Hope okay to put this here - mandates

[EmmaH2022]

An extract from Hansard, in which an MP, very much too little too late, says this..

"I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on covid-19 vaccine damage, which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch chairs. The APPG looks at vaccine injuries, and we had what I think was our first meeting last week in a Committee room in Portcullis House. I am afraid there were only a tiny handful of colleagues there, but well over a hundred members of the public attended, which is not the usual story for an APPG. I felt somewhat ashamed, on behalf of Parliament, that that was the first time that those members of the public—including families of the bereaved, who are themselves injured citizens—had had the opportunity to be in a room with members of this House, but I am very pleased that we are having this debate, and particularly pleased that there is an opportunity for members of the public to hear from the Minister on this topic.......

Although many questions about our covid response need to be answered, the UK is by no means the worst offender. We are not Canada, New Zealand or China—places where Governments think they can exterminate covid by depriving their population of the most basic civil liberties. However, I am afraid that we still have many questions to ask ourselves, and even much to be ashamed of. I put on record that in hindsight I am particularly ashamed of my vote to dismiss care workers who did not want to receive the vaccine. I very much hope that the 40,000 care workers who lost their jobs can be reinstated, and indeed compensated".

Full Hansard notes here
hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2022-10-24/debates/FF880636-BC3B-4BDB-A5E0-D6D4B82B2888/Covid-19VaccinesSafety

some of you will know that courts in NY - and possibly Alberta now - are overturning some mandates.

there's a petition link for the Uk which I'm putting in the relevant section, as I'm not allowed to put it anywhere else.

of course, it's bloody awful the public paying for this, it should come from pharma profits.

It's difficult because the majority of people pushing this kind of narrative aren't talking from an informed place - this is no exception, as he follows up with....

Why was vaccination extended to the whole population? I do not think we have ever had a completely satisfactory answer to that question.

We have robust, replicated, data that it was safer to be vaccinated than not vaccinated in the age groups offered it. Vaccinating the general population has saved millions of lives.

I disagree with vaccine mandates for a variety of reasons, but I find it frustrating that people such as this MP don't understand that for some countries, increasing vaccine uptake was critical. This doesn't mean that mandates were the right policy to do this, but they offer no alternative solutions.

Regarding the mandates in the UK for health care workers - we had good evidence at the time that vaccination reduced both infection and onward transmission. This meant that on a population level, increasing levels of vaccination in HCPs would have a substantial impact on protecting others. Again - this doesn't mean it was the right policy - but there was a rationale behind it.

salted
you are looking at semantics there.

I just wanted to post this as I’m not sure people know it’s even going on.

it very obviously isn't just semantics.

There is no point in someone debating mandates if they do not have a good understanding of a) the impacts of SARS-COV-2, or b) why vaccination of the general population was necessary.

Clearly if you minimise COVID and do not believe vaccination of the general population was necessary, you are going to be against mandates.

I think it’s clear to all, whether you were all out for the vaccines or not, it was totally unjustified that thousands of careworkers lost their job because they weren’t vaccinated. That really needs to be addressed imo. It was totally unjustified and immoral.

it was done under the illusion that the vaccines stopped transmission, which literally everyone knows now was an untruth.

But he was in favour of mandates.

it was done under the illusion that the vaccines stopped transmission, which literally everyone knows now was an untruth.

As has been said - at this time there was good evidence that vaccination reduced both liklihood of infection which itself reduces transmission (RCT & population data) and onward transmission (population data).

I didn't agree with it, but to pretend there was no basis or precendence for implementing it is unhelpful.

Slightly confused by you here @EmmaH2022 - the person@ you quoted in your OP says:

A group of us—including, I think, the Minister—held out against compulsory vaccination of health workers when that was proposed by the Government last winter.

Why are you saying he was in favour of mandates...?

If you look at the section before, he says:

“I put on record that in hindsight I am particularly ashamed of my vote to dismiss care workers who did not want to receive the vaccine.”

my memory is hazy but I think the care worker vote was before the HCP vote. So presumably he changed his mind in time for the second one.

There was literally no good evidence at all

it was hysteria

Btw I’m off to bed, not ignoring anyone who posts later.

just thought it worth putting out there, not least as there might be MNers who lost their jobs. Plus, this is all happening at a time when political attention is elsewhere.

It’s absolutely a conversation that should be had

The fact people can say now “there was good evidence that it prevented transmission” is a stretch in itself as if it were “good evidence” it wouldn’t have turned out to be a complete falsehood

People should be ashamed

It's difficult because the majority of people pushing this kind of narrative aren't talking from an informed place

You surely do sound like someone with no narrative to push at all and thoroughly well informed - possibly by the same kind of "independent medical experts" that were peddling 'robust, replicated, data', ignored inconvenient data as long as possible and kept claiming that thalidomide is ideal for pregnant women?

