It’s impossible!

Governments are paying to keep Covid damage claims in check, says Bryan Hubbard

The White Queen told Alice that she could believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Although she didn’t enumerate them, we bet one had to be about getting government compensation for a serious reaction to a Covid vaccine.

The UK and US governments have done their utmost to ensure they don’t pay out to people and families whose lives have been completely devastated by a reaction to a Covid jab.

It’s a far cry from those days of national solidarity when a high-pressure campaign urged us all to roll up our sleeves and get the jab to stop the spread of the deadly virus. Won’t do your duty? Then you can’t travel, and you could be refused entry to restaurants and public spaces.

But those who did their duty and are now permanently disabled as a result are getting short shrift from the same people who bullied them into getting the vaccine in the first place. In the UK, the NHSBSA (NHS Business Services Advisory) acts as a guardian at the gates and controls the claims that are even considered by the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS).

It works a treat. Just 1 percent of claims are successful in the UK; thus far, 264 families have received compensation—a fraction of the 24,240 claims made to the NHSBSA since October 2021. Each successful claimant has received the paltry £120,000 statutory payment, which is a bit like throwing a snowball at the sun for families whose lives have been destroyed by a chronic and permanent disability.

It’s not much better in the US: Just 1.5 percent of claimants—yes, a full 0.5 percent more—are successful.

In all, the Scrooges at the VDPS have coughed up £32 million to ease the lives of the handful of successful applicants.

If this wasn’t distressing enough for the affected families, they recently heard that the UK government has handed the NHSBSA £83 million in order to keep claim payouts to a minimum. Yes, the bureaucrats have been paid more than double the amount that the families have received.

Mind you, the bureaucrats earn their money; the obstacles they put up are daunting. Of the 24,000 claims they’ve received, just 2,000 or so have even gotten to the second review phase.

Each case is reviewed by an “independent” doctor to check whether it meets the threshold of “severe disablement.” That means the claimant has to be suffering 60 percent permanent disability as a direct result of the jab. So, perhaps they’re just not disabled enough to qualify, and perhaps they’re a mere 59 percent damaged. The independent doctors have received £20 million of the £83 million for keeping those claims down.

The claims are also outsourced to a review group, Crawford & Company Adjusters, which has been paid £50 million, eight times the original estimate.

Then there’s the thorny issue of cause. In a wheelchair immediately after having the shot? Doesn’t prove anything. What about the time you fell off your bike when you were five—perhaps your symptoms are a delayed reaction. (And if you think that’s hyperbole, we’re citing a real-life case!)

No wonder the campaign group Vaccine Injured and Bereaved UK (VIBUK), which was set up to support families affected, said the scheme was not fit for purpose.

Even the 24,000 claims received by the NHSBSA are but a drop in the proverbial bucket. Around 500,000 Britons have reported a reaction to a Covid jab, according to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Yellow Card reporting scheme.

The system on average records just 12 percent of adverse reactions. This would suggest that more than 4 million Britons have suffered a side effect or adverse reaction to one of the Covid shots, and most likely to the AstraZeneca jab, which was banned in other European countries.

So why haven’t they joined the long queue for compensation? Some of the reactions are transitory and pass with time, but some are not, and people are left with a chronic problem that could bedevil them the rest of their lives. Many who suffer serious side effects don’t even bother claiming; they know the chances of compensation are close to zero.

Most definitely impossible, even for the White Queen.

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