My Opinion On COVID That You Didn't Ask For

Sigh. Probably the most talked about and divisive subject right now is COVID and the pandemic. Do you believe in the illness, or is it a hoax? Do you believe in masking? Do you believe in vaccinations? Do forcing those on people violate people's rights? When sharing my opinion, please keep in mind it is just my opinion, however my opinion does come from having a mother in a nursing home with dementia and having now worked for three months for Community Health Centres.

Let me start by saying I do not trust our government, or any government in the slightest. As a Black, Bisexual, French speaking Woman, the government has never been my friend or really on my side (that being said I will acknowledge that Canada, though it has work to do, is still a pretty decent place to live and I'm not trying to move out of the country). I always felt the government served white elite people, was sketchy and self-serving and that politicians were only ever doing the minimum of what was asked of them to pander and get votes as opposed to what would actually benefit society. Unfortunately what would most benefit society is a revolution where we dismantle the entire system, but I digress. I do completely believe that this pandemic is real, that COVID is real, and that an alarming amount of people died. Could the illness be created by a government to help the elite and big box companies, and control the population? Maybe. Anything is possible, but I was also never going to risk believing it wasn't real and causing my family to become ill. 

I really think that the pandemic went sideways when the government was more concern about the collapse of the economy than the people dying. Had the federal government overruled what each province was doing, truly closed everything for a few weeks or a month to "flatten the curve" and had more severe regulations at the start I don't think we would be here now. Too many big box stores stayed open and there was too much back and forth between locked down and not locked down in most places for this to have ever ended successfully or any other way other than vaccines. I think we could have eradicated and ended this illness faster had everyone cooperated better from the start and if the government hadn't made it so political from the start. Again, this is just my opinion and I'm certainly no expert.

Now, a lot of my readership and the ones I see complaining the most about masking and vaccines happen to be from NB. I'm not sure if it's because you were hit the least that you feel it isn't as severe or real, but coming from Ontario I can confirm just how real and scary this pandemic has become (and in all fairness, I had it pretty good while staying at my dads and being able to work through the pandemic). As I've mentioned on social media my family did catch COVID and I heard and saw the health repercussions, which weren't insanely severe because everyone was healthy but it made it even more real to me. I will also put on record I have been tested 7 times and they were all negative, hallelujah. As soon as the government failed at having stricter regulations, I figured masking would become mandatory. As someone who believes this illness is real, I agreed with the move to do so because I could see in Ontario how dense populations were becoming hotspots for this illness. 

I am also unsurprised that the vaccine is becoming mandatory, and yes I am fully vaccinated. I do have friends on my Facebook who are advocating for choice, who don't want the government to force them to get vaccinated and some who believe the vaccine is essentially poison. I do truly hear the argument about choice. While I believe in vaccines and their science, I wouldn't want someone telling me what to do with my body or my children's if I had some, which is why I am pro-choice for abortions. I don't really have a counter argument, but what I will offer is the scenario I was faced with while in New Brunswick. I am fully vaccinated, therefore the last week I was home I was allowed to take my mask off in the nursing home to visit my mother. I had spent the week socializing with friends, eating out, going on hikes and while I checked that the majority of them were double vaccinated, in public places you're never going to know for sure. I am then faced with the decision of going to the nursing home, not knowing if I've contracted this illness and removing my mask to talk to my mom. In all honesty, I never took my mask off except for our photos and one meal from Deluxe together in 11 visits. I was too afraid. What if going for nachos would result in my mom dying somehow? So if I agree with being pro-choice to vaccinate, how can I ensure I am not exposing myself to people who may have contracted COVID and are asymptomatic, or don't know they have it? Do we make a list? Do we make them continue to wear masks? When I was on my plane to Moncton, the 15 year old kid beside me asked if I was afraid of COVID (as he had been unmasked in Alberta). I'm not afraid of COVID, but I want the world to get back to normal, and I don't want to be afraid that living my life will result in my mom dying.

The other reality not a lot of people talk about is how the homeless, poor and essential workers across the country have been disproportionately affected. A lot of those populations don't have homes to isolate in if they contract it. Maybe they can't even read or fill out forms to get tested or vaccinated, or have health cards. A lot of essential workers have to be working while vaccine clinics happen and can't leave work or get paid time off to even get vaccinated. I never got vaccinated for myself, I got it for my community. I believe this illness is real and I truly believe it is a privilege to be able to refuse it, to know you have enough health care and sick days to catch COVID, a house to isolate in, friends and family who can drop food off for two weeks while you quarantine. I ended up quarantining for one month and my biggest hang up was being bored of Tik Tok. I already wrote a blog about how COVID taught me compassion, but for me, realizing how this would impact my mom, my older family members, my immunocompromised friends, the homeless and elderly I encounter while in Toronto, those are the people I got vaccinated for. I believe until more people get vaccinated there will continue to be stronger and worse variants. Maybe in NB it feels like it won't really affect people because there's a smaller population, but people will visit NB and bring illness back to their provinces and this shit storm will never end.

And while I do want this blog to be uplifting, a few Facebook posts I've seen that are trash:

CERB/CRB is making people unwilling to work! - No one ever wanted to work but maybe if you gave people a better wage than the government's subsidy they WOULD. CRB is barely a liveable wage.

Unvaccinated people now have less rights than pedophiles because we don't ask them for passports when entering locations! - the sex offender registry exists, let's register all unvaccinated people so I can see who not to hang out with?

Stores forcing masks infringes on my rights! - technically no, each store is privately owned or on private property and they can in-still any rule they so choose like no shirt, no shoes, no mask...no service.

We don't ask our servers and waitresses for medical history when they serve us food! - That's not how those illness work, also maybe let's try to change work culture so people don't feel they have to work while sick with the common flu just to make ends meet instead of vilifying the health care system.

You don't know what's in the vaccine! - Nope. Didn't know what was in the one I got for meningitis either, or my tattoo ink, or the drugs I took that I saw the majority of the people posting this also taking in clubs.

I doubt one blog post can really influence someone's thoughts on health and make them get vaccinated, but if I can get one person to even understand that it's about your community, protecting other people and trying to move on from this, then maybe I've done a good thing. I've been vaccinated since April and I had zero side affects, no weird menstrual changes, no third arm grew.

No matter what side you are on, I think we need to realize that we are all in this together, this being the world and life. Politicians won't help us, the government won't help us, but maybe we can all help each other if we work together. Stay safe.