Proof of booster

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Tessa K
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Proof of booster

Post by Tessa K » Wed Dec 08, 2021 9:12 am

I had the booster on November 2 but now I'm getting emails telling me to get a booster because there is no record of this. This is going to cause problems when I need to show proof I've had it. Any advice? I have no idea who to contact.

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by Gfamily » Wed Dec 08, 2021 9:42 am

Tessa K wrote:
Wed Dec 08, 2021 9:12 am
I had the booster on November 2 but now I'm getting emails telling me to get a booster because there is no record of this. This is going to cause problems when I need to show proof I've had it. Any advice? I have no idea who to contact.
What does the NHS app show? If there are problems, the app says you should call the Vaccine Service Record team on 119 .
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Re: Proof of booster

Post by Hunting Dog » Wed Dec 08, 2021 10:14 am

Gfamily wrote:
Wed Dec 08, 2021 9:42 am
Tessa K wrote:
Wed Dec 08, 2021 9:12 am
I had the booster on November 2 but now I'm getting emails telling me to get a booster because there is no record of this. This is going to cause problems when I need to show proof I've had it. Any advice? I have no idea who to contact.
What does the NHS app show? If there are problems, the app says you should call the Vaccine Service Record team on 119 .
Mr Hunting Dog has been trying to fix his vaccine record - which didn't show his first dose so 'computer said no' on trying to book the booster.

119 submit a report to another service (which you can't contact directly) and who are meant to get back to you in 21 days - though if they can't reach you / don't think they have the correct contact details they just shut the file.

There are also comments about contacting your GP if your record is incorrect - I'd try that as well! (GP did at least managed to book Mr HD his booster, despite records still being wrong)

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by Tessa K » Wed Dec 08, 2021 1:43 pm

119 told me to contact the GP. They said it's on their records which are not linked to the NHS app. They've printed out my vax record for me to collect so at i'll have something. A lot of people have had problems according to 119.

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by IvanV » Wed Dec 08, 2021 7:40 pm

We can be really crap at recording vaccines in this country. This is my experience of the recording methods of the people who give my daughter vaccines in school.

All the vaccines my daughter was given at primary school are entered into her NHS medical records. As you'd expect. I was therefore astonished at what happened when she joined a secondary school just over the county boundary, which is in fact the nearest non-selective secondary school to our house.

When she joined it, the school vaccine service of the neighbouring county tried to give her an MMR because "they have no record of her having it". I now know that is because they don't have any records of anyone having it. So I suggested, why don't you look at her NHS record, it's in that. And in case they couldn't, I actually sent them a list of all the vaccines she had had, more than most people, so that they would have a record of it. But they weren't interested in knowing, because they don't keep a record of what vaccines they have given to school students. They were only interested in sticking an MMR in her arm, in the event we would turn up to the appointment they made for it.

So they started giving her vaccines that are typically administered to secondary school students at her school. These have been disrupted by Covid. They offer a catch up service. But to use it, you need to know what has been missed. So we tried to find out what vaccines she has had or missed. But thus we learned that they really don't keep any record of what vaccines they give anyone, nor pass it on to anyone else to record. No official record exists of them. We don't know what she missed.

It's the kind of nonsense you'd expect to go on in a country with a crap disorganised health service. Oh wait, maybe that's what we actually have in this country.

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by sTeamTraen » Thu Dec 09, 2021 2:05 am

The EU Digital Covid Certificate has problems with boosters too.

The QR code only has room for a record of one vaccine (the most recent), with manufacturer data etc. The original idea was that it would say 1/2 if this was your first dose of a 2-dose course (eg Pfizer), 2/2 for the second (and, ostensibly, "final") dose, and 1/1 for Janssen. Plus, Spain and France (at least), which have given only one Pfizer dose to people who had had Covid, also put 1/1 for that.

