Ontario’s Vaccine Segregation Experiment has Failed

We now have a pandemic of the unboosted.

Dec 16, 2021

I was always very much against the idea of segregating people based on vaccination status in Ontario. It wasn’t because I thought it was entirely without merit from a risk reduction perspective. I just thought that the tiny potential reduction in spread was not worth the historical precedent we were creating. It also wasn’t worth the long-term societal costs we would have to deal with by encouraging such division in our communities. Additionally I believed that the policing of these rules and the potential of less customers would be very unfair to businesses, who have already suffered enough through the pandemic.

Now you can think that the vaccine passport system in Ontario wasn’t that bad as it only applied to certain settings. But you must remember that thousands have lost their jobs since these programs were implemented and many people refused to even associate with one portion of the population. These consequences did not happen necessarily because of the laws, but because of the encouragement from our health officials to treat people differently and to penalize those who did not comply with their every recommendation. I have personally been disinvited to homes because of my inadequate vaccination status. I personally know many people who lost their jobs and livelihood over their objection to the health experts’ recommendations.

But like I said, I didn’t object to these rules, and guidelines because they would be completely useless but mostly due to ethical and logistical reasons.

We are now three months into our new normal of a society segregated on vaccine status. Our experts release COVID case numbers every day highlighting the difference in cases in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. Up until a few weeks ago there could still be a weak argument made that the unvaccinated were driving up the spread of the virus. THAT IS NO LONGER THE CASE.

The Fully Vaccinated are Now Statistically More Likely to Contract COVID

Let’s look at today’s numbers. These were pointed out to me by a very good data analyser that has quickly gained a large following on Twitter for presenting the facts the way they should be but not necessarily how the health authorities want them to be. (Source: @Golden_pup, verified in Public Health Ontario’s daily epidemiological summary)

First, it’s important to note why I am focusing on the 12+ population. The answer is simple. As of today, only the 12+ population is capable of being fully vaccinated. If you want to look at the effectiveness of a vaccine or of vaccine mandates and passports, you have to exclude the under-12 demographic because 100% of cases in this group are unvaccinated and do not tell us anything about effectiveness of these policies. We can amend the way we look at these numbers next month as we start seeing some in this age group being fully vaccinated.

Today in the 12+ population of Ontario there were:

308 cases among unvaccinated individuals;

vs.

1,530 cases among vaccinated individuals

Obviously, there are more cases among the fully vaccinated but that’s doesn’t mean the vaccine isn’t working since more than 80% of the population is fully vaccinated, so you would expect more cases in that population unless the vaccine was 100% effective. In order to get a good comparison between the two groups, vaccinated vs unvaccinated, you must look at a per capita number (i.e. per 100,000 people). That is where Goldenpup’s analysis is so important.

Today in the 12+ population of Ontario there were:

9.85 case for every 100,000 unvaccinated individuals

vs.

13.57 cases per 100,000 vaccinated individuals

Now this might be just an abnormal day but if we look at the 7-day average for these numbers we see the same picture:

7-Day Average

In the last 7 days, there have been an average of 249 cases per day among the unvaccinated 12+ population which represents 8.01 cases per 100,000 individuals.

vs.

In the last 7 days, there have been an average of 935 cases per day among the fully vaccinated 12+ population which represents 8.35 cases per 100,000 individuals.

What do these numbers mean? It means that If you take a random group of 100,000 vaccinated people (your entire city), odds are that 13.5 would have been diagnosed with COVID today. If you took a similar group of 100,000 unvaccinated people, odds are 9.35 would have been diagnosed with COVID today. In the last 7 days, the former group would still be slightly more susceptible to being diagnosed with COVID.

In short, it means, that you cannot predict case levels based on vaccination status any longer. Someone’s vaccine status seems to not correlate at all with their likelihood of contracting COVID. A restaurant or workplace of 100 people with 50% unvaccinated would not statistically produce more cases than a restaurant or workplace of 100 people with 100% of the attendees vaccinated. So the segregation must end. Even if the vaccines can still provide protection against severe outcomes after 3 or 6 months, THEY NO LONGER REDUCE SPREAD. Someone’s likelihood of being hospitalized cannot be a reason to penalize them or exclude them from society. If it was, we would have to segregate society on many different levels. Think of other groups that have higher risks of being hospitalized from other causes than healthy unvaccinated people do from COVID. Consider smokers, drinkers, high-risk athletes (i.e. skiing), anyone with more than one speeding ticket, any male between the ages of 16 and 20… the list goes on.

A Pandemic of the Unboosted

For months now, we have heard insulting and threatening comments from politicians saying that we had a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”. I think it’s clear that we now have a pandemic of the unboosted.

These stats don’t show that the vaccines didn’t help. But I think they paint a clear picture that either:

1. The Omicron variant infects indiscriminately of two doses, one dose or zero dose; or

2. The vaccines only provide a very short immunity since most of the population is less than 6 months out of their second dose (This would indicate why the Ontario now recommends all adults get a booster shot only 3 months after their second dose).

Conclusion

In my opinion, this leaves our leaders with only two choices:

1. Redefine the definition of fully vaccinated to specify that you can only participate in society if you have three doses of a vaccine instead of two.

2. Acknowledge that vaccines are only one tool in our fight the pandemic and that they should be strongly encouraged in some age groups every 3 months. But they they cannot be the roadblock to a functioning society every 3 to 6 months.

Vaccine segregation was a dangerous experiment we allowed to happen. It’s not too late for our leaders to acknowledge that the experiment failed. Acknowledging we did something wrong is incredibly hard for an average individual. It’s almost impossible for a politician. That is our fault as we will rarely vote for one who was wrong on an important policy. It will be hard but not impossible. Reach our to your elected representative with compassion. Tell them to end this unethical experiment that leads down a slippery slope.

This failed experiment will also be very hard to accept for the average citizen who stood by without a word, while their friends and neighbours lost their job and were barred from all aspects of society. But it isn’t impossible. We need to reach our friends and family. We need to share stats like the ones I shared today. We need to tell them the truth. We need to convince the world to come back to normalcy. To a time when we didn’t check to the news to see if we could legally have guests over. Or to see which people we were encouraged to see or not to see. To a time when we didn’t rely on doctors to tell us if our businesses could open or close. To a time when our children didn’t have their lives turned upside down over a virus that poses less risk to them than the seasonal flu.