Guilt Free Railing 17

[WouldBeGood]

Happy New Thread, Railers!

@LizzieMacQueen thank you for the offer. I am paye so no tax return

It seems that hmrc thinks I owe them £1500 tax on my interest. At 20% my basic maths skills lead me to believe that they think I earned £7500 in interest .,hahahahaha .. oh if only . It sounds to me like a mistake

If I get stuck I will come back to you

Yep there's a few of us on here with kids in the Educational Gap generation
Let's hope the Highers go ahead this year

Kids really are paying the price. Unbelievably so.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I thought this thread would appreciate a live at the apollo joke about covid......

"Let's hope there isn't a Scottish variant.....because we will never hear the end of it til it gets declared as its own independent virus....." literally in stitches here!
Worth checking out on iplayer!

Railing against the UK government mandatory vaccination plans this morning. This story highlights some of the problems with this unscientific knee jerk coercion policy. This hospital consultant, who has been on the front lines since the start of the pandemic, has natural immunity to COVID and does not see the need nor want to be vaccinated. He points out that protection against spread lasts a matter of weeks after vaccination which puts a massive hole in the 'protect the vulnerable' rationale. Is the UK really prepared to sack thousands of Drs and nurses, the 'heroes of the front line', at a time when the NHS is under severe staffing pressure, to punish them for a personal choice that will make minimal difference to overall spread? I'm just fuming at the injustice of this. I had hoped that the UK was better than this kind of bullshit, and really hope they reconsider.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us I'm finding it hard to agree with the consultant. He's not immune to covid, proven by the fact he's previously had it. He doesn't know when he had it, and presumably he knows he has antibodies as it was tested as part of a trial, but that could be a year + ago. How does he know he still has antibodies? As part of his contract he'll have needed mandatory BCG and hepatitis B vaccinations and recommended annual flu jags, and presumably he didn't kick up a fuss about that and personal choice.

I tend to agree @Bavarois there are loads of mandatory vaccinations a NHS worker has to have as a minimum. I have had it before in work contracts (non medical) due to safety but also travel.

I am more horrified that IVF treatment is being withheld from women in Scotland who are unvaccinated tbh!
I completely advocate minimising risk and pregnancy has now been shown to be high risk (for delta unclear on omicron) but these women have waited years! To hold them over a barrel and stick them back down the bottom frankly is disgraceful! Assistance with information is what they need not have such an emotive gun held to them!!

Totally disagree with compulsory medical interventions

It may be you agree with this one, but what about when the next one is something you don’t agree with?

I can't see it going through - I'd have thought there would be cross party opposition. Some principles are sacred - I don't think we know enough about covid to overturn 200 years of liberalism.

If the vaccines controlled the spread better more people might naturally see it differently, whereas what we do know is that they malty confer a private benefit - and if a private individual can't see that...they'll be in a daily mail story if they're not lucky

@WouldBeGood

It may be you agree with this one, but what about when the next one is something you don’t agree with?

I think it depends what it is tbh! Medical and care workers are with the very vulnerable. Whilst the vaccine doesn't prevent people catching covid it has been shown to those vaccinated have lower transmission. Its a risk/balance element. I suppose to me it's not shocking to have prerequisite in contracts being mandatory. If I had an issue with it then I simply couldn't do the job. Again comes down to a risk/balance thing. Several offshore companies have also made it compulsory due to the nature of lack of medical support 100 miles in the North Sea and lots of people in close proximity and high risk environment. But there contracts also have similar and they have to pass a medical and survival course.

If people choose to go into a profession which has these types of things as standard for other areas then I don't see a issue with adding a covid vaccination as part of that, it's just another one in the list.

Would be very different for jobs which have never had a requirement and no risk basis to it such as say a someone who works from home and has no contact with vulnerable.

But surely nhs already has a history of requiring certain vaccinations as condition of employment?

Medical and nursing students have always had to get certain jags up to date in preparation for going to work in healthcare.
I didn't hear many people complaining about that. I know this is a new vaccine but the principle was there already

Maybe these people will come to work in Scotland?

You could argue about the volume being unprecedented though - the covid jabs, a lot of nhs staff are looking at getting their 4th jab in a little over a year.

I can see the point about contracts in general.

I just think there’s a big difference between State compelled medical treatment and that required by an employment contract.

