Go Back  PPRuNe Forums > Flight Deck Forums > Rumours & News
Reload this Page >

Qantas vaccine. IATA Health Passport.

Rumours & News Reporting Points that may affect our jobs or lives as professional pilots. Also, items that may be of interest to professional pilots.

Qantas vaccine. IATA Health Passport.

Old 23rd Nov 2020, 15:00
  #1 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Between Foxrock and a hard place
Posts: 115
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
Qantas vaccine. IATA Health Passport.

https://www.flightglobal.com/strateg...141248.article

It’s the old ‘only mandatory if you want to do X......’ policy.

Reduced travel/reduced tourism was one of the repeated stated aims of the green push we’ve been bombarded with the past few decades.

This will no doubt help. Initially. To reduce passenger numbers and show reduced carbon emissions and everyone involved can pat themselves on the back. Until other industries follow suit and say you don’t have to have the vaccine(s), you just have to have them to use our service/company.

This will be a very emotive and dividing issue for societies now. You either believe nobody has a right to refuse a vaccine for this (Covid) or any alleged communicable disease or you believe nobody has a right to dictate what you do to your body. Largely like we see in democratic countries currently.

If you’re largely in favour of this Qantas idea, I’d ask, is there anything you’d stop at/not accept on a personal level? If there is something that’s ‘off limits’ personally, as it were, how sure are you societies will agree with you and support you when that point is reached? Perhaps now is the time to say No.
sprite1 is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 15:11
  #2 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: USA
Posts: 2,503
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I understand that some wouldn’t want to be at the very front of the line, but save for a medical prohibition, why would anyone not want to get this vaccine?
Check Airman is online now  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 15:29
  #3 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Between Foxrock and a hard place
Posts: 115
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
I won’t link dump here but will recommend researching Pandemrix/GSK/Swine Flu/Narcolepsy.

Covid and Swine are both corona viruses.
Same pandemic type wording, global media coverage, transmission vectors, mitigation type aids like masks, distancing, washing hands, etc.

Taking the position of ‘waiting to see’ is a bit of a falsehood. It doesn’t address the problem.
And also assumes any side effects will occur before you take yours. What if it takes 3 years instead of 2 to witness the full effects? Or 4 years instead of 3. Have they tested the multiple vaccines created so far against use with other drugs? No combined effects?

I’m sure many of us here are commuters. Where do these fall? You need a vaccine cert to travel as a pax but when then clocking on as active crew, there’s no need to show it as crew are exempt? It’s but a small example of how broad brush this Qantas policy is and if Joyce is to believed, many airlines will follow suit. Maybe OneWorld have already agreed to implement within the Group.

sprite1 is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 15:48
  #4 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Gloucestershire, UK
Posts: 34
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
From Lockdown Sceptics in the UK, re. the Quantas decision:
'Bit rash. The drug companies are exempt from liability if a vaccine turns out to have a harmful side effect, but not airlines. What if someone only gets vaccinated in order to fly on Qantas and then suffers serious harm? Maybe moot because Qantas could be out of business by then.'
Personally I don't think Quantas will have a problem because I'm expecting governments around the world to mandate both the vaccine and some kind of "Freedom Pass". Consequently I am about half way through arranging my personal affairs so that I will never have to fly or use public transport again.
Turb is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 15:54
  #5 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: England
Posts: 435
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Check Airman

Apparently, a vaccine takes 5 to 10 years to be brought to market. Because governments are indemnifying the drug companies, long term trials have not been completed. In essence, those vaccinated are the long term trial.
Capt Scribble is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 15:57
  #6 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Europe
Posts: 704
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
It's not a unique situation. From some decades ago until present days, many countries have always had a requirement for any entrant or visa applicant to have certain vaccines. In many other countries, certain vaccines are mandatory for children to attend school. Some vaccines or proof of being free of certain communicable diseases are also among the requirements to apply for citizenship or a residence permit in many countries. The COVID one will be just another one, not something unique and unprecedented.
PilotLZ is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 16:29
  #7 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Between Foxrock and a hard place
Posts: 115
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
Thanks.

I think a good chunk of this issue/debate, etc is whether you believe Covid and all
its case numbers and hospitalisations justify company/country imposed vaccines.

In the U.K. alone, a Covid death is any death of someone who had tested positive within the previous 28 days. Regardless of why they died.

