@Tealightsandd
Isn't it best to trust the advice of the people who work in this area everyday - the expert virologists and immunologists, who've spent years studying viruses and the immune system?
You've posted several times saying this and you obviously have great faith in experts.
But surely you can see that there are some basic truths and principles that apply in the current situation.
- Number one for me is that covid vaccines have not completed their trials. I'm amazed that it is even legal for any government to mandate a pharmaceutical which is still under trial.
- The European Medicines Agency (who are experts) clearly state the following on the Pfizer vaccine for example :
www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/comirnaty
The impact of vaccination with Comirnaty on the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the community is not yet known.
It is not currently known how long protection given by Comirnaty lasts. The people vaccinated in the clinical trial will continue to be followed for 2 years to gather more information on the duration of protection.
Comirnaty has been granted a conditional marketing authorisation. This means that there is more evidence to come about the vaccine (see below), which the company is required to provide. The Agency will review any new information that becomes available and this overview will be updated as necessary.
This trial and additional studies will provide information on how long protection lasts, how well the vaccine prevents severe COVID-19, how well it protects immunocompromised people, pregnant women, and whether it prevents asymptomatic cases.
In addition, independent studies of COVID-19 vaccines coordinated by EU authorities will also give more information on the vaccine’s long-term safety and benefit in the general population.
The company will also carry out studies to provide additional assurance on the pharmaceutical quality of the vaccine as the manufacturing continues to be scaled up.
A risk management plan (RMP) for Comirnaty is also in place and contains important information about the vaccine’s safety, how to collect further information and how to minimise any potential risks.
These experts are perfectly clear on the (rather obvious) fact that these products were hastily brought to market due to the pandemic and that they are still collecting data on effectiveness and safety. In other words there is much that experts simply do not yet know about how these vaccines perform.
- One thing we do know is that they are not sterilising vaccines. They do not prevent infection and transmission. There is data which suggests that the viral load is as heavy in vaccinated people as in unvaccinated people when infected. Therefore the vaccines play at most an individual protective role not a community one.
- Unsurprising (considering that there are no other successful vaccines against any cornona viruses) the vaccines both wane quickly and perform badly against highly mutated variants. Constant boosting will be required with these vaccines. The UK government currently has no plans to do this and there is no safety data on doing so.
- One of the reasons there is no safety data on repeatedly boosting is that currently used covid vaccines use novel previously unused techniques on which we have no long term data. We are therefore using real time data.
So what's the point of all this? What's the point of forcing people to take 2 doses if we aren't going to force them to take 6 doses a year for the rest of their working lives?
There just isn't compelling science behind this policy. Which makes it a political decision not a scientific or medical one. And the ethics of that stink to high heaven.
If we "listen to the experts" as you implore us to do what we can conclude is that they don't know how effective or safe covid vaccines are but that they have authorised them due to the situation we found ourselves in and that they will update us with information as the situation evolves and the data emerges.
Which is fair enough - obviously they can't do more than that.
But it's hardly compelling enough to come even close to justifying mandates for anyone. Regardless of their job.
Informed consent is a cornerstone of medical ethics. And IMO it is precisely in situations such as the current one where that principle must be adhered to. We simply cannot mandate a pharmaceutical about which we are still collecting safety and effectiveness data, for individuals who in all likelihood will not themselves benefit from, whilst also retaining an ethical position. It just doesn't compute so it's one or the other. Ethics or mandates.
The government's current policy is neither ethical nor scientific. Therefore one must conclude that it's political (or if being charitable one might conclude that it is out of date and no longer in line with the latest data).
That's the obvious conclusion when one actually "listens to the experts".