I believe it was correctly reported here that vaccine passports would not get off the ground in the UK. 
It seems that was correct.
This link is behind a paywall.
I am starting to believe that there may well be medical help against Covid but there appears to be none against stupidity and 4 year old type tantrums. And unfortunately, politicians tend to listen to the loudest screamers, not the voices of caution or reason.
So we definitly have reached a turning point in history, one of those events where there is a “before” and “after” time which are fundamentally different.
It must also be a brutal wake up call for any military strategists who imagined that there would be a way to stop e.g a biological warfare. It must equally be a “oh, might be worth exploring” on the side of those who evaluate such a concept to conquer a society. Covid has proven that western society is not capable of the discipline to eradicate a disease like this. So now we have to live with it.
Somehow i think we have not seen the end of this, not by a long distance. Now we get murder threats to our ministers and doctors, because of the covid certificate, we end up having a totally divided society which is getting more and more militant on both sides.
At present, passports ditched in England, still intended in Scotland.
“Covid has proven that western society is not capable of the discipline to eradicate a disease like this.”
It’s Western news media and politicians that have created this lack of discipline in Society. It’s noticeable that in Britain the Opposition parties seem just out to criticize the Government, rather than have a consistent proposal. (With SNP opposition to Conservative in England, and Conservative opposition to SNP in Scotland, and Labour and Liberal opposition in both.)
Maoraigh wrote:
It’s noticeable that in Britain the Opposition parties seem just out to criticize the Government, rather than …
Well, that is their role in Parliament.
The role of the Official Opposition is to question and scrutinise the work of the Government.
from parliament.uk.
Maoraigh wrote:
It’s Western news media and politicians that have created this lack of discipline in Society. It’s noticeable that in Britain the Opposition parties seem just out to criticize the Government, rather than have a consistent proposal.
The news media and even more so social media and the internet, where any rubbish can be posted unchecked. Never before could conspiracy theories and other outright junk reach an audience like today.
DavidS wrote:
Well, that is their role in Parliament.
Scrutinize yes, by all means. But there is a huge difference between scrutinizing in a constructive way and obstructionism and outright rejection based on who proposes something rather than based on the issue itself. In many western countries these days, there is no cooperation at all between opposition and the government. That is not how this kind of political system can work and get somewhere. There used to be the term “loyal opposition”. Well, most oppositions these days are anything but loyal to the country.
It is quite obvious that more and more countries are getting on the verge of being ungovernable, because parties are de facto at war with each other and will refuse to cooperate e.g. in forming a government or, in 2 party systems, fight each other to the blood. The result is political paralysis due to infighting or swing politics, where one government spends its legislature undoing what the previous government has done until they get voted out again and the vicious circle starts again.
The massive distrust fuelled by this kind of behaviour leads to more and more people rejecting politics altogether and the loss of trust in anything any government sais. Consequently, crisis management is very difficult up to being impossible. And it is particularly frustrating if political parties will use crisis’ such as Covid to fuel tensions and distrust, rather than in crisis unite and try to do the very best to get out of the crisis. Instead, some will want to prolong the crisis by obstructing solutions so that they can profit in the next elections and then claim victory, which often enough won’t happen either as then the new opposition does the same.
Add the above mentioned post factual news of all kinds and the notorious unreliability of everything news and the internet produces and you get the situation where today people will rather listen to obscure “influencers” than the news, because quality of both are about similar. Both are more after clicks than actually producing news and most news broadcasts these days are so obviously partisan that it is rare to see one event reported on factually by any of them. And whenever facts are no longer reliable, people turn to belief. And that is when it gets really dangerous.
The introduction of the covid certificate to enter a lot of venues in Switzerland has led to demonstrations, near riots, threats (including murder threats against ministers e.t.c.) and attacks. Radicalisation is rampant and may well cause violence in the near future. Renitent passengers on airplanes and other public transport who refuse to wear masks, venues who out of fear of loss of money will not check certificates, even though it would offer them a way to normality as the Austrian example shows, undermine the effort to stop the 4 th wave, people refusing testing of their kids at school, it is all coming apart. Predictions here now are that this current wave will outdo any previous ones. The sad thing being, it could all be over if people would cooperate and get vaccinated. Like this, it will be a never ending war and quite possibly the main enemy no longer be the virus but people.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Covid has proven that western society is not capable of the discipline to eradicate a disease like this
This virus isn’t eradicable, period. No country – eastern, western, former Soviet, authoritarian, liberal – has been able to stop it and nor are they capable of stopping it. The kind of virus that SARS-CoV2 is can no more be stopped than King Canute could stop the tide from coming in and out. Nothing to do with western democracies. The only place that has come close is New Zealand, but New Zealand is a rather special case – being a sparsely populated isolated island in the arse end of nowhere where it is practical to become a hermit state. Even then, they struggle.
alioth wrote:
This virus isn’t eradicable, period. No country – eastern, western, former Soviet, authoritarian, liberal – has been able to stop it and nor are they capable of stopping it.
Because nobody saw it through but locked down too late and opened up too early. The only ones who did as you say were NZ and previously Australia and Taiwan. Australia appears to loose the fight now, have not checked on Taiwan. NZ may well need to stay isolated for ever or, better, enforce a rigid vaccination policy before opening up cautiously again.
But that is water under the bridge now. We will be able to live with the virus, as now people have a way to protect themselfs. If we can manage to overcome the crisis in trust and credibility is a totally different matter. IMHO, that is a lot more dangerous than the virus is.
Silvaire wrote:
Following up on earlier posts re Green Pass and other EU national equivalents, I’ve since then covered maybe 2500 km on minor roads in Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Italy and have yet to need the ‘Pass’ or any immunization related document. It looks to me like the situation in which I would really need it is to sit down to a meal inside a restaurant.
Continuing from my post above, I finally had opportunity to dine inside on my two week trip. A nice upscale Austrian restaurant with family last night. No vaccination data or discussion, also no masks in use by anybody there although they were pretty much universal in Italy. I haven’t presented vaccination status to anybody in any setting in about 3000 km of travel in four countries over ten days. Obviously business owners are doing everything they can to avoid it, and so are their customers.
Also no border controls anywhere, for example when crossing the Italian/Austrian border four times on three different routes.
The elaborate regulations, preparations and vaccination documentation apparently keep the bureaucracy busy but have had little actual application in my experience on this trip so far.
UK data showing dual vaccination is more than 99% protective.
Out of more than 51,000 Covid deaths in England between January and July 2021, only 256 occurred after two doses.
They were mostly people at very high risk from illness from Covid-19.
In the meantime the virus continues to defy common sense. Kids have gone back to school… and if you land in Croatia from the UK on an airliner you get taken away and tested. Everybody is fighting yesterday’s battles 
Mooney_Driver wrote:
tin-foil-hat morons
Ahem, let’s stay courteous here.
As journalists write “French vax rate is now among the highest thanks to the passe sanitaire…”
Translation : when you force everyone to do something, most do it ! No kidding !
And now Macron says he (he has all powers) would remove the passe in some areas. BUT he presents a new law that would allow him to reinstate it any time, as now it is to Nov 15 only.
Wait for it to become a permanent “passe citoyen” which will note your support to “human rights and republican values”. And that’s it : global digital tyranny.
We will still rumble online, and some would even march each Saturday.
This battle is lost.
These people are evil. They will fall, God knows when, but many tears will flow in between.
FYI, our “juges administratifs”, whose job is to judge if the government follow the law, come from ENA, the same school than all high-ranking gov employee.
So basically they judge their peers.
