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The dangers of compulsory vaccination The 'no jab, no job' debate has parallels with the fight over free speech

What price refusal? Christopher Furlong/Getty


February 11, 2021   5 mins

When Pimlico Plumbers boss Charlie Mullins announced his plans to make the Covid jab compulsory for his staff, the vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi described the proposal as discriminatory. Mullins replied that his lawyers, Mishcon de Reya, had assured him it wouldn’t be. Three weeks on, the Telegraph is reporting that the issue has become “the centre of a row in Cabinet”.

As a piece of messaging, “no jab, no job” has much going for it. Like its progenitors “no hard hat, no work” and “no mask, no entry”, it takes an instance of risk-aversion most of us can at least see the sense in, frames it as a value-free universal truth, and adopts the threatening syntax of officialdom to convey its contempt for the public. Add to that the phrase’s enchanting monosyllabic alliteration, as well as the fact that many people will find the idea completely outrageous, and it becomes hard not to see it catching on.

But is it discriminatory? Having an unequal effect that correlates with a “protected characteristic” is not the only way for a policy to be bad, of course. But a claim on those grounds is a nuclear weapon in Employment Law — and a way for employees with less than two years’ service to attack an unfair dismissal — so it’s a good place to start.

The Equality Act says there’s no discrimination if a requirement is “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”. One such aim might be the requirement in Section 3 of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 — alluded to by both Mullins and the Telegraph’s Cabinet source — to look out for anyone whose health might be negatively affected by your firm’s activities. As for proportionality, perhaps there’ll be an exemption for pregnant women and Christian Scientists — although presumably not for BAME people, who, for reasons no one has yet plausibly explained, are on average considerably less keen on the idea of this vaccine.

But the trickiest question in the discrimination issue is the same one raised by those who would object to a ‘no jab, no job’ policy altogether: namely, is the increased risk of Covid-harm from unvaccinated plumbers sufficient to justify sacking people for refusing to undergo a medical procedure they don’t want?

Now, if we were only talking about, say, doctors and nurses, there might be a stronger argument for compulsory vaccination: the increased risk to others is greater in their case; they’re a small minority of the population; and there are, after all, many other ways to earn a living. Let’s not forget, it has long been impossible for most doctors in the UK to do their jobs without being inoculated against Hepatitis B. But it isn’t only doctors and nurses, and it isn’t only plumbers.

Almost every employer will want to reduce the risk of transmission among its customers and staff — out of an admirable sense of public duty no doubt, and also out of a desire for protection against legal claims, reduced sickness absence, and competitive advantage. And if every employer adopts the “no jab, no job” mantra, Mullins’ argument that workers who don’t comply can “go and work for someone else” rather loses its force.

And the fact that the ‘no jab, no job’ rule could be applied to almost everyone is a strong indication that it has no intrinsic connection to most people’s jobs at all. Yes, unvaccinated plumbers, and shop assistants, and bus drivers — even tree surgeons — increase the risk of spreading the disease. But so do unvaccinated podcasters with private incomes when they stand in the queue at the post office. Why should the latter be the only kind of person we allow to make a genuinely free choice about the vaccine?

At this point we might start to wonder whether the rubric of employment law — depending as it does on a motley national collection of badly written policy documents and one-sided contracts — is really the appropriate field for planting public health requirements. Might it not be more honest for our Government to use instead the traditional system for the administration of life-ruining penalties: the criminal law?

Statutes create crimes by saying that something is “an offence”. And while those magic words open the door to harsh consequences (although mostly less harsh than being made permanently unemployable — only 5-10% of sentencings each year involve custody) they also guarantee various protections far beyond what’s available at the Employment Tribunal, let alone at an internal disciplinary hearing. The big difference is the higher standard of proof (‘sure’ rather than ‘on the balance of probabilities’) but there are many others, all of which make it much harder to convict someone of a crime than to sack them.

And it’s noteworthy in this context that the criminal law, by means of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, seeks to mitigate the dire consequence of unemployability. You can go to prison for six months and a couple of years later, if you apply for a job, you are entitled to tell them nothing about it. “How long will it be on my record?” is a question all white-collar clients ask when they’re offered a plea deal. If they were facing the sack, outside of the criminal jurisdiction — for, say, refusing a medical procedure — the answer might very well be “forever”.

There’s a clear analogy here, isn’t there, with Free Speech. If everyone you might conceivably work for — manufacturers of everything from ice-cream to razor blades, every ancient Public School, every guardian of the nation’s architectural heritage – requires you to uphold “their” “values” in all visible areas of your life, you will have little choice but to comply. It might start with a particular company, or industry, with a particular need to maintain strict speech codes. Soon, others, noticing the benefits of such policies, follow suit. Before long a deep-sea diver loses his livelihood for sharing an edgy meme on Facebook.

Of course, a plumber with a barbarous social media output might not be as dangerous as a plumber with a higher-than-average chance of carrying Covid, but the principle and the process are the same: individual employers seek to reduce a potential harm by threatening dismissal, and the collective effect is of a national rule. That rule applies across the social spectrum, with potentially life-ruining consequences for transgression — though accusers need not prove anything beyond reasonable doubt — and often with little prospect of rehabilitation.

I have represented, in Professional Disciplinary Tribunals, many men and women who have said — or sent — inappropriate things. Some manage to hang on, some don’t. Those that don’t are often just as devastated by the consequences as the criminal client who has to leave the dock by the back stairs after a guilty verdict. But almost none of them have done anything they could sensibly be prosecuted for. The ever-reducing frequency with which that fatuous free-speech stick-man strip gets posted suggests that the downside of this phenomenon is beginning to sink in.

To treat these issues as something for employers’ discretion rather than as a matter of Public Law not only deprives us of the appropriate protections in the trial process, but also — and more worryingly — evades proper consideration (public and parliamentary) of the balances to be struck.

When it comes to free speech, the Law Commission is currently considering responses to its consultation on Hate Crime legislation. Some of the proposals provoked considerable alarm across the political spectrum —  particularly regarding the plan to extend hate-crime laws into private homes — but as the Chief Executive of the Index on Censorship Ruth Smeeth said, “We need to have a proper national debate if we are going to start putting restrictions on language like this.” Well quite.

As with Free Speech, so with vaccines. I hope Charlie Mullins was right when he said, winsomely, “the entire thing will very soon be a non-issue”. But in case he’s wrong, we must not allow compulsory vaccination to be quietly smuggled in through the back door in ten thousand workplace health policies. The Telegraph reported a Government source as saying that where there is an “unjustified” fear of the jab, “we have got to help people get into the right place”. I do hope that isn’t a euphemism for “force them to take it”. But if it is, there’s a right and a wrong way to attempt to do it.


Adam King is a criminal barrister at QEB Hollis Whiteman.

adamhpking

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Alison Houston
Alison Houston
3 years ago

A vaccination prevents a person being made ill from a disease, or it prevents a person from getting that disease at all. Since that vaccinated person is immunised against the disease in question there is no logical reason for them to fear catching the disease. So why should anyone who chooses to be vaccinated fear a person who is not? Why should a person who is vaccinated give consideration of any sort to the question of whether another person is vaccinated? The only reason such a person has for concern about catching the disease from an unvaccinated person is because he himself does not believe the vaccine confers the benefits it claims to confer. In other words he is a fox with no tail, yelling at everyone else to do the pointless thing he has done himself, whose uselessness he cannot look in the face.

A person, be it an employer or anyone else, who has complete faith in the efficaciousness of the vaccine could not justify any interest in whether anyone else he meets has been immunised, other than a friendly one in the well being of a fellow man, now or in the future.

The question is not like the free speech issue, nobody can be hurt by someone else’s choice to be vaccinated or to not be vaccinated. The matter is a simple one about whether some people should be allowed to bully others because they believe they occupy the moral high ground. Since the answer to that question is obviously no, then there is no need for legislation, everything is allowed unless it is forbidden.

Joe Blow
Joe Blow
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

You wrote: “…nobody can be hurt by someone else’s choice to be vaccinated or to not be vaccinated.”With all due respect, that is nonsense. Here are just two reasons: 1.) There are quite a few people with legitimate medical reasons for not being vaccinated (e.g. immunosuppression). It is inexcusable to put them at risk for no reason.2.) Unvaccinated people may be viral hosts in which novel mutations may more readily emerge, threatening everyone.

Swiveleyed Loon
Swiveleyed Loon
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

‘ Unvaccinated people may be viral hosts in which novel mutations may more readily emerge, threatening everyone.’
So can many vaccinated people because there is no evidence that the vaccines provide 100% sterilizing immunity.

Bruce Wallace
Bruce Wallace
3 years ago

You got it. This isn’t really a vaccine at all.

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  Bruce Wallace

1. There’s no ‘This’ for the vaccine, there’s ‘These’.
2. What do you think vaccines are?

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

Hey, some sense has joined.

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

Don’t know why I’m getting drawn in.

