1. They impose huge costs including:
• Government set up, monitoring & implementation
• Business implementation
• Lower business trade
• Welfare loss for those excluded
• Societal loss from “papers please” culture
2. They don't prevent big surges in infections.
Nearly every country with passports/Covid certification has seen huge rises in infection rates within a few months. Stark recent examples include Ireland, Netherlands, Austria & Germany.
3. Strong evidence they don’t lead to large, observable impacts, certainly not big enough to be seen in infection trends.
For example, compare Scotland, Wales (passports since Oct), NI (just introduced) & England (none).
Without the labels, could you pick out which is which?
4. There is not even any good evidence for there being small, marginal benefits as admitted recently by the Welsh CMO and Scottish Deputy First Minister. See this overview here: spectator.co.uk/article/sturge…
5. It is plausible they actually make things worse due to:
• Waning vaccine effectiveness
• Potentially smaller % of previously infected people (with significantly higher immunity) amongst vaccinated.
• Behavioural effects (e.g. vaccinated being less aware of symptoms)
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Yet, the more data we get on how useless vaccine passports are, the more governments look to expand them.
Latest example seems likely to be @NicolaSturgeon today in Scotland.
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Those still promoting vaccine passports are indulging in unscientific wishful thinking, no better than superstition.
We need to stop treating vax passports as a mainstream, reasonable policy but rather for what it is: a fringe, extremist view with zero credibility.
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The decision by Austria to people who decide not to have a Covid vaccination in prison takes tyranny to a new level.
The move must, of course, be condemned by everyone, irrespective of what side of the Covid/vaccination policy debate you have been on up to now.
However …
… I hope what is happening in Austria gives people who previously supported vaccine passports/sacking unvaccinated carers & nurses pause for thought.
Many such people have good intentions and genuinely, if mistakenly, believe these policies will have public health benefits ….
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Sadly there are others, including some at high levels of power, who are apparently not interested in vaccination as a way of improving public health (especially for those high risk from Covid) but for whom vaccination is the end in itself …
Latest ONS estimates report previous Covid infection reduces chance of testing positive by 80%, exactly the same as having 3 vaccines and a bigger risk reduction than that given by any other vaccination status …
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In most cases, the difference is statistically significant (note where the 95% confidence intervals don’t overlap).
For example, the reduction in risk from previous infection is twice that from AZ vaccine even if given within the past 3 months …
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And do those previously infected boost their immunity further by getting vaccinated?
ONS reports that being double vaccinated has no effect on the risk of re-infection …
It’s hard to think of a policy* which has unravelled so completely & spectacularly as vaccine passports.
They have caused huge harm & division, yet nearly every European country that has introduced them has seen unprecedented increases in Covid infections within a few months …
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Note that doesn't mean vax passports have *caused* those increases but, in contrast to what people were promised, they have done absolutely nothing to prevent them.
(that said, it is quite plausible that they do make things marginally worse rather than better) ...
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If Government scientific advisors had any integrity, they would be banging on Number 10’s door to demand that vaccine passports are ruled out for England under any circumstances …
Hard to think of a better argument against England’s *Plan B* than Ireland’s situation.
They have had vax passports for months, v high vax rates & never-ending mask laws.
This has done nothing to stop case rates rising hugely over the past few weeks, now well above England* …
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Using % positivity to control for higher UK testing makes for an even starker comparison.
Rather than questioning whether vaccine passports & mask laws are actually effective, there are suggestions ROI may go for even stricter vax passports. You really couldn’t make it up ...
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As always, cases will come down in Ireland irrespective of whether or not they go for tighter restrictions, just as they have recently in England.
Politicians everywhere seem remarkably resistant to learning lessons from the past 18 months.
A reminder why there will be little or no benefit on infection from sacking unvaccinated carers.
89% of care workers in elderly care homes are already double vaccinated. Many of remaining 11% will have been previously infected so high level of immunity …england.nhs.uk/statistics/sta…
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Even if the small % who are unvaxed & not previously infected have a higher risk of infection, they still take other control measures, e.g. isolating if symptomatic & regular testing. Any marginal additional risk reduction from sacking unvaccinated will be tiny.
But …
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whether vaccinated are actually at less risk of getting infected unclear. We know there is significant waning of effectiveness against infection. Results vary, but some studies conclude VE goes to zero after as little as 4 months for AZ, 7 for Pfizer … papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…