My European pandemic experience has been a tale of two vastly contrasting cities and countries.
In early March, I flew from London to Warsaw, Poland, planning to stay for around ten nights before flying on to Minsk, Belarus. However, on the evening of Friday the 13th (a fitting date), and despite the fact that there were only sixty-eight confirmed cases of the virus in Poland, the Polish government announced a nationwide lockdown. All shops (except supermarkets), cafés, bars, restaurants, universities and schools were to close the following day. All flights and international rail services were suspended. Suddenly, I was stuck in Warsaw. My ten-night stay would turn into seven weeks.
The following week, Poland tightened the rules further. Now, you were now only allowed outside if you were an essential worker, or going to buy food or medicine. A week later, the rules were tightened yet further. Amongst other things, there was now a two-metre distancing restriction in public (even for family members), under-18s were not allowed outside unless accompanied by an adult, strict limits were introduced on the number of people allowed inside a supermarket at any one time and it was mandatory to wear disposable gloves to enter a shop, to be supplied by the supermarkets. (Has single-use plastic ever been so popular?!) The army would now assist the police in patrolling the streets to ensure compliance with the new rules – and gosh, they took that role seriously! Every few hundred yards around the streets in the centre of Warsaw there were police paired up with a member of the armed forces. On more than one occasion, I witnessed a police officer and accompanying soldier approach a couple and instruct them to stop holding hands. One unlucky couple appeared to be issued with a fine for the heinous crime of a public display of affection.
By mid April, it was compulsory to wear a nose and mouth covering if you left your home. The authoritarian Polish Health Minister Łukasz Szumowski announced that face masks would be compulsory until a vaccine were developed! Within the space of a few weeks, the country seemed to have happily embraced a 1984-style totalitarian police state, and the mood in the city had completely changed. The majority now seemed terrified of their fellow humans, going out of their way to walk as far away from others as possible. There was an atmosphere of fear the like of which I have never experienced. It was time to hatch an escape plan.
I took an eventful twelve-hour coach journey from Warsaw to Belarus. Arriving in Minsk was like stepping into a different realm. The mood of the city was not one of fear – things felt pretty normal. Roughly one in ten people chose to wear a mask, and while there were fewer people out and about than usual, by and large they went about their everyday business as if life was normal. Had nobody told them to be terrified of one another? That by simply stepping outside they are risking not just their own life, but the lives of everyone around them? What on earth would Neil Ferguson and his infamous Imperial College model say?
Belarus decided against the nuclear option: they have not pressed the panic button and destroyed the country’s economy, like most of the world. That’s not to say they haven’t introduced some measures. In Minsk, universities have switched to remote lectures; museums and theatres are closed; business trips have been cancelled, with meetings moved to video conferencing; care homes are closed to visitors, and arrivals into the country must self-isolate for fourteen days. But schools remain open, as do cafés, restaurants, bars, shopping malls and most outdoor events. Indeed, many thousands of people lined the streets for the annual Victory Day parade on May 9th. Belarus has struck a refreshing balance: one which has not led to a population in fear of one another.
The country often referred to as the last dictatorship in Europe suddenly has more individual freedoms than virtually anywhere left on earth – freedoms their neighbours the Poles could only dream of, such as the right to be able to get a haircut, or to hold hands with a loved one in public without fear of persecution by the police and armed forces stepping in to enforce the totalitarian rules. The world has turned on its head.
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This makes perfect sense if you believe that Alice’s vaccine doesn’t protect Alice, but that Bob’s vaccine protects both Bob and Alice.
It’s Bob’s vaccine passport that protects both Bob and Alice.
I thought Bob’s vaccine passport protected the venue’s owners and management from being sued when Bob or Alice test positive for covid after the concert? I’m confused.
I think that’s the way things have planned out: the Vax passes confer immunity from prosecution to those staging events. Doesn’t matter if they ensure safety for concert- goers and venue staff.
What a mess.
Not really a vax passport is it? Its the new social credit system, do as your told by the Government even to allowing them to dictate what they do with your body, Good citizen, here is a couple of freedom goodies. Not allowed the Government to have control over your body, bad person must be punished, no Government credit for you, not until tou have learned your lesson
They might look to Scotland where an association of nightclub operators are preparing to sue wee Sturgon for making double jabbing mandatory to enter their premises.
