Sports stars mum on vaccine
It seems to me that the big names, (or indeed, any names), from our sports teams in Toronto have been missing in action during this pandemic.
Have any of them publicized or endorsed the importance of getting a vaccine as soon as possible?
Has anyone from the coaching staff, or from head office done so?
Maybe I’ve missed it.
Seeing as their support and success largely depends on filled stadiums, you would think it would have been in their best interests to have publicly encouraged everyone to get vaccinated from the very beginning.
They certainly have the public standing to have made an impact.
What a disappointment!
What a missed opportunity!
Janice Jones, Etobicoke
Re Congratulations to the owners of the Raptors, Maple Leafs, TFC and Argos! Your venues can now operate at full capacity. On Thanksgiving, Oct, 11, the crowds returned to Hamilton to watch the Argos defeat The Ticats at capacity without social distancing. There they were drinking, eating and screaming at the top of their lungs maskless. It was a perfect storm for a COVID-19 superspreader occasion.
On Thanksgiving Sunday, at my place of worship, congregants had to pre-register, provide proof of full vaccination in advance, wear masks indoors, and hum the hymns, instead of singing, even though worshipers are mainly senior citizens and there is absolutely everyone is fully vaccinated. Can the sports organizations say this? Can the Premier, or one of his sycophants, please provide the data that says places of worship are spreaders of COVID-19?
Come election God and worshippers will remember the restriction on worship.
In the meantime, praise the Lord and take the vaccine!
Praimnath Sankar, Oakville
I am a huge sports fan, but feel allowing full capacity at venues deems social distancing, and, frankly, maskwearing useless.
It appears that the government still does not realize that 20 per cent to 25 per cent of new cases are people who are fully vaccinated.
As far as restaurants and bars are concerned, they can police these better than big venues, but still should make sure tables are no closer than six feet apart.
That should be the capacity. Safety should still trump the bottom line.
Peter Rapsey, Toronto
Re Faith and freedom meet a fourth wave,
Oct. 9
People like Gerald Neufeld demonstrate the blatant foolishness that allows the pandemic to spread.
Your faith will not protect you from COVID-19, nor from anything else.
A virus cares nothing about religion or politics.
It simply finds a host to reproduce in. By refusing to get vaccinated, he’s creating a situation where COVID-19 can spread.
It will affect not only him, but those around him. Maybe he should check out what’s happening in the hospital ICUs, where unvaccinated patients with COVID-19 are overwhelming resources.
If I remember correctly, there was something in the news recently about how hospitals might soon have to ration care, providing it only to those most likely to survive. This means people who might have been able to survive will instead be allowed to die, denied the treatment that might have saved them.
This is what the foolishness of those opposed to getting vaccinated has led to. Those deaths are on their hands. James Knott, Mississauga
Among the unvaccinated are those who declare themselves “strong.” They see no reason to get the jab.
But this mindset misses the point. Much of our good health and long lives can be traced to the immunization of those around us.
One of the most stunning breakthroughs in human history, vaccination, lifted humanity from the scourges of measles, smallpox, and polio, diseases that once cut lives short and levelled whole societies.
Getting vaccinated is not just about improving one’s own prospects; it is an expression of caring for others.
Getting vaccinated is an act of selflessness — by people, for people.
James Schaefer, Peterborough
Re TTC union warns of delays, crowded cars ,
Oct. 8
Populism or science? Since the horrific accident on the Spadina line in 1995, the TTC has repeatedly stated that safety is its top priority.
Protecting riders from a deadly infectious disease should be paramount.
The idea that a union, presumably run by educated people, would suggest making statistical trade-offs between having more employees on the road to reduce congestion, against making sure every employee was minimally able to infect someone, is mind-boggling.
Superficially, it looks like a sensible trade-off, but in fact it is far from that.
Each TTC employee is in contact with thousands of people every day. The riders may have close contact with a dozen or two people, depending on how careful they are.
Listen to the science! Vaccines are safe, health outcomes are well over an order of magnitude better if you are vaccinated and mandates push people over into the health zone.
Yes, there are misguided folks whose employment will suffer, but many more will stay healthy.
We can’t let our society devolve into an ignorant and superstitious mob in the name of a false sense of “freedom.”
It is the antithesis of democracy and an abandonment of the tenets of public health.
Tom McElroy, Toronto
Re Parents seek answers on school outbreaks,
Oct. 12
Front page headlines shouting about “school outbreaks” of COVID-19 no doubt generate serious concern for parents of school-age children.
Yet, despite the scary stories, there were just 2,609 cases since September, out of more than two million elementary-high school kids, and most of these cases involve minor symptoms.
Shouldn’t you supply a little perspective?
Claire Hoy, Toronto
Re Every dose is a piece of our lives back,
Arthur, Oct. 7
Columnist Bruce Arthur advised people today: “If you are fully vaccinated you shouldn’t mix with the unvaccinated if you can help it.”
This is an immoral, inhumane and polarizing thing to say.
It also makes no logical sense. If fully vaccinated people are so well protected, why would they have to stay away from people who decline the COVID-19 vaccines?
It seems that when it comes to people who decline the vaccines, much of society is under a kind of hypnotic spell.
People’s focus seems to be entirely fixed on the idea that vaccinating everybody is the only way out of this pandemic. And any moral boundary or rule of logic may be violated in defense of this goal, without any alarm bells going off.
This is not healthy behaviour.
For the sake of society, please snap out of it.
Koen Swinkels, Toronto
Over the past 200 years, tuberculosis (TB) has killed more than one billion people.
That’s more deaths than from malaria, influenza, smallpox, HIV/AIDS, cholera, the plague and COVID-19 combined.
An article in The Economist, quoting a STOP TB official, called 2019 the first year of real hope, with scientific breakthroughs in detection and treatment.
But the last two years have dashed that.
If we don’t accelerate our current progress, we won’t end TB for another 150 years.
With the fourth wave pf COVID-19 crested, Canada must consider doubling spending on TB.
Randy Rudolph, Calgary
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