October 13, 2021

Vaccine mandates, a controversial policy that has added to the division in our world. Quebec was forced to delay the mandate they introduced last month. 

I was surprised to see that so many health care workers and public employees have refused to get the jab. Refused to be vaccinated. Some have not refused, some have just not bothered. Why not?

It has become a battleground in the coronaverse. I never expected that we would be here. I’m sure if two years ago someone had said that we would be fighting a pandemic and each other in October 2021, I would have asked what sci-fi movie they were watching.

It is no science fiction movie.

It is real.

And it is dividing our society and our country in ways I never would have thought. I was in favour of the idea of the mandate. If you are a healthcare worker you should be vaccinated, full stop.  But if over 14000 people in Quebec are willing to give up their livelihood because they don’t agree with getting the jab it gave me pause for thought. 

Maybe it’s like trying to get my teenager to do something she doesn’t want to. If I try to force the issue she digs in her heels and says no… But these aren’t teenagers they are grown adults working in healthcare. 

Is the approach that bad?

What else can our government do to convince people that the vaccines are safe, that they are there in the interest of the greater good? I fully support the vaccine as a way out of the pandemic. So do 93 percent of the healthcare workers in Quebec. Along with 80 percent of the population at large.

How can we unite and come together to get out of this nightmare we have lived in for the last eighteen months? 

Certainly not by forcing people to get the jab. Yet convincing them isn’t working… I have some friends that refuse to get vaccinated. People that I respect and see as intelligent good people. People that don’t trust the system, don’t trust the health care professionals. I wish I could convince them that vaccines are the way forward. The way out of the pandemic.

I see it as the way to defeat the viral foe.

But not everyone does. What is their plan? I would like to know. We are in a free country and they have the right to their opinions. They can stay home and stay away from places where people gather. That is their right. 

It is also the right of the government and places of business to require people that work there and enter there to be vaccinated.

Who is right?

I just want the division and fear to end. 

So in Quebec, they have no choice but to listen to the thousands that have not been vaccinated, to give them more time. But the line will be drawn and time will run out, and then what? Does Quebec run on limited resources, does the rest of our nation? 

Is there a better way? 

I’m sure there is a better approach. But what is it? What do the unvaccinated expect? When places like Alberta and Saskatchewan have their healthcare system overrun by unvaccinated patients filling ICU’s what are the healthcare professionals supposed to do? 

So many questions and so few answers. 

We are so close to the end of the pandemic, I only hope enough people can gain the trust and take the jab. I hope that they will be ok. 

I hope we can emerge from this without being ripped apart.

I hope…