Though I’m not a fan of that either, really

I tend to agree @WouldBeGood, totally horrified by compulsory medical interventions (for Drs or patients). Incidentally, just because they may agree to have other vaccinations (presumably because they see the worth in them) it doesn't automatically follow that a person should accept anything and everything on offer. The risk/benefit for each medical intervention should be assessed individually- that's absolutely fair enough and is exactly what I do. I wouldn't take morphine for a mild headache because I've consented to paracetamol before and so 'believe in medicine'. Personally I chose to have the COVID vaccine but I absolutely respect those who choose not to, particularly when they have a good knowledge of all of the issues and direct experience of the disease (and perhaps vaccine reactions).

I think that if there are detectable antibodies to COVID this is good sign that he still has good immunity, but the main point is that vaccine mediated protection wanes really quickly, so actually being vaccinated isn't protecting the vulnerable that much anyway. Hundreds of thousands of vaccinated people are catching COVID, this vaccine is not one that stops spread, it's primarily to reduce the risk to individuals. Quite apart from the civil liberties angle, from a pragmatic/scientific point of view it doesn't make sense. What's safer - unvaccinated Drs and nurses who are no more likely to catch/spread COVID than anyone else, or an NHS that is dangerously understaffed?

Unfortunately previous infection antibody protection is significantly dropped with omicron it's like 19% from between 65-75% with the other variants.

I'm gutted by the drop tbh as last 8 months have been bliss knowing that DS has very high protection from getting it again which has now gone

Protection against severe disease is still very high though is it not @Scottishskifun? Absolutely, antibody protection against further infection wanes very quickly (after vaccination too) but then the point of the vaccine isn't to prevent infection primarily, it's to protect the individual from severe disease. I don't see why natural infection would be any worse at that (and may even be better as immunity tends to be broader), so I would guess that even if your son did get it again he wouldn't be as ill.

There is also cellular immunity.

I disagree fundamentally with mandatory vaccinations from an ethical point of view. There are risks associated with the vaccinations (albeit miniscule) and ultimately each individual has to weight up whether they wish to accept that risk compared with the risk of catching Covid.

I've not yet had my booster as I caught Covid when I supposed to get it and I am now wondering what is the point. In all likelihood I'd probably get the booster but I'm not in any rush tbh.

On another point, had hoped to come out of isolation early but although I've got negative LFT today, DH has a very very faint positive.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us not enough data yet for omicron and previous infection only immunity from different strains isn't yet fully known and won't be for a while. The protection level based on gained infection immunity has been dependent on which variant. Alpha and delta were very close and the protection was shown to be very good not so much for first variant and delta for example.

From the previous data on variants and prior immunity from infection only vs vaccination only vs previous infection and vaccination the highest level is the last.

DS was completely asymptomatic its more now knowing its a high chance of occurring again and therefore self isolation with a toddler compared to less then 1% with the other strains.

Save us all, now we’re getting told how to walk on slippery outdoor surfaces, in order to avoid needing a hospital trip at this time.
For Fecksake.

“ NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has issued the top tips for walking like a penguin, which it hopes will avoid nasty falls and lessen the likelihood of calls being made to an overrun A&E department”
“ Step one of the advice suggests bending the knees slightly while keeping them loose and pointing feet outwards. Extending arms and taking short steps on flat feet is next up on the tips list and it's advised that keeping your centre of gravity above your feet is best.”

@OnceUponAWhine

Save us all, now we’re getting told how to walk on slippery outdoor surfaces, in order to avoid needing a hospital trip at this time. For Fecksake.

“ NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has issued the top tips for walking like a penguin, which it hopes will avoid nasty falls and lessen the likelihood of calls being made to an overrun A&E department”
“ Step one of the advice suggests bending the knees slightly while keeping them loose and pointing feet outwards. Extending arms and taking short steps on flat feet is next up on the tips list and it's advised that keeping your centre of gravity above your feet is best.”

Probably time to reel this out again then....

twitter.com/GlennBBC/status/1438471391343427584?s=20

Touché @ElephantOfRisk

What's safer - unvaccinated Drs and nurses who are no more likely to catch/spread COVID than anyone else, or an NHS that is dangerously understaffed?

Absolutely agree with this. Patients will be the losers here.