Generic Virus Thread

[Genie]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

The government should be here for my benefit, not me for their’s.

They are trying to open up shops, bars, restaurants, gyms etc in a way that protects people from contracting the virus. This gives back elements of normality, restarts sectors of the economy and reduces chance of a large rise of infection rates.

I’m not sure what they get out of the passport? They have all the data anyway.

[snowychap]

27 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

If I choose to, I can leave the house without my wallet and without my phone and without my i.d. I don't do it very often.

I do it very often. I very rarely take ID out with me (other than a bank card and quite often I don't even do that).

I wouldn't take a smartphone out if I expected to be on the lash all night and go dancing - as I wouldn't want to lose it/drop it.

I know plenty of people who don't have a smartphone and wouldn't want to get one. I know plenty of people who don't think that it ought to be a requirement (to buy one or have one on their person) in order to participate in the basics of society and social interaction.

[blandy]

19 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

The Authoritarian argument always comes down to basic personality types. Some people feel more secure when the government exercises control over its population and some people feel more secure when they have freedom from government control. 

That's true, but (in my impression at least) it misses out the vast majority who accept that Law and control is essential for many things, but where it is inessential it should not really be there, and that harm can come both from failing to control, but also from controlling what people may, or may not, be permitted to do.

[bickster]

 

1 minute ago, Genie said:

They are trying to open up shops, bars, restaurants, gyms etc in a way that protects people from contracting the virus.

What specific way is that then? All open on April 12th seems like a way devised by Baldrick

[chrisp65]

Just now, snowychap said:

I do it very often. I very rarely take ID out with me (other than a bank card and quite often I don't even do that).

I wouldn't take a smartphone out if I expected to be on the lash all night and go dancing - as I wouldn't want to lose it/drop it.

I know plenty of people who don't have a smartphone and wouldn't want to get one. I know plenty of people who don't think that it ought to be a requirement (to buy one or have one on their person) in order to participate in the basics of society and social interaction.

My smartphone is actually an office one.

Very often, at 6:00pm or on a Saturday, I go out without it.

I don’t want work to contact me whilst I’m at a social event, i don’t want to be made to buy a second smartphone to be allowed to experience live music.

If I need i.d. and proof of medical history for something like music, why am I ok to go to Lidl or get a haircut without i.d.?

 

 

[blandy]

6 minutes ago, Genie said:

The most confusing part for me though is making it common knowledge on public platforms what their vaccine status is, but then complaining about big brother taking over on the topic of a purely voluntarily declaration in return for admission to an optional activity.

This is kind of not really a thing - by that I mean I could wrote all sorts of bollex on here about my health or vaccine status or job or age or whatever, and no one knows if it's true or not.

On the other hand, my medical records, employment records, payslips - those are factual, and my consent should be needed for anyone to have access to them. Sure the Gov't aren't going to ask 68 million people for permission, so they should not just grant themselves that permission without scrutiny or discussion or debate and so on.

[darrenm]

56 minutes ago, limpid said:

It's okay, just keep my screenshot in case that's all you need to get in to places.

My friend wanted to run in the London Marathon without chancing the ballot so screenshotted some results of someone else who had ran a qualifying time and edited his name in.

He emailed VLM with the screenshot and got in.

So yes, I'm sure it would be all you need.

[Panto_Villan]

Lockdown is justified even under libertarian philosophy, which basically states you're free to do whatever you like up until the point it is infringing on the rights of others (i.e. you're free to swing your arms around however you like up until the point those swinging fists connect with someone else's face). Libertarianism isn't anarchism.

With an infectious disease like covid, people freely moving around directly causes the deaths of other people, ergo lockdown is justified.

Obviously life is less clear cut than that, but the same applies to the civil liberties crowd too. Unless you want to be a hermit living in the woods you have to accept existing within society requires relinquishing a certain amount of privacy. You fill in the census, right?

Asking people at massive events to prove they won't spread a dangerous disease doesn't seem to be unreasonable to me.

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

You fill in the census, right?

It's illegal not to and FWIW some of the questions this year really did step outside of what I consider the census to be for.

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Asking people at massive events to prove they won't spread a dangerous disease doesn't seem to be unreasonable to me.

Again, that isn't what a "Vaccine Passport" is

Me being able to prove I've been vaccinated at the door, is an entirely different matter to the storage of that data by the venue after the fact

[chrisp65]

23 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Lockdown is justified even under libertarian philosophy, which basically states you're free to do whatever you like up until the point it is infringing on the rights of others (i.e. you're free to swing your arms around however you like up until the point those swinging fists connect with someone else's face). Libertarianism isn't anarchism.

With an infectious disease like covid, people freely moving around directly causes the deaths of other people, ergo lockdown is justified.

Obviously life is less clear cut than that, but the same applies to the civil liberties crowd too. Unless you want to be a hermit living in the woods you have to accept existing within society requires relinquishing a certain amount of privacy. You fill in the census, right?

Asking people at massive events to prove they won't spread a dangerous disease doesn't seem to be unreasonable to me.

Which dangerous diseases should be on the list?

Surely with covid in retreat you’d want it to capture other dangerous contagious diseases?

Influenza is a killer, measles can blind people. Mumps? Meningitis? 

Covid is spread indoors in close contact, so why would you let me in to a barbers without proving I’m covid free, but I can’t sit in a field in Brecon and listen to folk music? How is that reasonable or sensible?

[blandy]

23 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Asking people at massive events to prove they won't spread a dangerous disease doesn't seem to be unreasonable to me.

