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posted by janrinok on Monday November 27 2017, @08:27PM   Printer-friendly

England's National Health Service is urging parents to get their children vaccinated for the flu ahead of the holiday season to protect grandparents and other vulnerable relatives:

Flu vaccines administered through a nasal spray rather than an injection have been rolled out this autumn for two and three-year-olds, and children in reception class and years one to four in primary school. Children are super-spreaders because of the greater likelihood of them contracting flu at nursery or school, where germs are passed on at a rapid rate. But only 18% of school-age children have had the nasal spray immunisation, according to the latest figures.

Prof Keith Willett, NHS England's medical director for acute care, said: "Flu can be spread more easily by children, especially to vulnerable relatives such as older grandparents, those with heart or lung conditions and pregnant family members. Last year, millions of people missed out on their free vaccination and yet it's one simple, common sense step to help us all stay healthy this winter."

With less than a month until Christmas, the NHS is urging parents to book their children in for the free vaccination to help curb infection over the festive season, when family get-togethers can spread the infection.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror (a tabloid) claims that Russian agents are spreading anti-vaccination propaganda in the UK in an effort to destabilize the country:

Russian cyber units are spreading false information about flu and measles jabs in the UK, experts warn. [Ed's Note: The current flu immunisation is applied via a nasal spray - there are no 'jabs' involved.] Vladimir Putin is believed to want to erode trust in US and European governments. The state-sponsored units are spreading the lies on social media to destabilise Britain, it is claimed. The Kremlin has previously been accused of attempting to influence Brexit and Scottish independence. Now, it is feared it is trying to create distrust over flu jabs and the MMR measles vaccine.

[...] Security services are so concerned over the threat to public health and security that Government departments have been ordered to monitor social media and flag up risky articles. Health chiefs have had emerg­ency meetings over the spread "fake news" over vaccination campaigns. [...] We can reveal public health officials are investigating whether an outbreak of measles last week in Liverpool and Leeds was fuelled by parents not vaccinating children due to "false information read on the internet".

Also at BBC. BBC's collection of newspaper covers.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:56AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:56AM (#602345)

    Your ideas fall in 2 categories:

    1. Those things government interference prevents you from trying (e.g., bussing kids around).
    2. Those things government interference imposes on you (e.g., a tax on unmarried men).

    So, alternatively, get the Government the fuck out of our lives.

    Get the Government out of schooling. Get the Government out of marriage. Get the Government out of charity. Get the Government out of business; get the Government out of resource allocation.

    If your solution is "Get the men-with-guns to make people do what I believe would be a good idea!" then your solution is probably stupid.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @06:41AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @06:41AM (#602375)

    Dissolve the government, and a new one will form. More than one may form, each fighting to be the sole winner. While they fight, it's like Somalia. The winner will likely be awful.

    So it is thus established that we need men with guns.

    It's like that with lots of things. Libertarian idealism crashes and burns in the real world. (as does the opposite, socialism and communism)

    FYI, the government did bus kids around. It was done in the 1960s in many American cities. People rightly hated many aspects of it, but it did help to deal with the problem of good schools only being available to people in expensive areas. The actual goal was race-related.

    Nations rise and fall. Decisions that impact fertility have a huge impact on this, though they take decades to become obvious. By the time the population is overrun, it is too late to do anything. We can and should do something to delay the collapse of our nation.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 28 2017, @03:30PM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 28 2017, @03:30PM (#602526) Journal

      Dissolve the government, and a new one will form. More than one may form, each fighting to be the sole winner. While they fight, it's like Somalia. The winner will likely be awful.

      Irrelevant. We don't need to completely dissolve government merely to get it out of all the harmful interference the grandparent post described.

      By the time the population is overrun, it is too late to do anything. We can and should do something to delay the collapse of our nation.

      Just like the Irish, Jews, and Poles did to the US back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? The problem is grossly exaggerated. There are problems with high volume immigration, but it's not a recent problem.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @07:04PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @07:04PM (#602617)

        We've been lucky. Historically, the least integrating have been mostly non-destructive.

        To use modern names: Lebanon was not so lucky. That was recently a Christian nation. Recovery is not happening. Death is happening. Afghanistan was Buddhist. Bangladesh was Hindu. Iran was Zoroastrian. Egypt was Christian. There has been a lot of death.

        We ourselves did it to the North American aboriginal tribes. Once our numbers got big enough, we dished out death. Immigration did not allow for survival of the pre-Colombian cultures.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:32PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:32PM (#603045) Journal

          To use modern names: Lebanon was not so lucky. That was recently a Christian nation. Recovery is not happening. Death is happening. Afghanistan was Buddhist. Bangladesh was Hindu. Iran was Zoroastrian. Egypt was Christian. There has been a lot of death.

          Modern developed world countries have more going for them than weak corrupt societies of the past. I believe the violence in the Islam world is in large part due to radicals losing badly on today's culture front. Women, for example, will choose heavily a Western-style culture, given a choice between traditional Islamic role as a slave with no legal say outside her home and a culture where she not only has the full rights of a man, but also everyone has much greater rights and power.

          Further, recent EU immigration has been curbed from the peak in 2015 by a huge amount [reuters.com].

          Despite criticism from rights groups that the EU is violating international humanitarian law by striving to curb immigration, the bloc has applauded itself for reducing arrivals by more than 70 percent in 2016 from the peak in 2015 when more than a million people entered in an uncontrolled flow.

          It's not the same situation any more.

          And every one of those countries you mentioned above improved in early centuries with the advent of Islam (particularly, the countries subject to Hinduism and its caste system). That includes the countries dominated by Buddhism (which had developed notable corruption problems since around 0 AD, among other things disappearing from most of India by around 600 AD). Islam had a lot going for it in the early days. Today is a long ways off from back then.

          Finally, there are many other immigration populations to choose from than just Islamic ones. The US is more balanced, for example, with immigrants from the rest of the Americans, non-Muslim Africa, and Eastern Europe.

          Sure, high levels of immigration from places without strong democratic or capitalist traditions can destabilize a Western-style society. But for the most part, that's not actually a problem in the developed world. Everyone has implemented some sort of gate system for immigration, which has been effective enough. We'll see in the future what happens. But so far, Islamic immigrants have not been very different from any other immigrant, particularly in the US.