The Time to Speak up is NOW
You can’t sit on the fence on this anymore. Don’t be caught on the wrong side of history.
I am shocked at what I am witnessing in my own country. I certainly don’t feel like a proud Canadian anymore. Our Prime Minister constantly vilifies me. All our mainstream media outlets constantly propagate hate towards me. Under the direction of our PM, one province has already moved to force a minimally effective health treatment on the mass population. All these things are depressing as hell however, it’s not what disturbs me the most. Something incredibly dangerous has happened to our society over the last two years. We have become so scared, delusional and addicted to the trauma inflicted upon us by our politicians. Even though the numbers and data clearly show that the unvaccinated are not massively disproportionately affecting hospital capacity or even responsible for the recent surge in cases, the majority of Canadians still hate this group.
As I’ve said before I think the hatred is fueled by politicians, the media and some authorities who desperately need a group for the public to direct their anger at; instead of at them for their ineptitude so far during the pandemic. Why do they need a scapegoat? How else do you justify locking down your population and instituting the same measures as you did exactly a year ago. How do you explain to your frustrated constituents that, after having promised that the pandemic was going to be over a long-time ago, that we are still at the same spot? How do you explain that after 90% of them were vaccinated, we are faced with quadruple the number of cases as our previous record (when virtually no one was vaccinated) and we are facing much more hospitalizations and the heaviest toll on our hospital systems that they have ever seen.
I know hate is a harsh word but if you truly believe what Justin Trudeau is saying “that the unvaccinated are responsible for lockdowns and for loved ones getting important surgeries delayed”, then you hate them. I wouldn’t blame you. If I truly believed that someone was responsible for this never-ending pandemic, depriving my children of an education and delaying life-saving treatments, you’re damn right I would have hateful feelings towards them.
But Justin Trudeau and every hate-fueled politician are dead wrong and they know it. I truly believe they know it. They know that the remaining unvaccinated people will likely never vote for them and are actually much more likely to take votes away from their opponents, so they are an extremely convenient scapegoat at a time when they desperately need one. Let me explain how wrong they are.
The Numbers
On January 17th, in Canada’s largest province, the unvaccinated represented 17% of the total population (all ages) and occupied 19% of the COVID-related hospital beds. In the ICU, they take up 29% of the COVID-related beds. As you can see that this group does seem to have a slightly higher chance of being in the hospital however they are far from being responsible for overwhelming the health care system. These numbers and ratios are very similar across most jurisdictions in North America and Europe. The unvaccinated are actually under represented in overall case counts and slightly over represented in hospital counts. There is very likely a much stronger correlation between smokers or drinkers and hospitalizations than between vaccination status.
There is definitely a correlation by age. People under 40 represent less than 14% of COVID-related hospitalizations in Ontario in the last 14 days. 72% are over 60. There is a strong chance that the small number of hospitalizations in the under-40 crowd are actually admitted for something other than COVID and just happened to test positive. The Ontario government recently announced that nearly 50% of all COVID-related hospitalized patients are there primarily because of reasons other than COVID. Lastly, in the last 14 days, 92% of reported deaths due/from COVID in Ontario were in people over 60 years old.
This is still largely a pandemic of old age. So let’s set this straight: Young, healthy unvaccinated people are NOT DELAYING CANCER SURGERIES.
After reading these last paragraphs do you see any issues with forcing this vaccine on everyone who chose not to take it? Considering the fact that with just two doses, it doesn’t seem to make one less likely to infect others. Just last week, the CEO of Pfizer even admitted this publicly. He said “2 doses of the vaccine offers minimal protection, if any, against Omicron (which is now the dominant strain representing more than 90% of new cases). He said this with no mention of waning immunity which means he accepts that the current formulation (which was designed for the original strain in 2020) does not protect against the mutations of Omicron. So think about what forcing the remaining 15% of unvaccinated people to comply will achieve? First they will take up a valuable booster shot appointment for a senior who likely really wants it. Second, they will not even get the non-existent protection of the two first doses until March and then likely not a third until summertime.
So I ask once again, do you support forcing this medical treatment on people? Do you truly believe that this group is responsible for another lockdown. Or is it the government and health authorities' fault for continuing to try the same tactics but haven’t made a meaningful investment or implemented any significant changes to our health care system? There are 3.1 million unvaccinated individuals in Ontario. Ontario currently has 33,300 hospital beds and regularly sees 9,000 ICU patients per week. Today, we have 168 unvaccinated patients with COVID in hospital ICUs (there 185 fully vaccinated people in the ICU with COVID). As we have seen with the data in Alberta (the only province that tracks patients comorbidities), the chance that a healthy person is hospitalized with (or due to) COVID is rare. Even more so for young people. In that province 74% of hospitalized patients in the last two years have had at least one comorbitity. 96% of people who have died with COVID also had at least one contributing comorbidity .
So for a third time, do you support mandatory vaccination? Do you support it for all age groups and even for those who have no comorbidities?
Speak Up
If you do then consider the slippery slope you may be encouraging. But if you don’t then your time to speak up is NOW. It’s not tomorrow, next month or in 6 months when you perceive that your social circle will accept this contrarian opinion. No! It’s now.
Why? Because if you don’t, you will be on the wrong side of history and you won’t have the chance to deny that you were. The Toronto Sun recently did a survey showing 60% of Canadians support the newly announced system of charging unvaccinated people. This statistic is what keeps me up at night. This statistic also leads me to the assumption that if you don’t explicitly support my decision to choose if I am vaccinated or not, then you are part of the 60% of Canadians who don’t.