Arguing with conspiracy people is near impossible. Any facts that disprove their conspiracy theory are just deemed part of the ‘conspiracy’.

The leftwing mob running so much of the West are an extreme example of this – to them ‘facts’ and ‘logic’ are part of the oppressive regime. It’s conspiracy cult rebadged.

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

“Any facts that disprove their conspiracy theory are just deemed part of the ‘conspiracy’.”
Or they just dredge up some new ‘facts’ and forget yesterday’s pet theory. As with the nanobots (and I’m not equating nanobotters with those who oppose compulsory COVID vaccinations!).

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

This is not a true vaccine.

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Please define what a true vaccine is? And which of the multiple vaccines do you mean?

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

A true vaccine must have some connection with cows?

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

🙂 yeap, someone on here defined a vaccine along the lines of “priming the immune system with a broken bit of the virus”. They did this to discredit mRNA vaccines, sadly it also excludes Cowpow after which vaccines are named.

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

And it appears Jenner’s vaccine may have been based on horsepox anyway!

David Probert
David Probert
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

Confusing comment – explain

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  David Probert

The word vaccine is named after Jenners use of Cowpox to treat Smallpox

Anto Coates
Anto Coates
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

Ha ha that’s good

Elizabeth Smith
Elizabeth Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

A true vaccine gives complete immunity for life. A flu jab is therefore not a vaccine and these are not, either.

Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
3 years ago

What is a true vaccine ?

No vaccine is 100% effective. The closest we have is the measles vaccine that provides life long immunity in 96% of those who have been vaccinated.

An up to date definition :
“A substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease.”
Like everything else in medicine “immunity” is a moveable feast – most notably waning with age as the germinal centres shrivel up.

Joe Blow
Joe Blow
3 years ago

“A true vaccine gives complete immunity for life. A flu jab is therefore not a vaccine and these are not, either.”
RUBBISH

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
2 years ago

Not quite. Rabes vaccines for dogs and cats, for example, have to be re-given periodically because the immune system forgets. Tetanus is another. Some seem to be for life and some not.
But seems to me it’s hard to make a case for a “vaccine” that confers neither immunity from future infection, nor prevention of transmission to others being other than voluntary.

Joe Blow
Joe Blow
3 years ago

The antivaxxers (which you might not be…) have latched onto the irrelevant phrase “sterliizing immunity.”

Yes, such immunity is desirable, but not essential for vaccine effectiveness.

Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
3 years ago

It’s a numbers game. If you are vaccinated there will be fewer virions in your body (all the vaccines so far show a reduced risk of getting seriously ill). Fewer virions = fewer units randomly mutating.

Rob Alka
Rob Alka
3 years ago

seriously, what IS there in this world that is 100%?

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

It may be ‘inexcusable’, but we do it with every other disease. So we’ve excused ourselves pretty well so far.

annabelbacon
annabelbacon
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

How many other diseases do we coerce people into taking experimental ‘vaccines’ for??

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  annabelbacon

That was rather my point?

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

And that is the problem. Vaccines are overly used and made for every little thing. That in itself is ridiculous. We may as well ask the Big Pharma gods to make each of us a big bubble and we can get in there for life and never need to use our immune systems.

Eleanor Barlow
Eleanor Barlow
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

‘Vaccines are overly used and made for every little thing.’

I would hardly class a disease that has taken upwards of 100k lives in the UK a ‘little thing’. Nor are polio and smallpox for which vaccines were also produced.
Or are you deluded enough to think it’s a plot devised by the deep state?
The hysteria and ignorance of the anti-vaxxers never ceases to amaze me.

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  Eleanor Barlow

Likewise, I’m amazed that someone I work with can watch all ninety-odd minutes of Plandemic and find it “interesting”, without bothering to spend a minute or two checking it’s most “interesting” claim – that SARS-CoV-2 was patented several years ago.

David Probert
David Probert
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

The current vaccines will not work on the anticipate hundreds of mutations we can expect from a corona virus .

So “A Vax a Day Keeps the Covid at bay” – is that the idea?

Pity your own immune system trying to work out the difference between an artificial Covid spike protein generated by your own cells and the real thing when and if you encounter it !
Hmm…Best just wipe them all out – so bring on the ” Cytokine Storm”!

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  David Probert

I think the whole idea is that our bodies will react similarly to both artificial spike proteins, or parts thereof, and natural versions.
But yes, “A Vax a Day Keeps the Covid at bay” may or may not have been the vaccine manufacturers’ original intention, yet it seems to be the way we’re headed. With half the world not expecting enough vaccines this year, more mutations must be expected, meaning booster shots with ‘tweaked’ vaccines, and a steady stream of profits for their makers.

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

I think people put far too much power in believing vaccines are going to ‘save’ us from every illness. There are now many medications becoming known to cure this without expecting everyone to take them.

Joe Blow
Joe Blow
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Name 1.

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

There are several now that improve peoples survivial chance and treatment is getting better, but not massively.

You’re also more likely now to survive a car accident with modern medical care – but personally I still wear a seatbelt and drive sensibly.

Angela Frith
Angela Frith
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

She can’t. There aren’t any.

David Probert
David Probert
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

Untrue ( see above)

David Probert
David Probert
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

Both Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are now accepted at international level as having very good results.

So there are two for you.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  David Probert

Hydroxychloroquine has been trialled and found to be ineffective.

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Why take drugs rather than vaccine though?
Vaccines specifically prime the immune system for one virus.
If you’re worried about vaccine side effects be very, very worried about the drug side effects.

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

I wouldn’t take drugs unless I was hospitalized with a serious case of this virus. And only those with the virus would need the drugs on a short-term basis vs an experimental vaccine for which we have no knowledge of its consequences.

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

What knowledge do you want?
Multiple trial stages that have rejected numerous vaccine candidates (as we have)?
Or 10 years of hard evidence? Even then you can say what will the effects be like after 50 years?

Tracy Clark
Tracy Clark
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

testing and trials continue for another 2 years. It took 2 years to find the problems with the sars covid vac that caused narcolepsy – then there is a 2 year study on the effects. I’m happy to wait for that first

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Elizabeth, a few weeks ago you were claiming on Unherd that we don’t need vaccines, we just need Vitamin C and zinc. Is that still your position? If so, that says it all.

Tatiana Vinograd
Tatiana Vinograd
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

I absolutely agree with you Elizabeth and I just posted my comment before I saw yours!

Tatiana Vinograd
Tatiana Vinograd
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

1. Ivermectine doesn’t have strong side effects. No need to say about vitamins, zink, quercetin etc.
2. The drug/vitamin/microelement treatment will be used occasionally when a person gets ill. A vaccine alter your immune system permanently!
3. Our immune system is a finely tuned and a very complex mechanism that constantly fights for us. We shouldn’t not touch it without an extreme need, we should not abuse it – or you can brake it! If abused, it can start attacking our own body or won’t recognise the virus it was “primed for” the next time we meet it and we might get really badly ill from it. No Covid-19 vaccines were studied for long-term effects!
NB! I am not using any biological or medical terms here, do your own search and study the subjects if interested. You will be amazed by the complexity of our immune system!

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

And of course, someone like you, need to be insulting when someone has a different view. Vaccines have done lots of damage to people over the years too. But you would never want to read those reports, would you?

David Probert
David Probert
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Calling people “stupid” suggests you know nothing about these vaccines – so look in the mirror !

Try researching and playing the known ‘facts’ like an adult, not childishly abusing the person who disagrees with you – where are your vaccine “facts”?

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Being cautious about an experimental new vaccine is not the same as being antivax. I’m in two minds and try to understand both sides.

Mauricio Estrela
Mauricio Estrela
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

I think there are some key points you might be missing here:

1) What happened to “flatten the curve”? As the disease spreads throughout society, so does herd immunity. If you add all of immune people to let’s say 50% more of the population who decides to take the vaccine, you already have a stronger herd immunity that will grow further even faster, therefore protecting the “class of people” you mention. This also tackles the usual argument of making vaccine mandatory in order to prevent hospitals from overrunning with covid patients.

2) People often mention the possibility of spreading the disease even after immunization (natural or from the vaccine), but how large is that number? From all the studies, it is tiny. And so is the possibility of getting covid twice. People tend to be alarmed over the news because they tell moving or scaring stories, but all the studies show this number in so tiny it doesn’t pose any threat. And if a new stronger variant arises, our vaccine might be useless.

3) The size of this “class of people” matters. How many are we talking about here? Do you force a new medicine on millions due to a hundred that can’t take it? It doesn’t seem to add up.

4) You may think people are stupid or easily scared, but their uncertainty is not purely based on misinformation. Let me mention two official informations:

– This is a new technology for humans for which we simply couldn’t test long term effects. Such is the case that the vaccine developers do not take any responsibility over possible side effects.

– The FDA and other health agencies provided an emergency authorizations for the vaccine. According to the official FDA website, this means they may “allow the use of unapproved medical products” for emergency cases such as this one.

