Vaccine Passports

[thplinth]

edit: oops tweets did not copy.

here is the link

Euro Covid Surge: Bavaria Declares State of Disaster. Records Shattering Across Continent

And all of the above have advanced vaccination programs. I am not sure how many are doing passport schemes as well... but FFS none of this is adding up at this point. Surely I cant be alone in thinking that. 😀

I am actually starting to hope this is just incompetence. We should probably be in lockdown already again but instead they are giving people meaningless passports... it is starting to resemble an omnishambles (at best).

Edited November 12, 2021 by thplinth

[Lamia]

4 hours ago, Morrisandmoo said:

 

You've avoided addressing the matter of fact though. And whether you think the resulting exclusion of poor and black people is good, bad or indifferent.

I don't agree that exclusion is a good thing but since they aren't excluded its irrelevant to this argument which is why I haven't previously made comment on that.

Edited November 12, 2021 by Lamia

[Lamia]

2 hours ago, phart said:

Also they can't catch it in the same way. Although AZ after 14 weeks transmision is almost the same once you have it, you're still protected from catching it in the first place. This is covered in this thread as well. Myself and thistlewhistle discussed the study showing it.

The fact that thplinth seems to have his fingers in his ears and is going lalalala when it comes to this point says it all

[phart]

3 hours ago, Lamia said:

The fact that thplinth seems to have his fingers in his ears and is going lalalala when it comes to this point says it all

That's a function of ones worldview being informed by idealogical dogma as opposed to empirical data.

 

 

[Morrisandmoo]

5 hours ago, Lamia said:

I don't agree that exclusion is a good thing but since they aren't excluded its irrelevant to this argument which is why I haven't previously made comment on that.

This is false. 

[Lamia]

4 hours ago, Morrisandmoo said:

This is false. 

Nope!

[exile]

I don't have a detailed grasp of this issue but while it seems the vaccine passport is pragmatic, seems to work, and is rolled out in other countries (and so is politically defensible, for the greater good), it seems to me there is indeed a risk of exclusion, of a minority of the population.

It seems that it is roughly similar (though not the same) as the issue of photo-ID for voting, the danger that could disproportionately affect marginalised groups, for whatever reason. i.e. if you're against photo-ID for voting, you might be against vaccine passports for similar reasons. 

I think it's at least worth considering as a potential risk and try to mitigate that risk.

[Morrisandmoo]

14 hours ago, exile said:

I don't have a detailed grasp of this issue but while it seems the vaccine passport is pragmatic, seems to work, and is rolled out in other countries (and so is politically defensible, for the greater good), it seems to me there is indeed a risk of exclusion, of a minority of the population.

It seems that it is roughly similar (though not the same) as the issue of photo-ID for voting, the danger that could disproportionately affect marginalised groups, for whatever reason. i.e. if you're against photo-ID for voting, you might be against vaccine passports for similar reasons. 

I think it's at least worth considering as a potential risk and try to mitigate that risk.

I would be supportive of a mitigation strategy if vaccine passports could be effective in Scotland - I am all for the greater good. However, the high general vaccination rates and young population being targeted means potential benefits are extremely limited. Vaccine passports are, at best, a waste of money which could be better invested in more effective measures. 

I fear they will be more than a waste of money though and will continue, alongside other ineffective measures and blame-centered narratives, to clutter the way.

A thought experiment. Two options on the table to save lives: 

A. Expand passport application by limiting entirely participation of un-vaccinated people in Scottish society. Austria style.

B. Shield/lockdown >60s for 4-6wks until boosters administered

One of these measures would save a small number of lives and one of these measures would save a large number of lives. A and B respectively. Both restrict civil liberties.

However, I guarantee we will choose A (and an increasingly extreme version of A) - because we are not actually prepared, or at least don't have the clarity of thought and singleness of purpose required, to do what is necessary and what works. It's enough that we have a narrative and feel we are doing something (anything!). 

We are choosing what is easy. In my opinion, blame and discriminate against young, poor and black first - rather than what is effective. 

We are too invested in marginal (albeit true) narratives e.g. young pass it onto the old therefore target the unvaccinated young and everything will be ok. But nothing will be ok if we keep up with this shite. We will barely make a difference. And everybody will be upset. 

And it's some of the same folk that look down their nose at irrational anti-vaxers that have a completely irrational view on vaccine passports. Cunts won't swallow the bitter pill. 

Edited November 15, 2021 by Morrisandmoo

[aaid]

16 hours ago, exile said:

I don't have a detailed grasp of this issue but while it seems the vaccine passport is pragmatic, seems to work, and is rolled out in other countries (and so is politically defensible, for the greater good), it seems to me there is indeed a risk of exclusion, of a minority of the population.

It seems that it is roughly similar (though not the same) as the issue of photo-ID for voting, the danger that could disproportionately affect marginalised groups, for whatever reason. i.e. if you're against photo-ID for voting, you might be against vaccine passports for similar reasons. 

I think it's at least worth considering as a potential risk and try to mitigate that risk.

I’m pretty sure that the Venn diagram of “people against vaccine passports” and “people in favour of voter ID” has a pretty big intersection.