If you want a more detailed version, try reading "A state of fear" (by Laura Dodsworth).

@hamstersarse

Well no - not at all and this does really demonstrate a lack of understanding about vaccines & SARS-COV-2.

As I said - there was good evidence at the time that both transmission & onward transmission were reduced - this was the rationale. I have already said I do not agree with vaccine mandate, but it's unhelpful to claim things that are not true.

Unfortunately, as the mutation rate of SARS-COV-2 was so high, these benefits of vaccination did last - the dominant variants changed so quickly that vaccines designed against the original variants were no longer as effective.

Confused by this - I've already said I'm against vaccine mandates, I'm not interested in pushing a narrative.

I'm simply pointing out if someone minimises COVID & does not believe vaccination of the general population was necessary (despite all evidence to the contrary), obviously they will be against mandate.

If this is about to turn into a "State of Fear #123" thread, I'm out!

We've already had the buzzwork of thalidomide, what's next?

As I said - there was good evidence at the time that both transmission & onward tran

@hangryyhippo I know you have already said this, but it still isn’t true. There was no good evidence at all, even at the time. Yes, it may have been said at the time, but that was not based on ‘good evidence’. Many people were pointing this out at the time, but they were shut down and labelled anti vaxxers. It was also pointed out at the tine, that it was dangerous to shut down debate, but there you go!

Either way, the people who lost their livelihoods based on false information should be compensated. It’s all the more galling because their loss is still felt in a crucial part of our society.

The 'rationale' completely ignored the reality that the care sector would lose workers it could ill afford to do without. It was made very clear to the government at the time that what they were doing was going to further tank the care sector, and that indeed is what happened. A substantial part of the current NHS crisis is people 'bed blocking' because there's nowhere for them to be discharged to. But they were too arrogant to accept this.

So my memory is hazy, but I distinctly remember a pale yellow box on the NHS website that said something to the effect of not knowing yet if the vaccine prevented covid or onward transmission...

Does anyone recall at what point in the program this was removed and it became certain that the right thing to do was being in mandates for care workers and NHS staff?

Now you mention it, so do I. I was in an early group but ended up only having two vaccines, so I don't know how it evolved.

I think the Hansard notes are a good indicator of how mad everything was, or how nastily motivated.

I am laid up with pneumonia at the moment. This is my third time with it. There are a lot of unknowns and I accept that.

But with Covid, no one wanted to admit the unknowns. I'm not sure why but comfort and care for patients was at the bottom of the list. No matter how profit seeking or arrogant anyone is, there is so much that should not have happened and quite a bit of neglect for patients who actually had it.

I basically wanted to draw attention to this, I'm glad to see some people have seen. It should be a big item on the news.

@hamstersarse it was never said it stopped , just thought to reduce

We already insist on certain vaccinations for nurses etc so its exactly a first
But it seems the vaccine has saved lifes

Yes - and as I said, the scientific basis for doing so didn't mean it was the right policy, for many reasons including this.

Yes it is true that there is already an precedent for HCPs need to be vaccinated for "relevant infectious diseases", and this is based on an understanding that epidemiologically things will change, and novel outbreaks will happen.

I think one of the many issues here was that care workers were targerted more strongly than nurses/doctors (arguably due to differences in power imbalances) and the disproportionate impact it had on ethnic minority groups.

I do think that the unvaccinated HCPs should have been dismissed with the benefit of hindsight and the fact that vaccines did not keep pace with evolving strains, such that they had less preventative effect and became more a tool to prevent severe disease.
However, now comes the contradiction and yes I'm probably very selfish. I am immunosuppressed and would simply not want to be in contact with HCPs who haven't had a full gamete of vaccines - whatever those are. Having said that I think its clear there are things like chickenpox which could be vaccinated against but aren't.

Gary I find that strange. Even now you don't realise how much you are more at risk due to the shortages?

what if you needed a carer at home and there are none to be had? You want to be picky about their vaccine status then?

my cousin was told to shield but she never wanted anyone to lose their job or be locked down. There's something really immoral about expecting the person who delivers your food to get a jab, because of you, or to restrict their life, because of you.

She's an academic and guilty of pretending the outside world that she believed in the vaccine - she has to or she'd lose her job.

but in reality, she's had four vaccines and three bouts of covid.

I narrowly missed the shielding list, just as well as I would have exploded with rage if I had got one.

sadly, with the global pandemic treaty under discussion, this will all repeat itself, I just have to hope it's not my lifetime.

I can see why you would want vaccinated over unvaccinated, but our problem was the risk it would be unvaccinated staff or none.