dialamah

I've never understood the "protect the vulnerable" idea. The "vulnerable" seem to be people over 50, overwight/obese people, people with COPD, current or past cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, a myriad of autoimmune diseases, kidney disease, liver disease, heart disease - the list goes on. How do you protect all those people while letting the rest "get on with their lives"?

We didn't even have a vaccine a year ago.

3. I sometimes think it could have been handled differently, or better. But I'm not sure how. Do you have any ideas? While I would have expected the push for vaccines to end when about 80% of the population was vaccinated, I notice that it hasn't. That makes me wonder why, but unlike others I don't think it's because governments around the world are looking for totalitarian rule. However, if they are giving us all the relevant facts and information about the vaccine, then I'd agree that some of the policies are a bit overboard. As for "leave without pay", I think that's something that each organization should be allowed to decide for itself. In BC, at least, the government does not require employers to have any kind of vaccination policy, but some decide to implement one anyway. Do you think that's wrong? I agree that refusing health care to unvaxed people is absolutely wrong. 4. I don't know that we've established that this vaccine is any more dangerous than any other vaccine that people accept. I know stuff has been posted here, but I'm skeptical since so many of the sources are not credible to me. However, enough has been said that I'm keeping an eye out for more information that I feel is credible. Separating vaxed from unvaxed might be workable some places; our workspace, not so much - we don't have enough room for everyone, and people are already literally sharing desks. And while it's nice to say that employees should have nothing to worry about because of limiting unvaxed people from other places, some of the people who are more vulnerable to Covid wouldn't come to work at all if there were unvaxed people attending, even in another part of the floor. 5. Governments are notoriously unprepared for almost anything. And so are people. We in the lower mainland all understand that the "big one" is coming, yet something like 15% are actually prepared for that event with emergency supplies and water. Government should do better, of course, but then so should people. One problem that I see with adequate funds or preparation for emergencies are taxes. Lower taxes are a huge selling point at election time, but lower taxes mean fewer services and less emergency preparation. Unless the government goes into debt which many people don't like, and it gives the other side a reason to beat up on them at election time. 6. I would also prefer a solution that didn't involve people losing income. GM has a mandatory vax policy, starting Dec 12, so I'm not sure what you are referring to here. And etsy is entirely online, so a vax policy wouldn't be necessary. 8. Yeah, I don't think vaccinating children is necessary. It's odd that all of last year, kids went to school full time while authorities assured us that they weren't the ones passing the virus, but now they need vaccination? Doesn't add up to me. This one area where I think the government has gone overboard. 9. Yes governments want to be re-elected. If they failed to do everything possible to save lives and keep our health system running, they wouldn't get re-elected. And in this situation, the people who want less done in regards to this virus are in the minority, so of course the government is going to cater to the majority, who want all the precautions possible. And, I don't think a very long-term lockdown is practical, either - too much money lost, not only for people but also for the government. So they just do a little bit of lockdown, some restrictions and let the economy come back. 10. Yes, that old saw comes to mind: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Cite, please.

We could both debate our points with less rancour and more respect. After all, just as as I or Boges might be wrong about the dangers of the vaccine, so might you be. If, as @Army Guy says, disinformation is rampant on both sides we could all take a step back and stop beating each other up.

Maybe quit shaming people who believe differently than you, as you've asked for yourself and what you believe.

Interesting. Are these figures available on the BCCDC site?

Because the majority of people are vaccinated. If, out of 1000 people, 800 are vaccinated, and 200 are not, and vaccinated people get sick at 1% while unvaxed get sick at 1.5%, there will be 8 vaxed sick and 3 unvaxed people sick. So the increase you think you see, isn't. (Percentages are used only for illustrative purposes, not saying that's what actual percentages are).

