With all the stories about sick leave cuts, movement limitations, etc for those who haven’t been vaccinated, are we seeing a sensible approach, or a lot of political and personal feelings getting in the way of the current situation?

I might need a bit of education on this, but I thought the vaccine was to minimise the risk posed by the known strains, but with the lifting of restrictions and hospitalisation being down and manageable, is it really fair to punish personal choice in this manner?

is it really fair to punish personal choice in this manner?

Yes

What he said.

If you think we’re done with Covid your very wrong.
It isn’t going away any time soon.
For all we know there could be another variant just around the corner.
One that the vaccine is not effective against.
So, in my view, yes it’s fair.

I’d love to be the kind of person who had tolerance for this kind of stuff but after all the shit covid has put me and my family through over the last two years then sorry, no, just do the thing that saves all the lives and shut the **** up

Movement limitation is not a “punishment.” It’s exercising the same rights they are. Eg, someone doesn’t want to be vaccinated, that’s their personal choice. Someone else doesn’t want to allow the unvaccinated into their shop, equally that is their personal choice.

You / they can’t have it both ways. Actions have consequences.

Do you choose not to have a gym membership and then complain about being punished for not being able to use the gym?

It looks like fascism is alive and kicking on STW 😯

Grow up.

With all the stories about sick leave cuts

Isolating due to close contact to someone else isn’t sickness.

If you lift restrictions its even more important that everyone is vaccinated.

is it really fair to punish personal choice in this manner?

ISWYDT

If you lift restrictions its even more important that everyone is vaccinated.

A blatantly obvious fact hiding in plain sight.

Imagine it like this – we meet in a bar and begin to talk. The conversation flows convivially and we decide that we both like each other and so I offer to buy you a drink. You happily accept and drink the drink and we both part as friends.

Now imagine the same scenario except this time rather than offer to buy you a drink, I hand you one and demand that you drink it. Do you think that you would be quite so willing to accept my otherwise kind and well intentioned offer?

No, thought not, and that folks is why you keep vaccines as entirely voluntary because to do otherwise will result if far fewer people accepting it. Besides, we still live in a free society where telling someone else what they can and can’t do with their body is a moral travesty that should be resisted at all costs.

Patrons only in the bar ….

Do you think that you would be quite so willing to accept my otherwise kind and well intentioned offer?

Free beer? Yes please.

We’re at 90% eligible vaccinated. Before vaccination was a thing it was thought that if we got to 60 or 70% we’d be doing well. We’re doing very well. At this point it’s a shrug of the shoulders from me.

No one is saying vaccination is compulsory. Everyone has choices. But choices have consequences.

Besides, we still live in a free society where telling someone else what they can and can’t do with their body is a moral travesty that should be resisted at all costs.

Well, maybe, but if someone chose to go injecting themselves with Ebola/smallpox/anthrax/some other nasty and then wanted to go shopping at Bluewater I think we’d all be reasonably happy with then being forcibly isolated in double quick time. We can all think of extreme examples to justify our case in each direction!

Freedom of choice is good up to the point it impinges on that of others and Freedom of action is not freedom from consequence. There’s a whole grey area where ‘you’re not doing your bit, at minimal cost to you, so things are going to be a bit more difficult for you’ might not be the most terrible option. We’re well into the territory of ‘least worst’ and messy compromise.

For something like going to a pub, football match or cinema  I think its not unreasonable to say that you must have a vaccine

to do otherwise will result if far fewer people accepting it.

Is there actually any evidence to back that up?

I find the suggestion that it’s just like someone buying a stranger a drink unconvincing.

I have no issue with choice, but if you understand the consequences of your choice with plenty of notice and opportunity to change your mind, at no cost to yourself, then I don’t see how you can complain if you are not able to do certain things as a result of your choice.

The issue I have is with the fact that the unvaccinated seem to also combine this, almost to prove their point, with deliberately lax behaviour. We only have one out of 50 staff members who is not vaccinated, and she chose to come to work feeling slightly rough, without telling anyone that her husband was also at home feeling similar, then only when someone else tested positive and had to isolate did she test herself (only when asked), and now there are multiple avoidable contacts who may also end up testing positive. The rest of us who are fully vaccinated would have been more careful than this since we work in a field where close contact is always required and working from home is not an option.

Besides, we still live in a free society where telling someone else what they can and can’t do with their body is a moral travesty that should be resisted at all costs.

I agree with this point.  However saying ” if you want to enter my pub then you must be vaccinated” is a very different thing.  Most services have the right to choose who uses that service.  Its no different morally to dress codes

Sorry Jude, you chose to enter the bar. The drink is not possibly going to preserve life, yours, theirs or anybody else’s.

If I am vaccinated I will be better able to resist infection. Egotistically ‘I’m alright Jack’ , but so too are my immediate contacts and also those unvaccinated for whatever reason because there is one less infectious person spreading.

You should stay at home instead.

We also have a lot of things that are restricted – like you need to pass a driving test to drive a car.  Like you cannot walk into a restaurant with no clothes on etc etc

No one is saying vaccination is compulsory.

Well clearly there it is, if there’s a negative action attached for not doing something. Which is clearly the state of play at the moment.

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Hand me over your wallet or I’ll hit you with this hammer.

What do you do ?. Hand it over or face being hit. So where then is the crime of robbery ?. It was your free choice to do so, You didn’t want to get hit, so you voluntarily handed over the wallet.

Sounds stupid, but that’s the argument being offered.

Being vaccinated isn’t going to prevent you from getting infected, nor passing on that infection to someone else.

