LETTER – Two-vaccination passport no longer has a medically sound basis

Posted on February 14, 2022 in Feedback, Letters, Page One // 0 Comments

Plague doctor costume, perhaps the first PPE, goes back to the 17th century.

Here’s a recap of covid over the past two years from my perspective. I am lucky that I personally know of very few people who got covid, and none who died. My sincere sympathy to anyone who has lost a loved one.

When covid was first declared a pandemic, we all envisioned the worst. There were many deaths in certain countries like the U.S. and Italy. Plague doctor costumes were popular on social media Halloween sites as we all tried to get our heads around a calamity like the Spanish Flu epidemic when people of all ages fell like flies.

But the pandemic has proved way less dire than we thought, thank goodness. Even in 2020 before the vaccine was distributed, the B.C. covid death toll was only 3% of the annual provincial rate. And 2021 held steady to the same percentage.

Of course, as soon as we knew that almost all people under the age of 65 recover from covid and a vaccine was on offer, the emphasis went to hospitalizations, with the unvaccinated reported to require covid hospitalization more frequently than the vaccinated.

Thus, to encourage people to get vaccinated, the government set a deadline to receive a covid passport which carried certain social privileges for those with an initial shot and a booster. Few people complained about this. Even the unvaccinated understood that it was for the common good. And the portion of those unvaccinated who could not be vaccinated for a valid medical reason (no exemptions!) were happy to stay out of public places, mask up and keep their distance from friends and family. Who wants to get covid?

Now we have the omicron variant. It is resistant to the two passport-approved vaccinations and even to a third dose unless it’s really fresh (Justin Trudeau and countless others triply vaccinated contracted omicron anyway and almost all deaths in B.C. are elders in care homes, triply vaccinated by definition).

The two-vaccination passport no longer has a medically sound basis. Government needs to either set a deadline for a three-vaccination passport qualification or abandon the system entirely. Otherwise, the passport is nothing more than an unjust segregation device.

BRONWEN SCOTT