Just the opposite in fact:. unvaxed are more likely to get sick from the virus, more likely to get hospitalized from the virus and more likely to die,

Well, I'd disagree with this - the activity of troll farms in China, Russia and Iran to undermine the Western world's confidence in their institutions is behind a lot of the misinformation about the effectiveness of the vaccine. The misinformation from health experts in the Western world is more that we continue to learn things about the virus as time passes. I don't think that can even be called misinformation. Ok, challenge accepted. I don't like mandates, I don't like people losing their jobs due to vaccination status either. It makes me extremely sad. However, consider for a moment that what the experts are telling us is actually true: vaccinations are almost 100% safe (no vaccine is 100% safe), unvaxed people are more likely to spread the virus and shed more virus than unvaxed, more likely to make others sick than vaxed people. Should I be forced to share my workspace with someone who is more likely to get sick and spread that sickness to me? Given that I'm among the more vulnerable of the world, should I accept without objection the risk young, healthy unvaxed people present to me? Should I, part of the majority of the world, be told to stay home because I'm "vulnerable", so that a person who refuses to get vaccinated can go to work? Should businesses accept the heightened risk that multiple staff will be off work because of having unvaxed staff? In Canada, at least, businesses have a responsibility to provide a safe work place, to the best of their ability. If the 'best of their ability' means limiting exposure to disease, and the unvaxed increase the likelihood of spreading that disease, what should they do? If the experts are correct that unvaxed are more likely to get sick from the virus, more likely to get hospitalized from the virus and more likely to die, should I not object when they fill up the hospitals and affect my health care? How much more can our health care system take before it collapses completely? Mandates suck. But so does 'rewarding' people who get vaxed, as Chapman's found out. Rather than use a stick to force vaccinations, they decided to use rewards to encourage vaccinations - $1.00 an hour for those who vaccinated. In addition, they didn't require vaccinations; if you didn't want to get vaccinated, no problem - but you had to take two tests per week. You know, that didn't matter: the anti-vax activists attacked Chapman's with a vengeance - even calling a 78-year-old man to call him a Nazi and war criminal. Again, mandates suck. But I don't know what governments and businesses are supposed to do in this situation. If they impose mandates and people still get sick, they're the bad guys. If they don't impose mandates and even more people get sick, they're the bad guys. If they don't impose mandates, but reward vaccination, they're the bad guys. If someone chooses not to get vaccinated, that's their right - I agree. They tell us they accept the risk of remaining unvaccinated - more likely to get sick, more likely to end up in hospital, more likely to die. But the additional risk they take is loss of income, limited travel and limited social activity. By choosing to remain unvaccinated, they accept those risks as well. Except they don't; they hysterically call others Nazis, compare themselves to Jews, demand that nobody be concerned about the additional risk they pose to others and to our health care system. That's my perspective; I don't think anti-vax people are bad or evil. I think they are misled by numerous sources of misinformation, they should accept all consequences of their decision, and let the rest of us get on with our lives without having to take extra precautions to protect ourselves from unvaccinated people. (Of course, if you believe that governments are simply focused on control - ignoring all the restrictions they keep lifting whenever case counts go down - and that experts all over the world are in on the goal of totalitarian control, then of course nothing in the above will make any sense.) (Also, I should have said "abortions" are not contagious, not pregnancy; they don't get passed from person to person, killing some in the process.)

Unlike anti-vaxers, drunk drivers aren't being subjected to Qanon and troll farms telling them that driving sober is more dangerous than driving drunk and that prohibition of drunk driving is an infringement of their personal rights and freedoms.

Well said, I agree. Unvaxed people are not the enemy, just misguided. (Pregnant women have bodily autonomy because pregnancy isn't contagious.)

Myopia in action.

The truly politically lazy are people who simply accuse the entire other side of all kinds of evil thoughts and deeds.

Didn't you just say that 'restrictions were permanent"? Yet, here you are ... complaining about a restriction that is going to be removed, albeit not on your timetable. What a snowflake!

Jeez, I hear plenty of scandal when *any* party has been in power - remember Mulroney & Airbus? To think it's only Liberals/liberals who support stupid stuff or do questionable things is naïve in the extreme. Sorry, but when you start off by accusing about half of the people of Canada of being immoral, I have no patience for you.

