With Omicron handily eschewing the current vaccine series and the UK government withdrawing most other virus control measures, there is no legitimate reason to require healthcare workers to be vaccinated.

On Wednesday (January 19), the UK government took the world – or at least the world outside the UK – by surprise by announcing that it plans to scrap almost all of its so-called “Plan B” measures against England. These include mask regulations, social distancing measures and vaccine passports, which were only introduced in mid-December. The policy U-turn appears to be a political expedient for the government to succumb to a string of corruption scandals.

Lifting some restrictions could end up being seriously counterproductive, especially if the UK suddenly sees a resurgence of case numbers in the coming weeks, as has already happened in Denmark. The tenure of embattled British Prime Minister Boris Johnson may not be long enough to ensure that the policy reversal remains in place. Still, the move is the first time a major Western “liberal democratic” government has outright rejected the need for mandatory vaccine passports. That alone is worth celebrating.

As I say in an upcoming book, SCANNED: Why vaccine passports and digital IDs will mean the end of privacy and personal freedom, passports “offer few potential benefits, but great potential harm.” They represent a full-scale attack on civil liberties while exposing large segments of the population to unprecedented levels of discrimination and segregation.However, they have done very little to help countries fight the spread of the virus, which is considered their PurposeIn fact, they may actually be exacerbating the situation by giving recently vaccinated people a false sense of security. How else to explain the fact that by the end of 2021, the regions of the world with the most vaccine passports per capita are again zeroed out by the COVID-19 pandemic?

Lack of “rationality” and “proportionality”

But one measure the UK government has yet to repeal is the vaccine mandate for all NHS workers. From April 1, frontline NHS workers will have to undergo two jabs after MPs voted on the legislation last month.But a leaked document from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) warned ministers that new evidence on Omicron – showing the vaccine’s effectiveness had dropped to zero – sparked “reasonableness” and “proportionality” for the new law: “More from guardian:

The document, drafted by Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) officials and seen by the Guardian, said the evidence base on which MPs voted had “changed”, increasing the chances of objections and judicial review.

The effectiveness of just two doses of the vaccine against Omicron was cited, and the milder variant was less likely to be hospitalized.

More than 70,000 NHS workers, or 4.9%, may still be unvaccinated by April 1, the document said. NHS trusts in England are preparing to send dismissal letters from February 3 to any staff who have not yet received their first dose of the vaccine.

Groups including the Royal College of Nursing were last week amid intense pressure on the NHS urge Health Minister Sajid Javid has delayed legislation known as “Vaccination as a Condition of Deployment” (VCOD2). The earlier VCOD1 rules apply to caregivers and come into effect on November 11.

On Tuesday, the Royal College of Nursing said the leaked memo should prompt ministers to stop imposing mandatory jabs, calling it “reckless”.

“It is time for the government to undertake a major rethink,” said Patricia Marquis, RCN’s England director. “Forcing is not the answer and it would be reckless to fire valuable carers during a workforce crisis.”

Documents prepared by DHSC officials noted that two doses of the vaccine were as high as 32 percent effective against Omicron infections, with the effectiveness dropping to zero after 20 weeks.

Fragmented aged care

The Department of Health and Social Care has pushed for a sweeping vaccine mandate for home care workers, driving up to 70,000 workers out of the sector. Health care leaders petitioned former investment banker and health minister Sajid Javid for an 11-hour suspended sentence, but he refused to listen. That was in mid-November.A month and a half later, the government Announce It is relaxing immigration rules to recruit paramedics from overseas.

In early January, more than 90 nursing home operators Announce A “red alert” for staffing shortages, meaning staffing ratios have been violated. In response to the growing shortage of staff, Health Minister Sajid Javid has proposed the creation of a “volunteer army” of retired nurses, doctors and paramedics to work shifts and ease the burden.

Vic Rayner, chief executive of the National Nursing Forum, warned: “The nationwide spread of Omicron will see more outbreaks in care homes, put enormous pressure on an already compromised workforce, and mean the need for People who are cared for are not cared for.”

Vaccine mandates have not only exacerbated severe staffing shortages in the UK’s aged care sector, with an estimated 170,000 vacancies; it has also put more pressure on the NHS’ buckling system, as more and more care homes have no choice but to Able to refuse to discharge the patient.

The NHS is also facing severe staffing shortages.According to UK health charity King’s Fund, NHS hospitals, mental health services and community providers are reporting Shortage of nearly 84,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees less than a year ago. This is equivalent to 6% of the total NHS workforce.

In 2017, a select committee of the House of Lords warned of the lack of a comprehensive national long-term strategy to ensure a well-trained and committed workforce to meet the needs of the UK healthcare system over the next 10 to 15 years. “The biggest insider threat to NHS sustainability”. That was three years before COVID arrived.

Today, many caregivers “will only need half the staff to start work, but the same number of patients need to be cared for”, Patricia Marquis, director of the Royal College of Nursing, said recently. Tell ITV News. “They’re getting thinner and thinner, and we’re hearing about many people crying for not being able to care for their patients.”

the last straw

As I wrote in Scanned, “It’s a vicious cycle that is weakening healthcare systems around the world. The worse the shortage, the more exhausted nurses and doctors will be, further exacerbating shortages.” Vaccine authorization appears to be The last straw. A wave of sudden layoffs and resignations of unvaccinated staff has made it harder for overwhelmed hospitals to treat patients with COVID-19 and other serious illnesses.

In parts of Canada, including Quebec, public health authorities “allowed” in December Infected workers return Hospitals struggled to cope with thousands of staff on sick leave amid a surge in new cases. Alberta has taken the more sensible step of allowing unvaccinated workers to return to work as long as they agree to regular testing – something the UK’s NHS can easily do and some 70,000 still refuse to do so Vaccine workers pay very little extra. vaccination. In fact, both vaccinated and unvaccinated workers should do so.

Fighting a pandemic with legislation that ultimately results in fewer, rather than more, workforces in the health care system is not only dangerous but absurd, especially given that the “no shots, no work” rules target non-sterile vaccinations that don’t stop or stop infection. spread, but only reduces the risk of severe symptoms in recipients.

This is especially true in the case of the Omicron variant. according to The UK government’s latest vaccine report, released on 13 January, showed that vaccinated cases per 100,000 people are now higher than unvaccinated cases. The situation is similar in Denmark, where public health authorities have done a fairly good job of tracking the number of COVID-19 cases and the emergence and spread of new variants, report In late December, 90% of the 17,800 Danes infected with Omicron as of December 15 had been vaccinated two or three times. Only 8.5% were unvaccinated. In the case of Delta or other variants, unvaccinated cases accounted for 23.7% of the cases.

Clearly, in the Omicron era and current vaccine production, there is no logical reason to require healthcare workers to be vaccinated, especially given that many of them already have some degree of acquired immunity to infection.This is even more the case in a country where the government has largely rolled back most other public health measures to try to control the spread of the virus, such as wearing masks and working from home, and even some A staunch advocate of the ex-vaccine mandate is now giving in.

In fact, the only possible logic for continuing the vaccine mission is to further weaken the National Health Service in order to create more opportunities to outsource its services to private operators.Given the track record of this administration and the fact that it has Force the NHS The possibility of paying hundreds of millions of pounds to private operators just to stand by whether or not they have to deliver (what the government calls a “minimum income guarantee”) should be taken very seriously.