Ben Lowry: Colum Eastwood is right to say that vaccine passports allow us to open up

The Alliance politician Sorcha Eastwood says in a tweet, quoted above, says she has loved it since her aunt took her when she was in P2.

My memory of Balmoral goes back even further, to when I was about three and my grandfather, James T Kernohan, worked at the King’s Hall for the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society (RUAS).

I was reminded of that yesterday as I walked through the major amusement park rides that they have now at the show.

There was nothing like that when I was a child. It was enjoyable enough to clamber up the vast, then state-of-the-art, combine harvesters that they had on display.

It was good to see Balmoral having expanded in such ways.

It was grey and at points drizzly at Balmoral yesterday yet the atmosphere was happy — perhaps due to the yearning of people to be able to get back to such gatherings.

I was struck by Balmoral’s Covid requirements: either proof of full vaccination, or proof of a recent negative NHS Lateral Flow test, or proof of antibodies from PCR test.

These seemed to be to be responsible requirements for an event of many people in close proximity. Indeed they seemed to me to be a minimum, because proof of a negative Lateral Flow test on its own is not a strict requirement, due to the possibility of ‘false negatives’ (people who are found to be in the clear but are in fact infected).

I agree with Colum Eastwood, SDLP leader, on vaccine passports.

A curious feature of Covid is the bitterly divided way in which many people approach the topic.

Hardcore anti lockdown believers morph into anti vaxxers.

Zero Coviders want severe shutdowns and dismiss any attempt to assess the overall cost of that tactic.

And both sides seem to be, at best, selective in use of statistics.

For example, I have been since the beginning a mild lockdown sceptic. This was not because lockdown doesn’t work — it obviously does if you deprive people of all human contact. My concern was whether coronavirus was worth such drastic measures.

This is still not clear, because we still do not know the exact societal cost in loneliness, mental illness, impact on non Covid NHS treatments, impact on economies, ruined livelihoods, impaired education and so on.

In particular the enduring inequality of it all. The way the public sector is untouched and politicians won’t even countenance, say, a 5% pay cut to non frontline public sector workers to help fund the devastated self employed.

Or the inequality of much of the population living through confinement in houses with ample outdoor space, and others stuck in flats with no garden. These are among reasons we must avoid third lockdown.

Yet hardcore lockdown supporters rarely seem to acknowledge these problems.

They dismissed the importance of statistics that showed the massive age gradient to Covid, in particular the almost non existent risk to the under 30s. Yes, the Delta variant has somewhat changed that, and there is a worry with long Covid, but even so it is overwhelmingly fatal only for people who are already gravely ill or nearing end of life.

But those of us who accept that reality should be embracing vaccine requirements, and yet many lockdown sceptics are anti such an approach, talking of freedom of choice rather than compulsion. But they should embrace compulsion, in order to ensure freedom of action and freedom of movement!

The value of the vaccines is clear in Northern Ireland hospitals intensive care stats. Some 72% of people in ICUs are entirely unvaccinated, while only 12% of the adult population is without even one jab.

Yet these statistics are turned on their head. It is said that 20% of people in ICU are double jabbed which proves they don’t work. In fact, given that 80% of adults in NI have had both doses, it shows you vaccinations slash risk of a severe response to Covid (also showing that double jab is no guarantee of protection).

I was slow to get double jabbed because, in my 40s, I felt at low risk and the vulnerable people I care about had already had both doses before I became eligible. I soon realised that I was not thinking hard enough about my possible role in spreading infections. I have had both jabs since summer, and think it is a fair bargain for society to open up extensively but give preferential access to people who have two doses.

I understand the dismay of people who have loved ones in care homes, and who got their double doses so that they could safely visit, and yet are seeing that resident potentially cared for by staff who have not protected themselves against Covid in the way the relative has.

This is all the more painful given how people were not able to see visit home residents for so long.

It is a tricky issue because there is already a shortage of care staff. Even so, England is right to move to compulsion for such carers in the coming weeks.

