“Passport to Freedom” – or passport to a health dictatorship?

 

Well, that was quick! Remember that one of the ‘tests’ in BJ’s ‘Roundabout Map’ to end Lockdown forever was the emergence of new covid mutants which micgt scupper everything? They’ve already found more. Who’da thunk! More on that below.

Meanwhile, our covid MSM are obsessed today with school exams. That theme is the main item according to their headlines. Don’t worry – whatever happens, it’ll be the fault of the Education Secretary – a certain Mr Williamson. Relegated to the opinion pages is the debate about vaccination passports, mostly about how such ‘passport’ would affect the economy.  There are also some ‘blue skies and sunny uplands’ reports on possible new vaccine developments.

Dipping my little toe into the Covid Fear swamp, here’s a brief summary of what we’re told about those ‘new’ varieties. Both were found in the USA – one in California, one in New York. Yes, you guessed it: we must be afraid, very afraid, of those new mutants:  both are ‘more contagious’ and vaccines won’t protect against them, according to the virologist detectives.

If you like reading thrilling ‘could – might’ scare scenarios, read the two separate reports in the DM: one concerning the New York variety (link), one about the California one (link).  It doesn’t matter that none of those studies are peer-reviewed as of yet. That fact is only important when the covid MSM want to discredit a research report that doesn’t fit the ongoing Covid Fear propaganda. 

The interesting point to these news discoveries is that there’s always the warning that the vaccines won’t protect against them. If that is the case – and why would we doubt those scientists! – then we better be prepared for a continuing vaccine campaign. However, British scientists are now turning their attention to alternatives: nasal sprays or a pill. Professor Sarah Gilbert, one of the team which developed the Oxford jab, said that

“[…] jabbing people’s arms may not be the best way of protecting them against a respiratory virus that infects them when they breathe it in. Delivering a vaccine to the nose or mouth could prime cells in those parts of the body with antibodies so that the virus is unable to spread further.” (link, paywalled)

That is certainly most interesting! There are already flu vaccines which are given by nasal spray, Prof Gilbert told The Times, and that furthermore:

“It’s also possible to consider oral vaccination, where you take a tablet. That would have a lot of benefits for vaccine roll-out, if you didn’t have to use the needles and syringes. Both of those are approaches which we are beginning to assess.”  (link, paywalled)

I’m sure many would prefer a pill to a jab, but I’m equally sure that such assessments will take a long time. It’s not because the logistics will be a nightmare compared to the jabs. After all, we have the infrastructure to apply that jab to everybody – that seems to work as the rising numbers of jabbees trumpeted in our covid MSM show. No, it’s because it might allow people to regain control over their own lives and health. After all, they surely should not wait to be really ill for the GP to give them that pill or that nasal spray, in their surgery! They might take those pills or that spray on their own, after their GP has given them a prescription – unsupervised, undocumented.

What would that mean for the ‘jab passport’ which is so hotly debated at the moment? First of all, there’s a pronouncement by the WHO. We all listen when the WHO speaks, don’t we! The DM reports what this WHO ‘interim’ statement says:

“Proof of a jab should not be required because there remain ‘critical unknowns regarding the efficacy of vaccination in reducing transmission’.The WHO added that inoculated passengers should not be able to sidestep existing travel restrictions designed to reduce Covid.” (link)

Certainly, if those jabs aren’t shown to reduce transmission, jabbees could still be covid lepers, vaccine passport or not. Moreover, the WHO’s point, that in the name of health equality scarce vaccines jab-queue jumping shouldn’t be permitted is surely important!  Fidel-Tristan and Naomi-Sunshine must again go without their international summer holidays – or must they? Will the nations, will the airlines accept the WHO’s dictum as stated in their ‘interim positions paper’:

“’At the present time, it is WHO’s position that national authorities and conveyance operators should not introduce requirements of proof of COVID-19 vaccination for international travel as a condition for departure or entry.’ […] The WHO’s paper also says: ‘National authorities should choose public health interventions that least infringe on individual freedom of movement.’ (link)

Well I never! Just savour that last sentence! The WHO is suddenly concerned about infringements on our civil freedoms! Clearly, needing a jab pass to go to a pub or attend a theatre or concert does infringe on individual freedom of movement. Does this make our ongoing national debate on vaccine passports redundant? Have the various eminent opinion piece writers for and against such passport written in vain?

You’ll be interested to learn that, after his appeal to let him know what we think about such vaccine passport Sir John Redwood in his Diary today comes down on the side of those who believe that needing such document here, inside our own country, just in order to regain some semblance of ‘normal life’, is a bad thing (link). He points out that demanding such vaccination passport from travellers coming here is another issue. 

The odd thing is that a perfectly reasonable vaccine passport already exists, the one given out by the WHO. You might even have that yellow little booklet yourself somewhere in the back of a drawer, documenting all the jabs you had to have when travelling to foreign countries. The point of that passport was to show that you, personally, were protected against diseases endemic to the country you were travelling to. It was not to show that you were in principle a leper, documenting with that passport that you weren’t carrying diseases into the country you were travelling to.  

The covid jab ‘passport’ is different. There is one aspect to this debate which seems to be disregarded, especially by those who are either worried about the impact such covid vaccine ID, be it a piece of paper or a smartphone app, will have on the economy and on our society as a whole. A covid vaccine ID, made to be carried by all, is a perfect instrument of state surveillance, loved by China and the likes of that former PM Blair.

Making a jab ID the prerequisite for attending music festivals or for going shopping in our own country is totally different from the yellow WHO passport. And what about people entering a lockdowned country because they have that priceless covid jab passport? Will they be allowed onto the beaches but the lockdowned natives won’t? That would make for, ahem, interesting scenarios …

All who believe such jab ID is perfectly fine simply haven’t understood that they are giving up their civil liberties, allowing the state to tell them that they can only move around inside their own country only when and as government permits. They seem fine with allowing the state and indeed employers – who are not, as far as I’m aware, entities possessing government powers – to restrict their freedom to get a job, to earn their living.

Anyway, having such covid-jab smartphone app doesn’t hurt anyone, does it! Who cares if the state abuses its powers and curtails our civil liberties in the name of protecting you-know-what as long as we’ll be permitted to get back a little slice of our civil rights, the rights so cheerfully abandoned by agreeing to a jab passport! We must be happy, mustn’t we, that government will allow us a little bit of freedom here or there, provided we can document that we’re obedient little people who can be let out now and then.

We shouldn’t mind that these little liberties can and will be taken away by government as easily as they’ve been ‘granted’. After all – China has shown the world how  to do it and they’ve conquered covid, haven’t they, and “we” don’t want to die of covid …

It’s hugely unfashionable to mention that all this isn’t new. There’s this ancient story about someone selling his inheritance for a bowl of pottage. That’s what this headlong rush towards vaccine passports reminds me of: giving up freedom, giving up our civil liberties which we have as our human right, for the sake of going on a summer holiday. It is exactly that: have a bowl of pottage now and don’t think about having thus given up our civil rights already.

 

KBO!

 

 

Photo by wuestenigel

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