Reflect on that for a second. If you secretly think we have gone too far and the overall consensus becomes clear later on you may never repair the relationships with your unvaccinated friends and family members who were unjustifiable dehumanized for so long. This group who just happened to make a different health choice has been barred from working and from participating in almost all aspects of society because they were deemed too dangerous at spreading the virus. Now that cases are more found proportionally in the vaccinated per capita, we are led to believe that all mandates that were put in place and that will likely continue going forward are to protect those people from themselves. That is an insane argument and everybody should know it. Our society has never, ever punished someone to this extent (loss of livelihood and participation in society) because of a health choice that only affects their chances of being hospitalized. Especially not in a group that still has virtually no risk of COVID-related hospitalization regardless of vaccination status (remember only 14% of recent hospitalizations in Ontario were people under 40 and likely almost none of them had no comorbidities). A healthy 22-year should not lose their job, their access to all public places and ostracized by their family and friends because of this particular health choice which will have such a negligible small effect on their overall health.
If you don’t support the fact that this pandemic is only extended by the unvaccinated (a clear scapegoat argument used by politicians to cover up their mishandling of the pandemic to redirect anger from themself towards another group). If you do not support discriminating people simply based on their very mininscule likelyhood of being hospitalized. Then, you cannot support any kind of mandate. The data is clear. Two doses of this vaccine does not make someone less likely to spread COVID. There is no logical argument for continuing with a vaccine certificate or vaccine-based employment. NONE.
If you understand this, then say something. Throw away your vaccine certificate. Delete your QR code. You can’t say you think it’s wrong that a minority has lost their right to go to a restaurant, and then go yourself. If a particular restaurant I liked suddenly started denying women without any justified reason, I would not go to that restaurant. If a museum I enjoyed visiting started denying people of a certain ethic background, simply based on hate, I would no longer visit that museum. My ethics and morals are clear. If I don’t speak up for someone else when I know they have been wronged, how do I ever expect others to speak up for me?
I’m sorry to say this. But you cannot sit on the fence anymore. The unprecedented trampling of our rights and freedoms for almost two years now has gone on way too long. We have allowed our government to normalize laws that restrict how many guests we can have in our private residences (currently only 5 in Ontario). We have normalized closing kids schools a few times per year with no serious debates about the repercussions. We have normalized the wearing of ineffective masks as a virtue signal of caring in public. We have forced our children to wear masks 8 hours a day for far too long. We have normalized having to show a health certificate to participate in public life. All were meant to be temporary measures but have time and time again shown to be the opposite. Quebec already announced that their certificate program will be extended to require a third shot. Justin Trudeau announced last week that the country has enough stock to vaccinate every one with at least four dose and we have over 100 million doses on order for 2023-2024.
If you don’t speak up now, who will speak up for you in 6 months when you make a health choice that the government disapproves of and you lose your permission to participate in society?
Consider just a few examples:
Shingles hospitalizes up to 9,000 people per year in Canada (mostly people over 60) but only 27% of Canadians over 50 have elected to receive the recommended Shingles vaccine.
Late stage colorectal cancers are far more expensive and taxing on the health care system than early stage cancers. The government of Ontario recommends everyone over 50 to receive an annual colonoscopy to detect these cancers. Still, many adults choose not to undertake this low risk procedure and put unnecessary risk on the health care infrastructure.
Sports activities lead to 18,000 hospitalizations each year. Only 27% of Canadians participate in regular sports and cause 18,000 unnecessary hospitalizations which risks delaying important surgeries. Should we hate all those who play sports any time hospitals hover around 100% capacity?
Do you see where I am going here? Once we open this door, we may not be able to close it.
Even if you disagree with people’s health choices, you can still support their right to make it. Everyone should have the right to make GOOD and BAD choices. That is the purpose of life.
You can be 100% pro-vaccine and believe that every single individual regardless of age or health should be vaccinated to protect themselves but still respect their right to choose. If you had an older relative with cancer and their medical team strongly recommended a certain chemo treatment that you agreed with as well, would you be okay with the hospital forcing it upon them. What if they weighed the risks and benefits and decided they wanted to live out their last year or two with no treatments. You would not be considered “anti-chemo” simply because you supported your mother’s right to deny chemo. So you do not have to be an “anti-vaxxer” to defend someone’s right to choose a vaccine or not. Especially one that no longer protects the community but is more focused on protecting the individual from severe outcomes.
Conclusion
I really think we have lost our way. We shouldn’t even be having this discussion or debate. We should have never gone this far. This vaccine was a miracle or science and did help us reduce the severity of the disease for so many elderly and immunocompromised individuals. It should always have been encouraged but not forced. Although 90% of adults received the vaccines, I think we know that a much smaller percentage “chose” to get the vaccine. Many were coerced, threatened, shamed and ridiculed into getting it. That is where we went wrong. That is what we will regret when we look back on this ugly period of time.
The longer it takes us to realize where we were wrong, the more difficult it will be to fix the broken trust and credibility in our experts and authorities. The longer it takes us to speak up, the longer it will take for your relationships to mend.
I’ll end this essay with an important quote to reflect on. It comes from a leader who we all think of as correct now but for a time was shunned, hated and persecuted by the media, politicians and the majority of society. I’ll remark that I can’t compare the injustices of today to those of racial segregation in terms of total harm but there are plenty of parallels when it comes to motive, hatred and how a majority population can think they are on the right side of history.
"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right." - Dr. Martin Luther King