Not even an apology! – And I’m not referring to Boris Johnson’s statement on Sue Gray’s Report.
Boris did at least say the word “sorry”, even though it was an inadequate, half hearted “apology”. But Sajid Javid made no apology at all, when he made his statement in parliament announcing that the government was scrapping the policy of mandatory vaccines for NHS staff, and for staff in care homes and other care workers.
Around eighty thousand NHS staff would have been told, on February 3rd, that they would lose their jobs. Not for any wrongdoing or incompetence – many had an exemplary record over many years’ service – but just because they had declined to be vaccinated. Just for exercising their right to bodily autonomy, which had previously been accepted as a basic principle of medical ethics.
Around forty thousand care home staff had already been sacked, in November 2021. Care home managers were forced to sack excellent, much valued staff members, for no other reason than that they had made a decision not to be vaccinated. These care home staff found themselves without any income, just a few weeks before Christmas. Most of these people had been on very low incomes, and were unlikely to have much in the way of savings to fall back on.
Yet Sajid Javid made no apology to these staff. He openly refused to make one. He insisted that the policy had been the right one at the time, and that “the government makes no apology for it”. Showing complete lack of empathy, he insisted it was “their choice to leave their jobs”, because they could have stayed if they had been vaccinated.
I am aware that some readers will agree with Sajid Javid. Some of you will consider that care home and NHS staff had a duty to be vaccinated, and that if they did not, then they should be prepared to face the consequences. You may be thinking that it is easy enough to be vaccinated. But it is not as simple as that. It is obvious that if someone has not been vaccinated, even when the alternative is to lose a job that they love, to be without an income, without any way of supporting their family, then it is clearly not the case that they just couldn’t be bothered to make the trip to the vaccination centre. Some people have a real fear of vaccinations. Perhaps it is an irrational fear, but it is not any the less a real fear for being irrational. Think of your own irrational fear. Most people have one. Perhaps you are afraid of spiders, or of flying, or of lifts (for me, its lifts). Imagine if you were suddenly told that, for some reason, it was an essential requirement of your job that you should pick up a spider, or travel by air (or whatever your irrational fear may be). Imagine if, when you refused, you were shown no empathy, but told you were being selfish.
It is very clearly untrue to suggest that the unvaccinated staff were selfish, or that they did not care about vulnerable people. These are people who worked tirelessly and selflessly, throughout the pandemic, in very difficult circumstances. These are the people who the government encouraged us to clap for every Thursday.
Tim Farron recently spoke eloquently about this in Parliament (before the government’s U turn). Tim said the mandatory vaccine policy was “an insult to those people who have served us and kept us well, saved people’s lives and put themselves and their families in harm’s way over these two appalling years. Ministers clapped them and now they’ll sack them. And that is utterly wrong and ungrateful, above all else”.
Sajid Javid, in his statement, claimed that “throughout the pandemic, we’ve always put the safety of vulnerable people first, and we always will do.” But if the government really cared about the safety of vulnerable people they would never have introduced mandatory vaccines. In some care homes, the loss of staff has had a seriously detrimental impact on the care of the vulnerable residents. There have been horrifying reports of care home residents left in bed all day, and of visits being limited, as a direct result of the shortage of staff due to the mandatory vaccines policy. Yet Sajid Javid gave no apology to these vulnerable people.
The government must admit that this policy was never justified, and that it was morally wrong. They must apologise.
* Catherine Crosland is a member in Calderdale and joined the party in 2014
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41 Comments
Nor should there be an apology. So, now that the powers that be have chickened out, how about, the next time I need medical attention I insist on being treated by someone who has been fully vaccinated?
Currently my wife and I are both isolating having tested positive for COVID, caught, we reckon, from our infected and unvaccinated young grandchildren. The symptoms are not that bad so far (fingers crossed); but you wonder what they would been like had we refused our vaccinations.
Catherine, as ever, whether, as often on this issue, we disagree, I as ever, respect and like your feeling and concern.
On this you make good arguments. I do think that bodily autonomy is vital. But not always. In this case I am in the mostly, sceptical area. I am not convinced that the compulsion was necessarily, productive, when an approach that might have been better, would be one we might call, persuasive.
On many restrictions, I did not agree with the persuasive approach. Voluntary, needed to be compulsory, on some key aspects. Where I disagreed with those who support the voluntary way, is in thinking it so bad to be forced into, say, wearing a face covering in a shop or on transport, or, distancing in public, etc. To me, the critics were and are a rather moody, intolerant, namby pamby lot!
