I am a little more concerned about the immediate threat that the unvaccinated pose to our health care capacity than I am of government overreach. Let's talk about preventing 1000 paper cuts when we are on cut 50, not cut 0.
If the Vaccine works to keep people out of the hospital then 85% of our population over 12 won’t be in hospital. In addition, it is extremely rare kids end up in hospital so we can probably circle that group as well. We can also circle the 90+% of the people over 60 that are vaccinated that took up the vast majority of the hospital beds last winter and the previous spring.
Younger people in the 18 to 29 age group lag behind the rest of the older age groups with respect to vaccine hesitancy. Although that age group can be infected and get sick, it is also the age group with the lowest chance of ending up in a hospital.
Cases, Data, and Surveillance . This would suggest that even though there is still some vaccine hesitancy in Canada (amongst the lowest levels in the entire WORLD), it is mostly amongst the younger people that are the least likely age group to be hospitalized (18 to 29).
This is another good website that tracks current levels of vaccination across the World and can be sorted by Country.
covidvax.live: Live COVID-19 Vaccination Tracker - See vaccinations in real time!
Canada had a late start vaccinating their citizens. But, we are now 14th in the World in Vaccinations per 100 of the Population with 139.37 Vaccinations per 100 (53mil doses as of this writing). We are two days away from reaching 70% of the population fully vaccinated. That is based on our ENTIRE population, not just over-12. For reference, the USA is 111 days away from 70% fully vaccinated at their current rate.
We can dance in circles all day long. People will interpret data differently. That is a given. And, admittedly, there is more data required like number of available hospital beds (capacity) etc that need to be taken into account. The ability to transfer elderly patients to LTC and LTC ability to accept patients. Both of those issues are woefully inadequate and need to be addressed like NOW. THIS is where our focus needs to be and yet the Pandemic is 18 months old and we have done nothing of any significant consequence to repair it. Not many people look at these issues and yet this is what the problem is. Not enough hospital beds per Capital and lagging LTC facility beds available.
Coronavirus is about to reveal how fragile our health system is
As long as we are focused on the us vs them scenario of vaccinated vs unvaccinated, the easier it is for the Wizard of Oz to hide behind the curtain. A Vaccine Passport is another distractor for the real problems this Province and country are facing. Look at it this way, the Government can either invest more $$$ expanding our Health Care System to satisfy the needs of our aging population or it can start the ball rolling on placing restrictions ont he population and force them into restrictions where the population exists to save the Health Care System instead of the Health Care System existing to save the Population.
Based on how politics works, our increased levels of debt and the ever over-reaching arms of the Government, the Vaccine Passport is just a start. Based not he statistics I provided, we really don’t need a Vaccine Passport UNLESS we just accept that our Health Care System capacity is woefully inadequate and we have zero willingness to do anything about it.