Defiance Comes With A Cost

One of the things that riles me more than most is the absolute zeal with which the anti-vaxxers embrace their cause. Call it truculence, call it misplaced zeal, call it whatever you will, their willfully ignorant stance ignores the facts of Covid-19 and its very effective Kryptonite, the vaccines themselves. Unfortunately, the collateral damage caused by their desperate and pitiable effort to define themselves by their defiance is the rest of us.

Public health and any sense of community beyond their own benighted cadre seems non-existent.

Now added to the fray are restaurants and other businesses that are openly advertising that they do not 'discriminate' and will not be asking for proof of status as a condition of entry.

Propelled by a mixture of vaccine skepticism, business decisions and fear of government overreach, these proprietors — ranging from burger joints in Toronto to a Brazilian jiu-jitsu class in Thornhill — have formed an extensive and well-documented network of restaurants, gyms, cafes and more where clientele can enter regardless of jab status.

 In a Facebook group called “Ontario Businesses Against Health Pass,” which boasts more than 139,000 members, small business owners and entrepreneurs across the province have been promoting their products and decrying the Reopening Ontario Act.

“At King Jiu Jitsu, we do NOT discriminate,” wrote Gregg King, operator of a martial arts class in Thornhill, in the Facebook group. “Vaxxed or not vaxxed you are all welcome to train in a safe and friendly environment ... No BS. No politics. No Drama!”

 The posts receive scores of supportive messages from like-minded people. The businesses are added to an online directory, called Ontario BAD (Businesses Against Discrimination), where they can advertise their work and submit job postings to fill vacancies.

Apparently there are close to 700 enterprises listed on the site. If you are curious,  you can check out some of them on this Google Maps compilation.

Arguments for their stance are disingenuous at best. Jenna Barnes, owner of a very small restaurant in Hamilton called The Harbour Diner, 

thinks the province is disadvantaging small businesses by implementing rules that don’t apply to big corporations.

“You can walk into a Canadian Tire, or a Walmart, or a Costco and nobody will ask you a damn question about your medical history. Why is it all on us?”

The obvious answer, of course, is that those enterprises require masks at all times, something that is impossible when one is eating.

The Star's Emma Teitel has a solution to the problems posed by these scofflaws. 

What if, you, a fully vaccinated person, dine at a restaurant you assumed to be safe, only to discover later on that not only did you contract COVID-19 from an outbreak at the restaurant, but its owner failed to check diners’ vaccination statuses and boasted about this failure online?

According to Alex Colangelo, a lawyer and professor of paralegal studies at Humber College, you might have recourse to sue the restaurant for negligence.

 Consider this passage from Ontario’s Occupiers’ Liability Act, the “occupier” for our purposes being a business owner: “An occupier of premises owes a duty to take such care as in all the circumstances of the case is reasonable to see that persons entering on the premises, and the property brought on the premises by those persons are reasonably safe while on the premises.”

Consider this passage from Ontario’s Occupiers’ Liability Act, the “occupier” for our purposes being a business owner: “An occupier of premises owes a duty to take such care as in all the circumstances of the case is reasonable to see that persons entering on the premises, and the property brought on the premises by those persons are reasonably safe while on the premises.”

It is time that those who proudly trumpet their truculence accept responsibility for their irresponsibility. Lawsuits, fines for non-compliance and even closure of businesses seem a good place to start imparting a much-needed lesson. 

Thought For The Day

 

Amen.

Pardon My Obsession

If you have grown weary of my regular posts about the willful ignorance and stupidity of the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, please skip the following.

A Texas bar and grill does not hold with those timid citizens who insist on wearing masks. Apparently, the patronage of Hang Time is limited to those who are made of sterner stuff, like all red-blooded citizens of the Lonestar State, I guess.

And if that doesn't convince you that there is something deeply wrong with people, take a look at this, an invasion of a Staten Island food court by an anti-vaccine mandate horde:

Not So Special After All

 

Given their passionate intensity, anti-vaxxers must be finding this week's ruling by the Ontario Human Rights Commission deeply galling. The long and short of it: they are not so special.

People who choose not to get the COVID-19 vaccine due to personal preferences or “singular beliefs” do not have a right to accommodations under Ontario’s human rights law, the province’s rights watchdog says.