Interestingly there is one part of the UK which has had mandatory voter ID for a number of years now, for *all* elections including UK general elections.

[aaid]

2 hours ago, Morrisandmoo said:

I would be supportive of a mitigation strategy if vaccine passports could be effective in Scotland - I am all for the greater good. However, the high general vaccination rates and young population being targeted means potential benefits are extremely limited. Vaccine passports are, at best, a waste of money which could be better invested in more effective measures. 

I fear they will be more than a waste of money though and will continue, alongside other ineffective measures and blame-centered narratives, to clutter the way.

A thought experiment. Two options on the table to save lives: 

A. Expand passport application by limiting entirely participation of un-vaccinated people in Scottish society. Austria style.

B. Shield/lockdown >60s for 4-6wks until boosters administered

One of these measures would save a small number of lives and one of these measures would save a large number of lives. A and B respectively. Both restrict civil liberties.

However, I guarantee we will choose A (and an increasingly extreme version of A) - because we are not actually prepared, or at least don't have the clarity of thought and singleness of purpose required, to do what is necessary and what works. It's enough that we have a narrative and feel we are doing something (anything!). 

We are choosing what is easy. In my opinion, blame and discriminate against young, poor and black first - rather than what is effective. 

We are too invested in marginal (albeit true) narratives e.g. young pass it onto the old therefore target the unvaccinated young and everything will be ok. But nothing will be ok if we keep up with this shite. We will barely make a difference. And everybody will be upset. 

And it's some of the same folk that look down their nose at irrational anti-vaxers that have a completely irrational view on vaccine passports. Cunts won't swallow the bitter pill. 

Out of interest, how expensive do you actually think Vaccine Passports are?  I’d imagine it’s a pretty low cost program, certainly in comparison to other COVID related programs.

While I’m not suggesting that it’s something that can be knocked up in a weekend, I don’t think it’s much more complicated as it’s essentially leveraging existing infrastructure for both the data and the delivery.

[phart]

What's the difference between advocating that the 60+ lockdown and Austria locking down the unvaccinated?

 

[phart]

 

[Lamia]

29 minutes ago, phart said:

What's the difference between advocating that the 60+ lockdown 

 

Their lives are effectively over anyway.

[thplinth]

Oh dear.

[thplinth]

People pushing vaccine passports are dumb. 😀 Funny as fuck.

[Morrisandmoo]

21 hours ago, phart said:

What's the difference between advocating that the 60+ lockdown and Austria locking down the unvaccinated?

 

We'd save more lives (in Scotland) by shielding older people, pending boosters, than we will by extending passport controls. That's the main difference.

I'm not advocating for either though. Instead I'm predicting that we will choose less effective measures, like passports, despite there being more effective measures (with similar societal costs) available. 

I don't fully know why we are and will do that. Part of it is probably confusion. I worry that it's also because we are comfortable, as a society, with measures that disproportionately hurt the young, the poor and the black. Why change a habit of a lifetime right? You can see that "it's no skin off my nose" attitude strongly in this thread.

Whatever the reason that we like this measure...it is not a rationale one.

[Morrisandmoo]

22 hours ago, aaid said:

Out of interest, how expensive do you actually think Vaccine Passports are?  I’d imagine it’s a pretty low cost program, certainly in comparison to other COVID related programs.

While I’m not suggesting that it’s something that can be knocked up in a weekend, I don’t think it’s much more complicated as it’s essentially leveraging existing infrastructure for both the data and the delivery.

I don't know - but quite expensive, when I adjust for ongoing time and focus from the government and civil service.

I am very concerned if it is using existing infrastructure and we have regardless paid Jumio £3.3m for the ID part and awarded an extra £0.6m-£1.2m contract to Netcompany. For comparison this article suggests it costs us less to run track and trace, so not entirely sure if we can brand it as a "low cost" covid measure: Vaccine passport ID checks cost taxpayers millions among spiralling Covid costs | The Scotsman

Regardless of that (which is concerning in this era of government waste and corruption) the expensive bit, which is hard to measure, is time. A lot of minister and civil service time would have worked through the botched launch and technical issues. Endless calls with the tech companies....briefings upon briefings upon briefings...costing £££s. Listen carefully and notice nobody working on fixing education or healthcare during these calls (opportunity cost).

Frankly it's a whole lot of time and effort for a whole lot of nothing (and that is an expensive price for nothing). And in the meantime nothing is getting fixed in the healthcare, in our Education or in the economy. Ultimately these things are measured in the currency of people's lives and we are wasting them. 

Edited November 16, 2021 by Morrisandmoo

[aaid]

5 minutes ago, Morrisandmoo said:

I don't know - but quite expensive, when I adjust for ongoing time and focus from the government and civil service.

