So ... the Spaniards are logging those who decline the vaccine

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, RBAGE said:

MC. How are you?

Well, I suppose if you spend your life cruising the seven seas, it's a small price to pay for being on perpetual holiday.

Tongue firmly in cheek.

All the best bonny lad.

Hi RB

 

Not bad, me old mucker

 

Permanent holiday?

 

Hopefully we can meet up, once this insanity is over, for beer

 

All the best you you too

Mark

[Tricky-CRS]

18 hours ago, spikey said:

 

Is that a fact, or is it simply your opinion?

Thank you, I have updated my post making clear its my opinion not fact.

[stewartingram]

Anybody seen that holiday advert on TV (Jet2B is it? - I don't do these holidays so I'm not with the names). 

Bascically have a jab and go on holiday - are they expecting to give you the jab (at a cost no doubt?

It sounds an irresponsible advert to me.

[EddieB]

It has long been accepted that entry to certain countries requires a certificate of vaccination against certain communicable diseases (yellow fever, typhoid, etc.).  I can envisage a similar requirement as long as this pandemic lasts, or is in danger of returning - something not too onerous.

 

For those unwilling to receive the vaccine, they may not be bearing their social responsibilities, but I would rather live in a society that does not impose its will on its people.  As long as they represent a smaller proportion of the population, the principles of herd immunity should prevail.  I guess the real danger is of sub-groups refusing en masse.

 

Where I have greatest concern is any attempt towards compulsory use of ID cards (last suggested, but thrown out a couple of decades ago), or even a Chinese-style facial recognition and surveillance system which is becoming less far-fetched and for which the Spanish system could be the thin end of the wedge.

[Fat Controller]

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

Perhaps they need to put garlic in it?

Or do it as a suppository....

[iL Dottore]

19 minutes ago, EddieB said:

...Where I have greatest concern is any attempt towards compulsory use of ID cards...

I really don’t see why the British have so much concern over identity cards. They are pretty much universal across Europe and I don’t see civil liberties in Europe to be any worse than those enjoyed in Britain.

The last time I encountered the police, was when I drove down a private road to the Dog Club I belong to. As a member of the club, and as my wife is a Dog Trainer at the club, our car does have a relevant permit to use the road. The police parked behind me and asked if I had a permit, I showed them the permit and they were happy with it and drove off. There was at no time any demands for “Ihre Papiere bitte”. Quite frankly, having lived in the US and in the UK – both of them vehemently against ID cards - and having lived in Switzerland where they do have ID cards. I know what I would prefer to have: ID cards for all.

 

I think the objection to ID cards in the UK is based on two things: firstly, concerns about the competence, or lack thereof, of the government at all levels to properly create, instigate and administer an ID card scheme (which I think is a perfectly valid concern) and secondly, because a lot of the <under the radar activities>  “enjoyed“ by many across all strata of British society would be somewhat more difficult.

 

An alternative to ID cards for all, certainly in regards to tracking CoVID (and other) vaccinations, would be a vaccination card containing the relevant biomedical information about the card carrier which would “time expire” when it was time to get revaccinated. But again, we get back to the first objection mooted for ID cards: the competence of government to actually make a decent job of creating, issuing and monitoring such vaccination cards.

 

 

[Guy Rixon]

I know four practical objections to British ID cards.

 

The first is that it might become mandatory to produce them when challenged, giving police and other authorities a whole new way of hassling people they don't like.

 

The second is that, per the last pilot scheme, the cards will encode information about the carrier that should remain private but will almost certainly be insecure and will be trivially stolen via the RFID mechanism.

 

The third is that the RFID mechanism will be used to track movements of citizens, which the government will record and then leak through bad security. This gives problems of targeted crime.

 

The fourth is that cards will be stolen and used for identity theft; and that too many will accept the stolen cards at face value, not even checking the photo.

 

Objection 1 needs guarantees that our constitution can't provide. Objection 4 needs properly thought-out laws applied with common sense (not holding my breath). The others need the scheme details to be designed for the benefit of the people, not the government (oink-flap). 