But vaccination is serious. People do get side effects. Fact. They do die from it in small numbers. Fact. There is a risk to it. Fact. But whether these are sufficient to mean that to not take it is better, no. People suffered, do, from the virus. To expect those in the medical profession to be vaccinated is the norm.
To force them to be is tricky.
Lorenzo, thank you for your comment. I feel that it is vital that we respect the right to bodily autonomy as a fundamental human right.
Before the pandemic, health professionals and care workers were always strongly advised to be vaccinated against flu. But many chose not to be vaccinated, for a number of reasons. It was always accepted that this must be their personal choice. It was very unusual to hear anyone say they would not want to be treated by a health professional who had not been vaccinated against flu. The pandemic does seem to have made some people far more judgmental about the personal choices of others.
As you say, there is always some risk, in any vaccination. The risk may be very small, but everyone has to make their own decision about what risk they consider acceptable. No-one should ever be put under pressure, through threats, to undergo a medical procedure that carries a risk, however small, of serious side effects or even death
@Catherine.
I know we have disagreed on this many times.
But I am just wondering then what your views are on healthcare workers who have to have been vaccinated against Hepatitis B and are screened for VARICELLA, and if no antibodies or proof of vaccination have to have one.
And Vaccination against MMR is mandatory unless they can provide documentary evidence of previous vaccination or immunity.
Mandatory Vaccination for health care professionals is not a new thing.
The public, especially the vulnerable have a right to expect that their health-worker / caregiver is fully vaccinated against a preventable disease.
I am also of the firm view that flu vaccines should be mandatory for health and social care staff, so it is not surprising that I held the same view for covid
Matt, thank you for your comment. No vaccine has ever previously been compulsory for care assistants working in care homes. You mention the Hepatitis B vaccine, which *is* compulsory for some health workers. But I think it should be mentioned that the situation with the Hepititis B vaccine is different from the mandatory covid vaccine, in a number of ways. The Hepititis vaccine is not a *legal* requirement for any health workers – ie the requirement has not been imposed by the government. Health trusts choose to require it if they wish, and it is true that all health trusts do seem to require it. But the requirement is a long standing one. Anyone choosing a medical career knows in advance it will be a requirement. No-one has suddenly been told, after years of practicing medicine, that they must be vaccinated against Hepititis B or lose their job.
You mention a requirement for the MMR vaccine. I had not heard of this before, and from quickly googling this just now, it looks as if the MMR vaccine is recommended, rather than being compulsory (but apologies if I am wrong).
@Catherine
I Imagine all NHS trusts are the same, MMR is most certainly mandatory for anyone working in midwifery as one would expect them to be.
As far as I am aware, Hepatitis B is also mandatory in certain aspects of NHS, Surgeons and Surgical staff.
As I said, mandated vaccines are not a new thing in health care settings.
I understand your beliefs in “bodily autonomy” and that is right and proper in “personal circumstances” as in, everybody has a right to chose or refuse “medical treatment or care”
However, that is not the same thing when we are talking about a requirement/mandate for immunisation in order to carry out a certain role in a medical / care field as far as I am concerned.
If I was a Lady undergoing an emergency Caesarean and had to have someone’s hands in my stomach, I would expect the Surgeon to be Immunised against Hep B and I would expect the Midwifery team to be immunised against MMR.
As far as I am aware that has been the rules for a long time in the UK and nobody has shouted about it.
But suddenly with covid and with the voices in the anti-vax movement, all of a sudden more and more people seem to believe mandatory vaccines for medical / health care staff is wrong…
I will always be of the firm view that if you work in the front line medical or social care, then there should be a moral and legal requirement for you to be vaccinated against infectious diseases and that includes flu and Covid.
Quite honestly, I am of the opinion that anyone who absolutely refuses ( unless there is a medical reason for them not being able to be vaccinated) should not be working in the field.
The flu vaccine, for example, is only 50% effective at the best of times for flu ( Some years worse) and can be deadly to many older and vulnerable people, and, we do indeed lose many thousands of people to flu each year.
Nobody working in a care home should ever think it is ok to not be vaccinated against flu or indeed turn up for work with flu as they can’t afford to go off sick and yet this does happen ( as I have been reliably told by family who works in the industry) and to my mind is disgraceful.
When you work in this field as far as I am concerned you have a social, moral, medical and professional obligation and a duty of care towards those you are caring for.
