There follows a guest post from Steve Sieff, creator of GreenBandRedBand.com.
In June 2020 I launched GreenBandRedBand.com. It is a type of what came to be called focused protection. My system proposed a way of people communicating to others if they wanted to be protected from coronavirus or if they were content to run the risk of contracting the virus. Those who were prepared to take the risk would show others how they felt by wearing a green wrist band or some other garment to communicate their position. Those who wanted to be protected but didn’t want to shield at home would wear a red equivalent. Around those requiring protection it was envisaged that all of us would respectfully adopt the measures that were being recommended to help stop the spread of the virus. Although that would still have been disruptive and unwelcome, it would have been far more palatable than being obliged to take measures around those who did not require them, and infinitely more so than laws which criminalised social interaction. So the system seemed to me to strike the right balance between retaining our personal freedoms and respecting the rights and wishes of others.
I’ll take this opportunity to express my thanks to the large numbers of Lockdown Sceptics readers who contacted me to express their support or who purchased bands and to the editorial team for featuring the site on a number of occasions.
A year down the line LS highlighted a Guardian article reporting on a ‘variant’ of my system being used in some places in the U.S., and other readers may recall Freddie Sayers in UnHerd discussing something similar. You might assume that I would welcome news that a similar system is getting some mainstream attention at last.
But times have moved on and in June 2021 I have slightly mixed feelings about it. On the one hand it is great to see that people are realising that they can manage themselves by communicating with each other rather than needing the Government to micromanage their lives. That should have happened from the outset. On the other hand, in places where the vaccines are available to the vulnerable, there is a strong argument that the time for this system is coming to an end because everyone should be ‘green’.
I proposed the system as an alternative to lockdown and restrictions and to recognise that people would rebound from the fear messaging at different rates. It was designed to be sustainable while large numbers of vulnerable people remained. But it was not envisaged to be permanent. As the numbers of vulnerable reduce, so does the need for specific measures to cater for that vulnerability. There comes a point where the position has moved to the extent that it is no longer kind or helpful to continue to indulge fear. Indeed by continuing to do so one risks perpetuating fear unnecessarily.
When GreenBandRedBand.com was conceived, vaccines seemed a long way off. But a year later they are a reality and the rollout in some parts of the world has been rapid. It may be that we manage to improve their efficacy or that we develop more treatments for people who do contract the virus but essentially the vaccines are our best effort. People who are worried about being vulnerable – or who are actually vulnerable – aren’t going to get a better offer than vaccination. So if you aren’t ready to stop asking for protection after vaccination is available to you then it starts to look like you will never be able to be comfortable with normal social interaction. Or in the terms of my system, you absolutely don’t have to be vaccinated to choose green, but if you were red before and being vaccinated isn’t enough to make you choose green, then what will?
I understand that there will always be a significant number of vulnerable people who remain vulnerable – either because they can’t be vaccinated or because the vaccines are not fully effective. The argument from that is that everyone else should continue with protective steps until we have more effective vaccines, or better treatments, or more vaccines taken by other people to achieve a prevalence as close to zero as we can get. On a personal level I am happy to moderate my behaviour around those who remain vulnerable if it makes them safer. I am happy to show them that respect. But after we all fundamentally altered the way we live for more than a year in the interests of protecting the vulnerable, and as those numbers decline, I don’t think that protecting the minority should continue to dominate how the majority conduct their lives.
In a sense this is where the anti-lockdown and anti-woke aspects of LS come together. I think of it as the contrast between levelling up and levelling down. The first is positive, the second not. Levelling up means giving as many people as possible the opportunity to participate fully in society. Sometimes that can be done easily but at other times it means taking steps which are expensive or inconvenient and which benefit relatively few. The desire to do that may be a sign of a compassionate and caring society. But we must be very wary of turning that positive impulse to ‘level up’ into an attitude where we become so fearful of inequality that we prevent people from doing things that they are able to do simply because others cannot. Or where our efforts to provide a small benefit are outweighed by the large harms those efforts produce.
