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What should be the european way? I ask this as I understand your concern about politics forcing personal decisions, yet I am not finding a pragmatic workable s

by gls2ro 5y ago

What should be the european way? I ask this as I understand your concern about politics forcing personal decisions, yet I am not finding a pragmatic workable solution to the current crisis.

sharken 5y ago
Personal freedom should be the european way, like it is with the free movement of labor. You can use UK to gauge how the Covid situation will become and i dont think anyone will say there is a crisis now. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
lazyjones 5y ago
The European way should be to treat the EU as one country and stop restricting movement. We've had Schengen for a long time, which meant no border checks whatsoever on most borders (we were driving through without even stopping or slowing down most of the time). With this vaccine passport, Schengen is pretty much history and that removes one of the main liberties the EU was offering.
- p49k 5y ago
  Schengen has been deteriorating for a long time. Denmark has totally ignored it and has road checks at the border for more than 5 years now and other nations have done similar (although to a less extreme extent).
  - pjerem 5y ago
    I’ve been to Denmark two years ago and I have no memory of any border check. It was by plane btw, maybe the checks are different but it would be surprising. It is totally possible however that the check was so fast that I don’t remember it. Do you have any information about this ?
    - ben_bai 5y ago
      Can't speak for Denmark. But usually those border-checks are done couple km/miles after the border. Police will just stop "random" cars/trucks and do a "routine check". And "random" it might be as much as 50% of the passing cars.
    - p49k 5y ago
      Note I said “road checks” as in arriving by car. They totally closed the border and stop basically all non-Danish license plates for inspection. They are only supposed to be able to do this for emergencies for a max of 6 months. Instead, every 6 months they declare a new “emergency” so they can keep it closed indefinitely.
- gattilorenz 5y ago
  > The European way should be to treat the EU as one country and stop restricting movement. At least in Italy, movement was restricted inside regions (sometimes provinces) of the same country due to the epidemy. It's not nice for anyone involved, but the primary goal is to stop/limit the contagion. I'm an expat, so it goes against one of my interests, but I'm in favor of limiting border crossings, unless you can show that you won't spread COVID around.
- gls2ro 5y ago
  As long as we can have quarantine of cities, then we will have quarantine of countries => deadlock, each country, like now will restrict movement from other countries, thus making the freedom of movement almost impractical for everybody. So I think in this case (we are in a global pandemic) it makes sense to see freedom of movement not in a binary way (yes/no) but more in shades: allow more movement of more people as we get better at containing the pandemic. Also please note EU is not a federal state, nor many of the founding members want that to be. So countries have a lot of power to decide how to handle pandemic. Still I think EU as a block did a good job negotiating vaccines in the context of not having a unity or a fast decision process. So while I don't agree with restricting rights, I also don't agree with restricting rights of people who can move (like the ones vaccinated or immunised naturally) just because everybody cannot do it (cannot get vaccinated for personal or medical reasons).
tomp 5y ago
As exemplified by the UK, enough people will want to get vaccinated to reach herd immunity. Then you don’t need to care about / oppress those who don’t want to / can’t get vaccinated.
- gls2ro 5y ago
  I would like a lot to believe that this is how it will be in all EU states, but I am not sure. As far as I can see the vaccination rhythm is decreasing in some countries and it is not even approaching 50% of population. It might be because of the back and forth with Astra Zeneca the EU did or it might be because EU is pretty big as in diverse with respect of culture, set of beliefs, approach to health … Anyhow everyone is demanding EU to do something so their response will not be “wait so that everybody wants to be vaccinated”. Also because being that big means that heard immunity will not be reached.

by gls2ro 5y ago

What should be the european way? I ask this as I understand your concern about politics forcing personal decisions, yet I am not finding a pragmatic workable solution to the current crisis.

sharken 5y ago

Personal freedom should be the european way, like it is with the free movement of labor. You can use UK to gauge how the Covid situation will become and i dont think anyone will say there is a crisis now. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

lazyjones 5y ago

The European way should be to treat the EU as one country and stop restricting movement. We've had Schengen for a long time, which meant no border checks whatsoever on most borders (we were driving through without even stopping or slowing down most of the time). With this vaccine passport, Schengen is pretty much history and that removes one of the main liberties the EU was offering.

p49k 5y ago
Schengen has been deteriorating for a long time. Denmark has totally ignored it and has road checks at the border for more than 5 years now and other nations have done similar (although to a less extreme extent).
- pjerem 5y ago
  I’ve been to Denmark two years ago and I have no memory of any border check. It was by plane btw, maybe the checks are different but it would be surprising. It is totally possible however that the check was so fast that I don’t remember it. Do you have any information about this ?
  - ben_bai 5y ago
    Can't speak for Denmark. But usually those border-checks are done couple km/miles after the border. Police will just stop "random" cars/trucks and do a "routine check". And "random" it might be as much as 50% of the passing cars.
  - p49k 5y ago
    Note I said “road checks” as in arriving by car. They totally closed the border and stop basically all non-Danish license plates for inspection. They are only supposed to be able to do this for emergencies for a max of 6 months. Instead, every 6 months they declare a new “emergency” so they can keep it closed indefinitely.
gattilorenz 5y ago
> The European way should be to treat the EU as one country and stop restricting movement. At least in Italy, movement was restricted inside regions (sometimes provinces) of the same country due to the epidemy. It's not nice for anyone involved, but the primary goal is to stop/limit the contagion. I'm an expat, so it goes against one of my interests, but I'm in favor of limiting border crossings, unless you can show that you won't spread COVID around.
gls2ro 5y ago
As long as we can have quarantine of cities, then we will have quarantine of countries => deadlock, each country, like now will restrict movement from other countries, thus making the freedom of movement almost impractical for everybody. So I think in this case (we are in a global pandemic) it makes sense to see freedom of movement not in a binary way (yes/no) but more in shades: allow more movement of more people as we get better at containing the pandemic. Also please note EU is not a federal state, nor many of the founding members want that to be. So countries have a lot of power to decide how to handle pandemic. Still I think EU as a block did a good job negotiating vaccines in the context of not having a unity or a fast decision process. So while I don't agree with restricting rights, I also don't agree with restricting rights of people who can move (like the ones vaccinated or immunised naturally) just because everybody cannot do it (cannot get vaccinated for personal or medical reasons).

tomp 5y ago

As exemplified by the UK, enough people will want to get vaccinated to reach herd immunity. Then you don’t need to care about / oppress those who don’t want to / can’t get vaccinated.

gls2ro 5y ago
I would like a lot to believe that this is how it will be in all EU states, but I am not sure. As far as I can see the vaccination rhythm is decreasing in some countries and it is not even approaching 50% of population. It might be because of the back and forth with Astra Zeneca the EU did or it might be because EU is pretty big as in diverse with respect of culture, set of beliefs, approach to health … Anyhow everyone is demanding EU to do something so their response will not be “wait so that everybody wants to be vaccinated”. Also because being that big means that heard immunity will not be reached.