If that is not your ethics, then you really should be looking to other avenues as far as I am concerned and we need to make it a legal obligation
“When you work in this field as far as I am concerned you have a social, moral, medical and professional obligation and a duty of care towards those you are caring for”
Seconded
Let me see if I’ve got this correct. Catherine is arguing that the right to bodily autonomy must automatically trump the need to protect vulnerable patients and people in care homes. That cannot be a Liberal principle. If you don’t want to be vaccinated, fair enough, but don’t expect to work in health or social care. Why should the government apologise for one of the few things they got right? The mistake is the U-Turn.
Tricky indeed this issue.
I think I come down more with the responses to Catherine. But Catherine holds her own as ever.
I prefer it if we treat it as more important than the media or government are with regard to dealing with the virus.
Too much, “we’re coming out of the pandemic!”
Are we ?
@Lorenzo
“Too much, “we’re coming out of the pandemic!”
What worries me more Lorenzo is that lessons have not and will not have been learnt.
I worry for the next pandemic and there will be one, we can be sure about that, we just do not know when.
There are too many anti-vaxxers and anti-lock down types who believe that these measures were never needed in the first place and somehow feel vindicated in their views because of the number of breaches within the Government and the appalling behaviour of No10 and the PM.
Then we have the far-right Libertarian views in the Conservative Party who think they can get away with blackmailing a PM on ending all restrictions or they will submit a no-confidence vote ( which they appeared to have been successful at)…
Covid was bad enough and has taken thousands of lives early, left clinically vulnerable people feeling like 3rd class citizens and not as valued as “abled healthy citizens”
And has left thousands more with possibly lifelong debilitating complications from an infection. And apparently, covid is no worse than “flu”
With some sections of society putting Individual Liberty above Liberalism, it is a massive worry for what’s in store when the next one hits.
Well, I don’t see a problem with some jobs, particularly those in front line care (social and medical) having mandatory vaccine requirements. The only real issue is determining the right set of (long-term) vaccines and how new vaccines such as for CoViD19 are handled.
What is clear this Government has not handled matters well, with the announcement by Sajid being the icing on the cake; it seems he is now learning from Boris and not from his brother.
Matt, I can accept that there may be good reason to require certain vaccinations for certain types of work. You mention the Hepatitis B vaccine, which has been required for many years (although as I mentioned earlier, this is a requirement decided by hospital trusts, not something the government decided). I assume that this *is* necessary, for the safety of both patients and the medical staff themselves, in certain circumstances. As I mentioned, people choosing a career in medicine know in advance that this will be a requirement. They would not be able to start work without it. So it is not a case of anyone being threatened with the loss of their job unless they have the Hepititis B vaccine.
I do see that there could be circumstances in which it might be necessary to intoduce a new requirement, which might involve telling people already in healthcare or social care jobs that they must have a vaccine in order to carry on working. But this could only be justified if it could be clearly shown that it would be dangerous for someone to continue working without being vaccinated. This is really not the case with the covid vaccine, and the government clearly know it is not the case, or why would they have originally said that unvaccinated NHS staff could continue working until April?
Matt, (continued), If the government genuinely believed it was dangerous for unvaccinated staff to be working with patients, why didn’t the tell them to stop straight away? Clearly because they knew it wasn’t really dangerous (or not in the same way as someone operating without being vaccinated against Hepatitis B). And questions need to be asked about why unvaccinated care home staff were sacked in November 2021, while unvaccinated NHS staff were told they could continue working until April 2022.
A mandatory vaccine for staff could only really be justified if a vaccine could be shown to stop transmission, or reduce it very considerably. But this is not the case with the covid vaccine. Vaccinated people can still catch, and transmit, covid. The real benefit of the vaccine is to the person vaccinated. They may still catch covid, but are unlikely to become seriously ill. This is why the argument about staff having a duty to have the vaccine to protect others, is not really valid. If the vaccine did stop transmission, then I admit that there would be much more of an argument for mandatory vaccines – much more of an ethical dilemma.
Mick, I would always say that the safety of vulnerable people should come first. But please see my replies to Matt above. We always need to be very wary of any argument that claims that the human rights of one group of people are in conflict with the human rights of another group of people
So, if I as a thrice jabbed pensioner require medical attention in the near future am I at liberty to insist that my treatment is delivered by a professional who has also been fully vaccinated?
Human rights are not absolute, Catherine. We are only free to do what we want if it doesn’t harm others, in my view. John Stuart Mill states ‘the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant … Over himself, over his body and mind, the individual is sovereign’ Of course these unvaccinated care workers have the right to body autonomy, they appear to be exercising it, but they don’t have the right to work wherever they want if they put people at risk.