Much of the world is still grappling with lockdowns and with securing and distributing supplies of vaccine. GreenBandRedBand.com remains available for those who still need to find a way to protect their vulnerable without crippling their society. For the more fortunate parts of the world – those where vaccines and treatments are available – it should be time to move on.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Focused protection from what?
Stupidity?
Or we could go back to the way life worked before all this stupidity started and those who are worried about catching anything (not just Covid) stay clear of everyone else. There must have been thousands of people pre-Covid who had compromised immune systems and had a geniune fear of death (I was once on a white-cell donor panel to help infected people who had lost their own ability to fight even the mildest of infections after cancer treatment so fully understand).
The most sensible measure would be for the government to stop scaring people about something that is of little risk to most normally healthy people.
Apparently not, I mean Klaus Schwab stated that we “cannot” go back to the way we were. In fact, I’ve heard many people – right from the start of this fake pandemic – state the same thing. It was very weird to me. Almost as if people were reading from a predetermined script.
Why wouldn’t we be able to “go back to normal” following a bad ‘flu?
In many places of eastern Europe a “schwab” is a colloquial name for a cockroach.
Good to know there is some kind of karmic justice in place.
THAT’s what he reminds me of. Thank you.
How appropriate.
Perhaps that what they really mean by “long Covid”.
Exactly, Norman. Well put.
Like many others, I am genuinely vulnerable to Covid, but I’m not ga-ga or infantile, and am quite capable of managing and accepting risk ,- or just buggering off to stew in my own juice if I can’t.
No.
When the green band / red band idea came about, I always respected Steve’s sentiment – it came from a good place – but I never had any faith in the idea itself. I didn’t like that it promoted a “them” and “us”.
My view hasn’t changed at all since.
I agree – it was a neat idea but wasn’t going to go anywhere unless enforced by the authorities (a bad idea). A few % of people might do it and everyone else would wonder what the green and red bands are about.
People should just make their own judgements. The real bedwetters should just stay at home
for those interested in data analytics…for those that hate any mention of the R value – please look away!
below is R value (from Zoe)
winter wave on left – everything inbetween is noise, changes to counting methods etc
silly high peak that goes off the charts is a change to counting methods on 1 day
lastest ‘wave’ is from the time R goes above and stays above 1 – several days after the pubs opened and the onset of the Indian scariant
looks like its coming down already – but data is a bit noisy – I missed a couple of days camping which doesn’t help and had to infill. in a few days we may see (I expect) a linear fall which can just be extrapolated in the same way I did for the winter wave – which got the timing of the peak spot on
here
I wrote Steve a stern e-mail comparing his wrist bands to yellow stars and he sent me a very nice reply explaining his thoughts. I wanted to reply, but as my rage never really calmed down, did not.
I understand he wanted to do something good, but I still think it is not a good idea.
For practical reasons as well, I think a wrist band is useless, What if people wear long sleeves? It would take a huge media campaign to make people aware of this scheme and explain what it does.
the bulk of the population wouldn’t be able to make the distinction between what the different colours represented (I watch people struggling to remember what the “rules” for various things are) and I think that the ‘system’ he has devised plays into the hands of the tyranny – it sets up a medical apartheid and it is a justification for continuing restrictions – for severe flu?
The Fear Factor worked too well on some who should stay in their bunkers. Life is full of risk, most of those terrified are still driving cars, in fact wearing muzzles in cars.
I often ask the ‘lock down and mask up’ crew when they are scrapping their cars – far more potent agents of harm
Yet another dolt who thinks the vax is the answer. Nope.
We already have a system: naps on = covi and/or militia scared; naps off = exempt, worked out how to be exempt, don’t give a toss; naps hanging from some appendage other than the face = scared/not scared. It’s pretty easy to see which camp people are in now.
Yes – I was thinking much the same thing. The willingness to wear a mask is a pretty good signal.