They argue that their predominantly under 40s clientele know perfectly well that they are the least likely to suffer ill effects from Covid (common knowledge to everyone since at least last summer) and so will be the least likely to come forward for a potentially dangerous and unnecessary procedure.
According to the NHS Website, anyone can claim they are exempt and they do not have to provide evidence. Quote from the NHS Website ‘Your customers may declare a medical exemption directly with you. You and your staff should not ask for evidence of the exemption.’
https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/covid-19-response/using-the-nhs-covid-pass/#exemptions
Thank you for that, so just like masks in shops then?
But then you’ve got this contradictory garbage :
“Event or venue organisers in England that choose to use the NHS COVID Pass as a condition of entry can decide whether to accept self-declared medical exemptions where an individual cannot vaccinate or test, ensuring they comply with the Equalities Act 2010.”
No Sir: Businesses, clubs etc. are NOT above the law.
Therefore, this means an easy 5k for breach of the equalities act 2010 for everyone unvaxxed who buys a ticket, goes, claims a self-exemption from the vaxx passport and is denied access.
Go ahead. Make my day.
On which of these protected characteristics would you base your claim?
The following characteristics are protected characteristics—
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/part/2/chapter/1
● Disability on the basis that another condition makes taking a vaccine disproportionately dangerous and no you can’t examine my medical records Mr Doorman
● Belief. Vaccines are the spawn of Beelzibub (sp?).
● Pregnancy, it has yet to be proved that the vaccines do no harm to unborn babies.
I reckon a belief in rationality and evidence .
Rogerborg –According to the NHS Website, anyone can claim they are exempt and they do not have to provide evidence. Quote from the NHS Website ‘Your customers may declare a medical exemption directly with you. You and your staff should not ask for evidence of the exemption.’
Yep. It’s all a load of bluff. None of it legal and we can and should just go about our business.
Yep. We’ve discussed this here many times, rogerborg.
There are more sources as well, pjlaw etc.
I have personally attended an event and claimed that self-exemption.
The 02 arena also accepts them, as they must, if they don’t want to be on the hook for those 5k. They have also properly and fairly put that in writing in their T&C.
The only alternative for organiser and venues is to institute their own policy for exemptions, as also explained in the nhsx Doc, which will then run into the same difficulties of course, which is why those with better legal knowledge than the RAH or those 3 organisers have just stuck to the government advise to just accept the govs policy.
But more likely, this is just deliberate misleading and nudging by those people, as it was in the case of the event I visited- their official site and T&C never stated the self-exemption option (unlike O2) but in the response to my email they confirmed it.
Of course, it remains to be seen what happens henceforth, with the intended digital solution, the joining of the EU scheme etc., but even that should/will/must abide by common law and the equalities act or it will/must! end up in court, whatever outcome that might result in.
Now that I know I may not be able to go to BBC concerts nor see Cliff Richard and Rick Astley live, I’m going to have to rethink my position…
I don’t actually know who Rick Astley is. I have vaguely heard of Nick Cave.
Rick is excellent, saw him at York racecourse in the summer, he was very emotional (first gig for 18 months) and yelled out “freedom!”. Make of that what you will…
Interesting! Maybe I’ll have to rethink my rethought position!!
Call it what it is its the Social credit system pass. If we now start calling it, what it is then perhaps more people will wake up and reject
I posted last week that my double jab Passport is conditional on me renewing it each month (as though come 27th September I suddenly didn’t get both jabs some months ago).
I suspect that this is in case I reject a booster jab when ‘offered’ it, in which case I will probably not be able to renew it.
If my Covid Safe Passport can be conditional on that then why not on other issues? Perhaps supporting my childs decision not to be jabbed at school, being identified at an anti lockdown rally or making seditious comments on sites such as this.
Further down the line as we enter the cashless society it might judge me on the amount of tobacco or alcohol that I purchase or use the app to determine that I do insufficient exercise as has been the case in China for quite a while now and where you can be downgraded because someone reports you for not picking up after your dog.
One of the most insidious features of the CCP Social Credit system is that it can turn you into a non-person without you ever knowing why.