• Ben Lowry: A sunny autumn day in Co Down banishes some of my equinox gloom

• Ben Lowry (@Benlowry2) is News Letter acting editor

Other articles by Ben Lowry below, and beneath that information on how to subscribe to the News Letter:

• Ben Lowry Sep 18: President Higgins is by no means alone in snubbing the centenary of Northern Ireland

• Ben Lowry Sep 11: We remember the September 11 attacks because it was meant to terrorise us, and it did

• Ben Lowry Sep 4: Research into support for a united Ireland has become too reliant on one pollster

• Ben Lowry Sep 4: Drivers are now well paid ... which reminds me of a job idea

• Ben Lowry Aug 28: Lagan Valley shows the challenges facing both unionism and Alliance

• Ben Lowry Aug 21: Unionists are more vulnerable to the fall of Stormont than republicans

Ben Lowry Aug 21: Bigwigs should realise that there is no holiday before retirement

• Ben Lowry Aug 14: Exam grade inflation is rooted in sentimentality about education and school pupils

• Ben Lowry Aug 14: The collapse of Kabul to the Taliban will be seen as a sign of western weakness

• Ben Lowry Aug 7: Covid has been a bewildering and humbling pandemic

• Ben Lowry Aug 7: Now I understand those older people who want cooler summer weather

• Ben Lowry Aug 2: Three points to keep in mind when arguing against the NI Protocol

• Ben Lowry July 31: The last NI housing boom was disaster, and we need to beware a repeat

• Ben Lowry July 24: Republican terror atrocities are increasingly being partly blamed on the security forces

• Ben Lowry July 24: Hot weather ought to be welcome in NI but this is extreme

• Ben Lowry July 17: UK has tipped into an amnesty after a long approach to IRA that lacked bite

• Ben Lowry July 15: We should be honest as to how we have arrived at a Troubles amnesty

• Ben Lowry July 10: We will find soon if UK is for once going to criticise Ireland

• Ben Lowry July 10: I once always wanted England to lose, now I want them to win

• Ben Lowry July 3: The mild DUP response to the protocol will cause Boris little concern

• Ben Lowry July 3: The extreme heat in Canada shows why we might come to like Northern Ireland’s mild weather

• Ben Lowry June 26: Neither Dublin nor IRA have been put under any pressure on legacy

• Ben Lowry June 26: A slight sense of sadness as the days again begin to shorten

• Ben Lowry June 19: Somehow the appeasement of Sinn Fein got worse

• Ben Lowry June 12: Now above all, when unionists are winning the argument on the Protocol, is time to stand firm against it

• Ben Lowry June 5: It is clear that Edwin Poots is not taking the DUP in a remotely hardline direction

• Ben Lowry May 29: There is much confusion in unionism, so here are some suggested core pro Union principles

• Ben Lowry May 22: Instead of ‘moving on’ from IRA funeral, we still need proper answers

• Ben Lowry May 22: If Joel Keys, 19, wants to help unionism he should get a law degree

• Ben Lowry May 15: Edwin Poots and Doug Beattie will offer two distinct shades of unionism

• Ben Lowry May 8: Formal UK ideas for an amnesty are almost exactly 20 years old

• Ben Lowry May 8: Let us hope that the brilliant Eoghan Harris keeps on writing

• Ben Lowry May 1: Unionism can’t just be about managing long-term defeat

• Ben Lowry May 1: Arlene Foster was given huge opportunity by DUP after her exit helped ruin UUP

• Ben Lowry April 24: NI seems to rely increasingly on just one pollster for data on attitudes to a border poll

• Ben Lowry April 17: DUP still has to choose between managing this disaster or total rejection of it

• Ben Lowry April 10: His enduring marriage to the Queen was key to our understanding of Prince Philip

• Ben Lowry April 3: Radio grilling of UUP leader exposed folly of unionists blaming Simon Byrne for funeral

• Ben Lowry Mar 27: There should not be an Irish language act, but it is too late — the DUP has agreed one

• Ben Lowry Mar 20: We have made it through the worst of the dark, dreaded winter lockdown

• Ben Lowry Mar 20: MLAs lost control of abortion by rejecting modest law reform

• Ben Lowry Mar 13: Whatever future Boris Johnson adopts for Northern Ireland seems set to lead to a crisis

• Ben Lowry Mar 13: Scotland tunnel isn’t fantasy, but something kids of today might see

• Ben Lowry Mar 6: The cost of victims’ pension has ballooned without explanation as to why 


• Ben Lowry Feb 27: Unionists have fully turned against Irish Sea border because they’ve seen the scale of disaster

• Ben Lowry Feb 20: We still lack answers as to why IRA funeral got special treatment at Roselawn

• Ben Lowry Feb 13: Peter Robinson has long experience of what is and is not politically feasible

• Ben Lowry Feb 6: There is barely any unionist support for violence, despite justified anger at sea border

• Ben Lowry Jan 30: At last, clear reason for UK and unionists to stop being weak towards Ireland/EU

• Ben Lowry Jan 23: Lockdown sceptics have been undermined by crazy theories, but sensible criticisms haven’t gone away

• Ben Lowry Jan 16: The Irish Sea border was imposed because UK knew unionists would take it

• Ben Lowry in 2020: Last night unionists celebrated a move towards Irish unity

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