What would happen if a majority of people in England refused the covid vaccine
What would have happened (or would happen in future) in terms of government polices ie mandatory vaccines for NHS workers, for travel etc. Would government have admitted defeat and the polices be changed. Or would vaccines be manadatory by force
(edited 2 years ago)
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Pointless scenario. 90% of the population has 1 dose; 83% are fully vaccinated
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by Redfrost
Perhaps requires some outside the box thinkers, I’ll wait
what do you think?
You need to realise that you can't just change one parameter and assume everything else would stay the same. What do you think happens every time there's a measles outbreak somewhere? (These are almost always associated with a drop in takeup of the vaccine.)
I'll tell you: people in those areas, even the people who were previously refusing the vaccine, go queue up to get their kids vaccinated, because there's a big difference between refusing something when you're not that worried about having to face the consequences and refusing something when the consequences are real and scary and happening to people who you know.
Even if most people had refused to get vaccinated when it was first offered, Delta would have been a sufficient mess that it wouldn't have been true any more by February 2021.
I'll tell you: people in those areas, even the people who were previously refusing the vaccine, go queue up to get their kids vaccinated, because there's a big difference between refusing something when you're not that worried about having to face the consequences and refusing something when the consequences are real and scary and happening to people who you know.
Even if most people had refused to get vaccinated when it was first offered, Delta would have been a sufficient mess that it wouldn't have been true any more by February 2021.
Original post by skylark2
You need to realise that you can't just change one parameter and assume everything else would stay the same. What do you think happens every time there's a measles outbreak somewhere? (These are almost always associated with a drop in takeup of the vaccine.)
I'll tell you: people in those areas, even the people who were previously refusing the vaccine, go queue up to get their kids vaccinated, because there's a big difference between refusing someexactly this thing when you're not that worried about having to face the consequences and refusing something when the consequences are real and scary and happening to people who you know.
Even if most people had refused to get vaccinated when it was first offered, Delta would have been a sufficient mess that it wouldn't have been true any more by February 2021.
I'll tell you: people in those areas, even the people who were previously refusing the vaccine, go queue up to get their kids vaccinated, because there's a big difference between refusing someexactly this thing when you're not that worried about having to face the consequences and refusing something when the consequences are real and scary and happening to people who you know.
Even if most people had refused to get vaccinated when it was first offered, Delta would have been a sufficient mess that it wouldn't have been true any more by February 2021.
exactly this
or the dumper trucks tipping ther piles of bodies i nthe mass graves as loaders dumped quicklime over them
orthe point at which over 50s who needed ventilation got HVLT instead
Thread moved to Society as this isn't an Everyday Issues that needs advice on.
Note: This thread is to offer potential scenarios as described in the OP. If this thread turns into a debate about the usefulness, effectiveness or credibility of vaccines the thread will be closed.
Note: This thread is to offer potential scenarios as described in the OP. If this thread turns into a debate about the usefulness, effectiveness or credibility of vaccines the thread will be closed.
Original post by black tea
what do you think?
I was thinking more down the path of government power loss in enforcing vaccines. If the majority refused vaccination many policies couldn’t be imposed ie travel passes and mandatory vaccinations of healthcare staff. Healthcare staff are needed and beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Reason all this came to mind is that some staff I know actually don’t want the vaccine and got it anyway. The flip side of the good that vaccines have brought is the questionable ethics- I do believe forcing medical treatments on people is too far (exp given that most vaccinated people transmit covid after all) but that’s another topic. The fact that the date when they sack unvaccinated staff was moved from February to April because they need the staff just seems to be dodgy/sends the wrong message.
‘We’l use you to carry the country through for 2 years then drop you for refusing a medical treatment/exercising bodily autonomy’
Vaccines are great and have helped save many people but blindingly obvious that vaccines are not eliminating transmission. Reducing maybe but look around. Testing, PPE, masks for 8 hours per day 5 days a week and chronic handwashing all day to the point of dermatitis play a massive part in reducing covid transmission. But still staff must have a medical intervention
I don’t see my thread as pointless as with all the new variants and up/comming vaccines the right to bodily autonomy might well come into trend
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by 04MR17
Thread moved to Society as this isn't an Everyday Issues that needs advice on.
Note: This thread is to offer potential scenarios as described in the OP. If this thread turns into a debate about the usefulness, effectiveness or credibility of vaccines the thread will be closed.
Note: This thread is to offer potential scenarios as described in the OP. If this thread turns into a debate about the usefulness, effectiveness or credibility of vaccines the thread will be closed.
So the overwhelming majority of the country has been vaccinated and vaccinated again - and you want to censor debate on vaccination because......?
