On vaccine delinquents

Let’s acknowledge the legitimate anger of millions of Canadians at the irresponsibility of those who refuse to get vaccinated — the threat to everyone’s safety lies at their feet.

That the small percentage of Canadians who refuse to behave like responsible adults are now hogging a hugely disproportionate share of COVID ICU beds is simply unacceptable.

But let’s reflect on what we do to other similarly offensive citizens who need crisis access to the health-care system. We do not deny the injured drunk driver access to care if they can’t pay. We treat enemy prisoners of war, even ones known to have committed atrocities, with the best of medical care.

So how do we balance our need to defend ourselves from the threat posed by vaccine delinquents with our values?

The answer cannot be merely punitive. First, because it won’t work. But also because it is a breach of our deeply rooted mores about the right of every human being to fair and equal medical care in a time of crisis. Requiring them to pay thousands of dollars in fines, whether they are disguised as a “health-care contribution” or not, is simply not compatible with Canadian values.

The rich young vaccine delinquent won’t care, they’ll pay. The homeless vaccine denier will stay on the street spreading the virus when they get COVID because they can’t pay.

Restricting vaccine delinquents’ freedoms, their choices of employment and their ability to travel does no such offence.

We suspend or even permanently revoke a drunk’s right to drive. We prohibit those found guilty of partner or child abuse from ever entering their living space again.

Those who refuse vaccination can reasonably be expected to suffer possibly permanent limitations in their lives.

No restaurants, no hockey games, no travel and no shopping are all privations they have earned.

But the second major crossroad for policy-makers, after health-care denial, is employment. Should these delinquents be prevented from working anywhere?

Again, this probably crosses an ethical line. Hospital work, no. Teaching, no. Hotels and restaurants, no. But truck driving?

Other truck drivers and their employers are entitled to declare they will not work with a colleague who has chosen to be potentially contagious. But should the state mandate that one profession in the private sector falls under such a prohibition? What about drivers of taxis or Fedex trucks? The government bobbed and weaved on the issue all week, never addressing what it would do if winter food deliveries piled up at the border.

Regarding exemptions, we can be very tough. Medical exemptions should be defined as narrowly as possible: that a jab has a predictable prospect of endangering the person’s health.

And there should be no religious or “personal values” exemptions. There is no religious exemption for drunk driving — nor should there be for choosing to be a potential virus spreader.

We are going to have to litigate many future issues like these, as the pandemic declines into years of epidemic irritation. Few of the choices on how to navigate a path forward will be binary. Prioritize treatment for a seriously COVIDthreatened child over a millennial male vaccine delinquent with milder symptoms, of course. But some of the choices will be much more nuanced.

Holding our families and communities together through the deeply painful year ahead is going to be harder than ever. COVID will once again be overlaid with rolling climate crisis disasters. It will require great collective tolerance, wisdom, strong political leadership and mutual support to get to the other side.

Let’s not make it harder by indulging our rage at the delinquents by pillorying them on the social media equivalent of wooden stocks in the town square.

Or worse, denying their right to medical care without heavy payments to the state. Let’s just limit their ability to infect us.

‘‘ There is no religious exemption for drunk driving — nor should there be for choosing to be a potential virus spreader.

ROBIN SEARS