed (assume @alohamolly is too) but showing evidence that I had the vaccine in June doesn't mean much going to the theatre in December. I am more than happy to be exposed to your critical faculties on this one if you think otherwise.[/quote]
Freedom day has been, why do we need proof of anything?

@Happypootle

OK to call me ignorant and ill-informed though?

When did I call you ignorant or ill-informed?

[quote AlohaMolly]@CheekyHobson

nobody yet has actually been mandated to 'put the vaccine in their body'in the UK

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but haven’t Austria made it compulsory from February 1st? All adults in Indonesia, Micronesia and Turkmenistan must be vaccinated too, according to Reuters.com. Germany is also looking at making them compulsory.

I’d also argue that, while making the covid vaccine essential for certain roles for new starters, making care workers and medical staff already working, choose between having a vaccine or losing their job, is basically demanding compulsory vaccination, but that is probably semantics.

On to the issue that was the premise of my original post(s) - no. I said it was more logical to present a negative test at entrance to a venue. I don’t doubt that people can argue that tests aren’t as manageable a system as vaccine passports, but, essentially, someone at the entrance is either checking for a vaccine passport or a negative test.

I don’t really understand why that is an issue for you. You took umbrage at a very literal phrase I used and have constructed two posts that only fleetingly mention the point that I was making, in favour of what seems like goading me into saying something that I never said - along the lines of vaccines are bad. That has never been a point I’ve made on this thread. In fact, I believe I wrote that vaccines are effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalisation and death.[/quote]
Look, there are three separate issues here, all of which require quite a lot of complex discussion to break down.

1. Mandatory vaccination and the rights and wrongs of it. I tend to agree that there are substantial issues with population-wide enforced vaccination, but it's not the case in the UK right now, which is where we're talking about so would rather leave this for another day/thread.

1. Workplace vaccination mandates. Again, not the central topic of discussion, but in short, my thinking is that if you are a trained medical worker or a close-contact worker and when asked to reasonably consider the medical evidence around the protective benefits of vaccination in your particular role and the safety of vaccination, if you cannot accept the immense weight of evidence in favour of vaccination vs your desire 'not to put something in your body', then you may not have the mix of personal characteristics and skills necessary to do the career you chose effectively. That's unfortunate, but also a very small number of people. If they choose their personal beliefs over their job, I can see they have very strong personal feelings, but people are hired for their thinking and job skills, not their personal feelings.

1. I am quite happy to argue through why presenting a negative test at a venue isn't more effective than presenting a vaccine passport if you want to do so. My first questions would be "What sort of negative test would be regarded as adequate proof, what time frame before entry would it be valid for, what is the cost of the test and who pays?"

It's a load of tosh and bs and I'm going to try my damn hardest not to wear a stupid mask. I've had enough.

@Palavah

Well it's still recommended that we do lateral flow weekly, which would address your 'point' that vaccines don't mean you can never get covid or pass it on.

Are you doing that?

Where is it recommended we do that? I have never heard that!

But @CheekyHobson my only point in my original post was that it was more logical to present a negative test at entrance to a venue instead of a vaccine passport.

@CheekyHobson dabbydabbydoo called me ignorant and ill informed. So it doesn't apply to you directly in the same way I didn't actually call you dim. So now that's cleared up please go ahead and explain why vaccinated proof is a better precautionary measure than negative LFT for venue admission .

Where is it recommended we do that? I have never heard that!

I'm sure the manufacturers would recommend it.

And since they have probably paid for Boris' holiday or kitchen or something, that is what we must all do.

@Happypootle

I haven't actually called anyone names so I'm just setting that expectation for the discussion.

I find a logical discussion works best when we all have a set of agreed starting principles, so I've asked @AlohaMolly a question, maybe you could answer that so we can all get on the same page.

@CheekyHobson don't understand your question as nobody pays for LFT currently anyway and there is a standard protocol which is 48 hours prior to admission.

3. I am quite happy to argue through why presenting a negative test at a venue isn't more effective than presenting a vaccine passport if you want to do so. My first questions would be "What sort of negative test would be regarded as adequate proof, what time frame before entry would it be valid for, what is the cost of the test and who pays?"

• lateral flow test
• up to two hours before entry
• same cost as the current lateral flow tests readily available from all pharmacies (certainly in my county, not sure if that’s national) or to order from the gov.uk website. Both free at the point of reception.
• who pays? Who is currently paying?

I’m quite certain you have a very well thought out reason as to why proof of vaccination, potentially six months old, is better than a negative covid test. I’m also quite certain that this whole conversation could have been had in a much more civil, less antagonistic way, if only you hadn’t have been so goady.

Okay, I'm in a different country to you so just making sure I understand your particular proposition.

So you take your LFT and then what happens? How do you prove your negative result to the venue you wish to visit?

@Happypootle
nobody pays for LFT currently anyway

Somebody pays somewhere. So the government will pay for these LFT tests, is that right? For every person, every time they visit a venue that is currently covered by vaccine passports?

@CheekyHobson you take a picture of your LFT or you take the LFT with you. You also upload your LFT result to the NHS website with its barcode, the same as many of us have been doing since March .

