I haven’t written many blog posts over the span of this whole never-ending Covid 19 pandemic because my busy life has changed to s solitary life at home mostly.
Before the pandemic started I used to go to Restaurants, all kinds of festivals and events and movie theatres. That all stopped in March 2020. That’s what I used to write about mostly on my blog so without the experiences and inspiration and switching to working at home and doing everything on a screen all day and then at night. I didn’t have the desire, urge or motivation to write about anything because there wasn’t anything that gave me the desire to write until this.
On September 22nd in Ontario a vaccine passport will be introduced. This is after Premier Ford said he didn’t want to do it. You know why he changed his mind? Because of the people protesting about their rights and the distrust that people like Donald Trump has influenced over the 4 years of his lying presidency. People are hesitant and don’t trust the government, vaccines, and generally think they are losing their freedoms.
I can tell you right now that you lost your privacy and freedoms a long time ago. If you have a smart phone and credit cards and live in a big city you are already being tracked with every step you make. Look at your phone. It is literally tracking your steps and Geo tagging where you have been. Walking down the street there are now hundreds of camera filming your every move.
What I can also tell you from working in a Trauma Hospital during Sars is that Healthcare workers are all stressed, exhausted, scared and they don’t know how to deal with this pandemic. Cut them some slack. I highly doubt you could do their jobs at this time and not be stressed out.
I can also tell you from working in Government and also many years in Healthcare is that the priority after trying to maintain their budgets is to keep you alive and healthy.
Think about the vaccines logically for a minute. They weren’t really created overnight. There have been pandemics before. They were just adapted for this pandemic. While there is no pill or vaccine in the world that can be provided to people without some sort of risk or side effect the alternative of doing nothing will just cause populations to be wiped out.
The pharmaceutical companies make money, and the government loses money paying for the Free vaccines that you are able to get. The healthcare system loses money if they get overwhelmed with patients and can’t maintain their budgets so people with other diseases don’t get the treatments they need.
Getting a vaccine shouldn’t be political but it has become political because of conspiracy theories.
I get that it’s hard to believe in anything these days and you know that some things go through a marketing spin but talk to a doctor or nurse working in an ICU and they will tell you what they see.
Why I am writing about this on my blog. When the vaccine passports were announced there were protesters attacking restaurants that supported the passports.
I reached out to a few restaurant owners and only one got back to me and said he couldn’t comment because of the repercussions and didn’t want to hurt his business.
Let’s take a look at vaccine passports and the reason we got to this point.
Yes they thought if everyone got vaccinated that we would just open everything again. But the virus changed and people refused to get the vaccine so it kept spreading. Remember that this is a new virus so they don’t have a roadmap of what it will do until after they do studies.
People protesting mask wearing, getting the vaccine and the vaccine passports are just further delaying our return to life without these things.
Yes I got a vaccine and yes I wear a mask in public and will use a vaccine passport if needed.
I totally get that it’s a hassle. I had to go downtown twice to get my vaccine and it’s been an added expense to wear masks and they make my face sweat so bad and it’s hard to breathe but I don’t want to get sick and I don’t want to make anyone else sick.
Some guy online attacked me for a comment when I saw the people protesting the vaccine passport downtown. He said it’s his body. Yes I agree he can do what he wants with his body but then he must stay home and not take the chance of possibly infecting others.
I went downtown yesterday to get something. I haven’t really been able to go downtown on a Saturday for a long time because of the subway maintenance and the lockdowns. I noticed that the subways are getting much more busier and there are I would say about 10% of the people on the subways who do not wear a mask correctly. Wearing it on your chin is not going to prevent anything.
I picked up what I needed and walked up Yonge street and it was a lot busier than it was a few months ago and most people weren’t wearing masks.
I went into the building that I used to work at and went to Winners and that was ok, people were distancing. I got hungry because I only had breakfast so I went up to the food court to see if I could get something. Only about a third of the restaurants were open. I was so hungry and have been craving Chinese Food so I got some Sweet and sour chicken and couldn’t wait to eat it at home so I found a table and started eating. Other than the food court in the mall where I live I haven’t been to one in a very long time. There was a family about 10 plus feet away. They didn’t appear to be eating and I don’t know if they had before but there were 2 kids and one of the kids was coughing and then a woman coughed a couple of times.
Even though I was over the recommended distance it still gave me anxiety. I ate all the chicken then packed up the rest and left.
Now lets get back to the vaccine passports. Restaurants and businesses do not want the hassle of policing them. They have to add staff just to do that but at the same time it takes away their anxiety about their customers and keeps their staff a bit safer. There are no guarantees but the fact that if you have been vaccinated it lessens the risk of getting severely ill. That eases a restaurant owners mind because they are responsible for their employees and they can’t afford to lose them. Many restaurant workers left the industry because the stress and low pay and the addition of so many getting sick from Covid and not having sick days or just losing work because of the closures. They have had to move on to other more stable jobs or I am sure out of fear have chosen to change jobs because restaurants are high risk.
I read one former service worker who bluntly put it that there is a reduction of restaurant workers because of lot of them have died because of Covid.
For myself I don’t want to deal with the vaccine passport but I haven’t really gone to restaurants in over a year. I went to a patio outside on the lake around my birthday and the food court yesterday but I have mostly just been getting takeout.
That isn’t really supporting the restaurant industry much. Patio season is about to end and that has been a small amount of cash flow but with the extreme heat and storms they haven’t had that many great days and when its’ over and if people don’t eat inside again they are all going to start disappearing.
What I noticed on my walk around Yonge and Queen to Dundas was that mostly only the Big chains still exist and you had a choice between a large restaurant patio or fast food take out. A lot of the other little places have just closed up. There are many businesses that were around 2 years ago and are gone now.
Take a long walk downtown if you know the area and see how much it has changed.
I am a person who at one time went to restaurants a few times a week and all kinds of festivals and charity events. I miss that but I do not want to take the risk of doing that now and not because I don’t trust the businesses but because I don’t trust the people attending them.
A vaccine passport won’t take away all the risk but it will add a certain degree of certainty that the risk has been mitigated.
Please do one of the following things:
• Get the vaccine
• Don’t protest restaurants
• Don’t protest the vaccine passport.
• If you don’t want it don’t go to the places that need it.
I would like to return to having the choice to go to a restaurant, movie theatre, food festival without having the fear of other people and the sooner we do all the recommended protocols the sooner we might be able to fight this thing and get it under control.
Remember that there are a lot of kids under 12 who do not have a choice to get vaccinated and they can still get sick. You feel you have a right to do what you want with your body and don’t feel like you have to wear a mask or get vaccinated or use a vaccine passport. They don’t have a choice of who they are exposed to and other than wearing a mask they have no other protection. Would you like to be the person that makes a little kid go to an ICU or even put a restaurant owner with a family out of business?
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