W
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...348116a0d.jpeg

Wait, what?

It was also not (maybe never) a legal requirement in NI, as admitted by Health Minister Robin Swann:

https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/news/mi...id-regulations
(7th paragraph)

What's the point of keeping a test requirement for arrivals without recognised vax certificate, if positive test doesn't require isolation?

To encourage people to get vaccinated.

Good luck with that. If someone made it all the way to this point without getting vaccinated, I highly doubt that having to pay £15-30 extra per trip into the UK will be convincing.

That's part of the problem with stopping all the measures, the anti-vaxxers now think we are done with the pandemic, and they will never get vaccinated. We're just going to be paying their medical bills forever, while they clog the hospitals.

If someone's not vaccinated by now, they're probably never getting vaccinated. And these measures aren't sustainable indefinitely. If they were, countries wouldn't be dropping them like flies.

In terms of big numbers that is probably correct, however every day recently I get one or two adult patients who get their first jab. I don't make a big fuss about them or ask many questions, just a generally warm welcome without going over the top, offer them a biscuit or boiled sweet casually. But there's a bit of peer pressure from the travel side. We have this concept of a lads holiday, so a group ol older teenagers, young 20s going off on their own to Spain or Greece, and if you are the only one in the group unvaccinated this sticks out and in some places causes practical difficulties in terms of going out, clubbing and so on. So every impediment helps.

I think you are referring to travel restrictions rather than domestic restrictions?

I am not really convinced that keeping blanket domestic restrictions which affect everyone merely to nudge the remaining people who have so far not chosen to get jabbed is a very good justification, nor does it seem to lead to any end point since we were never going to get to 100%. It seems to be an argument for permanent restrictions, unless you have a threshold in mind we aim to achieve.

At the end of the day the whole point of this was to have restrictions to prevent the health services being overwhelmed, which clearly there is no danger of currently. That was the deal, and that is partly why so many people went for the vaccine. I doubt anyone is interested in maintaining restrictions just to persuade the last few people to get jabbed.

With regard to travel clearly each country can do what they want with their own train set, but again over the next year or so those will slowly fall away too.

To put it bluntly, I really don't care about those who have not been jabbed, they are free to make their choice as they wish. I absolutely oppose any sense that restrictions continue for everyone as some kind of stick to beat them in to submission.

It seems to me that refusing to look after yourself by being vaccinated will fall into a similar category as so many other selfish positions which people take when they know that they will be bailed out by someone else. Perhaps akin to enjoying a fight when drunk on a Saturday night and recognising that the local A&E will patch you up. Or smoking. Or regularly eating way too much. Or drunk driving. Or a myriad of other selfishnesses.

Societal pressure will do it for many refuseniks but there will always be a hardcore. IMHO there should be a price they must pay for their selfishness but that should not be a price the rest of us should be paying.

What about the subset of people who are vaccinated but for whom the vaccines offer from none to a very limited protection ? This group is approximately 2-3 million people in the UK.

What about them? Restrictions forever for everyone?

Btw, shielding guidance ended in England last September
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...-from-covid-19
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/s...ost-vulnerable

What do you propose for them ? I never said restrictions forever for everyone. You are proposing that apparently ? The current death rate from a COVID infection for this subset of people is up to 10%, after vaccination. It is a valid question. How do you think society should handle this group currently ?

The price is ~25 pounds per trip abroad (or per holiday in the UK). That will have zero effect. It mostly punishes those who either don't have an accepted certificate despite being vaccinated, or can't get vaccinated for whatever reason. This policy doesn't make sense, nor does it bring any benefit apart from some profit for test providers.

On one hand Johnson claims he wants the UK to lead the world out of the pandemic, but at the same time he insists on keeping this nonsensical policy for some reason. So far, Norway leads the way, being the only country that removed all restrictions, with Denmark set to join them on Tuesday.

In the same way they were handled before covid when they were equally susceptible to a whole range of other viruses which freely circulated and had little effect on the general population, but a much more significant risk to them.

This isn't a new problem, and we already have ways to help reduce their risk which existed well before covid.

No. I asked whether that is what you propose.