There were stories of people being turned away from one of our local vaccination centres for looking too young WTAF, surely they need the link in the text invite to get the form they have to fill in to attend, no form? fair enough off you jog, but these peeps were high risk, had been sent the text and had completed the form only to be told to sod off.
All of my elderly relatives have had the first jab which is great news (can worry a little bit less about them) . I'm way down the list of expecting mine but already looking forward to it. After all who wants to be ill with anything. I can't stand having a cold or flu so sure as hell don't want to be laid up in bed (or worse) with COVID.
I highly doubt that's the actual reason anyone was turned away. One of my colleagues was turned away from their vaccination because they failed to bring in their documents. The letter said you had to bring in photo ID, proof of employement (work ID, we're NHS contractors) and the appointment letter/email. Naturally they turned up with the letter and no IDs because they're a twonk, the nice lady at the desk told them to go away. They did manage to do as they were told the second time around.
I'd be stuffed, then. My passport expired a while back, and with 'rona I haven't bothered renewing it (in fact, the Passport Office specifically says "don't bother us unless you really have to, we're busy.") With no Driver's Licence, I've got nowt with my photo on that isn't past its expiry date.
I would be equally stuffed but, I just had a phonecall last week. Was asked a couple of questions, given an appointment and just have to turn-up tomorrow, was the same for my wife.
I wouldn't doubt it - it's a numbers game. Just the fact that things have scaled up from nothing to a metric shedload of vaccination centres with a huge amount of people running them in a very short time means that everyone involved is effectively new to this, and a bunch of them are going to get it totally wrong. One of the vaccination centres nearby was giving out vaccines to several people that came in because they had used an inhaler at some point in their lives and either through ignorance or wanting to skip the queue argued that probably qualified as a respiratory condition. My wife had hers yesterday - she never got a letter. She was advised by multiple medical professionals that she needed to go in in spite of it - not getting "the letter" because it's ultimately based on a fairly simple set of rules and she has an off-the-beaten-trail condition that just doesn't match up to those in spite of fitting both the qualifiers of cardiac and neurological simultaneously. She brought stacks of records, other letters, meds and so on. The first question they asked was if she knew her NHS number which she did off the top of her head, and that was it... the basis she knew her NHS number was enough to convince the gatekeeper that she should be there, because she was the first person they came across that could just recite it like that.
Yeah.. I suspect there's a lot of 'nobody knows' running these vaccination centres, if the tales of track and trace programs are to be believed. Couple that with what I presume to be exhausted NHS staff, I'd not be surprised by some erroneous responses.
Maybe, I know these people and although I've not seen them for a while I have no reason to not believe what they've posted. No ID needed when I went, although I did know my NHS number, not that it was checked against anything at the time.
[Ted Kaczynski has joined the chat.] I was away for a few days. But I must say, neither oscy nor mrlongbeard is a troll. They're just lairy. I don't know why those two things get conflated so often but it seems really tacky to me to conflate them. Being argumentative and easily riled is very distinct from being a 4chan sociopath who only enters spaces to ruin them. C'mon guys. Don't throw the 't' word around so readily.
Adulthood is realising that Tyler Durden is just a weak fictionalizing of Ted K, and that the fictional character you evangelized as a teen is actually based on a real domestic terrorist. Anyway there was a topic somewhere, what was it? Oh yeah viruses. Viruses suck.
I know this is a tangent, but I can't resist. Caveat: I haven't played airsoft in well over a decade, so my knowledge quite out of date. Where 'airsoft' pistols and AEGs can become problematic however is that 'realistic imitation firearm' part. If you point a Tokyo Marui MP5 AEG at the average person on the street, they're not going to know the difference - all they're going to see is someone pointing a gun at them. In the Air Training Corps I handled and fired the real L85-A2* rifle on multiple occasions (at least I think it was the A2 variant, although the distinction between A1 and A2 is largely irrelevant in this context); many years later, I had the chance to borrow and use an airsoft version which had the plastic body parts replaced with metal versions. Honestly, that airsoft AEG was indistinguishable from the real thing in terms of weight and balance. Of course there's no way in hell it could ever be used with live ammunition, but 'realistic' was an understatement - as it was for most airsoft AEGs and pistols I saw. I once came back from an airsoft game without realising I'd forgotten to take my pistol out of it's thigh holster. I did not realise that it was still in the thigh holster, which I was still wearing, as I got out of my friend's car and was about to walk into a service station. While I'm wearing full combats and a webbing rig. It was damn lucky that it was a Sunday and there was hardly anyone about, and it was a damn good thing I realised that something about my right leg felt odd. I don't think the armed response unit would have given a flying toss that it was an airsoft pistol and it hadn't even have a magazine in it for the last 4 hours. HOWEVER... That does not mean that I think the restrictions on 'realistic imintation firearms' in the Violent Crime Reduction Act are sensible and proportional measures. As @Gareth Halfacree has already pointed out, air rifle pellets are far more dangerous than airsoft BBs. *No, I do not mean the L98 'cadet' variant - although I fired that on tons of occasions, I only got to use the full-fat L85 on a handful of occasions.
I get both sides of that one. Airsoft guns are crazy realistic, and kids ruined it for the rest of us by holding up newsagents with them once too often. On the other hand, UKARA is a piece o' piss to game, and actual pellet guns are totally unregulated. Everyone and his dog has a 22 air rifle, because why not? Cheaper than a train ticket and all you need to do is hand over cash and give your postcode or something. Tangent city up in here. Unless there's scope to load coronavirus into an air rifle and shoot it at people...
Gather them all up together and put them on a disused airfield, behind a big fence with armed guards outside the perimeter. Then they can infect each other to their hearts content.