While human rights law prohibits discrimination based on creed — someone’s religion, or a non-religious belief system that shapes their identity, world view and way of life — personal preferences or singular beliefs do not amount to a creed, the commission said, adding it “is not aware of any tribunal or court decision that found a singular belief against vaccinations or masks amounted to a creed within the meaning of the Code.”

Furthermore, even if someone can show they have been denied service or employment over their creed, “the duty to accommodate does not necessarily require they be exempted from vaccine mandates, certification or COVID testing requirements,” the commission said. “The duty to accommodate can be limited if it would significantly compromise health and safety amounting to undue hardship — such as during a pandemic.” 

It is a setback for the truly fervid, those who have made it quite clear that they don't give a damn about  anyone but themselves in this pandemic. But I have no doubt that they will continue their senseless crusade, even if it requires finding doctors with no integrity or falsifying vaccine certificates.

Consider this miscreant, Dr. Christopher Hassell:

The Richmond Hill physician has apparently grant exemptions, at $50 per pop, to hundreds of people, apparently unconcerned that what he is doing contravenes regulations and ethics.

Ministry of Health spokesperson David Jensen said Health Minister Christine Elliott is aware of the incident and ministry officials alerted the registrar of the province’s college of physicians. Jensen said if the allegations are true, it is a “serious offence and we expect the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) to conduct a full review.”

Medical exemptions must align with definitions and parameters outlined in the ministry’s guidance, he said, adding it is an act of professional misconduct to sign or issue documents that are false or misleading. Potential sanctions range from fines to the revocation of a physician’s certification of registration, he said.

Investigations, as they say, are ongoing. 

Then there is the avenue of fake vaccination certificates.

"There are no security features present on these documents. These documents are basically PDF documents," said Dr. Shabnam Preet Kaur, a forensic document examiner with Docufraud Canada, a Toronto-based company.

Kaur said different kinds of software can be used to manipulate PDFs. "It only take five minutes to make changes," she added.

There is no doubt that the most fanatical of the anti-vaxxers will resort to any ruse available to thwart the existing system. All the more reason that this profoundly selfish and willfully ignorant cadre of miscreants has my deep, abiding contempt.

 

 

 

 

Designed To Fail

H/t Theo Moudakis

In his column today, Bruce Arthur offers the opinion that Ontario's vaccine passport is a half-hearted effort by Doug Ford that seems almost designed to fail.

...as the Star’s award-winning Rosa Saba reported in one of several essential pieces this week, existing vaccination PDFs can be altered after downloading using a rare hacking program known as … Microsoft Word. 

What about the QR code system slated to come into effect next month?

…software industry experts estimate it would take approximately four months to build an adequately secure and stable system, which is what happened in Quebec. Ontario got three weeks. And while there is a paper/PDF option in Quebec, that province built both a QR reader and a business-side system to connect data to the database, so QR codes are secure and difficult to forge. Ontario is skipping that.

Oh, and Ontario’s QR app will be, uh, voluntary.  

So after watching Manitoba create a plastic immunization card that fits in your wallet, and watching Quebec take four months to build an app that could be secure, Ontario decided on one month of easily faked documentation, followed by an option for more of the same. It’s not that this is the kind of system you would design if you knew and sympathized with people who didn’t want to be vaccinated, but it does seem like that kind of system, doesn’t it?

Hmm, is there a pattern emerging here? Well, the Premier has left little doubt where he stands.

…let me be very clear, this is a temporary and exceptional measure. We will only use these certificates for as long as they are needed and not one day longer.”

Many appear to be putting the clues together.

...some businesses are already signalling they won’t enforce the passport. At a sad, pitiable hospital protest in Toronto last week, one anti-vaxxer told me they anticipated businesses would signal to the community on the channels that anti-vaxxers use, like Telegram. And some hardcore anti-vaxxers are so feral that some restaurants closed their dining areas in anticipation of trouble.

Premier Ford likely has his eye on next year's provincial election which, in so many ways, will be  referendum on his handling of the pandemic. Given the poorly designed nature of the vaccine certificate, he is clearly hoping that his base, much of which includes the crank crowd of anti-vaxxers, will turn out in force, understanding that he has done the minimum possible to try to placate those who place a high value on public health, at the same time offering a big wink and a nudge to his 'people'.

 

 

A Message For Those Who Claim To Be Religious

 And if that doesn't convince you, perhaps this will.

This And That

Too tired to write after a night spent watching election returns, I opt for an easy way out today: the thoughts of others.