I got my booster today (Moderna on top of two previous AZ doses) and my certificate says 3/3. Presumably if I had previously had Janssen, which everyone seems to have given up on now, it would have gone from 1/1 to 2/2. So with 2/2 there is no way to distinguish between a booster to a previous EMA-approved "full course" (Janssen plus a Pfizer/Moderna booster) or an unboostered Pfizer/Moderna course.

That would seem to suggest that any legislation based on "booster status" will fail for such people, unless the notion of "a booster on top of a previous complete course" is replaced by "at least two doses, the last being no more than X days ago".
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Re: Proof of booster

Post by lpm » Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:12 am

Idiots. They should simply have put 3/2 for you. The rule would be "one over".

It'll get worse when the 4th dose comes in, next autumn say. The rule would then become "two over" and you'd show 4/2.
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Re: Proof of booster

Post by sTeamTraen » Thu Dec 09, 2021 9:38 am

Of course, someone who delayed getting vaccinated until October and had their second Moderna dose yesterday with me ought to be fully protected now - the boosters are officially needed because immunity wanes. So there's another 2/2 that ought to count for Covid Pass access. It's going to have to come down to date of most recent dose, I think. Otherwise we're all going to have to carry our entire lifetime set of certificates.
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Re: Proof of booster

Post by bagpuss » Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:07 am

IvanV wrote:
Wed Dec 08, 2021 7:40 pm
We can be really crap at recording vaccines in this country. This is my experience of the recording methods of the people who give my daughter vaccines in school.

All the vaccines my daughter was given at primary school are entered into her NHS medical records. As you'd expect. I was therefore astonished at what happened when she joined a secondary school just over the county boundary, which is in fact the nearest non-selective secondary school to our house.

When she joined it, the school vaccine service of the neighbouring county tried to give her an MMR because "they have no record of her having it". I now know that is because they don't have any records of anyone having it. So I suggested, why don't you look at her NHS record, it's in that. And in case they couldn't, I actually sent them a list of all the vaccines she had had, more than most people, so that they would have a record of it. But they weren't interested in knowing, because they don't keep a record of what vaccines they have given to school students. They were only interested in sticking an MMR in her arm, in the event we would turn up to the appointment they made for it.

So they started giving her vaccines that are typically administered to secondary school students at her school. These have been disrupted by Covid. They offer a catch up service. But to use it, you need to know what has been missed. So we tried to find out what vaccines she has had or missed. But thus we learned that they really don't keep any record of what vaccines they give anyone, nor pass it on to anyone else to record. No official record exists of them. We don't know what she missed.

It's the kind of nonsense you'd expect to go on in a country with a crap disorganised health service. Oh wait, maybe that's what we actually have in this country.
OK, I'm confused. I totally understand and agree with the crapness of UK vax records - I've grown up with this and am aware that the only way anyone is going to know what I've had* is if I remember myself and tell people. It is a lot better now than it was but it's still piecemeal and rubbish. So I've kept a part-paper part-mental tally of everything the bagkitten has had (mental for flu as it's only really relevant for that year, paper for everything else).

But what's confusing me is how you don't know what your daughter has missed at secondary school? It's easy enough to find out what she should have had (linky for anyone who needs to know and doesn't) and surely you were asked for consent for what she's actually had, so you should know? I'm guessing which county she is now at school in and that it's different from the one the bagkitten is at school in, but for the last 2 years we've had email confirmations of the flu vaccines she's had and before that we had paper confirmations sent home from school and I would assume that some kind of confirmation was a requirement for any vaccinating authority? Or isn't it?


*Basically, everything going from the NHS plus a whole bunch of stuff for travel that is now all >10 years ago so out of date now anyway.

