Dear editor,
I was disappointed News/North published a response by an individual in the Aug. 2 issue’s “We asked you!” feature (on page 9).
The response is extremely ill-informed, not based in fact, and promotes harmful misconceptions about the Covid virus and vaccines. It might not matter when it comes to most any other subject of this newspaper section, but during a pandemic I believe much more careful discretion is required — discretion such as you would apply to hate speech or defamation.
Very much contrary to this response, healthy people — anybody — who can but do not vaccinate increase the risk to all, particularly the “weak and sick.” And, most likely they add to prolonging the pandemic and increasing its ability to take hold as endemic disease. Their observation connecting vaccination to increase in variants is total bunk. They cannot produce any credible source for that.
In fact, all the main variants so far arose before the vaccines. In fact, the less vaccinated, the higher the rate both of new variants and their spread. In fact, if vaccine uptake doesn’t improve at all possible speed, there will be more variants, more rapid spread, more overwhelmed hospitals, more shutdown regions, more long-term illness, more death, more loss, more grief and so many more bad things.
Many children, many young people, many healthy people have died already — not just those this person would deem weak and sick. If they read the science, checked the data, or watched the spectrum of media coverage, they would know that many robust healthy people like them have and will be killed by the virus.
They distinguish and separate from the weak and sick. I am not so sure they should. Their response demonstrates a desperate weakness of mind and sickness of spirit. I hope NNSL will in future, if you print such opinions, at least provide a note about their veracity and context so as not to spread the disease of misinformation.
James Lawrance
Yellowknife