Vaccine passports

[sTeamTraen]

Britain really is exceptional. Here in the EU the green pass system seems to be working fine, with not much pushback.

As the expats say here "It's a folk memory of Franco, innit".

Have you got them where you are? No sign here in Majawkah.

... and there they go

I think the point all along was to wait until Scotland announced them, then do a 180. So now the Tories can say "We are the party of freedom, the SNP wants a police state", etc etc.

[headshot]

But actually, vaccine passports might become necessary if the thing that vaccines passports could help prevent becomes such a problem that we’ll have to introduce vaccine passports once it’s too late for them to prevent it.

[Bird on a Fire]

We have them in Portugal. If you want to eat inside at busy times (from Friday evening through the rest of the weekend) you need to show it, for example. It's up to venues to enforce it, but police have been doing spot checks and a bunch of fines got handed out in the touristy part of Lisbon recently.

I won't get my green pass till next weekend (two weeks after second dose), but the weather is still nice enough that the esplanada is first choice anyway. I'd also have the option of taking a rapid test, so it's no biggy.

That said, throughout the pandemic my impression has been a greater emphasis on civil responsibility than on individual freedom, with the UK and USA tending in the opposite direction.

[lpm]

Portugal had soft fascism for decades, ending within living memory. It's not at all clear what benefit this policy is intended to give - Portugal's the world leader in vaccination rates - and it's a bit depressing if people are accepting of police enforcement.

How easily we forget normal civil freedoms and slip into casual authoritarianism.

[shpalman]

It's weird how it's actually the fascists who are in the streets shouting about freedom.

It's definitely the places which have gone more right-wing populist which had a worse time with covid.

[Bird on a Fire]

It's not at all clear what benefit this policy is intended to give - Portugal's the world leader in vaccination rates

Unfortunately, vaccination doesn't stop transmission, cases are still pretty high, and schools and unis are about to go back which, along with the coming of autumn/winter weather, is likely to cause a further spike in cases with attendant deaths and long-term damage.

It's entirely clear that the policy is intended to reduce transmission and protect workers while allowing a resumption of economic and social activity. ETA and the progressive unlockdown here was linked to population-level vaccine uptake, which may have been a factor in Portugal's success compared with the UK's abject failure at vaccinating their populations.

Vaccinations simply mean we're in uncharted territory. There are two ways to proceed: cautiously or incautiously. In common with most of the EU, Portugal is proceeding cautiously until there's more data to make a decision about what and how to unlock further.

Most people here seem perfectly happy with that degree of caution.

and it's a bit depressing if people are accepting of police enforcement.

Enforcing rules is literally what the police are for. I didn't have you pegged as an anarchist, lpm.

It would be even more depressing if people accepted a government plan that expected small business owners still struggling from the effects of 18 months' economic depression to enforce public health rules without checking up on them.

How easily we forget normal civil freedoms and slip into casual authoritarianism.

Yes, all it took was a mere novel viral zoonotic pandemic that killed, maimed and bereaved tens of millions of people, plunged the world into a recession and trapped us all inside our houses for months at a time. Piece of cake.

I'm not sure it's fair to describe covid as 'easy' - I for one would go further and describe it as actively enjoyable. I've loved every minute of it. Long may it reign - if only the nasty EU governments would get rid of protections so transmission increased, so we could all enjoy breakthrough cases and deaths more regularly.

The real hardship is having to eat dinner on the terrace at the weekend if you're an adult, haven't been vaccinated and haven't taken a rapid test, poor sods.

[lpm]

I can't be arsed to go through all the errors littering that post. I mean, if you start off with "vaccination doesn't stop transmission" you're clearly not fit to mix with people discussing how much vaccination stops transmission.

[shpalman]

I can't be arsed to go through all the errors littering that post. I mean, if you start off with "vaccination doesn't stop transmission" you're clearly not fit to mix with people discussing how much vaccination stops transmission.

Another meaningless qualitative yes/no response when a quantitative answer is required.

Covid vaccination doesn't completely stop transmission, neither does it have no effect whatsoever on transmission.

There's plenty in the 36 week report which I linked to and copied and pasted to have an informed discussion on how much it might be stopping transmission.

[lpm]

And it's also Covid only binaries that's wasting everyone's time at the moment. The wilful ignoring of other illnesses and knock on impacts.

A vaccinated waiter has near zero risk of death and injury from Covid. More likely to be stabbed by a drunk customer or be diagnosed with cancer or knocked off a motorbike on the way to work. The age-risk gradient is so extreme for vaxxed-Covid as to make nonsense out of "protecting workers" b.llsh.t.

