How about doing the obvious? Get rid of the mandates. The feds can get rid of all of theirs with the stroke of a pen, and can tell the provinces that their emergency Covid funding will be cut off unless they get rid of theirs within two weeks. After all, the government gave them money contingent on passports - it can perfectly well stop it.
We all know that none of the mandates are doing any good at all anyway, so why not get rid of them?
Everyone in that convoy, and supporting them, knows that the entire motivation for the mandates now is to make people like them suffer. That's why they are angry. That's why they should be angry.
In a sensible world, the judges would already have ruled the the desire to make people suffer is not a demonstrably sound reason for overriding their Charter rights. Too bad we aren't in that world.
Get rid of the federal mandates, cut off money for provinces that don't get rid of theirs, and everyone goes home happy. Keep persecuting these people just because you don't like them, and the results won't be pretty.
The real motivation for the mandates is the federal government reaching for relevance. Besides handing out free money and restricting the border, it can't do much to combat COVID. At the same time, COVID provides a convenient distraction for the Feds to ignore less Twitterable issues like inflation, crushing government debt, the housing bubble and stagnant productivity growth.
Increasingly, the federal government seems to be a low value add institution. It should focus on national defence, external trade agreements and preventing provinces from imposing measures that in anyway limit internal mobility of people, resourves and capital. That could likely be accomplished with 100K fewer employees and $50B less in spending (based on pre-COVID).
I would like to add to my original post as re-reading it, I might have missed an important point...
The federal involvement in COVID response should largely be over. Restricting travel makes no sense given that an endemic COVID poses largely the same risk across all geographies. The only federal involvement should be in negotiating reciprocal movement of goods and people with other countries (such as lobbying the Biden admin to relax its vaccine mandate on truck drivers). Fiscal measures combatting COVID have reached the point where they do more harm than good, by stoking inflation, discouraging private sector investment as today's deficits are tomorrow's tax increases, and disincentivizing workforce participation.
How many conversations did Trudeau or Joly have with US officials asking them to reconsider? Border restrictions have made no sense since Delta, with its high transmissibility, arrived. Maintaining existing restrictions past their effective date is one thing, but bringing in a new one makes no sense whatsoever
This almost middle-aged suburbanite disagrees has little fear of COVID and looks forward to relaxation of restrictions. I think you should point the finger at the broader segment of public sector employees. They seem to be stoking the fear, perhaps because they are coddled by their employers and have little to lose financially.
Smarter idea: Get the vaccine, obey the mask mandates, stop contributing to the spread of COVID and everyone goes home happy.
Oh, and vocally denounce the white nationalists, Western separatists and Trudeau-threateners that are leeching onto the movement. There's a reason these guys only have the support of 28% of Canadians:
And while you're at it, denounce the protesters threatening healthcare workers and officials at their homes and places of work, and the protesters harassing parents and schoolchildren for making decisions about their well-being that the protesters don't like.
"...we estimate a statistically significant and large (66% on average) increase in weekly first-dose uptake in Canada over the first weeks after the mandate announcement, relative to in absence of mandate..."
For how long? Your implied claim that vaccine take-up in Canada, now over 85%, would have been only 50% without mandates, is as innumerate as the rest of the segregationist arguments.
And, even if it were true, what good is it doing now?
1) how much incremental effect will vaccine mandates have going forward? We are probably well past the point of diminishing returns
2) why didn't the government do its own dirty work instead of imposing the burden on restaurant owners etc? The provinces could have easily denied non-essential services like vehicle registration, land transfers, license renewals and marriage certicates to the non-vaccinated. The Feds could have denied passports and COVID benefits. The government is pushing the mandate, so it should bear all of the backlash
3) linking vaccine mandates to locations like restaraunts is disingenuous. Vaccination does not menaingfully impact spread of COVID, nor are restaurants particularly conducive to spread. The mandates are a stick, and should not be positioned as a safety measure
4) most important: the government is using vaccines as a wedge issue, pitting Canadians against one another.
Folks seem to focus on the less important part of the expression 'vaccine mandate', i.e., the mandate part. As if the point of the mandate was to simply mandate the virus to disappear through political fiat. Yup no sign that works. But the key point is not the mandate part, it's the vaccine part. If folks got the vaccine, there would be no need for mandates.
The vaccine, according to the science, is the way out of the pandemic, not the mandate. Yes the mandate is a political instrument. But vaccines are not more or less effective based on the political preferences, regarding mandates, of the person receiving the shot. Unfortunately, some folks have decided to politicize the effectiveness of vaccines based upon their political attitudes towards mandates and thus, because they don't like mandates, they refuse to get the shot. By wrapping themselves in some dubious political concept of freedom, they have decided the virus can be defeated by getting rid of mandates. As if, it's just a matter of personal political choice as to whether you will contract covid, get hospitalized, land in an ICU, or die!
Why? Because they think, have been encouraged to think, the pandemic is just a political invention. That mandates are just political instruments unconnected to health outcomes, and so vaccines are just political inventions also. Of course to cling to this belief, all the science, the health officials, the doctors and nurses, must be lying or worse they are all working to elect some agent of the darkness.
So I agree with you in calling out folks who politicize vaccines and their effectiveness in dealing with the covid pandemic. They should not be used as a wedge issue, they should simply be used to fight the pandemic!
Natural immunity is vastly more protective, against reinfection and severe illness, than vaccination. That's good enough to say that forcing people who have recovered from Covid to take the shots anyway is nuts as well as wrong.
Note that "recommendations" are opinions and advice, not scientific fact.
Matt. When you started this Line thing, you said it would be no bullshit. Are you sure -- really sure -- that you know what you are talking about here.
The WHO has come out against mandates as an 'absolute last resort'. Are they fringe? Or misinformed?
They have a 6-point policy paper on what is required for mandatory vaccination. Are we following them? Notably, "If such a public health goal can be achieved with less coercive or intrusive policy interventions, a mandate would not be ethically justified, as achieving public health goals with less restriction of individual liberty and autonomy yields a more favourable risk-benefit ratio (1)."
They reference the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Are they fringe, or uninformed? They have an excellent report, "Public health: ethical issues" dating back to 2007. It's a great read. If it is too long, try Chapter 3.
Of importance is 3.37, the intervention ladder. Are we following it, or did we skip over it?
Or how about Section 3.7: "...media stories often turn out to be based on anecdotes, unpublished reports or preliminary results, or they overstate, misrepresent or misunderstand the claims of the researcher."
Or Section 3.8: "Perhaps only some of the literature will be cited, or explanations rely on a particular strand of scientific evidence, ignoring or excluding other evidence. All groups, politicians, the media, single interest groups and scientists are capable of this."
Or Section 3.9: "A related issue is the status of views that are not considered to be ‘mainstream’ or typical of the scientific community. Such heterodox views sometimes turn out to be correct, so it is important that they are not ignored."
Or 3.46: "Political interests can also have significant impact on public health matters when politicians are motivated by the need to be seen to be ‘doing something’. They may have to choose between an intervention that would be popular straight away but ineffective, and another having less immediate appeal but more likely to be successful in public health terms."
Or 3.11: "Although scientific experts may sometimes be tempted, or pressured, in these circumstances into offering precise answers to policy makers, the honest answer will often be “we don’t know” or “we can only estimate the risk to within certain, sometimes wide, limits”. It follows that claims of absolute safety or certainty should be treated with great caution."
“The idea of vaccine passports raises ethical questions concerning respect for individual rights and interests, public health responsibilities and social justice. We are concerned that bringing in passports in relatively uncontroversial areas (e.g. for entry to large events and clubs) could pave the way to passports being required in other areas of life. This, we believe, could lead to discrimination against and a loss of opportunity those who cannot provide proof of vaccine status. It could also exacerbate distrust by marginalised people and increase vaccine hesitancy, particularly if this is seen as introducing mandatory vaccination by the back door or building surveillance apparatus for communities that are already disproportionately monitored.”
"the Government has not provided adequate evidence of the proposed policy’s effectiveness, nor an evaluation of less intrusive measures, to justify mandating vaccination."
Or the whole article for that matter.
On this note, I have a PhD that minored in biomedical engineering, read both the literature and GoC science, and work with microbiologists, whom I can quote as saying "We don't know" and "This seems draconian". Are we all fringe? Are we uninformed?
To continue this certainty, how about the GoC science itself. Vaccine advisory comes from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), whose Advisory Committee Statement -- long after these mandates were initiated -- states, "There is currently limited evidence on the duration of protection and on the efficacy of these vaccines in reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2, although studies are ongoing. Evidence of protection against asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection is emerging for the mRNA and Janssen vaccines." And, in the section "Efficacy and effectiveness against asymptomatic infection and transmission" it states that "the current data is insufficient to draw conclusions" and AstroZeneca "has not demonstrated efficacy against confirmed SARS-CoV-2 asymptomatic infection".
Is NACI fringe or uninformed? Do the vaccines really reduce transmission? Is it really safer to be around a vaccinated person who was just in a restaurant with 50 other people, versus and unvaccinated remote worker who isn't allowed in a restaurant? Really? Based on what science? What risk calculation? (I get a different answer when I plug in the math.)
Notably, Section 7 lists risks and is quite honest. It says, "It is unknown whether COMIRNATY has an impact on fertility." and "The safety and efficacy of COMIRNATY in pregnant women have not yet been established. It is unknown whether COMIRNATY is excreted in human milk. A risk to the newborns/infants cannot be excluded. The developmental and health benefits of breastfeeding should be considered along with the mother’s clinical need for immunization against COVID-19."
The other vaccine monographs say the same thing. Are these manufacturers and Health Canada fringe and uninformed?
It states: "An important limitation of the data is the lack of information on the long-term safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. The identified limitations are managed through labelling and the Risk Management Plan RMP)." The RMP is also described in monitoring feedback and updating the product monographs. This is an excellent risk management plan because both the labelling and monographs diversify risk via one-on-one informed decision-making between patient and doctor. Coercive measures eliminate Health Canada's own risk mitigation strategy.
Other countries and states are ending or forgoing such mandates, such as the UK, something like 20 U.S. states, notably including Florida and Texas. Canada seems to be one of the most restrictive. Are they all fringe and uninformed? Are they worse off and unhappy with the results?
It looks to me that these truckers represent the mainstream science, bioethics, and risk management. All you have to do is actually read the scientific reviews and materials. Perhaps reading the actual materials is considered "fringe". Who would have thought.
There were two members of the NIH who resigned over the Biden Administration putting in the booster program after they were told by these members that they were not necessary.
That the FDA had 75 years to produce the papers for the public to see on the information they used to accept the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use. That they had to be taken to court in order to have them released for a FOIA put in by other Doctors and Scientists that wanted to see the information on the vaccine. If that does not make one take notice, I am not sure what would. I mean really how is that informed consent if the information is not even available to other Scientists and Doctors. The lack of transparency is abysmal if your planning on forcing vaccines mandates.
Conspiracy theorist! Anti-vaxer! Grandma killer! Just kidding... but you can look forward to worse. Nothing so offends the ill-informed as even the barest hint of a suggestion that they may have something to learn from somebody else.