[Wheatley]

Vaccines - what do we do with all the people under 50 who don't have an underlying health condition and who aren't front line health care or first responders - ie the majority of the working age population ? Because they aren't on any deployment list. 

 

Do we tattoo them as well as the refusniks ? 

[spikey]

1 hour ago, EddieB said:

... I would rather live in a society that does not impose its will on its people.

 

How would that work then? 

[EddieB]

16 minutes ago, spikey said:

 

How would that work then? 

No one should be forced to be given medication against their consent.

[96701]

23 minutes ago, spikey said:

 

How would that work then? 

Just as it works now. We have the freedom to go where we like and when we like without carrying proof of who we are.

[ejstubbs]

1 hour ago, Guy Rixon said:

I know four practical objections to British ID cards...

 

Wouldn't any one of those objections be just as valid anywhere else in the world - and arguably much more so in some countries?  As iL Dottore pointed out, ID cards or a close equivalent thereto are pretty much universal on the continent.

 

I'm not taking a stance one way or the other here, but I can understand why some folks just don't get what it is that the British think makes them so different to everyone else.

[Nick C]

1 hour ago, Guy Rixon said:

I know four practical objections to British ID cards.

 

The first is that it might become mandatory to produce them when challenged, giving police and other authorities a whole new way of hassling people they don't like.

 

The second is that, per the last pilot scheme, the cards will encode information about the carrier that should remain private but will almost certainly be insecure and will be trivially stolen via the RFID mechanism.

 

The third is that the RFID mechanism will be used to track movements of citizens, which the government will record and then leak through bad security. This gives problems of targeted crime.

 

The fourth is that cards will be stolen and used for identity theft; and that too many will accept the stolen cards at face value, not even checking the photo.

 

Objection 1 needs guarantees that our constitution can't provide. Objection 4 needs properly thought-out laws applied with common sense (not holding my breath). The others need the scheme details to be designed for the benefit of the people, not the government (oink-flap). 

And a fifth, they wanted to charge everyone £75 each, which many can't afford - other countries that require them provide them free of charge. 

[John Isherwood]

As a driver, I have to have a compulsory UK driving licence, which has my personal details and a photo on it. If I can't produce it when asked to do so by a police officer, I have to present it at a police station.

 

This has been the case since I applied for a provisonal licence, some fifty-five years ago. In all that time I have not suffered any of the supposed disadvantages that have been put forward against having compulsory ID cards.

 

If you've nothing to hide - there's no problem.

 

John Isherwood.

[Enterprisingwestern]

40 minutes ago, EddieB said:

No one should be forced to be given medication against their consent.

 

In the case of a rampant pandemic, in which medication is being administered to protect not only themselves but others too, then IMHO they are of no use to society or the human race.

All it needs is the application of a little bit of common sense.

 

Mike.

[Edwin_m]

1 hour ago, Wheatley said:

Vaccines - what do we do with all the people under 50 who don't have an underlying health condition and who aren't front line health care or first responders - ie the majority of the working age population ? Because they aren't on any deployment list. 

 

Do we tattoo them as well as the refusniks ? 

We apparently have enough of the Oxford vaccine on the way to give the entire population two doses.  I imagine the under-50s will follow on when the other groups have been done.  They have less probability of being seriously ill but some still will be, and of course they can still spread it to other people.  

 

The new and apparently more contagious form of Covid make the proportion of vaccine refusers a greater risk.  For a disease to dwindle away, the proportion who are immune needs to be at least as large as one minus the reciprocal of the R0 number - the number each person would infect if nobody was immune. 

 

R0 is at least 3 for Covid so if nobody was immune each person would infect three others on average, so we need two of those three either vaccinated or immune by infection so that the number infected drops to 1 and the epidemic stays steady.  It appears there are no plans to vaccinate under-16s who are about 20% of the population, so nearly everyone else needs to be vaccinated for the numbers to go down.  This assumes that both infection and the vaccine render people non-infectious and the immunity lasts long enough, neither of which are certain.    

