Covid-19 Virus

Not me! The woman in the link!

 

Uh huh.

 

It's started to happen
Quebec to impose health tax on unvaccinated Canadians
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59960689

 

Agree that’s a slippery slope. I’m not against passporting during the pandemic, but humans do all kinds of daft things that are wrong or unnecessary.

They shouldn’t have to pay extra for care unless we want all choices put on a tariff.

 

Slippery slope is a logical fallacy.

Either the action is justifiable or it isn't.

To be quite honest, I'm not sure I see that someone being held accountable for their own choices is particularly unfair, either, whether that's smoking, being overweight, or refusing to get vaccinated in a 100 year pandemic. There's another R that goes with "Rights", and it's "Responsibility".

 

There’s a stack of public health literature which casts doubt on how far at least those first two are genuinely matters of personal choice. We’ve also seen in the pandemic that lower rates of vaccination may tie to ethnicity, for example.

Health and the choices which contribute to it are, at least in part, socially determined

 

It’s an inefficient way of providing care and would mean that rich people would have more personal freedom.

Something of medium risk, like playing contact or racing sports could attract premiums that put them beyond ordinary people.

It’s a slippery slope because if you accept the logic for one thing, then every action from eating bag of crisps or packet of biscuits to sky-diving would need to be metered.

 

As I said, slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Always has been. You can make a slippery slope argument for taxes: they could easily be set to 100%, which would be abusive, so therefore we shouldn't have taxes because any level of tax is a slippery slope towards 100% tax. It's obviously a non-sensical argument.

Slippery slope references ignore that we have research, context, science, reason and common sense.

There's literally no justification for smoking. That's a flat out personal choice (and one they're already partially paying for through tobacco tax in the UK, at least).

The vast majority of people (not all, but most ) are overweight because of poor life choices, lack of knowledge on nutrition/balanced diet (a travesty schools don't cover that stuff, or at least didn't in my time), and not genetics. That's not to say there aren't other factors, but if you take almost any overweight person and put them into a controlled environment where their exercise is monitored and their food intake is monitored, in most cases they lose weight and gain fitness. Getting away from the poor choices and unhealthy habits works.

There's definitely a case that some literally can't afford to not eat poorly, and that's where smart public policy would be to pivot to subsidise healthy foods instead of unhealthy ones and not bear the cost of that health crisis. This is particularly true in the US, where fresh fruit and veg is extortionate compared to subsidised unhealthy products like corn.

You don't need to force insurance coverage for sports simply because you can justify it for e.g. vaccinations or smoking. You can make choices on an individual basis based on public interest. There's an obvious public interest in not overwhelming the NHS with unvaccinated sick patients. There's no real public interest in preventing a few people a year from being entered to the ER due to involvement in e.g. a motorsport crash.

As for the "freedom" of the rich....if they want the freedom to smoke themselves into an early grave, they're welcome to it as far as I'm concerned.

 

Lots of people end up in hospital after sports. It’s probably the main reason for younger people to visit one. Having a dog may seem benign, but they cause 10s of thousands of injuries a year. People do daft things and hurt themselves. They take drugs, they get into fights, get paralytic a few times when young. It’s part of the human condition.

Punishing people for lifestyle choices is inelegant and would certainly allow those setting the tariff to limit freedom. They may not always be good choices, but they are choices and your notion of being ‘held accountable’ demands huge value judgements. They can go in curious ways depending on the political mood. Where would Governments of the past have set this judgemental threshold? Doesn’t bear thinking about.

 

The carrots of improved immunity, reduced symptoms and infection are not working for some.

We need to break out the stick. Whilst we should stop short of making a vaccine compulsory we do need to take into account the increased risks and costs the unvaccinated can cause.

I would add a levy to tax to cover Covid expenses and then pay people on the equivalent of the average wage at that tax percentage as a reward for having the vaccine. The rich pay a bit more to cover the pandemic, the poor get a tax cut, those in the middle remain the same and the unvaccinated have a financial incentive to get it done.

 

This is some distance from your previous post, and yes - it is far more nuanced than being simply a matter of personal responsibility. Lack of knowledge, as you admit, isn’t just wilful ignorance, it is also lack of education (and I’m not convinced that doesn’t also apply to smoking in some less developed countries). I’m not wholly sure what you mean by “poor life choices” but it must be apparent that deprived areas tend to have the highest proportion of fast food shops. So, yes “smart public policy” is needed in many cases. And it seems plausible that that nuance at least partly applies to vaccination too. I wonder, for example, what the relative proportion of unvaccinated indigenous Canadians is, relative to the rest of the population?

 

All of that hangs on the assumption that the virus isn’t just getting milder and milder and can just eventually be dealt with like the flu. So, I would query that we “need” to break out the stick, certainly for the time being.

 

Hold on. I have to pay some extra tax to bribe someone to not be a d1ckhead??

 

You get it/some of it back when you have the jab.

Everyone is going to have to pay more tax because of covid and everyone is going to have to pay more tax because some have been arses about covid. This is some way rebalances a bit.

 

Need is possibly too strong a word, it's an idea and personally I think easier and infact fairer to implement than the Quebec option.
As you said it is likely getting milder and as the a carrot gets smaller the stick will have to get smaller, putting it off will not help. The worry is the mutations. We may get one that isn't milder, it may be vaccine resistent. It's in everyone's interest to reduce numbers as much as possible to reduce the chances of those outcomes.

 

Has anyone experienced lower back pain after their Pfizer booster jab?

 

How long after? It has been reported in small numbers but them pretty much everything has.
Ever since my booster WFC have played like dog ****.

 

Had the jab Sunday morning, it started coming on in the evening.

 

I had achey shoulders and back after my booster, gone by the following morning.

 

Spoke to some US based colleagues today and they seem to think that us "Brits" are leading the world in dealing with Covid, (IE getting on with things).

 

Yep keep an eye on it. Muscle aches have been reported.

 

Inasmuch as we’ve stopped doing anything about it apart from vaccines, that’s probably true, though there are plenty of other nations doing nothing or unable through lack of resources to do anything and simply living (or dying) with Covid.

Whether we are ‘dealing with’ it remains to be seen. I wonder how evidence-based their opinion was and if they compared us to, off the top of my head, Cuba, which has done very well throughout.

 

I've got it. Bugger.

So has the daughter and the youngest son. Cifriana and eldest son still clear.

Feel dreadful with the fever, but no breathing trouble.

 

I expect your posts to double as a minimum target while you recover.

 

Don’t slack on the BH thread. Get well soon.

 

Seems perfectly logical:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ey-transplant-covid-mandate-b2004270.html?amp

 

As you're a non-honkey who's seen over 50 summers and smokes (box ticking) can you please post at least twice a day (AM & PM) so we know you're alright.

 

Wurrrghhh!

Surviving, but horrible fever and hot and colds.

Reading some Owen Jones book...

 

Hasta la victoria siempre!

The virus shall not pass! (Or rather it will pass Clive, so get well soon).

 

Are those symptoms of the reading the book or covid?

 

Take care, get well and don't forget to praise Boris for the vaccine rollout.

 

Oh, I forgot to ask: 'a friend' wants to know if you've got a pair of size 8 (42) DM Chelsea boots in cherry red.

 

No - only a worn out pair of Cuban 'chancletas'....