Vaccine Mandates Can't Be Justified on the Evidence

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Oct 21.

Tough and useless

RE: Ottawa’s vaccine mandates tough but necessary.  Hamilton Spectator editorial 8 Oct 21.

Johns Hopkins University this week released a report on American deaths due to COVID, and said that more people had died in 2021 than in 2020.  More Americans died of COVID under Joe Biden than under Donald Trump.  More Americans died of COVID despite a national vaccination campaign.  Donald Trump had helpers like former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo drive up the death count under his watch, and Trump left Biden a vaccination program that was inoculating people at the rate of one million a day.  Still, more Americans died in 2021 than in 2020.

Alberta’s vaccination rate did not lag far behind Ontario’s, yet both provinces experienced a third and now a fourth wave of the pandemic in 2021.  Ontario’s fourth wave has luckily been mild, while Alberta’s fourth wave has been more severe in terms of hospitalizations and ICU patients than waves two or three.  What is remarkable is that Alberta’s fourth wave was supported by only a quarter to a fifth of the population that supported waves two and three.  Alberta has a 75 percent full vaccination rate, and 84 percent at least partially vaccinated, yet the fourth wave was the worst.  This isn’t what was expected.

The promised herd immunity did not arrive, even with 80+ percent vaccination rates.

These facts needs to be taken into account.  The vaccines, apparently, aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.  They aren’t producing herd immunity.  Breakthrough infections are not uncommon.  Vaccination, therefore, ought to remain a personal decision.  A vaccination does not contribute to herd immunity, to a lesser pandemic wave, or even bulletproof personal immunity.

This is not to say that vaccinates are worthless, but they’re worth a lot less than initially expected.  Vaccine mandates cannot be justified on the basis of vaccine performance.

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