[bbishop]

1 hour ago, Guy Rixon said:

I know four practical objections to British ID cards.

 

The first is that it might become mandatory to produce them when challenged, giving police and other authorities a whole new way of hassling people they don't like.

 

The second is that, per the last pilot scheme, the cards will encode information about the carrier that should remain private but will almost certainly be insecure and will be trivially stolen via the RFID mechanism.

 

The third is that the RFID mechanism will be used to track movements of citizens, which the government will record and then leak through bad security. This gives problems of targeted crime.

 

The fourth is that cards will be stolen and used for identity theft; and that too many will accept the stolen cards at face value, not even checking the photo.

 

Objection 1 needs guarantees that our constitution can't provide. Objection 4 needs properly thought-out laws applied with common sense (not holding my breath). The others need the scheme details to be designed for the benefit of the people, not the government (oink-flap). 

And my objection is the whole project will be given to someone's mate, who has oiled the necessary wheels, and who will achieve nothing except taking an obscene profit.  Bill

[melmerby]

On the TV about a week back an interviewer asked several (non youthful) varied ethnicity people in the street whether they would have the vaccine.

All the whites replied they would

2 Afro-Carribeans of the several asked said they wouldn't, one a woman, because "god protects me, I won't get Covid" and the other because "they have put a chip in it to monitor us"

When asked about the chip the guy swore it was correct because "he saw it on Whatsapp"

[J. S. Bach]

9 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

The problem is that it's not the Spanish authorities who need to know who is a conchie, it's the rest of us who have to mingle with them out in public places, perhaps a tattoo on their forehead might help.

 

Mike.

Reminds me of a land that long ago far away that required certain people to wear a star (yellow?) on their clothing.

[spikey]

1 hour ago, EddieB said:

No one should be forced to be given medication against their consent.

 

So you weren't vaccinated and innoculated as a kid then?  And if you have kids yourself, have they not been vaccinated?

Edited December 30, 2020 by spikey
typo

[96701]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Wouldn't any one of those objections be just as valid anywhere else in the world - and arguably much more so in some countries?  As iL Dottore pointed out, ID cards or a close equivalent thereto are pretty much universal on the continent.

ID cards are available in Europe, but I cannot find one where failure to produce immediately results in arrest and prosecution. Some country's police force have the power to detain (for 24 hours) until identity can be confirmed. 

 

It only needs a change of government in such countries to make the non carrying of ID Card a criminal offence in itself. You are then in a police state. I prefer to not have ID cards at all, thanks.

[spikey]

22 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Reminds me of a land that long ago far away that required certain people to wear a star (yellow?) on their clothing.

 

Oh poo.  Too late.  I had a bet on that somebody would come out with that one inside an hour of the tattoo suggestion appearing ...

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by spikey
Clarity

[EddieB]

10 minutes ago, spikey said:

 

So you weren't vaccinated and innoculated as a kid then?  And if you have kids yourself, have they not been vaccinated?

Oh dear, there’s a world of difference between parents (or those recognised with power of attorney, in the case of others unable to make choices for themselves) acting in the best interests of their loved ones, and the state deciding how and to whom medical intervention is made.  You don’t even need to go to history to see examples of medical interventions against people’s will.

[phil-b259]

There are more than a few people who have got a provisional driving licence not because they have any intention of driving motor vehicles but because it provides a very useful way of proving your ID. Said driving licence also records on a database whether you  have opted out of organ donation while the photo and other details are shared with the Passport office.

 

Many many years in the late 1990s ago I got a plastic card with my new national insurance number on it - a rather useless thing in itself, but something that could be developed as a useful way of proving entitlement right to work in the UK, right to receive benefits or non emergency NHS treatment. It could also be linked in the same way passports and driving licences are.

[John Isherwood]

12 minutes ago, 96701 said:

You are then in a police state.

 

Please define a police state.

 

John Isherwood.