Montreal City Weblog

Kate 09:06 on 2025-05-19 Permalink Reply  

• Taylor C. Noakes 16:10 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

  I recognize there’s a possibility this person may not know they’re a carrier, or may not know they’re not vaccinated, but I don’t think it’s likely.

  In cases where it could be proven that an individual knowingly isn’t vaccinated and/or was spreading a communicable disease, there needs to be fines, community service, probation, prison – some kind of deterrent. Measles can kill. If it’s known than this is extreme anti-social behaviour.

  Measles was eradicated in Canada in 1998 thanks to education and strong public health measures. Now it’s a problem again because our society tolerates pseudoscience and ‘personal choice’ over what’s best for everyone. It’s revolting.

• Daisy 16:27 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

  Why don’t you think it’s likely they didn’t know? I came back from a vacation in Europe 10 years ago infected with measles and didn’t know, so I took the metro, went to work, went shopping, etc. You are contagious well before you have any symptoms. And as far as I knew, I had all my childhood vaccinations, since my parents weren’t anti-vaxxers or anything. When my mother finally found my vaccination booklet, it turned out I was indeed vaccinated for measles, but only one dose, which was normal practice at the time.

• Chris 16:37 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

  >In cases where it could be proven that an individual knowingly isn’t vaccinated […] there needs to be fines, community service, probation, prison

  It’s not illegal to be unvaccinated. We don’t fine or imprison people not breaking laws, thank god.

• MarcG 17:06 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

  Here’s an excellent video about how we eradicated smallpox.

• Taylor C. Noakes 17:46 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

  @Daisy – fair point. If this province can figure out a way to ensure everyone has access to a physician and get at least one annual visit with a GP, reviewing immunization records and ensuring they’re up to date should be a minimum requirement for patient and public health. This is exactly the kind of information that should be kept by the government in a centralized and updated database

  @Chris – granted, but maybe we need to change how we think about this? It’s perfectly normal in our society for people to be expected to take all kinds of precautions for the greater good, and these are enforced with various penalties. You can’t drive a car without taking lessons, having a license, insurance, wearing your seatbelt, and not being inebriated. You’re not supposed to cross the street against a red light or outside of a crosswalk either. We don’t send people to prison for jaywalking or not wearing a seatbelt either, but our society does employ penalties as much as incentives to encourage socially acceptable behaviour.

  Swap out ‘AIDS’ for measles and I don’t think there’d be much reasonable opposition to enforcing immunization. If Ebola was naturally occurring in Quebec I think the government would have good reason to enforce the use of Ebola vaccines. It seems so odd to me that our society seems prepared to make big exceptions on vaccines against viruses and diseases that impact the most vulnerable segments of society – the elderly, children, and the infirm – when we have ample scientific evidence proving the efficacy of mass immunization.

• jeather 20:19 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

  It shouldn’t be illegal to be unvaccinated. It should be much harder to attend school or daycare or summer camp without vaccines, though.

  For measles, you are usually infectious four days before the rash appears, so probably most people don’t actually know what they are sick with at that point.

• H. John 01:37 on 2025-05-20 Permalink

  Chris wrote “We don’t fine or imprison people not breaking laws, thank god.”

  @ Chris I understand the point you’re making, but unfortunately you’re wrong.

  Before we had the Charter of Rights, every Canadian thought they had the equivalent of American Miranda rights (i.e. you have the right, etc…), thanks to U.S. drama on our TVs. As long as people don’t actually understand our current system, the people who don’t do well in it, are more risk; and our ignorance is a serious problem.

  According to current estimates somewhere between 70 and 80 % of people in Canadian jails are waiting for their trial.

  So we clearly do imprison people that we think put us as risk.