That’s a far cry from the scenes we were shown in early 2020 of people
either keeling over in China or Italian in-patients gasping for breath on ventilators. For some reason we’re not shown these things anymore. Yet the numbers, you’d be forgiven for thinking, are the same, in this second lockdown period.

Are flu deaths less valuable? Plenty an old person would’ve contracted influenza from someone in their family meeting someone else, maskless and succumbed to it in time. So it (this apparent need to stipulate Covid vaccines) can’t be total annual Covid death number related.

I go back to a point I made in my first post; if you’re happy with all this Covid vaccines stuff, the numbers reported, the solutions, restrictions etc, where is your limit? Do we really have none then? Is it a case of meh, some schools need vaccines, some citizenship applications need them, so roll
on required Covid vaccines.......?

The people who take the Covid vaccine will be simply continuing the safety trials of the past few months, like a previous poster said.
sprite1 is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 16:37
  #8 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: USA
Posts: 2,503
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Capt Scribble

I’m no expert on the matter, so I’m willing to be corrected.

The unprecedented speed at which these vaccines are being developed is because the relevant parts of the scientific community have effectively dropped everything, and put all their resources into it. A truly global effort.

It’s my understanding that no vaccine or medication undergoes “long term trials” until it’s been released- by definition. This is the “Phase 4”. Ideal as it would be, we can’t very well wait 5, 10 or 15 years to see what may (or may not) happen with this one, can we?

Between Pfizer and Moderna, some 75-80,000 people have selflessly been tested. No doubt the Oxford vaccine will bring that number to over 100,000. If the scientists and doctors around the world review the data and are happy enough to take it themselves, I trust their expertise.
Check Airman is online now  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 16:49
  #9 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Vienna
Posts: 143
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Check Airman

Here's the thing: vaccines are not 100% safe. The argument that the benefits out-weight the cost is not ethical, as in reality it is saying: it is acceptable to either kill or severely cripple few for the benefit of the many.

In essence it comes down to this: vaccines are a giant russian roulette. We don't know exactly what the odds are, but even if we say they are 1 in a million, we are knowingly killing people in order to save other people.

Would you pull the trigger of that gun against your kid, even if it would mean they were supposedly safe against something else in return? Would you really? I think most people would not. Something abut the gun makes the danger perceivable, where as "1 in a million" against injection sounds more assuring, but it is not.
derjodel is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 17:00
  #10 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Lemonia. Best Greek in the world
Posts: 1,759
Received 6 Likes on 3 Posts
The 10 years to develop a drug versus 1 year in the case of Covid is a load of B.S.
A lots of the "10 years" is spent with spinning wheels, when nothing is actually done other than pleading for money/resources/lab time/getting volunteers and so on.
Covid money, 100,000s of volunteers, and pre-existing research in to Spike - type infections has radically cut down the time required.

As to the anti-vax comments on here. Good. You won't have it. That moves my children up in the queue.
Ancient Observer is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 17:21
  #11 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: England
Posts: 435
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
AO, your children are welcome to my dose. I shall risk catching the virus itself and gaining immunity that way. I might die, but its more likely that I will not. Calling people anti-vaxers merely shows you do not accept differing opinions to your own.
Capt Scribble is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 17:40
  #12 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Here
Posts: 1,014
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Scary stuff..,, the end is naigh for aviation?! Green brigade won
BAe 146-100 is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 17:46
  #13 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Approaching TOMBI
Posts: 9
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
sprite1

Not liking the situation we find ourselves in and denying it are total different. Im the former, certainly not the latter. As for the whole "All these people could be getting hit by a bus and they call it covid...etc...." Just how many people do you think die on a day to day basis? Id wager that if you die with a positive covid test, chances are you died from covid or it certainly contributed...very very few people die from accidents or out of the blue so can we just drop that line now? It may be comforting but it's just ridiculous.

Imagine a passenger coming up to the flight deck and commenting on your fuel decision because they had "done their own research"? You'd be aghast and offended that someone thinks they could do your job because they did a bit of reading on the internet. Why do so many people think that they can have an opinion of covid (irony alert, I know)?

