Vaccine Passports/Permanent restrictions

[Pete_uk]

I was also wondering what would happen when we have a bad flu season.
I'm ok with advice to wash hands etc but the thought of 'restrictions' being brought in every time is scary.

The main point I wanted to make was that (and I know this is kind of a silly question) if we have four or five months of being 'open', what would be the point of then bringing in these 'Shop permits' (passports)?
I can't see the public being on board nor the shops but then with winter heading our way I'm sure we will be bombarded with how the virus is spreading again.

 

[kristiang85]

It seems that fans are being allowed at the Carabao Cup Final, but with a lot of restrictions:

2,000 Spurs & Man City fans at final

Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City will both have 2,000 fans at Wembley for the EFL Cup final on 25 April.

www.bbc.co.uk

Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City will both have 2,000 fans at Wembley for the Carabao Cup final on 25 April.

But fans under 18 cannot attend, and people who are clinically extremely vulnerable or pregnant have also been told not to apply for tickets.
To get into Wembley, fans must take a lateral flow coronavirus test at a designated site - not at home - in the 24 hours before the game.

And they must bring proof of a negative result, either a text or an email.

Fans who get a ticket must sign a consent form, as the match is part of the government's events research programme, which is assessing how major events can reopen safely to the public as coronavirus restrictions ease.

In addition, fans are being asked if they will take two PCR tests, which are designed to show if someone showing coronavirus symptoms currently has the virus. Both tests should be taken at home, the first before the match, and the second five days afterwards. Fans who get tickets for the final will be told how to apply for the PCR tests, which will be free.

I hope this isn't a model that they want to base a future of all events being under a vaccine passport scheme on.

For a start, banning vulnerable and pregnant people from attending is not a good look (especailly as the former are most likely to have been fully vaccinated). It's actually depressing to see how acceptable this has suddenly become.

Banning under 18s also seems nonsensical, considering how low risk they are from this.

And finally, the testing regime seems a right faff.

"Normality by Easter", wasn't that what we were told?

 

[Bantamzen]

It seems that fans are being allowed at the Carabao Cup Final, but with a lot of restrictions:

2,000 Spurs & Man City fans at final

Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City will both have 2,000 fans at Wembley for the EFL Cup final on 25 April.

www.bbc.co.uk

I hope this isn't a model that they want to base a future of all events being under a vaccine passport scheme on.

For a start, banning vulnerable and pregnant people from attending is not a good look (especailly as the former are most likely to have been fully vaccinated). It's actually depressing to see how acceptable this has suddenly become.

Banning under 18s also seems nonsensical, considering how low risk they are from this.

And finally, the testing regime seems a right faff.

"Normality by Easter", wasn't that what we were told?

Reading the BBC News feed it seems that disability groups are already lining up to challenge this as direct discrimination. Hopefully this will jolt the government into rethinking and to dialling back from these passport trials.

 

[roversfan2001]

This 'Events Research Programme' experiment is ridiculous - as far as I'm aware there's no 'control' event with either no testing and reduced numbers or testing but a capacity crowd. The fact that something like this appears to be encouraged by a lot of the public is scary. There was no need for constant testing when fans were allowed back in in December, when case rates were far higher. There were no plans for testing when fans were meant to be allowed back in September either - though I don't think any games went ahead with fans then.

 

[MikeWM]

This 'Events Research Programme' experiment is ridiculous - as far as I'm aware there's no 'control' event with either no testing and reduced numbers or testing but a capacity crowd.

They could just look at Texas, where the Rangers baseball team filled their stadium last week with 40,000 fans. The only restriction was the wretched masks, but looking at pictures of the game it is pretty clear most people quickly gave up on wearing them and it wasn't being especially enforced.

Or we could go back to mid-March last year, when everyone was fairly adamant that there was no particular evidence of much risk in holding mass outdoor events. To quote the prime Minister at the time

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/uk-to-ban-mass-gatherings-in-coronavirus-u-turn

“The scientific advice, as we’ve said over the last couple of weeks, is that banning such events will have little effect on the spread,”

(as an aside, interesting quote from Patrick Vallance in that article: “Our aim is to try and reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely. Also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, [our aim is] to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission, [while] at the same time we protect those who are most vulnerable to it. Those are the key things we need to do,”. Remember when that was the plan?)

Of course, this was before they realised this was their golden opportunity to rollout an ID card surveillance system.

 

[DorkingMain]

I was also wondering what would happen when we have a bad flu season.
I'm ok with advice to wash hands etc but the thought of 'restrictions' being brought in every time is scary.

The main point I wanted to make was that (and I know this is kind of a silly question) if we have four or five months of being 'open', what would be the point of then bringing in these 'Shop permits' (passports)?
I can't see the public being on board nor the shops but then with winter heading our way I'm sure we will be bombarded with how the virus is spreading again.

This is what I find bizarre about the whole idea. If the system takes 2-3 months to implement, we'd then be implementing it at a time when venues had been open for a while without the system, when case numbers were *higher*. Why would it then be necessary to introduce additional protections when case numbers are likely going to be lower than they are now?

The whole idea strikes me as a little bit fascist. You shouldn't have to constantly prove you're healthy, let alone prove that you're healthy and don't happen to be carrying a virus that doesn't even affect you. It feels like a very grim slippery slope - we shouldn't be accountable for the fact that humans are naturally carriers of bacteria / viruses.