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by shpalman » Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:15 am

sTeamTraen wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 9:38 am
Of course, someone who delayed getting vaccinated until October and had their second Moderna dose yesterday with me ought to be fully protected now - the boosters are officially needed because immunity wanes. So there's another 2/2 that ought to count for Covid Pass access. It's going to have to come down to date of most recent dose, I think. Otherwise we're all going to have to carry our entire lifetime set of certificates.
I think you just figured it out for yourself. I don't think there's any rule saying you must have had a booster, there's just that a Green Pass from a vaccination event is no longer valid after 9* months (shorter if it's a first dose of anything except Johnson & Johnson). So everyone has a few months in between being eligible for a booster and having their previous Pass expire, and it does only matter when you had your most recent dose and what vaccine manufacturer it came from.

Different criteria for different age ranges can be handled because the date of birth is part of the QR code.

I'm not entirely sure how it handles people who officially needed one fewer dose because of recovery from a previous infection; the Pass you get from recovery is only valid 6 months. I think we had a link to some analysis of what information was actually in the QR code (i.e. whether it indicates the minimum number of doses required for the pass to be a full-length one), but I can't find it now.

* - as of the most recent update to the rules in Italy; this was originally 9 months, got extended to 12, and then just got shortened to 9 again. The expiry isn't baked into the Pass but rather it's the Pass-checking app which knows it.
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Re: Proof of booster

Post by IvanV » Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:54 am

bagpuss wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:07 am
But what's confusing me is how you don't know what your daughter has missed at secondary school? It's easy enough to find out what she should have had (linky for anyone who needs to know and doesn't) and surely you were asked for consent for what she's actually had, so you should know? I'm guessing which county she is now at school in and that it's different from the one the bagkitten is at school in, but for the last 2 years we've had email confirmations of the flu vaccines she's had and before that we had paper confirmations sent home from school and I would assume that some kind of confirmation was a requirement for any vaccinating authority? Or isn't it?
Clearly what she hasn't had is a subset of what we consented to, that much is known. But we don't know what they did and didn't turn up to administer. And seemingly neither the school nor the county vaccine service know either. We have never got postive confirmation of a vaccination given. It doesn't help that my daughter has recently intensified her needle phobia, so doesn't tend to remember.

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by bagpuss » Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:12 am

IvanV wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:54 am
bagpuss wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:07 am
But what's confusing me is how you don't know what your daughter has missed at secondary school? It's easy enough to find out what she should have had (linky for anyone who needs to know and doesn't) and surely you were asked for consent for what she's actually had, so you should know? I'm guessing which county she is now at school in and that it's different from the one the bagkitten is at school in, but for the last 2 years we've had email confirmations of the flu vaccines she's had and before that we had paper confirmations sent home from school and I would assume that some kind of confirmation was a requirement for any vaccinating authority? Or isn't it?
Clearly what she hasn't had is a subset of what we consented to, that much is known. But we don't know what they did and didn't turn up to administer. And seemingly neither the school nor the county vaccine service know either. We have never got postive confirmation of a vaccination given. It doesn't help that my daughter has recently intensified her needle phobia, so doesn't tend to remember.
Ah, if you've never had positive confirmation of a vaccination given that would definitely be a problem. And is utterly sh.t - I'd be querying that as it is rather important that you get confirmation of whether your child has actually had a jab or not, as I suspect it's not terribly difficult for a child to avoid a jab if they really try, so you could assume they've had stuff they haven't.

Sorry she has a needle phobia, that really must be difficult to deal with, for all of you :(

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by WFJ » Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:03 pm

sTeamTraen wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 2:05 am
The EU Digital Covid Certificate has problems with boosters too.

The QR code only has room for a record of one vaccine (the most recent), with manufacturer data etc. The original idea was that it would say 1/2 if this was your first dose of a 2-dose course (eg Pfizer), 2/2 for the second (and, ostensibly, "final") dose, and 1/1 for Janssen. Plus, Spain and France (at least), which have given only one Pfizer dose to people who had had Covid, also put 1/1 for that.

I got my booster today (Moderna on top of two previous AZ doses) and my certificate says 3/3. Presumably if I had previously had Janssen, which everyone seems to have given up on now, it would have gone from 1/1 to 2/2. So with 2/2 there is no way to distinguish between a booster to a previous EMA-approved "full course" (Janssen plus a Pfizer/Moderna booster) or an unboostered Pfizer/Moderna course.

