The Abolition of Medical Consent and Bodily Autonomy

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Last week it was announced that participation in the Covid-19 vaccine trials will be mandatory for all care workers. I am truly struggling to understand how this has happened in England - it is proving almost impossible to put my reaction into words. In my past 2 attempts to write this post I have been found myself entirely without words. It's a transparently insane occurrence, no matter how the Ministry of Truth try to frame it. 

Ministers claim they have passed the mandate out of concern for low uptake of the vaccines in care home workers. This suggestion has provoked two strong responses in my mind that I'm sure we all share:

A) Where was their "concern" for carers when they were sending sick residents back into their facilities, instead of the Nightingale hospitals? 

B) Why is it not up to the workers what risks they're willing to take? A theme of my objections throughout - adults should have the right to assess the level of risk and make their own decisions 

The sector already struggles to recruit sufficient staff - compulsory vaccination will make this harder. The policy is also discriminatory, as the only exemption mentioned is medical grounds. This allows no consideration for religious beliefs. The same government that had us all clapping like seals for carers last summer are now stabbing them in the back (and the arm). The hypocrisy is astounding, and it certainly won't stop. If the nation allows this mandate, it will be expanded to include medical workers, then hospitality, then eventually everyone. They have already slipped in the addition that external contractors visiting care homes to work "for example tradespeople, hairdressers and beauticians, and CQC inspectors" will also be forced to have 2 jabs. Don't wait for it to affect you - by then it will be too late. 

The Good News:

Trade union Unite condemned the move and said it “strongly opposes forcing any health and social care workers to have a vaccine or risk sacrificing their job”.

On Monday, a second announcement came in: vaccine passports will be required to enter clubs and large crowd venues from late September. This has been met by mixed reactions, especially for the nightclub industry that has been neglected for a year and a half. A nightclub owner in Greater Manchester says "I am not a scientist or a doctor, but I am deeply concerned by the discriminatory nature for those who either can't have the vaccine for medical reasons or age, or who do not want to,". It is a great relief to see these objections appearing, and I anticipate further objections due to the level of financial damage that these restrictions will do to nightclubs. 

Personally I am disappointed but not surprised. If they weren't planning on requiring vaccine trial certification at some point, they wouldn't have handed out the cards for participants to keep. ID cards documenting rank or class of citizen are a textbook step in the implementation of any dictatorship - it had to happen sooner or later. People who haven't participated in the trials of the Covid vaccines are now, of course, the lower class. The obedient continue to get their rewards and their sweeties, but they're also being handed a false sense of superiority at the same time. They're already showing an infantile appreciation of being allowed something that others are not, affirming my perception of their absolute selfishness and immaturity. 

Regarding what the policy aims to achieve, the government is claiming that they are concerned about large venues being "super spreaders". However, Boris made the statement that proof of a negative test will not be enough. According to the official line, vaccinated people can still catch and spread the virus, while a negative test proves that you do not have the virus at all and therefore cannot spread it. Does this not constitute concrete proof that the vaccine pass policy does not aim to prevent the virus from spreading? I don't consider myself to be someone who "listens" to the government, but I hear their words, and I hear these absolute self-contradictions that they make every day. Why isn't this enough to stop trusting them?

https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/social-care/covid-19-vaccines-to-be-made-mandatory-for-all-care-home-staff-in-england-16-06-2021/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-57890847

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