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    Re: I don't touch the flu vax 📂 Archived Message

    Posted by Ian M on November 11, 2021, 10:10 pm, in reply to "I don't touch the flu vax"

    @Keith - Looks like it was a close call this time round as to whether they were going to mandate a flu vax for NHS workers too. For now it's just 'under review', as discussed by this shower of bastards in parliament:

    'Jeremy Hunt Chair, Health and Social Care

    Committee, Chair, Health and Social Care Committee
    This is a difficult decision, but it is the right decision, and I congratulate the Health and Social Care Secretary on biting the bullet on this. I congratulate his predecessor, my right hon. Friend Matt Hancock, on laying the foundations of the vaccination programme that has made it possible.

    When we have a disease that can be transmitted asymptomatically, all of us have a responsibility to protect the most vulnerable people, and no one more so than doctors and nurses. I do not know of a single doctor or nurse who do not want to be double or triple jabbed in order to make sure that they are protecting their own patients. Reducing the number of nosocomial infections is one of the big learning points from this pandemic going forward, so this is the right thing to do.,

    Exactly the same arguments for the covid vaccine apply also to the flu vaccine. I note that, today, the Health Secretary has not made an announcement about the flu vaccine. Can I encourage him to do so? I wanted to vaccinate NHS staff for flu much more comprehensively than was happening. I think my successor wanted to do it as well. This needs to happen for exactly the same reasons. There is asymptomatic transmission of flu just as there is asymptomatic transmission of covid. I encourage my right hon. Friend to look at that and I would be interested to hear what his plans are on that front.

    Sajid Javid Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

    I thank my right hon. Friend for his support for today’s announcement. I know that he speaks with huge experience, that he has rightly focused for years on the importance of patient safety, and that he will also welcome this as a patient-safety measure. On his particular question around flu, we did consider that carefully. As he knows, we did consult on it. We looked at the response to the consultation and, after consideration, we were not convinced that we should go ahead with flu at this stage, but the option remains open.

    [...]

    Matthew Hancock Conservative, West Suffolk

    I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s decision and the cross-party consensus behind it. Medicine is based on science and the vaccine is the best of science, and we should use all the science and tools at our disposal to keep people safe. That is the justification for this policy. I support the extension of the decision in due course to flu. I am glad that the Secretary of State is keeping that option open, and urge him to continue to push on that as soon as is practicable.

    May I invite my right hon. Friend to join me in saying that, given that there is cross-party consensus and that the announcement has now been made, this is clearly going to happen; and that all those working in the NHS, including those who have so far been hesitant, should therefore come forward as soon as possible to get the vaccines? They are going to have to get them, so better to get them sooner rather than later.

    Sajid Javid Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

    I agree wholeheartedly. May I take this opportunity to thank my right hon. Friend again for the work that he has done in Government, and particularly in this Department in laying the foundations of our successful vaccination programme? Without those foundations, we would not have been able to take this positive step today.'     - https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2021-11-09b.198.0

    @ Dan - yes, that's the way it seems. I remember Helen Whately pointing the finger at London during the care home HoC 'debate', downplaying the fact that care homes were on average only 1% off the SAGE guidance of 80% staff vaccinations (now well over that of course) and saying that:

    'While the majority of care home workers have now been vaccinated, our most recent data has told us that only 65% of older-age care homes in England were meeting that safe minimum level, and the figure fell to 44% in London.' - https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2021-07-13c.270.0#g274.5

    She didn't say how far below the percentage figure was below 80%, but it all seems moot anyway, they can't or won't settle for anything less than 100%. I'm still struggling to understand why they've been pushing this so hard when it's going to have such a negative effect on the sector. Finally started reading James Scott's 'Seeing Like a State' to see if he has any insights - https://libcom.org/files/Seeing%20Like%20a%20State%20-%20James%20C.%20Scott.pdf

    I expect you're right about the home counties, though I wonder about the complacency effect of vaccinated people thinking they're safe and going about biz as usual with fewer precautions and spreading 'breakthrough' cases more than might otherwise be the case. Weird too that the only MPs voicing principled objections to these mandates have been libertarian-leaning tories, often from the same middle england seats. Don't think any Labour MPs have opposed the measure directly, only making tangential points on the continued importance of mask wearing, test & trace and other measures. Something tells me if Starmer was PM we'd all have vaccine passports & mandates across society by now...

    cheers,
    I

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