That would seem to suggest that any legislation based on "booster status" will fail for such people, unless the notion of "a booster on top of a previous complete course" is replaced by "at least two doses, the last being no more than X days ago".
In some parts of Germany where 2G+ has been implemented under certain circumstances, people who have had a booster are exempt from needing a test. The way this is implemented is to class a booster as any completed dose in the last 6 months, even if it was the first dose. So in my case (first vaccine in June-booster in October) both of my vaccine certificates are classed as boosters at the moment, but the first will not after January.

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by WFJ » Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:16 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:12 am
Idiots. They should simply have put 3/2 for you. The rule would be "one over".

It'll get worse when the 4th dose comes in, next autumn say. The rule would then become "two over" and you'd show 4/2.
This makes no sense. Boosters are meant to reset waning immunity, not provide additional benefits. There's no need for the certificate to distinguish someone who had their first dose in Summer 21, booster in Winter 21 and booster in Spring 22 from someone who had a first dose in Summer 21 then a booster in Spring 22. All that matters is how recently they received their booster jab.

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by lpm » Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:48 pm

That's a really dubious approach to vaccines, let alone vaccine passports.

Omicron will remove a lot of the confusion around this. Vaccine effectiveness against transmission is now even lower. Which makes it all about long term protection against serious illness - which relies on long term immunity more than short term antibodies.

We've really got to stop seeing this through a couple of months viewpoint and build for the long term.

It's like having a car with an annual service record rather than a car with repeated emergency fixes. Long term it's clear which gives additional benefits.
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Re: Proof of booster

Post by shpalman » Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:53 pm

If the QR code says how many doses you've had and when the most recent one was, that's enough.
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Re: Proof of booster

Post by WFJ » Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:01 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:48 pm
That's a really dubious approach to vaccines, let alone vaccine passports.

Omicron will remove a lot of the confusion around this. Vaccine effectiveness against transmission is now even lower. Which makes it all about long term protection against serious illness - which relies on long term immunity more than short term antibodies.

We've really got to stop seeing this through a couple of months viewpoint and build for the long term.

It's like having a car with an annual service record rather than a car with repeated emergency fixes. Long term it's clear which gives additional benefits.
That's nonsense. There's no reason to think there is an additional benefit from subsequent vaccines, or, to follow your car analogy, "damage" from missed boosters. Even if there is a per booster accrual of protection, it would have hugely diminishing returns.

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by lpm » Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:22 pm

What you're saying is completely wrong, of course there's benefit to society from everyone having vaccines, as well as benefits to individuals.

The obvious outcome from all this is annual boosters. Society and individuals benefit from everyone getting vaccinated every year.

You can't articulate what the purpose of vaccine passports is, especially with Omicron, because nobody has managed to articulate it. The only plausible motive for any vaccine passport scheme is to entice/bully/force morons to get vaccinated. And to get boosters every year.

Hence establish vaccine passports to track each year. Missing a year's booster damages society as well as individuals via overloading the hospitals and morgues during Covid waves. If we're going to have vaccine passports - and we shouldn't - then at least do it properly.
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Re: Proof of booster

Post by WFJ » Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:30 pm

The purpose of a vaccine passports/certificates is to show that someones immunity is likely above a certain level so they can access an otherwise restricted venue/event. Their existence reduces the likelihood of transmission by limiting access to non-immune people who have a greater chance of being infected, and will have a higher viral load if they are. Their secondary, although in practice more important, benefit is to create a social pressure to get people to take the vaccine and booster jabs.

What is the point in the certificate providing a full and detailed record of someones vaccine history? Do you think in 2035 people will have to show a 10 year good service history to enter a restaurant?

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by lpm » Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:59 pm

We might be talking at cross purposes but what you say doesn't make any sense. Vaccines don't give sufficient immunity from Delta transmission to award people access to a venue, let alone Omicron transmission. This f.cker doubles in 2 to 3 days in high immunity lands, we fear.

