The anti-Vaxxers have crossed a line; rein them in

By Craig Westcott/January 13, 2022

I took a chance Saturday and dropped in to the Covid booster clinic at Waterford Valley High to see if there was an off chance I might get in without an appointment.

An off chance?

The place was nearly empty of customers.

The gym was full of stations staffed by nurses and doctors who were twiddling their thumbs waiting for people to show up. Eastern Health has done a good job in many respects during this pandemic, but it has done a lousy job of communicating the availability of clinics and appointments. It has turned its back on conventional media, yet it is the conventional media – radio, television and newspapers – that most people over the age of 50 rely on for news and public notices. The population of Newfoundland is heavily skewed towards the over-50 age group but Eastern Health is ignoring them, instead focusing its resources on social media, which is geared to younger people.

Anyhow, after getting the booster jab, I felt like a million bucks. I was ready to lick door handles. Until later in the day when I heard a news report that a group of anti-Vaxxers had turned up at the same clinic where I had been that morning and had shouted at people to turn them away from getting their jabs. The staff had to close the clinic, and 60 people ended up not getting their booster.

I’ve heard since then that some of these anti-Vaxxer morons are jawing people in public for wearing masks. They’re going to jaw the wrong person soon and there will be violence.

Just imagine these ninnies scaring people, including the elderly, away from getting a vaccine that may save their lives, or prevent them from ending up in hospital. The anti-Vaxxers have a right to protest and demonstrate, yes, but they don’t have a right to stop others from protecting their health.

The various waves of this pandemic have dragged on longer and spawned more sickness and death across North America in part because of these idiots. It’s especially true with this Omicron wave. The stats show that if you have two doses of the vaccine, you have a much lower risk of ending up in hospital, or dead, than if you are not vaxxed. The dumb dumbs who are not vaxxed make up more than 60 per cent of the serious cases in hospitals. Most of the others are people who are vaxxed, but have other serious illnesses or conditions. Because the resources of our medical system are limited, the hospitals have been stopping everything – all regular procedures, tests and surgeries – to free up people to deal with the serious Covid cases. As a result, regular patients, including cancer and heart patients and people with other serious health problems, are not being treated. In Canada, we are probably losing more people to death and serious illness from untreated diseases than we are to Covid, because our hospitals are tied up by Covid cases, many of which are due to people not being vaccinated.

I know two families who have loved ones in hospital, both with critical health problems, and nobody can visit them, because our health care system is down due to Covid and won’t allow even a single visitor, unless the patient is dying. Both of the patients have already been in hospital for weeks and they likely have weeks more to go. Alone.

The president of France, the premier of Quebec, and now apparently, the federal health minister, are right: it’s time to crack down on the four horsemen of the Covid apocalypse – the stupid, the selfish, the superstitious and the conspiracy-minded. If these morons want to continue jeopardizing their own health, fine, let them. That’s their right. But it’s our responsibility to limit their impact on society. They should be prohibited from all indoor public venues and assemblies, right down to corner stores and churches. Bring in a mandatory vax pass for all retail and public establishments and keep these idiots out. Neither reason, nor logic, nor common sense have convinced these pinheads of the safety and necessity of vaccines. Perhaps starving them of their beer and cigarettes will do it.

This current variant, Omicron, is not much of a threat to most people who have had a booster. There’s no reason Newfoundland, and the rest of Canada, can’t get boosters into most Canadians by the end of this month. If we did that and limited the threat to public health posed by the anti-Vaxxers, we could return to something really close to normal by the first of February, if not much sooner. That will give us a break from the restrictions and isolation until the next variant comes along. And we really need this break. The economy needs it, and people need it for their sanity. Until we conquer coronavirus, we must take our breaks when we can get them. Let’s not let the anti-Vaxxers stop us from having this one.

Lock them out, not the rest of us.