Vaccines, Mandates, and Totalitarianism
What do we owe the unreasonable?
As Canadians our amour-propre has often benefited from comparison with our neighbours down south. We flatter ourselves that we have at least not sunk to their level of political disfunction. Not for us the racial tensions and partisan gridlock resulting in and from ever-heightening polarization. We are a politer, more reasonable people; a society more open to difference and accommodation. We hear out each other’s concerns.
The coronavirus pandemic has shaken us awake from that fantasy. Perhaps unlike any time in Canada’s young history, we find ourselves split into opposing camps: the vaccinated (and increasingly boosted) majority, largely supportive of mandates, and the unvaccinated minority mostly against them. And it’s more and more obvious both sides are talking past each other. Recent Ipsos polling shows 67% of Canadians support further government restrictions on unvaccinated people. Meanwhile, the angrier segment of this target group along with some partially or fully vaccinated supporters who are against the mandates have for months been creating and spreading aggrieved memes on social media, with a focus on “protecting our freedoms” and sometimes warning of a slow descent into slavery to a tyrannical government.
This week, the simmering kettle has begun to scream, with the trucker convoy descending upon an Ottawa in deep freeze. Politicians on both sides of the debate, especially at the federal level, have been more than happy to weigh in. Prime Minister Trudeau called protestors a “small fringe minority… holding unacceptable views”, and said Canadians are “disgusted” by the actions of the protesters. At the House of Commons session on Monday, we were gifted with Conservative MP Candice Bergen calling down the heavens, imploring that protestors just wanted to be listened to and understood. Both displays I’m sure prompted a fair share of eye-rolling.
So what to make of all this? Can a coherent, factual case be made for being against the vaccines or arguing that they are ineffective? Is it reasonable to persist with mandates in the face of all this opposition? Perhaps more to the point, are we coming under the thumb of a burdening totalitarian regime?
The truth is not that difficult to find, though there are certainly attempts to kick up dust-storms along the way. Since we have had reliable data to point to, it has been clear that the unvaccinated make up a disproportionate number of coronavirus hospitalizations, ICUs and deaths relative to their representation in the general population. For example, we see numbers such as for New Brunswick on January 11th 2022, when approx. 61% of those in ICU were double vaccinated compared to approx. 39% unvaccinated. 83.2% of the N.B. population had by that time received their 2nd dose, while 9.1% hadn’t received any dose at all. Posts on social media claiming that numbers such as these are proof of the vaccines ineffectiveness have proliferated and been stubbornly persistent, despite actually making the opposite case.
The clear uptick in the number of breakthrough cases compared to the summer and early fall has given the vaccine-wary yet more dirt to muddy the waters with. Again though, rational interpretation of the known facts makes what is happening clear. Compared to Delta’s 20, Omicron has a total of 53 mutations, and two of the mutation clusters located near the spike protein’s tip (the part of the virus that allows it to latch onto our cells) make it more difficult for antibodies, which we gain through vaccination and prior infection, to protect us. We also now know that the effectiveness of vaccines wanes over time, such that persons having received their second dose in the more optimistic months of summer found themselves much more susceptible once Omicron appeared. These two factors go a great distance in explaining the explosion in breakthrough cases.
So as is increasingly clear, getting your shot greatly decreases the chances that you will end up in the hospital. This comes at a time when nurse shortages and lack of hospital beds are stressing a health care system overrun with covid patients. Yes, the vaccines slowly wane in their efficacy over time, and variants may require updated versions of the shot being produced to combat them, but this is not unlike our yearly flu-shots. Vaccines have been nowhere near the great failure that some would have us believe, and have actually saved our health care systems from being much more stressed than they presently are.
The truck convoy protest leaders have in their messaging shrewdly steered away from the vaccinations themselves to focus on the mandates and restrictions. “The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” So reads section 1. of the charter, foreboding a difficult legal climb for complainants. What’s reasonable is a matter of opinion, and it seems not unreasonable that Canadian Supreme Court justices, in exercising judicial oversight, will side with the federal and provincial governments who argue that excess covid hospitalizations are pushing the health care system to the brink of collapse. The only living first minister who participated in the constitutional process for the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms is suing the government for imposing flight restrictions, but he will likely lose.
Despite now interim conservative leader Bergen’s pleas, it remains unclear what further listening and understanding would accomplish. Vaccines work and mandates are needed to protect our health care system.
Those paying attention to anti-vaccine and anti-mandate sentiment for the past few weeks can’t have missed the feeling of disconnection at times. The coopting of opponents’ effective attack lines has sometimes rung a bit too hollow; the mirroring of former government talking points gone wrong has seemed a bit too empty. You can already tell their next Jedi mind trick is going to be giving the convoy protestors credit when restrictions start to ease, as if those weren’t going to relax anyway after the Omicron surge abated. And like the rest of their inaccuracies and falsehoods, it will be repeated and repeated and repeated until any contradiction seems like madness. This will continue to be combined with a self-righteousness that honestly can be found from supporters on both sides of the issues. But let there be no false equivalence. Self-righteousness in the service of truth is merely annoying. Self-righteousness decoupled from objective reality, on the other hand, is in our present context frightening and dangerous.
Something sinister is afoot. Despite our impression of Canadian immunity from the current American malaise, many of the same poisonous symptoms can be seen sprouting up on social media and on the streets of Ottawa. Bubbles of misinformation and grievance thrive on Facebook, Instagram and more conservative-friendly apps and websites. Politicians rush to curry favour with the hardline elements producing, consuming, and parroting this misinformation. Those representatives found wanting are promptly devoured. Meanwhile, protestors and their supporters appear increasingly resolved to achieve goals which to most will appear as insanity, and so polarization is only aggravated further.
Yes, the convoy protests have largely been without incident, and yes, legacy media along with the prime minister sometimes seemed a bit too eager to point out the exceptions. Agreed, the government have often sacrificed the complexities of truth in their rush to achieve mostly worthy ends, especially in the early stages of the pandemic. But the anti-vaccine, anti-mandate crowd has taken that wrongheaded approach and turned it into their modus operandi, to be wielded with righteous glee, facts be damned.
Budding authoritarian movements can be expected to encourage mindless emotion which takes no heed of the facts. What we owe those making unreasonable demands is our alert attention. To neglect this responsibility sets us on America’s alarming path.
Nice article!!