Fed up with anti-vaxxers and enabling politicians
I’ve finally had enough of anti-vaxxers and the politicians who coddle and shield them.
The tipping point for me came a few days ago while I was on vacation when a woman, who had somehow got my cellphone number, swore at me repeatedly over the Toronto Star’s coverage of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers.
“You heard me!” she screamed as she swore again before abruptly cutting off the call.
She quickly circulated my number among other anti-vaxxers, many of whom also called to rant about their “rights,” their “loss of freedoms,” about how vaccine passports are moving Canada closer to being a totalitarian state, about the dangers of “untested vaccines,” about how vaccine restrictions “divide our society.”
It was impossible to reason with them. They merely sneered at the mention of health experts and statistics that show COVID-19 vaccinations are working. “Fake news,” many of them hollered.
For me, those calls drove home the message that it’s time we stopped tiptoeing past the diehard anti-vaxxers for fear of upsetting them or hurting their feelings.
At the same time, we need to call out irresponsible Canadian politicians — from the national to the local level — who are too afraid of offending the anti-vaxxers and won’t get tough with them and instead try to appeal to their sense of civic duty, or propose bribing them with cash to get their vaccine shots.
A poll released Wednesday by the Angus Reid Institute found 77 per cent of Canadians support governments using regulatory measures to increase vaccinations. Earlier polls found 83 per cent of vaccinated Canadians have no sympathy for anti-vaxxers.
Count me as one of those vaccinated Canadians.
I’m fed up with the anti-vaxxers, who seem unbothered by the threat they pose to my health, feeling targeted because they may lose their job, won’t be able to fly on a plane, eat at an indoor restaurant or attend a hockey game or music concert.
I’m fed up with the Trumpist-like mobs in Canada hurling pebbles and insults at Justin Trudeau, picketing hospitals, screaming at diners on restaurant patios and demonstrating outside politicians’ homes.
I’m fed up with anti-vaxxers who suggest COVID is a hoax or scam or is being overblown by mainstream media.
I know people who have died from COVID.
I’m fed up with anti-vaxxer enablers who argue that many low-wage workers and others, such as the homeless and disabled, have been unable to travel to or get the time off to get to vaccination sites.
Rubbish! Do you seriously believe they couldn’t find a few minutes over the past five months to get a shot, when outreach programs are bringing the jabs almost to people’s doors?
Finally, I’m fed up with politicians who are basically protecting these irresponsible people who are making life miserable for all of us.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole isn’t requiring his candidates to be vaccinated, saying he “will respect their personal health decisions.” Alberta Premier Jason Kenny and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe won’t impose a vaccine passport. Ontario Premier Doug Ford is doing so only reluctantly after much public pressure.
People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier is making his opposition to mandatory vaccinations and mask-wearing his key election plank, openly defying quarantine restrictions and calling such measures “unconstitutional and immoral.”
What’s true now is that the unvaccinated are by far the leading cause of overcrowding in our hospital ICU wards and comprise more than 80 per cent of the COVID-19 cases. They are now clogging up hospitals beds and forcing some operations to be delayed.
Worse, many of the deaths and serious infections in the latest rise in COVID cases could have been prevented by getting a free vaccination.
That’s why it is hard to feel sympathy toward sick patients who have refused to get vaccinated.
Call it compassion fatigue.
We are long past the time of being nice and being empathetic toward antivaxxers and trying to win them over with carrots — as opposed to the sticks that are much-needed vaccine passports and stiff restrictions.
It’s time that they — not the vast majority of us who are vaccinated — paid the price.