UKC

This scapegoating of the unvaccinated won’t end well.

https://apple.news/AZb54YtMjQjyUkR21aI5Nqw
 

A sleeper account from 2007? Nice. We were all starting to think you had run out.

Paranoia! Check his history more closely.

It's Italian law in Italy. What's the EU aspect?

I did. I'm 70/30 it's rom.

It's not scapegoating when they're actually the problem though, is it?

A few snapshots of the situation across the UK in recent months are quoted/linked below.

Much of Europe has worse vaccine uptake in older ages more at risk of going to hospital, and they've back more from processing unvaccinated people through hospital and intensive care over the autumn.

Unless Omicron turns out to be significantly less serious for unvaccinated people, their presence represents an existential threat to European healthcare.

The unvaccinated minority have made their choices, now they can either live with them or re-visit their choices.  At this point, how can it be fair to put whole nations in to lockdown because of a minority?

"80% of patients admitted to Intensive Care Units in north east London in December not fully vaccinated"

• https://northeastlondonccg.nhs.uk/news/almost-90-of-patients-admitted-to-in...

"Covid-19: Hospitals at capacity with mainly unvaccinated patients"

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-59405471

"Latest vaccination figures reveal that around 90% of Covid-19 patients in intensive care at the trust are unvaccinated. Just over half were aged under 44."

• https://nottsccg.nhs.uk/covid-19/warning-from-hospital-bosses-on-importance... 

"Of those in ICU wards with Covid, 72% are unvaccinated, 8% have had one dose and 20% have had two doses.  Unvaccinated people make up less than 12% of our adult population – yet account for 72% of people in ICU."

• https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/news/effectiveness-covid-vaccination-starkly-u... 

"Most of the resources the NHS is devoting to Covid in hospital are being spent on people who have not had their jab"

• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/21/icu-is-full-of-the-unvaccinat...

Been a lot of pop-up activity from new accounts recently; a big hissy-fit meltdown over the Covid plotting threads with some nonsensical, contradictory arguments, several pop-up threads on Covid and several pop-up posters arguing towards private healthcare on the NHS threads.  

I'll give Doc Oc the benefit of the doubt unless they show themselves to be as petulant and slow as the recent pop-up poster...

I read through all the old posts from that account and definitely got a sniff of that familiar house style. But I'm ready to be wrong. About 30% ready.

Either way, I suspect this new customer deserves exactly the same treatment, so it's probably moot.

Would the technical term for this be 'goating'?

I like it!  What a gormfull suggestion.

Turns out that's something else. And now I need to clear my browser history.

Some more goating:

kea has cut sick pay for unvaccinated staff who need to self-isolate because of Covid exposure and in some cases for workers who test positive.

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59930206

That could backfire, of course, making staff come in when they have covid. Just as we were coming around to thinking that people with respiratory tract infections shouldn't try to "get on with their lives with Lemsip cold and flu relief"...

Yes, I was wondering about unintended consequences.  Unless employers become allowed to register with test and trace I doubt it’s going to make much difference.  I’m thinking of the Venn diagram of “declining vaccination” and “ignoring exposure-based isolation rules when not symptomatically infected”…

I don't see it making any real difference since it's already mathematically, physically and topologically impossible to leave the building once inside. So once the virus is in there it will never be safe. So I don't have to go.

Was that convincing? Recon it'll work next time it's suggested??

https://accumulationofthings.com/twine/saturday.html 1

Rom joined UKC in October 2012 and Doc Oc in July 2007.
Does that mean that Rom was setting up sleeper accounts even before he himself joined?
Hats off to him if he's that devious and cunning... 

Maybe Rom was a sleeper account for Doc Oc.........

Not Rom. 

Also, not right. 

I’m sorry, wintertree, but using phrases like ‘existential threat to European health care’ is scare-mongering. What sources are you using to arrive at that opinion? For the situation in the UK, looking at the link you provided for NE London December 2021 in more detail, shows that the 80.6% ‘unvaccinated’ figure will, by the definition used, include those who only had their first dose. So not truly unvaccinated in the sense that they will have some protection. I point this out because I see ‘unvaccinated’ used a lot these days as a pejorative term. Very quickly the definition of the ‘other group’ is expanded to include many who don’t fit the accepted narrative or conform to the policy that is being implemented.

It is my observation that when governments use coercion/punitive measures to attempt change it only leads to a hardening of a position, something we need to avoid in the current climate. If you’re vaccinated and consider yourself fully protected, why seek to punish those who choose not to be vaccinated. They’re not the ones imposing restrictions on your freedoms.

Finally, judging by the number of dislikes/likes to my original post, there are a good number on here who think it is ok to scapegoat a particular sub-group of society. That is truly worrying if we want a cohesive, stable society. I ask the question ‘where does it end?’ but that is a whole other thread.

in ICU when they turn the machine off? 

Or you mean bigger questions, a dark cold universe? 

So, what's the point of this thread?

I will leave that thread for others, thanks.

Ok. So what's it your point. 50 words, one sentence? What made you join ukc? 

There's two groups of people that are causing hospitals to cancel surgeries, and tell people with suspected strokes and heart attacks to try to arrange a lift into hospital rather than wait for an ambulance.

The conservative party and the willingly unvaccinated.

The blame won't be expanded.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey, can we just move this thing along before it drives us all round the bloody bend... 🙄

To engage with like-minded individuals who have an interest in climbing. I’m still searching.

If you look at the details on the main dashboard, or at the vaccine surveillance reports, you’ll see that the fraction of people with one dose only, and the number hospitalised with one dose, are vanishingly small, like the straw you are grasping at here.

They’re buggering up the NHS for everyone and leading to more NPIs than otherwise.  Recognising that is recognising evidence, not scapegoating.

I don’t blame these people. I blame those manipulating them and - even worse - their mealy mouthed apologists who try to stop the issue even being discussed.

How's that going?

I joined because I had a question about Yeti gaiters. 

Yeah, they are. That's the thing.

Like, say, drunk drivers?

I'd imagine the majority mainly just think you're a tiresome troll who can't tell the difference between EU law and national law made by individual nations within the EU, and worse still between fascism and public health measures. Have a dislike.

jcm

Good to hear. Hopefully there aren't any.

jcm

Best post I've read on here for months.

That’s quite witty for you. Have a like.

Yes, it's hilarious how the anti-vaxxers go on as if we have "fascist" restrictions when in fact we only have very light restrictions now because most people are vaccinated and would have next to none if the f***wits would get themselves vaccinated too.

Sorry; I missed this.

They effectively are.  I either have my freedoms restricted, or lots more of them die at home waiting for an ambulance.  Because we live in a society that's still got compassion at it's core, my freedoms are further restricted to avoid this form happening.

