This seems to be accurate.
The protests outside Canadian hospitals would rather strongly argue to the contrary.
And the old gun registry met widespread civil disobedience, with millions of people refusing to register their guns.
Then I suppose Sam should have brought those up instead of reaching for examples from a different country.
Sam’s point here though is that vaccine refusal is not necessarily a right wing thing. His points about college students and other young people having low vaccine rates even if one adjusts for political persuasion is true. Guys, let’s try not to make this personal and address the points; he has a point there, though I agree relying entirely on easily found American examples is unwise. We have vaccine refusal issues here too and “they’re all conservatives” is just not true.
While conservative taking heads do seem to often be weirdly antivax, if you want to GET PEOPLE VACCINATED, having a clear, fact-based approach to the problem will work and having a “Fuck Trumpists, force people to take the shot” approach is really stupid (and I say that as a person who loathes antivaxxers.)
Sadly, I have to disagree with this.
We’ve done all of the clear, fact based approaches we can. We’ve tapped that reservoir out.
The folks who are in the pure anti-vaxx camp now will not be swayed by evidence, facts or logic. The old saying goes "You cannot argue someone out of a position using logic if they did not use logic to get into that position in the first place.
The leftie, crystal healing, “big pharma is out to get you”, “the Man can’t tell me what to do” folks cannot be reached by facts or logic.
The rightie selfish “my rights trump yours”, “everybody for themselves” folks cannot be reached by facts or logic.
We’ve mostly reached the reachable. 78% of us. A few of the remaining 22% are lazy or unmotivated or have difficulty getting out.
We can either lock down the entire economy to prevent transmission to the unreachable. Or alternatively, we can simply tell them that they have made their decision, for whatever reason (Healing cyrstals or selfish freedums) and now they have to face the consequences. And these consequences will involve keeping them away from the rest of us as much as possible. And really, tough shit if they don’t like it. Like spoiled children, they continue to seem to think that their actions will carry no consequences.
No we absolutely have not. That’s just not even close to true. What I think you mean to say is that all the facts have been publically presented to the population, which is definitely true. But there is more to a vaccination campaign - or any effort, of course - that publishing facts. Indeed, so far the Canadian approach has been based on no strategy at all beyond just asking people to get vaccinated; we’re only now imposing consequences, and those are being imposed willy-nilly, inconsistently, and clumsily. To use one point Sam makes, how are you proposing we address disparate economic impact on the poor and working class versus the rich? Oh, not at all, huh? That’s how our governments are doing it too. What’s your solution to the fact that vaccine hesitancy is higher among some racialized groups, including Black Canadians, due to mistrust in institutions? Oh, we don’t have a plan for that? Figures.
I mean, you surely cannot be suggesting we take approaches that are NOT based in facts? Should we adopt strategies based in lies or ignorance?
I think your point of lack of consequences is spot on. Those unwilling to put the effort into getting out of this public health emergency have been free riders. They’ve been able to benefit from the efforts of the medical, scientific, and vaccine willing communities for the past 4 months. The consequences they’ve suffered are the same ones we’ve suffered.
The quick approach would be to have mobile clinics moving around (during the day and after hours) in low income areas to take into account marginal communities and their needs. Staff them with community leaders to help address low trust issues.
But the next obvious (to me) answer, for the Milton Friedman oriented, is to provide incentives and the minimize their ability to externalize the costs of not being vaccinated.
Enter vaccine passports and federal regulation on inter-regional travel afforded by rail and air and employment.
With all of that said a massive amount of grief should be shoveled on the various conservative leaders that spent more time worrying about their base than their citizens.
No, not at all.
Sure we should continue to use facts. But IMO, we have pretty much run out of the folks who will listen to any facts at all. We’ll need to move to mandates. A child will not understand a lecture about the nutritional value of broccoli and the need for a balanced diet. You can show a 5 year old a chart of the Canada food guide and show them medical evidence for the need for leafy green vegetables. It will have no impact. That’s where we are at with the unvaccinated.
So the strategy of “give them the facts and they will logically follow” has been done as much as it can be. We need to move to different strategies, INCLUDING better and different messaging, as well as the approach of “If you don’t eat your vegetables, there will be no desert and an early bed-time”
Absolutely.
A colleague of mine said her husband FINALLY got vaccinated. He was not an anti-vaxxer. He was just lazy and could not be bothered to actually make an appointment and go through all the trouble of going 20 minutes downtown and spending another 30 minutes to get vaccinated. “Whatever”, he thought. “I’ll just let everyone else to it, and then I’ll be fine.”
When it looked like he could not go to a bar or restaurant or other fun activities… Zoom, down he went to get a vax.
Many of the young folks are in this situation - up until now, they couldn’t really be bothered. Too busy. Too inconvenient. I’ll do it later. Whatever, it is only a disease of the old. Factual information did not make them go.
Now? Can’t go to a bar. Can’t do fun stuff. Zoom, down they go to get the vax.
We’ve got gasoline stations and convenience stores at places where it’s convenient. It struck me that if my government really wanted to get people vaccinated, all they had to do was set up in the big parking lot at the truck refueling point on the motorway. Buzzing down the highway, see the sign, stop and get vaccinated.
We were limited by the volume of vaccine available, so perhaps they didn’t want to get everybody vaccinated, but/and/or, I really think most people don’t want to do anything different than what they did yesterday.
So you are describing, in part, a fact-based approach?
I’m all for making life inconvenient for the refusers, but that’s not enough. You yourself go on to admit convenience is a factor, and we still have the unaddressed issue of increased vaccine refusal in racialized communities or among young adults; clearly a multi-prong approach would be wise, no? Do we want to get people vaccinated or do we want to be indignant?
Lets be both 
Alberta is now flying people to Ontario for ICU coverage. I can not begin to describe how badly the western premiers have fucked up this wave. Consider - the ICU capacity is now sufficiently low in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and BC that to avoid overloading those provinces patients may be sent to Ontario ~3000 km.
Now who could have foreseen this you ask? PHAC Covid projection in July 30 did actually BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan all had projections shooting way off high and yet
something something something Have Not Provinces.
In part yes. As Grey says, we need to be both. Logic, reason and a factual approach has alreaey worked on most people, and we can continue with this… Now, in addition, we need to find new ways of getting to the lazy, the stupid and the willfully obstinate selfish pricks.
You’re confusing a fact-based approach with “convincing people with facts.”
Whatever. It’s now time to use meaningful consequences, like you’d do with a 3 year old having a tantrum.
When the Conservatives lose the election on Monday, they’ll have no one to blame but Jason Kenney and Maxime Bernier.
Oh, come on, you know they’ll find a way to blame Trudeau.
"Trudope had a secret plan to offer Canadians more of what they really want from the Government! That Bastard!’
I get a kick out of the whole whiny Conservative election platform: “he called an election in the middle of a pandemic! Waaaa!” Like, man up. Take advantage of the opportunity to show your stuff. Don’t whine about how the timing wasn’t good for you.