The Sunday Times reported that Boris Johnson is giving up on the idea of vaccine passports or making businesses check vaccine status.
In Britain, where 89.1% of people over 16 have had one dose and 80.9% are fully vaccinated, if vaccines worked half as well as promised, we would be seeing, at the very least, a gradual decline in Covid mortality.
But we're not.
Source: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
Let's look at another highly vaccinated country - Israel
Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/
What about a country with very low vaccination rates (and also worth noting Taiwan did NOT go into harsh lockdowns). Only 40.32% of people nationwide have received the FIRST dose in Taiwan (as of August 24th 2021).
Note the comparison rate on the side scale of total deaths - per 1000 max on the scale for Taiwan and Israel tops out at almost 8000. Taiwan has a population of 23.8 million, over 2.5 times Israel's 8.8 million.
Taiwan is the 17th most densely population country in the world with with a population density of about 651 inhabitants per square kilometre and Israel is just over 393.
Israel was first out of the gate implementing a strict mass vaccination campaign and "green passes" in December 2020.
Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/taiwan/
Taiwan: bigger population and population density and far less vaccines, and no harsh, prolonged lockdowns? Yes of course there are other factors ... but this is not making the case for oppressive lockdowns OR high vaccination rates.
Vaccines were introduced into Taiwan on the 22nd March - not long after we see a significant rise in the death toll. Co-incidental? Perhaps. The Delta variant, blamed for Israel's vaccine woes, and the reason Israeli's are now lining up for the 3rd shot, was first recorded in Taiwan on the 26th June. It was overcome very quickly in Taiwan with merely 3 days of 'soft' lockdown.
With NSW today launching into medical apartheid, segregating the vaccinated away from the unvaccinated in both social and private situations - and with Victoria not too far behind - it will be very interesting to watch what happens when the unvaccinated are excluded from many public, private and social situations, where the transmission of Covid is likely to occur.
What will contract tracing reveal? Is this really a pandemic of the unvaccinated as we are told it is? Or will restaurants, cinemas, theatres and sporting events filled with only-the-jabbed tell another story? Could we see an abrupt end to the tracking of citizens based on their vaccination status when the targets are reached, like the UK? We think yes.