It has been a long time coming, as we enter the final stages of the rollout of the NHS (Self-Destruction) Regulations 2022. After a two year period unlike anything ever seen before in the NHS, with a seriously demoralised and depleted workforce, NHS managers are gearing up to fire many tens of thousands of NHS frontline staff. The managers and their staff are, of course, just following orders, following in the footsteps of others who, at times of moral darkness, just followed orders, and removed innocent undesirables from their midst. What makes the NHS managers so remarkable in their behaviour is that the undesirables aren’t innocent aliens, they are instead a significant part of the NHS frontline workforce. The generals, in effect, are gearing up to shoot their own troops, at a time when they need them the most.

The numbers involved are anything but trivial. Though not a true decimation (one in every ten of the workforce), in the NHS in England, the government estimates around 73,000 will remain unvaccinated (or of undeclared vaccination status) on V-Day, the 31st March 2022, from a total ‘in-scope’ workforce of 1,486,000, meaning one in twenty (5%) will get fired between now and then. To put that in another perspective, and avoid the irrelevant distraction that a handful of these staff may be redeployed in non-frontline roles, the NHS currently has getting on for 100,000 vacancies; over the next few weeks the government plans to add another 73,000 vacancies, thereby not far short of doubling the number of vacancies, at a time of unprecedented recruitment and retention challenges.

What is the rationale for this wanton act of self-destruction? It must surely be so compelling, so utterly overwhelming, that it brooks no argument. Yet it is not. The whole exercise is based on a fallacy: two vaccinations good, no vaccinations bad. According to the fallacy, the vaccinated, the virtuous, the clean, can move freely among patients because they are never infected or infectious, and so pose no threat to patients, while the unvaccinated, the un-virtuous, the unclean, are festering bio-hazards, filthy fifth columnists spreading disease wherever they go. Were this true, of course it would make sense to prevent patient exposure to the unvaccinated, but the facts are all at odds with this complacent fallacious nonsense. Week in, week out, the governments own data shows the vaccinated have higher rates of infection than the unvaccinated, by a factor of about two in the latest report. True, these are unadjusted rates per 100,000, but it will need an adjustment beyond the realms of even the most creative SAGE numerologist to wipe out the apparent fact that is it is not the unvaccinated, but the vaccinated, that teem the most with covid.

Nor is there any substantial evidence that the vaccinated are any less infectious than there unvaccinated counterparts. Unlike routine surveillance, the studies needed to answer this question are complex to do, and, inevitably, they are in short supply. Nonetheless, those that have been done fail to demonstrate that vaccination reduces transmissibility. Of the two leading studies, one concluded ‘Close-contacts of vaccinated Delta-infected indexes did not have statistically significant reduced risk of acquisition compared with unvaccinated Delta-infected indexes,’ while the other concluded ‘that breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people can efficiently transmit infection in the household setting’. The studies were not perfect, and covered largely delta dominated household spread, but they are currently the best evidence we have on the in-effectiveness of vaccination against onward transmission.

This lack of evidence for vaccine effectiveness against either infection or transmission makes a mockery of any work place exclusion policy based on vaccination status. On the available evidence, there is no evidence that the policy makes one jot of medical sense. Add in the fact the some, perhaps most, of the unvaccinated will have natural immunity from past infection, and that, even by the lights of Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, ‘we know that the two doses [which are all that are required by the NHS (Self-Destruction) Regulations 2022] of the vaccine offer very limited protection, if any [against omicron],’ and we can see that the policy isn’t just evidence-lite, it is evidence-absent.                  

And yet, NHS managers are going to keep the trains, or at least the firings, running on time. Strict protocols and stricter timetables are in place, and have been broadcast to all trusts and other affected bodies. The message is stark, get vaccinated, or get terminated; the language is chilling. There is no place for cosy redundancy arrangements, no formal help finding alternative employment, no entitlements or payments:  

“It is important to note this is not a redundancy exercise. In the context of the regulations, there is no diminishment or cessation of work of a particular kind. Employers will not be concerned with finding ‘suitable alternative employment’ and there will be no redundancy entitlements, including payments, whether statutory or contractual, triggered by this process. The redeployment or dismissal of workers is determined by the introduction of the regulations and an individual’s decision to remain unvaccinated.

“Whilst organisations are encouraged to explore redeployment, the general principles which apply in a redundancy exercise are not applicable here, and it is important that managers are aware of this.”

