A top Scottish fertility clinic has withdrawn its services for unvaccinated women, leaving many people upset and leading to calls for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to address the fact that it may not be limited to just one clinic. EuroWeekly News has more.
Glasgow Royal Fertility Clinic said that “it has been nationally agreed that fertility treatment for unvaccinated women will be deferred with immediate effect.”
Citing Dr Gregor Smith, Chief Medical Officer for the Scottish Government, the update published just before Christmas said that “pregnant women should now be considered as a clinical risk group and part of priority group six within the vaccination programme”.
According to data published in the Scottish Intensive Care Society Report on October 13th, of 89 Covid positive pregnant women who were admitted to critical care between December 2020 and the end of September 2021; 88 were unvaccinated, one was partially vaccinated, and none were fully vaccinated.
The clinic said that said data, from unknown dates, also showed that “98% of pregnant women in ICU with COVID-19 were unvaccinated” and that “all the women who have died during pregnancy or up to six weeks after birth, 88% of them were unvaccinated.”
This has led the clinic, which is located in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, to withdraw its services to unvaccinated women and the “clinic will review this decision during February 2022 or earlier if appropriate.”
“Older women who have their treatment deferred will have the deferral time added back on to their fertility journey to ensure that they do not lose out on eligibility for treatment due to their age,” the clinic said.
Note that the ICU data above doesn’t take into account the proportion of pregnant women and women trying to become pregnant who were vaccinated at the time.
What happened to liberal societies not coercing experimental medical treatment?
The news comes as Italy announces that Covid vaccination will become mandatory for all over-50s from next month in an effort to tackle surging infections. The Telegraph has more.
“We want to slow down the curve of contagion and encourage Italians who have not yet been vaccinated to do so,” Prime Minister Mario Draghi said during a cabinet meeting at which the measure was adopted, according to a statement.
“We are working in particular on the age groups that are most at risk of being hospitalised, to reduce pressure on hospitals to save lives,” he added.
In another statement, the government said that “the vaccine pass will be necessary for people over 50 in the public and private sectors to access their workplace from February 15th.”
Out of Italy’s 59 million people, 28 million are over the age of 50, according to the Istat national statistics agency.
Late last month the Government said that from January 10th a vaccination pass would be required to use public transport and access hotels, restaurant terraces and gyms.
They’re really turning the screws on the non-compliant now.
It’s unclear why the Italian Government thinks that vaccination will reduce infection rates, as there is no real-world evidence of that at all, and studies suggest the vaccines do little or nothing to prevent Omicron infection.
In addition, only around 10% of over-50s in Italy are unvaccinated, so presumably as in the U.K. the large majority of infections in the current outbreak are in the vaccinated, making it hard to see how vaccinating the other 10% will make any appreciable difference to overall infection rates. That being so, why sacrifice your claim to be a decent, liberal country that respects personal freedom and bodily autonomy for something that will not help control the spread?
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.