Much is being written about a possible fourth wave, just as Sudburians are celebrating their new freedoms. We can now hug a friend, enjoy a restaurant meal, leave home safely: only a few active cases in Greater Sudbury and in Health Sciences North.
But numbers are rising on Manitoulin Island and in Ontario as a whole. The Delta variant is upsetting hopes in many places, even bringing back the hated restrictions.
In Ontario, it is not too late to take the steps to minimize the chances of a fourth wave and further lockdowns.
But will our provincial and federal governments act in time? They did not prevent the first wave, the second, nor the third wave. This is scary. It sure scares me.
The province’s back-to-school plan has been released. In-person classes will resume in September. Students will be asked to wear a mask and those with COVID-19 symptoms will not be allowed to attend school. A key requirement is missing from the plan: mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for students 12 and up and for staff. For years, Ontario students have been required to show proof of vaccination for measles, mumps, diphtheria and other contagious diseases, in order to be permitted to attend school.
Young people do transmit COVID to family members even when they are asymptomatic. Given that recent history, knowing that the third wave led to the closure of all in-person education in Ontario earlier this year, knowing that a fourth wave is a real possibility, Premier Ford, what were you thinking when you came up with your plan?
In Scotland, students and teachers are offered rapid tests twice a week. An excellent idea in the elementary school system with no vaccination available for students under 12.
Quebec will implement a vaccine passport system in September in an effort to cut down the threat of a fourth wave, becoming only the second province, after Manitoba, to restrict some activities to fully inoculated residents. The province has reported a rise in cases and hospitalizations.
Ontario has rejected the idea. “We’re not going to have a split society,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said.
Is that fair to the vast majority of Ontarians who have followed your recommendations, Premier, to get vaccinated? I sure do not think so.
A surge in COVID-19 cases in British Columbia is fuelled by those between the ages of 20 and 40 who are unvaccinated or have only had one dose.
Ninety-five per cent of those who are infected either haven’t been vaccinated or have only had one shot. Everyone hospitalized with the illness in intensive care units in the Interior are people who haven’t yet been vaccinated. There is a plan to issue vaccine passports in the coming months.
Alberta is going in the opposite direction. Isolation following a positive test will no longer be required and mask mandates will be lifted in spite of a growing number of infections.
In Italy, a vaccine pass is now required to be served indoors at restaurants and to enter stadiums, museums, theatres, cinemas, exhibition centres, swimming pools and gyms. The pass will be mandatory for teachers and university students and to travel on trains, planes, ferries and long-distance coaches.
The pandemic has become a pandemic of the unvaccinated. The latest data for Ontario found that the unvaccinated made up over 95 per cent of new COVID-19 hospitalizations, intensive care admissions and deaths in the province.
It is therefore very worrisome that 19 per cent of the population aged 12+ remain unvaccinated and 29 per cent if you include children under 12 for whom there is as yet no vaccine.
It really comes down to a tug-of-war between the individual’s right to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine and the right of the community to be protected from the harm caused by the virus. There is a solution: restrict access by the unvaccinated to many public spaces. This will protect the vaccinated from breakthrough infections and decrease the chances of a fourth wave leading to business and school lockdowns.
It will probably also have the beneficial outcome to entice many unvaccinated folks to get vaccinated.
A poll by Nanos Research for The Globe and Mail found that 81 per cent in Ontario want people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 banned from gatherings in public places. The poll does not indicate support for mandatory vaccination, only for limits on the rights of the unvaccinated to be present in “any public gathering that involves people being close together.”
In summary, our provincial and federal government have consistently underestimated the coronavirus and acted in slow motion. Lockdown followed lockdown.
New variants will appear because huge numbers in the world remain unvaccinated. Even in Canada, a leading vaccinator, 29 per cent of the population remains unvaccinated.
Fighting the coronavirus will be a marathon. There are no easy solutions, only better and wiser solutions. Vaccine passports should become the key to entry to many public places, including our school system set to open in less than a month.
Premier Ford, Prime Minister Trudeau, what are you planning? Are you ready for the marathon?
Dr. Peter Zalan is the former president of the medical staff at Health Sciences North, and a retired intensive care physician.
