Full disclosure: I waited a long time to get vaccinated. In total transparency, I probably wouldn’t have gotten vaccinated at all if I wasn’t looking for work in a new country and didn’t need to travel. I would have waited it out. Why? No, it’s not because I’m a misogynist or a racist (contrary to our fucking ignorant Prime Minister Mr. Justin Trudeau’s labels declared in a recent La Semaine de 4 Julie interview).[1] And before I get called out for my language, recall that cursing is often a sign of intelligence, honesty, and creativity. I think it’s also safe to say that everyone around the world, no matter what language they speak, will understand my intention when I say that Canada’s Prime Minister, Mr. Justin Trudeau, is a fucking moron. He lacks morals, doesn’t care to help the country’s citizens or the environment and seems intent on only raising the cost of housing, food, and destroying a once-admirable health care system.
The pitfall to Mr. Trudeau’s approach – at least when it comes to vaccination – is that he cannot seem to differentiate between the non-vaccinated and the anti-vaxxers. I am sure that anti-vaxxers exist, but I am not one of them. Growing up I had all the necessary vaccines including a Hepatitis vaccine, the first one that I chose to have as an adult. I was also vaccinated with a bunch of stuff before travelling throughout Asia. That, though, was where my vaccination journey ended. During that travel, I experienced an adverse reaction to malaria medication. After that experience, I didn’t see any reason to have additional vaccines or boosters and wasn’t planning to travel to any other countries where my health would be similarly at risk.
After moving to San Francisco in my twenties, I progressively became more health driven, athletic, and spiritualized. I believed, and still do believe, that the body can heal itself and although I would rather not suffer before death I don’t fear dying. Admittedly, in these last two years have on a few occasions longed for it, as I see death in part as a freedom from a planet that has been increasingly losing viability even before the onset of the pandemic. I realize that this is a polarized belief system and I’m not writing this to convert anyone; my intention is purely to express myself openly and honestly. In doing so I hope to encourage empathy, as I believe that in the end being open to listening and understanding another point of view is a central facet of humanity.
By the time I moved to New York I managed my health naturally and very rarely got sick. I did have an unfortunate sinus infection one year that required a trip to the clinic as I was planning holiday travel back to Canada and needed antibiotics to be fit for the flight. At the end of the visit, the doctor inquired as to whether I’d like the flu shot. I was unsure, so I asked for his advice. He shared that, if I had never had the flu shot by this time in my life that I didn’t need it. I hadn’t had the flu since I was young. I was hospitalized as a child because of a severe flu case, but that was the last time, so it would seem I had built up somewhat of a natural immunity over the years.
How does this compare to COVID? To be clear: COVID and the flu are like apples and oranges. However, I do think that, in Canada, more stock needs to be put in the conversation surrounding the need for individualized assessments as to the necessity of vaccination.
Take myself as an example: my personal health and demographic aside (according to the CDC I am not at high risk of hospitalization or death[2]), I live a very simple lifestyle. I’m currently living in a shitty little town that has always had comparably low rates of infection. I live and work from home as an artist. I also teach, but as soon as the first lockdown occurred, my classes moved online and I haven’t taught in person since. I have a very, very small social group here and rarely went out during non-pandemic days (in part because the number and quality of restaurants and bars are limited in this area). Aside from eating a 3-inch-thick pizza and drinking to blackout, there really isn’t any other type of outing nearby. You’d have to travel at least an hour to get to any cultural or extracurricular event. I even tried to find an athletic group to join after moving here and was only able to find gyms, where you go to work out alongside other people, but not necessarily socialize with other people. So, I don’t have many interactions with people (and, if you’re wondering, yes, it can be lonely).
I decided before the pandemic hit Canada that I was going to leave my hometown. My desire was to move back to the United States as I love that country. I had some of the greatest relationships and experiences and accomplished the most amazing feats in my years living there. Meanwhile, in Canada, I’ve endured some of the most depressing times, with the least amount of success having the most difficult time making new friends and relationships, something that my therapist and I analyze together. I am still ready to leave, but my departure has been hampered. A few months after my decision to leave Canada, the first lockdown occurred. Then, several months later my mother got very sick and almost died on a couple of occasions, which, aside from the pandemic, is why I’m still here. Her illness was 99% unrelated to the pandemic, other than the fact that if the pandemic hadn’t been so mismanaged, her illness could have been caught and treated sooner and her suffering would have been significantly less.
