> This all madness started when Canadian government couldn't admit that with omicron vaccine mandates no longer make much sense.
At the time this convoy began, Ontario was experiencing a surge in its hospitals with around 4000 hospital beds occupied by people with COVID.[1][2] Note, that's from COVID, not with COVID.
While it may turn out to be true that Omicron made mandates make no sense, keep in mind these rules were in response to the US' implementation, announced in October of last year.[3] Canada implemented these to sync up and provide clarity at the borders in January, when then American rules went into effect.[4]
> 1) About half of those people in hospitals were vaccinated.
Considering Ontario is 90% 12+ fully vaccinated and 85% 5+ fully vaccinated[1], this means somewhere in the neighbourhood of say 15-18% of the population represents 50% of our hospitalizations, likely a lower percentage, since as you note this tends to hospitalize people in older cohorts.
> 2) Vaccine mandates do not considerably improve vaccination update, especially among elderly who benefit the most from vaccination.
Firstly, Ontario's elderly are massively vaccinated. 80+ is 99.99%, 70-79 is 99.99%, 60-69 (which I wouldn't consider elderly these days) is 97.37%.[4] This isn't due to anything very recent either, the rates have been 90%+ two doses for the 70+ crowd since August of last year.
Secondly, if this were true, you would not expect to see upticks in vaccinations coinciding with mandate implementations. Yet in [1], in November of 2021 you see a clear uptake in vaccination doses administered. This coincides roughly when 5+ were authorized for vaccination[2], as well as when federally regulated industries began requiring it.[3]
You can see from the raw data in [4] first doses between Nov 1 2021 and Jan 1 2022 was 468,443 for 5-11s, 28,257 for 12-17s, and 220,641 for 18+. Nearly a third of all first doses during the time period when 5-11 just became newly able to be vaccinated came from Ontario's adults. There was an 88.5% vaccination rate among 18+ at the start of that time period and there was a noticeable dip in vaccinations due to the holidays (you can see this in the booster #s too). You can question the motivations of those people but I think the numbers at least suggest that the mandates do have a part to play in driving people to get vaccinated.
1) That's true and it shows that the difference between vaccinated and non-vaccinated is not dramatic. If everybody was vaccinated the decrease of hospitalization would be 50% which is not that significant compared to what we have gone through.
2) That's true as well and the UK had no vaccine mandates and had the same vaccination rates for elderly. And many countries with very strict vaccine mandates had terrible rates for elderly vaccinations, for example, in Latvia it is less than 75% while vaccination uptake among younger people is higher than that.
The numbers do not show that the mandates considerably improved vaccination uptake among elderly neither in Canada, nor in other countries. I am questioning the motivation of people who try to push vaccine mandates by intentionally obscuring this point and by mixing true statements and projecting them onto elderly which is not confirmed by data.
> 1) That's true and it shows that the difference between vaccinated and non-vaccinated is not dramatic. If everybody was vaccinated the decrease of hospitalization would be 50% which is not that significant compared to what we have gone through.
What you are suggesting here is that a 50% decrease in hospitalizations (or we could argue even lower, say 35%) is not significant. Do I have that correct? You're essentially saying that 2000 fewer people in hospitals, when capacity is around 7000-10000 (depending on staffing), doesn't matter.
> 2) That's true as well and the UK had no vaccine mandates and had the same vaccination rates for elderly. And many countries with very strict vaccine mandates had terrible rates for elderly vaccinations, for example, in Latvia it is less than 75% while vaccination uptake among younger people is higher than that.
Firstly, the UK is not one amorphous thing. There absolutely were vaccine mandates within the UK.[1][2][3] Just not England (at least in the most recent round).
I would be hesitant to ascribe vaccine mandates as the sole cause for any vaccination uptake regardless. Each community is going to have their own reasons to distrust the medicine and the government. Notably in the US the African American community has probably been given ample reason to distrust it. Similarly, you see poor uptake in countries where trust in the government is low.
Mandates will not fix making every last unvaccinated person change their mind, and I think it's important to understand that that's not actually the goal of them. It's to convince some more of the people. Remember the idea of herd immunity is to hit some requisite percentage of the population that will help protect the people who can't be vaccinated or are immunocompromised.
> The numbers do not show that the mandates considerably improved vaccination uptake among elderly neither in Canada, nor in other countries. I am questioning the motivation of people who try to push vaccine mandates by intentionally obscuring this point and by mixing true statements and projecting them onto elderly which is not confirmed by data.
I never claimed it increased vaccination rates among the elderly. As I directly mentioned, the elderly in Ontario were already highly vaccinated. It couldn't have massively increased vaccination rates among the elderly because by the time they were implemented the elderly were already mostly vaccinated. You have created an argument to rail against where there was none.
Let's flip this around: Why are the elderly the only group you're suggesting we care about protecting?
1) It matter but not that much. There are 92000 physicians in Canada. Of course, most of them are involved in many other healthcare activities. In general, hospitals have 1 physician for 10 patients which means that only 200 more physicians are required during this time. Probably vaccine mandates have prevented more than that number to even work. Staff availability was one of the reasons why the UK decided to revoke vaccine mandates even for healthcare staff.
