Wong-Tam questions firing of unvaccinated workers
TPH vice-chair also made ‘misleading’ statement about infection risk
Toronto Public Health’s vice-chair is expressing concern over people losing their jobs for not being vaccinated against COVID-19 — a city policy — and is sharing infectionrisk information that experts say is false.
Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam wrote a column, headlined “Let’s choose discourse over divisiveness,” published Thursday by the Toronto Sun.
In it, Wong-Tam criticizes antivaccination extremists and also those who want unvaccinated people “excluded from society, fired from their workplace, or wish to deny them access to care because of apparent ‘careless behaviour.’”
While she is vaccinated, her parents “for their own personal and legitimate reasons, originally refused their turn to be vaccinated” and are not protesters or extremists, she wrote, criticizing phrases such as “anti-vaxxers” and “vaccine hesitant.”
“We know from recent public health statements that those who are vaccinated can still get COVID-19 and can still transmit it to others just as easily as those who are unvaccinated,” the Ward 13 Toronto Centre councillor wrote.
Dr. Anna Banerji, a University of Toronto infectious disease specialist, said Friday that Wong-Tam’s assertion that vaccinated people with COVID-19 can transmit the virus as easily as unvaccinated infected people is “not true.”
“People who are vaccinated have a much lower risk of having severe COVID, hospitalizations and lower risk of getting and transmitting COVID,” Banerji said, adding: “People are treated differently as it affects the risk of others getting infected. It is inaccurate to place validating COVID status (with) other forms of discrimination.”
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, another Toronto infectious diseases specialist, also called Wong-Tam’s claim misleading.
“Vaccinated people are less likely to get the infection in the first place,” he said in an interview. “Also, it appears that while an infected vaccinated person may have a viral load as high as an unvaccinated individual, the duration of time that viral load stays that high is shorter.
“So, on average, it appears that vaccinated individuals would be less likely to infect as many people as unvaccinated people.”
Toronto Public Health says “scientific evidence is evolving on how infectious vaccinated individuals are,” but there is “evidence that peak infectiousness is reached quickly and then declines, further suggesting they are not as infectious as an unvaccinated person.”
Wong-Tam also noted in the column that Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, “has stated that natural immunity needs to be considered as a factor in the province’s reopening plan.”
At the same Oct. 28 briefing, Moore also said: “This remains a pandemic of those who haven’t been vaccinated. The vast majority of people in our intensive care units, in our hospitals, or who are getting positive tests are unvaccinated.”
Responding in writing to the Star’s questions, Wong-Tam defended her assertion about infection risk from vaccinated and unvaccinated people as being supported by her interpretation of cited medical reports about viral loads.
She added: “I’m concerned that the same essential workers who we lauded at the beginning of the pandemic as heroes are now losing their jobs because of their unvaccinated status.”
“That’s why I shared my deeply personal story about my parents. They hold a different opinion than myself about the vaccines and yet still I love them unconditionally. I want us to open the dialogue, not shut it down.”
Wong-Tam said she has raised her dislike of the phrase “vaccine hesitant” with public health officials. Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s public health chief, has used the phrase while urging understanding of people’s concerns about vaccine and the need to give them the information they need to understand that COVID-19 poses a much greater risk to their health than vaccine.
De Villa, public health chair Coun. Joe Cressy and Mayor John Tory have strongly endorsed vaccine mandates, including the city’s demand that its staff prove immunization against COVID-19 or be suspended without pay and then fired.
Health board members are appointed by city council. Wong-Tam, first elected vice-chair by fellow board members in 2018, would help lead Toronto’s pandemic response if Cressy became unable to serve as chair.
On Friday, the city said that, as of Thursday, 515 employees were suspended and facing possible dismissal in mid-December, while another 85 city staff were on leave pending review of their application for a human rights exemption.
Asked for comment on WongTam’s column, Cressy wrote: “I certainly do not agree with many of the points raised. We cannot and must not ignore the science in front of us, which is that vaccines are safe and effective.”