So, it is safe to say that the pandemic has been chiefly responsible for keeping me in Canada, where increasing restrictions continue to confound Canadians and choke the already failing healthcare system. From my basic understanding of recent data, the current Omicron variant actually is comparable to a common flu or even a cold for healthy children and adults, albeit highly infectious.[3] Yet, regardless of the decreasing severity of this mutation of the virus, and an ever-increasing percentage of vaccinations[4] and growing natural immunity[5] in the population, the Canadian government sees fit to place even stricter mandates on the Canadian public. It continues to enforce mandates after 80% of its population is vaccinated and enforces them to carry a scannable “passport” that relays their medical history simply in order to participate in such social activities as eating in restaurants (but not such activities as shopping). Here’s just one example of the irrationality of how the Canadian government has mismanaged the politics around this pandemic and how the mandates are illogical and poorly enforced. Let’s imagine a local restaurant that had maybe a hundred people pass though it randomly throughout the day. This location gets shut down because it’s employees are not vaccinated, but Walmart is still open and has thousands of customers – who don’t need to show proof of vaccination – rubbing shoulders every single day. Statistically speaking, then, you are more like to contract COVID at Walmart (vaxxed or not) than you are at a local “Ma & Pa” establishment with few people and where they encourage social distancing among those who frequent there.
The Canadian government seems to be completely ignoring the conversation of natural immunity, with statistics coming out of South Africa (a country where only approximately 40% of its population is vaccinated) proving that natural immunity is a credible source of immunity[6]. Moreover, nowhere in these mandates are alternative options, such as testing for antibodies or proof of a negative infection, even with the “quick test” now being available. With so many countries, not just my own, mismanaging this pandemic and ignoring the obvious upturn in the increasing lack of severity of this virus, I must ask: why are mandates still being implemented, forcefully administered, and with increasing in austerity? Why is there not greater consideration for natural immunity or more options for exemptions?[7]
I mentioned above that I am for science, I believe in the scientific process, but my country alongside many other countries have not provided the public with accurate statistics and documentation of double-blind studies or control groups to show:
1. the efficacy of the vaccine;
2. the severity of ALL of the variants of SARS-CoV-2;
3. the demographics of people hospitalized;
4. the possible adverse side effects of the vaccine (and before you get on me for that, it’s impossible for a medication not to have adverse side effects, even aspirin has a warning label);
5. Comparing the adverse side effects of the vaccine to the adverse side effects of the virus.
Instead of sharing this data, my country prefers to shame people with valid and varying reasons for not being vaccinated and enforce draconian mandates impacting all aspects of life. Families are being kept apart, children are growing up in isolation, all while these measures are encouraging mass consumption, fear based herd mentality and irrational thought and action, such as the Prime Minister’s unfounded accusations of the unvaccinated being misogynists and racists. As a you man who wore “black face” to a costume party, I would be inclined to ask if his irrational attack of the non-vaxxed is more of an admission than an accusation. What his behavior demonstrates is a grown adult resorting to bullying to get his way.
Okay, you might say, what’s so wrong in just getting the shot then, if it shuts up the PM? First, I am not sure at this point it is necessary. In the past strains, COVID has been compared to diseases like Polio or measles; the current Omicron strain, though, according to data coming out of South Africa[8], Germany[9], Israel[10] and countries other than Canada, is comparable to the flu. If this is true, who are the unvaccinated harming now? Themselves more than anyone else.[11]
Should it be up to the government to decide whether an individual is allowed to put their own life in harms way? If you believe it is, then where does it stop? With the prohibition of drugs or alcohol? Banning pornography or contact sports that often result in significant bodily injury?
Maybe Canada will follow in Sweden’s footsteps and soon people will be shamed, bullied, and indoctrinated into inserting microchips in their bodies. I’m not a criminal, so why the hell would I want the government to know where I am at all times? It is so perverted to me and quite frankly anyone that desires to have that level of control over anyone let alone an entire population has major mental problems and should seek professional help (I am looking at you, Mr. Trudeau).
I know you’re dying to know what I would have done? Well, let me tell you. Ironically, I believe whole heartedly that, had our governments been transparent from the get-go and released data openly and honestly derived from worthwhile and robust experiments, there would have been significantly less backlash. Maybe many less people would have been vaccinated initially but as the vaccines proved to be efficient and safe, more people would have freely chosen to be vaccinated and life would be moving back into liberty and freedom, without mandating vaccine passports.
