Right Honourable Adrian Dix,
I was very pleased to hear the announcement today lifting many COVID-19 related restrictions in our province. The lockdowns have been a very difficult time for myself, and many other people in your riding. Permission to do all the activities we were previously barred from, is sure to significantly improve the mental and physical health and wellbeing of British Columbians.
I was, however, very disappointed to learn that the vaccine passport system will remain. I am vaccinated and this will not affect me personally. In spite of the lack of personal consequences, I very strongly oppose the continuation of the passport regulations. I would like to ask you: What is the purpose of the vaccine passport system?
Is it to get more people vaccinated? Vaccines are only valuable insofar as they reduce the spread and prevent our hospitals from being overrun.
Is it to reduce the spread of COVID-19? Being vaccinated did not prevent me, or any of my family members, from contracting the virus in December. We are hardly outliers in that regard.
Is it to keep our hospitals from being overrun? If that is the goal, age and health ought to be taken into much greater consideration. These factors are substantially more predictive of COVID-19 hospitalization rates than vaccination status.
I struggle to conceive of any other honourable reason for keeping the vaccine passport system. The early vaccination push seemed to serve these goals. Omicron, natural immunity, and our province’s remarkably high vaccination rate have changed the calculus for the value of the vaccine passport system.
It is creating a pointless two-tiered society. This system is virtually guaranteed to increase strong resentment in those that have been strong-armed into getting an injection they have serious concerns about and have withstood significant personal costs to avoid. When/if there is a backlash, all of society will suffer. I, and many other reasonable people I know, will be sympathetic to that resentment. The longer this goes on the worse it will be. I worry about what that will mean for our provincial politics in the near future.
So I ask again; what is the rationale to keep the vaccine passport system? Is there a plan to get everyone the right to enter fitness facilities again? To get everyone the right to break bread together at a restaurant again? To get everyone the right to participate in all that our great province has to offer?
Please consider ending the vaccine passport system, as soon as possible.
Nigel Eberding
Vancouver-Kingsway