The constant, unyielding pressure added to intensive care and the ambulance service by those who declined vaccination over the last 6 months has been a critical rate limiting step in moving out of the pandemic phase of SARS-nCov-2.  That has required significantly more restrictions on every single member of society (well, except it seems Tory party members who got confused between a political party and a garden party...) to the great detriment of many, all to ensure that we don't collapse universal healthcare whilst - bluntly - processing the unvaccinated through hospitals as fast as practically possible whilst they get their immunity the hard way.  It's a massive sacrifice by the many for the few, to ensure that they can all get the best medical care reasonably practicable, despite the bloody obvious consequences of their free choice.  I wonder what would happen if we'd offered the nation a vote on if they should have just been sent to a palliative care facility in a warehouse somewhere out of the way (NHS Schaffensfreude would get my vote for its name).  Thankfully despite your faux-outrage over the level of discrimination against the unvaccinated, in the real world the vast majority of us have made sacrifices to support their choice; none more so than healthcare workers, and they have been afforded every opportunity at healthcare to help them through their poor decisions.  Despite my "NHS Schaffensfreude" comment, I wouldn't have it any other way, because I recognise that many of these people have been manipulated, and I realise that we all sometimes make bad choices, and society still cares for us.  The only people whom I actually have anger towards are those who encouraged people to decline vaccination through misrepresented statistics, facts and so on and outright lies, and - even worse - the apologists. 

I note you've replied since my last post and are choosing to ignore this part of our exchange:

Doc Oc:

Wintertree:

"If you look at the details on the main dashboard, or at the vaccine surveillance reports, you’ll see that the fraction of people with one dose only, and the number hospitalised with one dose, are vanishingly small, like the straw you are grasping at here."

There are several, but they never talk to each other.

Come to think of it, they're often running in and out of a phone booth on the corner.

My wife is a front line paramedic. Over the last 3 weeks the call outs for Covid have gone up from nothing to quite a lot. All of the covid calls she has attended and either left at home or taken into hospital have been unvaccinated without exception. If those patients had the vaccine, the call outs would go down, the waiting times at hospital drop offs would go down, less NHS frontline workers would be exposed to the virus and ambulance response times would come down. My wife took overtime shifts doing nights all the way through Christmas/NY due to staff shortages, I've never seen her so tired.

We all know the vaccine doesn't stop you catching it, rather it's the lack of vaccine protection that is putting stress on the NHS due to symptom severity. The unvaccinated are having an impact on the safety of other people. Personally I am pro choice on the vaccine but I do take a sad view of those who choose not to. Stay safe.

I actually don't think it will make much difference for several reasons:

a. you can't really look at other country's laws and attitudes to laws with through the prism of the UK.  Some countries have a lot more rules so get less worked up about new ones and countries with a lot of silly laws are often a lot more laid back about ignoring minor laws you don't like

b. If people start dying in scary numbers the older unvaccinated demographic will change their mind fairly fast and the EU countries have got a ton of vaccine available and good health services to deploy it.  They'll get them jagged quickly

c. Omicron is so infectious the unvaccinated and not yet caught it category is going to shrink rapidly, either because people get scared and get the jag or because they catch it.

I still have sympathy for a significant proportion of the unvaccinated for the same old reasons:

Most hesitancy comes from misinformation on social media and the companies responsible are barely slowing this down and our governments are reluctant to act.

There is a very much substandard public health messaging on covid vaccines in many developed countries. Getting this right is vital in a world where news has been atomised and misinformation is rife. Our government left community Pubic Health in a particularly serious mess and Primary Care so overstretched that it couldn't fill the gaps. Franky, coordinated central plans to reach the unvaccinated in the UK are an unmitigated disaster, despite good practice in some deprived inner city areas showing it's possible with  good community involvement.

By the main measure of pandemic control, protecting the national health system, the UK has been the poor man of western Europe since the initial catastrophe in Italy relented. Most of the reasons this is the case (compared to the rest of Western Europe).falls squarely on our government failing to plan, making mistakes and being slow to act in the face of clear evidence of an urgent need to do so.

When we talk about helping NHS staff, lets not forget 5% or so of them are not vaccinated (more like 10% in London).

Publicly attacking a poorly informed section of the public who have not yet been vaccinated helps the populists in their war against truth. I find it shocking that well informed and educated people can't see this. First and foremost, blame the bad actors who use social media to spread lies, the companies who don't block these lies and our government who have failed in so many major respects. To be clear this is a rant at some of the attitudes on this thread (and others), as I know you get this.

b) just how many deaths does it take to be scary enough to motivate ffs? There is scant evidence this explains relative national vaccination levels or how these shift now we are well into the pandemic. Once people are convinced by the misinformation on vaccination within a like-minded group, it's hard to shift that narrative.

c) I'm still not convinced of this either: the unvaccinated hesitant (as opposed to anti-vax types) that I know don''t seem suicidal to me and are certainly being careful (I should imagine this would be especially so if in a higher risk category). Omicron being more easy to catch might even help them as the infection peak could end more quickly and reduce risks quicker. It's hard for me to see unvaccinated who have not been careful getting through earlier peaks without catching it. I simply don''t believe the line that with omicron everyone will be vaccinated, recovered or dead by spring, (the few I know well are still none of these). 

It may take someone famous or someone that they know personally dying or getting very ill.  But we have seen behaviour change several times.  Just look at the UK how fast people went to get their 3rd jag because before Christmas Omicron looked very scary.

It's not spring yet!  Omicron has been about for only a month in the UK and hasn't taken off as fast in most EU countries.  Also, 'everyone' is a very high standard.  It's already probably 80-90% when you add jags and infections in the UK.

Have these few that you know well done antibody tests to determine prior infection? It's not unlikely they've had asymptomatic cases and not even realised. I came across several people in summer 2020, in the 20-35 age range, that wouldn't have known they had it if they hadn't tested. 

The rich don't need to go out to work, use the underground etc.. they live in big enough houses to not feel hemmed in and must escape! 

Really?  There are a few hot spots, say with the Netherlands because of the volume of Africa flights, but London was in the same league. Glasgow warmed up a bit too, or have you forgot that it led the uk omicron case count for a little while. 

Yes really.  Most EU countries have far fewer infections than the UK, although there are a couple which are just as bad.

I don't see the relevance of arguing who had the most infections when the numbers were tiny right at the start before christmas.  What matters is who is running large numbers of infections.

Really?

You're arguing with yourself? It was you who just made the comparison between numbers in the uk and mainland Europe!!  

Those special TiE sunglasses are working extra hard today

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=2021-12...