Imagine 3 friends arriving at a nightclub. X has two doses plus the booster a couple of weeks ago. Y has two doses but they were 5 months and 29 days ago and no booster. Z is unvaccinated. Inside the nightclub is Omi, ready to party like it's in Number 10.

Omi can score with all of them that night, X, Y and Z. Even Delta can score with all of them. Sure, Z is easier. But there's no concept of "non-immune people" and "immune people" any longer, judging by the early indications of how Omicron behaves. At the Norway party it managed to get intimate with maybe a hundred people in a single night.

Or do the thought experiment the other way, X, Y and Z all arriving with Omi and spreading it in the nightclub. There's no guarantee X isn't going to be the source of an Omicron superspreader event.

Vaccine passports can't work for what you're hoping they'll work for (if I've understood your posts right). Hence all that matters is that X isn't going get ill, Y probably won't get particularly ill, but Z could be hospitalised. So are you banning Z from entering the nightclub out of paternalism, for their own good, to prevent them meeting up with Omi? Or to entice/bully Z into getting a vaccine and Y into getting the booster? Or because Z is slightly easier for Omi, and this gives the false impression that transmission of an ultra-rapid virus with 2-3 day doubling is going to see noticeable impact from keeping Z outside?
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Re: Proof of booster

Post by shpalman » Thu Dec 09, 2021 2:54 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:59 pm
We might be talking at cross purposes but what you say doesn't make any sense. Vaccines don't give sufficient immunity from Delta transmission to award people access to a venue, let alone Omicron transmission.
Well then what do you want to do, close all the venues forever?
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Re: Proof of booster

Post by WFJ » Thu Dec 09, 2021 2:56 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:59 pm
We might be talking at cross purposes
Quite possibly.
... but what you say doesn't make any sense. Vaccines don't give sufficient immunity from Delta transmission to award people access to a venue, let alone Omicron transmission. This f.cker doubles in 2 to 3 days in high immunity lands, we fear.

Imagine 3 friends arriving at a nightclub. X has two doses plus the booster a couple of weeks ago. Y has two doses but they were 5 months and 29 days ago and no booster. Z is unvaccinated. Inside the nightclub is Omi, ready to party like it's in Number 10.

Omi can score with all of them that night, X, Y and Z. Even Delta can score with all of them. Sure, Z is easier. But there's no concept of "non-immune people" and "immune people" any longer, judging by the early indications of how Omicron behaves. At the Norway party it managed to get intimate with maybe a hundred people in a single night.

Or do the thought experiment the other way, X, Y and Z all arriving with Omi and spreading it in the nightclub. There's no guarantee X isn't going to be the source of an Omicron superspreader event.

Vaccine passports can't work for what you're hoping they'll work for (if I've understood your posts right). Hence all that matters is that X isn't going get ill, Y probably won't get particularly ill, but Z could be hospitalised. So are you banning Z from entering the nightclub out of paternalism, for their own good, to prevent them meeting up with Omi? Or to entice/bully Z into getting a vaccine and Y into getting the booster? Or because Z is slightly easier for Omi, and this gives the false impression that transmission of an ultra-rapid virus with 2-3 day doubling is going to see noticeable impact from keeping Z outside?
The certificate system, and even the current rules on where/when they are required, were devised prior to the emergence of omicron. Under these conditions, requiring vaccinations in certain situations reduces the chances of transmission, even if it cannot prevent it. It does not have to be all or nothing, and this is just an additional step between full lockdown and open. All that matters is that it has some effect on transmission, and so lowers the R number to some degree. Whenever these restrictions are in place, the additional pressure for people to get vaccines/boosters is present

Post-omicron, even if we assume the worst and say current vaccines offer no protection, that is not an issue with the certificate system itself. It just means that the correct rule that should be in place is that your nightclub should close if current infection rates in the area/country are high. Next winter, assuming omicron (or pi, rho, whatever is present then) vaccines are available, then people who received a booster that winter will have received those vaccines, and proof of that vaccine booster (or, if the vaccine is considered so different as to constitute a brand new vaccine that requires multiple doses, resetting the dose number to 1/2 etc) can be used to allow access in certain situations. In this case, there is no benefit in the certificate stating that someone received a booster in Autumn/Winter 2021.