Covid is a real danger to enough people to shut down the global economy. Science has provided a way out. Im taking it. Plus it might save my job and tens of thousands of fellow pilots, cabin crew, engineers and in the vast chain that flows from aviation. Choosing not to take a vaccine is your right and should not be infringed upon but that doesn't mean you have the right to do everything you may want to do yourself.

Actions have consequences.
Justanothervoice is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 18:07
  #14 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Europe
Posts: 453
Likes: 0
Received 2 Likes on 2 Posts

In the U.K. alone, a Covid death is any death of someone who had tested positive within the previous 28 days. Regardless of why they died.
In Germany autopsies have shown that 86% of "corona deaths" were due to COVID and not due to other reasons.
733driver is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 18:27
  #15 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Canada
Posts: 602
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Capt Scribble

It appears from recent reports that one does not gain immunity after catching the virus.
Longtimer is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 18:30
  #16 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Cincinnati
Posts: 697
Likes: 0
Received 28 Likes on 9 Posts
derjodel

I just looked and couldn't find a single case of death due a vaccine since 1955 when a bad bad batch of Polio vaccine came out. Im sure there has been a death from a vaccine reaction but it doesn't seem to happen often.

Would I risk my child to save millions of others? Yes I would. Nobody seems to remember the 10,000 babies that died a year from whooping cough (pertussis) or the thousands crippled by Polio.

Go back to reading anti vax literature.
Climb150 is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 18:40
  #17 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: England
Posts: 435
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Anti body formation may not be strong and fades, which is the root of the reports LT mentions. It will be the 'T' cells formed that provide a defense to the virus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_cell
Capt Scribble is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 19:19
  #18 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Vienna
Posts: 143
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Climb150

It is tragic when reasonable people are unable to argue on facts and resort to shaming as some kind of supposedly intelligent discussion.

You can search VAERS for deaths. It's 35 reported deaths in 2020 and 1699 serious reported cases in 2020. Is it in your interest to label someone who is interested in what is behind that data as "anti-vaxxer"?

There is also something else interesting going on. We do not know if it's related to vaccines or not, but it certainly is worth looking into. Or are our kids better off labelling this MD an "anti-vaxxer"?

You are free to do what is best for your kid. However, neither you, nor anybody else should be able to tell me that I must vaccinate my kids. It is my responsibility to weight the risks and accept the consequences. And no, it is not my duty to vaccinate my kid to protect others, as that clearly means I subject my kid to potential injury in order to protect others.

PS: the effectiveness of the whooping cough vaccines appears to decrease by between 2 and 10% per year after vaccination. In essence, if you are not re-vaccinating every few years, you have no protection and you are a danger to others. On another topic this is an interesting paper on treating it, but to my knowledge it was never properly studied, which is really sad.

Last edited by derjodel; 23rd Nov 2020 at 19:33.
derjodel is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 19:30
  #19 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: UK
Posts: 956
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
As to the testing regime of these vaccines, I can’t speak for Pfizer or Moderna, but Oxford for years have been researching for “Disease X” - a global pathogen that would severely risk the health of the worlds population. And then voila, come New Years Eve 2019, whilst we’re all on the piss, this pops up.

They had also researched the original SARS pathogen and had developed a vaccine for Ebola and were attending to crack the code for MERS, which people forget is still relatively prevalent in the Middle East.

The 5-10 year development cycle is typically taken up by research (they already had the genetic code supplied by the Chinese) and when they have a vaccine ready to go for approval, it sits on someone’s desk for years. Clearly the regulators were unable to sit on this for ages and have been doing their assessments in parallel.

Oxford and others are amongst the finest medical minds on the globe. You know better than them?
Dannyboy39 is offline  
Old 23rd Nov 2020, 19:50
  #20 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: May 2019
Location: Sydney
Posts: 154
Received 21 Likes on 8 Posts
Originally Posted by derjodel
.....However, neither you, nor anybody else should be able to tell me that I must vaccinate my kids....
And you object to be labelled an ‘anti-vaxxer’? Why? Your claims are straight out of the anti-vax playbook, you are clearly anti vaccine. Do you think your views are special or that you’ve said anything that an ordinary anti-vaxxer doesn’t espouse?

I’m not ashamed to be characterised as a sheep by the anti-vax crowd. I have no medical expertise, and I don’t pretend I can become a medical expert by selective googling from my comfortable chair. To believe otherwise is arrogant and ignorant.
JustinHeywood is offline  

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service

Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.