(Note the clearly saturated testing in quite a few)

Interesting. I see it as balancing risks. So for instance car seat belts. People were up in arms about the legal requirement to wear a seat belt and came out with all sorts of excuses (if my car fell into a river I wouldn't be able to get out) but the introduction of seat belts reduced injuries/deaths on the road and everyone now accepts it. Likewise Motor cycle helmets.

It has been shown (New Scientist 23/10/21)

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2294250-how-much-less-likely-are-you-t...

That vaccines help stop the spread.

“Vaccinated people do transmit the virus in some cases, but the data are super crystal-clear that the risk of transmission for a vaccinated individual is much, much lower than for an unvaccinated individual.”

In light of the strain being put on health services the world over. It behoves governments and businesses to reduce that strain. No ones freedom trumps the needs of society. I believe eventually COVID will fade out (as did the Black Death, Bubonic plague, Spanish Flu) and things will return to normal but in emergancy situations you need emergancy measures. That isn't punishment its common sense

I'm making a very simple point.  It doesn't matter who have 20 cases and who had 10 a month ago when it first started.  It matters who has been running 150K cases a day.  Your comment about the Netherlands and Glasgow having more infections at the start was irrelevant.

In the first (few) lockdowns I had no one in my immediate circle who had COVID. In the past two months that has gone up to ten personal friends and three family members that I know of. All in the vaccinated groups and all seem to have had mild doses. I don't think it unreasonable to think the majority of people will get it.

That graph looks like exactly what I said.  Only a few of the EU countries are worse than the UK and of those most of them are small countries.  France is the standout large EU country with a problem.

As for saturated testing, personally I don't believe the numbers from England any more because the Tories are actively trying to get people to believe it is just a cold and tests are pointless.

I can't help but see a connection between ant-vaxxers, particularly in this comment that Doc Oc has made,  and the very substantial number of people who refused to accept restrictions on crag and mountain access when they were at their most severe.

There were plenty of people who saw that as a balancing of risks, claiming that, as climbers they were better able to  assess risks than the man in the street, that the risks presented by an individual were so negligible as not to count, that the restrictions were never anything stronger than advice, and that those of us who suggested they were out of order were virtue signalling holier than thou  hermits who were welcome to their hair shirts. 

It will be interesting to see if any future restrictions bring about the same attitude.

We’ve been through your deliberate ignorance on this before.

Cases != Infections

A rolling CFR analysis makes this really clear, as does measures like positivity or tests/case.  Like this….  

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=latest&...

and this

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=latest&...

(Edited for clearer plot) 

As you can see, in terms of deaths, one case in England is equivalent to about 5 in Germany.  Comparing detected cases alone is a mugs game.

Test numbers in England have been rising whilst positive cases are falling. Makes a mockery of your xenophobia driven take on events.

A while ago you were arguing strongly for the importance of early, hard restrictions to prevent small numbers from growing to big ones until after we know what we’re dealing with.

Then Scotland took 5,6,7,8 Steps to (potential) Tragedy with a super spreading concert and now you’re arguing against yourself.

You do understand exponential growth, right?  It looks like Scotland and London both lucked out in terms of low precaution at the start of omicron; whilst this led to both being leaders along the exponential pathway it turns out not to be catastrophic.  Unknown at the time.

Yet social media posts still perpetuate the myth that vaccination doesn't reduce transmission.

You are getting desperate with this.  England's case numbers are much higher than Germany's for the simple reason the Germans are trying to control it and the Tories are trying to make sure everyone catches it as fast as possible.

My daughter lives in Berlin and the precautions there are more serious than in Scotland.  They're using FFP2 masks on public transport and working from home, they get checked for vax/test status before going into shops and they do the tests properly.   The Tories are doing everything they can to get people in England to treat it like the cold and go to work anyway.  That makes UK test results suspect.

I don't know about the German death rate vs England.  Probably a multitude of factors: demographics, previous deaths/infections earlier in the pandemic, different criteria for reporting. 

Good points. Until we find better ways of engaging with folk who do not want the jab, the vast majority will remain unjabbed. The label of being an “anti-vaxxer” probably encourages many of them to remain unjabbed - they like being labelled as such. And I can’t blame anyone for not trusting our government - so any pro vaccine message Johnson gives out has to be treated with caution coz he’s a lying bastard. 

And I reckon ‘the connection’ you refer to is about a sense of belonging to a social group: many climbers justified bending the rules by their risk assessments  to go climbing just like many nine vaxxed asses their risk. 

In Scotland, a grand total of 226 over 50's got their first jab in the last week.

See vaccinations by age group at https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker/

After so many deaths, so much disruption, so much evidence and national campaigns, just 226 older people per week are changing their minds and deciding to get the first jab. 

I don't think more of the same (deaths, disruption, evidence & national campaigns) will change minds.

Also a surge of deaths (6 weeks?) would probably be over before it scares the unvaxxed (a couple of weeks?), they get vaccinated (a couple of weeks?) and then develop some immune response protection (a couple of weeks?).

Doing different things might change minds - in the absence of any appetite for something with legal backing, that has to be something volunteer, community, local or GP based. I think it needs a multitude of different, imaginative, speculative, data-driven and convenient initiatives but it is not going to be quick, easy, cheap or completely successful. Almost certainly good value for money though.

Yet we’re currently doing 2.5x the number of tests per detected case than Germany, and until our case rates spiked we were doing even more.

What do you think would happen to German case numbers if they ran 2.5x the number of tests?

So basically a bunch of reasons you’ve pulled out of your arse - anything but testing rates, for which there’s hard data.  The UK has a more expansive testing program than Germany.  I’m not claiming it’s better, indeed it’s purpose is a bit hazy these days, but it does.  You’d have to be a moron to not recognise the simple facts of the bar chart I linked above (one bar much bigger than another) and you’d have to be trying quite hard to deny that this impacts the fraction of infections detected as cases…

I think you're the only person to be taking "everyone" to mean literally everyone.  Seems to me the German health minister basically meant the pool of people with no immunity would be so small by spring that the problems they pose would be over.

Also, to be clear, the minister wasn't taking about omicron but about delta.

The timing, stringency of and adherence to Germany's current raised NPIs brought in to control Delta has done them very well in terms of slowing the rise to prominence of omicron compared to almost all of the rest of Western Europe; they're in the enviable position of having a lot more time to understand the intrinsic lethality and realised lethality of omicron before deciding what to do next.  This does of course cost them time, by maintaining the lockdown well beyond the level required to maintain healthcare in a sane condition (apparently their intent pre-omicron) they're no longer processing unvaccinated through the mill, so that "vaccinated, recovered or dead" plan appears to be on hold.  If omicron turns out to be significantly less intrinsically lethal, that'll do very well out of this pause.  If it doesn't, they won't.