I think that there’s a difference between being sympathetic to the mentally ill and restructuring the world to accommodate their fantasies.
Well intentioned, but ultimately self- defeating.
Until people shuck off this incontinent fear, nothing essential changes. The disease is actually psychological distortion – induced hypochondria that has convinced masses of people that their fellow citizens are just carriers of infection.
How on earth did people manage all those centuries before armbands, masks, lockdowns and social distancing!
Also, by how much did the population grow by in that time?
Come on guys!
Two Royal Caribbean travelers test positive for covid. The entire ship was fully vaccinated!!
Had you until vaccine macht frei.
Nope. Its killed people. Where was their freedom?
“Indeed by continuing to do so one risks perpetuating fear unnecessarily.”
Like the last 14 months then.
What a great way to reinforce their de-humanisation brainwashing game.
Green band / Red band / Pink star / Yellow star
People who are vulnerable to covid19 such as very old, and/or very sick, immunocompromised, etc. are vulnerable to any kind of ordinary pathogen that causes stuffy nose for few days for vast majority of people. This includes even common cold viruses which can cause pneumonia which can cause death in very elderly and/or sick (IFR~10% in nursing homes and such link). Common respiratory viruses are one of the reasons expected (not excess) deaths are higher in winter. When you look at expected weekly deaths, it looks like a sine function with peak in winter and trough in summer. Imagine people having lockdown or any kind of measures, or awareness (including focused protection) before every winter in order to delay those additional (expected but not extra) deaths in winter for several months or a year or two? Insane. Well, that is what was done for covid19 and what is being proposed by more moderate interventionalists.
There is nothing unique about covid19. When you look at age distribution and health/comorbidities of official deaths from covid19, they are practically the same as all-cause mortality for every country. Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence that this is the case?! Even seasonal flu, which is dangerous mainly for >65 year old people, doesn’t follow all-cause mortality so well in age distribution for adults, and is a bit dangerous for small children.
As time passes by I’m thinking more and more that covid19 is not just like flu, but even less than that. Aside from following natural mortality in age and health distribution, given a lot of evidence it was in Europe in Q4 of 2019. causing no excess deaths, it is more like a common cold. Excess deaths in Europe in 2020-21 are due to unusual very low mortality in 2019, lockdowns and other measures, and mass panic.
A good description. The other matter to do with winter is that there seems to have been an ‘on paper’ transition from other things, such as flu, to C19. Whether that has been deliberately done, or by mistake, I’ll stick that on the wall,
Steve, whilst I appreciate the sentiments you’re wrong on the vaccines. More deaths and adverse reactions than all vaccines of past 30 years put together. We’ve had effective treatments for several months, Ivermectin and Fluvoxamine. Take Ivermectin as a preventative in right dose on a weekly basis and it’s 100% effective in preventing infection. That’s better and safer than any vaccine. It would also end the Covid19 circulating if WHO threw its weight behind it!
or vitamin D for those who prefer
If GBRB was a choice it is really only a concept for people who are frightened of the virus and/or covid anxiety syndrome, and would therefore likely wear a band. A significant proportion of people are likely to form a combination of sensible individuals, not particularly concerned about the virus/ dislike being identified in a way that
is divisive.
GBRB is a social engineering experiment for which, like lockdown and other NPIs there is no evidence to support its’ use.
It does not seem prudent or practical to attempt to ‘solve’ one (unproven) social engineering experiment (lockdown) by introducing another (unproven) social engineering experiment (gbrb).
It is a highly divisive strategy.
For GBRB to work it would have to be mandatory. How many more pseudoscience interventions such as GBRB are to be foisted on the public? NONE imho
Enough is enough!!
Simple solution wear a mask if you’re of a nervous disposition the rest of us will give you room but Masks must become a mater of personal chose No tutting from either the masked or unmasked it time just to get on with life simple as!!
Another vaccine disciple.