An epistemological ethic to live by, courtesy of the philosopher Susan Haack:
"The genuine inquirer wants to get to the truth of the matter that concerns him, whether or not that truth comports with what he believed at the outset of his investigation, and whether or not his acknowledgement of that truth is likely to get him tenure, or to make him rich, famous, or popular. So he is motivated to seek out and assess the worth of evidence and arguments thoroughly and impartially. This doesn't just mean that he will be hard-working; it is a matter, rather, of willingness to re-think, to re-appraise, to spend as long as it takes on the detail that might be fatal, to give as much thought to the last one percent as to the rest. The genuine inquirer will be ready to acknowledge, to himself as well as others, where his evidence and arguments seem shakiest, and his articulation of problem or solution vaguest. He will be willing to go with the evidence even to unpopular conclusions, and to welcome someone else’s having found the truth he was seeking. And, far from having a motive to obfuscate, he will try to see and explain things as clearly as he can."
Ad Nausica, you never disappoint! Thank you for that well laid out research.
We can also add the Editors over at the British Medical Journal to the list of people who want more data and some answers.
A short excerpt:
"Today, despite the global rollout of covid-19 vaccines and treatments, the anonymised participant level data underlying the trials for these new products remain inaccessible to doctors, researchers, and the public—and are likely to remain that way for years to come. This is morally indefensible for all trials, but especially for those involving major public health interventions.
.....
The BMJ supports vaccination policies based on sound evidence. As the global vaccine rollout continues, it cannot be justifiable or in the best interests of patients and the public that we are left to just trust “in the system,” with the distant hope that the underlying data may become available for independent scrutiny at some point in the future. The same applies to treatments for covid-19. Transparency is the key to building trust and an important route to answering people’s legitimate questions about the efficacy and safety of vaccines and treatments and the clinical and public health policies established for their use.
....
Pharmaceutical companies are reaping vast profits without adequate independent scrutiny of their scientific claims. The purpose of regulators is not to dance to the tune of rich global corporations and enrich them further; it is to protect the health of their populations. We need complete data transparency for all studies, we need it in the public interest, and we need it now."
Thank you for kind words, and the BMJ link. I had not seen it. While it is not specifically about the vaccine mandates or passports, it is evidence that beyond the individual doctors and researchers, even the institutions like WHO, bioethics councils, and prominent journals are not in lock-step with the political dictums, and the evidence is insufficient to support putting all of the eggs in this one basket.
Maybe not specifically but vaccine mandates do fall under public health interventions which the article addresses.
I'm just happy to see more institutions starting to speak out on these matters. From the beginning, there has been no open debate on different strategies for handling covid. As you stated, the political dictum has been all about vaccines. If the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration had been allowed to speak, we could have implemented more effective policies.
Unrelated but does anyone know why comments are disabled on the new articles on the line? Love the line but would be very disappointed if comments were disabled for this community of readers.
Intetesting timed with Rishi Maharaj's inflammatory article filled with demonstrable lies and smears about the protests, such as calling them anti-vaccine (they are anti-mandate), unvaccinated (most are vaccinated), and repeating the nonsense about the obvious agent provocateurs that are not supported by the protestors, and ignoring the messages of peace, dignity, and respect filling all of the protest organisation messaging.
I thought The Line was supposed to No Bullshit, but is now just repeating blatant smear tactics and ignoring the actual messaging.
This is why journalism is on the decline. I thought you were trying to get away from that. Please do better.
I will be reporting on their actual content, including emails and links to live streams. Somebody has to care about honesty.
Speaking of honesty: It wasn't timed to Rishi's piece at all. We stopped comments yesterday. Not allowed on the livestream post, not allowed on the emergency dispatch, not allowed on the Potter column. Your tinfoil is too tight.
I know what you said. I also know what you meant, as does everyone here. We're too busy now to moderate comments because all the news is happening at once. Implying it was at all linked to Maharaj's piece was speculative and false. Thanks.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but giving politicians and "medical experts" a pass on the complete failure which was the western world's response to covid because they "didn't know better" is wrong and lazy. Information is coming out daily which contradicts a lot of what was preached to us as gospel. Society was divided for cheap political points at pretty much every turn. Worst case, experts and politicians outright lied to us. At best, they just "did what they were told". I believe most politicians and medical experts are in the latter camp, but is banality an acceptable excuse for decisions which seriously fragmented society? Is it an acceptable excuse for the considerable erosion of trust in the medical community? For the people that lost their jobs for not getting a jab, then finding out that it didn't even protect from transmission, hospitalization, and even death? We all should be angry.
You are correct that hubris from the leaders and experts has eroded trust. The experts really aren't invested in the outcomes. If their decisions prove wrong, they can claim to be erring on caution and face few career or financial consequeneces. The politicians' response is much more surprising. Perhaps politicians have taken too many short cuts to victory in chasing divisive wedge issues conjured by political strategists and communicators. They have yet to realize that they might become targets of the inevitable backlash. Jason Kenney, for example, might be facing better electoral prospects if "Best Summer Ever", had been positioned along the lines of "I feel your pain from having lived under these extraordinary restrictions. The government would like to reward the citizens of Alberta for helping it manage the province through difficult times by lifting most of the restrictions. That being said, the pandemic is unpredictable and if circumstances change, the government will react accordingly".
It is a substantial read, but most of the topical information can be found in Chapter 3. key element is the evaluation of persuasion mechanisms for changing behaviour and the subsequent recommendations of the intervention ladder (Section 3.37) which addresses both the efficacy and ethics of interventions. But it also has many good nuggets fitting of the COVID-19 responses:
Section 3.7: "...media stories often turn out to be based on anecdotes, unpublished reports or preliminary results, or they overstate, misrepresent or misunderstand the claims of the researcher."
Section 3.8: "Perhaps only some of the literature will be cited, or explanations rely on a particular strand of scientific evidence, ignoring or excluding other evidence. All groups, politicians, the media, single interest groups and scientists are capable of this."
Section 3.9: "A related issue is the status of views that are not considered to be ‘mainstream’ or typical of the scientific community. Such heterodox views sometimes turn out to be correct, so it is important that they are not ignored."
Section 3.11: "Although scientific experts may sometimes be tempted, or pressured, in these circumstances into offering precise answers to policy makers, the honest answer will often be “we don’t know” or “we can only estimate the risk to within certain, sometimes wide, limits”. It follows that claims of absolute safety or certainty should be treated with great caution."
One of my favorites is Section 3.46: "Political interests can also have significant impact on public health matters when politicians are motivated by the need to be seen to be ‘doing something’. They may have to choose between an intervention that would be popular straight away but ineffective, and another having less immediate appeal but more likely to be successful in public health terms."
It was led by Canadian Maxwell Smith, an Assistant Professor at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada, who specializes in Public health ethics/population-level bioethics, infectious disease ethics, bioethics, health equity and social justice, and health policy. (https://news.westernu.ca/2021/04/mandatory-vaccination/)
I have followed this fellow and he goes through all the latest papers, research and information on COVID policy and he is very informative. I enjoy your posts as well as you know your stuff. Thanks for sharing. http://www.vinayakkprasad.com/
That vaccinated people can't spread it, that children are vulnerable and need to be kept out of school to avoid covid, that vaccinations will protect you from hospitalization, that masking works, that the lab leak theory was racist and couldn't be true. That's just off the top of my head
Look, it's clear you feel strongly about this. That's OK. I'm not gonna spend hours looking for articles to cite. But this is a comment thread on a pretty obscure publication on substack. At the end of the day, you're just another sucker like me squawking on the internet. You're not an umpire, or a ref, or the keeper of truth. So, in your words, we're both batting zero in a game decided long ago that we had no real say in from the start
Then of course there is the whole implication of the narrative that keeps getting told, that vaccination isn't for you but also is for your neighbours etc., in many different speeches. E.g., Aug 31 in Sudbury when Trudeau said that unvaccinated people ("those people") were "putting their kids at risk, and our kids at risk". You could pick out probably hundreds of these implications that getting vaccinated stops transmission of the virus; the whole herd immunity hope is based on that concept. If vaccination doesn't stop people from spreading it, then even 100% vaccination would not stop it from spreading.
As a distant "maybe", I'll also suggest that the reasons for closing schools often isn't clear to parents. I have two kids in school, and I don't recall ever seeing an explanation for why they were being run remotely. Of course, I know why because I read "the science" and the recommendations, so I'm aware it is aimed at reducing exposure and thereby spread of the virus during outbreak waves. But, that isn't necessarily clear to many parents, and perhaps even educators sometimes.
3. I'll call out wording and interpretation as far as hospitalization. If you say something "protects you from hospitalization", does "protect" mean "reduce the odds" or "eliminate"? They do reduce statistically, but not eliminate. A lot of people seem to think it would eliminate it.
You'll notice that as of Dec 21, non-ICU hospitalizations of two-dose case population rate is higher than unvaccinated, and ICU cases are getting close. (These are stacked charts, so you have to go by the thickness of the region, not the overall height.) Granted, the rate per capita is still higher for unvaccinated, but closing.
You have to be careful here, because a lot of people say things, imply things, or indirectly give implications that a lot of the public believes that no formal paper has said. Innuendo is a problem in all directions.
4. Do masks work? This has been debated since Fauci got on 60 minutes on March 8, 2020 and told people emphatically and definitively that they don't work. Then changed tack on April 12, 2020.
Perhaps it pre-dates that to Feb 29, 2020, when Surgeon General Gerome Adams told people to stop buying and wearing them. According to MSN and City News, the best studies say they don't:
Because we can't to randomized control studies, it is very hard to make any definitive answer. You can't say it does work, but you can say there are some studies that suggest it does, and some that suggest it doesn't.
I think a better solution is to recommend masks if you can, but be ok with people who don't. It would reduce the harassment of people with medical issues who can't wear them, or other similar harassment, while almost maximizing the potential if they do actually work, with only marginal difference.
5. Who said lab leak couldn't be true? That's easy. Politifact "de-bunked it" and has recently walked it back. They even had it listed as "Pants on Fire". They referred to their conclusions of "fact" being based on "researchers who asserted the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not have been manipulated": https://www.politifact.com/li-meng-yan-fact-check/
The BMJ also has an article from July 2021 on this topic of it being debunked, and the media being fooled into believing that. It's actually very important article I think: https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1656
Now, to be fair, I recognized all of those claims from over the past 2 year, and the innuendo and implications, and fine-line claims, and nuance, etc., all lead to an understanding. Since you asked for specific reference, I had to go searching for the specifics, because normal people don't have records of URLs in their head, or necessarily remember who said what exactly when. All you recognize is that you've come to believe something collectively from all of the news presentation of material over years. That's how normal people's understanding works.
I'm sure you are fully aware that these claims were generally "out there" as beliefs, and some people said them either directly or indirectly. The pendant in me gets what you are doing, the lawyer in me applauds it, the scientist in me shakes my head a little but gets it, and the psychologist in me rolls my eyes.
So, the parts of me that get it say thanks for the diligence. But, the rest of me requests that maybe you think about filling in some blanks too. Like, by "this statement" do you mean ... this thing that was misunderstood" and put in your own links. It can go a long way. Just a suggestion.
So you want details and citations, but keep it short and simple? Challenge accepted, though I going to pick a skyscraper for the ride.
