Vaccine passports are a con trick, whatever they are called

ON Thursday The Conservative Woman highlighted the government’s proposal for ‘Covid Status Certification’ and the invitation to comment on it. Yesterday we published the responses of two readers, and you can read them here. Here is the submission of a third reader, Dr Duncan White, RMN* RGN* DMS MBA MA PhD FCMI MHFMA MRIPH, retired but on emergency practitioners list at the N&MC:

In response to your call for evidence reference Status Certification Scheme proposals I submit the following:

Question 1

Which of the following best describes the capacity in which you are responding to this call for evidence?

I am a:

h) Academic or researcher

Question 2

In your view, what are the key considerations, including opportunities and risks, associated with a potential Covid-status certification scheme? We would welcome specific reference to:

a) clinical / medical considerations

The potential for misinformation and false testing results reduce the value of a Status Certification Scheme to an ineffective measure that will lull people into an entirely false sense of security about the presence and transmissibility of any viral infection.

The pathogenesis of any virus is such that – at the most optimistic – a Status Certification Scheme will be a snapshot that is out of date sixty seconds after the last test or vaccination someone has undertaken. Viral pathogens are ubiquitous and are omnipresent in every facet of our daily lives, they cannot be ‘eradicated’ and attempts to mechanically diminish their presence are the worst form of wishful thinking that will do nothing more than hoodwink the populace. As a footnote it is worth mentioning here that there are estimated to be a trillion trillion viruses in every cubic metre of the entire surface of the planet, up to the stratosphere. Attempts to eliminate the virus are a vain enterprise that is clinically impossible and medically pointless.

A Status Certification Scheme cannot possibly address the reality of viral spread and will do nothing to support measures to contain, control or contract the virus but will simply lull the population into a false understanding of the situation.

The UK Government has publicly stated that the vaccine will not stop you getting Covid; the manufacturers have stated that the vaccine cannot stop you getting Covid whilst the NHS has publicly stated that the vaccine cannot prevent you getting Covid. The government has publicly stated that the vaccine will not stop you spreading Covid; the manufacturers have stated that the vaccine cannot stop you spreading Covid and the NHS has also publicly stated that the vaccine cannot stop you spreading Covid.

Against this backdrop the Status Certification Scheme is an unwarranted exercise that lacks any clinical or medical relevance.

b) legal considerations

The potential for either a statutory or government sponsored discrimination between those who have been vaccinated and those who have achieved natural immunity is contrary to all legal, moral and ethical constraints on the exercise of State authority and should be rejected out of hand as a fallacious perversion of the long-established rights of citizens evolved over eight hundred years.

It is also important to exercise careful judgment due to the requirements of informed consent for medical procedures as per the Nuremberg Code 1947, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the European Charter on Human Rights and the Montgomery Judgement 2015.

c) operational / delivery considerations

The requirement to police Status Certification is disproportionate in both monetary costs, as well as the further deflection of the police from their role in resolving ‘real’ crimes and the weight of ever more bureaucracy to implement, deliver and sustain this wholly unjustified proposal is just plain ludicrous. The government needs to ‘get a grip’: SARS-Cov-2 is a transient, mild flu-like disease that has adversely affected less than 3 per cent of those who actually get it, the survival rate of those who actually get it is 99.73 per cent and the average death-age of those with SARS-Cov-2 is two years greater than the national average age of death. This proposal is unsustainable given the evidence of the impact of the disease and the costs of this ill-thought-through scheme.

d) considerations relating to the operation of venues that could use a potential COVID-status certification scheme

In view of the facts raised in response to Question 1, the relevance of a Status Certification Scheme in the context of venues lacks any purposeful traction. Such a scheme will prove nothing other than someone at some point may have taken a vaccination and/or test where false positives and false negatives effectively cancel each other out. Proof of vaccination is not synonymous with an absolute guarantee of a lack of infection or an incapacity to infect others. To suggest otherwise is approaching sophistry.

e) considerations relating to the responsibilities or actions of employers under a potential COVID-status certification scheme

The response to questions f) and g) below apply here. The additional burden on employers to police their staff for an infraction is risible.

The response to c) above equally applies here.

f) ethical considerations

SARS-Cov-2 is not a threat to society at large. From very early stages of the spread of the disease, certainly by mid-April 2020, it was known beyond all doubt that specific demographics were singularly vulnerable to this disease. To require people to carry State-authorised certification that they have been vaccinated against a disease that for 99.73 per cent of those who contract it is nothing more than a very mild irritant is a very low resolution understanding of pathogenesis. People who have contracted the disease are no more of a threat to society than those who have previously had coryza, any other coronavidae disease or any notifiable disease. All other infectious diseases pass through society routinely and regularly and we do not ostracise people or require that they should have a licence to fully participate in society: to suggest such a measure is an indicator of a lack of understanding of how populations are not wiped out by every seasonal infection.

g) equalities considerations

Without doubt discrimination against those who have not been vaccinated should be proscribed from the outset. People routinely are infected with various diseases and society at any given time has vast numbers of people with coryza, coronavidae cluster illnesses and a variety of notifiable diseases. We do not require people to carry licences to participate in society after they have contracted any other disease and SARS-Cov-2 should not have any elevated significance over any other disease in a way that leads to unfair, discriminatory consideration.

h) privacy considerations

That you need to enquire as to the impact on privacy clearly indicates it is a problem. Medical history and clinical status of anyone and everyone is a matter between the person and their medical practitioner: it is not for an employer, a police officer or a cafe owner to intrude into the personal medical status of anyone. This is an atrocious extension of State intrusion into the life and liberty of citizens.

Question 3

Are there any other comments you would like to make to inform the Covid-status certification review?

Yes:

• if the vaccine ‘works’ why do we need further lockdowns?
• if lockdowns ‘work’ why do we need vaccines?
• if lockdowns and vaccines work why are we still under closure?
• the vaccines do not meet the medical nor legal definition of a vaccine so why deploy a gene replacement therapy for a disease that 97 per cent of people don’t have and never have had: why treat healthy people for a disease they have never had?
• the vaccines have not undergone phase 3 safety studies and are therefore not fit for human use;
• the possible side effects of the vaccines during Phase 1 and 2 safety studies have not been disclosed to the public which suggests there is something to hide;
• a vaccine that does not stop you catching the virus, does not stop you spreading the virus and ‘may’ make the symptoms less serious is insufficient cause or justification for vaccinating an entire population, what data is being withheld to support this approach?
• it has been reported that all the vaccine will do is ‘might’ or ‘may’ make your symptoms slightly less. What cost-benefit analysis has been conducted to validate the government’s course of action?

Comments on the proposal will be accepted until tomorrow, Monday, March 29. 

Vaccine passports are a con trick, whatever they are called