H/t David Parkins

H/t Theo Moudakis

H/t Graeme MacKay

And on a related theme …

An Inspirational Story

While I am an avid newspaper reader, much of it online (NYT, The Guardian) and one a physical journal (The Toronto Star), I limit my intake of television news to one hour per night, the local news at 6 o'clock and NBC Nightly News or Global National at 6:30. Both of the latter have in common how they end their newscasts, almost always with an inspirational story to counterbalance the day's bitter events.

Last evening the final story on Global News was especially heartening, profiling Josh Vander Vies, the Liberal candidate in Vancouver East. As you will see in the following report, his fortitude and determination would clearly make him a welcome addition to Parliament.

Please start the video at the 18:25 mark.

And Now, A Word From Lisa Simpson

 Oh, that little know-it-all.

My Sentiments Exactly

 

And in a related development, in Florida, apparently all things are possible.

All The Lonely People: Where Do They All Come From?

Before the advent of our current troubles, the Toronto Star's Bruce Arthur won widespread acclaim for his sports reporting. Since the arrival of the pandemic, however, his writing has achieved an entirely new level; his coverage of various aspects of the disease, especially the social consequences, has been superb.

In his latest column, Arthur turns his sights on the irrational protests that have been occurring outside of hospitals, some resulting in obstruction of patient and healthcare worker access. His analysis is well-worth the read.

“You’ve all got blood on your hands! You’re worse than the Nazis!” one middle-aged man yelled at the TV cameras, outside Toronto General Hospital. “You’ll have rocks thrown at you, next!” A few yelled Fake News like they were at karaoke. Mostly, they rejected vaccines. Society, too.

But at ground level there was something piteous about it, malignancy and all. The trappings of a brain-poisoned movement dotted the crowd: a couple of red Make America Great Again hats, some purple People’s Party of Canada gear, a hat from a disgraced barbecue joint. There was a one-page anti-mask, anti-lockdown, ivermectin-boosting, hydroxychloroquine-boosting pamphlet handed out that claimed a vaccine passport was the mark of the beast.

Arthur considers who is so lost as to be protesting a hospital. Some of the misbegotten, of course, are the rabid anti-vaxxers, along with rag-tag followers of the People's Party of Canada. But Arthur offers an interesting perspective about many of the others.

… most people protesting outside the hospital were clearly lost souls. One carried a giant wooden cross; one had tattoos drawn on with a marker; one had a sign that misspelled the mayor’s name as J. Tori. Some seemed hungry for confrontation that never really came, but it was largely social: they swapped conspiracy theories, or recorded one another. More than anything, they seemed lonely. But then, so do QAnon fanatics, or Trumpian rallygoers. Lonely people are easy prey for conspiracies.

One of the more rational attendees was 35-year-old Torontonian Radu Dragon, who posts videos of protests to TikTok and YouTube. A smoker who refuses to get vaccinated, he seems to have found a new fellowship.

So he comes to the protests, and the people there have replaced his former circle of friends, even dotted as it is with the paranoid, the stressed, and people who vibrate on strange, off-reality frequencies. Society has always had people like this. But if you communicate on Facebook, Telegram, Instagram and TikTok, it can become a social circuit.

And for many, there seems to be no coming back, and outreach to them will prove futile.

There is a school of thought that if only we are nicer to people who think health-care workers are criminals and vaccine advocates violate the Nuremberg Code, then they will come around.

But there is an anger out there in Canada living at the conservative end of the spectrum, as the PPC surges in the polls.

“Some of these movements are like a bug light for more radical groups,” says Amarnath Amarasingam, an assistant professor at Queen’s University who specializes in the study of extremism. “It’s not something you can just not have a police presence for, otherwise you wind up with a smaller version of Jan. 6. The vast majority of people on Jan. 6 weren’t violent, but some were.

 “A lot of these groups are getting their content from abroad as well; there’s this theory that our crazies are not as crazy as America’s. Yeah, but they’re reading American content. They’re talking to them on Facebook … these movements are transnational.

 There is an anger and misinformation virus in this country that has been encouraged by some pretend and even mainstream media, and it could absolutely eat our conservative movement. This time there was no violence, and no ambulances were blocked. Thank goodness.

Instead it was mostly a bunch of sad lonely people together on a sidewalk, loosely united in a cause, feeling like they had a purpose, and unaware, while outside a hospital filled with the truly sick, that they had become the monsters.

And it is precisely this aspect of the pandemic for which there is no real treatment available. 

