Vax certificates decision could haunt us
We can only hope that Premier Doug Ford's rejection of vaccination certificates in Ontario despite rising numbers of the Delta variant won't come back to haunt us.
Ford has ignored calls from medical and infectious-disease experts to mandate vaccination in schools and critical health sectors, and refused to require proof of COVID vaccination, ostensibly to protect individual liberties.
“No, we are not going to do it — simple as that,” Ford said when asked about vaccination certificates. “We are not going to have a split society.”
It doesn't make sense because both actions would not only offer Ontarians more protection, but make it easier for businesses to fully reopen. Besides, we already have a split society. As of Thursday, 73 per cent of Ontarians have been fully vaccinated, but 27 per cent have not.
We have a majority that has taken the shot to protect not only themselves but others around them, and those who have refused to be vaccinated, potentially exposing others to COVID-19. And every day, public health officials in Ontario and across the country are working hard to bridge that divide, begging and cajoling the unvaccinated to do so. The divide is already there whether Ford acknowledges it or not.
Ford appears to have jumped on the bandwagon of those who consider not getting a vaccination as some kind of litmus test on constitutional rights. It is not. No one denies the right of any Canadian to choose not to get immunized against COVID. It's what a free society is all about. But choices have consequences, and rights are accompanied by responsibilities. Those who make the choice to refuse vaccination cannot complain when the rest of us refuse to fraternize with them for fear of getting infected. The 27 per cent who have refused to be vaccinated cannot infringe the rights of the 73 per cent who have taken the shots by potentially exposing them to COVID-19. Implementing a vaccination certificate system is not about splitting society. It is about protecting most of society.
If you make a free choice not to get vaccinated, good for you. But you can't then claim the right to go anywhere you please, with a real possibility that you might infect other people. Those people also have rights. What Ford seems to be saying is that the vaccinated and unvaccinated can mix anywhere and everywhere, and damn the consequences. That's not right.
I don't know about you, but I definitely wouldn't like to be in a restaurant, at a concert or on a flight sitting next to someone who hasn't been vaccinated. I simply cannot take the risk, especially with the Delta variant surging across the country, and ample evidence now that even a fully vaccinated person can catch COVID. What a vaccination certificate does, is to give some assurance that the person next to me won't give me the virus. That's why proof of vaccination is necessary.
If the government could assure Ontarians that they are safe from contact with the unvaccinated, there would be no problem. But the truth is, it can't. COVID-19 is now being labelled the pandemic of the unvaccinated for good reason. They are the ones fuelling the surge.
Government figures released Tuesday show that nearly 80 per cent of new cases reported were from the unvaccinated and partially vaccinated.
Ford simply cannot ignore the threat posed by the unvaccinated. Consider this: “COVID -19 certificates may have a practical short-term utility for supporting and maintaining economic and societal reopening. … Further, given the anticipated seasonality of SARS-CoV-2 as well as the possibility of additional variants of concern, establishing the infrastructure of COVID-19 vaccine certification may be useful if public health measures need to be introduced during potential future waves,” says the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.
Businesses want it, scientists want it, common sense says it should be done. But Ford won't do it. Let's hope Ontarians are not the ones who end up paying the price for Ford's intransigence.