Original post by Trinculo
So the overwhelming majority of the country has been vaccinated and vaccinated again - and you want to censor debate on vaccination because......?
this isn't a debate on the quality of the vaccine tho which i reckon is what the reminder is about. indeed OP isn't debating that at all but what government policies would be in place should the majority of the UK refuse the vaccine. here the question posed in the op is 'would government have admitted defeat'? - it's a political question about power, not whether the vaccine is effective at preventing Covid.
The government can impose something that the majority of people don't want provided they can get a majority in parliament. They do so regularly - tax rises come to mind.
But they're going to be aware that there's a substantial subset of people who won't vote for them next time if they do so. Politicians, despite what they say, are mostly in it for themselves and their own careers. They're not going to impose compulsory vaccinations if they think that the result will be not winning the next election. There's a reason that tax rises are just about always early on in a parliament and the last budget before an election contains only "nice" things for the majority of voters.
As-is, yes, they will have teed off some medical/care staff who didn't want to get vaccinated and had to choose between vaccination and losing their jobs, who would have voted for them, and who now won't. They will have decided up front that it isn't enough to tip the balance vote-wise (they may even be considering that they may have gained some voters - a lot of people have elderly relatives and have been very concerned for their safety in the context of care). If we were talking millions and millions of voters, they wouldn't have mandated it in the first place in your scenario. But yes, if something is massively unpopular in an unforeseen way (vaccination really doesn't count here, we know pretty much exactly how many people are getting vaccinated and have done since day one) then the government will be desperately trying to find a way to get rid of it or modify it, preferably in a way they can spin as "look at us listening to the people". Assuming you don't remember the Community Charge ("poll tax"), you might find what happened with it interesting. Worth bearing in mind that the vast majority of politicians are old enough to remember it personally.
But they're going to be aware that there's a substantial subset of people who won't vote for them next time if they do so. Politicians, despite what they say, are mostly in it for themselves and their own careers. They're not going to impose compulsory vaccinations if they think that the result will be not winning the next election. There's a reason that tax rises are just about always early on in a parliament and the last budget before an election contains only "nice" things for the majority of voters.
As-is, yes, they will have teed off some medical/care staff who didn't want to get vaccinated and had to choose between vaccination and losing their jobs, who would have voted for them, and who now won't. They will have decided up front that it isn't enough to tip the balance vote-wise (they may even be considering that they may have gained some voters - a lot of people have elderly relatives and have been very concerned for their safety in the context of care). If we were talking millions and millions of voters, they wouldn't have mandated it in the first place in your scenario. But yes, if something is massively unpopular in an unforeseen way (vaccination really doesn't count here, we know pretty much exactly how many people are getting vaccinated and have done since day one) then the government will be desperately trying to find a way to get rid of it or modify it, preferably in a way they can spin as "look at us listening to the people". Assuming you don't remember the Community Charge ("poll tax"), you might find what happened with it interesting. Worth bearing in mind that the vast majority of politicians are old enough to remember it personally.
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by Trinculo
So the overwhelming majority of the country has been vaccinated and vaccinated again - and you want to censor debate on vaccination because......?
I think it would mean a few things:
- Many more people would get unwell
- Hospitals and GP surgeries would become overwhelmed with people needing treatment
- More people would die (not just due to Covid but due to hospitals not being able to see them in time for other conditions too)
- Lockdown, foreign travel, social distancing and mask-wearing rules would become far more strict and last much longer
- The economy would plummet due to lack of both supply and demand
- The population would decline due to lower birth rates and immigration, causing more long term economic problems
- Rates of depression, stress and other issues relating to always having to stay indoors would increase
... basically everything that happened during the pandemic before the vaccines were created, except more severe and lasting much longer.
Although I think in the longer term, the people most prone to getting seriously ill or dying due to Covid would gradually die off, whilst the people who manage to comfortably survive it would develop immunity - essentially survival of the fittest. We'd end up with a population which is resilient to Covid overall, and as for what's left of the disease, we'd learn to live with it the same way we have with the flu. There's no telling how long that would take and what sort of damage would be caused in the meantime though.
It seems inconceivable that vaccines would ever become mandatory, but you never know. It depends on how severe the problem ends up becoming. Extreme problems may require extreme solutions.
- Many more people would get unwell
- Hospitals and GP surgeries would become overwhelmed with people needing treatment
- More people would die (not just due to Covid but due to hospitals not being able to see them in time for other conditions too)
- Lockdown, foreign travel, social distancing and mask-wearing rules would become far more strict and last much longer
- The economy would plummet due to lack of both supply and demand
- The population would decline due to lower birth rates and immigration, causing more long term economic problems
- Rates of depression, stress and other issues relating to always having to stay indoors would increase
... basically everything that happened during the pandemic before the vaccines were created, except more severe and lasting much longer.
