Covid passports for pubs (and so on)

[TheOstrich]

What's your view on these? A necessary step to open up the economy? Thin end of an Orwellian edge?

Will they spread to theatres, restaurants, sporting fixtures, festivals, supermarkets? Will we all have to download an App to travel anywhere or do anything? Or is the whole thing simply unworkable?

I'm not sure I like the direction we seem to be travelling in as a society, to be honest .....

[Workingman]

Another one from slogans r us - "passport for pubs".

I think that it is unworkable, divisive and controlling. The way it was done last summer, although not ideal, would actually work better this time around as almost half the population above the (legal) drinking age already have had one jab and that percentage will increase as we go from Easter and into the summer. Some will have had both jabs by then.

We have to open up at some point and when we do there are bound to be bumps in the road. There is no perfect way out of this.

[cromwell]

I'm not sure I like the direction we seem to be travelling in as a society, to be honest .....

Me neither, and I haven't been for months.
Once politicians get power they don't want to give it up; and you saw that in Parliament yesterday when the emergency powers were voted back in for the next six months - even though lockdown (the last ever lock down, according to our tremendously truthful govt) ends in June.

Covid has brought out the best in some and the worst in others. The worst including neighbours being urged to inform on each other and the validation of the worst kind of petty bureaucracy - Have you exceeded the number in your bubble? Is your journey really necessary? Why are you having tea in the garden with your neighbour?

And then there is the constant sloganising. Years ago Kaz mentioned it on here, pointing out the similarity to the slogans of the old USSR. "Three weeks to flatten the curve". "Protect the NHS". "Stay home, save lives" etc.

People seem to have accepted it wholesale too.

As for vaccine passports the government has said they are against them. Imo they are not but they want to pressure businesses into being the ones to ask for them instead, letting the govt off the hook.

[Workingman]

There were no vaccination passports for schools, colleges or universities so why should they be needed for anywhere else?

Some of the rules are illogical. Eating a sandwich in your car over 5 miles from home endangers the whole country, but if you do it 4.9 miles from home we will be super safe. Your next door neighbour cannot come sit in your garden for a cuppa and a chat, but you can natter away all day over the fence or out in the street. Six people meeting up and social distancing is perfectly safe, but if seven people do it it is instant death. If a small group meet up and they are not all from the same bubble it's a whacking great fine, but if thousands do it on a protest it is no problem.

The majority of us have become sick of it all, but we still tend to follow the sensible rules by washing our hands, wearing masks when appropriate, and keeping our distance.

[miasmum]

What I don't get about the vaccine passports is the comment from a theatre bod this morning, it will make people feel so much safer to know the person they are sitting next to is vaccinated. For the love of God when will they get it into their stupid heads, that the person sitting next to you vaccinated or not could still give you covid. Provided YOU are vaccinated you will hopefully get a much milder dose whether you pick it up from a vaccinated person or not.

[Workingman]

Yes Shell!

[Suff]

Slogans make points and points make Prizes!

It's all a mess. I could go for vaccinated people only on flights to the sun. But then they would only be allowed to interact with vaccinated people when they get back.

Let's just get everyone vaccinated and get it done with. Then we won't need to worry, only other people we are going on holiday to have to worry.

[cromwell]

This is all very sensible, but how sensibly will the government act?

Johnson now apparently thinks that lockdown is popular, that it is a vote winner.
That vaccine passports are a vote winner.that being"kept safe" is a vote winner.

We are risking something big here and it is our liberty.

Fraser Nelson has written a frankly scary article in the Telegraph today; that the UK is going to become a "biosecurity state". Your liberty is gone because you have demonstrated beyond any doubt that you prefer being "kept safe" to being free. So this week the government has created a Health Security Agency. as Nelson says "Controlling the circulation of a virus can be controlled by controlling what people do. So the old inalienable rights - freedom of assembly, freedom of protest, of school education, freedom to leave the country - become PRIVILIGES, to be removed or restored as ministers see fit".

Just think on that for a minute. Not rights, but privileges.

We are being turned into a country that I don't recognise with the connivance of both main political parties and the media, who are refusing to question what is going on.

[Suff]

The litmus test here will be when the entire country is vaccinated and most of the world we interact with.

Then, when there is no more excuse, will there be some interesting discussions.

[cromwell]

Sorry Suff, but you've forgotten the "new deadly mutant strain" scenario.
You know, the strain which might be vaccine resistant?
There will always be an excuse.