 

 

 

Oh, Those Anti-Vaxxers

 

H/t Theo Moudakis

Just a short note: I have updated yesterday's post with a link to a London Free Press article in which Julie Ponesse is excoriated for her self-serving drivel.

UPDATED: In Which an Anti-Vaxxer Ethics Professor Falls Far Short Of The Mark

Dr. Julie Ponesse, erstwhile professor of ethics at Western University, has been terminated for her refusal to adhere to the Covid vaccination mandate at her school. The following is a YouTube video she made about the issue.

Self-pitying in tone, replete with factual and logical errors, I offer it to readers as an opportunity to hone their critical-thinking skills, something Ponesse, the anti-vax crowd and the over 500 commentators on the video are clearly in short supply of.

Special thanks to my sister-in-law, Ruth, for alerting me to this.

UPDATE: Thanks @MarieSnyder27 for this link to a London Free Press article that excoriates Poness for her self-serving sloppiness in the above video. And interestingly , she is linked to the People's Party of Canada. Here is just a brief excerpt:

Her comments, made public in a video a day before she addressed a local People’s Party of Canada rally, have drawn the ire of several other professors at the university.

“Shame on Julie Ponesse,” philosophy professor Anthony Skelton wrote on Twitter. “This is the anti-thesis of the Socratic mission: to live the examined life. Ponesse’s remarks about COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine mandates rest on moral and factual errors.”

Jacob Shelley is a professor of health ethics at Western. He wrote on social media in response to an LFP story about Ponesse: “I’ve asked a lot of questions of (Western University) both privately and publicly. Asked a bunch today, in fact. This (Ponesse’s video) is about refusing to take a vaccination, a policy that is legally enforceable and ethically justifiable.”

A Sunday Reflection

 

Nothing like shining a light on the ignorant and the benighted, eh?

An Eloquent, Earnest Plea

Although it will likely fall on the deaf ears that it is intended to reach, this message by Dr. Michael Warner is for the unhinged who are harassing healthcare workers.

"I'm Fed Up"

That refrain runs through a recent piece by Bob Hepburn, but before delving into it, let me say that the phrase hardly seems adequate to what I and I'm sure many others are feeling these days. Disheartened, Disappointed, Disenchanted., Disaffected, Despairing - no particular word really does justice to my reaction to the foolish and dangerous behaviour my fellow humans are engaging in these days. 

Their contempt for reason and science, their worshipful elevation of demagoguery, their reliance on invective and even violence against those who won't submit to their peculiar form of madness leaves me with little real hope for the future of humanity. And bear in my that while this post is about the benighted anti-vaxxers that currently blight the landscape, they are but a microcosm of our larger refusal to address the existential problems we face today, climate change and overpopulation chief among them.

None of this is exactly new, of course, but the collision of so many problems at this juncture sets into sharp relief our many shortcoming as humans, and offers little hope for the future.

Enough of my editorializing. After suffering a fusillade of abuse via his leaked cellphone number from people unhappy with the Toronto Star's coverage of  anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, Hepburn has much to say:

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.

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. 

Hepburn has also had it with the political opportunism and cowardice of politicians like Jason Kenney and Scott Moe, neither of whom will consider vaccine certificates, the former opting to bribe people with money to get the shot. Similarly, he has no use for Maxime Bernier, who has built his platform around giving public health measures a prodigious middle finger.

None of these people seem to care about the costs of their actions.

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 anti-vaxxers 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.

To which I shall add one final thought. Even though this rabble represents a minority of people, when the tail starts to wag the dog, nothing good can come of it.

But of course I state the obvious, don't I?  

UPDATED: Finding His Voice

I have to admit that I was unmoved earlier in this election campaign when Justin Trudeau tried to evoke understanding and empathy for those crazed anti-vaxxers and science-deniers dogging his campaign. The new, defiant Trudeau is, for me, much more palatable.

His response to the decision to allow Rebel Media to be part part of both the French and English-language debates says it all:

UPDATE: If Trudeau needs more inspiration for his new get-tough approach, perhaps he can check out Howard Stern's thoughts.

Not So Special After All

As I have written before, legitimate exemptions to the Covid-19 vaccinations range from few to non-existent. Ultimately, the enforcement of that fact is predicated on the notion that both doctors and faith-leaders will act with integrity and not give in to pressure from their constituents. The jury is still out on whether that will be the case.