With an international health pandemic that is hospitalizing and killing people all over the world I would have mandated that all countries (or at least the majority of countries) band together from the beginning. We do live in the technological age after all, it is very easy to communicate with anyone around the world. I would have hired the best non-biased medical professionals and scientists in every nation, developed official scientific method experiments with PAID VOLOUNTEERS to conduct blind and double-blind experiments with control groups.
I would have NOT terrified the citizens of the world with extremist, irrational fear mongering, and shaming, but rather I would have explained through the media and otherwise, calmly, logically and earnestly what the data findings were. I would have provided comparable data in relation to other deadly viruses that have infected our species. As the vaccines were being developed, I would be 100% transparent with all of the possible side-effects positive and negative and provide data that compare and contrasts the exact percentages of risk or lack thereof to EVERYONE in EVERY demographic. As the efficacy of the drug becomes more and more obvious, I would then strongly encourage the people who are more likely at risk of hospitalization and death to get vaccinated. The pharmaceutical companies would be mandated to create these drugs for every country on the planet without financial incentive because the last thing that this international health scare should be about is money. Given these companies were multi-billion-dollar companies before the pandemic, there would be no great loss. As the majority of the world’s population got vaccinated and proof that the mNRA vaccines didn’t get rid of COVID or prevent the spread but rather minimized the effects of the virus (no small feat for the people most at risk) I would start alleviating mandates on the people, not reinforcing them.
Who am I to give this advice? No one of any international acclaim or recognition. I’m just an artist, living in a shitty small honky-tonk town, with nowhere to go and no one to go there with. Artists throughout history have been attributed to predicting the future[12]. Certain artists have been called prophets or seers, but I have a different theory. I think that artists live in the present. Artists are seeing exactly what is happening when it is happening and can see how these events are creating patterns of events that will lead to certain types of outcomes. We are not psychic, we are not prophets, we are not geniuses, we are simply awake. Whether you’re for woke culture or against it, being “awake” is the only way to truly be free. Taking ownership of yourself in every conceivable way, the good, the bad, the ugly…and the beautiful. Understanding that your understanding might be flawed, that someone else’s ideologies or point of view stems from reason if you just take the time to listen and that throwing stones always causes more harm than good.
Ask yourself what kind of a world do you want to live the rest of your days in. Are you so adamant about being right that you are unwilling to be wrong? Are you so terrified of death that you are willing to put children’s life and psyches at risk? In relation to the Universe human evolution is happening in a split second but human perception living within that split second can feel like a nightmare running in slow motion with no end in sight. How the Canadian government and arguably many other governments have managed this pandemic is creating just that feeling, a worldwide prison with no end in sight.
Admittedly, yes, I did get vaccinated, but only so that I can move about the planet freely when I need to. It’s still coercion, though, something I’m accustomed to as a woman living in our day and age. I wish I had the fortitude to stand strong and wait this out, as it does seem to be getting better. I am also open to the possibility that I am wrong but feel as though my lifestyle is so simple that I haven’t put anyone else’s life in jeopardy with my choices. It should be noted that as far as I am aware I have never had any variation of COVID, nor have I had any symptoms and never felt any need to be tested, although I would have loved to have been tested for antibodies and would have volunteered to be a part of a control group had that been an option.
I honestly though more of humanity. Unfortunately, the sickness on our planet is not COVID, but rather human beings suffering from the human condition. That is the real virus and sadly no vaccine can cure that…but that is another topic for a different conversation at another time.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCae3IroTqw
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm
[3] https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/epi/covid-19-epi-enhanced-estimates-omicron-severity-study.pdf?sc_lang=en
[4] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
[5] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/immunity-types.htm
[6] https://www.ft.com/content/b0cd9239-f2df-4afc-912f-b3f87fc676ff
[7] https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/travel-restrictions/covid-vaccinated-travellers-entering-canada
[8] https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/south-african-hospital-sees-less-serious-disease-coming-end-omicron-surge-2022-01-07/
[9] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/31/germany-buoyed-by-data-from-abroad-amid-omicron-spread
[10] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/infections-record-high-hospitalisations-low-omicron-sweeps-israel-2022-01-06/
[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcLGXFOdtt0
[12] https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/39915/1/artworks-predicted-the-future-of-the-world-warhol-yayoi-caravaggio-beuys