1. The "preached as gospel", at least from Canadian government and/or Trudeau include that more vaccination is what will end the pandemic and mandates and passports are necessary, and that being unvaccinated is being unkind to others and not doing your duty, and even remote working unvaccinated people are more dangerous to be near than vaccinated people in high density areas.
2. The World Health Organization put out multiple statements against vaccine mandates as a "last resort" and put out conditions in a policy on when and how they can be done, which was led by a Canadian bioethics expert.
3. The WHO also put out statements generally against boosters and vaccinating children. Much of this is for compassionate reasons, social justice, marginalized people, equity, etc., in addition to the medical science.
4. The WHO also notes that restrictive mandates are not the best way to accomplish the goal, and reference the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
5. The Nuffield Council also has made statements against vaccine mandates and passports, again on both medical grounds and compassion, social justice, fairness, and equity.
6. After Trudeau starting implementing his federal mandatory vaccination -- based on transmission risk -- Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) produced a statement that there was limited evidence that the vaccines reduce asymptomatic infection or transmission.
7. The vaccine approvals themselves are build with a risk management plan, stating that there are unknown risks and these are mitigated by, effectively, diversifying the risk via individual informed consent and keeping the risk information up to date in the monthly monographs.
8. The official product monographs prepared by the vaccine manufacturers to Health Canada on a monthly basis, including the latest ones from Nov and Dec, still say that it is unknown if they affect fertility, pregnancy, are passed in the breast milk, and cannot rule out risk to the baby, and these should be taking into account.
9. Despite being told these mandates are necessary in Canada, all restrictions have been removed in a large number of U.S. states, UK, Denmark, and soon to be Sweden and Norway. Results so far have not shown any big difference one way or the other.
If you have questions on details, please read the article first.
So, from your messages I can tell you tend to get unique information that the rest of us don't. That may very well be.
Alright then. Hospitalizations and public health are under provincial jurisdiction, not federal. The federal government is not allowed, by law, to impose regulations on public health that do not fall under their jurisdiction.
It makes it mandatory for all federal employees to be vaccinated. In the link I sent, that is only the core version, but each agency has implemented their own copy.
It lists 3 objectives. The first is for personal protection. That's fine, and correct. But, it is well-established under Section 7 of the Charter that the government cannot mandate medical interventions on individuals for their own good. You can read about that here: https://justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art7.html
The second objective of mandating vaccination is to increase the rate of vaccination among employees. It is tautological, with no explanation for why or what purpose that serves. There is a reason for not giving an explanation, of course, because the objective is a public health outcome -- targeting herd immunity -- and public health objectives are not under the federal jurisdiction.
The third objective is exactly what I said: "Given that operational requirements may include ad hoc onsite presence, all employees, including those working remotely and teleworking must be fully vaccinated to protect themselves, colleagues, and clients from COVID-19."
That is, the mere chance that an unvaccinated remote worker may have to come on site is claimed to be a safety risk to colleagues and clients, as compared to an onsite vaccinated worker. This is factually incorrect; an remote worker has a lower risk of exposure and the fact they are unvaccinated means they haven't been allowed into any of the high-exposure areas such restaurants, bars, and gyms, as explained on the Health Canada website.
You'll also note that the "expected results" section does not provide any expected outcomes in terms of the purpose of the mandate, only with expectations about compliance. This is abnormal.
This mandate of course follows from Trudeau's campaign, including his August 31, 2021, speech in Sudbury in which he referred to unvaccinated people as "those people" and said "they are putting their children at risk, and our children at risk". Ignoring that children aren't at risk from COVID-19 relative to other risks in normal life, it is an incoherent statement if he isn't referring to transmission of the virus.
But more direct statements are so common it takes almost no effort to find them all over the place:
And so on. Explicitly, for those in the Canadian federal government who chose not to vaccinate, they had to undergo a "training" before having their salary cut off. The "training" was an explanation first on how the vaccines help protect you as an individual -- which is true -- and how they can also help other people, and then describes generically how herd immunity works, and then says it *may* be accomplished *if* vaccination conveys *immunity* on enough people. Nothing about hospitals is mentioned.
As far as listening to scientists, I *am* a scientist, and I work with microbiologists working on addressing SARS-CoV-2. To quote a few, "We just don't know." "We'll likely be dealing with it for at least 5 years.". And, with respect to asymptomatic infection and transmission by vaccinated people, "We could all be 'Typhoid Mary' and we wouldn't know it." (This is because the vaccines work. We typically wouldn't know that we were infected or spreading it, and there'd be no evidence of it after we shed it, and we'd never know.
And, I read the journal articles, Health Canada, the manufacturer vaccine monographs, and National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI).
I don't take issue with what the general science or scientists say, because they are filled with doubt, "maybe", "hopefully", and disagreement on details or on best ways forward.
The problem isn't the science; it is the politicians and media who both misinform the public and ramp up fears. They aren't saying what the science says. Most people get their information from the media and politicians, and from others who get their information from those sources. They don't read NACI or Health Canada advisories, or the vaccine monographs, or the journal articles. (This problem is noted in the Nuffield Council's report, and I cited in the article I wrote about it.)
You won't find recommendations for the vaccine passports or mandates in the NACI recommendations. They recommend "offering" vaccines to people. (And, many of the recommendations are "may offer" instead of "should offer", with instructions that alternative choices are also reasonable.) In fact, as I pointed out and cited in the article, the scientists at the WHO and Nuffield Council, and Western U., have generally come out against mandatory vaccinations.
I get that you don't listen to the same politicians and news as everybody else, so hopefully this has given you some insights into the messaging that is going out there, versus what the science and scientists suggest, and that you'll agree these mandates are not ethical or warranted.
They might drop by 190. Which is a pretty small number considering the number of ICU beds in Ontario. Not to mention the fact that those unvaccinated ICU patients are likely all or nearly all over 70, and certainly none of them had Covid previously and recovered. So forcing, say, a million unvaccinated under-60s or recovered people to get vaccinated might reduce ICU usage by 10 beds. If you believe at all in a right to body autonomy, you should oppose this.
I don't find it odd at all. I know that ICU admissions would be lower if more people were vaccinated. My point still stands. The only risk posed by the unvaccinated is over-loading the hosptials
Like Trump was in America in 2016 this protest is an unclean wrecking ball, but it doesn't follow that the disease of which both phenomena are symptoms isn't real and serious. Whenever a population, or a significant portion of it, feels its concerns are being trivialized or ignored it becomes more susceptible to siren voices at the extreme ends of the political spectrum (historical examples abound, and I won't insult anyone's intelligence by citing them here).
So, what are we to make of poor Justin? We can't blame him for having failed to inherit his father's abilities and formidable intelligence, but it's worth noting a couple of salient facts about the latter. Trudeau Sr. was a serious, lifelong Catholic, perfectly at home in a tradition that's quintessentially hierarchical and conservative; yet he governed as a liberal and gave Canada some of the most progressive legislation in its history. Not for him the narrow constraints of ideology: a true original, he always set his own pace and was flexible and pragmatic. This isn't to say everyone agreed wholeheartedly with all his policies, of course, but at least those policies exhibited a grasp of what the real problems were and attempted to address them.
Can the same be said of Justin? Anyone who's suffered through one of his speeches knows the answer. He isn't stupid, but neither does he have an original thought in his head. He's simply internalized every politically correct bromide of his era, and re-externalizes the amalgam like a parrot without, evidently, having subjected it to critical examination even once. Choosing sides between the protesters and the objects of their wrath is probably the best he can do; don't look to him for a nuanced understanding of what funds their grievances and gives them some legitimacy.
In the good old days my parents voted Liberal federally and Progressive Conservative provincially (Ontario), and nobody thought this incoherent. The Liberals were the party of national unity and enjoyed broad support in both French and English Canada (except in Alberta, of course, a virtual one-party state for decades). Ontario's Conservative government spent lavishly in the two areas that really mattered to liberals--health care and education--and created the community college system that has been so successful. No mainstream Canadian politician of the era would have dismissed supporters of another party as 'deplorables.' Every party made an effort to appeal to as wide a range of voters as possible, an approach so seemingly commonsensical that it's hard to believe the extent to which it's fallen out of fashion.
It should be obvious where such reflection leads us. Is it logical to complain of division in a political climate that makes it clear that, whoever wins elections, the losing side can look forward to having zero input into policy, and to having its concerns mocked or ignored? The leadership we need will rediscover the wisdom not just of compromise but of civility and respect for dissenting opinion--and, alas, there's no sign that Justin has this capacity. He 'knows' who the white hats and the black hats are, and every time he speaks he unapologetically offends half the nation.
Trudeau is conveniently in isolation. The wizards behind the cutrain need time to test market the scripts before handing them off to the speech coaches to work with the spokesmodel who plays Prime Minister on TV and social media
A couple of points that Matt missed. 1st is the hypocrisy of the government and the media. Burning churches and minority owned businesses in the name of social justice, fine. Secondly watching the Liberal attack dogs go after them is adding fuel to the fire.
Secondly while I agree there are a lot extremists here the out pouring of support is unprecedented in Canadian history and the Liberals ignore this at their peril. 1000s of people out in minus 20 weather, that's more than a fringe.
As an aside I highly recommend this article on Canada by an American. It explains Canada in a way I've never seen. Better Days, On Canada, COVID, the Convoy, and Class
Can't edit but to add one more comment, the media is labelling anyone supporting them as right wing radical nazis, despite the fact the average anti-vaxer is a female Liberal voter.
They have a 6-point policy paper on what is required for mandatory vaccination. Are we following them? Notably, "If such a public health goal can be achieved with less coercive or intrusive policy interventions, a mandate would not be ethically justified, as achieving public health goals with less restriction of individual liberty and autonomy yields a more favourable risk-benefit ratio (1)."
“The idea of vaccine passports raises ethical questions concerning respect for individual rights and interests, public health responsibilities and social justice. We are concerned that bringing in passports in relatively uncontroversial areas (e.g. for entry to large events and clubs) could pave the way to passports being required in other areas of life. This, we believe, could lead to discrimination against and a loss of opportunity those who cannot provide proof of vaccine status. It could also exacerbate distrust by marginalised people and increase vaccine hesitancy, particularly if this is seen as introducing mandatory vaccination by the back door or building surveillance apparatus for communities that are already disproportionately monitored.”
You know, those darn uncaring, uncompassionate right-wing ideals like social justice, human rights, and marginalized communities.
Aside from this being a great article, this Comments section reminds me of one of the things I most like about The Line. Its readers are sane and can write in actual sentences.
This is the inevitable consequence of moving the goalposts and not providing clear signposts back to normality. I get that the science is constantly evolving (in terms of our understanding of Covid), but our government still approaches this as if it's March 2020. Lockdowns, masks, social distancing, flattening the curve to help out the medical system, etc. were logical and essential in 2020. They no longer are. (I say this as a person who believes in science, who is vaxxed and boosted). With vaccines, oral drugs, monoclonal antibodies and other treatments, we have the tools to resume normal life, even if that normality means an endemic disease (like flu or the cold are endemic). But our Prime Minister needs to get off his high horse and understand that he has the obligation to demand a resumption of normal life. For those of us who believe in the vaccines — and the evidence proving their efficacy is overwhelming — avoiding public places and masking everywhere is both unnecessary and irrational. Justin needs to start guiding us to the off-ramp or there will be more convoys and other eruptions that will get angrier and potentially more violent as time goes on and we're stuck in stasis.