Given that there is no religion that forbids vaccinations, I was encouraged by an article I read in the NYT by a former pastor, Curtis Chang, who sets out very clearly why religious exemptions are essentially baseless.

Religious exemptions to employer mandates are a precious right in our democracy. This is why it is especially important not to offer such exemptions to coronavirus vaccine mandates. They make a mockery of Christianity and religious liberty.

Although writing from an American perspective, his arguments are universal, and they cast a shameful light on those who are enabling people to flout regulations. Their arguments hold no ecclesiastical water.

First, there is no actual religious basis for exemptions from vaccine mandates in any established stream of Christianity. Within both Catholicism and all the major Protestant denominations, no creed or Scripture in any way prohibits Christians from getting the vaccine. Even the sect of Christian Scientists, which historically has abstained from medical treatment, has expressed openness to vaccines for the sake of the wider community. The consensus of mainstream Christian leaders — from Pope Francis to Franklin Graham — is that vaccination is consistent with biblical Christian faith.

A private entity like a hospital can feel confident that it is not infringing on the religious liberty of an evangelical receptionist by insisting that he be vaccinated as part of his job requirement. My religious liberty is actually advanced by the ability of institutions to define job requirements for their employees. I want my church to be able to hire pastors who share our institution’s beliefs — and to be able to reject candidates who don’t. 

Exemption requests also likely fail on the grounds of sincere belief. We naturally look for consistency of a belief as a test of sincerity; it’s common sense. We would doubt the sincerity of a receptionist who demands vegetarian options at a workplace cafeteria when he frequently eats steak at restaurants. Any institution considering religious exemptions should require applicants to demonstrate that they have consistently refused other immunizations for religious reasons.

Vaccine hesitancy has never been a core religious belief of evangelical Christians. The vast majority of evangelicals have historically chosen to be immunized against polio, measles, tetanus and other diseases. As a child, I attended evangelical summer camps that required vaccinations, and as an adult, I worked for ministries with similar mandates. 

One of the most important reasons to get vaccinated is the protection of oneself and one's fellow citizens.

… the law allows companies to forgo offering exemptions if doing so places an “undue hardship” on the employer. Increasing the risk of bringing an infectious disease into the workplace certainly qualifies. For jobs that involve exposure to vulnerable populations, minimizing that risk via immunization is clearly an appropriate job requirement. Religious freedom for a teacher who opposes vaccines does not mean having the right to jeopardize children by being unvaccinated. Religious freedom means that if she doesn’t wish to fulfill her employer’s job requirement, she is free to find another job.

Chang calls for employers to eliminate religious exemptions for all employees, and heseeks a united front from all religious leaders.

… religious leaders will need to join with secular institutions in opposing exemptions. Pastors are already being inundated with requests for letters supporting exemptions. As a former pastor of an evangelical church, I know it will be difficult to say “no.” But my colleagues should do the right thing and refuse such requests. Refuse to mislead our secular neighbors. Refuse to abuse our precious religious liberty. Refuse to be complicit in putting our neighbors at risk.

Given the current perils posed by this pandemic, resolute and principled behaviour is required by all. A tall order, I realize, but one with no alternative if we are ever to be free of this virus. 

The Invasion Of The Idiots

 

For a while I have been trying to cobble together a post on that virulent breed of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers that are currently blighting our social and political landscape, While attempting to write about this often-execrable horde, in all honesty I've wondered whether I have the psychic reserves to do justice to the topic. Therefore, today I am taking the easy way out by reproducing the thoughts of a number of letter-writers who manage to address it with incisiveness and conciseness.

Protesters force Trudeau to cancel rally, Aug. 28

Shame on all those who prevented our prime minister from speaking about issues facing Canada while on the campaign trail!

We need leaders who will take enact policies to protect us all.

A pandemic is a community’s problem and not an intrusion in individual liberty. 

Judy Cathcart, Collingwood, Ont.

I thought Canadians were smarter than this. What has the social media wrought when people cannot now understand the role of science in our society?

I was a government scientist for 36 years. We are the only scientists paid to look after the citizens of our country. We aren’t there to make money for industry or scramble for grants to promote our own research interests at universities.

This is the foundation of the support the government has to look after the well being of our citizens.

Science works. Canada has contributed to the arsenal that medicine has to combat disease for decades.

Vaccines work. Some statistics suggest you may be more than 100 times more likely to die from COVID-19 if you are unvaccinated.

