The COVID-19 pandemic

[danbrotherston]

I’m surprised to see a smart person like you saying something so dumb.

As everybody should know by now, some people cannot be vaccinated, and as you yourself point out, the vaccine is not 100% effective at preventing infection. So what we’re fearing is that we could catch the disease from some jackass who isn’t vaccinated yet (and maybe isn’t wearing a mask either) and pass it along to somebody in our household who cannot be vaccinated. That’s what we fear.

And we have a right, as a society, to mitigate that by keeping those who are unvaccinated by choice away from the rest of us.

Then maybe we need to rethink our strategy. The vast majority of this country is vaccinated and the vast majority of us are healthy enough to survive the disease with no issues.

So, why are we still holding the majority hostage because a minority of morons won't or can't get vaccinated (not calling the latter morons, mind you)? What ever happened to the "Iron Ring" around LTC homes and other vulnerable populations? Why are we not simply putting resources into protecting those who can't be vaccinated due to medical reasons? This appears to be why Quebec is now hoping to tax the unvaccinated - their leaders have realized that it is futile to keep doing what we keep doing, so we should make it harder for people not willing to cooperate. And how long should we keep enacting rolling lockdowns of businesses and schools? Or forcing the marginalized - the Indigenous and other minority communities, the homeless, the mentally ill, the poor - to keep suffering because they don't trust or understand what is best for them? Do you understand how many people have lost their jobs in the last 2 years? Or have turned to alcohol/drugs? Who have begun to suffer psychiatric issues? Who have overdosed on opiates? Who have lost their homes and are now living on random couches, shelters or in tents? How many kids are suffering by not being able to be social in their most important developmental years? Billions of lives have been ruined all around the planet and it isn't just because they or they knew someone who died, it is much more complex than that. Actually think about it for a moment...there is so much more suffering going on outside of what you or your immediate social circle (family/friends) are feeling and so much of that suffering is not directly a result of the virus (infection/disease), but rather due to people losing their jobs, their hope, their faith, their friends, their family and so on.

So, isn't it better to start focusing on how we can protect the more vulnerable people out there by both protecting and isolating them (aka a so called "Iron Ring"), then allow the healthy people to begin to return to normality so we can have more people and resources to pool together to improve things? Why are we containing the majority, rather than the minority? How long do you really want to continue living like this? Mind you, I totally acknowledge that our health care system is fucked up, but that's a different issue that isn't going to be fixed right now...that's going to take decades. But we could be preventing a hell of a lot more hospitalizations by protecting the vulnerable and continuing to ban willful anti-vaxxers from doing anything but grocery shopping, rather than locking everything and everyone down over and over and over again.

Feel free to question my intelligence if you want, but if you support all of this bullshit at this point - when we are one of the most developed nations and most vaccinated nations on the planet - then I question yours if you still believe this strategy that we've been using for 2 years straight is the answer. IMO, we need to rethink how to handle this. What we are doing is NOT working. It's not like this is yersinia pestis we're fighting - it's a virus that has an ever so slightly higher mortality rate as seasonal influenza. At this point, the vulnerable are dying because they are not being protected correctly. Instead of banning healthy muscle freak gym bros from going to the gym, figure out a way to prevent this virus from getting into places where such vulnerable people can get it.

Oh Jesus christ this is ignorant.

Again, I don't know why you aren't hearing this.  We've had multiple code red paramedic situations in the region in the past week. This means if you call 911 and say "I'm dying please help"...they might as well send a hearse.

Healthy people need healthcare too. And this magic idea that we can somehow segregate the vulnerable parts of society (and never mind that isolation might harm them too) has never and can never work. Just because you want a unicorn doesn't mean they exist...those "muscle freak gym bros" are at the same gym as the nurse who takes care of my grandmother.

If seasonal influenza hospitalized 1% of people who get it and had an R value in 3-6 range, you better fucking believe we'd be more worried about it.

Can we do better, absolutely, but this idea that we can just do what we did before and it'll be fine so long as we somehow make the vulnerable people go sit alone in their rooms for the rest of their lives is magical thinking.

Honestly, I'm done with this pandemic, but I'm especially done with the bad takes I've been hearing for 2 friggin years.