I agree with everything you say- but isn't it weird that we feel the need to state our belief in science, vaccines and boosters when arguing any side in the matter? Maybe nothing, but it's an interesting thing im noticing in comment sections and in reporting of covid.
It's true what you say, but we don't actually debate or discuss anything any more. People hurl a slur at you and that seems to be enough to stop the discussion. Unfortunately, if one questions ANY aspect of the government's approach to Covid, invariably the charge emerges 'You're just an anti-vaxxer' which justifies any further possibility of engagement. That's bad, as you suggest, but in order to pre-empt that, I feel it necessary to add the proviso. Troubling, but symptomatic of the times in which we live.
You're so right. I get the feeling that our political masters are kind of enjoying their lack of opposition. And if they are truly leaders then why do they keep saying they're "following the science?"
Good write up Matt. I think we need a moderate party in this country. The Liberals are too far left and the Conservatives have been swamped by extremists on the other end. There's nothing left for those of us who live in the middle. Problem is, crazies and extremists have unlimited time and the megaphone of social media. Us normal people are busy working and paying the piper. Can't stay like this forever.
I think it's more the way they communicate and constantly try to take a morally superior stance. It's a thing modern leftists do and I think the liberals get painted that way because of how they communicate. Personally, I don't have issues with most of their policies- I just find most of Trudeaus cabinet to be insufferable and Trudeau himself to be phony. Can only speak for myself though
Two years ago, a lot of non-Native Canadians were up in arms about the Native blockades that were being set up on roads and rail lines. A lot of people cheered when police and ordinary citizens broke those blockades up.
If the trucker convoy sets up a bunch of blockades in Ontario, will the same people who wanted the police to go medieval on the Native protesters be wanting them to go medieval on the trucking protest?
It's entirely possible that some of the white nationalists and Trudeau-threateners end up causing violence, and soon everybody associated with the convoy is going to be tarnished by association. Exactly what measures have the convoy's organizers taken to keep their members from doing anything stupid like that? And what steps are they taking to keep the white nationalists and Trudeau-threateners out of the convoy in the first place?
All it could take is one idiot doing something like attacking a healthcare official or politician, and the entire convoy becomes tarnished by association. Most Canadians are already suspicious of the convoy and don't support its goals. Even in Alberta, of all places, they only get 35% support:
Not to mention that a number of other truckers are trying to distance themselves from the convoy. According to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, nearly 85% of drivers are vaccinated:
Oh, and it's worth noting that the U.S. won't allow unvaccinated truckers to cross the border anyway. Even if Ottawa and the provinces repealed their mandates and requirements, anyone hoping to go to the States is going to be SOL anyway.
Good piece. But I'm inclined to give politicians and medical officials a big benefit of a doubt on how the pandemic was) initially handled (no masks, then compulsory masking, Covid not a big deal, then it is). But no government had the slightest experience in handling a pandemic so it's kind of natural that the initial response is made up as you go along. That's how humans work., like it or not. As for mandates, figures would indicate they have helped persuade others to get a jab. And the vast majority of us who are vaccinated like being in places where the unvaccinated can't go, although Gurney is right in saying they can't last forever. I don't know why the truckers can't get it through their skulls that the US also has mandates that truckers must adhere to if they want to cross the border, so it doesn't matter what the feds do. Lastly, the protesters' manifesto would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic that the authors haven't a clue how the country actually operates. Again, a good article and I'm glad I recently subscribed.
Not at all. But personally, I don't care what it takes to persuade people to do the right thing and get vaccinated. The Economist just published an excellent article showing how the imposition of vax mandates were followed by sharp increases in the number of people getting jabbed, not only here but in Germany, Italy and France.
Fair enough! But I think bodily autonomy and free will should be considered sacred. They shouldn't be able to force you to do something you disagree with or coerce people with the threat of taking away their rights.
The news media has not told us who these people are. You would think they are all truckers. Hearing that they are not makes sense. And if they get their clues from the US as all right and left movements have these last two years all the verbiage will be based on the US situation. So expect violence. The federal government has been wrong about everything during these pandemic so expect them to handle this badly.
Overall, which group of commenters here seem more thoughtful, attentive to the evidence, and willing to consider all arguments rationally? The pro mandate side or the pro choice side? Matt, you should consider that question carefully.
It isn't a us or them issue. That framing only serves to deepen division. Empathy on both sides is necessary. The "normal" everyone is so eager to go back to is understanding and respecting different ideas and values. Pitting ourselves against each other only serves the political class
Drawing a line between the common good and individual rights is always very difficult, and in today's "everything is a wedge issue" world things have gotten dangerously violent. We need more dialogue, more understanding and more respect. We won't get any of that today.
As this Omicron variant wave crests and wanes, it would be good to discuss if anyone who could be persuaded or "prodded" to be vaccinated has done so, and if perhaps a good chunk of the 15% that did not vaccinate acquired immunity through infection... then a vaccine mandate is less of a public health tool. Let's public health officers make the determination, not politicians or social media influencers.
What do you mean by working? Getting a few more percentage points at the population level doesn’t mean they’re working. The mandates would actually need to contribute to ending the pandemic to be declared a success in my books. They clearly haven’t done that and their stain will ensure there’s a lingering anger in society for decades.
Hi Frederick, I am simply quoting The Economist here. What they say is this (and I quote verbatim from the article): Four economists—Alexander Karaivanov, Dongwoo Kim, Shih En Lu and Hitoshi Shigeoka, all of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia—ran the calculations. In the week after the announcement of pass-sanitaire requirements, first-dose vaccinations increased by 42% over the previous week; and by 71% over two weeks. They estimated that 287,000 more people were vaccinated within six weeks as a result.
I know those studies. We saw a small increase in vaccinations - most likely in the lowest of low-risk cohorts- from the mandates. Too small and inefficient to make a difference on the pandemic as whole. We could also do a vaccine mandate at schools. That would increase vaccination rates by a huge margin but It won’t achieve anything in terms of ending the pandemic. We need to be ending this thing not stringing out failed strategies because they make us feel good.
Seriously? Just a fringe? Not sure if you are intentionally being dismissive but this anti-vax mandate protest is not more fringe than "Occupy Wallstreet" . (That said, I am leery of protest movements.)
How about doing the obvious? Get rid of the mandates. The feds can get rid of all of theirs with the stroke of a pen, and can tell the provinces that their emergency Covid funding will be cut off unless they get rid of theirs within two weeks. After all, the government gave them money contingent on passports - it can perfectly well stop it.
We all know that none of the mandates are doing any good at all anyway, so why not get rid of them?
Everyone in that convoy, and supporting them, knows that the entire motivation for the mandates now is to make people like them suffer. That's why they are angry. That's why they should be angry.
In a sensible world, the judges would already have ruled the the desire to make people suffer is not a demonstrably sound reason for overriding their Charter rights. Too bad we aren't in that world.
Get rid of the federal mandates, cut off money for provinces that don't get rid of theirs, and everyone goes home happy. Keep persecuting these people just because you don't like them, and the results won't be pretty.
The real motivation for the mandates is the federal government reaching for relevance. Besides handing out free money and restricting the border, it can't do much to combat COVID. At the same time, COVID provides a convenient distraction for the Feds to ignore less Twitterable issues like inflation, crushing government debt, the housing bubble and stagnant productivity growth.
Increasingly, the federal government seems to be a low value add institution. It should focus on national defence, external trade agreements and preventing provinces from imposing measures that in anyway limit internal mobility of people, resourves and capital. That could likely be accomplished with 100K fewer employees and $50B less in spending (based on pre-COVID).
I would like to add to my original post as re-reading it, I might have missed an important point...
The federal involvement in COVID response should largely be over. Restricting travel makes no sense given that an endemic COVID poses largely the same risk across all geographies. The only federal involvement should be in negotiating reciprocal movement of goods and people with other countries (such as lobbying the Biden admin to relax its vaccine mandate on truck drivers). Fiscal measures combatting COVID have reached the point where they do more harm than good, by stoking inflation, discouraging private sector investment as today's deficits are tomorrow's tax increases, and disincentivizing workforce participation.
How many conversations did Trudeau or Joly have with US officials asking them to reconsider? Border restrictions have made no sense since Delta, with its high transmissibility, arrived. Maintaining existing restrictions past their effective date is one thing, but bringing in a new one makes no sense whatsoever
Tough on Covid is the Tough on Crime for our times
They’re also pulling a lot of techniques from the War on Drugs.
Great insight. And both play on the outsized fears of middle-aged suburbanites.
This almost middle-aged suburbanite disagrees has little fear of COVID and looks forward to relaxation of restrictions. I think you should point the finger at the broader segment of public sector employees. They seem to be stoking the fear, perhaps because they are coddled by their employers and have little to lose financially.
Smarter idea: Get the vaccine, obey the mask mandates, stop contributing to the spread of COVID and everyone goes home happy.
Oh, and vocally denounce the white nationalists, Western separatists and Trudeau-threateners that are leeching onto the movement. There's a reason these guys only have the support of 28% of Canadians:
https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2022/01/27/unvaccinated-truckers-freedom-rally-poll-canada/
Not to mention that some 90% of truckers are vaccindated, and a number of other truckers are disassociating themselves from the convoy:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/embarrassment-for-the-industry-not-all-truckers-support-the-freedom-convoy-1.5757952
And while you're at it, denounce the protesters threatening healthcare workers and officials at their homes and places of work, and the protesters harassing parents and schoolchildren for making decisions about their well-being that the protesters don't like.
"Vaccine mandates increased uptake of COVID shots by almost 70%, Canadian study finds:"
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/vaccine-mandates-increased-uptake-of-covid-shots-by-almost-70-canadian-study-finds
"...we estimate a statistically significant and large (66% on average) increase in weekly first-dose uptake in Canada over the first weeks after the mandate announcement, relative to in absence of mandate..."
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.21.21265355v3.full.pdf
For how long? Your implied claim that vaccine take-up in Canada, now over 85%, would have been only 50% without mandates, is as innumerate as the rest of the segregationist arguments.
And, even if it were true, what good is it doing now?
1) how much incremental effect will vaccine mandates have going forward? We are probably well past the point of diminishing returns
2) why didn't the government do its own dirty work instead of imposing the burden on restaurant owners etc? The provinces could have easily denied non-essential services like vehicle registration, land transfers, license renewals and marriage certicates to the non-vaccinated. The Feds could have denied passports and COVID benefits. The government is pushing the mandate, so it should bear all of the backlash
3) linking vaccine mandates to locations like restaraunts is disingenuous. Vaccination does not menaingfully impact spread of COVID, nor are restaurants particularly conducive to spread. The mandates are a stick, and should not be positioned as a safety measure
4) most important: the government is using vaccines as a wedge issue, pitting Canadians against one another.
Folks seem to focus on the less important part of the expression 'vaccine mandate', i.e., the mandate part. As if the point of the mandate was to simply mandate the virus to disappear through political fiat. Yup no sign that works. But the key point is not the mandate part, it's the vaccine part. If folks got the vaccine, there would be no need for mandates.
