I agree with Madbiker.

However, I'm getting my vaccination tomorrow.

Quite honestly, I don't want it. And I'm having it begrudgingly.

Because If I don't then I'm going to be discriminated against. Forced into paying hundreds of pounds for tests to travel or not be allowed to travel at all. Banned from sporting events or cruise ships etc. Obscene.

And in the U.K, they're putting the 'Covid Passport' into the NHS App. So really we're being digitally Identified and restricted. Another level of tracking and control.

It really is a forced vaccination program and a massive step in the wrong direction.

I'm not an antivaxer. I've had countless jabs. But they have been through choice. And a measured risk that I took myself. Being forced into a medical procedure to have the same human rights as others is illegal and I do believe, un-necessary.

Our lives will now be ruled and exploited by these new passports for god knows how long. Forever probably.

All for a virus that is dangerous to only 0.05% of the population. Knowing someone who's died of Covid is dinner party chat these days.

I know more people who have died from falling off ladders than of Covid.

__________________
Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

The vaccine was NOT designed to stop you getting infected or being infectious. What it was designed to do was to significantly reduce the likelihood of you becoming very ill / dying from COVID. As it happens the vaccines have also reduced the likelihood of you getting COVID and reduced the potential for you to pass the virus on - by they have not eliminated the risk entirely. So even when you have had the vaccine you should still wear a mask as that reduces the risk of spread if you are contagious and it has a beneficial effect of protecting you to some extent as well. Wearing the mask properly remains important.

As regards vaccines some people cannot have vaccinations due to theirmedical conditions - my daughter has to be careful about the types of vaccine she has - for instance she can’t have a “live” vaccine - fortunately all of the COVID vaccines are ok for her - however if she were to get COVID then her prospects would not be great as she has a compromised immune system so would have difficulty fighting the virus. So to all those people out there that have had their vaccinations, a thank you from those that cannot have the vaccine - you are helping to protect them as well.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

If illegal, I'd sure be interested in hearing about the specific laws which make it so. Clearly, any country with control over its own borders can require any vaccine it deems necessary. You and I both carried yellow fever cards in South America, right? At work I've been required to have a pertussis vaccine during outbreaks. Schools here routinely require measles vaccines. etc.

And I know more people who've died from COVID--and WAY more who've gotten sick--than of yellow fever. So what's your point? That your personal experience is sufficiently central to dictate policy worldwide? Hard to see the logic in that.

There may be valid reasons to not want--or to complain bitterly about--vaccine requirements, but these are not them.

True enough.

[snip]

Even if I accepted this as true--it's not--there are real problems with this approach. In the U.K., for example, only 23% of the population is fully vaccinated (per New York Times, link below). In the USA, 32%. Germany, 8%, Spain 10%. That means that from 68% to 92% of populations of those countries is NOT fully vaccinated, which in turn means that from 68% to 92% of potential travelers are not fully vaccinated.

In other words, unvaccinated travelers pose a risk to the vast majority of residents wherever they go, anywhere in the world, with the notable exceptions of Seychelles and Israel. Even there, rates of vaccination are only 61% and 56% respectively.

This alone would justify ALL countries taking measures to protect their residents from travelers. Those measures might reasonably include travel bans, vaccine passports, COVID testing, and more.

This does not follow at all, for the reasons I've given (and for the many I haven't bothered with, some of which are addressed by Jay_Benson above).

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...s-tracker.html This may be protected by a paywall, but similar sources are easily found.

Jay Benson

Your response to my post clearly illustrates the muddled thinking that I previously referred to.

By definition a vaccine is a preventative medical procedure designed to provide immunity from infection and thereby prevent transmission of the virus or bacteria causing the disease.

If as you allege this "Vaccine" does not do provide immunity from infection then it is not nor can it be a vaccine. It must be something other than a vaccine and not treated as a vaccine.

With regard to some people being unable to take vaccines. Such people are in the same position as other people who have extreme allergies or who are unable to take certain medications..

The fact that a person cannot take a vaccine or has an extreme allergy to a substance is an individual health issue and it is up to them to take appropriate measures to ensure their own health.

