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Letter: Government messaging not holding up on COVID-19

BC Government statistics are starting to reveal a more accurate picture of vaccine effectiveness. Unfortunately, for them, the picture does not align with their verbal messaging.
health-minister-adrian-dix
B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix.

BC Government statistics are starting to reveal a more accurate picture of vaccine effectiveness. Unfortunately, for them, the picture does not align with their verbal messaging.

As of the last update, Dec 30, about 90% of BC was vaccinated. And about 85% of new COVID-19 cases were among the vaccinated. In other words, the vaccine is not preventing people from becoming infected.

Still, everyone should get vaccinated, insists the BC government, because being vaccinated prevents serious illness and death and also prevents our hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.

Again, and unfortunately, this simply is not true. On Dec 30, Adrian Dix announced that the hospitals were at 75% capacity, meaning over 3,000 beds are still available. Currently, there are about 100 unvaccinated people in the hospital with COVID. Hospitalizations of the unvaccinated would have to increase by 3,000%, according to Dix in order to overwhelm capacity.

It could happen with Omicron. But probably not. And it has nothing to do with being vaccinated. South Africa, where Omicron originated, reported very few serious illnesses or hospitalizations with the new variant. This, despite only 25% of their population being vaccinated. Obviously, it was not the vaccine that kept the South African people ‘safe’.

The BC government is still trying to drive home the tired narrative that it is unvaccinated that are sick and in the hospital. Despite this claim, the average age of death is still 82 years of age in BC. Remember, there is no cure for COVID so presumably, some of these unvaccinated people who are so seriously sick and clogging up the healthcare system would be dying and thus bringing down the average age of mortality. This simply is not happening.

If the public had access to the full demographic history of those ‘unvaccinated’ who are being used as a scapegoat for this pandemic, it may become apparent that being unvaccinated was not the reason they ended up in hospital.

Age, pre-existing conditions and being under current medical care may be larger factors than the simplistic label “unvaccinated.”

Emm Fickle

Squamish

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