Strict Covid Passports - surely this would help fix the problem?

[MyWordWhatAPalava]

Trying again to have a sensible discussion about this after a complete plonker troll derailed my thread yesterday and mnet had to take it down (fair play to mumsnet the troll was vile and all over the thread).

So my question is, being that this is what other countries are doing, why aren't we?

I agree that people should be able to choose whether to be vaccinated or not. I don't agree with forcing people to have something injected into their body that they don't want. HOWEVER, given the severe impact that decision is having on the economy, mental health and the NHS* (and by default hundreds of thousands of people who are having operations/treatment delayed) why shouldn't there be the necessity to have a vaccine passport to enter retail, leisure facilities etc?

That way, people who choose not to be vaccinated, can continue to remain unvaccinated whilst the vast majority of us can start getting back to normal as the omicron varient seems to be very mild in those who are vaccinated. Obviously there would be medical exemption for those who are medically unable to be vaccinated.

What are people's thoughts on this?

*a doctor friend said in her hospital the figures are still that 90% of Covid cases in ICU are unvaccinated. I'm not sure of the country-wide current figures but I think it's still the majority by a long stretch.

But if vaccines aren’t preventing Covid spread (and they aren’t) how does a QR code?

Scotland, Wales and North Ireland have vaccine passports. Sorry to disappoint but they include a negative lft as an alternative to vaccine status. So no passports don't stop those who have chosen to decline the vaccine from doing anything.
And really, a doctor friend? . There's an awful lot of mumsnetters around at the moment with doctor friends claiming this 90% nonsense. Never seen any actual data to back this up. If you're going to make such statements you really should be able to back them up.

@Suranjeep

But if vaccines aren’t preventing Covid spread (and they aren’t) how does a QR code?

This.

Since you can still get Covid when vaccinated... I think it would make more sense to have LFTs for everyone attending large events.

There's another thread at the moment where hospital staff are reporting how things are in their hospital.
None of them have said they're overwhelmed with Covid patients. One mentioned the first patient for a few (days/weeks - I can't remember) in ICU who is not vaccinated.

The hospitals are not at breaking point because of people who have chosen not to have the vaccine. They are at breaking point because of staffing issues, which is a long term, deliberate choice by a series of governments.

I don't know how to link the thread but the title is pretty obvious

In some ways, and this is far more relevant to the mild omicron version, it's not the spread that's the issue.

It's the severity of illness that unvaccinated people can get from it. People who are vaccinated, GENERALLY, are suffering no more than mild cold symptoms. We don't require face masks, social distancing, isolation etc from normal colds etc doing the rounds. We only require this with Covid because for some people it is fatal so therefore we need to try and curb its spread so those people don't get very ill. Now we know that vaccinated people are highly likely to be safe from its worst effects, why are we behaving as if it is still so dangerous to everyone?

It IS still very dangerous to those who choose to be unvaccinated. Surely, therefore, it is those people who should be restricting their movements, not the whole population. It's akin to the teacher punishing the whole class because of the bad behaviour of a couple of pupils.

Vaccine passports would mean that people who haven't had the vaccine would be less likely to catch covid and therefore need hospital resources. I don't like the idea of vaccine passports at all but think they might have some value on a temporary basis while the data about Omicron is analysed and the risks better understood.

But the best way to avoid transmission generally is to test all the time and ensure that those with covid stay at home.

@notatall - I can make that statement because it is absolutely true, my friend who is a diabetes consultant (and therefore whose patients are part of a high risk group) and whom I had dinner with at the weekend told me about the hospital she works in, I have no reason not to believe her. I'm not required to have other statistics at hand to make that statement and freely admit I don't know about the country as a whole!

It's open to explpoitation and can easily be fudged.

Been asked for passes twice. Bouncers vaguely looked as we waved the printed out QR codes but there waa no scan or inspection, so could have been anybody's code.

My sons could havd taken a LFT for me if I were positive too.

I waa fully vaccinated and still caught Covid, so the pass did not help prevent that either.

Since you can still get Covid when vaccinated... I think it would make more sense to have LFTs for everyone attending large events.

Agree & I think they should be paid for, not free.

Fix the NHS.