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-digest-omicron-likely-to-infect-50-of-eur... 

To paraphrase the Karl Popper "tolerance paradox":

A completely free society must allow the expression of all freedoms

Committing a crime is free expression

To be completely free, a society must allow for the free expression to commit crimes

The free expression to commit crimes curtails the freedom of others

In other words you can never have a completely free society and personal freedom will always be weighed against the freedom of society at large

I think these lyrics in popular culture hit the nail on the head.

Janis Joplin's: "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose"

Donovan: "Freedom is a word I rarely use without thinking"

Of course I am talking about a generalised "crime" in most societies it is the ruling elite who set what constitues a crime and use it to suppress the freedom of others.

In this sense there will always be a dynamism between freedom and crime. One group will have one set of rules then along comes another group declaring such rules are oppressive. Overthrows the first group and instigates new rules, which in time another group will see as wrong or oppressive.

Here's an interesting take on Italy's approach. It somewhat shows all the pro-vax/anti-vax finger pointing might be missing the point.

https://unherd.com/thepost/italys-vaccine-mandate-is-purely-political/

Nothing to do with Italy's health service being overwhelmed in the early days and folk dying in corridors or on the floor? In some regions of Italy they had it really bad and it will relate to political motives, as it's what the population wants. 

I think it's you missing the point, but then we're all informed by personal experience and I get the feeling from your posts that to you, it's all academic. From my point of view it isn't academic. My point of view is informed by taking previously healthy, unvaccinated, middle aged patients into hospital. Unvaccinated because they've been taken in by social media bullshit.

I took one such patient in just before Christmas, usually I don't find out the outcome, in this case I did because the heartbroken family released a series of text messages to the press outlining the patient's regrets at not getting jabbed. The family didn't want anyone else to make the same mistake. A mistake that left one 40 something dead, and three kids missing a parent.

I made the mistake of reading the comments section. It was filled with people writing crap about "propaganda", "personal choice" and "obvious misinformation". All people playing stupid games from a position of blind ignorance with absolutely no conception of the impact of their actions on others.

Sound familiar?

Really, there's some real shit in that article.  Lets pick one bit at random.

Ere's a quote: The truth is that there’s hardly any Covid emergency to speak of in Italy at the moment, with Covid patients occupying only 17% of ICU beds.

Now, until 22 months ago, Covid occupied 0% of ICU beds.  

There's another way of writing that paragraph: "ICUs are experiencing ~20% more occupancy pressure than normal due to Covid, and that knock on requirements over infection control mean this raises pressure on healthcare far more than said 20% implies."

Obviously Having 20% more people in intensive care is a bad thing.  

Now, all this is despite people in Italy being under significantly more restrictions than those in the UK.

Further, cases, hospital admissions, hospital occupancy and deaths all look to be rising exponentially in Italy right now.

“Vaccinated people do transmit the virus in some cases, but the data are super crystal-clear that the risk of transmission for a vaccinated individual is much, much lower than for an unvaccinated individual.”

I think the piece shows that vaccines reduce transmission, not stop it. Also:

The one bit of bad news is that Peto’s study shows that the protection a vaccine provides against an infected person infecting others does wane over time, by around a quarter over the three months after a second vaccine dose. “This has made me a believer in boosters,” he says.

And also:

'The findings also show a waning of protection over time, and imply that vaccinated people who do get infected might be just as infectious as unvaccinated people.'
 

We're currently rolling out the first booster, with a second being delivered in parts of the world but we are told not needed here yet. To refer to my previous point, the term 'unvaccinated' will seemingly now apply to anyone having had two or fewer jabs. Didn't Johnson drop this in during one of his recent national addresses?

I agree, but punishing/coercing people during the emergency might store up resentment for later.

That's what the phrase 'help stop' means.

Funny kind of punishment that tries to encourage people to be 10x less likely to die.

"No, Mr Bond, I expect you to live. Mwaa-haaa-haaa".

Now, I know captain paranoia has already said this, but you have a somehow familiar habit of dropping anything you're called up on and moving to something else, so I'll just give my view.

Do you mean that they contribute to wider efforts to slow transmission?  One might almost say that they help out.

It is true that an anti vaxer who dies, in a coma, whilst in icu shows no resentment in their future voting tendencies. 

Sweden has had covid passes since the 1st Dec, the biggest resentment is towards Danes, Germans and Norwegians who still visited during Xmas and new year. Unsurprisingly the places seeing spikes now are the same winter tourist hot spots. 

I don't buy that at all. There was a big rush to get jabbed because in the run up to Christmas it went from over 50s only to anyone over 18. Just about everyone I know who had had both jabs when their age group was eligible all booked the 3rd one overnight because they could rather that the age groups being spread out over the next few months. 

I expect your wife will have first-hand experience of the feeling amongst all healthcare workers around mandatory vaccinations. I saw on Sky News how the exchange between Javid and that ICU doctor made for uncomfortable viewing for the nursing staff present.

I guess if the government don't U-turn again, your wife will be under even more strain come April time. I hope it goes ok for her.

Thanks.

At no point in their article do the authors make the claim that the vaccines 'help stop'. They are more pragmatic in their use of language and any conclusions from the studies in question.

You should thank wintertree in his post below who helps you out by reaching a more accurate conclusion.

"the data are super crystal-clear that the risk of transmission for a vaccinated individual is much, much lower than for an unvaccinated individual.”

I'd be thankfull if dickheads like you just f*cked right off and stopped making my working life a hundred times harder and more stressful than it needs to be. And that's without the small matter of actively contributing, in your own small way, to countless unnecessary deaths.

But I guess the people who don't want to be vaccinated don't view it like that.

Yes, but not 'stop'.

Thanks, I guess there is always a political element to things.

But that is the phrase you objected to. And it's a perfectly well understood summary of the quote from the report that you gave.

You're only one claiming anyone suggests vaccination prevents transmission 100%.

It's a complete strawman argument. As per your quote:

"the data are super crystal-clear that the risk of transmission for a vaccinated individual is much, much lower than for an unvaccinated individual.”

You'd have to be a complete anti-vax nutjob to argue not vaccinating because vaccination doesn't prevent transmission 100%.

You know when you look at the number of people disagreeing with you? And with virtually nobody with a word in support?

Does it ever occur to you that, far from being the cleverest cat in town and the sole voice of reason in an otherwise brainwashed world, you might ...

just might...

be the one who's swallowed the unreality pill?

Or just look at the few political leaders around the world not advocating vaccination etc... it's an exceedingly small club. 

I'd be pretty happy if they just did the decent thing and lived or died with their choices rather than clogging up our hospitals.and ambulances. They have a choice, they exercise it and if they catch COVID tough shit.

