What’s wrong with being vaccine-smart?
Commentary by Kevin Cheung, Laurent Leduc, & Claus Rinner - 27 January 2022. Original to the Toronto Moon.
When you hear a gunshot, do you hide or do you go check it out? When you visit a destination in a seedy neighbourhood for the first time at night, do you take the longer road with street lights or a shortcut through a dark alley? When you see two merchants selling a brand product, but one does so at half the usual price, whom do you buy from?
If you need to pause before answering any of these questions, are you being “hesitant”? Or are you being prudent, clever, and “street-smart”?
For months, people who for one reason or another have decided not to receive any of the currently available injections for COVID-19 have been labelled as “vaccine-hesitant”. What is more, they have been ridiculed and vilified by mainstream media with statements which under normal times would be regarded as morally reprehensible and would not have passed through any responsible editor.
Recently, during the US Supreme Court hearing of the case regarding OHSA workplace vaccination mandates, Justice Alito, after prefacing his questions to General Prelogar with a long remark so that he would not be misunderstood for whatever he was concerned about, asked the following, “But is it not the case that … these vaccines … have benefits and they also have risks and that some people who are vaccinated and some people who take medication that is highly beneficial will suffer adverse consequences? Is that not true of these vaccines?”
Is it so far-fetched to realize and acknowledge that the risk attitudes among individuals differ and therefore individuals assess risks vs benefits differently? How can there be a legitimate one-size-fits-all policy on what is deemed acceptable as reasons for exempting oneself from a known risk?
The pandemic data from many parts of the world are increasingly calling into question that the injections are “safe and effective”. As a matter of fact, one can see from the Ontario COVID-19 dashboard that for the past month, the case rate per 100,000 among the fully vaccinated is higher than that among unvaccinated individuals. Hence, the narrative that getting the shot helps protect others and stops the spread does not hold much water, if any. The non-sterilizing nature of the mRNA vaccines and their quickly waning efficacy represent a failed pandemic response. It appears that if one indeed needs more reliable protection, then nothing short of wearing something like a BioVYZR or a hazmat suit would suffice. Yet such an option is hardly recommended by anyone in authority.
In Canada, the belief in the vaccines’ safety and efficacy at preventing severe and fatal COVID is still being upheld. Meanwhile, the American pharmacovigilance system VAERS sends enormous warning signals; the Ontario vaccination campaign continues to harm male teenagers and young adults at previously unacceptable rates; and the blame game has shifted towards a seemingly disproportionate number of unvaccinated individuals in hospital and intensive-care units. But we do not know nearly enough about these patients – reason for admission, age, comorbidities, ability to be vaccinated – to draw any conclusions from their unvaccinated status. Instead, we should leave it to each individual to assess their risk from COVID and weigh it against the risks they anticipate from two or three genetics-based injections.
It is a national disgrace that a country that prides itself on human rights is actively engaging in actions that it would vehemently condemn and denounce in normal times. Instead, we have a leader who resorts to labelling those who are vaccine-smart as “extremists, misogynists, racists.” We have a federal granting agency for natural sciences and engineering research that provided over 2 million dollars of funding to projects for encouraging “vaccine confidence”. We have a public health agency that secretly collected mobile data. And we have a military that saw the pandemic as a unique opportunity to test propaganda techniques on Canadians.
In retrospect, instead of calling unvaccinated people “vaccine-hesitant”, “COVID deniers”, or worse, let’s appreciate that different individuals hold different values that lead them to logical conclusions in their personal health choices. The “vaccine-hesitant” may be smarter than you think.
Anyone who is still convinced that we can vaccinate ourselves out of this pandemic can simply take a look at the recent data from Israel. There, fourth shots are already being rolled out, yet the 7-day moving average of new cases crossed the 60,000 mark several days ago. And that is in a nation with a population under 10 million! No amount of labelling and ostracizing “the unvaccinated” is going to change anything for the better. What Canadians need is a proper exit plan.
Drs. Kevin Cheung, Laurent Leduc, and Claus Rinner are members of Canadian Academics for Covid Ethics.