In other words, do as required, or get fired. Some may consider the image at the top of this post overstates the case. But consider this: you are a frontline NHS worker, with years if not decades of service behind you. You understand the facts well enough to know that there is no credible evidence base behind the mandatory covid vaccination policy, and at the same time, for whatever reason, have decided covid vaccination is not for you. You are even be willing to undergo regular antibody testing, and face the music based on the results. But none of this counts: ‘The…dismissal of workers is determined by the introduction of the regulations and an individual’s decision to remain unvaccinated’. Your career and livelihood is over, ended not by the logic of medical science, but by cheap political posturing. You may get fired by letter or text, but the letter or text will cut through you as harshly as if it had been a bullet fired from a gun.

Outside, in the distance, where the wildcats growl,
Two passing riders will ask, why are they doing this now?

Comments

  1. Frank Reply

    We have crazy brown shirts on the loose over here in the states too. Check this out. Fascism has gone mainstream.

    “Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters would oppose a proposal for federal or state governments to fine Americans who choose not to get a COVID-19 vaccine. However, 55% of Democratic voters would support such a proposal, compared to just 19% of Republicans and 25% of unaffiliated voters.

    Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democratic voters would favor a government policy requiring that citizens remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies, if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

    Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications.

    Forty-five percent (45%) of Democrats would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

    While about two-thirds (66%) of likely voters would be against governments using digital devices to track unvaccinated people to ensure that they are quarantined or socially distancing from others, 47% of Democrats favor a government tracking program for those who won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine.

    President Biden’s strongest supporters are most likely to endorse the harshest punishments against those who won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine. Among voters who have a Very Favorable impression of Biden, 51% are in favor of government putting the unvaccinated in “designated facilities,” and 54% favor imposing fines or prison sentences on vaccine critics. By contrast, among voters who have a Very Unfavorable view of Biden, 95% are against “designated facilities” for the unvaccinated and 93% are against criminal punishment for vaccine critics.”

    Link: covid_19_democratic_voters_support_harsh_measures_against_unvaccinated

  2. dearieme Reply

    So much for the notion that Javid wouldn’t be captured by the Dept of Health blob. But why does the blob want to do it? Why do Boris and Javid wish to dance to their tune? What the bugger is going on and why? Who gains and how? Is it the blob that’s principally at fault?

    I’m most of the way through this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Plague-Upon-Our-House-Destroying/dp/163758220X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1642538521&sr=8-1

    It’s an account of an intelligent and well-informed outsider, a public health researcher from Stanford, recruited temporarily into the White House. He found the crucial people on the Coronavirus Task Force to be ignorant, vain, and pig-headed. They spread appalling advice to the state Governors, the school boards, and the universities. Trump failed to fire them.

    The author isn’t perfect – he inexplicably favours masks and has nothing critical to say about vaccines. But still he’s an intellectual giant compared to them: dear God, what an eye-opener.

  3. James Robinson Reply

    ´Mass Formation Psychosis’

    Worthwhile looking up and recognising how the theory relates to the behaviour of many; including those in charge of the imminent NHS firing squad!

  4. Best_before_1981 Reply

    What has happened to the trades unions/associations to which many of these employees must belong? Back in the ’70s and ’80s, strikes would be called, not in the NHS though, for what seem in comparison to be utter trifles.
    Are they no longer interested in defending the interests of their members?

    • dr-no Reply

      Indeed. Two Royal Colleges (not always just Royal Colleges, sometimes they also have trade union functions), the Royal College of Nursing and Royal College of Midwives, have nailed their colours to the mast, but the medical Royal Colleges and the BMA – where are their colours?

  5. Helen McArdle Reply

    You have captured the brutality of these mandates. The benefits in reducing infection have been oversold and the harms have been downplayed. To even speak of these things is now taboo, and to risk professional blacklisting.

    Respecting people’s autonomy and bodily integrity is at the heart of human rights and medical ethics. If everyone is made to take a vaccine, some people will be harmed by the vaccine. Those harmed will include people who would not have personally benefited from vaccination. For those who believe in the righteousness of universal vaccination, this is seen as an acceptable trade-off if the outcome is thought to be maximum benefit to the population. What constitutes benefit for one patient may be harm for another. The risk-benefit equation for vaccination in a pensioner with multiple co-morbidities is clearly different to that of a healthy child or fit young adult.