Although I think in the longer term, the people most prone to getting seriously ill or dying due to Covid would gradually die off, whilst the people who manage to comfortably survive it would develop immunity - essentially survival of the fittest. We'd end up with a population which is resilient to Covid overall, and as for what's left of the disease, we'd learn to live with it the same way we have with the flu. There's no telling how long that would take and what sort of damage would be caused in the meantime though.
It seems inconceivable that vaccines would ever become mandatory, but you never know. It depends on how severe the problem ends up becoming. Extreme problems may require extreme solutions.
Original post by Trinculo
So the overwhelming majority of the country has been vaccinated and vaccinated again - and you want to censor debate on vaccination because......?
I don't think anyone's trying to censor debate on vaccination - it's just not what this thread is for.
You could create another thread in which we debate the effectiveness of vaccination if you want to.
Original post by Redfrost
What would have happened (or would happen in future) in terms of government polices ie mandatory vaccines for NHS workers, for travel etc. Would government have admitted defeat and the polices be changed. Or would vaccines be manadatory by force
The answer to this question depends greatly on what you think is actually going on. So I can only answer from the perspective of what I personally think is going on.
The totally unprecedented psychological campaign that has been waged on the public speaks to me of much deeper agendas in play. Prior to 2020, if any vaccination effort had received even 75% coverage I personally think scientists and government would have deemed that sufficient for herd immunity. Yet even now with 90%+ of adults with at least one dose they aren't happy and are aggressively pushing for 100% take-up. That makes absolutely no sense to me personally. So for me, there is some deeper reason why they want / need everyone jabbed.
Because of that my answer to the question "What would have happened if a majority of people in England refused the covid vaccine" is that they would have implemented more and more restrictions and persecuted the unvaccinated relentlessly any way they could. They are probably breathing a huge sigh of relief that they didn't need to do that and that compliance was so high in the UK, because the actions they would have taken otherwise would likely have made government very unpopular.
Nevertheless, I fully expect a very concerted effort by government (and MSM) to demonise the unvaccinated in 2022. Persecutions will imo be many and varied and I predict that MSM will attempt to get the rest of society (the vaccinated) to stigmatise the unvaccinated to create a 2-tier society.
This has already begun imo with large companies like IKEA, NEXT and MORRISONS discriminating against unvaccinated employees by paying them less sick pay.
Had vaccine take-up been very poor there's no doubt to my mind that government would have attempted to bring in population wide mandates. I still think that will happen as and when they are ready. I also think that despite them relaxing restrictions on vaccine passports, they won't go away and will be revisited when they are ready.
Original post by PilgrimOfTruth
The answer to this question depends greatly on what you think is actually going on. So I can only answer from the perspective of what I personally think is going on.
The totally unprecedented psychological campaign that has been waged on the public speaks to me of much deeper agendas in play. Prior to 2020, if any vaccination effort had received even 75% coverage I personally think scientists and government would have deemed that sufficient for herd immunity. Yet even now with 90%+ of adults with at least one dose they aren't happy and are aggressively pushing for 100% take-up. That makes absolutely no sense to me personally. So for me, there is some deeper reason why they want / need everyone jabbed.
Because of that my answer to the question "What would have happened if a majority of people in England refused the covid vaccine" is that they would have implemented more and more restrictions and persecuted the unvaccinated relentlessly any way they could. They are probably breathing a huge sigh of relief that they didn't need to do that and that compliance was so high in the UK, because the actions they would have taken otherwise would likely have made government very unpopular.
Nevertheless, I fully expect a very concerted effort by government (and MSM) to demonise the unvaccinated in 2022. Persecutions will imo be many and varied and I predict that MSM will attempt to get the rest of society (the vaccinated) to stigmatise the unvaccinated to create a 2-tier society.
This has already begun imo with large companies like IKEA, NEXT and MORRISONS discriminating against unvaccinated employees by paying them less sick pay.
Had vaccine take-up been very poor there's no doubt to my mind that government would have attempted to bring in population wide mandates. I still think that will happen as and when they are ready. I also think that despite them relaxing restrictions on vaccine passports, they won't go away and will be revisited when they are ready.
