The Vax vs The UnVax

 https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/opinion/i-ve-had-it-with-the-anti-vaxxers_233532?profile=1096

Mr. Thompson's letter is so full of it that I don't know where to start so I will just go paragraph by paragraph...

Anti-vaxxers did not create the current situation. The current state of affairs was created by four factors:
1. A virus that has mutated to become more infective, more severe and more deadly to younger people.
2. Government and corporate panic both of whom have reacted with overreach as exhibited by using the already overworked police to harass and arrest people for not wearing masks instead of leaving the police to focus on fighting real crime. Some companies are overreacting by firing unvaccinated workers in the name of 'Worker Safety' when in fact the vaccinated and unvaccinated are not any more dangerous to the workplace as both groups equally spread the Delta variant of the virus. In fact, asymptomatic vaccinated workers can be more dangerous than the unvaccinated who are more likely to be symptomatic.
3. China's lack of cooperation in revealing the source of the virus.
4. The internet which equally spreads information and misinformation ('ridiculous treatments').
Very few are hermits. Even very lonely people have some interaction with someone. Since everyone interacts with someone else, according to Mr. Thompson, everyone should be vaccinated and those who don't should have their head examined. About a third of the people I know have not been vaccinated. Some of them have had their 'heads examined' in that some are highly educated and certified in their field. One is even an extremely highly trained recently retired medical doctor who is only able to do this because she is retired. That is d o c t o r not 'docta'.

The fact that a few workers' organizations support the rights of their members to choose about the Covid vaccine should give us pause. What may be 'wrong' with those organizations is that they actually believe their mission statements which say that they are to defend their members against coercion from their employers. I applaud those workers' organizations who say they will defend the rights of some workers to refuse vaccination even if they have been a bit timid about it.

The unvaccinated are not 'holding back the country'. Who are holding back the country is the government. Through panic, lockdowns, government overreach and poor vaccine rollout management, the government has destroyed the economy.

If what the proponents of vaccination say is true, and I am one of them, the unvaccinated already enjoy less benefits than the vaccinated in that the unvaccinated are more likely to become severely ill or die from Covid than the vaccinated. There is no reason to attack the unvaccinated. They are under attack from the virus already.

Religious people who believe God will protect them may be considered 'irresponsible' by Mr. Thompson but surely they are entitled to their religious belief? Actually, if those now being dismissed from companies mandating vaccination for workers were to say it was their belief that their God will protect them, such workers may have constitutional and charter protection.

Because of the marauding gangsters and the poor quality of the public health system, many Jamaicans live with death every day and have become comfortable with it. The few Covid deaths do not scare them.

Mr. Thompson demands that the government 'act...decisively' - a veiled reference to making Covid vaccination compulsory. The one thing in this regard that the Holness government may fear is the reaction of the majority of the population who are against vaccination. I don't think Holness has much to fear. The population has been so dumbed down, so beaten down, so used to rejection that most Jamaicans have become politically apathetic and don't even bother to vote.

Raymond D. Grant