I have become much more concerned of late with recently announced federal outbound travel restrictions; and public service firings thoughout Canada. The vaccine mandate trends.
On the requirement for outbound travelers to have full vaccination status, as opposed to being simply able to produce a recent negative covid test, to be able to fly. This seems inordinately coercive and punitive, for what is still a fairly significant proportion of our population (maybe 1 in 10 adults). Denying them a reasonable ability to go somewhere, where their non vaccinated status is not as unusual and more accepted (ie many US states and all of Mexico, not to mention a good chunk of the rest of the world). This shouldnt be acceptable even as a temporary measure.
Perhaps even more concerning though is the extent of public service firings beginning to happen across Canada. (As well as some private companies getting on that firing bandwagon as well). All with no recourse, or EI coverage, that the employees paid insurance premiums for. If health care, public services and many private companies end up trimming thier work forces by 5%, you can be sure it will have a dramatic negative affect on all those things that we count on.
Or combining the two issues, for the sin of being vaccine hesitant, you can be fired, have no access to EI you paid premiums for, cant be rehired in Canada for the profession you trained for and performed diligently for years; and then you can also not leave the country to take a breather, or new employment, in a country that would welcome you. That seems excessively harsh to me. A little "iron curtain" like.
For the record, I am vaccinated and an advocate of all possible getting vaccinated. But I also recognize that in Canada and more so in the rest of the world, there will continue to be a significant percentage unvaccinated for the time being and likely ongoing. And that should not be vilified like this in my opinion. We can continue to promote and distribute the vaccines; and improve the vax products and treatments. But there should be more tolerance and compassion for those that cant or wont get vaccination at this time.
Further, I also feel like there is a good portion of our population feels the same way I do. Getting and advocating for vaccines, but not particularly bothered by those that have opted out so far. Trusting that the vaccines we got reduce both our risks, and the societal risks, sufficiently for now under the circumstances.
We are not eradicating covid anytime soon. And no matter what vax percentage we get to, when the borders eventually reopen, it will likely be to a world that is maybe half vaxxed at best. It also seems a bit much to me, to rush to vaccinate children, who have little mortality risk from covid, to reduce continuing fear of covid amongst paranoid vaccinated adults. I also get that many would disagree with me. But these are not exactly lunatic fringe lines of thinking. This is all worthy of more healthy debate at the very least.
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