This is the root of the problem. Everything else has been done to minimise spread.

There’s no need to massively inconvenience the general public at this stage going forwards.

@MyWordWhatAPalava I read 200k nhs workers aren't vaccinated today, what would you do with them?

Is it actually working in other countries to drastically bring the infection rates down? I have no idea.

But if it isn’t making a drastic impact on getting rates down and pretty much so living the entire problem of transmission in public, then why would we do it?

I can’t see passports making much difference considering that everyone I know that has caught covid has caught it at work, either because they work in a school or care setting, or because they still attend school or their children do. Making people show they’re negative or vaccinated to get in to Tesco’s isn’t going to help that.

@NotAtAll

This article says in certain hospital, 80-90 % are unvaccinated in critical care, maybe not all, but it could be true.

Michael Bartley, a critical care matron at King’s, estimated that “80 to 90%” in the hospital’s critical care beds were unvaccinated.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/19/london-hospital-staff-speak-out-were-not-here-to-judge-but-please-get-your-covid-vaccines

It's one of the most basic and easy ways to limit spread among people.

Because you dont need to actually DO the lateral flow to register a negative result.
Open packet (assuming you can get hold of some), open result recording website, photo unused LFD QR code, and declare it negative.

@userperuser - I stand by my statement. It's up to them to make a decision. I would never want to be forced to take a chemical unwillingly or force someone else to do it.

The damage to the NHS, mental health, other patients, businesses is too high a cost though to maintain that freedom to choose without taking on some responsibility for your decision (ie. not going to retail, entertainment venues etc). I personally have two friends who have lost parents to Covid, I work for a small business whose owner, like so many, have been on a knife edge for a year to see if their business can weather this storm, my friend's father had his chemo delayed whilst hospitals were dealing with Covid patients, as a minor issue, I have been to my own hospital appointments without my husband (which has been difficult as I am neurodiverse and rely on his taking in information when I can't retain it all), my friend's daughter has found lockdowns so difficult that her mental health declined to the point of developing an eating disorder. The list goes on and on, those are just some of my own experiences, obviously loads of people will have many more, worse ones.

It's for those reasons that I question the ability of the decisions of the minority to have such a hefty impact on the majority. Particularly when the decisions of many of the minority are based on fear and misunderstanding rather than science based evidence.

@mclaw - that is tricky. Obviously I don't have all the answers! I would say to look at the countries who have employed Covid passports and see what they have done about healthcare workers. I must admit, I have very little sympathy with HCPs who have seen first hand the devastation of Covid and still won't get vaccinated! All the medics I know are fully vaccinated and glad to be so.

I don't fully understand the benefit of covid passports. We are learning that protection from the vaccine wanes gradually and in some people this is faster than in others. So someone walking around with a covid passport could have very limited immunity depending on how long ago they had their most recent vaccine. Someone who had the booster in October could have half the protection now. Vaccines obviously have reduced the amount of people needing hospital treatment but I can't see how a vaccine passport will benefit in reducing transmission.

The problem isn't with people getting it. We, our health service and the economy, can cope with that. We can't cope with so many unvaccinated becoming so very unwell and causing the issues around high death rates and lockdowns etc. It will also help protect those who are vulnerable and can't have the vaccine, just as our vaccines against measles mumps rubella etc do.

The introduction of a vaccine passport brings up the vaccination rate drastically since everyone who was only a little hesitant or never got round to doing it gets a big nudge. (This has happened in other countries and would be likely to happen in the UK.) An extra 5–10% of the population vaccinated would help the UK a lot.
It won’t reach the hardcore refusers but then nothing will.

@userperuser what's BS? I am against forcing the whole population to get vaccinated. I can't be clearer than that. It doesn't mean I can't have an opinion on other steps the government takes to limit the impact of the pandemic. Pithy and helpful though your comments are, please don't bother if you have nothing more to say than be insulting with no justification. I have taken the time to carefully lay out my reasoning, if you can't be bothered to do the same then please take your wit and wisdom somewhere it will be better appreciated.

(In other countries, unvaccinated people can enter without a passport to work in bars, gyms etc, just not for leisure. Those who are medically unable to be vaccinated could receive a passport as they have their full dose, 0/0.)