The vaccine, according to the science, is the way out of the pandemic, not the mandate. Yes the mandate is a political instrument. But vaccines are not more or less effective based on the political preferences, regarding mandates, of the person receiving the shot. Unfortunately, some folks have decided to politicize the effectiveness of vaccines based upon their political attitudes towards mandates and thus, because they don't like mandates, they refuse to get the shot. By wrapping themselves in some dubious political concept of freedom, they have decided the virus can be defeated by getting rid of mandates. As if, it's just a matter of personal political choice as to whether you will contract covid, get hospitalized, land in an ICU, or die!
Why? Because they think, have been encouraged to think, the pandemic is just a political invention. That mandates are just political instruments unconnected to health outcomes, and so vaccines are just political inventions also. Of course to cling to this belief, all the science, the health officials, the doctors and nurses, must be lying or worse they are all working to elect some agent of the darkness.
So I agree with you in calling out folks who politicize vaccines and their effectiveness in dealing with the covid pandemic. They should not be used as a wedge issue, they should simply be used to fight the pandemic!
The idea that the virus can be "defeated" is absurd. What do you even mean?
https://exploitdigitalmarketing.se/6-effective-techniques-to-defeat-internet-trolls/
"It's the anti-social holdouts who are using it as a wedge issue."
That sounds like a wedgey statement, i.e. singling out a group. Political stragist conjure wedge issues because the approach works to polarize opinion
And yet nobody can advance any other argument for, eg, forcing a 25 year man, who has already had COVID, to get the shot.
Have you really never heard of natural immunity? Or are you just pretending that it doesn't exist?
Natural immunity is vastly more protective, against reinfection and severe illness, than vaccination. That's good enough to say that forcing people who have recovered from Covid to take the shots anyway is nuts as well as wrong.
Note that "recommendations" are opinions and advice, not scientific fact.
Matt. When you started this Line thing, you said it would be no bullshit. Are you sure -- really sure -- that you know what you are talking about here.
The WHO has come out against mandates as an 'absolute last resort'. Are they fringe? Or misinformed?
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/vaccine-mandates-absolute-last-resort-who-europe-head-says-2021-12-07/
They have a 6-point policy paper on what is required for mandatory vaccination. Are we following them? Notably, "If such a public health goal can be achieved with less coercive or intrusive policy interventions, a mandate would not be ethically justified, as achieving public health goals with less restriction of individual liberty and autonomy yields a more favourable risk-benefit ratio (1)."
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-Policy-brief-Mandatory-vaccination-2021.1
They reference the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Are they fringe, or uninformed? They have an excellent report, "Public health: ethical issues" dating back to 2007. It's a great read. If it is too long, try Chapter 3.
https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/publications/public-health
Of importance is 3.37, the intervention ladder. Are we following it, or did we skip over it?
Or how about Section 3.7: "...media stories often turn out to be based on anecdotes, unpublished reports or preliminary results, or they overstate, misrepresent or misunderstand the claims of the researcher."
Or Section 3.8: "Perhaps only some of the literature will be cited, or explanations rely on a particular strand of scientific evidence, ignoring or excluding other evidence. All groups, politicians, the media, single interest groups and scientists are capable of this."
Or Section 3.9: "A related issue is the status of views that are not considered to be ‘mainstream’ or typical of the scientific community. Such heterodox views sometimes turn out to be correct, so it is important that they are not ignored."
Or 3.46: "Political interests can also have significant impact on public health matters when politicians are motivated by the need to be seen to be ‘doing something’. They may have to choose between an intervention that would be popular straight away but ineffective, and another having less immediate appeal but more likely to be successful in public health terms."
Or 3.11: "Although scientific experts may sometimes be tempted, or pressured, in these circumstances into offering precise answers to policy makers, the honest answer will often be “we don’t know” or “we can only estimate the risk to within certain, sometimes wide, limits”. It follows that claims of absolute safety or certainty should be treated with great caution."
Or take their public statements: https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/news/a-bioethics-view-on-the-latest-covid-vaccination-policies
“The idea of vaccine passports raises ethical questions concerning respect for individual rights and interests, public health responsibilities and social justice. We are concerned that bringing in passports in relatively uncontroversial areas (e.g. for entry to large events and clubs) could pave the way to passports being required in other areas of life. This, we believe, could lead to discrimination against and a loss of opportunity those who cannot provide proof of vaccine status. It could also exacerbate distrust by marginalised people and increase vaccine hesitancy, particularly if this is seen as introducing mandatory vaccination by the back door or building surveillance apparatus for communities that are already disproportionately monitored.”
Or this on healthcare workers: https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/news/mandatory-vaccinations-for-health-and-social-care-workers-nuffield-council-on-bioethics-urges-government-to-gather-more-evidence-and-explore-other-options-more-thoroughly-before-introducing-coercive-measures
"the Government has not provided adequate evidence of the proposed policy’s effectiveness, nor an evaluation of less intrusive measures, to justify mandating vaccination."
Or the whole article for that matter.
On this note, I have a PhD that minored in biomedical engineering, read both the literature and GoC science, and work with microbiologists, whom I can quote as saying "We don't know" and "This seems draconian". Are we all fringe? Are we uninformed?
To continue this certainty, how about the GoC science itself. Vaccine advisory comes from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), whose Advisory Committee Statement -- long after these mandates were initiated -- states, "There is currently limited evidence on the duration of protection and on the efficacy of these vaccines in reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2, although studies are ongoing. Evidence of protection against asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection is emerging for the mRNA and Janssen vaccines." And, in the section "Efficacy and effectiveness against asymptomatic infection and transmission" it states that "the current data is insufficient to draw conclusions" and AstroZeneca "has not demonstrated efficacy against confirmed SARS-CoV-2 asymptomatic infection".
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/immunization/national-advisory-committee-on-immunization-naci/recommendations-use-covid-19-vaccines.html
Is NACI fringe or uninformed? Do the vaccines really reduce transmission? Is it really safer to be around a vaccinated person who was just in a restaurant with 50 other people, versus and unvaccinated remote worker who isn't allowed in a restaurant? Really? Based on what science? What risk calculation? (I get a different answer when I plug in the math.)
Or how about the vaccine manufacturers. Are they fringe and uninformed? They have to produce monthly product monographs submitted to Health Canada. For example, the Comirnaty monograph was last updated Nov 19 here: https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info/pdf/pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-pm1-en.pdf
Notably, Section 7 lists risks and is quite honest. It says, "It is unknown whether COMIRNATY has an impact on fertility." and "The safety and efficacy of COMIRNATY in pregnant women have not yet been established. It is unknown whether COMIRNATY is excreted in human milk. A risk to the newborns/infants cannot be excluded. The developmental and health benefits of breastfeeding should be considered along with the mother’s clinical need for immunization against COVID-19."
The other vaccine monographs say the same thing. Are these manufacturers and Health Canada fringe and uninformed?
On that note, these vaccines themselves were approved in a process with a risk management plan, e.g., Cominaty: https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info/regulatory-decision-summary-detail.html?linkID=RDS00856
It states: "An important limitation of the data is the lack of information on the long-term safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. The identified limitations are managed through labelling and the Risk Management Plan RMP)." The RMP is also described in monitoring feedback and updating the product monographs. This is an excellent risk management plan because both the labelling and monographs diversify risk via one-on-one informed decision-making between patient and doctor. Coercive measures eliminate Health Canada's own risk mitigation strategy.
Other countries and states are ending or forgoing such mandates, such as the UK, something like 20 U.S. states, notably including Florida and Texas. Canada seems to be one of the most restrictive. Are they all fringe and uninformed? Are they worse off and unhappy with the results?
Did you know that the WHO recommends against getting booster shots except for those in high risk cases, and against vaccinating children: https://www.who.int/news/item/22-12-2021-interim-statement-on-booster-doses-for-covid-19-vaccination---update-22-december-2021
It looks to me that these truckers represent the mainstream science, bioethics, and risk management. All you have to do is actually read the scientific reviews and materials. Perhaps reading the actual materials is considered "fringe". Who would have thought.
How's that 'no bullshit' thing going?
Best to you and yours.
Edit: In case you want the other monographs:
Moderna's Spikevax, updated Dec. 23: https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info/pdf/covid-19-vaccine-moderna-pm-en.pdf
AstroZenica's Vaxzevria, from Nov 19: https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info/pdf/astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-pm-en.pdf
J&J Janssen, updated Nov 23: https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info/pdf/janssen-covid-19-vaccine-pm-en.pdf
Updated with more details: https://adnausica.substack.com/p/who-keeps-on-trucking
There were two members of the NIH who resigned over the Biden Administration putting in the booster program after they were told by these members that they were not necessary.
That the FDA had 75 years to produce the papers for the public to see on the information they used to accept the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use. That they had to be taken to court in order to have them released for a FOIA put in by other Doctors and Scientists that wanted to see the information on the vaccine. If that does not make one take notice, I am not sure what would. I mean really how is that informed consent if the information is not even available to other Scientists and Doctors. The lack of transparency is abysmal if your planning on forcing vaccines mandates.
Conspiracy theorist! Anti-vaxer! Grandma killer! Just kidding... but you can look forward to worse. Nothing so offends the ill-informed as even the barest hint of a suggestion that they may have something to learn from somebody else.
An epistemological ethic to live by, courtesy of the philosopher Susan Haack:
"The genuine inquirer wants to get to the truth of the matter that concerns him, whether or not that truth comports with what he believed at the outset of his investigation, and whether or not his acknowledgement of that truth is likely to get him tenure, or to make him rich, famous, or popular. So he is motivated to seek out and assess the worth of evidence and arguments thoroughly and impartially. This doesn't just mean that he will be hard-working; it is a matter, rather, of willingness to re-think, to re-appraise, to spend as long as it takes on the detail that might be fatal, to give as much thought to the last one percent as to the rest. The genuine inquirer will be ready to acknowledge, to himself as well as others, where his evidence and arguments seem shakiest, and his articulation of problem or solution vaguest. He will be willing to go with the evidence even to unpopular conclusions, and to welcome someone else’s having found the truth he was seeking. And, far from having a motive to obfuscate, he will try to see and explain things as clearly as he can."
--Susan Haack
Ad Nausica, you never disappoint! Thank you for that well laid out research.
We can also add the Editors over at the British Medical Journal to the list of people who want more data and some answers.
A short excerpt:
"Today, despite the global rollout of covid-19 vaccines and treatments, the anonymised participant level data underlying the trials for these new products remain inaccessible to doctors, researchers, and the public—and are likely to remain that way for years to come. This is morally indefensible for all trials, but especially for those involving major public health interventions.
.....
The BMJ supports vaccination policies based on sound evidence. As the global vaccine rollout continues, it cannot be justifiable or in the best interests of patients and the public that we are left to just trust “in the system,” with the distant hope that the underlying data may become available for independent scrutiny at some point in the future. The same applies to treatments for covid-19. Transparency is the key to building trust and an important route to answering people’s legitimate questions about the efficacy and safety of vaccines and treatments and the clinical and public health policies established for their use.
....
Pharmaceutical companies are reaping vast profits without adequate independent scrutiny of their scientific claims. The purpose of regulators is not to dance to the tune of rich global corporations and enrich them further; it is to protect the health of their populations. We need complete data transparency for all studies, we need it in the public interest, and we need it now."