I'm all for a bit of carrot and stick to get vaccination rates high, but once they are indeed high you have to call it a day. The UK finished its adult programme two months ago and is now grubbing around for a few dozen extras a day. Portugal is the same. A government should only go so far in mothering adults who make bad choices.

Trouble is, people enjoy a bit of authoritarianism. If you don't like nightclubbing, due to the loose morals on display, then vaccine passports are a nice little punitive measure.

[Bird on a Fire]

I think it's fair to say that, at a population level, vaccination doesn't stop transmission - it does reduce it, of course.

Cases are coming down here, while going up in the UK. The restrictions are clearly having an impact. Whether that impact is worth the hardship (of masking and occasionally showing a document) is IMHO an open question at this point, which will only be answered by comparing countries' midwinter peaks.

[Bird on a Fire]

As an aside, not all hospitality workers are young here. There's loads of family-run places where you might have the 20-somethings waiting tables, mum and dad on the bar and granny and grandad in the kitchen, generally all sharing the same air.

Vaccination is basically 100% in older age groups though, so I agree their risk is much lower than it was this time last year.

[shpalman]

The main thing which annoys me here of course is that nightclubs/discos are still closed, Green Pass or not, and I don't care about those directly but of course I'd like to be able to go social swing dancing and it's probably hard to write a law which would allow the latter without being a free-for-all regarding the former.

So that's at least one restriction which goes beyond being able to do what you could before except with a Green Pass and a mask.

The schools have only just gone back so I'd give it 2-3 weeks to see the effect of that. But then "what are we waiting for?" becomes a valid question because by the end of September it really ought to be the case that there's nobody who wants to vaccinate themselves who hasn't been able to.

[Bird on a Fire]

Yes, I think schools are the main unknown, along with the change in weather (and it rained a bit this morning, so we're getting there). Under 12s are all unvaccinated, 12-17s are at 80% first dose but only 25% complete, and people will be doing more mixing indoors.

Once we see the effects on case numbers (and more importantly illness and deaths) I suspect the public health bods will be coming up with a plan to continue reducing restrictions.

For now, the stages are based on % of population vaccinated, rather than just cases or deaths, and once we hit 85% complete they'll be opening bars and nightclubs "as normal" with a green pass. We're at 79% now with most of the outstanding unvaxxed in the <24 cohorts, who are obviously the people most likely to be clubbing so it makes sense.

[shpalman]

Yes, I think schools are the main unknown, along with the change in weather (and it rained a bit this morning, so we're getting there). Under 12s are all unvaccinated, 12-17s are at 80% first dose but only 25% complete, and people will be doing more mixing indoors.

Once we see the effects on case numbers (and more importantly illness and deaths) I suspect the public health bods will be coming up with a plan to continue reducing restrictions.

For now, the stages are based on % of population vaccinated, rather than just cases or deaths, and once we hit 85% complete they'll be opening bars and nightclubs "as normal" with a green pass. We're at 79% now with most of the outstanding unvaxxed in the <24 cohorts, who are obviously the people most likely to be clubbing so it makes sense.

I don't know if Italy has anything official based on % vaccinated; there's just the threat of bringing back restrictions based on % hospital occupancy. So I don't know the plan for being allowed to go dancing.

Italy has 62% of 12-19 with at least one dose and 44% with both, in 20-29 we have 75% and 67% though which I think it better than England. However when first and second dose % are close to each other you know that the first dose % isn't going to increase much anymore. Also, our coverage of older people is worse so outbreaks amongst young people are more likely to spread up into deaths and hospitalizations amongst 50-60 year old f.cking idiots and those are the numbers which will hold everything back for everyone else.

[lpm]

Cases are coming down here, while going up in the UK.

This simply isn't accurate. UK cases are either creeping up or creeping down, depending on what testing assumptions you make. Basically flat.

And there's been no immediate jump due to schools going back in England 7-10 days ago, although maybe a few days too early for that to be noticeable.

Portugal cases are 1/4 the UK rate. So it's completely irrelevant to Portugal whether cases are rising or falling - thanks to the high vaccination rate there's hardly any risk of cases becoming problematic. Hospitalisation rates are 10% of Jan levels. It's over.

I expected people to be slow to recognise the pandemic in March 2020. I never expected people to struggle to cope with the end of the pandemic.

