NHS staff abused by people seeking second Covid jab early for holiday (England)

[Northerner]

Covid vaccinators are facing abuse, threats and aggression from people demanding their second jab early so they can go on holiday this summer, doctors have said.

In one incident, vaccination site staff were so concerned for their safety that they called the police, while some GP-led vaccination centres have had to hire security guards to protect them, the Guardian has learned.

Those involved appear to be “angry and frustrated” people who want to have their second Covid jab sooner than eight weeks after the first one – the official minimum gap – so they can go abroad.

One vaccination lead in the south-east of England said: “We’ve had a number of violent and aggressive incidents at sites, and even had to call the police, with people demanding their vaccine earlier than eight weeks.

NHS staff abused by people seeking second Covid jab early for holiday

Doctors say some vaccination centres have had to call police or hire security guards over safety fears

www.theguardian.com

This is presumably the 'common sense' that the government is expecting from the public

 

[grovesy]

I heard someone on a radio phone about this yesterday. Not totally suprised.

 

[Leadinglights]

Through this whole thing we have seen some of the best behaviour from people but also some of the worst. As for common sense ??????

 

[Sally71]

People who behave like that should instantly go to the back of the queue. And I mean right at the back, after all the 18 year olds have been done!

 

[Felinia]

Boris wants people to behave responsibly? On this evidence, no chance!

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Never understood this. If you get a vaccine that doesn't stop you catching the virus, stop you getting ill or stop you passing it on, then why would only those who are vaccinated be allowed to travel and spread the virus overseas?

If you're a tourist destination, who would you rather have, unvaccinated tourists (who've had recent negative tests), or fully vaccinated tourists who've had recent negative tests?

Doesn't seem like a hard choice. The vaccines aren't perfect (so they don't prevent infection, illness, transmission), but they're really good and do reduce those things.

Similarly, if you're the UK you'll want to be more careful about unvaccinated tourists who return from holiday than vaccinated ones, for the same reasons.

 

[Robin]

Never understood this. If you get a vaccine that doesn't stop you catching the virus, stop you getting ill or stop you passing it on, then why would only those who are vaccinated be allowed to travel and spread the virus overseas?

Most of the people I know or have heard of who have caught Covid after being double vaccinated have had mild doses, Certainly none have ended up in hospital. If you were the governor of a tourist destination, wouldn’t you rather have people who aren’t going to clog up your health system and hospitals if they catch covid while on holiday?

 

[Leadinglights]

To my mind it's not what happens when you are on holiday but the getting there and back with crowded airports and planes, more enclosed spaces would be hard to find.
It just makes people think it is all over when clearly it is not.

 

[Robin]

If I was the governor of another country's tourist board, I wouldn't want anybody bringing in the virus to my country, vaccinated or not and that's the strategy Australia have been operating

Australia is fortunate to have a strong enough economy to ride the storm. Countries who rely heavily on tourism and don’t have much else to generate any income are probably getting desperate.

 

[Robin]

I understand that they probably are desperate, due to all countries ditching their pandemic preparedness for the synchronised lockdowns, destruction of economies, healthcare systems, schools, businesses etc (advised against by WHO). But why is there a distinction being made to allow vaccinated to travel and not the un-vaccinated?

It seems to me that this "abuse of NHS staff" due to people wanting early vaccines just they can go on holiday is actually being created as a result of the government policy on insiting people are vaccinated to travel. Why?

From the point of view of the host country, in tourism, see my post #8 above.
For re-entry into your country of origin, I like the slices of Swiss Cheese analogy cited by @Eddy Edson. No one strategy on its own will contain all cases, they all have holes in them, but put them all together, and every one of them helps a little, until you’ve got a strong and impenetrable block of cheese.

 

[Eddy Edson]

From the point of view of the host country, in tourism, see my post #8 above.
For re-entry into your country of origin, I like the slices of Swiss Cheese analogy cited by @Eddy Edson. No one strategy on its own will contain all cases, they all have holes in them, but put them all together, and every one of them helps a little, until you’ve got a strong and impenetrable block of cheese.

Note the misinformation mouse 🙂

 

[Leadinglights]

Well it hasn't taken long for 8 athletes from the GB Olympic team to have to self isolate from contact on the flight to Japan as well as 3 positive cases in the village. How many more will there be?

 

[Bruce Stephens]

These layers of cheese will soon be removed come 19th July.

They're being removed as legal requirements, not in any other respect. And from the sounds of it the government would very much like everyone to keep following them (pretty much) .

 

[Robin]

Hi Robin,

You are not recognising my question. So let's makes this simpler.

These layers of cheese will soon be removed come 19th July. My question is about what is the scientific reason for allowing vaccinated people to travel (who can catch and spread the virus) but not the unvaccinated, based upon?

I am just trying to understand the logic.

But we aren’t removing all the cheese layers. Vaccination is one of them. So is continuing to wash our hands, and keeping the windows open, meeting outside etc, which we are still being asked to do. Vaccination may not be perfect, just like a slice of Swiss cheese, but it plays its part. You seem to be saying that there is no difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated people, because vaccination doesn’t stop you catching and spreading the virus. But it slows down the spread. There are holes in the cheese layer, ie those who do catch it and spread it, but a lot of people who are vaccinated don't catch and spread it. And far fewer of them end up in hopsital. I assume you aren’t saying that the vaccines are useless?

 

[Bruce Stephens]

It just appears that either way, vaccinated or not, people can still transmit the virus.

Can, but it's less likely. So yes, I think ideally we'd minimise travel. But given that we apparently want to allow some, it's logical to prefer vaccinated to unvaccinated people.

 

[pm133]

What misinformation are you talking about @Eddy Edson ?

It's a nice image to help the public understand what is going on but the problem in reality is that the holes in the cheese slices are far too small so that model gives an unrealistic picture.
According to Physicists, those holes should be about 500,000 times bigger than the particles trying to get through.

 

[Eddy Edson]

What misinformation are you talking about @Eddy Edson ?

I guess misinformation about the nature, effectiveness, risks of the various measures, and the nature and risks of the virus itself. So off the top of my head: masks are useless; "casedemic"; lockdowns worse than virus; "Great Reset"; vaccines may be riskier than virus; virus only attacks the old & infirm. A zillion others, I'm sure.