I am very concerned if it is using existing infrastructure and we have regardless paid Jumio £3.3m for the ID part and awarded an extra £0.6m-£1.2m contract to Netcompany. For comparison this article suggests it costs us less to run track and trace, so not entirely sure if we can brand it as a "low cost" covid measure: Vaccine passport ID checks cost taxpayers millions among spiralling Covid costs | The Scotsman

Regardless of that (which is concerning in this era of government waste and corruption) the expensive bit, which is hard to measure, is time. A lot of minister and civil service time would have worked through the botched launch and technical issues. Endless calls with the tech companies....briefings upon briefings upon briefings...costing £££s. Listen carefully and notice nobody working on fixing education or healthcare during these calls (opportunity cost).

Frankly it's a whole lot of time and effort for a whole lot of nothing (and that is an expensive price for nothing). And in the meantime nothing is getting fixed in the healthcare, in our Education or in the economy. Ultimately these things are measured in the currency of people's lives and we are wasting them. 

Clearly you don’t have the foggiest idea about software development.

[Morrisandmoo]

Sadly (on my part) I did ask my MSP for target costs and benefits from vaccine passport. He had nothing. 

[Morrisandmoo]

3 minutes ago, aaid said:

Clearly you don’t have the foggiest idea about software development.

I don't. But that's besides the point. 

I was responding to your question and imagination that it is a low cost measure when compared to other covid measures. Your imagination appears to be wildly inaccurate. 

Edited November 16, 2021 by Morrisandmoo

[thplinth]

21 hours ago, Lamia said:

Their lives are effectively over anyway.

😀 wow.

[Morrisandmoo]

PS how does software development work in the public sector? 

From what I can tell it seems to be:

• Tech companies make £millions
• Tech company fucks up
• Tech company continues to make £millions
• Taxpayer takes it up the arse

Is it supposed to work like that? Seems weird. 

For example the company we've just handed £3m to for a shit job are doing pretty nicely...a record breaking quarter apparently, fueled by government contracts no less (in their own words). Good for them, glad we could help: Latest News - Jumio: End-to-End ID and Identity Verification Solutions

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by Morrisandmoo

[thplinth]

2 minutes ago, Morrisandmoo said:

PS how does software development work in the public sector? 

Badly 😀

[aaid]

18 minutes ago, Morrisandmoo said:

I don't. But that's besides the point. 

It is when you’re pontificating on something you don’t understand but hey, it’s the internet so you’re not exactly unique in that.   I think we all know that you don’t agree with this conceptually or in practice.

To me it looks like a very simple app and process.  disclaimer, I have the English NHS one but I doubt it’s that different.  It won’t be exactly the same as there’ll be different back end systems.   One of the criticisms levelled at the SG was why not use the English version which had been available for months.   The reason in layman’s terms was that it would take a year to provide the “login” part.  I suspect that actually meant there would need to be a level of integration between the English and Scottish systems and I can understand why that might take time.

The first part is the verification and validation part.  Again that’s fairly straightforwards as essentially it’s a facial recognition check against an approved ID.  That’s not new technology and you can pick that up off the shelf.

Then you’ve basically got some form of interface to the NHS patients records system to pull back the vaccine status and finally you’ve got the delivery part which is through - primarily - mobile phones.

I’m not familiar with the other side which is the part which the bit that someone scanning the QR code at entry to a venue does but I guess that’s essentially the same process in reverse and again isn’t anything tricky.

In terms of ongoing management and running costs, obviously you have the hosting costs, again I suspect they’re probably leveraging existing infrastructure there, or at least the incremental cost of additional hosting won’t be that high.  Probably some form of manual intervention required for the small number of applications that fail the automated verification step and a small call centre team for people who have issues.

Compared to something like TT&T that is a very heavy human resource operation it’s a very lightweight programme.

The cost doesn’t seem hugely excessive to me based on my experience and other than some teething issues which looks like they were related to a high load initially it seems to be a fairly problem free implementation.  I base that on the fact that a single failure would lead to front page headlines and questions in Holyrood given the political climate in Scotland.

If I had one criticism, it would be that they should’ve started development and launched it earlier, say in the early summer, as they did in England and make it a voluntary scheme to begin with.  That way they’d have been able to let people get familiar with the process and avoid the early issues to do with load.

I can fully understand why they didn’t given the political climate - again - as all there would be would be weeks of chat about how the “SNP Government are planning to force vaccine passports on us”, “I was refused entry from my local pub, it’s so unfair” and “it’s all so confusing” from the opposition and MSM.  If they then didn’t make it mandatory because conditions didn’t require it then you’d get the usual suspects moaning about a waste of time, if you don’t believe that then I’ll point you to the various people claiming it was a waste of money to open the NHS Louisa Jordan, funnily enough the same people - generally Scottish Labour - who complained when it closed as a vaccination centre to be handed over for COP  

 

[aaid]

19 minutes ago, Morrisandmoo said:

PS how does software development work in the public sector? 

From what I can tell it seems to be:

• Tech companies make £millions
• Tech company fucks up
• Tech company continues to make £millions
• Taxpayer takes it up the arse

Is it supposed to work like that? Seems weird. 

For example the company we've just handed £3m to for a shit job are doing pretty nicely...a record breaking quarter apparently, fueled by government contracts no less (in their own words). Good for them, glad we could help: Latest News - Jumio: End-to-End ID and Identity Verification Solutions

 

In what way have they done a “shit job”?