“Of course these unvaccinated care workers have the right to body autonomy, they appear to be exercising it, but they don’t have the right to work wherever they want if they put people at risk.”
Exactly.
Irrespective of the extent to which vaccination reduces the chance of being infected, it does appear to reduce the chance of taking up major health resources if one is infected. If a health or care worker cannot work because they themselves are in hospital or isolating with Covid – that is putting more pressure – possibly or probably needlessly – on the other staff.
Catherine – how can that be acceptable?
Matt I could not agree more with your last post!!
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, there has been “a significant drop” in the number of children getting MMR jabs and other childhood vaccines,
“Even a small drop in vaccine coverage can have a big impact on population immunity levels and lead to outbreaks,” said Dr Vanessa Saliba, a consultant epidemiologist at UKHSA….It is very worrying that more than one in 10 children are not fully protected against measles by the time they start school,” said Prof Helen Bedford, professor of children’s health at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. “There has been so much focus on Covid over the past two years, but we mustn’t forget about measles, which has not gone away.”
I wonder if, in my mind at least, the untoward publicity given to the antivaxers can be linked to this dangerous fall. After all, the publicity given to .Andrew Wakefield’s spurious claims were responsible for many deaths..
BTW..Why anyone who is not medically exempt from the Covid vaccine would choose not to be ‘jabbed’ is quite beyond me!
Some of the arguments against making a Covid jab compulsory for NHS / SC workers are quite specific to Covid and would not necessary apply to other vaccines.
The argument was made by Consultant Anaesthetist Steve James in his encounter with Savid Javid see here: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/sajid-javid-health-secretary-king-s-college-hospital-london-nhs-b975551.html
Interestingly Javid struggles to think of an immediate response to Dr James view that having had Covid gives him the same protection that a vaccine gives him.
@[email protected] exactly right
Flabbergasted in my first pregnancy to discover that I had no immunity to rubella (I had had rubella as a child and had had the MMR). It isn’t much fun going through a pregnancy relying on herd immunity but better than the alternative.
@catherine
“As I mentioned, people choosing a career in medicine know in advance that this will be a requirement. They would not be able to start work without it. So it is not a case of anyone being threatened with the loss of their job ”
Catherine, Laws and Legislation change all the time affecting a whole host of industries.
By your reasoning, someone who has owned a Pub or restaurant say that has been in the family for a 100 years, should be able to say that they will refuse entry to anyone they see fit, be it, based on sex, sexual orientation, Race or Religion, and, because that pub was owned before legislation changed, they should not be affected by the rules. Their Freedom to believe and to do whatever they please with their business trumps any new legislation.
Of course, that is absurd and would not be tolerated.
Liberalism is shared by all, that means one person cannot in ALL and any circumstances put their liberty above the Liberty and Freedoms of others ( that would be a fast route to anarchy) , that is never more important than when it comes to public health.
“A mandatory vaccine for staff could only really be justified if a vaccine could be shown to stop transmission, or reduce it very considerably. ”
That was the case with previous variants of covid, however, the efficacy changed with the arrival of omicron. But as far as I recall, those opposed to mandatory vaccinations and most certainly anti-vaxxers have been against it from the start. I suspect even if vaccines had an efficacy of 100% in preventing illness and stopping transmission we would still be hearing loud voices from the same people who are opposed.
As I said in previous comments, I find the behaviour and far Libertarian views of some people in Government and in society most concerning when it comes to public health and future pandemics because rest assured there will be more and I do not believe lessons have been learnt, but more worryingly, I believe those who are steadfast in their objections to public health measures will be even more so next time and god help us if the next one is even worse than Covid and that was best enough for millions of people globally who are already most disadvantaged in society through living with illness and disease.
Personal choice and bodily autonomy aren’t absolute values. They are very important considerations but there are circumstances where vaccine mandates could potentially be justified (eg in response to an outbreak of a smallpox type disease for example).
The issue is that if you look at the facts around COVID vaccines they protect the recipient but self-evidently don’t prevent transmission. Also natural immunity provides the same level of protection as the vaccine. So the science does not justify the mandates in this instance.
Matt, agree with you.
It is a constant worry. I wonder if we can do much or more, to alert the world to the dangers of another worse one.
As a committed vegetarian, it is meat and animals reared and more so, brought in from the wild, in lousy conditions, that anger me.
If we as a human race stopped lousy practices, on just this, we actually would improve things.
Bird flu, swine flu, bats causing pandemics, all the common denominator, mixing with infected animals.