From smallpox to ebola, vaccines have reduced the impact of infectious diseases.

And scientific knowledge has reduced the degree to which ailments have affected citizens in many areas.

These same protesters will go to their doctors to get relief from many things, all based on the results of scientific studies and analysis.

Are we stupid? It certainly looks like it.

I fear we are entering a new dark age.

Tom McElroy, Professor Emeritus, York University

 It’s time to talk about the hate facing Trudeau, Aug. 29

When you want to motivate people to hate a person or an ethnic group you use dehumanizing or universally rejected words.

In Rwanda the targeted group was referred to as cockroaches. They obviously were not.

Here, in Canada, a popular posting and a popular phrase people have used to start or end political discussions is to say Trudeau is a communist. He obviously is not.

Susan Delacourt is correct; it is time to talk about the hate facing Trudeau.

Social media is now being used to whip up emotions and get people to stage public temper tantrums.

It is not the end of the world if Trudeau, O’Toole, Singh or Paul become prime minister.

A growing minority is mimicking the fanaticism we saw play out on Jan. 6 in the U.S. insurrection.

 Canadians need to make sure we are different by not letting animosity, antagonism and lame internet lies decide our country’s future.

Russell Pangborn, Keswick, Ont.

Province to bring in vaccine passport, Aug. 28; Protesters force Trudeau to cancel rally, Aug. 28

The idea of insisting on vaccine passports is obviously a no-brainer for any organization that wishes to operate in a safe and healthy environment that is free from most if not all COVID-19 restrictions.

What must be astonishing to the vast majority of Canadians are all these decision-makers who appear to be wilfully risking the health and lives of their constituents by wilfully allowing vaccines to be an option within their sphere of influence.

Whether it’s Ontario’s Ford government, Erin O’Toole’s federal Conservatives or any of the umpteen organizations across the country who insist on “respecting” people who insist on the “right” to choose whether to serve and infect, rather than keeping those in their care safe and healthy.

The result will be more COVID-19 sickness and death within our communities, accompanied by renewed restrictions that will, once again, hurt the marginalized and small businesses the most.

What’s becoming clear is that there’s also a straight line that can be drawn from these half-baked decisions to that small, loud and wild eyed subsector of self-entitled Canadians following politicians around the country who somehow have got it into their heads that they have the right to infect anyone they please.

It’s quite clear that Canada does not offer that right to anyone and I hope it never will.

Vaccine passports are a good start, but why are there so many leaders in Canada continuing to offer nonvaccination as a choice for anyone who is eligible?

Jack Bergmans, Toronto 

For those who subscribe to the Toronto Star, there is quite good a article by Hugh Segal that draws clear distinctions between political heckling and bullying, the latter, of course, the only apparent strategy of  the anti-vax rabble.

 

Just A Short Note

                                
Few would disagree that having suffered a severe vaccine reaction would justify caution about subsequent injections. Fortunately, that exemption, in the case of Covid-19 vaccines, has only very, very limited application, one that, if the doctors are doing their jobs, will see the success of newly-announced mandates and certificates. 

In an email sent to members Wednesday, the head of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), Nancy Whitmore, said doctors are receiving “unfounded” requests for medical exemption notes to vaccines that would allow them to continue working in settings where COVID-19 vaccination is mandatory or, soon, get around Ontario’s newly announced vaccine certificate requirements.

Only children and those with a doctor’s note will be exempt from the rules.

“We need to ensure we are only allowing COVID-19 vaccine exemptions in the few situations where they are warranted,” Whitmore wrote.

Those situations are very few, the email goes on to say. Two valid reasons are if a person had a severe reaction to a previous dose of mRNA vaccine, or if a person had a case of myocarditis following a vaccine. Both are extremely rare.

Whitmore wrote that all doctors’ exemption notes need to clearly state the reason for the exemption, and the time period of the exemption, as it may not be permanent.

In additional guidance posted on the college’s website, the CPSO wrote that doctors, who are typically required to fill out third-party medical forms for patients, are not required to write exemption notes for illegitimate reasons — and should not.

The College's final advice is earnest and clear:

 “If you find yourself in this situation, clearly and sensitively explain to your patient that you cannot provide them with a note or form, along with the reasons why.”

The advice proffered by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons rests upon the assumption that doctors will remember and act upon the most sacred injunction of their Hippocratic Oath: Do No Harm.

We live in hope.