5) Why are we discussing whether to force vaccines on people or not? I think the discussion, especially from politicians, should be around how to regain people’s trust on vaccines and our health institutions. This is the longer, more difficult road one that demands more transparency, accountability and open dialogue. If you add mandatory vaccines to the possible threats on freedom of speech you a have a recipe for antagonism

Joe Blow
Joe Blow
3 years ago

To be clear: I am actually not an advocate for compulsory vaccines in most situations (not the covid vaccine). Perhaps I could posit an imaginary disease that would justify compulsion, but that is not the issue here.

I don’t like compulsion – but I dislike bad arguments just as much.

You’re right that herd immunity will be more likely as more people are exposed to the virus. But remember – herd immunity is probabilistic, just like risk.

You’re right, there is no absolute guarantee of safety. But, millions of people have been vaccinated with these vaccines already, with no significant side effects. And vaccines are not completely new technology. The risks of serious bad outcomes with the vaccine are far lower than the risk of either choking to death while eating or being killed in a car accident.

Mauricio Estrela
Mauricio Estrela
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

I agree with you and I will take the vaccine, but the issue in question is whether it should be mandatory or not for everyone. I’m just pointing that people who don’t feel safe shouldn’t be forced to do so. It is a matter of trust, which is so damaged they will refuse taking a vaccine despite making sense from a risk assessment perspective.

Also, the technology was already used in other animals, but these are the first mRNA vaccines to be licensed for use in humans.

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

I could not have conveyed it better myself. Alison. I have said the same in the past. If you are vaccinated then why must someone else be? It absolutely must be free choice. And this ‘vaccine’ is not truly a vaccine but rather an experimental injection as they have not had the time to properly assess it. So people definitely need to have free choice and not let employers and institutions declare it mandatory.

Angela Frith
Angela Frith
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

At this point this comments section is totally hijacked by the swivel eyed anti vaxxers.🙄

regnad.kcin.fst
regnad.kcin.fst
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

Those who oppose the vaccine are mostly quite stupid people who do not understand clinical research or virii.

David Probert
David Probert
3 years ago

Give us you expert account of the vaccines in question then George.

Educate people to your elevated level!

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
3 years ago

Or very clever people who do, one is tempted to say! But none of that is what Ms Houston is saying. Read it again

stephen f.
stephen f.
3 years ago

You use the word “stupid” often George, oh pinnacle of judgement and learning.

vrbevan
vrbevan
3 years ago

In debate it is better to have good manners aND not CALL PEOPLE STUPID BECAUSE THEY DISAGREE WITH YOU

In debate it is very bad manners to call people stupid because they don’t agree with your point of view.

arthur brogard
arthur brogard
3 years ago
Reply to  vrbevan

very bad manners to shout, too – inflcts your issues on passers by…

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
3 years ago

I hadn’t realised that the plural of virus was virii.

George Lake
George Lake
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

It isn’t.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  George Lake

In the original Latin I think it would be virus and as an adopted English word I’d think it would be ‘viruses’.

‘virii’ cannot be right because that could only be the plural of ‘virius’, not of ‘virus’. Moreover, as any fule kno, both 2nd-declension and 4th-declension Latin nouns can end in -us, but the plural form is different. One servus, two servi, but one virus, two virus.

I sometimes wonder what the plural of Alan Clark’s ‘bolus of w@nkers’ would be. This happens mainly when I’m not very busy, like now.

George Lake
George Lake
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Perfectly explained, thank you.
I’ll have to think about AC.

Anto Coates
Anto Coates
3 years ago

Virii… get your hand off it!
https://english.stackexchan

Hilary LW
Hilary LW
3 years ago

The vast majority of people in this country seem quite happy to accept “the vaccine” (actually the Oxford/AZ and the Pfizer are quite different entities, but never mind that for now). Do they have an informed understanding of clinical research and virology? Of course not. They just trust what they’re told is necessary and good for them, and they may fear the consequences of disobeying the consensus. Does that in itself make them scientific experts? Labelling people “stupid” who ask a few questions and want to know more before consenting to this novel untried medication isn’t helpful or rational.

Dave H
Dave H
3 years ago
Reply to  Hilary LW

But it’s not a case of “ask a few questions” usually, it’s a case of “I have some spurious nitpicks which are not based on anything factual or rational and I demand these be taken as seriously as your so-called facts”.

If it was genuine questioning, then real answers may satisfy, but they seldom do.

Hilary LW
Hilary LW
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave H

That’s a wildly sweeping statement George – what actual evidence do you have to back it up? It sounds more like prejudice to me.
If you believe you know the “real answers” then well done – the actual researchers are still examining and testing the effects on humans and the efficacy of these unprecedented treatments – there’s still a fair bit of uncertainty as recent news stories have shown.

Dave H
Dave H
3 years ago
Reply to  Hilary LW

Look, if you are genuinely just wanting to be more informed then good for you. Go for it, learn. However the growing number of crackpots (who are already convinced vaccines are literally the devil) hide behind such rhetoric as well. They’re “just asking questions” but they have already decided.

If that’s not you, great. More power to you.

John James
John James
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave H

Australia has the option of taking its time evaluating these vaccines. It’s taking it for a reason.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/08/why-the-delay-the-nations-waiting-to-see-how-covid-vaccinations-unfold
we’ve never used this type of vaccine before, so we have to do our darnedest to do the surveillance to check that it’s well tolerated.”

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave H

Precisely. Well put.

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  Hilary LW

These vaccines aren’t exactly untried.

J Haase
J Haase
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

I respectfully disagree – I wouldn’t call a vaccine that has been developed and rolled-out in less than a year “tried”…..especially since the demographic currently being vaccinated were not part of the official 3 month trials. According to Pfizer their trials run into 2022/2023 so technically the roll out is part of the trial phase. It’s been sent to market for emergency use and for that reason the Pharma companies are exempt from legal responsibility……I don’t know, that doesn’t sit well with me (being a scientist, albeit a geologist). Under normal circumstances I am 100% pro-vaccine and have specific vaccines needed for travel that I took without question, my children are fully vaccinated and get their boosters as required but until there is data on long term effects (after a handful of months there cannot be) and they actually know if it helps curb transmission, I will kindly decline and decline on behalf of my children.

David Platzer
David Platzer
3 years ago
Reply to  J Haase

Hear hear!

Russ Littler
Russ Littler
3 years ago

Try me.

Neil Mcalester
Neil Mcalester
3 years ago

Could you share your research into those who oppose the vaccine? I assume you didn’t just make that up?

John Finn
John Finn
3 years ago

What about Clinical Trials?

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04368728?term=pfizer&cond=covid-19&draw=2

Actual Study Start Date :April 29, 2020
Estimated Primary Completion Date :August 3, 2021
Estimated Study Completion Date :January 31, 2023

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

“this comments section is totally hijacked by the swivel eyed anti vaxxers”
Not totally, but I know what you mean!
Isn’t it funny how nobody mentions nanobots in vaccines nowadays? Have they snaffled a few vials and searched in vain? Or did they know all along the nanobots existed only in their fevered rantings?

Glyn Reed
Glyn Reed
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

I find your comment rather puerile. Those who speak against coerced vaccinations as in the context of ‘no jab no job’ are not necessarily ‘anti-vaxxers’ for goodness sake.

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  Glyn Reed

See my comment above. I should have made it clearer that it was an aside, an observation separate from this particular debate.
I think scepticism about these new vaccines is somewhat justified, though less so as time passes, and I don’t hold with coerced vaccinations.

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

Yes, let’s paint people who are cautious about an experimental new vaccine with the same brush as those who believe Bill Gates is sending robots into your bloodstream.

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

I didn’t mean to equate the two. It was more of an aside. A few months ago, I encountered drivel about nanobots in vaccines almost daily. Now, the same people (and I’m not thinking of anyone here – I only came across Unherd recently) have gone quiet about that idea. I wonder if they ever bothered finding out, or if they knew all along they were spouting nonsense.
But I agree, we won’t know for sure about any long-term effects of these vaccines in the short term. I’d still have any of the main ones tomorrow if I could.

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

Er, except that “Elizabeth W” is someone who’s obsessed with Bill Gates (I’m not sure what she thinks abut the robots, though).

Joe Francis
Joe Francis
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

No, the nanobots exists, but they’re programmed to erase any memory of their existence from the minds of those who’ve taken the vaccine and to make those people think they’re more intelligent than others. Yes, Ian, that’s irony.

Paul Wolstenhulme
Paul Wolstenhulme
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Francis

Sarcasm that isn’t it Alanis? Dont ya think?

David Platzer
David Platzer
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

People nowadays seem unable to take a little teasing which makes me see why so much comment today is so dull in comparson to the past when the likes of Auberon Waugh and Nancy Mitford made British journalism the most entertaining in the world. I am myself sceptical about this fast food vaccine cooked up in months and imposed on an unquetionng public apparently pleased to be sheep but if anyone wishes to call me a ‘swivel-eyed anti-vaxxer’ so be it.

