Vaccination Rights

Ted Doleman | Jul 21, 2021

We are going to have to decide what type of society we want to live in.

As we see the discussions about vaccine passports, regulation of businesses like long term care, and requiring health care workers to be fully vaccinated they are all focused around the type of society we want to live in. Ironically the libertarians and the extreme human rights supporters are lining up together warning of “catastrophic” consequences if we “force” people to get vaccinated or restrict access to services if they are not. In the middle most people are wondering if the slight restriction of the few are worth the risk, and very high cost, to those in the middle that pay for the very thing these people want to “free ride”. We restrict access to highways to those who pass license exams and have driving records clean of offences like DWI and don’t blink. We don’t let anyone design or build bridges and buildings that aren’t Professionals, we don’t let anyone operate on us or extract our teeth. We jail people who have unprotected sex when they have certain diseases. These are okay, but requiring vaccination, or proof of vaccination, and restricting people from services and employment that aren’t vaccinated is some, including our leaders, a problem. As we see from Florida, that lack of regulation, bordering on libertarianism, results in power grid failures, buildings falling down, and school shootings on a regular basis. Here, we don’t regulate long term care and employees and staff died from lack of PPE that was known. At the heart of this is the rights of a small group to services or oversite worth the cost to the rest of us.

For me the fact that someone chooses to not get vaccinated would stop them from flying, working with our most vulnerable people, going to basketball games were children attend who aren’t allowed to be vaccinated is a no brainer. We aren’t restricting them from food, or lodging, just fun. We provide these vaccinations for free, we have our first responders from our area going to Kingston to vaccinate in public parks, our local pharmacists have given up their time to vaccinate us. All of us that have the means to pay the taxes will carry the burden of this pandemic and I personally have reached that straw point where things will break. If you can be vaccinated and choose not to, I shouldn't be exposed to you when I’ve done my part. You shouldn’t be allowed into jobs, bars, restaurants or social events when variants can breed or innocents could die. And if it is a restriction of your rights, it shouldn’t impose a risk of carrying a variant to my 84 year old relative, my neighbours’ 1 year old grandchild, or anyone else if my vaccine didn’t work.

The minor cost of telling people I’m vaccinated is one that I’m willing to bear.

Ted Doleman