I will repeat. I am not an anti-vaxer. But I am pro-choice. I didn't HAVE to get a yellow fever certificate for Brazil because I didn't have to go there. It was a holiday. And I was never asked to show it anyway.

Being imprisoned and segregated for the rest of my life because I won't take an untested and arguably unnecessary vaccine is VERY different. It's nothing but apartheid.

If I didn't have a measles jab or a flu shot do you agree that I should be quarantined from society for the rest of my life ?

However, it's not the vaccine I'm really bothered about. Because, like I'll say for a third time, I'm not an anti-vaxer. Although I am sceptical of how effective and safe these vaccines are. Considering the manufacturers are making obscene wealth and are not liable for any side effects.

I am EXTREMELY against being forced to show digital identification and potentially being "signed in and out out" of every public place I go to with an App.. It's an obscene attack against my privacy and freedom.

The U.K has said that it could bring in the right for all public places to ask for "Covid status" to allow entrance. And in the future, it could make that law. And automatic. Covid is here to stay. Vaccines are going to be annual for the foreseeable future and that means so will the tracking and control.

My fear is that the power to combat a pandemic is being abused to control our freedom.

What has already happened in the name of "National emergency" in the U.K is disgusting. The Government has pretty much made itself unaccountable for anything. And that includes syphoning off vast amounts of cash to their business associates.

My argument from the very beginning of this pandemic remains.

If only 1% of the population are at serious risk of Covid, why does the other 99% have to be locked down, vaccinated and controlled ?

Of course the answer is "To protect the health service" who can't treat 1% of the population all at once. But now a vaccine is out there and the health services are no longer at risk in many places, I don't see a legitimate reason for this overwhelming erosion of our liberties.

__________________
Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

But people who choose not to get vaccinated are breeding grounds for mutations (which is happening right now) and the vaccines that are being administered right now may be of no use in fighting future variants.

And guess what happens then? yep were back to square one & all this work, money & lives lost will be for nothing.

Mezo.

Eh? Are you being threatened with imprisonment and apartheid? Really?

I’m pretty sure you’re being threatened, if anything, with not being able to travel freely (see yellow fever, sometimes cholera, for a while SARS), engage in certain activities (see measles, as mentioned, and other diseases I’m too lazy to look up), or have certain jobs (see pertussis, at least in the USA, and TB). This is not even news—it’s accepted, commonplace, and not least, effective public health policy.

All of the “for the rest of my life” stuff is just silly. Comparing it to apartheid—a violent abuse of political, military and economic power which dehumanized certain races of people to the immense benefit of certain other races—is beyond silly into the realm of delusion. It shouldn’t be difficult to make this case without such extravagant claims. More effective, too.

If you really are being threatened with imprisonment, starvation, torture, substandard housing, sub-human wages, and pass laws, I’ll formally admit I was wrong.

That aside, death rates hover between 1.5 and 2 percent, but ICU hospitalization rates are far higher, as are debilitating, long-term health effects on people who did and didn’t need hospitalization. This is not a disease with which you either die or get off scott-free.

So you’re not anti-vaccination necessarily. And I’m not defending every measure being taken, even in my own country. But distorting facts, cherry-picking statistics, and comparing personal discomforts to some of history’s worst geopolitical abuses really doesn’t advance the discussion.

That’s what it looks like from The Land Which Elected Donald Trump.

Mark

I finally have an appointment to go get my first shot the day after tomorrow, and that can't be fast enough.

I don't claim to be a statistician, but I took a couple of semesters of stats in university. It's all just a numbers game. I've crunched the numbers, and even if they give me AstraZeneca, I figure the likelihood of COVID killing me is at least 100 times greater than any threat of blood clots or other vaccine reactions.

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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250

"University of Oxford said people are 8 to 19 times more likely to develop blood clots from COVID-19 than one of the Pfzier-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines. So why are people spooked by the tiny numbers of those who did develop clots?"

When i read up last week before my jab it was only 0.007% of people who had had the AZ jab had side effects.