And did you find out which ones they wear?

It’s pretty easy being a “brave” keyboard warrior embarking on your crusade for “truth”. 

Another matter entirely when your lungs have stopped working, you can’t stand up, your wife and kids are crying and you’re faced with the fact that covid isn’t just flu and you may very well be experiencing the opening salvos of a nasty and agonising death.

At which point 100% of people want 100% of any help on offer and they don’t give two shits about Bill Gates, 5G, or “plandemic”

I think that is pretty much what is said anyway. So i am not sure what point you are making.

I'll just repeat incase you miss read:

“Vaccinated people do transmit the virus in some cases, but the data are super crystal-clear that the risk of transmission for a vaccinated individual is much, much lower than for an unvaccinated individual.”

Allowing people to run riot and infect others when there's a virus going round the world filling up hospital wards might create problems in the short term. I don't recall my Dad being resentful of food rationing, blackouts, ID cards etc during the war.

Coercing people during an emergancy is what governments do to keep society going. I appreciate that for us this is Boris's Government  but that is the general principle. Are you saying we should take no emergancy measures because it might upset people?

And people who like to drink and drive probably resent drink driving laws.

Give it up with the "not stop" nonsense nobody has said that.

Generally, I try not to contribute to threads like these. Better to think of Gandalf;

”Be silent. Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth. I did not pass through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm.”

I agree.

I didn’t provide the original quote. When I read the piece in the New Scientist, I didn’t infer the same level of certainty that you and the original poster did. I think wintertree summarised it better.

I didn’t ever use the ‘super crystal-clear’ quote. I think I should have done.

By no means an anti-vaxxer nutjob. Just don’t force it has been my position from the outset. I think when governments force/coerce it we hit problems.

Yes, it’s only sensible to question ones opinions.

Wow, I do feel the temptation to fire back at your insults, but I stand by a previous post that stoking division isn’t going to help anyone.

I agree, governments need to take emergency measures when needed, but what I see is a worrying rise in the instances of blaming the ‘unvaccinated’ for the failings of the national strategies. I don’t have much faith in our political institutions at the moment to tread what I believe is the right balance.

Of course you agree: I was quoting you...

Maybe you should read what you post more clearly. Or format your posts more carefully:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/benito_would_be_so_proud_of_the...

Fire away.

I'm happy to stand by my posts, posts that come from a long standing account, verifiable by other users on here as coming from a real person, who posts genuine views drawn from genuine real life experiences.

I'm happy to stand by the "dickhead" comment because that's how you come across. Like so many others of your ilk, there doesn't seem to be anything genuine about you. You employ sophistry and obfuscation to promote false claims that contribute to real deaths.Seems to me that being called a dickhead is getting off very lightly.

Messner's?

There's hardly anyone left to jag.  It's high 90s % in Scotland for most age groups over 50 for dose 3 never mind dose 1.   If you  allow a few % for caught it recently, medical issues and moved/not in Scotland it is pretty much a done deal.

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/phs.covid.19/viz/COVID-19DailyDashbo...

What's the ratio of self tests to tests done by someone else in the UK to Germany?

Self tests are inherently questionable because you need to trust people to keep going after it is uncomfortable and to be honest about the results.  When the government and media keep telling people it's just the cold and they'll probably scrap testing soon the likelihood of tests being done properly falls.

Because those who agree with him are probably annoyed by the insults they get here and tired of endless debates that lead nowhere

https://archive.org/details/HundertAutorenGegenEinstein

what about Einstein - did he swallow one as well?

What does this say when you read it through them magic glasses?

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-digest-germany-daily-cases-hit-record-lev...

One of the advantages of the like/dislike function is that people can anonymously indicate whether they agree. or not without fear of censure or criticism. The numbers look pretty clear on this one.

The scientific consensus agreed with Einstein.

"According to Goenner, the contributions to the book are a mixture of mathematical–physical incompetence, hubris, and the feelings of the critics of being suppressed by contemporary physicists advocating the new theory. The compilation of the authors show, Goenner continues, that this was not a reaction within the physics community—only one physicist (Karl Strehl) and three mathematicians (Jean-Marie Le Roux, Emanuel Lasker and Hjalmar Mellin) were present—but a reaction of an inadequately educated academic citizenship, which didn't know what to do with relativity."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity

I've highlighted a couple of bits that seem especially relevant to the current debate.

The 'record infections' in Germany are less than half what England has been running for weeks despite Germany having almost 50% higher population.

But obviously it is up about 25% in a week which isn't good, on the other hand the Christmas/New Year season is over and they are strengthening their mitigation.  At the very least they are going to spread the Omicron wave over a much longer period than England which will protect healthcare.

Here's a graph for you:

https://twitter.com/IndigoFast/status/1480477490179104770/photo/1

Well I will give you that. Passing the buck down the line is certainly a government strategy and a lack of clear policy throughout has certainly not helped the situation (especially when it comes down to a case of do as I say not do as I do)

However it isn't just our government. It is governments all over the world and private firms (Ikea being one).

Personally I understand that people don't get vaccines for various reasons, some better than others, and I wouldn't want to go down the mandatory line. But I understand how a business dealing with the public would not wish to give out sick pay to someone who, in their view, did not take reasonable steps to prevent infection to themselves, or other staff and customers.

The big problem with COVID as I see it is the potential to infect without displaying symptoms and the high transmissability of the virus. The previous "pandemic" swine flu did not lead to such a problem as it was less transmissable and people felt unwell. At the time people with it at our work were given extra time off to recover without triggering an attendance interview to allow them time to recover and not spread it.

You're not going to like this: "UK ‘closest of any country in northern hemisphere to exiting pandemic’ | The Independent" https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uk-end-covid-pandemic-b1991297.html?a...

Jesus wept. Cases. That's cases. Let's go over this again. One of the following statements must be true. You can pick which you like the most:

i) Germany detects and counts infections as cases about half as well as the UK does

ii) Germany is roughly half as good at keeping people with covid alive

Jesus has worn his tear ducts out.

"An assessment of the contributions given in Hundred Authors against Einstein shows that no one thoroughly applied the scientific method, as otherwise they would have found the mistakes in their arguments"

Sound familiar??

These cases are very small.

Those cases are far away.

Small. Far away...

Still not with you, Ted

Published in 1931, so only 12 years after the Eddington Experiment of 1919 that verified what was predicted by General Relativity.

I think the hundred authors were slow learners. 

You can't do that, you're comparing two countries with a 10x difference in population size, using the same y-axis scale and not normalising for population sizes.

Someone was rattling off at me just the other week a bunch of reasons for why it was totally unfair compare a small country with a large country, now remind me, who was that?

