Monday Morning Sentimonies: The Elephant In The Room

Pre-warning, this post is a lot more serious in nature than my normal drivel.

I have hemmed and hawed a lot over the bye week about whether or not to wade into this discussion… well actually the concept of a discussion is extinct in today’s society and all we really do now is yell louder at each other and get frustrated when our increased volume doesn’t immediately change someone’s deeply held convictions. But I digress. There is one topic that has filled the football-less void of our conveniently timed by week… vaccine passports.

Believe me, I would much rather talk about football. We are all sick of talking about this pandemic stuff and I have consciously avoided it because I know many of you come here for content to help you escape the rest of the doom and gloom media you are bombarded with. So I’m sorry and I promise that come Friday I will be back to me normal goofball self (I mean I do have epically bash the province of Manitoba heading into the always heated Labour Day Classic). But for one day only Prophet is going to get serious and talk vaccine passports.

First a clarification. Anyone who uses the term vaccine “requirement” or “mandate” is wrong and intentionally trying to create false outrage. There is no vaccine requirement being contemplated.  Getting vaccinated is a personal choice and vaccine passports will not infringe on your choice in that matter. Vaccine passports are just saying that those who choose not to vaccinate may not be able to do certain things (like attend mass gatherings). No different than those who chose not to get a driver’s license can’t drive and those who choose become certified journey persons can’t do certain trade work because of safety concerns for the larger population. So if you are going to get outraged over vaccine passports then at least get outraged at the right thing (i.e. what you can't do) as opposed to falsehoods (that this is forcing people to get vaccinated).

By now you have probably guessed that I am in favour of vaccine passports. I understand the sentiment of “if people don’t want to get the vaccine then let them get sick” point of view but I currently have 2 major issues with it. 1 – I have a child who is not eligible to get vaccinated so that mentality basically says screw you to him and all kids (at least until they can get vaccinated). 2 – I have family members who work in the health care system and despite being already overworked over the past year they now have to take on additional strain for these “let them get sick” folks (who suddenly want science’s help when they get a disease that they refused to let science help prevent). That doesn’t even get into the higher cost of healthcare we as tax payers all have to burden, a large chunk of which is completely preventable. So if the unvaccinated a driving this new wave then placing restrictions on them that would prevent this from spreading makes a fair bit of sense… just not to our government apparently.

So far 7 of 9 CFL teams have instituted a vaccine requirement to attend games as have many other pro sports teams. Though they are staunchly refusing now, I guarantee that eventually Saskatchewan will too but they will be dragged kicking and screaming and use every stall tactic they can think of to delay the inevitable. Its sad that we are behind Calgary (i.e. the Texas of Canada) and Manitoba (just being behind Manitoba in anything is embarrassing) on this. My guess is that they announce it after Labour Day and that it takes effect October 1 so it only impacts 2 games that were destined not to sell out anyway. Better late than never I guess.

We are at a point where we can’t close our eyes and hope this is all gone when we open them (the prevailing policy direction for politicians on the prairies). But if restricting where the unvaccinated can go will help end this and keep more people from getting sick and get us back to normal at some point, then why wouldn’t we? The alternative is willingly accepting preventable illness, death, strain on our healthcare system and risk of the need of broader lockdowns again. Seems an odd stance to take to me.

Ok. That’s it for the seriousness. I’ll back Friday to talk about how awful Winnipeg is… better start typing now because the list of reasons is a long one.