Don’t underestimate how important this UK news is. The protesters won. The people who held the line, saved the day. There were just too many of them to sack them all.
The Big Retreat is great news — except of course, for all the healthworkers who’ve already quit, or been forced to take an injection they didn’t want, or who have suffered for months with the stress of not knowing if they would be sacked. It’s all been so cruel and will leave a wake …a loss of trust that will last for years.
Covid passports programs are also ending in Ireland, Bolivia, the Czech Republic, and Denmark and now Switzerland, Saskatchewan and Alberta Canada are promising that vaccine passports will end this month.
Tell the world about them: it’s fuel for protesters and a cold shower for politicians. Newspapers probably won’t headline the pattern of freedom that is starting to spread. There will be people in the world who will be wondering right now if they should hold-the-line.
Politicians will feel isolated if other countries are abandoning their “health passes”.
Health secretary Sajid Javid announces U-turn that will prevent exodus of thousands of health workers
The move came three days before the 3 February deadline that unvaccinated NHS workers who had face-to-face contact with patients had been given to have their first dose or be dismissed.
Figures published last week by NHS England show that 127,515 NHS and domiciliary care staff working in registered settings had not had a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine as of 23 January.
Javid also plans to remove immunisation as a condition of working in care homes, an approach that has already led to the loss of about 40,000 staff in that sector.
He told MPs: “While vaccination remains our very best line of defence, I believe it is no longer proportionate to require vaccination as a condition of deployment by statute.
NHS organisations said that an estimated 60,000 staff would have been dismissed if Javid had not relented.
Omicron has changed everything, but governments shouldn’t have mandated this in the first place. The loss of faith in institutions may never be recovered. After calling healthworkers heroes, they treated them like dirt. The next time there is a major health crisis, healthworkers will believe the pots-n-pans theater?
More countries cutting restrictions and passports:
- Switzerland will end vaccine passports later this month.
- Alberta Canada may lift COVID-19 vaccines passports by the end of February.
- Italy, Switzerland and Finland are easing restrictions, and faster than they expected even two weeks ago. Norway also relaxed most rules. Vaccinated travels can fly straight in without testing. Unvaxxinated travelers are welcome but need a test before flying. There are no more quarantines.
- Most people can fly to and from most European countries, sorta.
- Mumbai is easing restrictions
The UK Government cannot even afford the compensation claims for all the pain and suffering these
h/t John R Smith and this video. Old Ozzie, PeterS.