@Catherine Jane Crosland re: “This is really not the case with the covid vaccine, and the government clearly know it is not the case, or why would they have originally said that unvaccinated NHS staff could continue working until April?”
Your overlooking, this is a government that thinks its okay to carry on partying when they not only knew but also had firsthand experience of CoViD. I suspect the real reason the government allowed NHS staff to continue working is because of staff shortages and balancing adverse publicity risks… Yes, this government was led by science, but begrudgingly and a few weeks after the event and so reduced the benefit of the intervention whilst still incurring all of the disruption…
@Lorenzo
I have to agree with you.
My thoughts on vegetarian / veganism changed considerably due to the pandemic and just where things are heading for the planet and public health as a whole.
So as of a few months ago, I switched everything up in my diet. I now spend 2 weeks being complete Vegan, then I have a couple of days where I do eat fish and cheese and cream ( Can’t bring myself to give up Prawns and Mussels yet lol) , then it’s back to full-on Vegan again.
Its surprised me how easy it was and doesn’t bother me at all, I can’t say I feel healthier for it, but then I don’t feel any worse either, however, it was not about that for me anyway. It was just a conscious decision to want to live differently
Meg Thomas, you say “Of course these unvaccinated care workers have the right to body autonomy, they seem to be exercising it”. But what of the many care workers and NHS workers who reluctantly agreed to have a vaccine that they really didn’t want, and that they may have felt quite frightened to have, because they felt they had no other option if the alternative was to lose their job and be unable to support their family. They were denied the right to body autonomy. A “choice” made in these circumstances is not really a choice
@Catherine Jane Crosland
“But what of the many care workers and NHS workers who reluctantly agreed to have a vaccine that they really didn’t want, and that they may have felt quite frightened to have….”
And what about those patients in hospital or receiving care who might have felt quite frightened at the thought that some of the people looking after them might not have been vaccinated?
I am strongly in favour of vaccinations, and taken all three myself. I have only a little sympathy with the position of those who refuse, but I dislike the sanctimonious, authoritarian bullying of them even more.
The argument that everybody is everybody else’s brother’s keeper is magnificent virtue signaling, but both unworkable and being very selectively employed here. Unworkable because any seemingly innocuous or even beneficial activity society chose to deeply analyse could be construed as setting off a chain of events that harmed someone, somewhere, somehow. Selective, firstly because by the same argument we are those Health Workers’ keepers too and secondly we’re (in my view) unreasonably obsessed with this risk above all others.
In the end, I guess you can chose to run the risk of being treated by an unvaccinated health worker or you can chose to make them all redundant and not to have access to a health worker at all. Like the vaccine, the risk balance seems obvious to me.
Nonconformistradical, you asked “And what about those patients in hospital or receiving care who might have felt quite frightened at the thought that some of the people looking after them might not have been vaccinated?”.
I do understand that some people in this situation may have this fear. I know it is a very real fear, even though if you look at the facts, its not really a rational fear.
There are a number of reassurances that could be given to someone worried about this. If they are so concerned about vaccination status, presumably they will be fully vaccinated themselves. The best reassurance is to remind them that their own vaccine keeps them very safe. It is still possible that they could be infected, but their vaccine means they are very unlikely to become seriously ill, even if they are in a vulnerable group. They obviously believe vaccines work, so they need to have faith that they are right, and vaccines really do work, but the only vaccination status that is really relevant to their safety is their own vaccination status.
They could also be reassured by being reminded that people in health and social care are required to do very frequent lateral flow tests. Lateral flow test are not infallible, but are pretty accurate, which means that a member of staff is very unlikely to be working if they are infected. The requirement for testing is a far better protection for patients than requiring staff to be vaccinated
@Catherine
“The best reassurance is to remind them that their own vaccine keeps them very safe. It is still possible that they could be infected, but their vaccine means they are very unlikely to become seriously ill,”
Sorry, I do not agree with this statement at all.
Lets say someone is in hospital and is critically ill with sepsis, they are triple vaccinated against Covid, but could still be extremely vulnerable if catching even a mild case of covid as this could result in Pneumonia which would be extremely serious for someone already fighting sepsis.
Now, if the health workers are vaccinated against covid as well, then the risk is reduced…
Now, I know we are going to start to hear the same old arguments about people who are vaccinated can still get omicron and pass it on, blah de blah…..However, these same people were making the same arguments before the more infectious vaccine escaping variants came. I do not believe for one second that people who hold these views would be any different, even if vaccines had an efficacy of 100%, they are now so ingrained in their views, nothing will change that, and that is why I say god help us for the next pandemic or even if the current mutates into something more severe.
