How COVID-19 made Canada comfortable with marginalizing 3.7 million people
The Vax Divide: 'You could practically propose going after the unvaccinated with pitchforks and torches and you'd get support for that'
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Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, one the most unexpected consequences is how quickly Canada became comfortable with the idea of marginalizing millions of people over the issue of whether to accept a government recommended health treatment. As increasingly strict measures threaten to entrench a new unvaccinated underclass, critics are warning that we didn’t even bother to learn who those unvaccinated are.
I worry the ethical approach we have to health care may never fully recover from this
bioethicist Kerry Bowman
“I worry the ethical approach we have to health care may never fully recover from this,” said Kerry Bowman, a bioethicist at the University of Toronto. “Turning against this cohort when we don’t know who they are or how they think, I think it’s awful.”
Punishing the unvaccinated is one of the most popular political issues in the country right now, according to polls.
It’s also true that unvaccinated Canadians are indeed one of the key factors driving the country’s current crisis of overstretched hospitals and delayed surgeries. “The health-care system would not be overwhelmed or at the brink of being overwhelmed if we had a fully vaccinated population,” Peter Juni, the head of Ontario’s science table, told CTV last week.
This week, after Quebec announced that it would be levying a health care “contribution” on its unvaccinated, some frontline doctors urged the public to have more sympathy for the average Quebecer winding up on a ventilator without having gotten the shot.
Two physicians told La Presse this week that their unvaccinated COVID-19 patients included people who were isolated, who lived without internet, who suffered from severe mental illness and occasionally lacked the ability to speak either English or French.
“What scares me is when I read that we shouldn’t treat these people … it stigmatizes people who are already severely disadvantaged,” said Montreal-area physician Marie-Michelle Bellon.
Sajjad Fazel, a Toronto-based public health researcher, told the National Post that the unvaccinated are roughly composed of two main groups. The first is the vaccine hesitant; those who may not be aware of the science or might have good “historical” reasons to be distrustful of the health system. The second group is the much louder and more stubborn demographic of “anti-vaxxers” who “deliberately disregard the science.”
Said Fazel, “policies need to ensure that we do not unnecessarily punish those who are vaccine-hesitant.”
But the limited data on Canada’s 3.7 million unvaccinated points to a group that is disproportionately composed of Canadians who are low income, recent immigrants and ethnic minorities. A July survey by the Black Opportunity Fund, for instance, found a 20-point gap in vaccination rates between black Canadians and the public at large.
“What worries me in the short term is we’re getting the green light from our political leaders to make some very harsh judgements about people even if we don’t have all the facts,” said Bowman.
Like virtually anyone working in health care, Bowman is a vocal proponent of the benefits of immunization. But he said that the Canadian health system has long been premised on the notion of providing care that is unconditional to a patient’s personal situation, be they obese, homeless or an addict.
“There’s no bottom to that once we start making those judgements about people,” he said.
“If you want to be consistent and logical, you should charge all sorts of people for their hospitalization if it’s based on behaviour that they’re ‘responsible’ for,” she said.
Maxwell Smith, a bioethics professor at the University of Western Ontario, isn’t as taken with the “slippery slope” argument when it comes to Canada levying extraordinary measures targeting the unvaccinated.
“Even those who support the use of measures like mandatory masking, vaccination mandates, and vaccine passports consider them regrettable,” he told the National Post by email.
Smith noted that Canada remains in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic that has already killed 30,000 people. Remove the threat of an “acute public health crisis” and “I can’t imagine similar measures would find support,” he said.
If events from the rest of the COVID-stricken world are any indication, however, Canada is likely not done penalizing its unvaccinated.
Said Bowman, “You could practically propose going after the unvaccinated with pitchforks and torches and you’d get support for that.”
Canada’s Vaccinated by the Numbers
Eligible Canadians 5 and over who are unvaccinated (zero doses): 12%
Eligible Canadians 5 and older in each province and territory who are unvaccinated:
Alberta: 15.8%
Saskatchewan: 14.1%
Manitoba: 12.6%
Ontario: 12.5%
B.C.: 11.6%
Nunavut: 11.6%
Quebec: 10.2%
New Brunswick: 9.7%
Yukon: 9%
Nova Scotia: 8.4%
Prince Edward Island: 7.2%
Northwest Territories: 5.6%
Newfoundland and Labrador: 2.5%
Males who are unvaccinated (as of Jan. 8): 18.3% (of total population)
Females who are unvaccinated (as of Jan. 8): 16% (of total population)
Proportion of unvaccinated by eligible age group:
5-11: 60.5%
12-17: 13%
18-29: 14.3%
30-39: 12.2%
40-49: 10%
50-59: 11%
60-69: 4.3%
70-79: .05%
80-89: 0%
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