The NIH is funded the the American Government. The NIH Congressional Justification ("CJ") provides the Senate and House Appropriations Committees detailed estimates and justifications for research and research support activities (infrastructure, administrative, etc.) that NIH would anticipate funding at the President's Budget Request level. If anything, the NIH would be funding Bill Gates Foundation. More than 80 percent of NIH’s funding is awarded for extramural research, largely through almost 50,000 competitive grants to more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research institutions in every state. Do you never verify the information spoonfed you by foreign troll farms?

This is, almost word for word, what my mother-in-law said when seatbelt laws first came about. She just refused to wear one. But despite her insistent claims of government overreach and how our freedoms were being infringed upon ... no totalitariasm in the 40 years since. Imagine that! The same rhetoric was used about motorcyclists wearing helmets, did you know that? But again - it's been decades and still no totalitarianism. You spend so much time spreading misinformation and fearmongering about the vaccine and totalitarianism, that you are much more of a danger to society than people who choose to get vaccinated.

Monday, nearly all restrictions in our workplace are being removed . We had restrictions on the number of people who could be in at the any time, the number of people who could be in any given room at the same time, how far apart we had to sit from co-workers, which stairwell we could use to go up or down to the different floors, when we were open to the public. The only restriction remaining is wearing masks in common areas. Your workplace may differ, but that is nothing to do with government itself imposing restrictions on you. I don't know where you are, or why your workplace requires that extra layer of protection, but to think wearing a visor is akin to the dark ages is hyperbolic, to say the least.

Agree; my partner has kidney disease and his doctors all recommended the vaccine. But heart disease - I think there's reason to be cautious there, especially for young people.

BTW, there is an organization in BC that offers free flights to people in need of medical care outside their communities - here's the website: https://hopeair.ca/Get-Involved/Volunteer-Pilot-Program Perhaps you could share that with this family.

That girl should be exempted from vaccines and from the restriction on flights. But bureaucracy is stupid: I know because I am in a government job that applies blanket policies (aka bureaucracy) because for the most part they are effective and the volume of work we have is immense; we are currently 3 years or so behind. Exemptions can be done, but it's a struggle. None of my colleagues, managers or Ministers cares about "control" of the populace; they care about doing their jobs right, and the Ministers care about fulfilling their mandate. In the Ministry in which I work, people who are not vaccinated are being put on 3-month unpaid leave, but still get benefits. They aren't 'losing their jobs' though they will lose income; it looks like the government intends to reassess in 3 months time. In the meantime, effective tomorrow, all the restrictions within the office that we've been living with for the past year and a half are being removed, except for mask-wearing in common areas. The government is loosening control, not increasing it. What private companies choose to do in regards to vaccination has nothing to do with government. In two gyms I know of, one requires staff vaccination while the other does not. Still, both check members' vaccination status and require mask use and distancing inside the gyms.

Yeah, I was in favor of a Conservative minority last election. I prefer minorities because it requires parties to work together; I don't like one party having unfettered power, even if it's just for four years. And they tend to cater to the extremists within their supporters, which doesn't always engender a sense of trust from centrists. Towards the end of the campaign, O'Toole did start to show some backbone in regards to that aspect.

Interestingly, if it's conservatives who are the 'bad guys', Blackbird says gently (and correctly, imo): Democracy has some positive sides and some negative sides. It is a fallible worldly system that can be exploited by crooked politicians and crooked people. But if it's liberals who are the 'bad guys', Blackbird says very unkind things (and very wrong things, imo): If Canadians want to elect corrupt immoral governments, that is their choice. and liberal voters are too dumb to know what they are doing and corruption and scandals of the Liberals and those who elected them. Blackbird seems to believe that the occasional Conservative/conservative might sometimes be crooked, but that all Liberals/liberals are immoral and corrupt all the time.

Yes, I ought to have been more accurate.