Thank you for kind words, and the BMJ link. I had not seen it. While it is not specifically about the vaccine mandates or passports, it is evidence that beyond the individual doctors and researchers, even the institutions like WHO, bioethics councils, and prominent journals are not in lock-step with the political dictums, and the evidence is insufficient to support putting all of the eggs in this one basket.
Maybe not specifically but vaccine mandates do fall under public health interventions which the article addresses.
I'm just happy to see more institutions starting to speak out on these matters. From the beginning, there has been no open debate on different strategies for handling covid. As you stated, the political dictum has been all about vaccines. If the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration had been allowed to speak, we could have implemented more effective policies.
Link to the British Medical Journal editorial. https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o102
Unrelated but does anyone know why comments are disabled on the new articles on the line? Love the line but would be very disappointed if comments were disabled for this community of readers.
Too busy this week to keep an eye on them. They’ll be back shortly.
Intetesting timed with Rishi Maharaj's inflammatory article filled with demonstrable lies and smears about the protests, such as calling them anti-vaccine (they are anti-mandate), unvaccinated (most are vaccinated), and repeating the nonsense about the obvious agent provocateurs that are not supported by the protestors, and ignoring the messages of peace, dignity, and respect filling all of the protest organisation messaging.
I thought The Line was supposed to No Bullshit, but is now just repeating blatant smear tactics and ignoring the actual messaging.
This is why journalism is on the decline. I thought you were trying to get away from that. Please do better.
I will be reporting on their actual content, including emails and links to live streams. Somebody has to care about honesty.
Speaking of honesty: It wasn't timed to Rishi's piece at all. We stopped comments yesterday. Not allowed on the livestream post, not allowed on the emergency dispatch, not allowed on the Potter column. Your tinfoil is too tight.
I said interestingly timed. It means nobody can comment and fact check the most inflammatory and propagandist article on The Line to date.
The tinfoil comment is uncalled for.
I know what you said. I also know what you meant, as does everyone here. We're too busy now to moderate comments because all the news is happening at once. Implying it was at all linked to Maharaj's piece was speculative and false. Thanks.
Thanks! Great work. I'm telling everyone I know about this site. People deserve your reporting and you deserve the readers
Thank you for the links and facts.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but giving politicians and "medical experts" a pass on the complete failure which was the western world's response to covid because they "didn't know better" is wrong and lazy. Information is coming out daily which contradicts a lot of what was preached to us as gospel. Society was divided for cheap political points at pretty much every turn. Worst case, experts and politicians outright lied to us. At best, they just "did what they were told". I believe most politicians and medical experts are in the latter camp, but is banality an acceptable excuse for decisions which seriously fragmented society? Is it an acceptable excuse for the considerable erosion of trust in the medical community? For the people that lost their jobs for not getting a jab, then finding out that it didn't even protect from transmission, hospitalization, and even death? We all should be angry.
You are correct that hubris from the leaders and experts has eroded trust. The experts really aren't invested in the outcomes. If their decisions prove wrong, they can claim to be erring on caution and face few career or financial consequeneces. The politicians' response is much more surprising. Perhaps politicians have taken too many short cuts to victory in chasing divisive wedge issues conjured by political strategists and communicators. They have yet to realize that they might become targets of the inevitable backlash. Jason Kenney, for example, might be facing better electoral prospects if "Best Summer Ever", had been positioned along the lines of "I feel your pain from having lived under these extraordinary restrictions. The government would like to reward the citizens of Alberta for helping it manage the province through difficult times by lifting most of the restrictions. That being said, the pandemic is unpredictable and if circumstances change, the government will react accordingly".
If Kenney had stuck to his guns, he would be the Ron DeSantis of Canada, and, like DeSantis, more popular than any other premier.
Well said!
You absolutely nailed it.
Well said. I would also note that this was all entirely predictable. As I've said in another comment (and now made a full post about: https://adnausica.substack.com/p/who-keeps-on-trucking), the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has a wonderful 2007 report, "Public health: ethical issues": https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/publications/public-health.
It is a substantial read, but most of the topical information can be found in Chapter 3. key element is the evaluation of persuasion mechanisms for changing behaviour and the subsequent recommendations of the intervention ladder (Section 3.37) which addresses both the efficacy and ethics of interventions. But it also has many good nuggets fitting of the COVID-19 responses:
Section 3.7: "...media stories often turn out to be based on anecdotes, unpublished reports or preliminary results, or they overstate, misrepresent or misunderstand the claims of the researcher."
Section 3.8: "Perhaps only some of the literature will be cited, or explanations rely on a particular strand of scientific evidence, ignoring or excluding other evidence. All groups, politicians, the media, single interest groups and scientists are capable of this."
Section 3.9: "A related issue is the status of views that are not considered to be ‘mainstream’ or typical of the scientific community. Such heterodox views sometimes turn out to be correct, so it is important that they are not ignored."
Section 3.11: "Although scientific experts may sometimes be tempted, or pressured, in these circumstances into offering precise answers to policy makers, the honest answer will often be “we don’t know” or “we can only estimate the risk to within certain, sometimes wide, limits”. It follows that claims of absolute safety or certainty should be treated with great caution."
One of my favorites is Section 3.46: "Political interests can also have significant impact on public health matters when politicians are motivated by the need to be seen to be ‘doing something’. They may have to choose between an intervention that would be popular straight away but ineffective, and another having less immediate appeal but more likely to be successful in public health terms."
The World Health Organization even developed a policy on mandatory vaccination that references this Nuffield report, the “COVID-19 and mandatory vaccination: Ethical considerations and caveats”:https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-Policy-brief-Mandatory-vaccination-2021.1
It was led by Canadian Maxwell Smith, an Assistant Professor at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada, who specializes in Public health ethics/population-level bioethics, infectious disease ethics, bioethics, health equity and social justice, and health policy. (https://news.westernu.ca/2021/04/mandatory-vaccination/)
The bioethicists have long known how these things turn south with the politicians and the press, and the psychological features and the social harms that result. It's just that nobody listens to them. Sometimes they even fire them for not falling in line: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-professor-on-paid-leave-after-refusing-to-get-vaccinated-or-wear-a-mask
I think they are probably the unsung heroes here. They knew. They spoke. Some even took their beatings.
I have followed this fellow and he goes through all the latest papers, research and information on COVID policy and he is very informative. I enjoy your posts as well as you know your stuff. Thanks for sharing. http://www.vinayakkprasad.com/
That vaccinated people can't spread it, that children are vulnerable and need to be kept out of school to avoid covid, that vaccinations will protect you from hospitalization, that masking works, that the lab leak theory was racist and couldn't be true. That's just off the top of my head
1. The cdc
2. Our great Canadian governments, that's why kids are and were online for school most of the last two years. Remember?
3. They MAYBE do, but evidence from Isreal, UK, and Denmark states otherwise. And there are many vaccinated folks in the icu.
4. Masks don't work, unless they're high quality and worn correctly. Most people don't.
5.MSM said that all the time
Look, it's clear you feel strongly about this. That's OK. I'm not gonna spend hours looking for articles to cite. But this is a comment thread on a pretty obscure publication on substack. At the end of the day, you're just another sucker like me squawking on the internet. You're not an umpire, or a ref, or the keeper of truth. So, in your words, we're both batting zero in a game decided long ago that we had no real say in from the start
I'll give it a shot:
1. U.S President Biden claimed that vaccinated people can't spread it: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/fact-check-biden-said-vaccinated-people-cant-spread-covid-19-is-that-right/ar-AAPBmfV
He also called it a "pandemic of the unvaccinated", which necessarily implies that vaccinated people don't get infected or transmit it. https://reason.com/2021/12/27/rip-pandemic-of-the-unvaccinated/
Then there's the CDC. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said on MSNBC that "Vaccinated people do not carry the virus – they don’t get sick,”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/cdc-data-suggests-vaccinated-don-t-carry-can-t-spread-virus/ar-BB1f8ofp
Then of course there is the whole implication of the narrative that keeps getting told, that vaccination isn't for you but also is for your neighbours etc., in many different speeches. E.g., Aug 31 in Sudbury when Trudeau said that unvaccinated people ("those people") were "putting their kids at risk, and our kids at risk". You could pick out probably hundreds of these implications that getting vaccinated stops transmission of the virus; the whole herd immunity hope is based on that concept. If vaccination doesn't stop people from spreading it, then even 100% vaccination would not stop it from spreading.
Granted, experts will understand the nuance of "effective herd immunity" depending on whether the % reduction in infection and transmissibility of vaccinated + naturally immune people hits the threshold of R0 < 1. But that nuance is not the public messaging. And, that may very well be impossible with Omicron, especially the BA.2 subvariant: https://englishtimes.uk/ba-2-stealth-mutation-now-halves-all-new-coronavirus-cases-in-denmark-and-quickly-pushes-omicron-aside
2. For kids in schools, I agree that narrative isn't common. But, it isn't unheard of. Some NYC students walked out of their school feeling it should have been remote learning so that they could feel safer: https://nypost.com/2022/01/11/nyc-students-walk-out-of-class-to-protest-covid-conditions/
As a distant "maybe", I'll also suggest that the reasons for closing schools often isn't clear to parents. I have two kids in school, and I don't recall ever seeing an explanation for why they were being run remotely. Of course, I know why because I read "the science" and the recommendations, so I'm aware it is aimed at reducing exposure and thereby spread of the virus during outbreak waves. But, that isn't necessarily clear to many parents, and perhaps even educators sometimes.
3. I'll call out wording and interpretation as far as hospitalization. If you say something "protects you from hospitalization", does "protect" mean "reduce the odds" or "eliminate"? They do reduce statistically, but not eliminate. A lot of people seem to think it would eliminate it.
But, Omicron may have changed that. For example, from Alberta data, scroll down to Figure 11: https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-statistics.htm#vaccine-outcomes
You'll notice that as of Dec 21, non-ICU hospitalizations of two-dose case population rate is higher than unvaccinated, and ICU cases are getting close. (These are stacked charts, so you have to go by the thickness of the region, not the overall height.) Granted, the rate per capita is still higher for unvaccinated, but closing.
Again, there's a lot of misunderstanding out there about what the vaccines do. Even Whoopi Goldberg seems to think, or implied at least, that she thinks being triple-vaxxed would keep her from getting COVID-19 except "it doesn't stop Omicron", as if it does definitively stop the other variants. https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/whoopi-goldberg-shares-update-breakthrough-covid-19-case/story?id=82087338
You have to be careful here, because a lot of people say things, imply things, or indirectly give implications that a lot of the public believes that no formal paper has said. Innuendo is a problem in all directions.
4. Do masks work? This has been debated since Fauci got on 60 minutes on March 8, 2020 and told people emphatically and definitively that they don't work. Then changed tack on April 12, 2020.
Perhaps it pre-dates that to Feb 29, 2020, when Surgeon General Gerome Adams told people to stop buying and wearing them. According to MSN and City News, the best studies say they don't:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/do-masks-actually-work-the-best-studies-suggest-they-don-t/ar-AANfurl
https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence
Because we can't to randomized control studies, it is very hard to make any definitive answer. You can't say it does work, but you can say there are some studies that suggest it does, and some that suggest it doesn't.