“Further down the line as we enter the cashless society it might judge me on the amount of tobacco or alcohol that I purchase..”
You’re assuming you will be allowed to purchase these things in the first place. personally I suspect very little will be allowed, because you will be deemed a horrendous carbon-emitting planet-killer of a person, who risks overwhelming the NHS..
“Tom Mutton, a director at the Bank of England, said during a conference on Monday that programming could become a key feature of any future central bank digital currency…”
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/bank-of-england-to-ministers-digital-cash-could-be-programmed-to-ensure-it-is-only-spent-on-essentials-2/
The arrogance of these people putting things like that on digital paper is grotesque, Hitler largely avoided doing so.
Perhaps they see how Fergusons “We didn’t think we would get away with it (lockdowns) but we looked at Italy and found that we could!” hasn’t done his career as govt adviser and media pundit any harm.
I gather that they already give ‘food only’ vouchers to some social security claimants though I expect these can be traded within the junkie community.
They might trial the scheme you link to on those same people, followed by those on Universal Credit, released convicts, paedophiles and others unloved by Society At Large followed by ‘vulnerable’ pensioners and those leaving childcare etc. & etc.
They will, of course, figure out a way for it not to apply to the great and the good.
Exactly String…. with monthly bio-security updates [mandatory]….digital wallet and time-coded currency linked to the data… 24/7 trak-n-trace the techno-prison shepherding of the Brit “untermensch” is complete…
Worth remembering:
Vaccines in the UK are not mandatory. There is an exemption on evidence of medical reasons and the Supreme Court recognises at common law that denial of free and informed consent is a self certified medical reason. See Montgomery v Lanarkshire [2015] UKSC 11
In R Wilkinson v Broadmoor : [2001] EWCA Civ 1545, Lady Justice Hale, Supreme Court President, confirmed that forced medical procedure without informed consent “may be sued in the ordinary way for the (common law) Tort of battery”.
In the judgement it was held that acting under statutory authority provides no defence, therefore the Employer will be guilty of coercion on the threat of battery with regards to unlawful dismissal if express evidence of denial of informed consent are unlawfully rejected.
This will result in a breach of contract and also a Tort that can be sued. The above is why mask “mandate” exemptions were self certified. It is unlawful for Doctors to interfere with the process of free and informed consent. Informed consent is defined in Montgomery as follows:
1. That the patient is given sufficient information – to allow individuals to make choices that will affect their health and wellbeing on proper information.
2. Sufficient information means informing the patient of the availability of other treatments (and forms of testing).
3. That the patient is informed of the material risks of taking the medical intervention and the material risks of declining it.
If consent is given but the Patient subsequently proves that information provided at the time breached the above common law test of informed consent, the Tort of battery is committed and the medication is unlawful.
What patients need is truthful info pre getting the jib-jab as below:
I am wondering, how does the Montgomery case tie in with mandating for carehome workers? Seems to me that any carehome worker who is coerced or dismissed for not being jabbed has a good case regardless of the bogus regulations. At the end of the day I will not be giving 1p to any place that imposes the requirement to show either test or vaccine. All sorts of new venues and groups are setting up now and they deserve business for showing common sense and morals. I am going to be blunt and say it is time after 18 mths that many of the British public did some due diligence and also showed some intelligence as many are pretty much about to go over a cliff edge now. These vaccines neither prevent infection nor transmission of anything and in reality when you look at PHE’s technical briefings they are not preventing the jabbed over 50’s from going to A & E either. Their deaths are also double compared to the unjabbed. How can people foolishly believe that an injection which apparently contains graphene oxide, possible parasites and dangerous metals such as stainless, protect them from anything exactly? And that’s on top of very dangerous spike proteins which is already causing Antibody Dependent Enhancement, PEG (a form of anti freeze). How about following a good diet and lifestyle and taking some extra vit c, d3, zinc and quercetin etc (the latter supposedly does the same as Ivermectin). And guess what, unlike a vial full of carcinogenic and harmful poison, a good diet and these supplements are protective against a whole host of other illnesses too. Cheap safe and effective.
I wonder if they would allow someone to enter that has been found to have antibodies from an official NHS CoViD-19 antibody blood test?
