"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?