To live in a free, civilized, and open society requires that we all accept numerous “mandates” every day. From seat belts to traffic lights and speed limits, to no-smoking areas. Oh, but when our collective asses are up against a deadly virus, it’s suddenly about choice? It’s about liberty? That’s nonsense.
I have been extremely lucky to be double vaccinated, yet, I still wear a mask when going into businesses or when I use public transportation, and I avoid having contact with nonvaccinated people.
My family, on the other hand, hasn’t been so lucky.
Three different branches of my family in Colombia have been sick with Covid and one of my aunts died. She didn’t get vaccinated, she was a victim of misinformation from the anti-vaxxers.
At this moment The U.S. and Canada are going through a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
These unvaccinated are a menace to the general public. They inflict upon us the fear of getting the virus, the restriction of movement, and huge damage to the local and international economies.
There are almost as many reasons for vaccine hesitancy and refusal as there are unvaccinated people. I have heard many excuses already, from the divine protection of god to the conspiracy theory that Bill Gates is implanting chips in our head.
The United States is again seeing the number of infections ticking up and unfortunately, Canada is following the same path.
The main culprit is vaccine hesitancy and refusal.
I have friends who are anti-vaxxers, and it hurts me that they are the great reason why we are not going back to a more normal day-to-day life as before the pandemic.
The United States and Canada are some of the few countries with enough vaccines at their disposal to protect every resident — and yet they have some of the highest rates of vaccine hesitance.
There is a lot of talk about a Delta variant, but there many other variants out there. Every infected person, anywhere in the world, offers the coronavirus another opportunity to morph into a new variant. The more infections there are globally, the more likely new variants will arise.
Some are hesitant and may come around with the right persuasion from people they trust, while still others plan to be inoculated but say they have just not had the chance.
Some governments are asking for vaccine passports
As vaccination numbers rise worldwide, institutions from federal governments to the Calgary Stampede are beginning to ask for proof of COVID vaccination as a requirement for entry.
France is requiring a vaccine passport to eat in restaurants or to go to coffee shops. According to the French government, 96% of the 18,000 people in France who tested positive for Covid-19 over the previous 24 hours were unvaccinated.
I am a big proponent of vaccine passport and I think we should implement it as soon as possible.
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