How many health workers HEALTH WORKERS !! are unvaccinated ?? 80,000 is it.

So hardly a small number and certainly they feel theres a danger they dont want to face.

Sounds stupid, but that’s the argument being offered.

Well you got the first part right.

The issue I have is with the fact that the unvaccinated seem to also combine this, almost to prove their point, with deliberately lax behaviour.

This.
I mean, it’s one thing saying you don’t want a vax if you then take a load of extra precautions around mask wearing, hand washing/sanitising and social distancing but most anti-vaxxers seem to delight in being as contrary as they possibly can be.

Which means they need to have their “freedoms” that they keep banging on about restricted until they’ve seen sense. Surprisingly, when they find they can’t go to the pub without a vaccine, they become much more willing to have it.

Besides, we still live in a free society where telling someone else what they can and can’t do with their body is a moral travesty that should be resisted at all costs

And yet compulsory vaccines exist for travelling to certain parts of the world, doing certain jobs etc and I doubt anyone asked your opinion when you were sitting there aged 3 in the nurses office for your MMR vaccine…

You think that’s bad? My uncle was arrested and imprisoned for his beliefs!

He believed he could **** on the bus.

Well you got the first part right.

Oh ho ho, very witty drac. Thats the best way of defending against an argument you disagree with. Ridicule.

Top marks, move to spot one.

So you disagree that there’s consequences for not receiving a vaccine ?.

but that’s the argument being offered.

I have neither the patience nor the crayons to explain to you why that is not the argument being offered.

So there have always been requirements to vaccinate before travel to certain places, why is this any different?

The only thing I’m not completely comfortable with is people losing their jobs. Although you could still argue the solution is fairly simple…

doubt anyone asked your opinion when you were sitting there aged 3 in the nurses office for your MMR vaccine…

Ah but this is a whole new world since the wonders of teh internets. Where millions of mewling, un-self-aware, ‘anti-snowflake’-snowflakes play Donald Trump playing Joseph McCarthy playing William Wallace in their own Save The Free World From Commufascists biopic*

* screens nightly (and daily) via socialantisocial media.

Source: the nightly mirror 😱

So you disagree that there’s consequences for not receiving a vaccine ?

Catching Covid?

It seems so unfair.

The good news is that vaccinated people will still look after you if necessary.

Well clearly there it is, if there’s a negative action attached for not doing something.

No, you still have choice. You can drive without a seatbelt if you want to, you can eat only salt, try and bring drugs into the country, attempt to marry your favourite ocelot, you can try and rob a bank or tell Johnson what you REALLY think of him with a set of pliers and a blow torch. You have that choice just as we all do, just as you can choose whether to vaccinate or not, but none of us are free of the consequences of our actions.

The only thing I’m not completely comfortable with is people losing their jobs.

But there are those here who think this is acceptable. If 80,000 nhs workers dont want the vaccine they should be sacked, and receive no social security benefits because they have voluntarily dismissed themselves from their job.

Of course this will seriously hinder the operation of hospitals ,health centers. But if that is the consequence of their refusal, then that is correct

So you disagree that there’s consequences for not receiving a vaccine ?.

No, but it’s hardly the same as being threatened with a hammer.

I mean let’s look at what the consequences are.

You won’t be able to work in the NHS in England or in a nursing home.

Some companies will no longer give more the SSP for you having to isolate due to close contact with a infected person, which is a legal requirement.

Consequences of handing your wallet over, you lose maybe some cash and your wallet that says Bad MOFO on it. Which isn’t a big deal.

Now let’s look at the benefits if you have the vaccine, you’re less likely to catch, spread or die of covid and if you do catch it les likely to suffer long covid. All that for a tiny risk of a serious adverse effect.

Let’s look at the benefits of being hit by a hammer… nope can’t think of any.

The good news is that vaccinated people will still look after you if necessary.

Which is actually an interesting bioethical dilemma.
Hippocratic Oath says that you treat all patients equally, regardless of how they came to be in hospital. Treating smokers or alcoholics for example – it’s a lifestyle choice, people are free to smoke (within certain fairly strict rules), the difference being that when the smoker is in hospital dying of lung cancer, they’re not endangering anyone else there or forcing staff to isolate.

Yes, their lifestyle choice has lead to a painful early death but it doesn’t really endanger any of the staff looking after them or other patients sharing the ward.

Unlike a patient requiring urgent treatment for Covid due to their own lifestyle choice of not getting a simple free vaccine…

No, but it’s hardly the same as being threatened with a hammer.

OK then, we’ll conveniently remove ‘Hammer’ and replace it with something else.

.

Please feel free to offer something else in its place.

.

Over to you 😉

I can understand why many people choose not to do dangerous things – like for instance mountain biking or kitesurfing – and if I end up in a coffin as a result then people may correctly point out that it was my own fault, but I was at least enjoying myself and not endangering others.

Most people choosing not to get vaccinated are I would think doing so because of misinformation and unfounded scaremongering about gene therapy and the like, and are in fact taking higher risks driving to work, which is what I find particularly annoying.

Not the driving to work, just the lack of sensible use of the brain.

Well clearly there it is, if there’s a negative action attached for not doing something. Which is clearly the state of play at the moment.

It’s not a negative action. It’s the restriction of a privilege. You don’t have a god-given right to go to the pub.

Over to you 😉

A better analogy with your wallet might be, put your card behind the bar or you can’t open a tab.

Which, of course, is totally comparable to the rise of the Third Reich.