BeechBaby wrote:
Anyway, Novak was not interned or shot, just deported.Now who was responsible for that wonderful little fiasco?
The Australian government has requirements for entry and that’s up to them.
While I find Djokovic’s attitude to press questioning about his vaccination status (“it’s none of your goddamn business”) pleasing, he needs to comply with the rules if he wants to enter Australia. His entry into the Australian Open tennis tournament does not confer automatic right of entry and a waiver as regards the normal rules.
He appeared to have been granted a medical exemption, which now appears to have been revoked, and he’s now challenging that revocation in court. I see nothing unusual or untoward. Gaining entry to Australia in the last two years has been incredibly difficult so nothing here is surprising.
Clearly some decisions become political. Many concessions to the normal rules were made (quarantine, wives and girlfriends) so that the England cricket team would agree to tour, but that is different because the Ashes is not a tournament entered by individuals. In this instance I doubt the organisers of the Australian Open will lose much sleep if Djokovic doesn’t play, and in turn he’s not going to be too cut up about missing a tournament he’s already won nine times.
It’s an interesting one to watch play out though. I would have more sympathy with Djokovic if he was taking a stand against the principle of coercion, but as I understand he’s more in the ‘pure-bloods’ camp and has some very bizarre quasi-religious views about a number of things, including vaccines.
Graham wrote:
in turn he’s not going to be too cut up about missing a tournament he’s already won nine times.
Looks like he might loose some ranking over it and that puts him off. But imho, the way the guy has been behaving over the years, it is high time that someone makes it clear to him that what is valid for everyone is valid for him as well. I am not sure if the revocation was not a reaction to the massive protests world wide on the net when it became known that he would gain access to Australia without qualifying for it. But the decision is definitly right. It is rather questionable why he was not stopped before actually travelling there, as it was clear from the outset that he does not qualify for entry.
@Airborne_Again wrote:
but it is still clear that they give individuals ample protection from serious illness or death.
@BeechBaby wrote:
Does it. Where is the empirical evidence to support this. I cannot find any.
You clearly are not looking very hard. Just look at the number of people testing positive, going to hospital, and dying 12 months ago compared to now and is it blindingly obvious. You can also look at the proportion of people in hospital with (unfortunately not because of) Covid and their vaccination status. Or any of the follow up studies for the vaccine efficacy.
I completely agree with your view that the policies are utterly disingenuous. We know vaccination does not reduce spread by nearly as much as hoped for, and yet we tie things like travel or entry to venues to vaccination status. Macron made the mistake of telling the truth – restrictions on unvaccinated are more of a stick to get people to accept vaccination than anything else…
Peter wrote:
Re the booster, UK data is that Pfizer or Moderna are much more effective than AZ for this job, and Moderna has significantly worse side effects.
It’s interesting how unpredictable the (short lived) side effects of the vaccine are – I had AZ AZ Moderna, the first AZ gave me about 12 hours of cold-like symptoms, the second nothing, and the Moderna nothing.
On what the UK (or rather England) is doing (and the Isle of Man for that matter) on restrictions which is “do nothing” seems proportionate to the hospitalisation. We have something like 10 times the number of active cases here compared to the summer, but fewer in hospital (for just under 3000 active cases, only 7 in hospital and 0 in the ICU).
I think Sir Humphrey’s “Four Stage Strategy” has been followed for omicron.
On what the UK (or rather England) is doing (and the Isle of Man for that matter) on restrictions which is “do nothing” seems proportionate to the hospitalisation. We have something like 10 times the number of active cases here compared to the summer, but fewer in hospital (for just under 3000 active cases, only 7 in hospital and 0 in the ICU).
Precisely.
But while it is blidingly obviously the right thing to do, based on the evidence, and the evidence is stronger every day, it is politically risky for the govt, given the factors I posted further back. If they get it wrong, they are gonna end up in hell.
As a successful friend of mine told me years ago when I was pondering some decision, sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all. I’ve never forgotten it and it’s served me well. First, do no harm, and then think about what you can do that has sufficient real world support and is likely to be successful without creating bigger problems than it solves.
Before quarantining the healthy in a completely unprecedented way, before removing the basic right to make individual health decisions relating to new drugs in collaboration with individual healthcare providers, before making the exercise of business licenses contingent on checking customer medical records as a delegated police force, before proposing to tax people based on their healthcare choices and before making people carry vaccine passports to conduct (ab)normal life as a coercive tool without significant real world benefit, it might have been wise for government bureaucrats to consider that they are not God, they are just paid service providers, that they don’t necessarily have the technological answers either, and that their actions may be judged unconstitutional for very good reasons. Unfortunately the opportunity to appear ‘relevant’ and their innate drive to gain power poisoned their thinking and many of them have done some very foolish and unethical things.
Very well said, Silvaire!
I want to add that, in my opinion, direct and indirect coercion to vaccination has unintended consequences that likely do a lot of harm to society. Politicians may refer to these policies as having great success (vaccination uptake increased!). That’s no surprise that if you beat people with a stick, many of them choose to do something to avoid being beaten. However, people do feel that they are coerced, that they are manipulated, that they are lied to. And I’m sure it will backfire.
It is a well-known fact that one of the most important factors that influence economic success is the level of trust. The level of trust between the people, the level of trust in the government and public institutions. That’s one of the key factors that cause some countries to be rich and some to remain poor. I believe many people, who felt being forced, will not forget it, and their level of trust in public institutions and willingness to cooperate will decrease.
Cobalt wrote:-
“Macron made the mistake of telling the truth – restrictions on unvaccinated are more of a stick to get people to accept vaccination than anything else…”
What makes you so sure it was a mistake?
Fair point… probably not a political mistake – but it undermines the efforts by more measured people to increase vaccination rates through persuasion.
One can argue forever on whether Gov’t (in)action favors us or not, but it’s kind of funny to see that cute little creatures seem to be the ones that really determined the path forward, at least for now. Well, actually, luckily someone infected some mice first. There’s a couple in my hangar, so you may all have to thank me.
