By MANDY SPOTTISWOODE
Driving through town last Monday I encountered the demonstration against vaccinations and masks.
As I was wearing my pro-vaccination button, I could not resist stopping to engage with the demonstrators and attempt to talk some reason into them. What a vain hope! These people do not listen to reason and are bent on propagating their own crazy theories and alternate reality.
To deny any mainstream science and to call what is happening today in the world a giant conspiracy is total madness. Can you deny 675,000 dead in the U.S. alone and attribute those deaths to people with existing health conditions? Of course not, but according to them and their ilk these numbers have been cooked up by evil governments and big pharma in an attempt to sell us vaccines we don’t need. Every rational argument one can put to them is shouted down with crazy alternate theories that not only have no basis in science but also have no basis in reality.
One of the arguments (and signs) that are currently popular is that vaccines don’t work. The “proof” of this is that even those vaccinated are ending up in hospital. Yes, yes, yes, that is true! No one ever said the vaccine was 100 per cent effective. Those fully vaccinated who are getting the virus are getting it from those who have been irresponsible enough to not get it. Or perhaps from children who cannot yet be jabbed, but who come from families who are unvaccinated. Those parents can then pass the infection on through their children, who often show no symptoms. So, yes, getting the jab does not make us 100 per cent safe, but it will likely prevent severe illness and death if we do get infected.
Those who refuse the vaccine may not be so lucky if they get infected. The news is full of stories about unvaccinated individuals who get COVID, and who just before they are intubated (and in some cases die) are begging others to get the jab. Of course, these stories must be fake news — right?
Look at the numbers (which they argue are invented). Most of those ending up in intensive care are unvaccinated. The strain on our wonderful health-care workers is due to these people. Those who protest outside hospitals, claiming the support of “health-care professionals” are the lowest of the low. Imagine being a nurse in intensive care and looking out of the hospital window at demonstrators denigrating what you have been doing for the last 18 months. One open letter purporting to be from such “professionals” likens the introduction of the vaccine passport to the early stages of the Holocaust, when rights and personal freedoms were being whittled away. To compare our politicians to the Nazis who murdered six million people is beyond reprehensible. And to denounce Dr. Anthony Fauci and our own Dr. Bonnie Henry as being fake scientists takes my breath away.
I am not a scientist and don’t pretend to understand the science behind both the virus and the vaccine, but I choose to listen to accredited professionals, rather than those who may call themselves scientists and doctors, but whose credentials are suspect. We have to believe someone, and I have chosen to trust our government and those who are advising them. And because we are lucky enough to live in a democracy, if we don’t like the way they have handled the pandemic we can vote them out come election time. I guess Justin Trudeau’s report card on his government’s handling of the pandemic will have been released this past Monday!
As I shook my head and walked away from the demonstrators, one of them started yelling in my face, saying that he had leprosy and was going to give it to me. That pretty much sums up the kind of people taking part in these demos.
Please, please, please . . . listen to the real scientists and get vaccinated. It is only by everyone getting the jab that we are going to get back to a normal life, where masks and vaccine cards will no longer be needed.
If anyone would like one of my buttons, please let me know and I’ll be happy to get one to you: spottyonsaltspring@gmail.com.
The writer is a longtime Salt Spring Island resident.