Matt, I think I might take a rather different view if the vaccines actually were 100% effective in preventing infecting and transmission (which is very far from being the case with this vaccine, and which I don’t think has ever been the case with any vaccine). But there again, if the vaccine really was 100% effective, then surely all vaccinated patients actually would be completely protected against infection by their own vaccine, even if they were very vulnerable, so there would still be no reason for mandatory vaccines, so perhaps I wouldn’t take a different view…
I think I did indicate in a previous comment that I could see that there could possibly be circumstances in which a vaccine requirement could reasonably be introduced, even if this had not been part of someone’s original terms and conditions of employment. But there would have to be very clear evidence that it would be dangerous for an unvaccinated person to work, compared with a vaccinated person, and this is far from being the case here.
If circumstances genuinely occurred in which someone could reasonably be told they could not continue working unless vaccinated, (when this had not been a requirement when they started in the job), then surely they should be given a generous redundancy payment, rather than just dismissed without compensation
@Catherine
“But there again, if the vaccine really was 100% effective, then surely all vaccinated patients actually would be completely protected against infection by their own vaccine, even if they were very vulnerable, so there would still be no reason for mandatory vaccines, so perhaps I wouldn’t take a different view…”
Not at all, there are some people for medical reasons who cannot take a vaccine, then there are some people who are immune-suppressed for whom vaccines are not as effective. So as far as I will always be concerned, health and social care workers should always be vaccinated, it’s the ethical thing to do as far as I am concerned.
“then surely they should be given a generous redundancy payment, rather than just dismissed without compensation”
Why should there be redundancy payment?? the job has not been made redundant, the person has a choice, they could look to move into a non-clinical role, get vaccinated or find alternative employment. The Job has not been made redundant so there is no compensation due.
As I said in a previous post, there are numerous industries where laws and legislation change. We do not accept an argument well I was working within this role before the change so the change should not effect me, so why should we accept this for public health?
I’m fully vaccinated, by the way. A vaccine was what I was hoping and praying for during 2020, and I was overjoyed when the vaccines were approved, and was vaccinated at the earliest opportunity. The vaccines are a wonderful gift. They must have saved thousands of lives.
I didn’t actually state this in the article, mainly because the word limit means every word counts, but also because my personal view on the vaccine is not necessarily even relevant. And it sometimes seems rather patronizing when someone begins an article or speech by saying “I’m very pro vaccine, and fully vaccinated”, and then stresses that they regard people who have not been vaccinated as self evidently mistaken, even if they do then go on to say they are opposed to mandates.
I do feel that the most sensible decision is to be vaccinated, unless there is some reason why being vaccinated could have a detrimental effect on someone’s health (which could include a detrimental effect on their mental health). But then, what do I know! Many of the unvaccinated NHS staff obviously have far more medical knowledge than me. They include some doctors, who have spent at least five years training, and have many years professional experience in medicine. Their decision not to have been vaccinated may be a mistaken one (and most of their colleagues have, of course, made a different decision). But it is hardly an uninformed decision!
@Catherine
I just want to be clear, when I refer to anti-vaxxers, or anti-lock down types, I am never in no way implying that this applies to you. I am just responding in general terms to the articles that you write and nothing in my comments or opinions is directed at you personally. I just wanted to make that clear.
Matt, that’s ok, don’t worry! Possibly your comment at 10.44, where you say “now I know we are going to hear the same old arguments …blah de blah”, and “people who hold these views”, it did rather sound as if you thought I was an “anti vaxxer”, so I thought I might as well clarify my views (although my last comment wasn’t just directed at you). But please don’t worry. It’s a controversial subject, and it’s fine to have robust debate 🙂
@catherine
Its absolutely never directed at you, my comments like that are normally in anticipation of 2 particular regular forum users who love to site the likes of the GBD or a certain “Dr” who allegedly makes regular “educational” youtube videos, who shall remain unnamed 🙂
On nearly every other issue that we have engaged in over the years on LDV on a whole range of issues, I think our views have been pretty similar. We are just poles apart on this one 🙂 But I always have the utmost respect for you and how you have always spoken up for the vulnerable sections of society
Thank you, Matt, that’s very kind of you
Catherine, you are very passionate but forgive me seem somewhat obsessive. It is now very worrying that most deaths are again taking place in the over 80’s, a large proportion of these from Care homes. Perhaps the mandate is sensible.
We now have another variant to contend with over the next few months.