This system is in common use. The only 'proposition' is that this is more useful as a measure for preventing the spread of infection in close contact venues than proof of vaccination.

I guess is to make sure essential areas are minimising risks. The elderly and hopefully other vulnerable will not go clubbing. They will be more protected when using transport and shops.

@ChristmasScrooge

How does this make sense?

We have to mask up on public transport and shops... but you can go into a nightclub where people are hugging/mingling more and you don't have to wear one?

WHERE IS THE LOGIC?

Anyone else fed up of all coronavirus crap? Let us live, the death toll isn't correct. Whose to say those people didn't test positive but yet died of cancer? Or got hit by a bus or whatever?

And how does having a vaccine protect others? When you can still catch covid and pass it on?

None of it makes any sense.

It is entirely choice-driven whether you go to a nightclub. Most people need to travel to work and to buy food.

As @Happypootle said - take the lft test physically on site, as was trialled in places last year or upload the negative test result with the barcode.

Is it fool proof? No. Should it be a reason to not get vaccinated? No. Is a recently taken test more meaningful than a vaccine passport when the sole criteria is a venue full of people without covid? Yes.

[quote Happypootle]@CheekyHobson you take a picture of your LFT or you take the LFT with you. You also upload your LFT result to the NHS website with its barcode, the same as many of us have been doing since March .

This system is in common use. The only 'proposition' is that this is more useful as a measure for preventing the spread of infection in close contact venues than proof of vaccination.[/quote]
And who's to say you even took it properly, or at all? There's no way you can rely on people to do that. The only way testing for entry works reliably is to do supervised tests, where you do it in front of someone (or they do it for you) and the test is placed in a tray for 15 mins and the result read. This takes up a lot of time and resources compared to scanning a QR code. Not to mention that LFTs aren't even that accurate in the first place.

If you'd even thought your genius plan through for a single second, you'd realise it was ridiculous.

It's all theatre so it looks like they are doing something. They don't want to shield the vulnerable as it won't be a good political move, despite them being most at risk of vaccine failure.

Vaccine passports would work but only if they are used everywhere (yes including supermarkets), we know the vaccine prevents severe disease (even likely with this new variant especially if within the last 6 months) if the unvaccinated aren't allowed to become infected by not being allowed to leave the house hospital pressures shouldn't be to bad.

But vaccine passports don’t mean you aren’t carrying the virus. All presenting a vaccine passport does is prove that you’ve had a vaccine.

If it’s the accuracy of the test that is the concern, by all means turn the foyers of theatres and cinemas into test centres. Have staff over see tests in the way that secondary school form tutors have done this year and encourage everyone to buy a drink in between taking the test and getting the result. Even incorporate the cost of the test into the ticket/event price.

If the goal of presenting something at the door is to prevent people carrying covid coming in, then devising an effective way of testing before entry is surely a more logical approach than demanding a vaccine passport. All a vaccine passport does is prove that you have been vaccinated.

@AlohaMolly

But vaccine passports don’t mean you aren’t carrying the virus. All presenting a vaccine passport does is prove that you’ve had a vaccine.

Yes, which in itself hugely reduces the chances of you getting and transmitting covid.

Good God.

@Hearwego

But let’s just say we didn’t have the vaccine. What would have happened? Surely people couldn’t be locked down or have restrictions forever? How long would furlough have happened for? Millions of people would have ended up unemployed, possibly forever? Yes the NHS would have been protected, but surely it would have gone bust because people wouldn’t be paying enough tax to pay for it? Also surely the country would have gone bankrupt at some point,had we have stayed in lockdown? I can’t see how we could have stayed locked down , in the instance of not having a vaccine.

I suspect part of the lockdown strategy was based on reasonable confidence that we’d get effective vaccines, so we just had to stall progress of the virus long enough.

There’s no guarantee that there’s a successful way through a pandemic, though. Civilisation could be completely wiped out by a virus like this.

dabby it's not my 'genius plan' it's the system already in use, admittedly flawed but still more likely to detect current infections than proof of a months-old vaccination. I'm baffled that this is even controversial.

@AlohaMolly

If it’s the accuracy of the test that is the concern, by all means turn the foyers of theatres and cinemas into test centres. Have staff over see tests in the way that secondary school form tutors have done this year and encourage everyone to buy a drink in between taking the test and getting the result. Even incorporate the cost of the test into the ticket/event price.

If the goal of presenting something at the door is to prevent people carrying covid coming in, then devising an effective way of testing before entry is surely a more logical approach than demanding a vaccine passport. All a vaccine passport does is prove that you have been vaccinated.

It doesn't stop people with covid coming in though, does it? LFTs miss a huge proportion of positive cases. There's a higher chance of an unvaccinated covid positive person getting a false negative than there is of a vaccinated person getting covid. So you have all that hassle for very little reward.

I'm not sure what planet you're on that you think people would happily pay extra for already expensive things like cinema tickets and have the hassle of having to do a nasal swab and then hang around waiting for results rather than scan a QR code. I certainly wouldn't do it. I just wouldn't go.