    I’ve been auditing our practice SARS-COV2 infections by vaccination status since June 2021. In December 21/Jan 22 over 1/3rd of PCR-logged infections were in people who had had boosters in the preceding 2 months. Only 1 in 7 were unvaccinated and the rest mostly double vaccinated. Lots of LFD pos infections now go unlogged as people can’t see the point in travelling for a PCR test when it takes a week for the result (the consequence of advising the whole nation to do daily LFDs in cold season), so it won’t be easy for anyone to figure out what is really happening now.

    It is striking that when coronavirus gets into a family/social circle the SAR is often very high, with entire groups of double and triple vaccinated people passing infection between them. Unless there is some weird genetic quirk in our practice population, every GP who sees patients must know this. These vaccines don’t block infection in any meaningful way.

    Cambridge LMC have suggested to GPs in their patch, ‘we advise you be pragmatic – if non-patient facing staff require specific entrances/exits to avoid any patient throughput, then see if these can be facilitated’. Unvaccinated and (soon to be recategorised as unvaccinated) un-boosted people are not in a perpetual state of Covid-19 infection, though in the current climate of prejudice, one might be forgiven for thinking so.

    People are likely to be at significantly higher risk of contracting infection from family members or friends in household settings, or from symptomatically infected people in hospitals or care settings, than from asymptomatic healthcare contact, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated. It makes as much scientific sense to discriminate against unvaccinated healthcare workers as it does to discriminate against immunosuppressed, obese or unhealthy vaccinated healthcare workers, those who live in multigenerational households, highly sociable people, anyone who may have had a poor vaccine response or those whose vaccines are waning, due to early vaccination.

  6. steve Reply

    I have emailed/written to my MP asking him to reconsider his support for the compulsory vaccination of NHS staff.

    His response discussed a balanced approach, the strength of feeling on both sides of the debate, and a few paragraphs of government propaganda.

    I replied to his reply and got the same thing back.

    My 3rd and most recent email suggested there was an anomaly in the figures. The figures proposed those who were jabbed were more likely to get infected. This was based on the government’s own data and can be found in a post on BookFace or is it Meta.

    John Dee’s Almanac

    If the proposal to mandate is based on people not getting infected and not passing it on, it is very clearly rubbish.

    I get the sense of an appalling case of cognitive dissonance.

    A book which I think I have referenced before may provide some clues!
    Mistakes were made (but not by me) Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions and hurtful acts – Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

  7. Ed P Reply

    What about health workers with known allergies? Are they going to be dismissed for refusing an injection containing allergens? (I am allergic to Sorbate8 & PEG, both ingredients in the jabs.)
    Then there’s the moral issue: aborted fetal tissue is allegedly used in their concoctions. Are religious or ethical objections considered before one is shot?
    90 years is not a long time in human history for repeating the errors of the past.

  8. John Bowman Reply

    I read some years ago that the IRA knew that whilst maybe it could not lose, it could not win. Via back channels, so the story goes, a senior IRA figure arranged a meeting with an MI5 contact and said, the IRA wanted to stop the war but didn’t know how to.

    I wonder if we are seeing this now everywhere. The goon-squad wants to stop the CoVid-crazy but they just don’t know how to. The primary obstacle is to do so invalidates everything they have said and done, so just bash on and on and hope something turns up.

    It is like the ‘sunk cost’ fallacy which people use to argue continuing with something because the investment already made cannot be recovered, reputation is at risk, but they do not consider the additional cost of continuing and whether this cost might be greater than what is already spent.

    You cannot find reason and logic where there are none.

    • Tom Welsh Reply

      John, I think the “sunk cost” reasoning is a little different in politics. Mainly because the individual politicians tend to be narcissists and thus hate to be contradicted, let alone admit they were wrong. And God forbid they should ever apologise for their own acts – although they are keen to apologise for people unrelated to them who are long dead.

      Thus the dominant official narrative must be upheld at all costs as long as the specific politicians (or perhaps party) who created it are still in the public eye. I imagine that once Mr Johnson is out of office (maybe any day now) it will become possible for those who oust him to start cautiously talking about how systematically wrong he was about everything – including Covid. (Although as we all know, he was actually in favour of common sense and established methods).

      Once Mr Johnson is identified as the scapegoat, everything can be loaded onto his back. Almost everyone else can resort to those reliable old standbys, “I was just obeying orders”, “I was just following advice”, “Until we understood things better, I had to play safe”…

    • carolyn_f Reply

      Thanks, I was just about to post that link. Appalling. Some unknown groups or some collection of individuals with vast interests clearly want to inflict maximum damage on individuals, families, communities… and are using all means at their disposal. We’re in deep dodah here. How do we get folks to wake up?