David Probert
David Probert
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

This who say “swivel eyed” usually have the most menacing., illogical “swivelled eyes”of all Angela!

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

Read those two posts again. This time, try to understand them. Clue: it’s not to do with vaccination

Robin Taylor
Robin Taylor
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

Is it anti-vaxx to not blindly accept everything you’re told? Some vaccines are more effective than others and some have more side effects, just as some diseases are more of a threat than others. Some vaccines are bundled up together simply because it is cheaper and more convenient for the authorities to do so. There are also many conflicts of interest at play.

I have a strong, healthy body and have confidence in it to fight many illnesses. I do not take antibiotics or any medicine without very good informed reason. I would strongly object to any Government forcing me to take any medicine and it is not something anyone should expect living in a Western democracy.

idazbiro
idazbiro
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Taylor

Great! I am happy to hear that finally somebody defends healthy people whose immunological system can overcome viruses, especially when they are mortal in IFR=0.6%.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Taylor

And if you get ill despite your beliefs, you’ll be taking a bed in hospital, and someone like the close relative of mine who has cancer will be bumped off the surgery list in order to save your life.
Both Trump and Boris fantasised about how Covid was no big deal……. then took up a hospital bed.

Russ Littler
Russ Littler
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

Don’t go there, because we “swivel eyed” anti-vaxxers will blow your argument clean to hell, because we are not stupid, or thick, we are well researched, and if you were too, you’d realize that you don’t need a vaccine for any virus, despite what they are telling you. I will make this absolutely clear to you. It is a crime against humanity to enforce mandatory vaccination, as per every single human rights law ever written, and requires “informed consent”.

Neil Mcalester
Neil Mcalester
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

Yours is the only ‘swivel eyed’ comment that I’ve seen so far.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

There is a heck of a lot of name-calling and dismissive ad-hominem ‘arguments’ on this forum by the ‘non-mainstream’ as well! You often can’t make any nuanced point without someone making assumptions, usually erroneously, and jumping down your throat. I do agree though that ‘swivel-eyed anti-vaxxer’ isn’t the most constructive term! I think it
was provoked by the comment that the vaccine was ‘experimental’, not truly a vaccine, and had not been assessed, which is not in my view the case.

Anyway this is a side argument and rather muddies the water of the extremely good argument made in the article that taking a vaccine in a free society should be a matter if choice. And indeed employers already hold a huge amount of power over their employees as to what they do including in their own time, without adding to this.

If a householder or other colleague fears a plumber infecting them with Covid, then of course they themselves can take the vaccine.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

Ah, so there’s a link between anti-vaxxers and the right-wing fringe. Thanks for confirming.

Liam F
Liam F
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Because vaccines only work if enough people take them!
Measles was virtually eradiced in the UK until false rumours spread about the MMR vaccine back in 2003. Then enough people in South Wales stopped taking it for a severe outbreak to occur. It took years of painstaking effort before Andrew Wakeman was finally stuck off. By then 1000 of kids has suffered horrible illnesses, including death.
Please think of others.
As George Orwell said:
Some people are pacifists. But a pacifist only exist because someone else chose to fight on their behalf.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
3 years ago
Reply to  Liam F

But the point remains if you take the vaccine you will be protected and if you refuse you will be at risk

arthur brogard
arthur brogard
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Exactly right and a corollary of the whole thing, the whole virus thing, is being played out right now: no virus remains static, therefore no vaccine remains specific, therefore there never really is a vaccine for ‘this’ virus.
Generally true. Currently true for Covid quite clearly.
Less true in the past for Polio because it mutated more slowly.
Interesting to note that according to Sunetra Gupta and friends at https://collateralglobal.org/
polio’s virtual abolition has been stopped and reversed thanks to the interventions imposed on the dumb, sheepish stupid public by the dumb stupid, dictatorial, domineering senseless politicians.
here’s a new resource : https://covidhonesty.com/

Michael Dawson
Michael Dawson
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Maybe they’ve read too many anti-vax articles and thought there might be a serious risk from the vaccine, but they decided to take it anyway, whether because they thought it was best for them (on balance) or for other reasons. From that perspective, the people who do not get vaccinated look like free riders (assuming the vaccine reduces transmission – if it does not, the issue does not arise). Your argument makes perfect sense, but for that. I say this as someone who does not support making vaccination compulsory.

Jane Jones
Jane Jones
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Ditto “could not say it better myself.” This is the crux of the matter, and shows where attacks on our personal liberties are being aided by bad and confusing science.

Furthermore, just by the way, many have pointed out that the new RNA shots are not actually vaccines at all but are gene treatments/therapies. So any strictures that **may** apply to genuine vaccines do not apply anyhow, as the terminology is in correct and misleading.

Dave H
Dave H
3 years ago
Reply to  Jane Jones

Furthermore, just by the way, many have pointed out that the new RNA
shots are not actually vaccines at all but are gene treatments/therapies

This is also false, just so you know. It’s nonsense.

Anto Coates
Anto Coates
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave H

It’s not quite nonsense. It’s certainly an alarmist description, because “population level gene therapy” has a certain eugenicist ring to it. But mRNA treatment is so new, so untested and so different to what we have previously known as “vaccines” that it makes sense to potentially define them differently from a legal perspective. I would argue it sits halfway between a vaccine and gene therapy, if you compare the definitions.

But as with everything Covid related, it has been rushed through without proper consultation. Personally as a 39 year old, I won’t be getting one, and nor will my pre-school aged children. If I was 79 I probably would.

Dave H
Dave H
3 years ago
Reply to  Anto Coates

They don’t constitute “gene therapy” was my point, and yes it is alarmist.

I’m afraid I don’t believe that these things have been rushed through without proper consultation. The Chinese vaccines have, Sputnik V too, but the western vaccines have been tested fairly cautiously. I would urge you to at least try and get one of the non-mRNA vaccines if those are of such a concern to you, like the Oxford/AZ one. As a 39 year old you’re not necessarily at much risk of death from the virus, but you are currently in the peak infection group and thus likely to spread it.

Anto Coates
Anto Coates
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave H

I appreciate your encouragement and I have no great fear of any of the vaccines. mRNA seems like good tech when put to the right purposes (this is not it).

I simply judge my risk of a side effect as higher than my risk of negative outcomes from covid19, both being incredibly negligible. Getting a vaccine, or any other medical treatment, for the greater good does not strike me as morally justified. I also don’t think Sars Cov 2 is even a virus that requires mass vaccination (very low IFR and moderate R0), and it is only being thrust upon us due to global political mishandling of the issue, largely driven by panic.

I will not cover for the politicians. I have not chosen to panic, and have spent far more hours than I care to remember learning as much as I can on all the relevant subjects. I wish you well if you choose to get any of the vaccines. I doubt any harm will come of it. But the precedent of coercive vaccination to cover for political mismanagement of what should have been a mild outbreak is worth taking a stand over, I believe.

Dave H
Dave H
3 years ago
Reply to  Anto Coates

Getting a vaccine, or any other medical treatment, for the greater good does not strike me as morally justified.

That seems a very strange take on morality. The evidence on reduction of transmission through vaccination is still coming in, certainly, but it appears (and is expected) that vaccinated individuals will be less likely to transmit the disease. As the negative outcome of being vaccinated is negligible, it seems that morality would dictate taking an action of no cost and negligible personal risk in order to mitigate severe risk to others.

“Younger” people such as ourselves (I’m 42) are not at much risk of death, it’s true, but some of my peers have had longer term fatigeu-like effects of covid, as well as being laid out by it for a week or so during the initial infection.

I’m not one to say it should be forced either, I think that is wrong.

Anto Coates
Anto Coates
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave H

For sure. The vaccine question is interesting, because we’ve only ever mass vaccinated against things that were fairly equal opportunities type diseases. I’ve been trying to find a comprehensive list of all the things we commonly vaccinate against and their corresponding efficacy rates, but I know here in NZ, it was things like MMR, Hep A & B, Polio etc, which had very high effectiveness like 98-99/100. Then you had your optional vaccines like flu which I would get from time to time, but that had only about 30-60% effect depending on the year.

The crucial point for me is this: Remove the benefit to the vaccinated person, suddenly the ethics change. Then throw in a sprinkling of moral panic, and I think you’re setting up a dangerous precedent for future years.

We also have no idea whether this is going to be a yearly shot or what… that’s the problem with these abbreviated trials. For me, we have not reached reasonable doubt by a long way, and I won’t consent to saying she’ll be right just to get the government out of a jam.

Dave H
Dave H
3 years ago
Reply to  Anto Coates

here in NZ

Ah, you have the luxury of being somewhere the question is not quite so pressing! I’m somewhat jealous, and planning to move (back) to Australia in a few months myself 🙂

Yes, government screwups have played a big part in all this, more’s the pity.