Come to think about, his name was, it was you.  Damn!

Not sure why I haven't seen this before... Gritstone covid vaccine? Shut up and take my money.

https://ir.gritstonebio.com/static-files/4092495f-79fd-430b-a8c2-e1da03be38...

If you prefer you can have granite or slate. What's not to like? Maybe this is exactly what we need to rid UKC of these kinds of threads.

Not sure why I haven't seen this before... Gritstone covid vaccine? Shut up and take my money.

https://ir.gritstonebio.com/static-files/4092495f-79fd-430b-a8c2-e1da03be38...

If you prefer you can have granite or slate. What's not to like? Maybe this is exactly what we need to rid UKC of these kinds of threads.

The more obvious explanation is the UK just has a f*ckton more cases because the government in England which is 90% of the population is trying to make it spread faster.

Also not true.  What may be true is that many old/vulnerable people have already died in the UK and the UK isn't as honest about counting deaths e.g. counting deaths within 28 days when the average time to die with Covid is 35 days.

Germany may also have a specific problem with vaccine reluctance in older demographics.

The scale on the graph is perfectly large enough to see it isn't just scaling.  The English line is clearly not just 10x the Scottish one.

Also, the situation is totally obvious - the Tories aren't trying to control it, the SNP is.

There’s a vast quantity of data out there on wild type and delta fatality rates pre vaccination, covid attributed deaths and excess deaths.  Two points clearly arrived at from said data:

1. Per million, the UK lost far more people to covid than Germany.  We really screwed the pooch.  Something I was very vocal about from the very start, before people started dying.  I think it’s shameful how badly we responded in both March, October and December 2020.
2. However, the UK would have needed to have lost about 3x to 4x as many for this argument of yours to explain the difference in case fatality rates now.

> and the UK isn't as honest about counting deaths e.g. counting deaths within 28 days when the average time to die with Covid is 35 days.

Claims over “honesty” are total bullshit and what really pisses me of is that I’ve been to the effort of making, just for you, plots of data that’s out there on the dashboard of deaths within 28 days of a positive test, deaths within 60 days of a positive test and deaths attributed to covid by medical judgment as reported through death certificates.

You know that all 3 measures exist.  That’s why it’s dishonest of you to cherry pick one and the try and dismiss our approach to reporting based on it.  As it happens, that one measure is actually perfectly fine it seems.

You pick one out and pretend that the others don’t to push your conspiracy nonsense about the UK effectively fabricating data.  It’s disgusting, it really is.  

As you may recall, the 28-days measures is very close to the death certificates measure, and the 60-days data is only marginally larger, with a good chunk of that likely explained by all cause mortality.  Nowhere near explaining the difference between UK and German CFRs.

Re: the 28 days measure; don’t forget that your (not referenced) mean time from infection to death is from *infection*.  The 28-day measure is from a *detected* case which tends to happen some days after infection…

By the way, you’ve intimated that our cases are falling because the government are undermining testing by telling people it’s just a cold.  Do you think that’s also convincing people to stop going to hospital?  Because English hospital admissions are falling.  What’s really impressive is that it seems like telling people “it’s just a cold” is also stopping many of them from dying.  Impressive. A less batshit lunatic delusional lala land take would be that admissions are falling because the number of infections are falling, which would reflect in falling cases.

The combination of recent CFR and positivity rates for the UK and Germany admits one simple conclusion; the UK is detecting a larger fraction of infections as cases.  This doesn’t mean we’re doing “better”; by many measures the immediate situation in Germany is better, by others the future prognosis is worse .  But it does mean that cases per million are not directly comparable between the nations.

No, see, you've misunderstood. One of those statements I invited you to choose from *must* be true for the body count to match up with the case count. Wintertree has been over this so many times so I thought I'd try it in different words. The CFR in Germany is a lot higher. The realistic explanation is that their case count is further off. So no, the UK almost certainly doesn't have more infections. Because if we did, then that would mean ii) would have to be true.

Actually f*ck it, never mind. Thought it might help you understand but I'm getting the vibe that you really don't want to.

That is a good point. How would a business deal with this? A couple of possibilities could be:

Market forces – allow companies to set their own policy and see if employees leave, recruitment becomes an issue or customers change their habits and do their business at the one down the road with fewer (or no) restrictions. However, this couldn’t apply to all business sectors. The most obvious being public institutions due to a lack of market competition. This also would be problematic for businesses to introduce now since I think this would be a change in the terms of employment.

Risk assessments – in my line of work it is common practice to perform risk assessments for business activities. Where would vaccination be considered in the hierarchy of control? 

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/hierarchy/default.html

Says you.  But there is no reason one of those statements must be true, they could both be untrue and one or more factors you are not considering could be causing the higher CFR.

It is a hugely complicated situation, neither you or Wintertree has any clue about the German health system, demographics of vaccination in Germany, number of people living with chronic diseases which may make them vulnerable to Covid, housing in Germany including how many extended families share the same house, German testing system, regional variations in Germany e.g. between old and new Bundeslaender.  So you don't actually know why more people are currently dying in Germany. 

If you wanted to start to understand the difference in CFR between England and Germany you'd need to spend months actually understanding Germany.

Like....? Suggest something. Anything.

The more obvious explanation is Germany just has a f*ckton more infections

A house near us is a German owned holiday home, buy two nurses, their niche is trauma treatment and icu, they've been switched around a bit over the last two years and like most in that area would consider themselves covid specialists. 

Purely from their perspective(no graphs or data) numbers were held down in the early days but measures and a strong health service. Now they've unlocked a little with a combination of less early cases, plus vaccine hesitancy etc means their population is more vulnerable and it's whistling through in large numbers.

They say, like a few others in Europe there is a strong cultural trend against vaccines of any type, fresh air, eat well etc. let the body heal itself, this goes right back to the first small pox vaccine. These aren't your chanting rights anti Bill Gates protesters, but more the fluffy homeopathy crowd.  

This is absolutely true and is almost certainly a factor.  

At the very least you'd need to drill into differences between the old and new Bundeslaender.  Older people who lived most of their life in the DDR and currently live in the less prosperous states may be significantly more vulnerable.

There may be other regional issues affecting susceptibility to lung diseases like air pollution from industry. 

What industry is that? Are you in the US, given the link to the CDC?

Ok, so you're saying it's ii) then. That's fine. Not the one I was leaning towards, but Germany being half as good at saving people is at least a plausible explanation.

The unvaccinated can shove off somewhere far away from me and stew in their freedom.

When they have finally brought the NHS down no doubt they will be able to vote some party in which will free us from socialism and replace it with US style "health care ".

I've lost all patience with you. Get stuffed. 

