Saturday, July 17, 2021

Anti-Vaxxers and Vaccine Passports

I received my second shot two weeks ago so I am fully protected against the COVID virus. Yes I know there are some limitations but, according to the science, I only have around a 10% chance of catching the virus and if I do then I will have only a 1% chance of having a serious case of it.

What does this mean for the anti-vaxxers? I am a bigger threat to you than you are to me. The statistics are hair raising. Close to 100% of the people dying from Covid are unvaccinated. A similar percentage are the ones needing hospital care as a result of the virus. That means if I encounter an unvaccinated individual and I have the virus, either because I am asymptomatic or it is on my cloths or hands or whatever, and I wind up giving it to the unvaccinated person he is in grave danger. On the other hand, if I encounter a person who has it I am unlikely to contract it and even if I do it will probably just be a mild case.

The stupidity of the anti-vax crowd is that they believe they will be saved by "herd immunity", without them actually knowing what that actually means. Herd immunity means that the instances of a given infection are reduced, not eliminated. It should be noted that only one infection has actually been eradicated, because of a global vaccine program, while many more are still around but not a prevalent. COVID is going to be the latter. It is not going away. It will be with us for the foreseeable future and we are going to learn how to live with it. Those who are vaccinated against it will be better protected than those who are not.

Although the idea of a vaccine passport is a good idea I do not believe an effective one will ever by created. Not that it matters because many businesses are going to require proof of vaccination in order to do business with them. 

Every year my wife and I go to Montego Bay to escape the Ottawa winter for a week. During these trips and during other trips to other warm locations in Mexico and the Caribbean I run across people from the US and Canada who are obviously the type of people who would support Donald Trump or Max Bernier. In all likelihood these folks will be the poster children for the anti-vaxxers and also they will be the poster children for being denied their winter vacations by the tour companies, airlines and resorts.

You see it will be a liability issue for these businesses and a whole host of other companies not in the vacation business. Just imagine if one of these unvaccinated yahoos came back from a vacation down south and developed a case of COVID within two weeks of their return. Those very same yahoos would then sue the vacation companies, resort and airline and if enough people became ill it would be a class action lawsuit. Forget that these unvaxxed assholes bear a large responsibility for their plight they would still receive a good payout from the vacation companies so that they can make any lawsuit go away.

So, to protect themselves, these companies will require proof of vaccination before allowing you to use their services. No vaccine, no vacation. This is going to be true of alot of companies as time goes on. Certainly the anti-vax crowd will complain and some politicians will make a stink over it but when those very same companies then tell those politicians that they will stop contributing to their election campaigns, if they try to prevent the companies from enforcing a "no vaccine, to service" policy, the politicians will back off.

Right now anti-vaxxers are not being vaccinated because they want to own the Libs or they saw something on Facebook or for other stupid reasons. So far most of them have not been impacted by their decision, either becoming ill or being greatly inconvenienced. Once the reality of their decision becomes apparent to them most of the ant-vax crowd will change their minds.

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