  9. dr-no Reply

    One of the most resolute zero covid fanatics for much of the pandemic, Prof Devi Shridhar, appears to have come round to the idea that there’s a lot of it about, and we need to learn to live with it (Guardian):

    Now that science has defanged Covid, it’s time to get on with our lives

    Defanged??? The virus is a coronavirus, for heaven’s sake, not a fangavirus…

    Compare the above to Prof D’s ‘bracing clarity’ a year ago (New Statesman):

    The UK needs a zero-Covid strategy to prevent endless lockdowns

    From “the UK must seek to eliminate the virus, not merely suppress it” to “[a]s with any other ineradicable disease, prevention and treatment can be integrated into society”.

    Prof D is to be commended for following ‘when the facts change, I change my mind’. We must hope that others have the grace to do so as well, and that the monster of vaccine mandates is rapidly thrown into the dustbin of history.

    • John Bowman. Reply

      When the facts change, I change my mind.

      Or…

      When the wind changes, I change tack.

      I think a lot of people are suddenly ‘realising’ and insisting they were saying all along what the people whom they criticised and vilified were saying – honest.

      I saw Fauci being interviewed about people complaining he had said the vaccines would stop people getting CoVid and stop transmission, but that now he was saying the opposite. According to Fauci this is because people had misunderstood him… their fault they got the wrong impression.

      True to form, the abuser always blames the abused.

      • Tom Welsh Reply

        In the 18th century, the custom of changing tack when the wind changes was so familiar that there was a word for it: “trimmer”. Such people were generally despised, although it was understood that trimming was the natural behaviour of the rising class of professional politicians. Today, alas, we apparently have nothing but professional politicians. They have no ideals, not even an ideology. Like the trimmers of old, they weigh every situation purely in terms of personal advantage.

        trim
        n verb (trims, trimming, trimmed)

        3 adjust (a sail) to take advantage of the wind. Øadjust the balance of (a ship or aircraft) by rearranging its cargo or using its controls.
        4 adapt one’s views to the prevailing political trends for personal advancement.
        5 informal, dated get the better of; cheat.

        COED

    • Tom Welsh Reply

      The best place to publish such two-faced twaddle is The Guardian, the home of doublethink. Guardianistas regularly practice believing six impossible things before breakfast. Not only that, they preach those impossibilities to us benighted fools from their exalted moral height.

  10. dearieme Reply

    I have a bookmark folder into which I shall insert the Dimwit Shridhar article. I’ve called it “Bedwetters in retreat”.

  11. dearieme Reply

    “Prof D is to be commended for following ‘when the facts change, I change my mind’. ”

    There we differ, doc: I can’t see what facts have changed enough to cause a change of mind. I suspect she’s just the Professor of Bray.

    • Tom Welsh Reply

      It’s an intriguing phenomenological question whether facts can really be said to change. Surely the facts remain as they are; it is only our awareness of them that changes.

      Apparently Professor Shridhar’s grasp of the pertinent facts was always tenuous in the extreme; perhaps she has recently troubled to inform herself a little.

  12. dr-no Reply

    Latest ONS data published yesterday estimate 7.6% of doctors aged 40-64 have had no covid vaccine, another 1.2% have only had one dose. That’s getting on for 10,000 doctors aged 40-64 who are going to be forced to walk the plank, starting next month. What about those aged under 40? Younger = less likely to be double vaxxed? So maybe even higher percentages? Data in spreadsheet here.

    • dearieme Reply

      I was surprised that Boris didn’t grasp the chance during his announcement of his Great Retreat to retreat on that fatuous policy too.

      I believe there is precedent for insisting on vaccines for NHS staff – you’ll know better than me. But presumably not for “vaccines” as leaky, ineffective, and unsafe as these ones, and for such a disease.

      As ever, people will wonder. Sometimes they even resort to quoting Sherlock Holmes.

      • dr-no Reply

        They (ministers) really are quite bonkers. In the week we had Javid finally announce “…we must learn to live with Covid in the same way we have to live with flu” – ie it’s ‘just another seasonal flu like illness’ – we still have them ploughing ahead with Operation ‘You’re Fired’. Insane, though Dr No hopes that the recent and increasing kickback and demonstrations may cause a long overdue and fully justifiable U-turn.