[Bird on a Fire]

I think extreme vigilance, and avoidance, are actually quite common (if sometimes maladaptive) responses to trauma, and there's no doubt the pandemic has been pretty traumatic for a lot of folks - probably including decision-makers. So perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising. (I don't mean to suggest that we literally all have PTSD or anything, just that it's been traumatic at personal and societal levels.)

How best to deal with that is an interesting question - exposure therapy, where you force people to do things they're deathly afraid of, is one option. Another is to treat people gently and provide "safe spaces" etc. I'm not sure if there's been much research on how to deal with this kind of thing - it's a milder level of trauma than, say, war, but perhaps spread over a larger population simultaneously. And of course it has to be weighed against other harms from mental health, economic depression, and the actual levels of harm from covid.

As has been the case throughout the pandemic, different places are trying different things and we'll see how it pans out in time. And places with different cultures have probably responded differently anyway - I get the impression that people in the UK were in general much keener to get back into bars than people here have been, for instance.

[shpalman]

I haven't been watching the news this week because of dancing but Italy has just basically decided that anyone who goes to work will need a Green Pass (as of mid October).

Which basically means anyone with a job who wants to keep it has two weeks to finally get themselves vaccinated.

As if not dying wasn't a good enough reason, and being able to sit in a bar wasn't an even better reason.

Maybe that latter would have appealed more to people above retirement age, but there are still quite a few who aren't vaccinated.

The Lega, which behaves as if it's in opposition despite being part of the ruling coalition along with the M5S, has argued to at least have rapid tests be a bit cheaper and for their negative result to be valid for 72 hours instead of 48. Because despite all being vaccinated they pander to antivax morons like the populist tw.ts they are.

[Herainestold]

I haven't been watching the news this week because of dancing but Italy has just basically decided that anyone who goes to work will need a Green Pass (as of mid October).

Which basically means anyone with a job who wants to keep it has two weeks to finally get themselves vaccinated.

As if not dying wasn't a good enough reason, and being able to sit in a bar wasn't an even better reason.

Maybe that latter would have appealed more to people above retirement age, but there are still quite a few who aren't vaccinated.

The Lega, which behaves as if it's in opposition despite being part of the ruling coalition along with the M5S, has argued to at least have rapid tests be a bit cheaper and for their negative result to be valid for 72 hours instead of 48. Because despite all being vaccinated they pander to antivax morons like the populist tw.ts they are.

The main utility of vaccine passports is to get the reluctant vaccinated. I don't expect it will have much effect on transmission.
I think masking inhibits transmission more than vaccination. A combination of masking and more vaccination would help us avoid lock down.
Maybe.

[lpm]

You know cases are falling, right?

[Herainestold]

You know cases are falling, right?

Covid cases rise by 7% in England to highest rate since mid-July

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... 7-24998989

[lpm]

Desperate.

You'll construct your own reality rather than abandon your fantasy.

Lockdown isn't coming back. Adapt.

[Herainestold]

Desperate.

You'll construct your own reality rather than abandon your fantasy.

Lockdown isn't coming back. Adapt.

We will see lockdowns every winter, as the virus mutates and we have to protect the NHS.
At least for the next two years.

Every optimistic prediction for this pandemic has been proved wrong so far. We have to learn to live with the reality.

[lpm]

Every optimistic prediction for the pre-vax pandemic has been proved wrong.

Every pessimistic prediction for the post-vax pandemic has been proved wrong so far.

[sheldrake]

We will see lockdowns every winter, as the virus mutates and we have to protect the NHS.

The IFR for unvaccinated people who catch it the first time is order of 0.25-0.75% (less than your lifetime risk of dying from lots of other common, preventable causes). This then drops significantly after you've survived it once, unlike flu but similar to measles.

Given the low mutation rate, don't you expect increasing numbers of people in the population to acquire long-lasting immunity from surviving the disease even if vaccine protection doesn't last so long?

[Herainestold]

We will see lockdowns every winter, as the virus mutates and we have to protect the NHS.

The IFR for unvaccinated people who catch it the first time is order of 0.25-0.75% (less than your lifetime risk of dying from lots of other common, preventable causes). This then drops significantly after you've survived it once, unlike flu but similar to measles.

Given the low mutation rate, don't you expect increasing numbers of people in the population to acquire long-lasting immunity from surviving the disease even if vaccine protection doesn't last so long?

I think the IFR for Delta is much higher, probably twice as high, but I couldnt find good figures.I don't know how long infection acquired immunity lasts from Delta, but we know that people can be re infected multiple times. Every time there is the risk of organ damage and Long Covid.