2) “Trust in government” is something that is thrown around but mostly it is speculation. It was said that Sweden didn't need mandatory lockdowns because Swedes trust in the government but people in the UK do not. And yet, with vaccinations both countries have done well without vaccine mandates. Is Canada really so much different from the UK? I really doubt it. It is probably more similar to the UK than to the USA.
My original argument was that vaccination uptake by elderly is that matters the most. And data clearly shows that it is true. For example, Israel despite strict vaccine mandates have poor vaccination uptake by elderly. It could be even argued that vaccine mandates may decrease vaccination uptake by elderly. As you say, Canada introduced vaccine mandates when majority of elderly where already vaccinated so that there was no noticiable slowdown in this group but other countries may have even made this worse by pointless vaccine mandates.
> 1) It matter but not that much. There are 92000 physicians in Canada. Of course, most of them are involved in many other healthcare activities. In general, hospitals have 1 physician for 10 patients which means that only 200 more physicians are required during this time. Probably vaccine mandates have prevented more than that number to even work. Staff availability was one of the reasons why the UK decided to revoke vaccine mandates even for healthcare staff.
Most of this is guesswork. Please provide evidence to back up any of these claims.
> 2) “Trust in government” is something that is thrown around but mostly it is speculation. It was said that Sweden didn't need mandatory lockdowns because Swedes trust in the government but people in the UK do not. And yet, with vaccinations both countries have done well without vaccine mandates. Is Canada really so much different from the UK? I really doubt it. It is probably more similar to the UK than to the USA.
Again, portions of the UK did have vaccine mandates, just not the most populous part. "Done well" is also a difficult pill to swallow given that the UK as a whole saw COVID-19 death rates of 2,359/1M people, Sweden had rates of 1,666/1M people, while Canada has had a rate of 948/1M people. The UK and Sweden also both lag behind Canada in terms of vaccination, at 85%/81% in Canada vs 77%/72% the UK and 77%/75% for Sweden,[2] despite the UK starting their vaccination efforts before every other country.
> My original argument was that vaccination uptake by elderly is that matters the most. And data clearly shows that it is true. For example, Israel despite strict vaccine mandates have poor vaccination uptake by elderly. It could be even argued that vaccine mandates may decrease vaccination uptake by elderly. As you say, Canada introduced vaccine mandates when majority of elderly where already vaccinated so that there was no noticiable slowdown in this group but other countries may have even made this worse by pointless vaccine mandates.
I'm not sure how making proof of vaccination a requirement to do things is going to prevent people from getting vaccinated.
Also, you appear to be completely wrong about Israel, as according to [3] the 60+ crowd are driving the bulk of their vaccinations at 80% with two doses.
If you're going to continue to debate this, please at least research the things you're going to respond with.
1) The reference is the UK health ministry report why they revoked the vaccine mandates for healthcare professionals.
2) With the global perspective the differences are not significant. Most important what are vaccination rates among elderly? You correctly show that in Israel it is barely 90% and somehow the graph doesn't show it but it has remained something like that for over the year. While in the UK (and Canada) it is close 99.9%. See the difference?
>> Remember the idea of herd immunity is to hit some requisite percentage of the population that will help protect the people who can't be vaccinated or are immunocompromised.
I remember that idea and unfortunately it is not possible to reach herd immunity with vaccines that do not protect from infection. You need to update the current scientific knowledge. That's why I am saying that vaccine mandates are anti-scientific because they ignore hard scientific facts and are based on la-la land ideas.
> I remember that idea and unfortunately it is not possible to reach herd immunity with vaccines that do not protect from infection. You need to update the current scientific knowledge. That's why I am saying that vaccine mandates are anti-scientific because they ignore hard scientific facts and are based on la-la land ideas.
Please provide any kind of source or citation for this claim, rather than simply dropping "you need to update the current scientific knowledge" as though what you are stating as fact.
I am really surprised that you are asking about this as if this is something that still needs to be proved. Read the UN materials on this issue. They are very informative.
Basically this is something you have to research yourself because the number of scientific articles are so numerous that I don't even know where to start. When omicron came it became obvious that most people – vaccinated or not – will get it. Vaccines are only protecting people by reducing disease severity and deaths (about 90% protection).
Nevertheless, many politicians haven't updated their knowledge therefore insists on stupid mandates.
At the time this convoy began, Ontario was experiencing a surge in its hospitals with around 4000 hospital beds occupied by people with COVID.[1][2] Note, that's from COVID, not with COVID.
While it may turn out to be true that Omicron made mandates make no sense, keep in mind these rules were in response to the US' implementation, announced in October of last year.[3] Canada implemented these to sync up and provide clarity at the borders in January, when then American rules went into effect.[4]
[1]: https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/hospitalizations
[2]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/covid-19-update-ontar...
[3]: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2021/10/12/secretary-mayorkas-allow...
[4]: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-vaccine-mandate-for-c...