Challenging hate of "the unvaccinated": An imperative for sustainable post-pandemic recovery
Extended abstract accepted for presentation in session on "The COVID-19 Pandemic Response: A Reappraisal" at the 2024 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in June in Montreal
The Canadian Sociological Association invites Congress 2024 presentations under the theme “Challenging Hate: Sustaining shared futures”. In response, I offer my reflections on the hate that Canadians, who declined the COVID-19 vaccines, i.e. “the unvaccinated”, were exposed to in the last three years. I will illustrate how the news media fueled, possibly even ignited, this hatred, from the scandalous August 26, 2021, Toronto Star front page (“Let them die”) to a January 15, 2024 (!), Winnipeg Free Press op-ed (“The unwelcome unvaxxed”). Ironically, some of these journalists presented their diatribes in the context of exploring a lack of empathy with unvaccinated Canadians and the growing rift in society.
Restoring a healthy social fabric post-pandemic, I argue, will require agreement on three points of evidence and principle regarding the COVID shots:
(1) the failure of the vaccines to prevent infection and transmission;
(2) the falsehood of the “pandemic of the unvaccinated”; and
(3) the ethical perversion of vaccination mandates.
Critical researchers like Dr. Peter Doshi had noted long before the global vaccination campaign began that the mRNA vaccine trials did not aim to test the injections’ efficacy with respect to transmission. Much later, America’s foremost vaccine-monger Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted in a peer-reviewed article the inability of both traditional and mRNA vaccines to stop infection of fast-developing upper respiratory virus types, including corona- and influenza viruses. The elusive protection of others erases the primary charitable argument for vaccination.
Regarding a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, the responsibility of unvaccinated patients for hospital overload in Canada and other Western countries was largely debunked when data misclassification and other statistical blunders were uncovered by independent analysts. UK statistics professors Norman Fenton and Martin Neil have shown that any intervention against an infectious disease, even a placebo, will appear to be highly effective, if it has a delayed activation (e.g. 2-3 weeks for immunity supposedly developed from the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines). This statistical phenomenon is simply based on misclassification of recently vaccinated individuals with “break-through infections”, who are counted towards the unvaccinated infection rate instead.
Philosopher Michael Kowalik discusses ethical considerations around vaccination mandates and vaccine refusal, arguing that it is immoral to coerce humans to seemingly “augmenting” their natural biological state. This argument applies regardless of vaccine efficacy in protecting self or others and is more fundamental than other reasonable limits to individual freedoms and civil rights, e.g. with respect to non-pharmaceutical interventions. Of course, freedom protesters have sounded the alarm for bodily autonomy yet were chastized for misappropriating the cherished principle.
The unvaccinated are a diverse group who suffered a period of excruciating hate because of perfectly reasonable and ethical views of the COVID-19 pandemic and public health measures. To overcome the deep divide in today’s society, we need the reappraisal of the pandemic response that this conference session is calling for. We need to re-learn respect for, openness to, and understanding of others’ views and actions. Sustainable post-pandemic recovery is achievable when mistakes are admitted, material harm repaired, and sincere apologies forthcoming.