Here in Australia 30,000 people anally get blood clots (its 900,000 in the USA i think?) but they don`t mention that on the news do they, of course not they wouldn't want the truth to get in the way of a sensational news story that then goes viral on social media.

Mezo.

But that is exactly what you are doing !! Cherry picking distorted media facts or short range statistics which are so wildly inaccurate and change depending on which expert you listen to on the day. Even Governments have been forced into admitting that they don't really have an idea. But 'Project fear' has historically been the best way to get people to do as their told.

In the U.K for example, ANYONE who dies with 28 days of a Covid test is said to die of Covid. Even if they died of any other terminal disease. Even if they were in a car accident FFS !!

And that's how it looks like for you. I don't believe you speak for your entire nation. No offence meant.

Apartheid is any type of segregation or discrimination. I'm not comparing Covid to racism.

Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning "separateness", or "the state of being apart", literally "apart-hood" (from Afrikaans "-heid").

I have no desire to get into a 'Covid' debate with anyone. I am not a covid denier or an anti-vaxer. I am against corrupt Governments abusing their power and destroying civil liberties (Which are so hard to gain but so easy to dismantle) under the guise of protecting their nation. Do you really believe our 'Politicians' really care if you die or not. They're owned. They don't work for the people. They work for themselves or whoever else lines their pockets or promises them glory.

If you are vaccinated then you should have no fear from those who are not.

We don't lock up and segregate those who haven't had vaccines for the COUNTLESS other contagious and dangerous viruses which have been lapping the world since the beginning of time.

Guns kill far more people in the USA than Covid ever could. But try bringing in a law that denies anyone who owns a firearm from entering a coffee shop, cinema or mall. Imagine if you had to tell shop or bar that you owned a gun and then had to be searched at the door to prove you didn't have it with you.

Do you want to live in a world where you have to check in to your local coffee shop with a digital ID ? To have to show ID in every public place ?. It's an orwellian nightmare. With a button press on a keyboard by a trigger happy official, you could be kicked out of society.

But for those who make obscene amounts of money from data harvesting, fear and control, it's a dream. And they're the ones who are sponsoring and lobbying our Governments. Don't get me started on Pharmaceutical companies whose entire business model is to keep people as sick as possible for as long as possible. They put a price on life and death. It's vile.

I'm still going to get my vaccine this morning. But I feel like I have a gun to my head.

I understand my post is somewhat of a rant. And I'd like to add that I do respect and appreciate your opinion.

__________________
Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Awww Ted. Guns? Data harvesting? Pharmaceutical companies trying to keep you sick for as long as possible? Sorry, but we're no longer addressing the same subject. If you'd like to tell me what statistics I've got wrong (and where to find the correct ones), I'll listen--otherwise, too many generalizations and too far-flung.

As for Apartheid, I'll accept the Britannica definition: https://www.britannica.com/topic/apartheid . I've never been treated this way, and neither have you. Don't play victim.

Have at it.

Mark

Yours doesn't, USA`s old one didn't either, but my mine does.

Mezo.

I apologise for making your argument irrelevant with comparatives or broadening the question.

If you want information, try google...It's all out there.

I'm not going to have a petty argument about dictionary definitions. Oxford vs Britannica blaah blaah.

If a section of society is segregated or discriminated against due their "Vaccine status" for basic liberties such as freedom of movement in their own country then I can't see it being called anything else. Even the Church of England has called it the Covid Apartheid. The relevance is in the context, not the wording.

I've just had my jab. And for the tenth time, I'm not an antivaxer. I'm anti-apartheid. I will not ban anyone from my workshop because they haven't had a vaccine. I didn't before my jab, nor will I now.

If you are vaccinated and if you understand what a vaccine is, then you will have no risk from those who have not. There is no logic or reason for domestic covid passports.

So I ask again, why don't we do the same for every other contagious virus ? Influenza kills a lot of people. We don't force people into having a vaccine for flu. Or ban those who haven't from travel and bars.

Look at the bigger picture. And have at it....

Now I have to get back to work. Why do I get sucked into time wasting covid threads. They're worse than hard vs soft luggage threads.

__________________
Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Amen to that (a without prejudice reply )