Well, I guess we’re back to wearing masks.
Word of new flights and places connected to the recent COVID-19 outbreak affecting portions of the Northwest Territories — including here in Inuvik — continue to trickle out of the GNWT’s efforts to contain the virus while it still can.
Here, we seem to have avoided the worst of it. Elsewhere, the NWT sadly has its first Covid-19 death.
Without naming any names, it’s worth pointing out one of the communities in the affected area currently has a 28-per -cent vaccination rate. In fairness, another community has a 75 per cent vaccination rate and is still reporting exposure sites to protect the remaining 19 per cent who haven’t had a single shot yet. To put it another way, those of us who took responsibility and were vaccinated are now scrambling to ensure those who didn’t get vaccinated don’t derail everything.
Meanwhile, the GNWT is “encouraging” its employees to get vaccinated, which is considerably less severe than the recent mandate for all federal government employees to get vaccinated if they want to continue in their lucrative government positions.
Frequently in our comments sections we see statements saying we need to just learn to “live” with COVID-19, just like we’ve learned to live with other serious diseases.
I don’t know who needs to read this, but you don’t actually “live” with cancer, HIV, malaria, or any other disease. You get treatment for it or you die.
Arguments made by anti-vaxxers, as they’ve come to be known, are increasingly thin. Enough people have now been vaccinated without a single health problem to show there is no danger or conspiracy behind getting vaccinated. Even with break-through cases — recall no vaccine ever claimed to offer 100 per cent protection — the people who catch Delta are, by and large, handling it far better if they have the vaccine.
We were told if enough of us got vaccinated, our lock-down periods could end. So far, the GNWT has held up their end of the bargain in spite of the clear risk posed by those who remain unvaccinated. A recent study out of Britain found that the Delta variant is particularly adept at finding ways around the vaccine’s protections. With communities of people who don’t want to get vaccinated refusing to implement or follow public safety measures,giving the virus free reign to adapt and evolve new variants, it could be only a matter of time before a new and improved COVID-19 forces us all back into lockdown.
Earlier in my career, I wrote about how Rotary International helped bankroll the fight against polio, which up until the 1960s was routinely shutting down schools and communities much like COVID-19. Using mass vaccination programs, isolating outbreaks into quarantine and ensuring there was enough supply to contain outbreaks anywhere, what was once a regular part of life is now barely a memory. In fact, the only place in the world where polio still is known to exist is a small region in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Of course, there are people who cannot be vaccinated for legitimate health reasons, but the rest of us have a moral obligation to get vaccinated on their behalf. Stop making excuses and go get your shots.