“We do not want to deepen fissures in society.”
This may very well be the beginning of the end for Covid mandates. At least in some countries.
The sudden announcements of a handful of nations to scrap vaccine mandates and passports have left authoritarian rulers who have seized on the pandemic scrambling.
England is poised to become the first major Western country to precipitously drop vaccine mandates and scrap ‘emergency’ coronavirus measures like mask mandates, self-isolation measures, and work restrictions.
An important backdrop to the significance of the British defection is that there are still many European nations dominated by socialists that are in the throes of increasingly oppressive restrictions. As was just reported by Forbes:
- People ages 60 and over in Greece who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 will be fined around $115 a month.
- Italy has made vaccinations compulsory for older people—over 50s—in early January.
- Austria is set to introduce one of the world’s strictest vaccine mandates by forcing everyone ages 18 and over to get the jab. Vaccine resisters would face fines of up to $4,100 under the law.
- Unvaccinated people ages 16 and over in France will be excluded from most public venues under the new “vaccine pass” law, which President Emmanuel Macron said is designed to “piss off” vaccine resisters.
One should add to this list Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s consideration of hiking taxes against the unvaccinated — a punitive measure tantamount to a fine.
But on Wednesday, beleaguered prime minister Boris Johnson bucked this trend and announced that vaccine mandates and work restrictions would soon be lifted — in March at the latest.
“People in England will no longer be required to wear face masks anywhere or work from home from next week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday, adding that scientists believed a wave of the Omicron coronavirus variant had peaked nationally,” Reuters reported.
Also on the chopping block: Self-isolation or “quarantine,” which will expire in March; the measures might even be axed sooner.
“Because of the extraordinary booster campaign, together with the way the public have responded to the Plan B measures, we can return to Plan A in England and allow Plan B regulations to expire as a result from the start of Thursday next week,” Johnson told the British parliament.
“Johnson said mandatory COVID-19 certification would end, though businesses could choose to continue COVID passes if they wanted to,” Reuters added.
The Washington Post, however, is extremely unhappy about all of this. It is connecting the dots between the dropping of the Covid restrictions and Boris Johnson’s scandalous behavior, which has been exposed in recent weeks.
“Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday announced an easing of coronavirus restrictions in England amid growing calls from outside — and inside — his party for him to resign over repeated revelations of rule-flouting parties held at his residence and office,” WaPo reported.
Yet the news comes as the Omicron wave appears to be rapidly subsiding in England, similar to how the virus burned out in South Africa.
In the U.S., the Supreme Court recently dealt a blow to Biden’s federal vaccine mandates by sending the OSHA case impacting large employers back to the lower courts, while maintaining the emergency stay against vaccination enforcement.
However, the maintaining of the vaccine mandate for federally funded healthcare providers was a disappointment to many who oppose the authoritarian measures. The OSHA ruling, however, may cause other vaccine mandates to ‘wither on the vine.’
It should be noted that England has opened up before, only to face subsequent restrictions. In July, it held a “Freedom Day,” much to the chagrin of lockdown proponents around the world.
Covid passports are nonetheless set to be phased out of England, even as many expect governments will try to use the measure as a foot-in-the-door to more intrusive surveillance of private citizens.
“Ministers are already planning to ditch Plan B curbs brought in last month to fight the highly-transmissible variant, with Covid passports and WFH guidance expected to be scrapped later this month,” the Daily Mail said.
“Health Secretary Sajid Javid today revealed he is ‘cautiously optimistic’ that the final Plan B curbs can be ‘substantially reduced’ next week when ministers review No10’s next steps,” the report continued.
Boris Johnson’s current assessment is that the nation’s plummeting Omicron infection numbers and stabilizing hospital rates indicate that the UK can “safely live with Covid.”
Thus, even as such nations double down on their constitutionally unlawful, financially corrupt, economically destructive, socially disruptive, and scientifically irrelevant policies, there will at least be national contrasts to their futility and folly. European versions of Florida and Texas, if you will.
More nations may soon follow suit and decide that Covid does not mean the end of Western Civilization as we know it. These political defectors will reap the rewards of more prosperous economies, stable societies, and happier peoples.
England was not the only nation to announce it would soon be ending vaccine mandates.
Source: The Beginning of the End? Major Western Nations Suddenly Drop Vaccine Mandates