By Dominique Tassell
Right, here we go. Let’s talk about the vaccine mandate.
Now, I’ve always been quite pro-vax. Straight off the bat, there it is. I got vaccinated the first chance I could.
I was raised getting them, trusting science. Did you know Australia is the only country to successfully vaccinate again HPV? That’s huge!
But I struggle a little bit with my thoughts on the vaccine mandate, because like a Koreelah resident put it this week, it’s all about choice.
Even if you know it’s the right choice, the choice you would have made on your own had you had options, it’s the not having options that gets you. That makes you question whether it’s what you want.
That being said, we always knew we were never going to reach 100 per cent. That’s the whole point. People will always be too young or too old, or have health, religious, or other reasons for not getting vaccinated.
The point was for people who could and were willing to get vaccinated to do so, so we can protect those who can’t.
So it seems a bit…odd to me that we’re putting in place these rules and mandates, because if we hit 80 per cent that’s really all we can do.
We will most likely have an end vaccination rate of over 80 per cent, but at some point, we are going to have to learn to live with Covid-19. Covid will become another flu-like virus we have to deal with, getting boosters every year like we do the flu shot, and this is the reality we have to face.
Having those who are unvaccinated wear a mask around town when borders initially open seems quite logical to me, as they’re the most at risk of catching and spreading the virus.
We don’t want to see locals get sick. More than that, we honestly don’t have the facilities to look after those who get sick.
If you need to go to the hospital due to Covid-19 out here, you will most likely get airlifted to another hospital with the facilities to properly care for you.
It will be very interesting to see how things pan out, and how the meeting goes next week.
I would really like to get a broader view of the community’s thoughts on the mandate, so please let me know your thoughts.