I think a better solution is to recommend masks if you can, but be ok with people who don't. It would reduce the harassment of people with medical issues who can't wear them, or other similar harassment, while almost maximizing the potential if they do actually work, with only marginal difference.
5. Who said lab leak couldn't be true? That's easy. Politifact "de-bunked it" and has recently walked it back. They even had it listed as "Pants on Fire". They referred to their conclusions of "fact" being based on "researchers who asserted the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not have been manipulated": https://www.politifact.com/li-meng-yan-fact-check/
The Washington Post also made the claim that the lab leak theory was "de-bunked" and had to walk it back: https://news.yahoo.com/washington-post-corrects-old-article-120642696.html
The BMJ also has an article from July 2021 on this topic of it being debunked, and the media being fooled into believing that. It's actually very important article I think: https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1656
Now, to be fair, I recognized all of those claims from over the past 2 year, and the innuendo and implications, and fine-line claims, and nuance, etc., all lead to an understanding. Since you asked for specific reference, I had to go searching for the specifics, because normal people don't have records of URLs in their head, or necessarily remember who said what exactly when. All you recognize is that you've come to believe something collectively from all of the news presentation of material over years. That's how normal people's understanding works.
I'm sure you are fully aware that these claims were generally "out there" as beliefs, and some people said them either directly or indirectly. The pendant in me gets what you are doing, the lawyer in me applauds it, the scientist in me shakes my head a little but gets it, and the psychologist in me rolls my eyes.
So, the parts of me that get it say thanks for the diligence. But, the rest of me requests that maybe you think about filling in some blanks too. Like, by "this statement" do you mean ... this thing that was misunderstood" and put in your own links. It can go a long way. Just a suggestion.
Here, I wrote a whole article on it: https://adnausica.substack.com/p/who-keeps-on-trucking
Everything is cited, and it's all mainstream.
Kim J also pointed me to this BMJ editorial out 10 days ago: https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o102
So you want details and citations, but keep it short and simple? Challenge accepted, though I going to pick a skyscraper for the ride.
1. The "preached as gospel", at least from Canadian government and/or Trudeau include that more vaccination is what will end the pandemic and mandates and passports are necessary, and that being unvaccinated is being unkind to others and not doing your duty, and even remote working unvaccinated people are more dangerous to be near than vaccinated people in high density areas.
2. The World Health Organization put out multiple statements against vaccine mandates as a "last resort" and put out conditions in a policy on when and how they can be done, which was led by a Canadian bioethics expert.
3. The WHO also put out statements generally against boosters and vaccinating children. Much of this is for compassionate reasons, social justice, marginalized people, equity, etc., in addition to the medical science.
4. The WHO also notes that restrictive mandates are not the best way to accomplish the goal, and reference the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
5. The Nuffield Council also has made statements against vaccine mandates and passports, again on both medical grounds and compassion, social justice, fairness, and equity.
6. After Trudeau starting implementing his federal mandatory vaccination -- based on transmission risk -- Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) produced a statement that there was limited evidence that the vaccines reduce asymptomatic infection or transmission.
7. The vaccine approvals themselves are build with a risk management plan, stating that there are unknown risks and these are mitigated by, effectively, diversifying the risk via individual informed consent and keeping the risk information up to date in the monthly monographs.
8. The official product monographs prepared by the vaccine manufacturers to Health Canada on a monthly basis, including the latest ones from Nov and Dec, still say that it is unknown if they affect fertility, pregnancy, are passed in the breast milk, and cannot rule out risk to the baby, and these should be taking into account.
9. Despite being told these mandates are necessary in Canada, all restrictions have been removed in a large number of U.S. states, UK, Denmark, and soon to be Sweden and Norway. Results so far have not shown any big difference one way or the other.
If you have questions on details, please read the article first.
Elevator talk lol. Might have to take the stairs for these ones. Thanks
So, from your messages I can tell you tend to get unique information that the rest of us don't. That may very well be.
Alright then. Hospitalizations and public health are under provincial jurisdiction, not federal. The federal government is not allowed, by law, to impose regulations on public health that do not fall under their jurisdiction.
This is why, for example, the federal employee mandatory vaccination avoids making any reference to public health outcomes. You can read it here: https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=32694
It makes it mandatory for all federal employees to be vaccinated. In the link I sent, that is only the core version, but each agency has implemented their own copy.
It lists 3 objectives. The first is for personal protection. That's fine, and correct. But, it is well-established under Section 7 of the Charter that the government cannot mandate medical interventions on individuals for their own good. You can read about that here: https://justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art7.html
The second objective of mandating vaccination is to increase the rate of vaccination among employees. It is tautological, with no explanation for why or what purpose that serves. There is a reason for not giving an explanation, of course, because the objective is a public health outcome -- targeting herd immunity -- and public health objectives are not under the federal jurisdiction.
The third objective is exactly what I said: "Given that operational requirements may include ad hoc onsite presence, all employees, including those working remotely and teleworking must be fully vaccinated to protect themselves, colleagues, and clients from COVID-19."
That is, the mere chance that an unvaccinated remote worker may have to come on site is claimed to be a safety risk to colleagues and clients, as compared to an onsite vaccinated worker. This is factually incorrect; an remote worker has a lower risk of exposure and the fact they are unvaccinated means they haven't been allowed into any of the high-exposure areas such restaurants, bars, and gyms, as explained on the Health Canada website.
You'll also note that the "expected results" section does not provide any expected outcomes in terms of the purpose of the mandate, only with expectations about compliance. This is abnormal.
This mandate of course follows from Trudeau's campaign, including his August 31, 2021, speech in Sudbury in which he referred to unvaccinated people as "those people" and said "they are putting their children at risk, and our children at risk". Ignoring that children aren't at risk from COVID-19 relative to other risks in normal life, it is an incoherent statement if he isn't referring to transmission of the virus.
But more direct statements are so common it takes almost no effort to find them all over the place:
https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/covid-19-vaccine-protects-others-too
https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/why-get-vaccinated
https://www.theday.com/article/20211228/OP02/211229542
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/why-you-should-get-the-covid-19-vaccine-to-protect-others/ar-BB1geGFC
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/08/16/fact-check-covid-19-vaccines-work-protect-others/8106810002/
And so on. Explicitly, for those in the Canadian federal government who chose not to vaccinate, they had to undergo a "training" before having their salary cut off. The "training" was an explanation first on how the vaccines help protect you as an individual -- which is true -- and how they can also help other people, and then describes generically how herd immunity works, and then says it *may* be accomplished *if* vaccination conveys *immunity* on enough people. Nothing about hospitals is mentioned.
As far as listening to scientists, I *am* a scientist, and I work with microbiologists working on addressing SARS-CoV-2. To quote a few, "We just don't know." "We'll likely be dealing with it for at least 5 years.". And, with respect to asymptomatic infection and transmission by vaccinated people, "We could all be 'Typhoid Mary' and we wouldn't know it." (This is because the vaccines work. We typically wouldn't know that we were infected or spreading it, and there'd be no evidence of it after we shed it, and we'd never know.
And, I read the journal articles, Health Canada, the manufacturer vaccine monographs, and National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI).
I don't take issue with what the general science or scientists say, because they are filled with doubt, "maybe", "hopefully", and disagreement on details or on best ways forward.
The problem isn't the science; it is the politicians and media who both misinform the public and ramp up fears. They aren't saying what the science says. Most people get their information from the media and politicians, and from others who get their information from those sources. They don't read NACI or Health Canada advisories, or the vaccine monographs, or the journal articles. (This problem is noted in the Nuffield Council's report, and I cited in the article I wrote about it.)
You won't find recommendations for the vaccine passports or mandates in the NACI recommendations. They recommend "offering" vaccines to people. (And, many of the recommendations are "may offer" instead of "should offer", with instructions that alternative choices are also reasonable.) In fact, as I pointed out and cited in the article, the scientists at the WHO and Nuffield Council, and Western U., have generally come out against mandatory vaccinations.
I get that you don't listen to the same politicians and news as everybody else, so hopefully this has given you some insights into the messaging that is going out there, versus what the science and scientists suggest, and that you'll agree these mandates are not ethical or warranted.
Mainly that the unvaccinated pose any risk beyond over-loading hospitals
Your stats support my comment
They might drop by 190. Which is a pretty small number considering the number of ICU beds in Ontario. Not to mention the fact that those unvaccinated ICU patients are likely all or nearly all over 70, and certainly none of them had Covid previously and recovered. So forcing, say, a million unvaccinated under-60s or recovered people to get vaccinated might reduce ICU usage by 10 beds. If you believe at all in a right to body autonomy, you should oppose this.
I don't find it odd at all. I know that ICU admissions would be lower if more people were vaccinated. My point still stands. The only risk posed by the unvaccinated is over-loading the hosptials
No, good ol fashioned Canadian failure
Like Trump was in America in 2016 this protest is an unclean wrecking ball, but it doesn't follow that the disease of which both phenomena are symptoms isn't real and serious. Whenever a population, or a significant portion of it, feels its concerns are being trivialized or ignored it becomes more susceptible to siren voices at the extreme ends of the political spectrum (historical examples abound, and I won't insult anyone's intelligence by citing them here).
So, what are we to make of poor Justin? We can't blame him for having failed to inherit his father's abilities and formidable intelligence, but it's worth noting a couple of salient facts about the latter. Trudeau Sr. was a serious, lifelong Catholic, perfectly at home in a tradition that's quintessentially hierarchical and conservative; yet he governed as a liberal and gave Canada some of the most progressive legislation in its history. Not for him the narrow constraints of ideology: a true original, he always set his own pace and was flexible and pragmatic. This isn't to say everyone agreed wholeheartedly with all his policies, of course, but at least those policies exhibited a grasp of what the real problems were and attempted to address them.
Can the same be said of Justin? Anyone who's suffered through one of his speeches knows the answer. He isn't stupid, but neither does he have an original thought in his head. He's simply internalized every politically correct bromide of his era, and re-externalizes the amalgam like a parrot without, evidently, having subjected it to critical examination even once. Choosing sides between the protesters and the objects of their wrath is probably the best he can do; don't look to him for a nuanced understanding of what funds their grievances and gives them some legitimacy.
In the good old days my parents voted Liberal federally and Progressive Conservative provincially (Ontario), and nobody thought this incoherent. The Liberals were the party of national unity and enjoyed broad support in both French and English Canada (except in Alberta, of course, a virtual one-party state for decades). Ontario's Conservative government spent lavishly in the two areas that really mattered to liberals--health care and education--and created the community college system that has been so successful. No mainstream Canadian politician of the era would have dismissed supporters of another party as 'deplorables.' Every party made an effort to appeal to as wide a range of voters as possible, an approach so seemingly commonsensical that it's hard to believe the extent to which it's fallen out of fashion.
It should be obvious where such reflection leads us. Is it logical to complain of division in a political climate that makes it clear that, whoever wins elections, the losing side can look forward to having zero input into policy, and to having its concerns mocked or ignored? The leadership we need will rediscover the wisdom not just of compromise but of civility and respect for dissenting opinion--and, alas, there's no sign that Justin has this capacity. He 'knows' who the white hats and the black hats are, and every time he speaks he unapologetically offends half the nation.
