At time of writing (February 2022), England has different self isolation rules for the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Rules are stricter for unvaccinated and I would consider them as discriminatory due to the fact that the vaccination has been proven not to retard transmission of SARS-COV-2.

Self Isolation

After contact unvaccinated people need to self isolate for 10 days regardless of testing outcomes. Vaccinated people can continue as normal as long as they test negative via LFT. The exceptions to this is for people who are taking part in a medical trial and people who are medically exempt (I’m assuming that this is due to the Equalities Act 2010).

If you get a positive test for SARS-COV-2 and test negative on day 5 and day 6 you can remove yourself from self isolation regardless of vaccination status. This will have the unintended consequence that unvaccinated people who do not want to be in isolation for 10 days could fake a positive LFT on day 1 and then do or fake negative LFT’s on day 5 and day 6. This will get them out of self isolation 4 days earlier and they will continue to get sick pay during the isolation period.

Sick Pay

Many companies are trying to coerce employees into getting vaccinated by removing sick pay for the unvaccinated if they need to self isolate due to contact. This will inevitably force self isolating unvaccinated people to fake positive LFT’s in order to get that sick pay. PCR tests are not required by employees and you can go to the NHS website to get a isolation note explaining to your employee why you need to isolate. That note will state due to positive test if you register a positive LFT. These notes will even state that your unvaccinated or vaccinated in it’s self can be seen as illegal as medical status is special category data and the employee is not required to give this information to their employer. An example of such a note can be seen below;

These measures are not based in science, the data does not justify treating vaccinated and unvaccinated differently and as such it is discrimination which I believe to be illegal. Unvaccinated people should be able to go about their normal business subject to daily testing after contact in the way that vaccinated people can. These measures are only their to discriminate and coerce people into getting vaccinated not for medical reasons but for reasons of convenience.

Unintended consequences

The outcome of this is that most people who feel strongly about vaccination are not coming forward for vaccination as they see this for what it is; discriminatory and illegal. However, these people may be coerced into being dishonest about COVID test results in order to get the sick pay that many rely on after being ordered to self isolate. This will in turn change the data captured by the weekly Vaccine Surveillance Report.

The Government understands this problem however they are willing to let it happen as it will skew the data in their favour justifying a disgusting policy and further restrictions.

Some low income families can apply for a £500 grant when isolating, this appears to be a little strange to me as benefits are not affected by isolation and low income families who loose out through sick pay rules could just fake a test; these families will still get the pay out regardless of sick pay status. Yet again this is another policy that will encourage low income families to register fake positive LFT’s in order to get the pay out, some families are registering multiple fake tests and insisting on schools not testing their children and relying on just the home test kits to qualify for this pay out. This will further skew the data for both vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts adding more daily cases and offering poor value to the tax payer.

Even though this is happening the reports still show transmission being much higher in the vaccinated population than the unvaccinated population making a mockery of past, present and future policies.

Disclaimer: The mechanism behind why transmission is higher in the vaccinated is not fully understood at this time. It could be because vaccinated people have more freedoms, vaccinated people could see COVID differently and test more, the vaccine could promote transmission by damaging the hosts immune system (lots of evidence in the literature about this) or a mixture of all three plus other factors that have not been considered yet.