Companies already set their own policies in this regard.

Customers largely don't care how the staff are treated they just want to get what they want and feel safe in doing so. If they decide a business is unsafe they may boycott it. Some people do boycott businesses for ideological reasons but generally they are a much smaller group than the majority. Look at Amazon which still rides high despite claims about its business practice.

Most employees don't leave unless there is somewhere better to go to. Seriously there is worse employment shit out there than the vaccine issue, take a look at any call centre or zero hours care work.

Changing terms of employment has never been an issue with businesses, not even in the public sector. You terminate someones employment then offer them their job back under new terms and conditions. They take it or leave it. If they have union they will have a strike or two but getting people to strike is difficult these days, they don't want to lose the money. So a few concesions are tossed out and everyone accepts the new terms. It happens all the time. If Ikea want to cut sick pay they will and as long as they don't break the law no one will stop them.

In terms of risk assesment you have a high risk of passing on contagion but a relatively low risk of death. In such instance as you cannot seperate the infected or change the way people work (ie from home) then it would come under PPE

There also is responsibility to protect the public and companies don't want to get sued. It doesn't take a lot of Googling to see several lawsuits already under way

https://www.ajg.com/uk/news-and-insights/2021/january/covid-19-sparking-wav...

Interestingly this also includes discrimination at work claims so it certainly cuts both ways.

EDIT: On risk assessments

https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/emp-law/health-safety/prepari...

"Existing COVID-19 risk assessments must be updated to refer to being vaccinated. Employers should encourage employees to get vaccinated and have boosters once their age group becomes entitled to it. Risk assessments must also include alternative safety measures to receiving the vaccine (for example ventilation and the continued use of PPE).

Other aspects to be explored when carrying out risk assessment include:

Updating risk assessments to reflect the availability of the vaccine to different age groups.

Special measures for any clinically extremely vulnerable staff and potential health and safety, discrimination or other claims resulting from vaccination or failure to vaccinate.

Review of other COVID-19 risk management measures and reasonable alternatives to or additions to vaccination such as continued working from home, testing, social distancing, use of PPE, handwashing and so on. This consideration should include people unable to have the vaccine, those who are pregnant, trying to conceive or those with an allergic response.

The potential for individual employees to refuse a vaccination and additional measures the employer can put in place if any staff refuse vaccination."

Some individuals may be advised not to have the vaccine due to a medical condition, while others may be allergic or have trypanophobia (a fear of needles). These people could be protected by the disability provisions within the Equality Act 2010 if they refuse the vaccine.

It is possible that some allergic reactions could be protected as a disability but this should not be an issue if employees refuse the vaccine due to an allergy. Following the initial roll-out, the MHRA has advised that individuals with a history of anaphylaxis to food, an identified drug or vaccine, or an insect sting can still receive any COVID-19 vaccine, as long as they are not known to be allergic to any component of the vaccine. The policy for recipients of the current Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines is that the person should wait for a minimum of 15 minutes before leaving the vaccination site and especially before driving. All vaccination sites should have equipment for managing an anaphylactic reaction.

For employees with a genuine medical reason that prevents vaccination, employers should take other steps with regards to health and safety, for example reinforcing their COVID-19 risk management, facilitating remote working where possible, or considering a different role. In some cases, medical advice may need to be taken with the employee’s consent.

Interestingly:

An employee with an anti-vaccination belief could argue it is a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010. This act protects some beliefs, such as climate change, or the use of only natural medicine, if deemed genuinely held and worthy of respect. The Grainger case law is an example. There are legal subtleties around whether the 'anti-vax' movement would be protected, but there is at least a possibility it could be protected and lead to compensation. If an employee seeks protection under philosophical belief, please seek legal advice.

However it doesn't follow that it goes in the employees favour:

A nurse named Jennifer Bridges and 116 other healthcare workers had sued their employer, Houston Methodist Hospital, for requiring them to get the shot, saying it treated them like “guinea pigs” in a human experiment. On Saturday, US District Judge Lynn Hughes flatly rejected that argument.

“Bridges dedicates the bulk of her pleadings to arguing that the currently available Covid-19 vaccines are experimental and dangerous,” the judge wrote. “This claim is false, and it is also irrelevant.”

If staff refuse vaccination employers should seriously consider the employee’s reasons and any concerns they may have, and look to implement alternative solutions, while relevant. This could include continued working from home if possible, social distancing within the workplace, screens, the use of PPE and so on. The employer may be willing to consider changing the employee’s work responsibilities or role if this could enable them to work remotely or in a safer working environment.

Ultimately, if their return to the workplace could pose a threat to the wider workforce's health and safety, employers may consider not allowing unvaccinated employees to return to the workplace. This entails a legal risk for the employer. Indirectly pressurising employees to be vaccinated (such as with disciplinary action) are likely to result in claims and will be less successful, ultimately, than the encouragement approach of sharing educational factual information.

In some sectors though, such as health and care work, vaccination is of even greater importance so employers may consider a dismissal process as a last resort, especially if they are unable to find alternative work for individuals who refuse vaccination and other efforts at encouraging employees to be vaccinated are unsuccessful.

He's right on this point. Most businesses should have to perform risk assessments. Here's an example:

https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/emp-law/health-safety/prepari...

"Existing COVID-19 risk assessments must be updated to refer to being vaccinated. Employers should encourage employees to get vaccinated and have boosters once their age group becomes entitled to it. Risk assessments must also include alternative safety measures to receiving the vaccine (for example ventilation and the continued use of PPE)."

Well in the one I'm working on I've put them in as preventative and mitigating controls on both side of the Bowtie diagram* as they limit the spread and also reduce the severity.  On the ALARP principal encouraging employees to have safe and highly effective vaccine, provided free by the government, has effectively an infinite risk / cost benefit.

* if you know what I'm talking about you are a risk geek.

 >If you’re vaccinated and consider yourself fully protected, why seek to punish those who choose not to be vaccinated. <

Nobody who is fully vaccinated should consider themselves fully protected.  AFAIK they are less like to catch it, even less likely to exhibit symptoms, even less likely to be hospitalised, and even less likely to die. But those outcomes are still very possible.

The unvaccinated are imposing restrictions on others' freedoms in that those others are more likely to be infected by an unvaccinated person and require treatment and thus more likely to infect others (including the old and vulnerable) and will have to isolate along with their close contacts, and may become very ill. This also means the ability of the medical services to treat ill covid and non-covid patients is affected. The higher the overall level of immunity (due to vaccine and/or infection)  the sooner restrictions to travel etc will be lifted

I know that Duncan, however he said:

Followed by a link to the CDC in the USA.

