The is such a wealth of good letters to the editor today that I had a hard time choosing what to reproduce.
They have one thing in common: the need for vaccine certificates is great, Doug Ford's refusal notwithstanding.
Re Vaccine passports should be on Ford’s list, July 28; Vaccine passports can prevent lockdowns, July 27
Emma Teitel and Matt Elliott have each provided excellent arguments for the necessity and benefits of Ontario having vaccine passports.
I couldn’t agree more.
Let me remind the freedom-doubters there are numerous rights we all readily give up because they support order and public safety.
For example, you cannot legally drive your car out of your driveway without a valid driver’s license and car insurance.
Those who freely choose not to go by these conditions simply forfeit their right to drive on our public roads.
Similarly, those who freely choose not to get vaccinated, and thus obtain a vaccine passport, simply forfeit their right to mingle with the rest of us at a restaurant patio, a movie theatre, or a Blue Jay’s game.
And they certainly forfeit their right to work in our health-care settings or in our schools.
Ivan Brown, Toronto
I disagree strongly with the Ford government’s assertion that Ontario has no need for a vaccination passport.
People refuse to take a vaccine based on conspiracy theories that are unbelievable.
Those who refuse are putting the rest of us at risk, themselves at risk, their friends and family at risk, and most of all, they are going to clog up the healthcare system even more.
If it takes a passport to move some of these people off their unfounded theories, then that’s what we need.
Carl Irwin, Flesherton, Ont.
When most of the public overwhelmingly wants a vaccine passport in place, the premier of our province won’t step up to the plate.
He doesn’t want to offend a small segment of society by implementing the only way we will ultimately beat this virus.
While food service businesses, schools, long-term care, hospitals and scores of smaller service enterprises struggle to survive due to lax vaccine policies, the premier waffles as he refuses to do the right thing and make decisions that will save lives and jobs.
It’s time for Doug Ford to be the responsible parent and do the right thing.
Marion Bartlett, Singhampton, Ont.
Re A big tent of COVID misinformation, July 24
The best incentive for vaccinations is a person’s job and the capacity to participate in the daily life of one’s choosing — as prescribed elsewhere, where the leaders are actually informed and not like our poorly educated premier, lack of vaccination comes with a price, literally.
No entry to restaurants, concerts, anywhere that crowds gather; no return to working without proof of full vaccination … what kind of privacy or rights come with the risk of infecting others and endangering our city, our province, the world?
Maybe the premier is blind to the reality that we all live. Perhaps his business ties blind him to the world apart from profit and cronyism. Blindness is the theme. But blindness in this case can be cured.
Joel Greenberg, Studio 180 Theatre
Let’s take a critical look at the antivaxxers and anti-lockdown adherents to examine whose civil liberty they are actually protecting.
Putting others at risk of infection and sabotaging vaccine clinics interferes with the rights of others to be protected from COVID-19.
It also jeopardizes the goal of reaching herd immunity and the possibility of going back to some degree of normalcy.
Not only are these people interfering with the civil liberties of those who want protection from the virus, they are also shooting themselves in the foot by increasing the likelihood of more lockdowns.
If the anti-vaxxers adherents are so vehemently opposed to lockdowns, has it not occurred to them that, if they were to get vaccinated, it would be a great way to help prevent the closings?
But that won’t happen as logical thinking is clearly absent among these folk.
Catherine Helwig, Toronto
We need to keep the pressure on our premiers to get them to see reason. It's a public health crisis. Political responses can worsen the problem.
ReplyDeleteEd Miliband wrote an excellent op-ed in today's Guardian, arguing our real enemies today aren't the climate deniers but the climate delayers. "Winning slowly is the same as losing."
"Nothing is more dangerous than the mirage of action shrouding the truth of inaction, because it breeds either false confidence that we will be OK or cynicism and despair about meaningless political promises."
On the great problems of the day we're being defeated by political considerations.
The inertia we are seeing in political responses to Covid and climate change reminds me of the frog-boiling metaphor, Mound, and in the case of the latter crisis, it seems literally true.
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