Anto Coates
Anto Coates
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave H

Yes people look enviously at New Zealand and our lifestyle, which is fairly 2019, apart from domestic flights, public transport and all the QR codes everywhere. There is a complacency here at our “success” that has shielded the government from criticism, despite their putting out a campfire with a monsoon bucket, with lockdowns and border closures simultaneously, only the latter of which was in their 2019 influenza pandemic plans.

I do suspect though that we’re going to be closed for a lot longer than people were led to believe. Having an “elimination” strategy or zero Covid policy is going to be very tough to forego, even if the vaccines turn out to be as good as hoped. Our isolation is a wonderful gift in a pandemic, but one feels this is only the beginning of this Covid thing unless other countries learn to live with it. Ironically we were probably in the best position to take a measured approach to it via social distancing, having so few cases initially, but now we have created our own idyllic little prison. Wish us luck!

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Anto Coates

Try 115,000 dead as we have in Britain. Then you’ll be less critical of NZ. Your description of “our lifestyle, which is fairly 2019″ sounds fantastic. Restrictions on flights and public transport, and having QR codes everywhere, is small beer by comparison with the UK.

Dave H
Dave H
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

since that vaccinated person is immunised against the disease in
question there is no logical reason for them to fear catching the
disease. So why should anyone who chooses to be vaccinated fear a person
who is not?

This is a common fallacy of thinking around vaccination.

Not everyone gets protection from having the vaccine, that’s why we have things like vaccine effectiveness percentages. The current batch of vaccines are around 90-95% effective (which is actually very good!), meaning 5-10% of the vaccinated population will not be immune. Further, not everyone can have the vaccine due to immunocompromisation and various other factors.

And by not having the vaccine, you are not helping bring up herd immunity, which is the real thing that protects us – if most people are vaccinated with a vaccine that gives most recipients immunity, then there are unlikely to be outbreaks, so those remaining unprotected for whatever reason are not at risk.

nobody can be hurt by someone else’s choice to be vaccinated or to not be vaccinated

So yeah, this is just not true. Lots of people can be hurt.

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave H

This is true, but we’ve still never forced people to be vaccinated before.

Hopefully peoples sense of self preservation and desire to lower their chance of passing the virus onto their loved ones would be enough. After sanitation and nutrition, vaccines are a driver of longer and healthier lives for billions of people.

Forcing people probably won’t work anyway, and given UK law won’t be allowed as they’ll be huge exemptions of certain groups.

Dave H
Dave H
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

Yeah I’m not arguing for forcing people, I think that’s probably a bad road to go down for a whole bunch of reasons, not least the precedent it sets if the government can do that. I’m less clear about the actions of employers here, I would certainly prefer to know my plumber had had the vaccine, but whether someone should lose their job over it … I don’t know, because they’re making a choice that may cost other people’s lives.

I just find it frustrating when “we shouldn’t make people, that’s government overreach” gets bound up with “and it’s all terrible and the vaccines don’t work and they’ll probably kill everyone and covid’s not that bad anyway”

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave H

Good points. Also:
(a) those who are unvaccinated and catch Covid become petri dishes for mutations which, if radical enough, may not be tackled by the vaccination received by the vaccinated
(b) those who are unvaccinated and catch Covid and become seriously ill will end up taking a hospital bed from those with cancer and heart disease (among other conditions). We’re already seeing a massive effect on cancer and heart surgery and investigations from the 30,000-odd Covid sufferers occupying hospital beds on any particular day.

Lynn Copeland
Lynn Copeland
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Brilliant!! I’ve been left speechless for decades at the absence of this particular analysis on the vaccine issue. Particularly the case with these Covid vaccines that are claimed will result in reduced symptoms, but not prevention or transmission of the virus.
One real gap here is the small percentage of the population who have compromised immune systems, but there have to be limits to what restrictions can be placed on one segment of the population to limit potential harms to another.
Another piece that’s almost absent is around the multiple benefits of taking greater responsibility for our own health, instead of (only) looking to vaccines to save us. The co-morbidities with Covid are remarkably clear, and you can bet that addressing these would result in a significantly more robust response to most other diseases as well, but we remain willfully in denial of both our capacity and our responsibility in this regard. If we can accept the concept of mandatory vaccination, what’s stopping us from mandating all kinds of actions that would create a less vulnerable population? I don’t support mandating any of it, but I find it disheartening to witness so many selectively grasping to the Pharma lifeline, at the expense of civil liberties, and as if that’s the only one we have at our disposal.

RJ LONG
RJ LONG
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Except that is not true.

There will be a class of people who can not be vaccinated, regardless of their wishes on the matter on health grounds. These unwillingly unvaccinated third parties rely upon the rest of the population to have had vaccines to be protected from the disease, to prevent it getting a foothold in the population.

Every person who choses not to vaccinated based on a personal choice (often on very poor advice or lies or misunderstanding of the science) is endangering those who can’t have the vaccine, potentially threatening their life. However one feels about it, there is surely a conflict between the rights of these third parties to be protected from death via a disease that could be controlled by vaccination and those who chose not to be vaccinated for whatever reason.

Personally I feel the right of the former to be protected from death should trump the rights of people who refuse a vaccination because they read some bad science on the internet or think the Illuminati are out to get them. But I am not a judge so who knows how that case would go?

Eleanor Barlow
Eleanor Barlow
3 years ago
Reply to  RJ LONG

‘Personally I feel the right of the former to be protected from death
should trump the rights of people who refuse a vaccination because they
read some bad science on the internet or think the Illuminati are out to
get them.’

Well said! What’s wrong with the education system that it is producing these throwbacks to the superstitious peasantry of the dark ages?

Richard Lyon
Richard Lyon
3 years ago
Reply to  RJ LONG

Everyone who drives a car threatens the life of a cyclist. As a cyclist, I might feel that the right to be protected from death should trump the rights of people to refuse to be inconvenienced by choosing not to drive–a choice I have made, and which I consider to be so effortless as to disqualify it as a reasonable objection in others.

As is often the case, your argument boils down to: “Do this thing I want you to do, but let me keep doing the things that I want to do”.

Incidentally, 388 healthy under 60 year olds died of COVID-19 in 2020. 955 died the previous year in road traffic accidents.

RJ LONG
RJ LONG
3 years ago
Reply to  Richard Lyon

Not quite right. For a start refusing a vaccine has no utility to the general population other than exercise of that individuals “choice”. This is all well and good if the choice results in no direct harm to other, crack on, but with vaccine refusal you are putting lives at risk.

As dangerous as cars are, and I don’t drive so I can only talk about that in abstract and by looking at the statistics, they do provide utility to individuals and society (though I do think we could all drive less, we may need to climate wise but I will leave that alone)

To make a better comparison, imagine some simple law could dramatically reduce the danger of death to cyclists by cars, a simple law that dose not overly impact upon car drivers, say speed limits or cycle lanes? It would be foolish not to save lives of others by implementing these laws. That is the vaccine.

Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
3 years ago
Reply to  RJ LONG

“For a start refusing a vaccine has no utility to the general population other than exercise of that individuals “choice”.”

Probably not entirely correct.
If you have a population all producing robust immune responses to a viral challenge (a vaccinated population) , the virus will have much less chance to transmit and therefore will encounter far fewer immune systems that will encourage it to mutate, to avoid those various immune challenges = fewer variants.
The argument that vaccinations also produce an evolutionary pressure for viruses to mutate really doesn’t hold water unless the immune response induced by the vaccine is really wimpy – more likely in crinklies and potentially when there is a long delay between primary and boost doses.
Hence all the kerfuffle about the levels of neutralising antibodies with these various vaccines.

As for T cell immunity – this is a bit of a black hole at the moment with Sars Cov 2 however, given the pace and quality of immunologcal research over the last year and the eagerness of governments to throw money at this problem I am sure that voluminous information regarding this portion of the immune response will appear shortly.

RJ LONG
RJ LONG
3 years ago

My apologies, are you suggesting that refusing a vaccine for reason of choice, does help society as a whole?

My initial reading of your response is pro vaccine, so I do not quite see how I was wrong to state refusal as not helping society as a whole.

Hilary LW
Hilary LW
3 years ago
Reply to  Richard Lyon

I see where you’re coming from Richard, but to be fair, the cyclist chooses to cycle and take the risk. It’s not a very good analogy.

Tracy Clark
Tracy Clark
3 years ago
Reply to  Hilary LW

kind of remarkable statement – if by your own choice you put yourself at risk by the behaviour of others as you postulate – then so to does those who “choose” to leave their house. If your statement places the burden of risk on the individual – as society has been run for so far as i can tell, then you are correct. But as you are aware their is a line between our risk, and our agreement for a governing body to mitigate that risk. Forcing a medical intervention on people oversteps the right of the individual by the state.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Richard Lyon

388 healthy under 60 year olds died of COVID-19 in 2020″
But vastly more under-60-year-olds with asthma, recovering from surgery, with heart conditions etc have died of Covid, and would be alive today if it were not for Covid. Does that not matter to you?
And why is being 60 or over a reason for allowing people to die from an infectious disease? Those people might have 25 years of life left.

