All of this editorial 1000 times. We’ve said a bunch of this here already, but it still needs repeating. Plus it’s good to see governments coming around to the idea that you can’t always be nice and simply rely on people to do the right thing. Sometimes you really do need to slap some fuckers around a little for the sake of the greater good. If the government isn’t going to take important steps to protect us during one of the worst times of our lives, then why do we even have one?
A few choice cuts.
Reason hasn’t worked. Statistics haven’t worked. Pleading, begging, scolding and shaming haven’t worked.
Those refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19 are doing great harm to the majority of responsible citizens, to Canada’s health-care system, to the overburdened men and women who work in it.
It is their irresponsibility that is largely to blame for the restraints under which Canadians are currently required to live.
It is no surprise, then, and largely to be applauded, that exasperated jurisdictions from Quebec to countries in Europe have opted to raise the cost of demonstrably anti-social behaviour.
The responsible majority of citizens are fed up to their locked-down ears with the tail wagging the dog.
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Some of those frustrated with the intransigence of the anti-vaxx minority propose cutting them off from all social services. That would be too extreme.
But there’s no human right to the pleasures of life — to entertainment, libations, recreational drugs — and requiring vaccination as the price of admission is entirely reasonable.
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But right now the responsible majority are paying an enormous price for the stubbornness of the recalcitrant – and it is not the former who should be asked to make endless accommodations.
O’Toole should understand that to give comfort to the unvaccinated is to support the ongoing necessity of lockdowns.
Epidemiologists have already called this “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” – a minority about five times more likely to be infected, 10 times more likely to end up in hospital and 25 times more likely to end up filling scarce ICU beds.
The majority of people who “did the right thing” and got vaccinated are effectively being held hostage to the selfishness of the few. At this point it’s entirely reasonable to raise the price of irresponsibility, and make life more difficult for those who won’t get their shots.