        The precedent for vaccines for NHS staff is things like Hep B, MMR etc. The crucial difference is that by and large these vaccines work, the covid ones don’t. Even before you get to the moral/ethical objections, the case for mandatory vaccination fails, because the vaccines fail. It makes as much sense as vaccinating NHS staff against heart failure, so their patients don’t get heart failure.

  13. dr-no Reply

    dearieme – the over-diagnosis of covid as underlying cause of death is a real problem, the only unanswered question is the extent to which it happens. Readers may well have come across the recent ONS FOI response which reported very small numbers, compared to the alleged covid deaths eg on the governments coronabollocks website, of deaths (6183) for the period 1st Feb 2020 to 31st Dec 2021 where covid and only covid was given as the cause of death. It is important not to read too much into this single figure, but it does tell us something is very rotten in the state of covid death counting.

    Dr No has also been looking at the infamous ‘Alberta Tapes’, or rather webpages, which briefly revealed the likely extent of admissions and deaths by vaccination status missclassification (if you favour cockups) or fraud (if you favour conspiracies). Alberta, like many jurisdictions, stratifies these stats not by true vaccination status, but by immune status (the old you remain ‘unvaccinated’ for so many days, typically 14 or 21 days, after being jabbed, because you are not yet deemed immune) which means a subsequent event (admission or death) in someone diagnosed with covid in the 14/21 day post jab period gets counted as an unvaccinated event. The crucial, since deleted without a squeak, chart is available on the WayBack Machine (the page takes a while to load, when it does, scroll down to Figure 12 at the bottom). What it shows is this:

    At the top of the page (in Table 3) the Albertan authorities define vaccination status: Note: Vaccine status category is based on protection. Doses administered within 14 days prior to a person’s COVID-19 diagnosis are not considered protective; as a result, partial or complete vaccination categories only include those identified as cases over 14 days past their first or second immunization date.

    Taking this at face value, this would appear to mean that the large spikes seen in Figure 12 in admissions and deaths occurring subsequently in those previously diagnosed with covid up to 14 days after being jabbed are counted as events happening in unvaccinated individuals. Whoops (though Dr No is still doing a bit of a double take: the charts show jab to diagnosis intervals on the x-axis, subsequent event counts on the y-axis… is this OK? Answer is, on the face of it, yes, but Dr No is still not 100% persuaded…).

    Important to note (a) numbers are small and (b) these are only covid admissions/deaths (ie you had to test positive to get counted), and so this tells us nothing about non-covid deaths.

    Also important to note that ONS continue to maintain they don’t use this wheeze. ONS definitions (for their outcomes by vaccination status data):

    Vaccination status is defined on each day for each person and is one of:
    – unvaccinated 
    – vaccinated with 1 dose only, less than 21 days after vaccination 
    – vaccinated with 1 dose only, at least 21 days after vaccination 
    – vaccinated with 2 doses, less than 21 days after second vaccination 
    – vaccinated with 2 doses, at least 21 days after second vaccination

    ie they do classify by true vaccination status, not someone’s arbitrary notion of when immunity may have arisen.  

  14. dr-no Reply

    Tish – there are also more up to date routine stats here, which appear to be the stats used to answer the FOI. So we have, from ONS, the huge number, the 6183 number (source link above, covid is ‘only cause mentioned’) and the 17,371 and bit more number (to 31 Dec 2021, ‘no pre-existing conditions’). On the face of it ‘only cause mentioned’ and ‘no pre-existing conditions’ sound as if they should be (or perhaps mean) the same, but there may be some quirk of the way ONS does the numbers that means they are not the same.

    In the quarterly data sets, pre-existing conditions are defined:

    “We define a pre-existing condition here as the last health condition mentioned on the first part of the death certificate (the direct sequence of events leading to death) when it is recorded on a lower line to, and therefore clearly preceding, the coronavirus (COVID-19); and all mentions in the second part, which are independent contributory factors in the death. Mentions of fatigue and ‘old age’ (with ICD-10 codes R53, R54) were excluded as these are generally not valid medical conditions for death certification on their own.”

    It may be the larger 17k number arises because there are MCCDs where there are other entries above covid in Part I, but none below or in Part II, so they count as no pre-existing conditions, although there are other cause of death entries, while the 6k ‘only cause mentioned’ counts is just that, covid and only covid on the MCCD.

    But, frankly, it is yet more obfuckstrastion, yet more smoke and mirrors… Dear oh dear oh dear…

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