The totally unprecedented psychological campaign that has been waged on the public speaks to me of much deeper agendas in play. Prior to 2020, if any vaccination effort had received even 75% coverage I personally think scientists and government would have deemed that sufficient for herd immunity. Yet even now with 90%+ of adults with at least one dose they aren't happy and are aggressively pushing for 100% take-up. That makes absolutely no sense to me personally. So for me, there is some deeper reason why they want / need everyone jabbed.
Because of that my answer to the question "What would have happened if a majority of people in England refused the covid vaccine" is that they would have implemented more and more restrictions and persecuted the unvaccinated relentlessly any way they could. They are probably breathing a huge sigh of relief that they didn't need to do that and that compliance was so high in the UK, because the actions they would have taken otherwise would likely have made government very unpopular.
Nevertheless, I fully expect a very concerted effort by government (and MSM) to demonise the unvaccinated in 2022. Persecutions will imo be many and varied and I predict that MSM will attempt to get the rest of society (the vaccinated) to stigmatise the unvaccinated to create a 2-tier society.
This has already begun imo with large companies like IKEA, NEXT and MORRISONS discriminating against unvaccinated employees by paying them less sick pay.
Had vaccine take-up been very poor there's no doubt to my mind that government would have attempted to bring in population wide mandates. I still think that will happen as and when they are ready. I also think that despite them relaxing restrictions on vaccine passports, they won't go away and will be revisited when they are ready.
Thanks for your view. I do think the views and actions of the government are becoming excessive
Im not all that well up in history or politics but reading through that parts of what you mention kept reminding me of WW2 ie division of society, discrimination and the natural result of stigmatising that this can create. Maybe this is what comes of economic crisis’s
(edited 2 years ago)
i mean if the majority of the population refused to get the vaccine we'd still be under the same restrictions as we were when the vaccine first rolled out since those were enforced beforehand; like those wouldn't magically go away. travel passes for venues weren't even a thing yet so don't have to worry about it and neither was mandatory vaccination for NHS workers.
if it continued for too long the government might open up the economy but it would also have to get creative. so maybe the new rule is you're allowed to go back to work if you're vaccinated or your business can reopen or back to normal hours, or you can go back to face-to-face school/uni. cash insentives are another thing many countries have done.
if the majority still refused then there would be a vote of confidence or vote of no confidence (likely the latter) and then we have a general election with each party desperate to write a convincing manifesto that actually caters to what it thinks the public wants to hear. there will always be a government in place tho with power to make policies and ability to enforce them through law. like it wouldn't be the case where social rebellion can force things to reopen and make their own rules just by not getting the vaccine. well, they can in private social settings where no one is looking, but certainly can't force open unis etc when the work can be done online.
re NHS if the majority refused the vaccine after the government makes it mandatory it might be able to make it non-mandatory for workers in GP surgeries and certain hospital wards (let's say the children's ward or mh ward or chiro) and then there might be a reshuffle in wards where possible and then the NHS would be forced to do more fast recruiting from overseas. the government could still make it mandatory tho for anyone entering the profession and current/future med students and i can't see a lot of new medical school grads refusing the vaccine after all that hard work and study. also cannot imagine many people refusing to go to medical school now just because they need the Covid jab; i mean med students are damn serious about what they do and why they want to do it. this is all a very impossible situation for me to imagine tho because if it was initially made mandatory there wouldn't be many workers willing to lose their job in the first place.
if it continued for too long the government might open up the economy but it would also have to get creative. so maybe the new rule is you're allowed to go back to work if you're vaccinated or your business can reopen or back to normal hours, or you can go back to face-to-face school/uni. cash insentives are another thing many countries have done.
if the majority still refused then there would be a vote of confidence or vote of no confidence (likely the latter) and then we have a general election with each party desperate to write a convincing manifesto that actually caters to what it thinks the public wants to hear. there will always be a government in place tho with power to make policies and ability to enforce them through law. like it wouldn't be the case where social rebellion can force things to reopen and make their own rules just by not getting the vaccine. well, they can in private social settings where no one is looking, but certainly can't force open unis etc when the work can be done online.
re NHS if the majority refused the vaccine after the government makes it mandatory it might be able to make it non-mandatory for workers in GP surgeries and certain hospital wards (let's say the children's ward or mh ward or chiro) and then there might be a reshuffle in wards where possible and then the NHS would be forced to do more fast recruiting from overseas. the government could still make it mandatory tho for anyone entering the profession and current/future med students and i can't see a lot of new medical school grads refusing the vaccine after all that hard work and study. also cannot imagine many people refusing to go to medical school now just because they need the Covid jab; i mean med students are damn serious about what they do and why they want to do it. this is all a very impossible situation for me to imagine tho because if it was initially made mandatory there wouldn't be many workers willing to lose their job in the first place.
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