Anto Coates
Anto Coates
3 years ago
Reply to  RJ LONG

It’s certainly an interesting argument. I’d love to debate it. The right of someone with a weak immune system, whether through age, birth or lifestyle, to prolong their survival at the ongoing expense of the vast majority of the population. Did I just stumble into 2020 UK?

If you can’t have a jab for a medical reason but would like one, am I obliged to get one for you even if I don’t want or need one? That would be a hard sell, at least to me. At some point, Mr Darwin has to poke his head into the argument… But then it’s not too far down the road to eugenics. As I say, it’s a very interesting argument.

RJ LONG
RJ LONG
3 years ago
Reply to  Anto Coates

I agree it is interesting, though I take issue with the part of your statement:

“…to prolong their survival at the ongoing expense of the vast majority of the population. “

What is the “expense” here? A simple jab, even someone as scared as needles as I am can bare that “expense”. Now if I was asking the population to lose say two years of life expectancy to prolong other peoples lives by ten or twenty…then you have a (frightening) debate.

I suppose the whole circus is I do not believe that the jab has been shown to be harmful in any way so there is no “expense” in my mind. I accept people disagree, I just think they are very wrong.

Mauricio Estrela
Mauricio Estrela
3 years ago
Reply to  RJ LONG

I think there are some key points you might be missing here:

1) What happened to “flatten the curve”? As the disease spreads throughout society, so does herd immunity. If you add all of immune people to let’s say 50% more of the population who decides to take the vaccine, you already have a stronger herd immunity that will grow further even faster, therefore protecting the “class of people” you mention. This also tackles the usual argument of making vaccine mandatory in order to prevent hospitals from overrunning with covid patients.

2) People often mention the possibility of spreading the disease even after immunization (natural or from the vaccine), but how large is that number? From all the studies, it is tiny. And so is the possibility of getting covid twice. People tend to be alarmed over the news because they tell moving or scaring stories, but all the studies show this number in so tiny it doesn’t pose any threat.

3) The size of this “class of people” matters. How many are we talking about here. Do you force a new medicine on millions due to a hundred that can’t take it? It doesn’t seem to add up.

4) You may think people are stupid or easily scared, but their uncertainty is not purely based on misinformation. Let me mention two official informations:
– This is a new technology for humans for which we simply couldn’t test long term effects. Such is the case that the vaccine developers do not take any responsibility over possible side effects.
– The FDA and other health agencies provided an emergency authorizations for the vaccine. According to the official FDA website, this means they may “allow the use of unapproved medical products” for emergency cases such as this one.

5) Why are we discussing whether to force vaccines on people or not? I think the discussion, especially from politicians, should be around how to regain people’s trust on vaccines and our health institutions. This is the longer, more difficult road one that demands more transparency, accountability and open dialogue. If you add mandatory vaccines to the possible threats on freedom of speech you a have a recipe for antagonism.

swombacher
swombacher
3 years ago
Reply to  RJ LONG

I would rather risk my own live than live in an unfree world where one has no sovereignity over one’s own body and health !!

RJ LONG
RJ LONG
3 years ago
Reply to  swombacher

Fair enough, though you already live in that world of course, government s banning consumption of certain substances, telling you what you can and can’t put in your body!

Also your risking other people’s lives, not just your own.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  swombacher

How about risking other people’s lives?

vrbevan
vrbevan
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

I feel exactly the same. If you are vaccinated why would you fear someone who wasn’t? It just doesn’t make sense. It puts people in a position where they don’t have the right to choose what happens to their body. The vaccines were arrived at too quickly and we don’t know whether their will be side effects. Also, of what is the vaccine composed? I believe there is aborted fetal material in some of them.

Dave H
Dave H
3 years ago
Reply to  vrbevan

Because a percentage of those who are vaccinated are still vulnerable, and the unvaccinated, if they exist in large enough numbers to scupper herd immunity, present a danger in terms of prolonged outbreaks and epidemics.

I believe there is aborted fetal material in some of them.

Oh you’re one of those. Carry on then.
backs off quielty

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  vrbevan

“I believe there is aborted fetal material in some of them.”
What about novichoks? Nanobots? Illegal immigrants? Bill Gates’ sperm? Chinese communist propaganda?
At the very least, cows – after all, the word ‘vaccine’ surely implies their presence?

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

Vaccine derives from the practice of infecting people with cow pox so they wouldn’t then catch smallpox. No cows are harmed in the production of vaccines. Hindus can be vaccinated.

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

You mean James Gillray’s The COW POCK – or – The Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation was photoshopped?

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

More like fake news, I would say.

John Stone
John Stone
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

Moderna are talking about adding Nanobots to their product before the end of this year:

Franz Walker, DARPA funded implantable biochip can potentially be used to deploy Moderna’s mRNA vaccine, October 12, 2020 Nanotechnology News.

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  John Stone

Not a single mention of nanobots in that article. Hydrogel implants are hardly nanobots, and anyway the idea would be using them to detect infection.

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
3 years ago
Reply to  vrbevan

Also, of what is the vaccine composed? I believe there is aborted fetal material in some of them.

I believe you’re an anti-vax troll. The difference between our beliefs is that I have evidence for mine. Fetal material, indeed!

Andre Lower
Andre Lower
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Ever heard of how and why viruses mutate? Or even disregarding viral mutation, why do you think it took so long for the world to get rid of measles and polio?

Andrew Crisp
Andrew Crisp
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Hear! hear! The situation is made worse by the fact that this covid jab is NOT a vaccine by any medical definition of the recent past and the manufacturers claim that it does not confer immunity or stop transmission! Why bother?

Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Crisp

Because fewer people will end up in hospital, bed blocking in 2021/22. eople who are unlucky enough to end up in hospital with this disease have to stay longer than your average flu / pneumonia patient.

The majority of bods in critical care right now have no co-morbidities and have an average age of 60 – so most of them are probably still economically active.
See ICNARC report for admissions to UK critical care Sept 1 to date.

The objecive with the vaccinations is to reduce the admissions to hospitals, allowing our lean and mean NHS to get on with everything else.

Liam Coyle
Liam Coyle
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Well said. Crystal clear. It seems to me that it is fear that drives the need by people wishing vaccination to try to ‘bully’ those not wishing to have it.

Duncan Hunter
Duncan Hunter
3 years ago
Reply to  Liam Coyle

How about political expediency, as in vaccines are a panacea for our politicians given the utter mismanagement of the pandemic?

Irina Vedekhina
Irina Vedekhina
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Well, imagine:
a) 50% of people choose not to vaccinate. That would mean, we are all facing another lockdown next winter, because the hospitals would get overwhelmed once again. Those who refused to vaccinate would get just what they asked for, but for the rest of us, another undeserved lockdown, and all the normal medical treatments for everyone being stopped again.
b) Now, imagine 20% of people choose not to get the vaccine. Vaccine efficacy is around 90% for healthy individuals, it is lower for the elderly and the vulnerable, they only get partial immunity at best. We would still have a crisis next winter, also the virus would have enough hosts to further mutate and improve, and it will learn how to better infect the younger ones. Full vaccination restarts again as there would be new strains not covered by previous vaccine. Next round of lockdowns.
c) And, finally, 100% vaccinate, the virus runs out of hosts, so most of problems with new mutations are solved. The future is saved from lockdowns etc.
Which option is preferable for society?

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago

Your option c is highly unlikely before next winter. Much of the world will still be waiting for vaccines, allowing new strains to develop.

Irina Vedekhina
Irina Vedekhina
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

Yes, agreed, so to make option c) possible, much as I hate it, international travel restrictions should go on until other countries catch up with vaccination.
You know, in 1646 Thomas Hobbs presented the topic debated here in his “On Liberty and Necessity”. Very enlightening read, which helps to explain why today the East (where necessity for the common good goes naturally above personal liberty) has coped with Covid so much better by all measurements.

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago

Here, we’ve had 14 day quarantine for everyone entering the country, since March I think. It’s clobbered the tourism industry, and affected much else in the economy, but so far, no COVID deaths.

George Lake
George Lake
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

Was it worth it?
Incidentally where is “here”?

Tracy Clark
Tracy Clark
3 years ago

It doesn’t matter which option is preferable for society – the only option is what is preferable to the individual. If individuals do not want to vaccinate that is their choice. Society will have to live with the choices of the individual – that is what a free society does

Irina Vedekhina
Irina Vedekhina
3 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Clark

Society where individuals do whatever they like is called anarchy, I think. It normally does not last for long.
Democracy puts in place laws, rules and regulations for everyone to follow to ensure that people act in a way optimal for their common good.

James Moss
James Moss
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

This logic breaks down in practice since the vaccines are not 100% effective, their effectiveness may diminish over time and some have medical conditions which may prohibit them from having them. It thus becomes the case that vaccination CAN enhance the protection of third parties.

