By Pepper Parr
August 10th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
I keep hearing about the “expected fourth wave” as if it a certainty.
What would make a fourth wave certain? Because not enough people are fully vaccinated – that’s something we control isn’t it.
You get vaccinated – if you’re not vaccinated you can’t enter a supermarket; you can’t go to work.
No one has the right to decide they are not going to be vaccinated when it is now clear that vaccination stop the spread of the virus.
There is a lot of chatter about privacy and human rights. We are all for free speech – but that doesn’t give someone the right to stand up in a dark theatre and cry out Fire! Fire and leave people scrambling to get out.
There are limits.
During the Second World War men were drafted into the armed forces. They may not have wanted to go to war but their country forced them to go.
There were an unfortunate few that chose to desert – when they were caught they were shot by a squad of Canadian soldiers ordered to shoot them
Tough times called for tough decisions. That’s what governments are in place for.
When a restaurant looks like this – you are seeing dashed hopes and a dismal future for the owners and the employees.
A fourth wave will do huge damage to the hospitality sector. Will office workers be able t return to their buildings?
I shudder to think what it will do to the children who will be returning to classrooms in September
I put the following questions to the Chair of the Halton District School Board:
Does the Board have a policy that requires everyone working in a school, whatever the capacity, to be fully vaccinated before they return to work in September?
Will the Board make any exceptions and if they do – what are the exceptions?
Andrea Grebenc was quick with her response:
“The Board does not have the power to do this. We can’t even ask the vaccination status for the COVID-19 vaccination.
“This has to be a provincial mandate. (MMR. Diphtheria, Tetanus are shots that are mandated, but there are exemptions.
“I assume” said Grebenc “that since the Education Worker Unions pushed so hard in the spring for priority vaccination, that we do have a high percentage of all staff vaccinated.
“Halton has one of the highest vaccination rates in the province (83% one dose and 74% double vaccinated for 12+).”
All true and the infection numbers for Burlington look pretty good (if a disease with the capacity to kill can be described as looking good) but the numbers province wide are not good – we are back where we were in June and nearing the 21 day period for phase 3.
The province is going to want to say something positive – difficult to do when many are talking about the expected fourth wave.
These are the numbers from the Regional Public Health Office for Burlington on August 9th
No word either on just what we are going to do once the kids are back in the classrooms where colds are part of the business.
Andre Picard, Globe and Mail columnist who has been doing sterling work on the Covid19 crisis passed along a phrase he got from a colleague who is Chair of the federal Covid19 immunity Task Force who said ”Nasty fall ahead”.
Is this what we are sitting here waiting for that fourth wave to happen?
Salt with Pepper is the musings, reflections and opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette, an online newspaper that was formed in 2010 and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
My comment above contains mistakes and was submitted and run in error. The following is the correct one.
> Right off, there is a built in and well known seasonality in virus transmission factors, cases, and downstream hospitalizations and deaths. In the coming cooler weather, people spend more time indoors, and schools opening are main drivers of transmission.
>
> On top of this is the very high dominance of the Delta variant in terms of infectiousness, transmission, and cases. As of today, August 10, the reproduction rate in Ontario is about 1.2 and in Halton it is 1.4. This reflects the high transmission and infection rate of Delta, and the resulting increase in the proportion of the population that needs to vaccinated to achieve herd immunity to about 90%.
>
> There are a few other things in play here, of which the main factors are (1), the refusal of some to get vaccinated, and (2), the ineligibility of children under 12.
>
> Without vaccinations of this under 12 age group, and an unknown not vaccinated fraction of all in school staff, the fourth wave possible transmission population will be increased. Cases will increase and an added factor of children being infected at home and/or taking virus to the home. This all adds to a seasonal effect in a fourth wave.
>
> Children are being infected already – I saw that in the US 15% of new cases were reported to be in children. I don’t know this factor in Ontario/Canada. Some get sick and deaths are not unknown. Possible long term effects are of concern.
>
> In Ontario there are more than 2,260,000 children under 12. Because this group is not in the population eligible for vaccination, the percent population proportion vaccinated (12 years and above) that we use to judge progress towards herd immunity and opening policy, is biased upwards by a factor of about 1.19 due to this children under 12 population population size not being counted.
>
> This bias factor is even more – at 1.23 – when the adult population size of 18+ was or is used to calculate the proportion of the population vaccinated. This is the population age cutoff that is used on the Halton Covid website reporting 1-dose at 83% and 2-doses at 75%.
Adjusted for the bias factors here for 18+ this reduces the proportion of the total population vaccinated to 68% for 1-dose and 61% for 2-doses.Using the 12+ age cutoff and bias factor of 1.19 this results in proportions with 2-doses at 63% and 1-dose at 70%.
>
> A final factor is opening the border to the US which is having a surging Delta wave with unknown consequences for us as well as them. This illustrates politics and policy making based on out of date facts on a virus that changes things real fast. I guess we will have to see the outcome of this decision that looks like a mistake.
>
> As far as those unwilling to vaccinate I only have contempt as they are moral and societal failures. I think the story from Pepper, and the comment from Ann-Marie say enough and I will not add more, as it all seems so clear.
Right off, there is a built in and well known seasonality in virus transmission factors, cases, and downstream hospitalizations and deaths. In the coming cooler weather, people spend more time indoors, and schools opening are main drivers of transmission.
On top of this is the very high dominance of the Delta variant in terms of infectiousness, transmission, and cases.
There are a few other things in play here, of which the main factors are (1), the refusal of some to get vaccinated, and (2), the ineligibility of children under 12.
Without vaccinations of this under 12 age group, and an unknown not vaccinated fraction of all in school staff, the fourth wave possible transmission population will be increased. Cases will increase and an added factor of children being infected at home and/or taking virus to the home. This all adds to a seasonal effect in a fourth wave.
Children are being infected already – I saw that in the US 15% of new cases were reported to be in children. I don’t know this factor in Ontario/Canada. Some get sick and deaths are not unknown. Possible long term effects are of concern.
In Ontario there are more than 503,000 children under 12. Because this group is not in the population eligible for vaccination, the percent population proportion vaccinated (12 years and above) that we use to judge progress, is biased upwards by about 4% or 5% due to this children under 12 population population size not being counted.
This bias factor is even more when the adult population size of 18+ was or is used to calculate the proportion of the population vaccinated. I wrote here previously on this matter.
A final factor is opening the border to the US which is having an out of control Delta wave with unknown consequences for us as well as them. This illustrates policy making based on out of date facts on a virus that changes things real fast. I guess we will have to see the outcome of this decision that looks like a mistake.
As far as those unwilling to vaccinate I only have contempt as they are moral and societal failures. I think the story from Pepper, and the comment from Ann-Marie say enough and I will not add more here, as it all seems so clear.
Pepper, to answer your question (title of this article), even IN THE FACE OF DEATH, whether it’s theirs or (especially?!) others, people who don’t care continue to truly NOT care. 🙁 I grieve this conclusion beyond all other disappointments that this pandemic has forced to surface.