Covid vaccinations begin Monday
The Covid vaccine has landed and will start to be applied Monday in the west end nursing home Maimonides. Some health care workers will get the shot early, but not all of them want it.
I find it odd that I keep seeing the statement “We can encourage them to take it but not force them to” – why is it not a condition of working in healthcare that you should be vaccinated for flu, Covid and other contagious diseases? When I was a kid, you couldn’t enroll in school without a smallpox vaccination certificate (yes, I am that old). Nobody talked then about “not forcing us to.”
Michael Black 10:43 on 2020-12-14 Permalink
As I recall, the vaccinations were done at school. Refusing was never an issue, though maybe there was an optout.
Kate 11:03 on 2020-12-14 Permalink
Mine wasn’t. I remember being at the pediatrician’s office. The smallpox vaxx hurt, because it’s done with a series of scratches – leaving the scar that everyone over a certain age has on their upper arm.
They did give us oral polio vaccine in school.
Ephraim 12:37 on 2020-12-14 Permalink
It’s likely the same rule that doesn’t allow them to force us to do a drug test or alcohol test in Canada.
What amazes me is that if people actually knew how much vaccinations have prolonged our lives and have kept us from getting other diseases, they would be standing in line.
And don’t get me started on the misunderstanding involving Bill Gates… it’s clear that almost no one has actually read what he said or bothered to even understand the man. The nonsense they spout about the man and Eugenics is sickening.
Chris 13:15 on 2020-12-14 Permalink
There is far more demand for the vaccine than supply. So it’s silly to fuss about people that don’t want it.
JaneyB 13:26 on 2020-12-14 Permalink
I too remember the compulsory vaccinations for school attendance – and there were no charter schools or anything or religious exemptions etc. Vaccines were an unquestioned good – as they still are. I’m constantly amazed that anti-vaxxers even exist. What is wrong with these people?
Kate 14:18 on 2020-12-14 Permalink
Chris, it’s not “fussing” – it’s only reasonable to ensure that the people working closely around vulnerable patients should be immunized.
Blork 16:23 on 2020-12-14 Permalink
I think it shows a fundamental shift in people’s sense of priority with regard to the personal good vs. the common good. Vaccines are a perfect example of this in that they can and do have side effects that can be quite harmful to some individuals (although this is rare) but on a societal/population level they are most definitely beneficial.
But it’s a bit like a lottery; imagine if everyone had to stick their head in a box once per year in order to prevent Aliens from nuking the Earth, and every year one in a million people had their heads explode by doing so. How happy would you be when it was your turn to put your head in the box? And what would you do if you had a choice to not do it?
(Disclaimer: I am not an anti-vaxxer by any means, but that doesn’t mean I am blindly oblivious to the low level risk of taking vaccines.)
Ephraim 19:10 on 2020-12-14 Permalink
Blork are you aware of the other affects of taking vaccines? People who get vaccinations get sick less often, even from diseases not targeted by the vaccine, plus the diseases that you might get while you are fighting the disease. And it also stops immunity memory loss. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/05/08/measles-vaccine-reduces-death-from-other-infections-too-by-preventing-immune-amnesia/
Blork 20:19 on 2020-12-14 Permalink
No need to talk to me like I’m an anti-Vaxxer; I’m not. Just pointing out that some people are wary of side effects and of potentially being the sacrificial lamb for the good of society.
On the plus side, CBC interviewed one of the people who works at a long-term care home in Ontario and who took the vaccine. She said that some of her colleagues were hesitant to step up but that once she and some others did so most of the hesitation fell away.