Fair enough. What about tiny events? Like, I dunno a gig with 200 punters in attendance? or 50? or a pub with 20 folk potentially inside? Where do you draw the line between "massive events" and events that need no proof, and what criteria do you use? The number of people at risk? the number of people inconvenienced? the number of people prevented from entering? Cost? what?

As @HanoiVillan(I think it was) has pointed out, every winter there's 25,000 people die from flu. Once people have been fully covi-vaccinated say by July (which is the forecast) we should be no more, and probably less vulnerable to the Covifungus than to normal flu. But we don't require people to prove they won't spread flu, do we? Do you think we should? What about supermarkets and shops? At what point do you remove the requirement for the proof? Again, what criteria do you use? And are we already there, or almost there?

Who does the verification of the proof? The Police? an overworked door man? Venue security? The turnstile operator?

How's it gonna work?

[LondonLax]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

That's true, but (in my impression at least) it misses out the vast majority who accept that Law and control is essential for many things, but where it is inessential it should not really be there, and that harm can come both from failing to control, but also from controlling what people may, or may not, be permitted to do.

Obviously what is essential and inessential is in the eye of the beholder.

[Panto_Villan]

Just now, chrisp65 said:

Which dangerous diseases should be on the list?

Surely with covid in retreat you’d want it to capture other dangerous contagious diseases?

Influenza is a killer, measles can blind people. Mumps? Meningitis? 

Covid is spread indoors in close contact, so why would you let me in to a barbers without proving I’m covid free, but I can’t sit in a field in Brecon and listen to folk music? How is that reasonable or sensible?

The government has decided that they want to prioritize a disease that has killed over 100,000 people in the last year while they continue to roll out a successful vaccination program.

They've also decided that everyday activities shouldn't be affected where possible, but possible superspreader events should be.

I don't think either of those things are unreasonable. I don't buy the logic that if we restrict some activities, we then may as well lock the entire population in hermetically sealed pods (and therefore we shouldn't restrict any activities at all). That seems to be your line of argument.

[fightoffyour]

43 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Asking people at massive events to prove they won't spread a dangerous disease doesn't seem to be unreasonable to me.

Spread it to who? Everyone else there will have been vaccinated.

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

The government has decided that they want to prioritize a disease that has killed over 100,000 people in the last year while they continue to roll out a successful vaccination program.

They've also decided that everyday activities shouldn't be affected where possible, but possible superspreader events should be.

I don't think either of those things are unreasonable. I don't buy the logic that if we restrict some activities, we then may as well lock the entire population in hermetically sealed pods (and therefore we shouldn't restrict any activities at all). That seems to be your line of argument.

The vaccination program will be completely rolled out about a month after the pilot scheme is launched

This has absolutely nothing to do with potential superspreader events, if this was the case an outdoor cinema would not be part of the pilot scheme

One of those things is utterly pointless unless there are plans to expand this passport thing beyond when is neccessary, the other just highlights that that might just be the case

[Panto_Villan]

9 minutes ago, blandy said:

Fair enough. What about tiny events? Like, I dunno a gig with 200 punters in attendance? or 50? or a pub with 20 folk potentially inside? Where do you draw the line between "massive events" and events that need no proof, and what criteria do you use? The number of people at risk? the number of people inconvenienced? the number of people prevented from entering? Cost? what?

As @HanoiVillan(I think it was) has pointed out, every winter there's 25,000 people die from flu. Once people have been fully covi-vaccinated say by July (which is the forecast) we should be no more, and probably less vulnerable to the Covifungus than to normal flu. But we don't require people to prove they won't spread flu, do we? Do you think we should? What about supermarkets and shops? At what point do you remove the requirement for the proof? Again, what criteria do you use? And are we already there, or almost there?

Who does the verification of the proof? The Police? an overworked door man? Venue security? The turnstile operator?

How's it gonna work?

I'm not the person to answer those questions, but in my view they're certainly not impossible to answer (which seems to be your implication).

Because I'm not someone who just screams "but my civil liberties!" whenever anything affecting my data happens, I'll have to look at the details when they emerge.

If the government decides that all gathering of more than 2 people requires a vaccine passport for the next 100 years, I'd say that was a needless infringement of civil liberties. If they say gatherings of above 25 people (not personal things like weddings) required a passport for the next 6-12 months, I'd say that was fair enough.

My point is that dismissing the idea out of hand because of civil liberties at this stage is silly. Of course it'll be an abuse of civil liberties in its worst incarnation, but there's other incarnations where it would be fine.

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

If they say gatherings of above 25 people (not personal things like weddings) required a passport for the next 6-12 months, I'd say that was fair enough.

That would include every visit to the supermarket, a swimming pool, a gym, probably the pub etc etc. Why are weddings exempt?

[Panto_Villan]

11 minutes ago, bickster said:

That would include every visit to the supermarket, a swimming pool, a gym, probably the pub etc etc. Why are weddings exempt?

From what I've read the government seems to be flagging that they're targeting events, rather than everyday activities like visiting gyms or supermarkets (should have been more specific about that in my original post). It's not a perfect distinction but it seems to be what they're signalling.

I don't think private events can realistically be captured by this, because you can't police big family gatherings. Hence why weddings also wouldn't be covered, but events like gigs or football matches would be, etc.

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Hence why weddings also wouldn't be covered

Weddings tend to take place in venues, they are as controllable as the numbers in a gig or theatre