Legislation in the UK seems unlikely, not least due to the high proportion of people in favour of being vaccinated.

Mark Walker
Mark Walker
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Alison Houston you state many untruths about the effects of vaccination. Vaccination protects against serious illness true but no facts yet about preventing a mild event from becoming long Covid-19. No facts about asymptomatic carriers, so there is a rational fear of non vaccinated people being carriers. It will a few years before full facts about Covid-19 are known. Until that time as much pressure as reasonable needs to be applied to get people vaccinated, so that pre-Covid life may return.
The truth is that people CAN be hurt by other who refuse the vaccine.

arthur brogard
arthur brogard
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Entirely true. Unfortunately it relies on logic, reason, sense and therefore will be a target for ridicule, denigration, ridiculous ‘refutation’ and will cause you to be attacked by apparently disgusting persons with a penchant for crude abuse.
I feel for. I’m sorry. With there was something I could do.
But I think it is too late.

Rob Alka
Rob Alka
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

You’re right …. but only up to a point.
Here are the caveats
1) the vaccine’s immunity isn’t forever and requires renewal other the R rate could agaain climb out of control
2) new strains/variants of cv will need a slightly reformulated vaccine
3) there is evidence that the vaccine doesn’t automatically protect against cv transmission from a non-vaccinated person but instead considerably reduces it’s harmfulness to the vaccinated person
4) there is evidence that the vaccine reduces the power/danger of transmission from the vaccinated person to an unvaccinated person (which would then reduce the infection rate (R) amongst unvaccinated persons)

Tatiana Vinograd
Tatiana Vinograd
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

COVID DEATHS RATE on Feb 15, 2021
(total deaths) : (population) x %
Sweden
12,428÷10,230,000×100=0.12%
Scotland
6,711÷5,454,000×100=0.12%

Deb Grant
Deb Grant
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Tell that to an elderly person.

Deb Grant
Deb Grant
3 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

No. Vaccination isn’t 100% and it certainly does not stop 100% of transmission.

William Cameron
William Cameron
2 years ago
Reply to  Alison Houston

Not true. The unvaccinated covid patient in the ICU bed is denying a cancer patient surgery.

Last edited 2 years ago by William Cameron
Joe Blow
Joe Blow
3 years ago

The state already mandates that kids be taught material steeped in trans ideology, with fantastic claims about there being scores of genders. The courts have been involved in enforcing sex-ed teaching against parents’ wishes, such as the high-profile cases in (I think) Birmingham last year.

If the state can enforce ideology, why not vaccines?

For what it is worth, I find both realms of compulsion deeply disquieting.

Jane Jones
Jane Jones
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

You make the argument. Of course it is crazy for the state to enforce or promulgate trans ideology. And it is an ideology. Same with vaccines. As for the definition of vaccine, a vaccine makes use of dead viruses to induce the body to produce antibodies. Merriam-Webster Unabridged: “a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular disease.”**

The RNA shots do not do this. “Vaccine’ is not a general term for any shot in the arm. If you get a shot of vitamins that is not a vaccine. For heaven’s sake. “Vaccine” is not a gene.”

**NB: The CDC is no longer using this standard definition of “vaccine” but now labels as a vaccine any “product that stimulates a person’s
immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.” Whoa, baby! That is a pretty big difference. I would love to know when the CDC decided to use this new, unscientific definition.

regnad.kcin.fst
regnad.kcin.fst
3 years ago
Reply to  Jane Jones

Since you don’t understand science, medicine, or anything else, why do you comment?

stephen f.
stephen f.
3 years ago

Yes Jane-by all means listen to George-clearly the all being, that understands science, medicine and everything else…

Duncan Hunter
Duncan Hunter
3 years ago
Reply to  stephen f.

…and is employed by the government..?!

D C
D C
3 years ago
Reply to  Jane Jones

They may have changed the definition but the end goal is still the same, ‘…
protecting the person from that disease.’ Therefore, as others have commented, after the “at risk” population have been vaccinated, why the push to vaccinate people who are not at risk? If some “at risk” person who needs a plumber has been vaccinated, why on earth should it be mandated that all plumbers are vaccinated?

Cynthia Neville
Cynthia Neville
3 years ago

Excellent piece. And while I frequently diasgree with writers and commentators at UnHerd I am grateful for the editors’ efforts to promote thoughtful debta.

Russ Littler
Russ Littler
3 years ago

Let’s be absolutely clear. Compulsory vaccination violates every human rights law ever written, including the Nuremberg Charter. It is a crime against humanity, with NO exception.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
3 years ago
Reply to  Russ Littler

It is anything but clear – otherwise there would be no discussion.

stephen f.
stephen f.
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

The Nuremburg Charter is clear, no matter the discussions of those who are ignorant of it’s content.

Arthur Holty
Arthur Holty
3 years ago

How anyone could listen to UKGov after all of it’s monumental c**k-ups is beyond me. We live in the most interesting of times.

Joe Blow
Joe Blow
3 years ago
Reply to  Arthur Holty

Which c**k-ups do you spy? Genuine ones, or ones bravely noticed by Sir Kneel and his trusty retrospectoscope?

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

Not so retro – in mid-September Keir Starmer was backing the SAGE scientists in calling for a two week lockdown. Boris decried that as “ridiculous” and ignored SAGE but 6 weeks later at the end of October the virus was out of control and Boris was forced to institute a lockdown – of a month, with twice the economic damage and many having died in the meantime. Keir Starmer called it right at the time (not retrospectively) by backing the scientists, and Boris was wrong.
Just one of many mistakes made by Boris, all the way to February 2020 when his first public comment about it was to declare the Government would not allow ‘excessive’ concern about Coronavirus to distract the new, buccaneering Britain he had created. What a tragic joke.

Jürg Gassmann
Jürg Gassmann
3 years ago

I agree with the point you make, but the issue is far wider – and the C-jabs are a very odd and nonsensical instance to put in play in the first place.
To date, there is no licensed C-jab. All the injectables being used are experimental, and being used on the basis of temporary, emergency authorisations. The ordinary testing phases for the jabs have not yet been completed, and will not be completed until mid- or late 2022. Until the test phases have been completed and the data properly evaluated, there are no hard data on either the jabs’ protective properties or their risks. We simply don’t know. And until then, the jabs have to rank as “experimental”.
Given those facts, a “no jab, no job” rule can hardly be called “proportional”; the proportionality test requires a reasonable level of certainty on the matters being compared and put in relation.
Besides, it is a fundamental element of medical ethics, and human rights, that no person may be pressured to participate in a medical experiment, not even – and especially not – for the “common good”; that rationalisation has been abused too often.
Furthermore, there are quite pedestrian issues of personal data protection. Unless an employer – or any person for that matter – has a legitimate need to have my private health information, and procedures are in place for that person to protect my information under threat of criminal sanction, it is not permitted to ask me for that information, and it not permitted to discriminate against me for refusing.
As you implicitly say, to override that principle, primary legislation is required.

John Stone
John Stone
3 years ago

Medical totalitarianism will be no better than any other form – it is freezing knowledge and discussion and people will die in vast quantities from not being able to question authority. You look at our politicians, people one would have little respect for in better times and you shudder at the powers they are arrogating to themselves and the state. About the products they seek to enforce – rushed to the market with entirely novel technologies – we know little.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  John Stone

We do know that 115,000 have died without vaccines, and that vaccines protect against the disease which has killed them.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
3 years ago

Set aside that some recipients of the vaccine have died; the larger question is, where does this end? Because it will not end with this vaccine for this virus and anyone who believes otherwise is either sadly naive and grossly misinformed about history. Once the precedent is set, there will be more of the same. The arrogance required of ‘no jab, no job’ is astounding.

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Well it is often the same people who demand everyone wear a mask, and now 2 or 3. It helps others to feel ‘safe’. A crock for sure.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Oh, so you’re not just against vaccines, you’re against masks as well?
Amazing.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

You are of course correct. But it could just be that you propound an extreme view.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

I’m trying to think beyond the story of the moment to its follow-on applications. If that is extreme, fine.

Elizabeth Hart
Elizabeth Hart
3 years ago

What is the basis for coronavirus vaccination?
How can compulsory coronavirus vaccination be justifiable?

Jill Armstead
Jill Armstead
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart

Do some research.

Elizabeth Hart
Elizabeth Hart
3 years ago
Reply to  Jill Armstead

I have done some research Jill.
I’m horrified that a variety of fast-tracked experimental coronavirus vaccine products are being rushed out around the world.
Bill Gates is the leader of this ‘race’ for coronavirus vaccines.* It’s astonishing this software billionaire is dominating international vaccination policy, how has this been allowed to happen?
Now there is an unprecedented plan to vaccinate the entire global population with coronavirus vaccines, against a virus which isn’t a threat to most people.
This is a gigantic experiment, we have no idea what is being unleashed here.
*See for example: What you need to know about the COVID-19 vaccine. GatesNotes, 30 April 2020.