I'm unclear what he's getting at here. Is he claiming he has some expertise in risk assessment as part of his argument? Coming from someone who said:

Which shows a staggering lack of understanding of how vaccines form both a control against infection and a mitigation against the adverse effects of infection should it occur. (George Ormerod got it right in his bowtie diagram).

Vaccination isn't some deterministic safety measure with some negligible probability of failure, it's part of a number of barriers that make the overall risk to employees ALARP.

very true

Early in the thread I think you might have expressed the feeling that forcing people to get jabbed will only push most the other way and strengthen their resolve against the jab. Both myself and my wife would agree that.

Education. hard facts and feedback from those on the front line is more likely to encourage people to get on board rather than the strong arm of government. We did see that interchange with the doc and Javid and whilst we understood the point the doc was making, we don't support his position.

A person is the master over their own body but we're at a time and place where we sometimes have to think of a greater good and take on a degree of risk.

The doc in the interview with Javid is now becoming the poster boy of those against the government narrative (it doesn’t help when certain sections of the media then attempt a hatchet job on his character since this only fuels the feeling that there is some desire to shut down any counter-narrative).

I agree, but there have always been and will always be people who only want to think of themselves and those who weigh risk differently than the majority. It has taken the pandemic to shine a light on the numbers. Ordinarily are these people a danger to the majority? No, not really; they just make life more crappy than it needs to be. However, when governments and employers start coercing people it really doesn’t help convince them to change their views and only fuels resentment between the ‘jabbed’ and the ‘unjabbed’.

I would also say that the level of support for coercive measures and the general animosity towards that group by a very vocal few of the ‘majority’ which we are now seeing is equally as worrying for society in my opinion.

The bigger problem is they'll quote said doctor out of context, idiots lap it up, some catch covid then die. It's arguably better to then use fair means or foul to vaccinate and potentially save said idiots lives from themselves. 

There was some stupid union person saying nhs staff haven't had time to weigh up the vaccine, if they need more than the last 12mths then customer facing healthcare clearly isn't the best career choice for them. 

After reading through this thread, it is clear the original notion of scapegoating is prevalent, however you choose to justify it.

That's reflective of a wider problem in society. We've become more divided into groups of left vs right, feminist vs trans and jabbed vs unjabbed. Sadly the ability to disagree in a civilized way is becoming something we see less of. We all have positions on this topic and healthy discussion is great as long as we can do it respectfully. Much of the division is being media driven.

I don't agree with your position on this topic but I agree with your wider observations on how this is playing out. So far you've been polite and reasonable, this was a good conversation .

Plenty of those on UKC if the last travel/crag restrictions were anything to go by.

Calling Australia’s public health measures on border control during a global pandemic “coercive” seems a bit of a stretch me me.

Lest your view drift further from reality, here’s the latest thread on the subject.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/the_pub/djokovic_sent_packing-743130

Going of the likes on that thread and the dislikes on your OP, the less vocal majority clearly don’t have a problem with this deportation either.  Which isn’t surprising because the less vocal majority have engaged with vaccination and have endured 6 months of increased control measures as the government had to limit the rate unvaccinated people flooded intensive care wards across the nation.  Perhaps they’ve had enough.

If we had anything like the coercive measures you disingenuously argue against, the quiet majority would have been enjoying significantly fewer restrictions on their liberty for the last 6 months.  Thankfully it seems they’ve been willing to suck it up to support the rights of the few to make their own choices and to ensure that they continue to experience good medical care should that choice backfire - as it has for tens of thousands.

Except that, like climate denier versus mainstream, saying that we are divided like that legitimises a socially unacceptable stance by giving it equal footing at the start of any 'debate'. 

My issue is more to do with the vitriolic aggression that members of opposing sides treat each other with. A person is more likely to come over to a different point of view at the end of a civilized discussion rather than a verbal battle that descends into insults. The vax debate in some quarters is being reduced to that.

I'd be happy in the real world to engage with a climate denier or an anti vax. Putting a person out into the wilderness won't win them round.

Sometimes, in real harm to societies and even the species, I guess you just have to live with "not winning them round".

I'm sure drink drive campaigns didn't win round die hard drink drivers either but sometimes the right thing has to be done.

Interesting analogy, because with drink driving we've long since brought the stick out to go with the carrot.

This recently landed on the news...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/59870550

Do you think a nice cup of tea and pow-wow with these people would win them around? 

I'm more of the mind it's time for the Home Secretary to consider if it is proportionate to proscribe some of these organisations under the Terrorism Act 2000.  We have organised groups engaging in (rather pathetic) paramilitary training and deliberately attacking healthcare facilities.  We're well past  the carrot now, it's stick time.

If the photographs in that article were of men from a different racial background performing the same sort of training activities, there would be wall-to-wall outrage across the red tops.

I am very much of the view that there is a small group who work to normalise this by actively seeking and driving discussion to create the pretence of a debate between two equally meritus views, as a way of legitimising what is actually a minority and fringe view often founded in bad science, non-evidenced ideology and broken thinking.

When I first came across sovcits on You Tube ( usually in a confrontation with a US cop and culminating in a pickup window being smashed ) I found it all amusing but in reality they  and their ilk are considered a bigger threat to homeland  security than any number of radicalised Islam cells in the USA.

‘Alpha Men Assemble’ has some real small dick energy 😂

Agree entirely. If anti vaxxers want to get their message across better, perhaps using fact and evidence based debate would promote their side of the argument far better than holding what amount to demonstrations outside doctors surgeries, vaccination centres and schools, or attemting to dissuade school and clinical staff by handing them "legal papers" threatening "court action".

But that's the big problem. Anti-vaxxers can't rely on facts and evidence based debate to get their message across. You're asking them to turn up to a gun fight armed with a soggy donut.

I have engaged in civilised debate with multiple covid denier/ anti-vax types. I have been civil and polite. I have deployed facts and figures, logic and evidence. I have engaged each and every one of the fallacies they've trotted out, shown them why they're fallacies to the point where they can't justify their own beliefs in any rational way.

The closest I've come to changing anyones mind is a begrudging "we'll have to agree to disagree"

The only people I've come across who've actually changed their minds, have been the ones on ventilators dying of covid.

My point exactly. However, they seem to like turning up with said doughnut (proper English spelling, if you please...) but pretending its an ICBM, and wonder why they are ridiculed. And apologists like olddirtydoggy seem to think its necessary for those happy to be vaccinated to treat them with respect while the antivaxxers act in such an aggressive fashion.......

You're quite right, most won't be won over but I did manage to win over a friend of mine some weeks back. Admittedly I suggested that if he didn't get his jab then he could forget his trip to the US later on this year and that his wife would probably kill him if the virus didn't. We offered to help her get rid of his body, he promptly booked his jab.