Thought of the Day - January 19 - Vaccine Choices

While the allocation of the initial wave of vaccines across Canada has been well articulated; we didn't resort to a lottery like in the movie Contagion. However, the "devil is in the details".

On the one hand, I have a friend whose father is in a care-home in New Brunswick. The care-home had a recent outbreak in one of its buildings (there have been two deaths so far). Much to her chagrin, rather than the vaccination program being accelerated at this location, vaccinations have been halted (my mother is in a home with the same company in a different city in NB and she is receiving hers this week). The provincial health authorities stated the reason for this action is that the manufacturer "advises against administering the vaccine to anyone currently experiencing the virus" - not surprising as the vaccine was never marketed as a therapeutic. However, her father is being testing twice-weekly and has no symptoms what-so-ever, so is not "experiencing the virus". But the fact remains, despite being in a very-high risk situation, he cannot get access to the vaccine.

On the other hand, with talk of "vaccine passports", the choice for others not to get vaccinated may also be off the table. Even if you have had the virus, and thus should be immune, you must be injected. While this has not yet come to a head, as it will be many more months before the backlog of those eager to be vaccinated can be addressed, this will certainly be a contentious issue by the summer.

As I have mentioned before, one of the main reasons the "western world" has been hit so hard by COVID-19 is that people have significant personal freedoms. Up until this point they have had the right to choose, whether to use the COVID tracking app (in all provinces other than BC anyway: Thought of the Day - November 30 - BC's Contact Tracing App ), whether to take non-essential trips (like a number of our politicians: Thought of the Day - January 4 - How COVID Changed Politics ), whether they protest current restrictions etc. Other countries, some might refer to them as regimes, have taken a different route; there, what is best for the many outweigh the personal rights of the few. And to be honest overall they are actually doing far better in preventing death from COVID.

The paradox for us it seems, in the case of the vaccine, is that personal choice may be a thing of the past.

Cheers

Cliff