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart

“Bill Gates is the leader of this ‘race’ for coronavirus vaccines.”
Was he behind any of China’s vaccines, two of which, Sinopharm’s and Sinovac’s, rely on tried and tested tested vaccine technology, and can hardly be called experimental?

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Perkins

How can anyone trust Bill Gates? His hand is in every cookie jar. And now his wife is showing up on television telling everyone to take the jab.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

You just have to agree with this. Marcus Rashford will be the next one – apologies to US citizens, who might not get this.

Ian Perkins
Ian Perkins
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Gates’ hand is in every cookie jar – so you think he was behind the Chinese vaccines, I guess. Russia’s too, presumably. Probably news to them.

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart

Bill Gates is the leader of this ‘race’ for coronavirus vaccines.

Nonsense, you’re just trying to deflect from the true conspiracy. It’s all the fault of the Freemasons and the Bavarian Illuminati.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Wright

It’s a three-headed lizard actually.

Joe Blow
Joe Blow
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart

It is really not a hard concept.

The coronavirus (Covid-19) is real, and harmful. We now have vaccines that are safe and effective. If you do not accept those two sentences, I consider you a fool, and not worth discussing this with.

The virus has killed, according to ONS, over 100,000 people in the UK. The measures to suppress it, without which that number may have been 5X as big, have also done massive damage.

The state therefore has a legitimate public interest in eliminating most transmission, which – in addition to almost eliminating serious illness – the vaccines accomplish (once adequate numbers have been vaccinated).

If you have diabetes, and want to refuse treatment, be my guest. It won’t much affect me. People refusing vaccinations affect others.

George Lake
George Lake
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

You are obviously a disciple of the late Dr Joseph Mengele, and a rather obvious male hysteric, particularly when it comes to discussing C-19.

Do you in fact have any Medical qualifications that are recognised in the UK?

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
3 years ago
Reply to  George Lake

Another smug reply. How is this comment relevant?

George Lake
George Lake
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

Why don’t you let Herr Blow speak for himself?
Is your vocabulary so limited you can only think of smug?
Why not self-satisfied or something different?
Or, horror of horrors are you about to flee this forum yet again?

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
3 years ago
Reply to  George Lake

??

George Lake
George Lake
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

Surely even you can do better than that?

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
3 years ago
Reply to  George Lake

Yes, but why? If I say something you will answer with a quote from a long-dead Ancient Greek philosopher to demonstrate that you are a very erudite person.

Christine Massot
Christine Massot
3 years ago
Reply to  George Lake

🤣👊

Harold Aitch
Harold Aitch
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

Call me a fool and not worth discussing with but have you seen trial data about the long term effects from these experimental vaccines that I haven’t?
Only you seem to be remarkably certain about their complete safety.

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  Harold Aitch

I agree. There is no known data. And name-calling is not necessary, Joe. We have no data on the short-term and long-term affects of this experimental vaccine. And if this experimental vaccine truly showed that it prevented transmission, and prevents you from getting this virus, then maybe more people would be on board; however, this experimental jab shows neither.

Angela Frith
Angela Frith
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Keep up with the science. I know it’s going fast and that’s hard to get your head round. Best evidence is that the AZ vaccine does prevent transmission.. evidence not in yet on the other vaccines.

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

I am keeping up with it, thanks for your sarcasm.

David Probert
David Probert
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

“Hard to get your head around” – as you clearly illustrate!

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  Harold Aitch

All I know is that most people die within 100 years of taking any vaccine.

David Probert
David Probert
3 years ago
Reply to  LUKE LOZE

“All I know” – well you said it!

David Probert
David Probert
3 years ago
Reply to  Harold Aitch

Exactly! The other side all abuse and insult their opponents – says everything about their arguments

The end of the Age of Reason is nigh!

Swiveleyed Loon
Swiveleyed Loon
3 years ago
Reply to  Joe Blow

The moment you say that 100,000 people have been killed by Coronavirus in the UK you disqualify yourself from being taken seriously. The ONS statistic is for those who have tested positive (they may not actually have the disease) less than 28 days before death. It does not mean they were killed by Coronavirus and we will probably never know how many people were actually killed by this thing.

Elizabeth Hart
Elizabeth Hart
3 years ago

The method for defining Covid deaths is very questionable, we so need critical analysis of the Covid statistics around the world, re ‘cases’ and deaths attributed to Covid.
Let’s say there’s 66 million people in the UK, and about 600,000 deaths each year, the 100,000 deaths over the past year attributed to Covid need to be seen in that context.
The impact of the growing ageing population also needs to be considered, because everybody dies some time.
There may be excess deaths due to the virus, but also ‘lockdown deaths’, and deaths due to inappropriate treatment, and lack of effective treatment. So many resources went into coronavirus vaccine trials, how much went into treatments, and promoting simple helpful preventatives such as vitamin D? Precious little I suspect…because it was all about promoting the vaccine products and creating a massive global coronavirus vaccine market.

TIM HUTCHENCE
TIM HUTCHENCE
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart

Agree.
Using this data, and assuming 0.92% is an average year, ‘excess’ deaths in the UK for 2020 were 62,000.
Most likely Covid related.
2021 onwards will be more difficult to pin as the (much ignored) long-tail of non-Covid related early deaths start to creep up e.g. delayed diagnosis/treatment of cancer etc.

2000 610579 58886100 1.04%
2001 604393 59113000 1.02%
2002 608045 59365700 1.02%
2003 612085 59636700 1.03%
2004 584791 59950400 0.98%
2005 582964 60413300 0.96%
2006 572224 60827100 0.94%
2007 574687 61319100 0.94%
2008 579697 61823800 0.94%
2009 559617 62260500 0.90%
“¦”¦”¦”¦”¦”¦”¦”¦”¦”¦”¦”¦”¦”¦”¦”¦
2010 561666 62759500 0.89%
2011 552232 63285100 0.87%
2012 569024 63705000 0.89%
2013 576458 64105700 0.90%
2014 570341 64596800 0.88%
2015 602782 65110000 0.93%
2016 597206 65648100 0.91%
2017 607172 66040200 0.92%
2018 616014 66435600 0.93%
2019 615455 67530172 0.91%
2020 686,000 67886011 1.01%

Angela Frith
Angela Frith
3 years ago
Reply to  TIM HUTCHENCE

Well, the WHO reckons two million internationally are now dead due to this virus.that is more convincing than you wiggling on a numbers hook.

David Probert
David Probert
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

So you believe China CP Man Tedros then?

stephen archer
stephen archer
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

Normally don’t like commenters pushing basic statistics into the discussion but in this case they give some perspective. Another perspective is comparing to the numbers dying from malaria, malnutrition, etc. and yet another is the 8 billion of the world’s most dangerous species where the planet’s ecology and its other wildlife would be a lot better off with less than half of that amount.

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart

The stats really aren’t that questionable – see excess deaths April 2020 – England’s in particular is huge, massive – pretend what you like about it.

There’s Covid deaths, lockdown deaths, death caused by fear of Covid, deaths caused by Covid blocking up the healthcare system.

The whole economy crippling lockdowns nearly worldwide is a conspiracy to sell vaccines to people?

I mean the Robin Hood short selling thing was clear a conspiracy, but vaccines are a big stretch.

The financial sector rakes in more money through corruption that Big Pharma can dream of. That’s why a large number of senior government people end up ‘working’ for banks, or making ‘speeches’ at £20,000 a pop.

Ian Mullett
Ian Mullett
3 years ago

And we will definitely never know how many people are killed by the vaccine which is not a vaccine. It’s more like gene therapy.

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Mullett

Well there have already been over 500 deaths and most of them are said to be ‘unknown’ causes. Yeah right. One can’t believe we will actually get the truth when it comes to big pharma and all the money they stand to lose if people don’t use this jab.

Angela Frith
Angela Frith
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Paranoid troll

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago
Reply to  Angela Frith

Not paranoid and not a troll. I am a concerned citizen who cares about the direction the world is going. Because I have a different opinion than you, doesn’t make mine less valid.

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Just ignore them. When they degenerate to name-calling they’ve lost whatever argument they wanted to make.

Duncan Hunter
Duncan Hunter
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Indeed. Here’s a question with a rather high profile subject: what did Capt. Sir Tom Moore (RIP) die of within days (certainly within 28 days) of being vaccinated?

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth W

Where is the evidence that there have been “over 500 deaths”?
Peer-reviewed science, or just something you read on a website?
And yes of course loads of people who have been vaccinated have died – from falling under a bus, having a heart attack, etc, but where is the peer-reviewed scientific evidence that those events were caused by the virus?

Angela Frith
Angela Frith
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Mullett

Troll

Joe Blow
Joe Blow
3 years ago

“The moment you say that 100,000 people have been killed by Coronavirus in the UK you disqualify yourself from being taken seriously.”
Rubbish. I am fully aware of the boundary issues in definitions. I have held a professorship in epidemiology at a US university. You?

LUKE LOZE
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago