COVID-19 cases surge as do sales of fake vaccination cards – around $100 for something you could get free The number of COVID cases in the US and elsewhere is again rising, thanks to the Delta Variant, lagging vaccination rates, and mask resistance among some. That has led to vaccination requirements in California for healthcare workers and education workers, in New York for new hires, at private sector companies like Google, and …
If a Covid vaccination card counts as an official document, then faking a card should count as forgery and attract a suitable penalty?
As a vaccination card indicates an increased level of protection and reduced chance of spreading the virus, selling or buying and using a fake should be considered a serious offence.
In the UK, presenting a forged vaccine document at an airport or somewhere similar is fraud by false representation and carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
Numerous people have been charged with using fake certificates, though I've not found anything on the sentences they actually received...
At least one of them got off quite lightly if that's the maximum.
She was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment, suspended for twelve months and ordered to perform 60 hours community service and pay £85 costs and a £128 victim surcharge.
That's not that light. You wouldn't expect to serve the maximum sentence for a first offence of anything but the most serious crimes. So getting a supsended sentence and community service is much more serious than a fine.
I don't think we want to fill our prisons up with people presenting fake vaccine certifiates. Plus it's not fair on the other prisoners who have had their vaccines...
All the law enforcement efforts need to go against the people creating the fakes. If they find someone with a fake card then maybe we should just quarantine them for a month and give then both shots before they are released - that would discourage all anti-vaxers from buying fake cards.
You do realize that Covid can kill people don't you, Spartacus? I would suggest a little more time in prison.
Oh my God! No. Covid kill people? I thought everyone had just been staying at home for a year in order to spend more time with their families...
But OK. Go for it. If you want also to impose prison sentences for speeding and careless driving. Everyone I know has at some point taken their eyes off the road to play with the air conditiong, radio, grab a sweet or whatever. Anybody who's done that has risked killing people - do you want to lock all of them up too? If so, you'd better start building prisons. Lots of prisons...
You want to imprison all the people who use false covid ID, and you call me the ludicrous one?
I was making a ludicrous point deliberately. As a comparison.
Drunk driving also doesn't usually get you a custodial sentence by the way. You tend to get fines and driving bans, unless you actually injure someone. Which there's a perfectly reasonable argument to say is wrong. That it's the crime that puts lives at risk, so why only imprison multiple repeat offenders and those unlucky enough to have actually killed someone? But once you go down that route, you're back to the whole building loads of prisons thing again. And why shouldn't the same apply to someone who knowingly risks killing people by taking their hands off the steering wheel to open a sweet?
There's always a trade-off between punishment based on outcomes, as opposed to punishment by intent/ actions taken. There is no consistency. But I think people object to the driving inattention analogy, because it's something they've done themselves. But leaning down to change a CD with your eyes off the road is exactly the same risk as drink driving - just over a briefer time period (not the whole journey). If something unexpected happens you won't be able to react as fast, you might cause a crash.
Changing a CD while driving is an activity that can take a short time, and the driver chooses when to do it. It is not an infection that can be passed to others.
The problem with comparing that via drunk driving to going around spreading Covid-19 is that you can infect people who will themselves go around spreading it without their knowledge while asymptomatic. Your analogies seem to me to be inaccurate.
"I was making a ludicrous point deliberately. As a comparison." No, you made it as a serious comparison in a failed attempt to downplay the seriousness of Covid.
"xBut leaning down to change a CD with your eyes off the road is exactly the same risk as drink driving " Erm, nit in the slightest, as you must know.
"Drunk driving also doesn't usually get you a custodial sentence by the way." I know, but it was a reasonably close analogy that proved yours were pathetic. You need a sense of proportion. Something lacking amongst Covidiots.
Drunk driving is far less a problem nowadays in most countries. The sentence one gets depends upon the seriousness of the incident, and lying about Covid is a very serious one. You could arrive at an airport not wearing a mask or distancing, infecting many people, board a aluminium tube, potentially infecting more. And all those you infect could infect others But Covidiots only care about themselves, don't they.
"That's not that light. You wouldn't expect to serve the maximum sentence for a first offence of anything but the most serious crimes. So getting a supsended sentence and community service is much more serious than a fine."
IIRC, a suspended sentence is a custodial sentence, even if not actually served, so will be a much more serious blot on your record when applying for any kind of job requiring security clearances or DBS checks.
Just to clarify: the doctor in question submitted forged Covid PCR test results at the airport, not vaccination certificates. Same offence, different documents. I am not an immigration lawyer, but should she apply to remain in the UK at some point, I believe the criminal record will count against being successful. In fact, a criminal conviction (beyond reasonable doubt) is not even necessary: the HO only sets itself a balance of probability standard:
A person will not normally be considered to be of good character if there is information to suggest that any of the following apply:Criminality
If they have not respected or are not prepared to abide by the law - for example, they have been convicted of a crime or there are reasonable grounds to suspect, meaning it is more likely than not, they have been involved in crime.
Source: Nationality: good character requirement [pdf]
It's a felony in the US, it can get you 5 years.
https://www.ic3.gov/media/y2021/psa210330
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1017
I wish they'd actually go after them. Not because of the prison time, as far as I'm concerned they can give them probation for the first offense, but because if you've got a felony in the US you don't get to ever touch a gun again, and these asshats would probably hate losing their gun rights more than they'd hate prison time.
In France you have to be dumb enough to try it three times in a month before it's jail time and big fines.
The first time, it's a fixed fine of €135 and a wishy-washy "fine that can be a maximum of €750".
Twice in 15 days, the fixed fine is €200 and the up to is €1500.
Three times in 30 days,€3750 and six months in the slammer.
In the USA, "showing your papers" like it's to a KGB or other "secret police" operative is, in my opinion, UN-AMERICAN.
And my private medical history is NOBODY! ELSE'S! BUSINESS!!
Whether or not I've had the disease, a vaccine, multiple vaccines, or not, THOSE decisions are supposed to be between me and whatever physician I choose. "My Body My Choice" right?
Might as well stamp 666 on my hand or forehead. No, wait...
Other countries can do what they want. But in the USA I'd like to think that we still have CIVIL RIGHTS. And I see any attempt at a "vax passport" as VIOLATING them (regardless of whether or not I've been VAX'd or already have natural immunity).
There have been long standing requirements to provide documents showing vaccination for travel and other purposes.
This is a seriously misguided gesture on your part. Evidently you have a computer or cell phone and probably other documents such s credit cards and drivers license. The horse is long gone, and has likely died of old age.
bombastic bob: "my private medical history is NOBODY! ELSE'S! BUSINESS!!"
A family of anti-vaxxers died of covid:
https://www.newsweek.com/mans-entire-family-dies-covid-same-week-after-refusing-get-vaccinated-1617994
"According to WalesOnline, Francis Goncalves' family, located in Portugal, had resisted the vaccine due to frightening, anti-vaccine "misinformation.""
I suggest that when a potentially deadly disease can be transmitted merely by breathing in the vicinity of an infected person, then the vaccination status of all around is everyone's business, unless you consider that everyone else on the planet lives at risk of your personal whim?
bombastic bob: "in the USA I'd like to think that we still have CIVIL RIGHTS."
Do your fellow citizens of the USA have the civil right to go outside, shop for essential supplies and work without being exposed to a highly contagious and potentially fatal disease?
But I must thank you for having the courage and integrity to actually state your position and belief openly, rather than just downvoting without explaining like some do. So, genuinely, thanks for that.
"Other countries can do what they want. But in the USA I'd like to think that we still have CIVIL RIGHTS. And I see any attempt at a "vax passport" as VIOLATING them (regardless of whether or not I've been VAX'd or already have natural immunity)."
First of all, nobody is ever going to take you seriously with the alternating caps nonsense. Second of all, please enumerate the specific rights complete with citations to the relevant sections of US law. I would love to hear what right is being violated by setting terms of entry to private property.
This isn’t about what you do to your body - it’s about faking evidence. Don’t vaccinate, and suffer the consequences: Risk of illness or death, risk of harming others, no access to flights and other things. Up to you. But these people use forged documents intentionally to get on flights and endanger others.
WHAT? Only themselves?
Yeah, right. They get it and then spread it. It is contagious. And potentially deadly, and I think it should count as attempted manslaughter if you falsify the certificate, get CoViD and pass it on to somebody. The prospect of "long CoViD" is not great, nor is actually dieing of it.
There are people out there who cannot be vaccinated due to their medical conditions, or because they are too young to get the shot.
You are actively trying to murder them.
And they'll get everything they deserve if they die or develop long term complications from Covid... Far more likely than any vaccine side effect.
If only we could literally brand them so, our valiant healthcare workers could deny them care for their wilful ignorance and danger to children and people with immune disorders.
f only we could literally brand them
What an excellent idea. Might I suggest a yellow star, or perhaps a red or black triangle design? Or might that confuse people?
If only we could literally brand them so, our valiant healthcare workers could deny them care for their wilful ignorance and danger to children and people with immune disorders.
Excellent idea. Award yourself a black triangle! Let's replace the hippocratic oath with the hypocritic! Then again, thanks to the War on Virus, many people have already been denied healthcare via cancellations of consultations, treatments or operations. And thanks to the swift and decisive action by public servants, infected patients have been sent home from hospitals to care homes so that those patients can be with the most vulnerable.
And of course won't people think of the children! They must be jabbed, masked, and socially distanced. Never mind that children are at very little risk from the virus, they must be protected. We've got millions of doses to use up before they expire!
Sarcasm aside, such is politics. Cuomo's gone, but not prosecuted for his decision wrt NY care homes and a large proportion of NY's Covid deaths. Which also skewed NY's stats compared to say, Florida with it's large population of elderly sunseekers, but relatively lower number of deaths.
Or any long-term effects. More children have been suiciding than have died from Covid. But most parents also know that kids are bug magnets, and their immune systems get a bit of a work-out from being around other bug magnets. Now, we've got a bunch of kids who've been socially stunted and isolated, who might also end up with weaker immune systems thanks to being shielded.
Get off your god damn cross. I am going to take a wild guess your one of the proudly wilfully ignorant MAGAts... Who swallows conservative BS with a grin and begs for more! From people who got vaccinated.
Why should our medical professionals have to suffer for your willful ignorance. Society is not required to save you from your own dumbass decisions. I thought that was a very popular conservative talking point... Social Darwinism and all that shite? Or is it different when conservatives are asked to pay for the consequences of their willfully ignorant actions... as usual, conservative hypocrisy is boundless in it's cruelty as it is in it's ignorance. No wonder conservatives are always on the wrong side of history... you were wrong during the Spanish Flu and you are wrong again here. The rest of us who live outside the right wing media shart bubble just hope the virus sticks to bleaching your side of the gene pool before a variant escapes that can hurt the innocent who are vaccinated.
I love how the right races to adopts holocaust imaginary with their martyrdom complexes... since it was facist conservative ideology that carried it out.
"many people have already been denied healthcare via cancellations of consultations, treatments or operations. And thanks to the swift and decisive action by public servants, infected patients have been sent home from hospitals to care homes so that those patients can be with the most vulnerable."
Ooh! now we break into 'whataboutism'... What about the fact if conservatives respected the lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccinations we would have had more resources to help those in genuine need rather than you willfully ignorant idiots who love to tempt fate and then expect sympathy and care.
"And of course won't people think of the children! They must be jabbed, masked, and socially distanced. Never mind that children are at very little risk from the virus, they must be protected. We've got millions of doses to use up before they expire!"
Yes let us in fact of the Children since they cannot all be vaccinated yet. Children are a dangerous means of spreading and mutating the virus... But again you can't see past your own selfishness to see the value of others... Another great Conservative value! You have no empathy until it strikes down someone you love, then you beg forgiveness and aid.
"Sarcasm aside, such is politics. Cuomo's gone, but not prosecuted for his decision wrt NY care homes and a large proportion of NY's Covid deaths. Which also skewed NY's stats compared to say, Florida with it's large population of elderly sunseekers, but relatively lower number of deaths."
More Whataboutism, yes Cuomo is garbage... but every single GOP governor did just as worse, and Kushner flat out advised to hold back helping people in the hopes it would kill more in Democratic metro areas.
"Or any long-term effects. More children have been suiciding than have died from Covid. But most parents also know that kids are bug magnets, and their immune systems get a bit of a work-out from being around other bug magnets. Now, we've got a bunch of kids who've been socially stunted and isolated, who might also end up with weaker immune systems thanks to being shielded."
More Conservative BS, Reagan gutted the US mental health system and anytime social spending is brought up to address those most in need you all scream "SOCIALISM!" Shove it.
Get off your god damn cross. I am going to take a wild guess your one of the proudly wilfully ignorant MAGAts... Who swallows conservative BS with a grin and begs for more! From people who got vaccinated.
British actually, and did my patriotic duty and proudly double-jabbed with the AstraZeneca vaccine. But you've done an excellent rant! Right is wrong, and Left is right! Praise the science! Which should of course be apolitical, despite a lot on the left ignoring it..
Social Darwinism and all that shite?
Funnily enough, a lot on the left/liberal side seem to be dedicated followers of Malthus. Or read Professor Paul R. Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb", and believed it. Despite pretty much in that book having been proven wrong. Then again, viruses are often nature's way of helping along Malthusian ideals.
The rest of us who live outside the right wing media shart bubble just hope the virus sticks to bleaching your side of the gene pool before a variant escapes that can hurt the innocent who are vaccinated.
Well, that's happening already. People who've been vaccinated are getting sick. They're also spreading the virus. Which sadly for you, doesn't have a political compass, just a desire to bind to any handy ACE receptor..
I love how the right races to adopts holocaust imaginary with their martyrdom complexes... since it was facist conservative ideology that carried it out.
Errm.. didn't you just express a desire to bleach the gene pool of your political opponents and other undesirables? That ideology sounds sadly familiar. As is the cry of 'fascists'. Strangely from people who are supporting a rather authoritarian government. And funnily enough, it seems to be those on the left who're imposing the most authoritarian restrictions. But such is politics, and here's a free clue-
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism
a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
Any of that sound familiar? Papers please! No papers? No socialising or travelling for you! And possibly more restrictions to follow. But fear not, citizen, for you are shielded by your Walgreen's vaccination card, that is absolutely impossible to forge! Especially in a nation that has a long and noble tradition of producing fake ID cards so young Americans can enjoy a beer.
But you've also got Biden, who's been busy keeping your southern borders open, and shuttling infected immigrants around the US. But that's the same Biden who's given up on Afghanistan. And called on OPEC to increase production so US gas prices reduce. But that's the same Biden who also cancelled the Keystone pipeline, and banned domestic oil & gas production. And the same one that wants to spend several $trillion, which somehow won't be at all inflationary. But then he may have been taking economic advice from his son, who seems unable to keep hold of his laptops.. But again, such is politics.
Yes let us in fact of the Children since they cannot all be vaccinated yet. Children are a dangerous means of spreading and mutating the virus...
Sure they can. School or school age vaccinations for stuff like MMR are routine, and a good thing. Slight snag though. None of the Phase3 trials included children. Or pregnant women. Or anyone but a small group of healthy individuals.
But a more pertinent issue is children don't seem to get infected. And if they're not infected, the virus isn't replicating. Which means they won't be spreading it. But that's just science. Jab away! Drug dealers have double jabs to sell, then boosters! And perhaps more importantly, immunity if their vaccines cause serious side effects. Which can happen in young, healthy adults. But never mind that, Jab For Victory in the War on Covid!.. Which will probably be a never ending war, but that's very good for the bottom line..
Just wanted to make a point that the vaccines don't prevent disease as such. They do, however, prevent serious symptoms in most people. Also, depending on how one's immune system responds to the vaccine, death is a possibility from the infection hence, boosters.
Also, depending on how one's immune system responds to the vaccine, death is a possibility from the infection hence, boosters.
True, but there's also a potential that the immune system response to a vaccine might cause death. Or possibly symptoms like these-
Symptoms include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, muscle and joint pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rashes, fast breathing, rapid heartbeat, low blood pressure, seizures, headache, confusion, delirium, hallucinations, tremor, and loss of coordination
Some of which may sound familiar. But no system is perfect. Plus if I were being especially cynical and conspiratorial.. Assuming Covid was a result of a gain of function experiment that unfortunately escaped. If you were dicing & splicing with a view to a bioweapon, something that mutates rapidly and potentially encourages ADE and ADCC to increase effectiveness, and decrease treatment options. But mutations and immune system responses are an ADE risk anyway.
But such is politics. I'd still advocate vaccination, albeit I still don't trust mRNA.. Which was part of the fun of my own vaccination experience. The NHS is supposed to be all about patient choice, but the vaccination clinic seemed suprised when I simply asked which vaccine they were planning on trialling on me.
"Symptoms include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, muscle and joint pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rashes, fast breathing, rapid heartbeat, low blood pressure, seizures, headache, confusion, delirium, hallucinations, tremor, and loss of coordination"
Um...yeah. Every medicine and vaccine carries a long list of possible side effects, usually in order of likelihood, starting from "just maybe" and ending with , "shit man, you were really, really unlucky to get the one in a billion Golden Ticket". My wifes anti-depression medication, amongst other side effects, includes depression as a possible side effect. But the risk of her anti-depression medication actually causing her to be depressed is vastly lower than the chances of it helping her get through it.
All medication is a balance of risk and reward. That''s why some can be bought over the counter, some need to be prescribed, some can only be administered by a professional in a clinical setting, and some are only ever used as a last resort when there's not much else to lose.
Your points are valid, but sometimes these serious side effects actually happen.
Ten days after my second dose of AZ, I started with nose bleeds and serious bruising. The GP took bloods, and as soon as they got the results, admitted me to hospital, with a platelet count of under 10 (normal range 150-450).
I was diagnosed with Immune Thrombocytopenia Purpura, or ITP. This kills people, and will probably be a chronic condition.
Whilst there is a small chance that this is a coincidence, the NHS are counting the vaccine as the probable cause.
So. I've been on a terrible dose of steroids, with all their side effects, am now regarded as immune compromised, and have been told that there are some common infections (like chicken pox and shingles) that have a very high chance of killing me.
My current contract is being very good about letting me work remotely, but at some point I will have to decide whether to lose the contract, or put myself at risk by mixing back in an office. And finding another contract after this one is going to be somewhat troublesome.
And if I can no longer find a contract? Well, I won't qualify for any personal support payment, won't be able to sign on for job-seekers allowance, and it looks like there are few welfare programs to provide me a way of living.
But even with this possible prognosis, I would still have whatever vaccines were recommended, but I just wish that the chances of the serious side effects were more recognised.
"The NHS is supposed to be all about patient choice, but the vaccination clinic seemed suprised when I simply asked which vaccine they were planning on trialling on me."
Well, unless you knowingly signed up for a trial, then it's not really surprising that they were surprised you though it was a trial. If you'd simply asked which vaccine it was they were using, they'd have told you. Their reaction might have been because of the way you asked the question. On the other hand, I had mine so long ago now I forget the exact details, but IIRC, they gave me a leaflet with all the possible side effects and which vaccine it was. They asked me to complete a short questionnaire about things like current medical condition etc, then had a face to face going over all of that again, including asking the questions again, pointing out I was free to choose or refuse at any stage. At no stage did they switch the vaccine on me at the last minute or tie me down and force me to have it.
(Although the very pretty young lady doctor who injected me could have tied me down at any stage of the process with no objections from me, but that's a whole other thing for another day(-dream))
Well, unless you knowingly signed up for a trial, then it's not really surprising that they were surprised you though it was a trial. If you'd simply asked which vaccine it was they were using, they'd have told you.
Phrasing was intentional. Suprise was that they thought I had a choice. I think the SOP was for patients to turn up, present arms and get what they're given. Doc also said they pretty much inject what they're shipped, so sometimes they didn't have an alternative to the mRNA vaccines.
Which is pretty much the trial aspect. Actual trial was very limited in scope, now millions of doses have been administered to demographics that weren't included in those formal trials. Pre-FUD, mRNA vaccines were seen as promising, but also risky.. Hence why the drug dealers wanted shielding/immunity, and just take the profits. So the usual 'free market' job of privatised profits, socialised risks.
But such is politics. Again I was ok with the more traditional vaccination, but there is no way in hell I'd take mRNA until there's say, 5yrs of data.
Sorry to piss on your parade but
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1009243/Technical_Briefing_20.pdf
Page 18
In the over 50s
2 doses, 21472 delta cases and 389 deaths
unvaccinated, 3440 case and 205 deaths.
Under 50s
25536 and 13 for 2 doses
147612 and 48 for none.
If you assume people under 50 are generally healthier on average and less likely to die on any given day that's over 5 times the cases for under 4 times the deaths in the unvaccinated group.
Go with the numbers not the hysteria.
:"Funnily enough, a lot on the left/liberal side seem to be dedicated followers of Malthus. " No, that is more of a fascist/right wing problem
"Or read Professor Paul R. Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb", and believed it." Again, beloved of the right.
Just as Agenda 21 is described as a Marxist, Masonic, Zionist, globalist elite illuminati to control everyone.
"But a more pertinent issue is children don't seem to get infected. " Who told you that lie? Not only do they get infected but they pass it on.
:"Funnily enough, a lot on the left/liberal side seem to be dedicated followers of Malthus. " No, that is more of a fascist/right wing problem
Citation needed. Population control is very much part of fascist ideology, and happening now. Have your vaccine passport ready if you want to dine out, drink, attend social gatherings. But you won't need to show your papers to shop for food.. Yet.
"Or read Professor Paul R. Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb", and believed it." Again, beloved of the right.
Citation needed. Unless you mean for entertainment value given it's claims that we'd be out of food by the '70s, the UK would cease to exist, and people would literally turn into blue steam. But Ehrlich's still courting publicty via dire predictions, and feted by the left.
Just as Agenda 21 is described as a Marxist, Masonic, Zionist, globalist elite illuminati to control everyone.
<fnord> Marxist and globalist is pretty much a given seeing as last year's 'firey, but mostly peaceful protests' saw Antifa marching along with people waving the American Communist and worker's party flags. </fnord>
"But a more pertinent issue is children don't seem to get infected. " Who told you that lie? Not only do they get infected but they pass it on.
And yet again, citation needed. But let me help you-
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographicsovertime
0.07 deaths per 1000 for <=17yrs old. And that's even assuming actual Covid deaths, rather than deaths where a fragment of the virus was found. But jab away, those kids are extra vaccine sales. Too bad kids weren't included in Phase 3 trials, but let's go global and see what happens! No liability for the drug dealers.
"30.4 per cent of the world has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 15.8 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated"
So the bulk of the world's population is still maximally exposed. Furthermore, on the BBC news this morning it was reported that "booster doses" of different vaccines from those first provided are being considered for those already vaccinated, essentially in order to keep ahead of mutations. In reality, we haven't got Covid under control yet by a long stretch.
The worldwide vaccination program is pretty low, some countries are pushing up these stats such as Canada which is now vaccinating under 18s who are low risk, yet there are many poor countries who haven't even got their most vulnerable vaccinated yet.
We won't get COVID under any sort of control until there is a more worldwide response to the pandemic than a us first approach to vaccinations.
I'm no epidemiologist, and I would be very happy to be corrected... but it has struck me since the vaccinations started that it might be a better idea to, rather than starting by vaccinating the most vulnerable, to have vaccinated first those who are going to ignore the precautions and move around spreading the bloody virus anyway...
After the obvious of health workers, care workers, and other essential services of course.
I wonder how one would go about modelling such a protocol?
(I write as one who is in multiple high risk groups, and who has been double vaccinated).
but it has struck me since the vaccinations started that it might be a better idea to, rather than starting by vaccinating the most vulnerable, to have vaccinated first those who are going to ignore the precautions and move around spreading the bloody virus anyway...
Nice idea, but unfortunately they tend to be the ones who refuse the vaccine and buy fake certificates...so take-up wouldn't be very high.
>Nice idea, but unfortunately they tend to be the ones who refuse the vaccine
I think the point was that after vaccinating the oldest most vulnerable, instead of then doing over 65s, then over 60s etc in strict order - it might have been better to switch to vaccinating 20year olds who mix with more people.
Should probably also have considered bus drivers, fast food workers who come into contact with more people before doing all the purely admin and lab workers in hospitals who were a priority
Well, IIRC they did talk about something like this, but the problem they found was that there was no simple record of who did what job. So...how would you decide who gets priority? By the time they'd polled the hundreds of thousands of companies who work in those sensitive fields (and missing out the people who were self employed or otherwise forgotten about) they could have vaccinated half the country.
> my wife, who does in-home elder care, was able to get vaccinated before it was widely available
Yes, the problem is that the government here was a little too rigid in their plans.
So "healthcare workers" were the priority - but this meant hospital sysadmins and medical billing office workers were being jabbed before transit or supermarket workers.
"So "healthcare workers" were the priority - but this meant hospital sysadmins and medical billing office workers were being jabbed before transit or supermarket workers."
I'd not want to be the one making decisions on vaccine priorities, but I can see the sense and logic behind vaccinating all healthcare workers. The front line can't operate properly without the back office staff also being at work doing their jobs too. As an example of hard choices, would you have put transit workers or supermarket workers next? Are the delivery lorry drivers delivering to supermarkets transit or supermarket? Or does "transit" mean buses and trains, considering almost no one was travelling in the early stages, before a vaccine was even available.
The option go with all health workers first and then down by age group is probably the best option without it all getting overly bureaucratic and possibly leading to arguments or even legal challenges over who's turn it is next.
Well, IIRC they did talk about something like this, but the problem they found was that there was no simple record of who did what job.
Sounds like a job for Dido! But there should be records. Simple is a different consulting engagement. So there'd be care workers supplied directly or indirectly via the NHS. They should have records of those workers. Nursing and social working are AFAIK still semi-regulated professions, and there's also the good'ol CRB checks required to work with vulnerable people.
And then as power without abuse loses it's charm, simply pass legislation requiring all workers in designated fields to be vaccinated on pain of say, £10k fines. So make this someone else's problem, and pocket any revenue from fines.
Oh, sure. It was easy to see who was employed by the NHS because that's an easy thing to search for....so you could quickly prioritise that nurses, medical staff and others. Which they did.
But then it starts getting hazy, especially when subcontracting is taken into account. What about pharmacists? Delivery drivers? Self-employed delivery drivers? Retail workers? Retail workers in pharmacies? Delivery drivers for pharmacies who aren't directly employed by them? Outsourced cleaners who work in medical settings?
In the US we are now vaccinating everybody 12+, on a walk in basis, no questions asked.
That's after we ran through the over 75s, healthcare workers, 65s, high risk medical conditions, had a plan beyond that and then had enough vaccine that it didn't f-ing matter any more.
There's no f-ing question of rationing vaccine here any more. Walk into any f-ing pharmacy and it's yours if you're at least f-ing 12 years old.
We'll be opening it to 5 year olds next month.
And we still can't get much more than 50% of my f-ing county to get vaccinated.
The order of who could get it stopped mattering back in May.
IANAE either, but it seems to me that while this method might potentially work to shorten the pandemic duration (assuming, as pointed out by AC, that those people would actually TAKE the vaccine); it would likely simultaneously lead to more serious cases and deaths in the early days. This would cause a higher load on the healthcare sector, leading to further knock-on effects on non-COVID related care. Vaccinating the people susceptible to catching a bad case of the disease first is as I interpret it a measure to try to minimize the infamous hump at the start of each wave. Many of the people you're talking about prioritizing are younger and therefore less likely to get seriously ill from the disease.
That said, I think it's crucial that we as a society evaluate different models as we come out of the panic surrounding this. Given that so many countries have made so many different decisions regarding quarantines, travel bans, masks, lockdowns, no visitors at care facilities, etc; we should have plenty of data to look at when preparing for the next pandemic. Where ma' data scientists at?
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It is interesting we prioritized those nearing the end of their full lived lives rather than those who will be the progression of our society.
Yeah, makes you wonder why we bother giving financial or medical support to anyone who's retired. They're clearly not benefiting society anymore. Think how much money we could save if we just left people to starve and/or die.
"It is interesting we prioritized those nearing the end of their full lived lives"
"Crusty and old" translates fairly directly to "crappier immune system".
Notice that many places still haven't bothered vaccinating little children and they aren't dropping like flies, whilst the older you get the more at risk you are?
That's why the priority.
I mean, that's why there WAS a priority.
Now? Here? Are you 12? Ask your parents and roll up your sleeve. Are you 14? Then you don't even have to ask your parents, just roll up your sleeve.
51.47%. That's the population of my county that's had one shot.
And I just spent the last f-ing week in self isolation because I thought I might have had a breakthrough infection. I didn't.
I'm tired. It's been a rough year and a half.
Standard procedure is generally to vaccinate vectors: those who have the most contact (healthcare, teachers, public service, etc.) with the most vulnerable groups. However, due to the extremely high efficacy of the mRNA and vector vaccines, it was decided to vaccinate the most vulnerable groups directly. This was a moral rather than a clinical decision, ie. it was decided to attempt to save lives directly rather than attempting to limit the spread.
I wonder how one would go about modelling such a protocol?
I don't think you can. The data didn't exist, at the time the decisions were made.
The original testing of the vaccines only did two things. It tested to see if they were safe, and if they were effective at stopping those people from getting the disease and/or getting ill.
The third thing that vaccines often do is called sterlising immunity. That is, they vastly reduce the chances of you spreading the disease as well. But you can't always test for this is in a few tens of thousands of volunteer vaccine testers, you only find that out when you put the vaccine out in the real world.
So the JCVI have come out and said this week that herd immunity doesn't look possible with the Delta variant. I think the Israeli health authorities just said something similar too. Becuase the vaccines are only about 60% effective at stopping you from catching it - even if they're 98% effective at keeping you out of hospital. None of the vaccines seem to have sterilising immunity either. They may reduce the amount of virus particles in your lungs,because you're less ill if you do catch it, so you're less likely to spread it. But they don't appear to stop vaccinated people spreading it, only reduce the chances.
From the figures I'd seen what I guess this means is (takes back of envelope and starts scribbling) - if we vaccinated 100% of the population people would be less than half as likely to get infected. But on average maybe the delta variant infects 3-4 people ish. So that would reduce that transmission to 1.5-2 people. Add in that the vaccine probably makes you a bit less infectious, and that could reduce it to maybe spreading to 1-2 people. Add in that we're still social distancing, and some people are wearing masks, and not everyone is yet willing to go to pubs or restaurants, and we've got the transmission rate in this country down to about 0.9-1.2. But then we're not yet fully vaccinated. And probably won't vaccinate most under 16s, because it's probably not worth it - they're at such a low risk from Covid that it's not considered worth the risk of vaccinating them. In general I believe that vaccines are actually held to higher safety standards than other medicines, because you give them to lots of people, who aren't ill yet.
If all the above is true (and I've been reading quite a bit but I'm not remotely qualified) that would mean that the best policy is still to vaccinate the vulnerable first. And as many people as we can later. Until we can get a vaccine that also gives sterilising immunity (if that's possible) - at which point herd immunity becomes a thing.
In the US and the UK vaccinations were aimed at getting voters support. Certainly vaccinating older people was a good start but forbidding vaccination for youngsters was just dumb - but they weren't going to vote so their vaccinations didn't matter. Vaccinating "age groups" was stupid, it would have been much more effective to vaccinate people who were likely to catch and spread the disease.
Version 1.0,
You are incorrect. In the US vaccination policy was less clear, as states had a lot of influence on policy themselves. It was not therefore universal, and I’ve read that it was much more of a mixed bag, as to whether vaccination was done by age.
Secondly, you are also wrong, because it was not known if the vaccines worked to stop the spread of the disease. So called sterilising immunity. The trials could only test for safety and effectiveness. Therefore vaccinating people to stop the spread might not actually work. Nobody could have known when policy was designed. Sadly, that has turned out to be the case - so the immunising those out and about a lot would have failed, and caused thousands of extra deaths had we done it. Vaccinating healthcare workers was done because they were at high risk AND were needed doing their jobs and not being ill.
Thirdly, you are specifically wrong about the UK. Because the government didn’t choose its vaccine strategy. That was done by a long-established independent body called the JCVI. Which does all UK vaccine policy work. The government could of course have rejected their recommendations, but didn’t. They decided correctly on the controversial idea of delayed second dosing and on the 9 initial risk categories and their order.
Not only that, but the government took on awful lot of flack on both policies. Particularly the delayed dosing one, which the main doctors trade union publicly opposed - as did many governments. Including some EU ones, who did so loudly and wrongly. Had they and the US followed the UK delayed dosing strategy, it would have saved at least a hundred thousand lives.
There was also pressure from Labour and the unions to prioritise teachers and key workers, rather than work by age. So doing it the way they did had political risks.
El Reg / Thomas,
Any reason you used the world in data site, and not the WHO?
They have:
Globally, as of 6:39pm CEST, 11 August 2021, there have been 203,944,144 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 4,312,902 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 11 August 2021, a total of 4,394,596,684 vaccine doses have been administered.
which seems pretty consistent with the our world in data figures, to be fair.
Just wondering, really.
"Any reason you used the world in data site, and not the WHO?"
Our world in data do a really good of job of clearly presenting information - something that a time-pressed journalist would appreciate I imagine. They also do a lot of fact checking on it.
As for their source? For vaccine data they cite either the actual country's official data (which will also be going to the WHO, so same data) or for some nations they cite ... the WHO. So it's basically data from the same sources.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations#source-information-country-by-country
Several studies have already come out that a booster doesn't increase immunity in the fully vaccinated, except in the immunocompromised. That's more of a "we must do something, and this is something" knee-jerk response by politicians and the public, as comforting as it is to think that each booster actually boosts immunity.
It will take a whole new "Mark II" series of vaccines to actually keep ahead of variants, though the current ones are far, far better than nothing despite that.
Several studies have already come out that a booster doesn't increase immunity in the fully vaccinated, except in the immunocompromised. That's more of a "we must do something, and this is something" knee-jerk response by politicians
I don't think that's a fair criticism.
Firstly, we can't know this. The vaccines haven't been tested for longevity, so we don't know if/when the immunity will start to wear off and if people will need boosters.
Secondly we're also seeing studies that suggest that giving people more than one type of vaccine improves immunity. So giving a booster of a different vaccine type to what they already had, is likely to give some increased immunity. And we know that older people get less immunity from the vaccines than younger. So giviing boosters to the nine most vulnerable groups, as the UK is planning to do this Autumn makes sense. Particularly as we've spent loads of money on vaccines that are only just starting to be produced now, so more vaccine supplies are coming on stream all the time.
The British government were always planning to do this. They were placing orders for vaccines to be delivered in late 2021 / early 2022 in Summer last year, as well as orders for the end of 2021 and into early 2021. There are also provisional orders for vaccines as yet to be designed, if they need to deal wtih a variant that escapes the vaccines. Plus they've been trialling use of different vaccines in peple since the beginning of this year. So it's always a bit of the program that could be cancelled - and the vaccines donated to other countries - but with variants still being a problem it seems pretty sensible to carry on with the plan.
There are currently several studies on the go to see whether boosters of vaccines made for different variants (primarily beta and delta) help improve immunity coverage in those who were vaccinated early in the year (or even last year). There was an early study that showed that older people (70+ I believe) benefit from a booster, but those younger we don't know yet.
Also, variants are only a problem because of the glaring vaccine inequity. If you can vaccinate a huge portion of the world's population (even if it's just one shot to start with), you reduce the chances of variants developing that spread faster and evade immune systems better. Immunologists have pointed out that the variants of concern came from countries where vaccination was far and inbetween (India, South Africa) and they spread to countries with higher (but still not high) vaccination rates.
While it's a government's prerogative to ensure that its own population is safe, that safety means nothing when some of its population travels to countries with less vaccine coverage, possibly is in contact with variants that have evolved there (again, immunologists point out that if they wanted to cause rapid mutation in viruses, they'd start in a partially vaccinated population pool), and brings them back, and thus, governments of the first world should prioritise getting vaccines to the developing countries or countries where the virus is still very much wreaking havoc, whilst maintaining basic safeguards like masking up, socially distancing, and continuing to exercise caution.
Unfortunately, the whole anti-vaxxing movement is a big threat to actually achieving the goal of suppression (and herd immunity), as is playing politics with vaccines (I'm looking at the EU ministers who played AstraZeneca down as being unsafe, despite it still being better than nothing, and actually was aimed at countries who cannot afford the super-cold freezers required by Pfizer and Moderna, and also cannot really afford to pay the high prices for those mRNA vaccines).
"Several studies have already come out that a booster doesn't increase immunity in the fully vaccinated, except in the immunocompromised."
I can't comment on the studies you mention, but it does make sense about the immunocompromised.
As for a Mark II series of Covid vaccines, there have been discussions about that. Some even looking forward to treating Covid as we do the regular annual influenza virus shots. However the current Mark I series still seems to work with the identified variants.
I had chemotherapy for lymphoma 4 years ago.
I saw my haematologist last week.
I was surprised when she said that my vaccination would be less effective than normal as the chemotherapy targetted C and T cells, thus reducing their ability to respond to a vaccine.
She recommended having as many booster shots as possible before travelling overseas.
I live in a virtually covid-free jurisdiction whose economy is humming along without any big problems - a 4 day lockdown for a single community case had over 95% compliance with masks, QR code checkins and social distancing. The invisibly few anti-vaxxers are considered dangerous, selfish, anti-social crackpots.
"So the bulk of the world's population is still maximally exposed"
And will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Even without a considerable amount of people opting to not vaccinate themselves, the simple logistics of producing enough vaccines for around 6 billion+ people * is simply beyond the realms of current production / distribution / delivery facilities. Beyond the logistics there's also the economics, with the world's poorest (and most populous) countries still unable to secure much in the way of supplies.
That's even not taking into account that the vaccine is not kown / thought to be effective beyond a few months**, and so in a few months every person already vaccinated might need to have it again. Given that it won't be a couple-of-shots-for-life as many other vaccines, and more of a sasonal one like the influenza vaccine means that it's a pipe dream to think that anywhere close to a bulk of the world population will all be vaccinated at the same time.
According to me a more effective strategy is for people to get a better diet, healthier lifestyle and lots of vitamins C and D to build up a strong imune system (which then helps protect against a whole bunch of physical and mental illnesses, not just covid).
* excluding the approx 1 billion young children and others who can't be vaccinated
**since they're less than a year old in 'production' environment, it's impossible to know for sure just yet
"98% survive"...
So, you're clearly happy with letting 2% of the world population die.
Then, you didn't mention "Long COVID", the people left with long term disabilities.
Then, you're assuming that 98% figure will continue to hold. Look at India for what happens if the healthcare systems get overwhelmed, people who should survive die due to lack of treatment.
Also note that having COVID may not give you long term protection against getting COVID again. Especially with variants developing. So more people may die or become disabled the second time they get it.
Two percent death rate - that’s where several years of studying mathematics kick in and tell me this is something I want to avoid.
And if you look at the long term, if you are twenty now and we don’t get herd immunity then you will get a dozen or two infections until you are fifty, and heaven knows how that will affect your body. Plus 2% chance of death _each time_.
How do you think the Delta variant was created? Most likely a small mutation in some infected people that turned out to spread a little better. It's likely that someone,or some animal, surviving an SARS infection when they had a Flu infection created the original COVID-19 virus variant which then evolved over time to become very infectious.
98%+ with low to severe reduction of life quality, sure. I know too many people with Long Covid, and there's enough medical information on the damage caused by an unchecked Covid infection.
But hey... sure... don't get vaccinated. Instead deal with scarred lungs, scarred heart and possibly a much shorter lifespan than before Covid. No biggie.
"Instead deal with scarred lungs, scarred heart and possibly a much shorter lifespan than before Covid."
Not to put too much into it, but I've had Covid twice and don't have any of those things. Well, other than a pot-belly from a year of WFH and cheesecake, which may shorten my lifespan. My wife had it twice too, and she's fine. Same for her Dad, my sister, her sister and brother-in-law, and our two oldest kids (in their 20's). All fine after having Covid. One of her Uncles passed away from it, but he was old, grossly overweight, and already medically fragile even before Covid started.
It isn't a death-sentence for most of the folks that I know that have had it, although, I admit, my sample size is small.
Sounds like your family have been very unlucky or were not taking the recommended precautions. I'm happy you were mostly all in the lucky group of apparently not only getting through it but also not having any after effects. It's sad that your wifes uncle died though. If he'd not caught it, despite his other health issues, he'd probably still be alive today.
We had it in the first wave last year, in late Feb/early March, before it became "a thing", when it was still "just another virus from SE Asia", and nobody was talking about quarantine yet. One of our kids is in the military, and came home for a week to visit. We figure he brought it in with him, although he never got sick from it. We think my wife brought it home again earlier this year - she's an elementary school teacher, and some of her kids tested positive at various times.
Maybe. We paid the misfortune part up-front when we got the virus in early 2020. Felt totally miserable for a week and a half, then felt like crap for another two weeks, just lying on the couch counting the minutes until we felt better. But eventually we did get over it. The second time wasn't nearly as bad and only lasted about a week.
"There is only one way to do this for a virus your body never met, it is called vaccination"
No, you are completely wrong there. The immune system has 2 distinct parts (OK, oversimplified) -
1 - recognises as threats any new / unknown bugs, and fights them off with quick-response 'light infantry', while building targeting systems to be able to target the invader with heavy artillery
2(a) - recognises previously encountered known bugs
2(b)- quickly and easily fight off previously encountered known bugs by being able to immediately deploy the 'big guns'.
2(a) can be achieved through previously having fought off the same bug, not only from vaccination.
However vaccination (or even previous infection) just helps your body recognise and mobilise. If the whole of your immune system is generally weak, vaccination will not make it stronger. (as an analogy, vaccination or previous infection allows you to specifically target invaders with heavy weaponry without leaving much side-effects on your body, but does nothing for your ability to produce the heavy weaponry to fight off known targets, nor on your ability to produce 'light infantry' to deal with new unknown targets)
It's well known that sedentary lifestyle, modern western diet, many forms of pollution / toxic materials etc can depress the effectiveness of the immune system, while people who exercise regularly, sleep well and eat healtily have a strong immune system.
Relying on vaccination to have a strong immune system is like having an army relying on scouts and spy satellites - very useful to have but not much use on their own if you don't have the arsenal to back it up.
the simple logistics of producing enough vaccines for around 6 billion+ people * is simply beyond the realms of current production / distribution / delivery facilities.
You're simply wrong about this.
AstraZenecca are on course to produce about 2 billion doses in 2021 alone. That's despite production difficulties, which means they'll be able to do more next year. Pfizer and Sinovac aren't that far behind, and there's even more vaccines and even more production coming on stream all the time.
Quickly checks data:
Total Global vaccines administered for the last few months this year
Apr - 538m
May - 810m
Jun - 1.14bn
Jul - 1.06bn
Aug - 400m - that's up to yesterday (11th) - so we're on course to beat Jun/Jul - and you'll note we doubled the number of vaccines administered globally in just 3 months from lots to fuckloads. At this rate the entire global population will have both doses by the end of the year. I'm sure the rate will slow down, but it won't be vaccine production or distribution that stops it. Just the final logistics of administration, which the WHO and most developing countries are actually pretty good at by now - global vaccination has been a success story over the last 20 years. And given all the new manufacturing we're creating, and the new technology for rapidly creating vaccines I still personally believe that more lives will be saved by the massive increase in production and design speed of vaccines than have been lost to Covid. Given that a couple of malaria vaccines are in testing this year, and look to work.
So you are deliberately ignoring the point about "distribution / delivery facilities"?
Nope. I'm most definitely not. Global vaccine delivery is a mostly solved problem. In general, people (and politicians and senior NGO bods too) completely underestimate how much the developing world has developed in the last twenty years. See the awesome late, lamented Hans Rosling (of Gapminder fame) on this - where he'd test people about how much the world had developed and then show them how out of date their ideas are, and how much richer and better the world has become in the last few decades. Globalisation has been the most awesome development in human history - in terms of saving lives, givng people opportunities, lifting people out of poverty improving global education and healthcare - and all at the minor cost of having contributed to wage stagnation (not even falls) in some of the richer economies for about a ten year period.
The WHO, GAVI, CEPI and many others have made great strides in the last few years. Global vaccine use has shot up, the awesome Serum Institute of India has been banging out cheap doses of vaccines for the world. Bill Gates has been banging on about it - the British government should get to blow it's own trumpet here - having been the biggest (and most consistent) funder for twenty years - these organisations played a large part in developing the Covid vaccines too. And particularly Covax - which is now getting the doses out globally, after a sadly slow start.
To my downvoters, I got it wrong in the post above. AstraZenecca are actually expecting to bang out 3 billion doses this year, not 2. Of which the Serum Institue of India will do about half.
Pfizer/BioNtech didn't stop working once they got their vaccine going. About 2 months ago they announced that after further testing it can actually be stored at fridge temperatures for up to a month, so as soon as they're willing to sell it cheap to the developing world, that'll be going out as well. And seeing as they're going to be making a few hundred million doses a month, that day won't be far off.
So sure, if you're in Yemen or Afghanistan, or some other warzone, you're probably not going to get vaccinated unless you're in a UN refugee camp. Sadly vaccination is a problem in Pakistan too. But in most of Africa, there are well developed vaccination programs. Global DPT (whooping cough, tetanus and diptheria) vaccination is at about 90%, TB at 88%, Polio 86% and measles 85%. See data here
Finally I finish with a link to Hans Rosling, if you've got 17 minutesYoutube of talk to GAVI". If not, start at about ten minutes in where he's talking about what people don't know about current trends in the world and moves on to vaccines.
Production shortfalls are only a problem because a) patents (primarily the costs of which, which is why there's a push for a WTO TRIPS waiver) and b) lack of agreements signed early with vaccine labs and facilities elsewhere in the world. Only AZ signed an agreement (with the Serum Institute of India) early on to expand capacity. Pfizer didn't until recently (with a company in South Africa). Moderna and J&J (Janssen) haven't either.
African countries *could* have been ahead of the curve if Pfizer & Moderna and AstraZeneca had also signed agreements with the Pasteur Institutes in West and North Africa, along with the vaccine manufacturers in Kenya and South Africa. But there we are. Instead the EU plays politics over the TRIPS waiver, China is making hay while the sun shines (they ramped up quickly and are providing Sinovac to God knows how many African countries and South East Asia), and we're having to wait and see what transpires.
That is untrue. The three vaccines that got to market first in the West were all using new processes that hadn’t been deployed at scale before. All were also short of precursor materials, and there were only limited production facilities that could make them. Oxford / AZ (and Sputnik) use a viral vector, and Moderna and Pfizer/BionTech use mRNA.
China’s two, SinoVac and SinoCam are the older tried and tested inactivated virus type that are what global manufacturers are more used to. Though they look to have been a lot less effective.
The mRNAs concentrated manufacturing in Europe and the US, because that’s where the facilities to do it existed. Even there though, as we didn’t know what would get approval, many factories were initially set up to make vaccines that didn’t make the cut. The downside of the policy of buying before knowing what worked. That meant we got less of some vaccines initially rather than risking getting none.
AstraZenecca though committed to global manufacturing, at scale, in multiple locations. And with separate and robust supply chains. Also, at cost price. I can’t find a list, but they say they’re making it in 15 countries. I know that’s Belgium, UK, Germany, Netherlands, USA, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, South Africa, plus the biggie, India. I think also Canada and Mexico, but can’t find the other two.
Sorry, but the Oxford process scales up extremely well (but you're right about the precursor products being a bit scarcer on the ground). Pfizer (BioNTech) and Moderna both have patented their tech and insist on patent licencing before signing agreements. In particular, the EU is resisting the TRIPS waiver because Germany feels it would negatively impact its strong pharma sector (especially BioNTech because they were the ones who worked on mRNA vaccine technology the longest) for future vaccines and medications. The waiver is due to be discussed on 14 September.
When AZ gets the Pasteur Institutes in Africa involved, it'll be a huge step forward, but as I said in previous replies, the EU actively undermined AZ and the work that went into the vaccines, and the goal of AZ to get it to as many people as possible for as cheaply as possible (the goal of the Oxford Vaccine Group and the Jenner Institute) because AZ executed the 'best efforts' clause in its contract with the EU which the EU didn't like (and got stroppy over until the courts gave both the commission and AZ a slap and told them to behave like grownups).
"booster doses" of different vaccines from those first provided are being considered for those already vaccinated, essentially in order to keep ahead of mutations.
Not really. Boosters are being considered for vulnerable groups including the elderly, where it is known that the immune response deteriorates more rapidly over time (immune dementia). We simply do not have any data over the long term protection, though work last year suggests that T-cell protection lasts much longer than antibodies, but there is little evidence, thus far, of mutations able to completely overcome vaccination or antibody protection.
The moral aspects may be debatable but goverments are first and foremost responsible to their electorates.
So the bulk of the world's population is still maximally exposed.
Not necessarily. Because you know, immune systems were a thing before vaccines were invented. A large proportion of people (often more than half, and certainly more than got the vaccine in many places) have by now already been exposed to Covid-19 and developed immunity naturally. Why is this constantly ignored in these discussions?
"Italy. Spain. New York. India. Florida"
I don't know in detail about all of them, but I do know in many cases it was policy mistakes. For example in Italy a huge number of deaths came from decisions to try to isolate elderly covid patients in care homes, resulting in patients with high viral load sharing spaces with many other older and much more susceptible people. I believe Spain was similair. (by the way, not pointing fingers here, in the first months when very little was known, health authorities were doing what they could with what they had and knew at the time)
The OP's point is right that generally speaking healthy people's immune system is what protected them, but unfortunately many people don't have a strong immune system (not only deteriorates with age but also modern western diet / lifestyle)
Any word from the for-profit company Telegram on whether they are going to take any action on this? Or are they going to keep profiting from something so obviously fraudulent and damaging? Oh well, it's all clicks and ad views isn't it?
Telegram seems to have become the media's favourite whipping boy for this kind of thing, presumably because it supports large groups so well. But it's more than a little naive to think there aren't similar groups on WhatsApp, Facebook, Line, etc.
FWIW Telegram does have a policy of closing groups, though this has so far generally been limited to islamic terrorism and paedophiles. Given that many pro-democracy groups in countries like Russia use it, you can see why it's a little resistant to requests to shut things down.
I'm sure that while they would absolutely like to be arresting everyone handing them out, if most of them are coming in nondescript anonymous envelopes (especially from overseas), they're not very detectable. It's not like you can train a drug dog to alert on a piece of paper, either.
So they can mostly only shutdown storefronts (the same whackamole we know all too well from torrent sites) and arrest the blithering idiots who actually use their real name and connections.
For sure, they're definitely ramping up for that. There's practically nowhere here that actually requires the cards yet, so it's almost more of a feel-good thing for now (and the state's already adopted digital vax ID, so they might turn out to be entirely moot soon). If requirements get stricter, expect more fakers to get busted.
The other half is that a lot of police agencies have anti-vaxxers and sympathizers on the force, too, so you could end up with a lot of winks and nods and "not my job" when they get called to get someone with a fake card.
Folks, you really should read something other than the mainstream media. There is reams of information abut Covid and the mis-representation of facts by *all* sides.
It has become nothing more than a political tool and the person who invented the tests has publicly declared on many occasions the test cannot accurately detect Covid in over 75% of cases.
PLEASE fact check before jumping to conclusions about right or wrong - vaxxed or not, this is not a clear cut debate and driven in many cases by greed and ideology...
Hi Tosh. One of the facts I've just checked is your posting history. Joined today and this is your only post. On a debate, to use your words "driven in many cases by greed and ideology."
Another fact is your lack of supporting evidence for your claim that "the person who invented the tests has publicly declared on many occasions the test cannot accurately detect Covid in over 75% of cases." It would bolster your argument if you were to, say, post a link to somewhere where this inventor does this. Yet (to reiterate) this fact is missing from your post.
Facts checked, I am now safe to jump to the obvious conclusion that your post is, to repeat your words "driven... by greed and ideology."
Facts checked, I am now safe to jump to the obvious conclusion that your post is, to repeat your words "driven... by greed and ideology."
Ah, facts still ain't what they used to be. Neither are conclusions drawn from irrelevant facts. But that's how propaganada spreads faster than a virus can, ie when the 'fact checkers' can't fact.
But such is politics. Or even science.. So-
https://westphaliantimes.com/international-experts-suggest-that-up-to-90-of-canadian-covid-cases-could-be-false-positives/
On August 29th, Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times published a story entitled: “Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be.” Mandavilli interviewed prominent virologists about the current PCR testing performed in the United States. She reported that in many parts of the US cycle thresholds for the test are set very high, often as high as 40 cycles. Many prominent experts think this is too high.
I picked the WT article simply because it was the first reliable-ish source I could find that wasn't paywalled like the NYT article is. But it names names, some from the NYT and those names can be checked for potential level of cluefulness. Other facts are easy to check, ie the 'inventor'(s) of PCR testing won a Nobel Prize for their work, but they're also both dead.
But in these post-normal times, there are other easy ways to check facts. So bimble over to wiki, stick 'PCR Test' in the search bar, and land on this page-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing#Reverse_transcription_polymerase_chain_reaction_test
without even the courtesy of a redirection notification. Curious why Wiki's hijacked PCR Test for Covid exclusivity, but then Wiki's always been curious on sensitive subjects. But it's a reliable source, just like Snopes, Politifact and that self-selected circle of jerks.
Meanwhile, back in the real-world, you can still click on wiki's PCR link, and find your way here-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction#Limitations
Where it alludes to the Ct issue, but doesn't mention the Ct. Luckily the WT article has some quotes from people that do, and almost certainly have a better understanding of the issues than wiki's guardians of truthiness-
PCR positive for #COVID19 does not mean you are infectious
It means you have virus RNA
Like DNA left at a crime scene, it doesn’t mean the virus is still there
Which is a good analogy given that since the invention of PCR testing and DNA/RNA analysis, it's been used in forensics and the sensitivity arguments (along with FMR/FRR) have been argued over by expert witnesses for a long time.
But this is also the crux of the biggest 'fake fact', ie the fixation on 'cases' based on PCR tests. Run Ct >30 and you will find virus RNA, especially as a pandemic progresses.. But it's largely meaningless. Run PCR until there's a detection, look at the cycles taken to find a positive, and you'd get an indication of potential viral load. So positive on a low Ct, more virus, more likely there's an active infection.. At the point in time the swab was taken.
But again, such is politics. If you want to amplify the FUD along with Ct, gloss over the shortcomings and just keep watching say, the Bbc's meaningless test match results. But the Bbc isn't a reliable source, so check this instead-
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html
If SARS-CoV-2 sequencing will not be performed locally and a specimen is available, the state public health laboratory should request the residual clinical respiratory specimen for subsequent shipping to CDC.
For cases with a known RT-PCR cycle threshold (Ct) value, submit only specimens with Ct value ≤28 to CDC for sequencing.
If the Ct value is not known (e.g., positive by antigen test only or by a molecular test that does not provide a Ct value), the positive specimen may still be submitted to CDC for RT-PCR and potential sequencing.
Because the CDC is a reliable source.. isn't it? Even if it just had to correct it's results for Florida..
Not a bad idea to research but think carefully about the quality of the sources. Mainstream media certainly have biases but so does every source. Scepticism needs to be applied to both mainstream and alternative sources, and the bar should be higher for unknown or non-expert sources.
It is worth finding out which statistics and claims have been validated by independent experts, and which are the (interesting but not independently validated) calculations or research of one source.
Or having a poor understanding of risk (could be an effect of low general intelligence), or still thinking it's all a con (could be an effect of mental illness).
Or deluding yourself about the risk, because you're desperate to mingle with people to get some company, because no-one likes you on an individual basis but you can feed off the presence of strangers.
Enforcement is a problem not only on authentic vs fake certificates, it's a basic question as to what should be ebforced not just what it is practical to enforce.
In a space with controlled entry like a cinema, fun park or even workplace, surely a recent negative test is of the same value as a vaccination certificate. (and yes, it's possible to get fakes for both!!)
The contagion problem mostly comes from crowded public gatherings / public transport where it's not always feasible to check if everyone is vaccinated or tested. So you either have to take it on faith that people not wearing masks are either vaccinated or testing negative, or else just insist that everyone wears masks regardless.
The first will surely be abused, and the second is an imposition on healthy people and pushes the borders of civil liberties. Which is exactly what makes this a thorny issue - there is no easy answer that balances public health with civil liberties in a way everyone agrees with. Nor there is there a 'correct' answer (except that of course everyone thinks that their answer is the correct answer)
From what I hear in the US, verification will eventually be through electronic records, but there's currently no central database, as (perhaps due to the previous administration's...complete lack of competence) vaccinations are being coordinated by the states.
My doc has received electronic confirmation of my vaccination status, but the database updates are trickling in, as the various entities actually doing the jabs are reporting the data to a state database, which will then end up at the CDC, one assumes.
So the little card with the blue stickers on it is just a temporary confirmation of your status, which is perhaps why there is not much of an emphasis on detection of forgeries (although I did read of at least one seller of fake cards being nicked)
Or so I'm led to believe...mostly by rumor and observation
My record card has the CDC logo, stickers for each vaccination with lot, date, etc, and a barcoded sticker for my personal information (I was jabbed by a hospital and they were using their standard outpatient recordkeeping software...I asked), so, theoretically, at least, my card could be verified as genuine through them.
Why does the Federal government need to know whether or not I've had a vaccination? Does the Federal government currently track who has or hasn't had the annual flu shot? Or MMR? Or any of the other shots? No, they don't, and they shouldn't start now. It's none of their damn business.
Why does the federal government need to know if I'm qualified to fly this aeroplane ?
Does the Federal government keep track of who operates a lawn mower or a model railroad ?
No they don't - now get out of the way and let me and my fake uniform onto this 737
I would wager big money on all vaccines being held in a federal digital archive after this pandemic, once the COVID infrastructure is in place. And I have no problem with that, since the state run systems, if any, been an absolute hash that plenty of bad actors have been taking advantage of for decades now.
Central location to verify I'm vaccinated? But I really don't care that the feds have my name on a list of people who have been vaccinated.
Otherwise I could be flashing a fake card around and nobody would know
I'm pretty sure one of the things I signed when I got my vax said they could do this. You probably signed one, too.
I have a real Feral card. What strikes me is they look pretty easy to forge for a competent forger. They are nothing but thinnish cardboard stock with 1 logo and text. There is some writing (patient info, vaccine, lot no, date, location) which only has to be faked. There are no real security protection.
Here in the NL, we have a QR code.
When the nightclubs were briefly opened in June, (before the majority of 20 somethings had started getting their vaccines) people were just screenshotting their QR code from their phone and sharing it with their friends.
Understandably, cases started rising almost immediately, and the nightclubs were closed just 2 weeks after opening.
Luckily, cases started dropping again 3 weeks or so after the restrictions were reintroduced.
" people were just screenshotting their QR code from their phone and sharing it..."
WTF? How the heck can that work?!? Surely it should have some additional factor of identity check with it? In the UK as I understand it, the vaccine QR codes can be scanned and they link to a UK GOV website that confirms the code as genuine. Surely it should also have the person's name with it?
*Recognising that any statement starting with " surely it should..." usually means "it doesn't..."
You think the bouncer on the door of the nightclub does anything more than check that they have a QR code? It was literally the same week that QR codes were made available, and they didn't have any means of scanning them.
The Dutch are famed for being pragmatic. They assumed (wrongly) people would just follow the rules
So, I just checked and according to coronacheck.nl, when someone scans your qr code, as well as the vaccination status, they also see enough personal details to do an on the spot id check. So if people in the Netherlands were successfully copying their codes for others to use, and that was working, then it's the inspectors not doing their job.
As so often, security undone by human error/laziness/genius etc.
>WTF? How the heck can that work?!? Surely it should have some additional factor of identity check with it?
Well weed is legal and you can drink beer in public in the NL, so obviously they are godless commies so I assume the government forces them all to have QR codes on their foreheads
That is where the civil liberties issue comes in. There is a very reasonable case that the doorman needs to know the individual in front of them has been vaccinated. However, there is no case that they (or the government) should know the identity of the person standing in front of them. That is the problem that needs to be solved.
Note: for international travel the situation is different - international travel requires proof of identity and always has. But travel, and use of various services, within the country must not require proof of identity or else we lose crucial liberties we have fought for many times.
Privacy: The person using the QR code is standing right in front of you. You can see them. So the QR code producing a photo of the person is no privacy violation. The bouncer can see them anyway. I think my nhs app shows “only valid with id” so producing the information from your id is also not a privacy violation.
You can copy any QR code, and the copy will have the exact same information, and will look equally Valid.
What you’d need is a database that not only checks the QR code but also returns a picture, name and address of the person. Or an app for checking that sends the location, and if the same QR code is used in different locations then it’s blocked. So if you share your QR code it stops working for yourself. You can make and use one copy of your grandmas QR code as long as she stays at home and doesn’t use hers.
I ran my card past my scanner and made a copy. And printed it out and handed the copy to those who wanted a look at the card, while the card itself sat safe at home. Ten minutes with the bit map editor of your choice and you could have your very own fake card. (20 minutes, if it’s The Gimp. Budget 10 minutes for the thing to load.)
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. The one I got was a blank CDC card with two laser-printed labels put on it by the pharmacy where I got the shots. Nothing hand written, all printed, and no signatures anywhere. No tracking/ID/record numbers either, just my name, DOB, the vaccine maker, the vial number, the pharmacy name, and the date. Seems that would be super easy for any half-competent antti-vaxxers to forge, and for a lot less than $100.
I suspect there's a negative correlation between being an anti-vaxxer and being even half competent.
Ah, well, now here's a thing-
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v1.full.pdf
The association between hesitancy and education level followed a U-shaped curve with the lowest hesitancy among those with a master’s degree (RR=0.75 [95% CI 0.72-0.78] and the highest hesitancy among those with a PhD (RR=2.16 [95%CI 2.05-2.28]) or ≤ high school education( RR=1.88 [95%CI 1.83-1.93]) versus a bachelor’s degree.
Paper also surveyed Red vs Blue, and ethnicity. But a bit awkward, if true, for those attempting to stereotype 'anti-vaxxers' as stupid. I saw a previous survey (or maybe a previous version) that showed hesitancy was highest in the most and least educated.
But such is politics. The herd can simply here "We're from the government, and we're hear to help" and present their arms for injection. Wondering why being injected with an expermental FOAK mRNA virus is a good idea might take a bit more research into things like ADE risks.
And then of course there's prior history, like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study that might also increase hesitancy..
Not only that, "cases" nowadays are usually PRC test positive results, not actual medical diagnoses. The same PRC test that cannot distinguish between any number of respiratory diseases and will be retired from use in the United States at the end of this year after providing several more months of nearly meaningless statistics.
"PRC test that cannot distinguish between any number of respiratory diseases"
PRC tests are only useful if correctly used, but not because they cannot distinguish between diseases - in fact a positive PCR test for covid is based on covid RNA and can only detect covid*. The problem is that each cycle the test is run at doubles any fragments of covid RNA, so the sensitivits increases exponentially with the number of cycles run. So a PCR test run on 42 cycles is 128 (2^7) times more sensitive than one run for 35 cycles (depending on the exact test, the recommended cycle count is 33-35). Wheneve a test is run, it isn't declared how many cycles were needed to detect.
Many countries and test centres were running tests at 40+ cycles, and thus giving positive tests to people whose exposure to covid-19 was so tiny that they could not possibly be infected or contagious, or who had pervioulsy had covid-19 and were now healed (again with 0 chance of contagion) but still had stray bits of busted covid RNA in their bloodstream etc. Many countries, even now, either refuse to say what cycle count they are using or give contradictory answers.
So it is almost guaranteed that the official count of covid-19 cases exceeds the real amount (but it won't ever be possible to know exactly by how much without accurate data on cycle counts used for the tests). Equally, it is almost guaranteed that the official death count from covid-19 is overestimated since many people who died *with* covid but not *of* covid, or with flu-like symptons without a covid test, are being counted as covid deaths (although this probably varies significantly by country).
A better measure, and indeed the only measure that can have any significance without political / beaureaucratic interference, is excess deaths, since deaths are the only thing there's good enough staistics for, also historically, and because the 'test' is absolutely unequivocal. Even then, many excess deaths could be due to lockdown-derived physical and mental health issues, or lockdown-related lack of other medical treatments.
*OK, strictly not the full covid-19 genetic material but a subset that should still be enough to identify covid-19 as distinct from, say, influenza or some other cold-causing coronavirus
Many countries and test centres were running tests at 40+ cycles, and thus giving positive tests to people whose exposure to covid-19 was so tiny that they could not possibly be infected or contagious, or who had pervioulsy had covid-19 and were now healed (again with 0 chance of contagion) but still had stray bits of busted covid RNA in their bloodstream etc.
Or are at the start of their infection, which is why its actually done like that, since they are the most important cases to catch.
"Or are at the start of their infection, which is why its actually done like that"
Absolutely, and I am not contesting that point - what I am saying is that the stats don't (and can't) distinguish between
- a 40-cycle positive where the disease was in the beginning and will develop into a full-fledged case including contagiousness
- a 40-cycle positive where the disease was in the beginning but the person's immune system naturally fought it off and suppressed it without ever becoming contagious
- a 40-cycle positive that was historical ie the body has already handled it
All those cases show up as the same, so the case statistics, while still useful, need to be treated with caution
"The same PRC test that cannot distinguish between any number of respiratory diseases and will be retired from use in the United States at the end of this year after providing several more months of nearly meaningless statistics."
You fell for the RWNJ mis-information. To be fair(ish), CDC didn't provide a layman's announcement to go with the medical one, but still, this is something you could have looked up.
Julian Sanchez (from that lefty organization The Cato Institute) tweeted it very well:
"The PCR test, of course, does NOT confuse COVID with flu. CDC was saying: 'There are now better tests that can tell you if you have COVID, but ALSO tell you if instead you have the flu. They can diagnose more than one thing. Use those instead.'"
Knows all about the quality of a test but not how to spell it. Colour me quizzical. People's Republic of China? Prudential Regulation Committee?
I'd recommend not doing your "research" on Facebook
This post has been deleted by its author
"There seems a fascination with cases when its the deaths/hospitalised count that really matters."
True, but case numbers are the early indicator of hospitalisations, which in turn are the early indicator of deaths. Now that the vaccines are working in the general public, the strength of that early indication has reduced, but we still focus on cases because as of now, it's still the only early indicator we have.
Hmm>>> There seems a fascination with cases when its the deaths/hospitalised count that really matters. Not shocked there is a market for this if people are forced to have one. It shows the strength of distrust in the situation, leaders and response.
Is this a really bad attempt at an haiku?
Not haiku, but a bit more help from our state organ-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58186708
A record number of people - more than 5.45 million - are waiting for NHS hospital treatment in England.
The June figures show a mixed picture - with the numbers waiting more than 18 weeks or a year both down, but a rise in those waiting more than two years.
Some of that may just be down to the way hospitals manage wait times. If you're having to wait a while, just cancel the person's appointment and tell them to try again later. The civil service has always been good at clock watching. And-
"We're also in the peak leave period and we've got very large numbers of people coming in for urgent and emergency care - and we've still got 5,000 Covid patients in hospital beds."
Ohnoes! That pesky 3rd Wave. But some handy stats here-
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/bed-availability-and-occupancy/bed-data-overnight/
So around 170,000 total beds available in the NHS. So around 3% occupied by Covid patients. Then it gets a bit more complicated regarding whether those 3% are actually sick with Covid, or just tested positive. I guess if Covid sticks around long enough, there'd probably be some mileage in creating dedicated centres like the good'ol TB hospitals. Would cost some money and need staffing, but hey, it's the NHS, where solutions are simple-
He said a long-term funding settlement was vital.
Throw money at the problem. Never mind efficiency, add cash, stat!
Usually I don't like ad-hominem attacks, but in this case I'll make an exception and guess your are the estereotypical 'murican for whom the concept of "social security" is utter child-eating communist propaganda: no other way to understand the comment.
The damned vaccine is not free. In my country the government bought it with the money it takes from me and from every worker each month. Then they decided to vaccinate everybody at no extra cost because they wagger it is cheaper than having saturated hospitals and additional deaths. That is social security.
Surely the best way to deal with this is to ensure all these fake cards are embedded with covid. Some will catch it, recover and have antibodies. Some will die, but fuck em, if they wanna put other lives at risk, they deserve a similar risk when trying to improve their chances of infecting others with fake cards.
Making people do the right thing for themselves and for others is practically impossible, as we have seen with trying to make people eat healthy, exercise and stop smoking and drinking. Yet, much like with a belligerent child who refuses to eat their veggies and vows to never, ever eat veggies, it's obvious that there are limits to what society can accept.
Part of living in a society is to accept certain rules, such as 'don't steal' and 'don't kill'. This makes willingly and knowingly risking death or injury to thousands of others at least akin to manslaughter. Vaccines, along with antibiotics, are what allows society to thrive in ways that were impossible before. This makes anti-vaxxers and especially folk like these who try to dodge the rules and thereby endanger even more people a very real threat to society's existence.
And the worst part? It's for their own good, as currently being demonstrated by many enthusiastic volunteers in ICUs in Florida, Texas and other US states.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C. S. Lewis
With all the technology at our disposal was a little card really the best we can do for "proof" of vaccination?
We need to be able to refer to an electronic record to verify if someone is vaccinated rather than trusting the card. Before people start whining about "HIPPA", that doesn't apply. Read the law, the only "covered entities" are healthcare providers, insurance companies, and their partners.
Time to crack down on the idiot antivaxers and make sure the vaccine mandates that are already here and will be coming in greater and greater numbers are true mandates, and not something they can dodge with a fake CDC card. If they want to refuse the vaccine and keep spreading covid, they can find themselves banned from most private businesses, unable to travel on airplanes or ships, unable to go to amusement parks, concerts or sporting events. With nothing to do except sit at home and congratulate each other on their "freedom" in antifax Facebook groups, they'll quit spreading covid out in public and the rest of us will be to get back to normal despite them.
Go to one of the big search engines and look up "MLS-319813". Then go to a search engine which does not filter results (like duckduckgo) and do the same. Very different results!
(MLS-319813 is the CDC form number for the record card).
Interesting result (Google shows some real estate listings, Duckduckgo shows PDFs), but I can see blocking it -- it's returning people putting up scans of their cards for purpose of forging copies of them. This is exactly the kind of thing Google blocking it is no problem.
Some government agency sets up to sell the cards and set the price lower than any one else so getting a lot of business.
Then instead of getting a card they get sent a letter explaining the law they broken and the fee they sent is the fine for breaking the law. (how legal this is I do not know)
They can also drive the price so low that no one can afford to compete with them and so in effect end the sale of them.
Brainwashed frightened sheep will bleat as expected ..
Anyway, at least in the US a very interesting legal challenge will be made on the legality of the FDA EUA due to the fact that the DSS lawyers did not do full due diligence for the Declaration of Emergency on February 7'th 2020. Not a good idea to only read the Summary and not the Bill as passed into law for an Amending Bill that the Sec of the DSS claimed gave him sweeping new legal powers. That's government lawyers for you. Cant be charged with forging a document for a unlawful medical procedure.
So when are we going to start getting offered safe attenuated virus vaccines like VLA2001 rather than the lab rat ones currently on offer. The ones that have been recorded as associated with more than 25,000 averse reaction deaths in the US and Europe so far. The majority of vaccine adverse reaction associated deaths in the last 30 years in the US happened in the last 9 months.I wonder what started 9 months ago..
And some of the commenters above really should learn the difference between WITH and FROM deaths and why a molecular test is only a valid proxy clinical test for active infection in high prevalence situations. Like differential diagnosis of early stage pneumonia. By the clinical diagnosis testing criteria used pre March 2020 about 90% of those "cases" quoted above disappear. Because its not a clinically valid screening test. Unless they check for the Positive strand. Which they dont. None of the assays do. So in other words, its a false positive random lottery.
Can you spell the word c-a-s-e-d-e-m-i-c.
Thank you for giving a good summary of all the anti-vaxxer nonsense. Just taking “thousands of deaths of vaccinated people”: In the UK, 45,000 people die every month. The huge majority of people dying are elderly. The huge majority of elderly are vaccinated. Therefore, the huge majority of deaths in the UK are vaccinated people. I estimate about 40,000 a month. And any of those deaths will be recorded by VAERS if they are told about it.
And on the VAERS website they tell you exactly what they are doing, and what conclusions you CANNOT draw from their data, and guess what anti-vaxxers do.
I'm not even debating at whether vaccination/pass are good or not.
Just saying, giving the current climate in many countries (Spain being a notable exception, since they still remember (that is a key word) the disaster that was Polio there, since they were late at vaccination in the 60s/70s), EVERYONE plus their dogs expect HEAVY traffic and usage of fake vaccination certs.
Right now, probably every police force/airport security staff is trained to track down (if possible, I don't even know if is) fake certs !
In France, a lady got one year (firm) in the locker for generating 200 fake such certs. At 200 E per cert.
Actually, come to think about it, this is already risky business, as of course, authorities have already guessed the move since long.
For easy money, probably safer to continue to scalp electronic gear ...
US is full of stupid assholes, far more than I ever expected, and I'm saying that living here. It's amazing how many people here are unwilling to wear a mask to avoid KILLING people; and a few won't get this vaccine because they believe ridiculous conspiracy theories (which is dangerously misinformed), but a large number simply don't care about anyone but themselves, think they won't get too sick so screw everyone else. If these assholes would just wear masks for 2 weeks, Covid would be gone! Selfish, self-centered, won't take a few minutes out of their day (and $0 cost) to save people's lives (by vaccine), and/or a couple bucks and 0 time to save people's lives (by wearing masks.)
First, I agree with those who thing forging Covid cards should have a penalty... not like years of prison, but some length of non-suspended, non-bailed-out jail time, and a hefty fine. These anti-vaccine people are effectively killing people because they are too selfish to get a vaccine and wear a mask, so fuck them for also buying and using forged vaccine cards, and those who make them. In the US, you DO get jail time for drunk driving, so getting it for something this dangerous, wreckless, and selfish, is totally justified.
Side note -- I have my proper vaccine card.. Why -- WWWHHHHYYYY --- did they make it like 110% credit card sized! It won't fit in my wallet. I live in Iowa, the governor's and anti-mask idiot, during the earlier mask requirements she made sure to point at every press release that businesses are expected to require masks, but it's unenforceable (... which of course is false, the local police can and did stand outside a Walmart and write up warnings and tickets for people trying to go in illegally without a mask). More recently this year she wasted time, money, and energy passing rules trying to ban localities from passing their own local mask mandates (of course, if she wants to falsely claim laws are unenforceable, that cuts both ways, so localities have flipped her the finger and passed them anyway.)
Not to rant... but these anti-mask assholes in the US keep falsely claiming they are libertarians. You are NOT a libertarian if you think you should be free to not wear a mask, but then turn around and say businesses should be prohibited from choosing to have their own mask requirements. That is not libertarianism, that is yourself being a selfish asshole and wanting to impose your selfishness on others.
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