Trudeau is conveniently in isolation. The wizards behind the cutrain need time to test market the scripts before handing them off to the speech coaches to work with the spokesmodel who plays Prime Minister on TV and social media
Wow talk about a hot topic!!!
A couple of points that Matt missed. 1st is the hypocrisy of the government and the media. Burning churches and minority owned businesses in the name of social justice, fine. Secondly watching the Liberal attack dogs go after them is adding fuel to the fire.
Secondly while I agree there are a lot extremists here the out pouring of support is unprecedented in Canadian history and the Liberals ignore this at their peril. 1000s of people out in minus 20 weather, that's more than a fringe.
As an aside I highly recommend this article on Canada by an American. It explains Canada in a way I've never seen. Better Days, On Canada, COVID, the Convoy, and Class
https://niccolo.substack.com/p/better-days?r=8ahwm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Can't edit but to add one more comment, the media is labelling anyone supporting them as right wing radical nazis, despite the fact the average anti-vaxer is a female Liberal voter.
I would also point out that most of the truckers and supporters aren't anti-vax, but anti-mandatory. And, apparently the WHO are now "fringe" people with "unacceptable beliefs" (and right-wing nazi anti-vaxxers) because they've come against mandates generally: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/vaccine-mandates-absolute-last-resort-who-europe-head-says-2021-12-07/
They have a 6-point policy paper on what is required for mandatory vaccination. Are we following them? Notably, "If such a public health goal can be achieved with less coercive or intrusive policy interventions, a mandate would not be ethically justified, as achieving public health goals with less restriction of individual liberty and autonomy yields a more favourable risk-benefit ratio (1)."
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-Policy-brief-Mandatory-vaccination-2021.1
They reference the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, who put out a statement on mandates and passports: https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/news/a-bioethics-view-on-the-latest-covid-vaccination-policies
“The idea of vaccine passports raises ethical questions concerning respect for individual rights and interests, public health responsibilities and social justice. We are concerned that bringing in passports in relatively uncontroversial areas (e.g. for entry to large events and clubs) could pave the way to passports being required in other areas of life. This, we believe, could lead to discrimination against and a loss of opportunity those who cannot provide proof of vaccine status. It could also exacerbate distrust by marginalised people and increase vaccine hesitancy, particularly if this is seen as introducing mandatory vaccination by the back door or building surveillance apparatus for communities that are already disproportionately monitored.”
You know, those darn uncaring, uncompassionate right-wing ideals like social justice, human rights, and marginalized communities.
Heck, the WHO has even come out against boosters and vaccinating children, based on fairness and compassion: https://www.who.int/news/item/22-12-2021-interim-statement-on-booster-doses-for-covid-19-vaccination---update-22-december-2021
Those monsters.
Aside from this being a great article, this Comments section reminds me of one of the things I most like about The Line. Its readers are sane and can write in actual sentences.
This is the inevitable consequence of moving the goalposts and not providing clear signposts back to normality. I get that the science is constantly evolving (in terms of our understanding of Covid), but our government still approaches this as if it's March 2020. Lockdowns, masks, social distancing, flattening the curve to help out the medical system, etc. were logical and essential in 2020. They no longer are. (I say this as a person who believes in science, who is vaxxed and boosted). With vaccines, oral drugs, monoclonal antibodies and other treatments, we have the tools to resume normal life, even if that normality means an endemic disease (like flu or the cold are endemic). But our Prime Minister needs to get off his high horse and understand that he has the obligation to demand a resumption of normal life. For those of us who believe in the vaccines — and the evidence proving their efficacy is overwhelming — avoiding public places and masking everywhere is both unnecessary and irrational. Justin needs to start guiding us to the off-ramp or there will be more convoys and other eruptions that will get angrier and potentially more violent as time goes on and we're stuck in stasis.
I agree with everything you say- but isn't it weird that we feel the need to state our belief in science, vaccines and boosters when arguing any side in the matter? Maybe nothing, but it's an interesting thing im noticing in comment sections and in reporting of covid.
It's true what you say, but we don't actually debate or discuss anything any more. People hurl a slur at you and that seems to be enough to stop the discussion. Unfortunately, if one questions ANY aspect of the government's approach to Covid, invariably the charge emerges 'You're just an anti-vaxxer' which justifies any further possibility of engagement. That's bad, as you suggest, but in order to pre-empt that, I feel it necessary to add the proviso. Troubling, but symptomatic of the times in which we live.
He needs to stop persecuting people who choose not to get the shot.
He's issuing scarlet letters...
You're so right. I get the feeling that our political masters are kind of enjoying their lack of opposition. And if they are truly leaders then why do they keep saying they're "following the science?"
The health professionals are getting their 15 minutes of fame and they can't let go. Simple as that
Good write up Matt. I think we need a moderate party in this country. The Liberals are too far left and the Conservatives have been swamped by extremists on the other end. There's nothing left for those of us who live in the middle. Problem is, crazies and extremists have unlimited time and the megaphone of social media. Us normal people are busy working and paying the piper. Can't stay like this forever.
I think it's more the way they communicate and constantly try to take a morally superior stance. It's a thing modern leftists do and I think the liberals get painted that way because of how they communicate. Personally, I don't have issues with most of their policies- I just find most of Trudeaus cabinet to be insufferable and Trudeau himself to be phony. Can only speak for myself though
You can speak for me too...
The Liberals allow male rapists to serve their sentences in women's prisons.
As long as their triple vaxxed?
https://quillette.com/2019/10/12/male-bodied-rapists-are-being-imprisoned-with-women-why-do-so-few-people-care/
Two years ago, a lot of non-Native Canadians were up in arms about the Native blockades that were being set up on roads and rail lines. A lot of people cheered when police and ordinary citizens broke those blockades up.
If the trucker convoy sets up a bunch of blockades in Ontario, will the same people who wanted the police to go medieval on the Native protesters be wanting them to go medieval on the trucking protest?
It's entirely possible that some of the white nationalists and Trudeau-threateners end up causing violence, and soon everybody associated with the convoy is going to be tarnished by association. Exactly what measures have the convoy's organizers taken to keep their members from doing anything stupid like that? And what steps are they taking to keep the white nationalists and Trudeau-threateners out of the convoy in the first place?
All it could take is one idiot doing something like attacking a healthcare official or politician, and the entire convoy becomes tarnished by association. Most Canadians are already suspicious of the convoy and don't support its goals. Even in Alberta, of all places, they only get 35% support:
https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2022/01/27/unvaccinated-truckers-freedom-rally-poll-canada/
Not to mention that a number of other truckers are trying to distance themselves from the convoy. According to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, nearly 85% of drivers are vaccinated:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/embarrassment-for-the-industry-not-all-truckers-support-the-freedom-convoy-1.5757952
Oh, and it's worth noting that the U.S. won't allow unvaccinated truckers to cross the border anyway. Even if Ottawa and the provinces repealed their mandates and requirements, anyone hoping to go to the States is going to be SOL anyway.
Good piece. But I'm inclined to give politicians and medical officials a big benefit of a doubt on how the pandemic was) initially handled (no masks, then compulsory masking, Covid not a big deal, then it is). But no government had the slightest experience in handling a pandemic so it's kind of natural that the initial response is made up as you go along. That's how humans work., like it or not. As for mandates, figures would indicate they have helped persuade others to get a jab. And the vast majority of us who are vaccinated like being in places where the unvaccinated can't go, although Gurney is right in saying they can't last forever. I don't know why the truckers can't get it through their skulls that the US also has mandates that truckers must adhere to if they want to cross the border, so it doesn't matter what the feds do. Lastly, the protesters' manifesto would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic that the authors haven't a clue how the country actually operates. Again, a good article and I'm glad I recently subscribed.
“ And the vast majority of us who are vaccinated like being in places where the unvaccinated can't go,”
When these are the sensible “moderates”’you have a massive issue.
Statements like that sure make it seem like less of a public health issue and more of a public shame and blame scheme
Not at all. But personally, I don't care what it takes to persuade people to do the right thing and get vaccinated. The Economist just published an excellent article showing how the imposition of vax mandates were followed by sharp increases in the number of people getting jabbed, not only here but in Germany, Italy and France.
Fair enough! But I think bodily autonomy and free will should be considered sacred. They shouldn't be able to force you to do something you disagree with or coerce people with the threat of taking away their rights.
I wonder who else said things like "the vast majority of us who are x like being in places where the not-x can't go"?
...or short attention spans
It’s sad that the only sane commentary is coming from Stephen Harper (excluding you & Jen, of course.)
According to multiple sources, the immovable object is now in hiding in an undisclosed location.
The news media has not told us who these people are. You would think they are all truckers. Hearing that they are not makes sense. And if they get their clues from the US as all right and left movements have these last two years all the verbiage will be based on the US situation. So expect violence. The federal government has been wrong about everything during these pandemic so expect them to handle this badly.
Overall, which group of commenters here seem more thoughtful, attentive to the evidence, and willing to consider all arguments rationally? The pro mandate side or the pro choice side? Matt, you should consider that question carefully.
It isn't a us or them issue. That framing only serves to deepen division. Empathy on both sides is necessary. The "normal" everyone is so eager to go back to is understanding and respecting different ideas and values. Pitting ourselves against each other only serves the political class
Drawing a line between the common good and individual rights is always very difficult, and in today's "everything is a wedge issue" world things have gotten dangerously violent. We need more dialogue, more understanding and more respect. We won't get any of that today.
And on top of this there is the uncomfortable issue of what the data tells you. The Economist published a story (it may be behind a paywall) showing that in Canada and Europe vaccine mandates actually worked: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/01/22/do-vaccine-mandates-actually-work
As this Omicron variant wave crests and wanes, it would be good to discuss if anyone who could be persuaded or "prodded" to be vaccinated has done so, and if perhaps a good chunk of the 15% that did not vaccinate acquired immunity through infection... then a vaccine mandate is less of a public health tool. Let's public health officers make the determination, not politicians or social media influencers.
What do you mean by working? Getting a few more percentage points at the population level doesn’t mean they’re working. The mandates would actually need to contribute to ending the pandemic to be declared a success in my books. They clearly haven’t done that and their stain will ensure there’s a lingering anger in society for decades.
Hi Frederick, I am simply quoting The Economist here. What they say is this (and I quote verbatim from the article): Four economists—Alexander Karaivanov, Dongwoo Kim, Shih En Lu and Hitoshi Shigeoka, all of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia—ran the calculations. In the week after the announcement of pass-sanitaire requirements, first-dose vaccinations increased by 42% over the previous week; and by 71% over two weeks. They estimated that 287,000 more people were vaccinated within six weeks as a result.
I know those studies. We saw a small increase in vaccinations - most likely in the lowest of low-risk cohorts- from the mandates. Too small and inefficient to make a difference on the pandemic as whole. We could also do a vaccine mandate at schools. That would increase vaccination rates by a huge margin but It won’t achieve anything in terms of ending the pandemic. We need to be ending this thing not stringing out failed strategies because they make us feel good.
Seriously? Just a fringe? Not sure if you are intentionally being dismissive but this anti-vax mandate protest is not more fringe than "Occupy Wallstreet" . (That said, I am leery of protest movements.)
Edited to correct autocorrect.