Then that begs the question & the discussion of natural immunity (which we know is far superior to vaccine immunity) & asymptomatic spread (of which we know is negligible).
Another question would be: why is a public venue allowing (& under what laws), a visiting company to discriminate against medical procedures to allow (or not allow) entry, against equality AND human rights laws?!
I’m going to email the Hall with these questions/queries. Their response will be interesting.
In addition, I’m pretty sure that medical records/status, is pretty tightly protected under data protection laws. wonder what the Information Commissioner would have to say to them about it.
“We have to respect that”
No, you don’t. Make it a condition of hire that organisers are not permitted to discriminate on any basis. Call their bluff. As an iconic venue, the RAH is holding most of the cards.
Exactly.
Indeed. When booking any venue there will be a list of terms and conditions which the person / company hiring it has to agree to. They could quite easily add a line to their terms stating something like ‘it is not permitted to bar anyone from attending on the grounds of them not having received a Covid vaccine’.
A very good point, Julian.
Some may recall that, some days ago, I posted a ‘safety’ protocol for an orchestra as an illustration of continued lunacy. A major part of that rationale concerned the imposition of conditions by the owner of the venue. The reverse must surely apply in terms of such inhibitions i.e. the owner can require open admission.
Any businesses that implement this bullshit won’t be getting my custom ever again, even if they decide to stop asking for vaccine passports in the future.
I’m still boycotting those shops and restaurants that interpreted lockdown rules over aggressively last summer as the then restrictions were temporarily eased and will continue to do so.
What happens for the Festival of Remembrance? That’ll be interesting.
Will we have the ultimate in hypocrisy, and fake remembrance whilst practise takes us back to the dark times of fascism, before the Nuremburg Protocols?
Or will ‘remembrance’ remember the reasons for itself?
Hope they all go bust, Segregation passports, in the UK, who would have thought!!!
What are the odds on Nick Cave, Cliff Richard and Rick Astley saying they won’t perform if the unvaccinated are refused entry?
I know the Cave and the Ellis (playing together) and let’s just say I’m staying away – here’s the thing boycott boycott boycott every aspect of any celeb and muso etc. who supports or pushes this jab – in most cases fame is a sign of egocentric Machiavellian hijinks with a splash of talent – so your guess is as good as mine
As an event organiser I don’t want fat, white, middle-aged men to attend my concerts. The Royal Albert Hall said they respect that, as I’m hiring the hall.
Brilliant example!
Segregating the vaccinated from the unvaccinated probably will save a few lives in the unvaccinated this winter.
But you’d have thought that they could leave this decision in the hands of the unvaccinated rather than forcing it upon them.
But I’d suggest that it would probably be more sensible to stop the vaccinated from congregating, as they’ll also be a substantial risk to one another, particularly if ADE comes along over the next few months.
Indeed – as a grown-up, I’ll happily assess the risk to me posed by the dangerously deluded vaccinated who may disregard their own symptoms.
Ha! Like your thinking!!
All this vaccine passport stuff is also being driven by insurance companies. Going on a small ship cruise shortly and the requirements are absolutely nonsensical. From speaking to others gather that the tour companies agree that this makes no sense but they have to do because of insurance. This needs to be called out loud and clear.
Doesn’t he know it’s, ‘the least number of people?’ I reject the passport based on grammatical incompetence.
Note that he has not made the decision on actual or perceived risk, merely to avoid upsetting people the silly old snowflake.
I wonder what will happen to the performers? I’m on a sabbatical from an orchestra that performs regularly in the RAH. I remain and will remain unjabbed. Would I be allowed to work???
UK facing national piss shortage due to govt taking it all.
Boris johnson is monitoring pub toilets in a desperate search for more piss to take out of the UK public….
The Eton boys always hated plebs
Unjabbed, Fully jabbed, jabbed more than 3/4/5 months ago, booster jabbed, sorry can’t call them ‘vaccinated’, as they aren’t and never will be
That’s one hilarious pic, previous visits to various London theatres brought clouds of dust when you sat down
This is my 3 min Mozart opera spoof. I’d love to see it performed with these words…
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5qhq3ibeuk4srxu/RPReplay_Final1625948868.MOV?dl=0
Brilliant!
Love it!
What’s the difference between fuel and petrol?
