COVID patients need help much more quickly
Re: 鈥淪top the shaming of the 颅non-vaccinated,鈥� letter, Sept. 9.
I was bemused by the writer of comments regarding shaming of the non-vaccinated and questions as to why we do not shame smokers, drinkers or the obese as they clog up the medical/hospital system.
There are two vast differences in that comparison.
Firstly, the foregoing people all suffer from addictions over which they apparently have no control. The vast majority of those opposed to being vaccinated to protect themselves, their families, friends and society at large are merely addicted to stupidity.
Secondly, it usually takes years for people suffering from addictions to smoking, alcohol or food consumption to require hospitalization.
Those that contract COVID-19, particularly the latest variant, may require hospitalization within two weeks after exposure and contracting the virus. It is obviously an invalid and thoughtless 颅comparison.
Hillerie Denning
Sidney
Many reasons we don鈥檛 shame other people
Re: 鈥淪top the shaming of the 颅non-vaccinated,鈥� letter, Sept. 9.
The letter asks why so many other letters 鈥渢ry to shame those of us who do not want to get the vaccine,鈥� and suggests that we instead shame smokers, drinkers and the obese for chronically overloading our health-care system.
Here鈥檚 why:
When smokers, drinkers and the obese are hospitalized, they pose no health risk at all to the skilled doctors, nurses and support staff who do their best to care for them, or to any other patients or their families.
They do not take up ICU beds for weeks at a time, making them 颅unavailable for people who have waited in pain for two years for a knee replacement, or 颅people urgently needing surgery for 颅cancer, or immediate care for 颅life-threatening injuries.
They do not make it impossible for people to say goodbye to their loved ones because of the risk of deadly infection throughout the hospital.
They do not demonstrate outside hospitals, block emergency entrances or shout obscenities at health-care workers in fits of self-righteousness.
Finally, most smokers, drinkers and obese people are well aware that their health problems are self-inflicted and have at least some degree of shame, self-loathing and regret over not having made better choices earlier. They are deserving of our compassion.
None of them were ever offered a simple, free, proven, effective remedy to prevent or at least minimize their condition. Had they been given the choice, how many would have refused it simply because they 鈥渄id not want it?鈥�
Carol Hall
Denman Island
Just suck it up and get a vaccine
Re: 鈥淪top the shaming of the 颅non-vaccinated,鈥� letter, Sept. 9.
The difference between the 颅non-vaccinated and smokers, drinkers and the obese is that the latter only harm themselves when they compromise their health.
The non-vaccinated conceivably can spread disease among all they meet, 颅causing not only illness but death among the population.
Unless one has a medical reason to not be vaccinated it is time to 鈥渟uck it up, princess鈥� and think of the greater good here, get vaccinated, save all those under 12 and the medically vulnerable having to go through this unnecessary and terrible illness.
Also, let鈥檚 give our wonderful health-care workers a well-deserved break.
Pauline Hedger
Saanich
Sending others to the hospital
Re: 鈥淪top the shaming of the 颅non-vaccinated,鈥� letter, Sept. 9.
Ridiculous comparators! What this contributor doesn鈥檛 seem to comprehend is that her behaviour can send many healthy people, needlessly, to the hospital.
Unless she has an underlying bona fide health condition that prevents vaccination, she remains an infectious missile, a vector and a spreader of a disease that is completely preventable.
Her tragic and troubling rationalization can only be described as selfish, a struggle to find some logic for her own flawed decision-making. Sad indeed.
John Stevenson
Victoria
Stop playing games about this coronavirus
So enough is enough. It鈥檚 time to quit playing games and bring the big stick for the brainless idiots who think COVID is a joke.
Next time that there is a protester or a group of protesters who are out in 颅public without a mask or a vaccination, the police should march them off to a holding centre and put them under quarantine for two weeks.
If it takes an arena and 5,000 cots to do it, so be it! If they need help, bring in a couple of platoons of armed forces in 颅battle gear. But get them the hell out of the public鈥檚 face.
Without these anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers, we would be in great shape in sa国际传媒 and able to live a normal life. This idiotic minority is ruining it for the vast majority of British Columbians.
Put them in an arena and give them a choice of how they want to get out. If they want ivermectin, sell it to them at the retail price at a government booth in the arena.
If they want bleach, sell that to them as well. If they want hydroxychloroquine, well, if it鈥檚 good enough for Trump it鈥檚 good enough for them. Sell it to them at cost.
After all, it鈥檚 their body and they have the right to put anything they want into it. But if they choose those remedies they still must spend two weeks in close 颅contact with the rest of the idiots!
If they want out, let them make that choice. All they need to do is agree to have a proven and safe COVID shot and they are out the door, if they agree to have their second dose when it comes due.
Maybe if we go this route it will open sa国际传媒 again and us smart folks can have a normal life again.
Dave Truesdell
Ladysmith
Invisibles among us putting us at risk
Having read many of the COVID-related letters in the paper lately, I see many people share my concern about the 颅anti-vaxxers. Most disturbing is that there are people on both sides, poles apart, who use vicious rhetoric against one another.
For a mild example, it may be tongue in cheek to say the anti group should be sent to Florida or Texas, but I think it鈥檚 unfair to blame their bullying strategies on the Americans, as if Canadians who act outrageously require any coaching.
Another writer suggests that the anti-vaxxer group will implode by herd contagion and therefore should be free ranging. Not a happy thought for either side!
My view is that we, the vaccinated, should not vilify the unvaccinated, but at the same time they should not put us in jeopardy through their invisibility. So we have a problem that lacks a solution.
Just when our medical people have told us to relax because of easing of restrictions, these invisible others are determined to thwart our right to feel safe anywhere except with trusted friends upfront about their vaccine status.
G.M. Jackson
Victoria
Vaccine passport part of an oppressive regime
British Columbia is implementing a 颅vaccine passport with the need to provide additional proof of identification to prove it is you who owns this information. Other provinces are doing the same.
sa国际传媒 has gone to war because of tyranny, dictatorships and oppression for exactly the same issue.
Canadians have demanded that sa国际传媒 intervene in a country鈥檚 affairs because of these issues. sa国际传媒 has spent billions of dollars, and sent its Canadian Armed Forces into harm鈥檚 way with a good 颅number paying the ultimate price for this endeavour.
We have enjoyed a very good quality of life, people from around the world want to come to sa国际传媒 because of this, but with the prevailing government and industry mindset, how can we now say that we are a bastion of rights and freedoms?
We in sa国际传媒 are forced to provide paperwork to enjoy our rights and freedoms, and without doing so, cannot enjoy this country that is being heralded as a 颅bastion of freedom for all.
The government has proven that its citizens will vacillate and accept an oppressive environment. Even doing everything the government has requested/demanded over the past 18 or so months, there is no end in sight, ergo, no hope. Sept. 13, 2021, will be a sad day for all of us.
Papers, please.
Ernest Nash
Saanichton
How you lock the car might make a difference
The issue about car alarms on ferries, I聽suggest, is that in spite of having good intentions not to drive fellow passengers (and dogs) crazy, drivers aren鈥檛 aware that by using the keyless fob to lock the doors they are setting the alarm.
We all do this as a matter of habit, of course 鈥� walk away from the vehicle and hit the remote to lock the doors.
Every car manufacturer is different, but on my vehicle the doors can be locked and the alarm not activated by using the lock switch on the door handle before closing the driver鈥檚-side door.
Nicola Komlodi
Oak Bay
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