What is a vaccine passport? As mooted currently in Andalusia / Spain, it’s proof that you’ve been vaccinated against Covid and, as such, certain civil liberties that are currently suspended should be returned to you. You’d be allowed to travel, to socialise, if you had one.
Let’s think about that for a bit. What is the purpose of such a passport?
Well, to divide society in “haves” and “have-nots”. I’ve had a jab – you haven’t.
This is fine, if there is a free element to having a jab or not. Currently, there isn’t. Vaccine roll-out in Spain is so slow that only 6 in a hundred people in Almería have been vaccinated so far. I don’t have a choice – I can’t have a jab. I have to wait, maybe six months or more before I even get a sniff of a jab.
So if we introduce a vaccine passport now, it’s clearly discriminatory. The government has said – YOU can socialise, YOU cannot, at my whim!
If I haven’t been offered a jab, if I can’t have a jab even if I beg and plead for one, what right has the government to constrain my civil liberties whilst giving it to someone else?
Plus, if we just introduce a passport for the vaccinated, who is to serve these people who are going to be the elderly? They will mainly be served by the younger un-vaccinated of working age. So, since they can still transmit the virus, they will be putting the un-vaccinated at risk, as well as suspending their rights.
OK, then. Currently a vaccination passport is immoral.
Let us consider a vaccination passport in six months time, once everybody has been offered a jab.
But, at this point, what is the point of a vaccination passport? Everybody has been offered a jab.
Well, it is to single out those who have refused a jab.
So, then, the vaccination passport has turned into a “nudge” element. It’s a threat, it’s saying that YOU refused the vaccine so YOU stay at home.
Once everybody has been offered a jab, there will be one of two situations.
A) We have reached herd immunity
B) We haven’t reached herd immunity, because of a low uptake.
In case of A), then who cares? We have herd immunity, doctors can keep pushing the jab and we’ll see what sort of an outbreak flares up next year (nobody knows at the moment!). There is no need for a vaccination passport. It’s just another piece of paper that people will forget and ignore, because the risk has gone away.
In case of B), then society has a serious problem on its hands and forcing reluctant people into having a jab isn’t the solution. The solution would be indoctrination, consistency and constant nudges. Some might think that turning society into haves and have-nots will force the refuseniks into having the vaccine – of course it won’t. It will weaponise the war. And because the virus is still freely circulating, it is in fact giving people a fake sense of self-security and will certainly cause more infections and more problems.
So, vaccination passports? No. Wrong direction.
This article is wrong on so many counts!
Let’s take the main one – the traditional socialist attitude that “If I can’t have this, then you can’t either”. The old and vulnerable have been vaccinated first, for obvious, commonsense reasons. But why should they be let out of their houses and be allowed to mingle if I haven’t had my jab. No, keep them locked up so that we all suffer equally. What a miserable attitude.
Next, factual inaccuracy: “since they can still transmit the virus…”. The current data make it clear that, once vaccinated, the likelihood of transmission of the virus drops dramatically, which scotches that argument.
And as for those who choose not to be vaccinated, why shouldn’t they be ‘discriminated’ against? If I choose not to take a driving test, I am forbidden to drive a car. Discrimination? Or commonsense? If I choose not to register with the Health Authorities, I will be denied treatment. Discrimination?
Get a life!
The trouble is, Phil, you don’t understand about percentages. Here’s a BBC article that might educate you.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210203-why-vaccinated-people-may-still-be-able-to-spread-covid-19