There’s no F in petrol.
There’s no f in fuel either.
In fact, there’s no f in anything.
Vaccine or no, I’m not going into an enclosed space that has been spayed with some toxic chemical.
Unvaccinated have been already barred from all sorts of venues in Germany and nobody seems to give a shit. Neither should you, just avoid any venue which implements these fascist policies.
I do that – but it just ducks the issue unless a significant number start giving events some pain by withdrawing support.
Well, if the majority is okay with that and it causes no pain to organizers, then I guess the majority gets what they deserve, and as a minority you have few options: go elsewhere, adjust, continue campaigning against discrimination, wait for the restrictions to be removed (possibly come spring). As a general rule, you cannot save the humanity from itself, not even good ole JC managed to.
I will continue campaigning, not to save humanity but to restore my natural rights which have been removed by government lies, probably now criminal.
This restoration of rights to go places is most likely going to happen in a few months anyways because almost nobody vaccinated gets tested now. So everybody will get invisibly infected sooner or later, and with few new infections registered there will be no justification for the pandemic.
In the meanwhile you can keep on protesting if it makes you feel better.
The actual goal of the pandemic, the ability to quickly introduce new control measures through smartphones has been already achieved. They will follow up soon with adding digital ID to the smartphones (maybe because it is so convenient to sell and check non-vaccination-related “tickets” to various venues that way, and of course to get various e-government services and doles). Later on central bank controlled electronic money will be introduced, so as to be able to remotely control/prevent any transactions that the government does not like (official justification: anti-money laundering). Also do not forget the climate change, of course, which will become the new justification for introducing various measures toward establishing the social credit system, which will be widely supported by many people, especially the brainwashed young who are now primed to follow the authority’s instructions.
Government guidance to venue managers says that they must grant entry to anyone who claims an exemption on health grounds, without asking questions, otherwise they are in contravention of the DDA.
”If your customer confirms that they have a self declared exemption, but is unable to show any evidence, you should allow them access to your venue or event. You must not ask for proof of their medical exemption and it is not essential they show any form of exemption card at any point.”
At least it’ll be obvious who’s causing cases etc to rise in countries with vaxports, given that the unvaccinated have been barred from society. Still, the media will try to lay the blame on anything but the vaccines. Eventually this madness will end, but maybe not for a long time.
However long it takes, we’ll be here to triumph when it does.
Thank fuck for that.
Just finished reading a couple of pieces, one on the manufacturing of the lipid nano particles and how bespoke they are to the mRNA carried and where it is to go (what organs) which, because of warp speed and the rush for profit, a carrier LNP for some mRNA that wasn’t the sars spike mRNA was Jerry rigged – no wonder there are issues as this was designed to go to the liver, maybe that is why no efforts were made to contain it to muscle tissue.
The other is about a vaccine that doesn’t use mRNA but a spike subunit modifies to be unable to be cleaved so unable to act exactly like the Wild Type spike. It started trials at the same time as Pfizer’s but did actually follows protocols with animal trials including mice and non-human primate (baboons). It has better efficacy and, so far, no side effects anything like the mRNA vaccines. So far it has undergone stage 1,2, and 3 trial and has 96% efficacy (greater than all current vaccines) and is effective at over 80% against the SA variant. Currently considered the best vaccine available, but still not with a EUA.
Novavax
Will they allow white people to say that they don’t want black people in because they feel uncomfortable? Will they allow straight people to say they don’t want gay people in because that makes them feel uncomfortable. Of course not that would be discrimination. Its perfectly acceptable however to allow people who have had a Government still in trial vaccine injected into their bodies which does not confer immunity or stop the spread to say they feel uncomfortable in having to share a space with those who can also contract and spread the virus but who have not had the Government still in trial injection. It makes perfect sense.
After all history has shown us that segregation and discrimination always turns out so well.
RAH need to do a proper risk assessment for their staff. That young lady spraying chemical shit in no way has correct PPE – a paper mask FFS!
But at least they’re seen to be doing “something” (useless) while injuring their staff.
Stupid sods.
Why would they turn away the unvaxxed? The vaxxed are contracting Covid and transmitting it, getting hospitalised and dying. Surely by now everyone knows this fact.