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by lpm » Thu Dec 09, 2021 3:29 pm

The concept of "lowers the R number to some degree" might make sense in Delta-world if things tipped slightly the wrong way from the balance. R=1.1 adds up steadily over time and at some point you've got to get to R=0.9.

But this concept shows a complete failure to acclimatise to Omicron-world.

I appreciate it takes time. The initial glance at Omicron is so wild we instinctively dismiss the story. But come on, get with it. Woodchopper's providing the information.

If it's really true that R=3.5, say, with two doublings a week in a vaccinated & high prior-infection country, then we are at March 2020 speeds. The exponential of cases isn't just back, it's back at full raw pace of the ancestor. The sheer scale of infections means volume dominates so much that it doesn't really matter much about hospitalisation ratios.

Lowering the R number "to some degree" from 3.5 to 3.3 or whatever is a big whoop-de-doo.

I think it might help if every use of the word "immunity" gets a proper qualifier. Let's always be sure we're talking about transmission-immunity or hospitalisation-immunity or mortality-immunity. Because it seems like the high levels of disease-immunity is getting muddled with the low level of infection-immunity. The effectiveness of vaccines against transmission has been halved and they weren't all that great against Delta to begin with. Vaccines and boosters are fab, everyone should get them, they give really good hospitalisation-immunity. But the exponential takes over. If Omicron has a mild hospitalisation ratio of 0.5x Delta's then we look OK for a bit, until cases are 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x...

Sorry to go all Herainestoldish, but - if the early indications of its behaviour are true - the majority are going to get Omicron in the next few months and that's how it'll end this variant's outbreak. You simply can't beat R=3.5. All you have to play for is to spread a Jan/Feb peak into a Jan to June peak to reduce NHS overload - and use the time to pump vaccines into unprotected morons as fast as you can.
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Re: Proof of booster

Post by WFJ » Thu Dec 09, 2021 3:41 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 3:29 pm
snip
I do not necessarily disagree with any of that.

This is the only part I was arguing against:
lpm wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:12 am
Idiots. They should simply have put 3/2 for you. The rule would be "one over".

It'll get worse when the 4th dose comes in, next autumn say. The rule would then become "two over" and you'd show 4/2.
If the first omicron-specific vaccines are released in Spring 22, it will make no difference if a dose of this is a first booster, second booster or full first course.

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Re: Proof of booster

Post by sTeamTraen » Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:16 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:59 pm
We might be talking at cross purposes but what you say doesn't make any sense. Vaccines don't give sufficient immunity from Delta transmission to award people access to a venue, let alone Omicron transmission. This f.cker doubles in 2 to 3 days in high immunity lands, we fear.
I guess it depends on what the real purpose of Covid passes is. Is it to (a) meaningfully reduce the risk to you, the punter entering the venue right now, or (b) reduce the risk that you pose to the other punters already in the venue, or is it (c) to generally make your life more awkward until you get vaccinated, because that has an overall benefit for society, partly in terms of some rather uncertain reduction in the risk of you infecting others, but mostly because you are 10x less likely to block an ICU bed for a fortnight?

I rather suspect that the true answer in many countries is closer to (c). Personally I would welcome an emphasis on this, although perhaps the focus groups have found that it would be unpopular. I would be all in favour of communication focusing on (b) ("protect those other people in here from getting Covid, at whatever degree of severity") and even more so (a) "protect yourself, ditto", if I thought that protection against infection was 70 or 80 or 90%. But I don't see that in the studies that I've looked at, especially after 3-4 months.
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