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LILLEY: Public health doctor says Ontario vax passport coming soon as Ford still says no ​

From Toronto Sun at link. Dated August 25th.

Ontario will have a vaccine passport system announced within a week or two, according to the medical officer for the Eastern Ontario Health Unit.

In an interview with a local program on French CBC, Dr. Paul Roumeliotis said the move is coming because it is what he and other medical officers want. Roumeliotis is the medical officer for the region that includes towns such as Cornwall and Hawkesbury and is also president of the Association of Local Public Health Agencies of Ontario.
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“It’s going to be, in my opinion, something on the mobile,” Roumeliotis said, referring to some kind of mobile phone app.

Maybe someone should explain to the good doctor that we don’t need a government app for this, we don’t need a government mandate for this, and anyone who wants to show proof of vaccination can already do so on their phone by keeping a photo of their confirmation on their phone.

Some claim this is too easy to counterfeit but that is the alternative? Will every business and venue in Ontario need to get a super sensitive decryption machine to read the super secure app devised by the province that connects to the Ministry of Health and verifies your status before you sit down to order a burger?

Premier Doug Ford has been clear that he doesn’t want to have a government mandated system and Dr. Kieran Moore, the chief medical officer for the province, has made it clear that there is no medical need for one to combat the virus. Still, not a day goes by that some group, or a competing politician, doesn’t call for a passport/certificate as the silver bullet that will take Ontario out of the pandemic.

Public opinion polls show more than 70% of the population, including many Progressive Conservative voters, want such a system. So far, Ford has resisted even though it would be easier to give into the demands.

The idea that we must have some kind of vaccination passport or certificate system has been a solution in search of a problem for months now. We don’t need it to drive up vaccination rates or to keep the population safe — it’s just something that some people want because they want it.

“It is certain that me and my colleagues across Ontario, that’s what we want, because it will help enormously with the variant,” Roumeliotis said.

Help with the variant? How?
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We already know that both vaccinated and unvaccinated can spread the variant. Those vaccinated, if infected, will either not get sick at all or have much milder symptoms, but we can all spread it.

The example of France is repeatedly cited but that hardly washes.

France announced back in July that people would need to show proof of vaccination or a negative test. When President Emmanuel Macron announced the measure, France had about 1,200 new infections — now they average more than 20,000 per day.

It’s true that France’s vaccination rate has increased but it still does not equal Canada’s, or for that matter Ontario’s. France, after their massive push with vaccine passports and mandatory vaccinations, has just 55% of their total population vaccinated — Canada has 65% and Ontario tends to track to the national average.

In Ontario, every age group above 40 has a first dose vaccination rate of at least 80% — for those over 80 years of age it is 97%. Where Ontario needs to improve things is with people under the age of 40 and in low-income diverse urban neighbourhoods.

That’s what the public health data tells us.
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As Dr. Andrew Helmers from SickKids hospital recently wrote, vaccine passports will “serve to help the upper- and middle-class feel safer about activities where space is shared with strangers.”

What a vaccine passport won’t do in Ontario, a province with extremely high uptake of vaccinations, is significantly improve that uptake. Moore calls this the last mile and says we must understand those who are hesitant and work to overcome their hesitancy.

Seems most, including Roumeliotis, would prefer to use a stick and swing it hard.
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Northern Light said:
Sure.

The version appropriate for public consumption is that I find him to be extremely rude, he's very shoot-from-the-lip.

I also think he's an attention-seeker (you would find his Twitter account lines up w/that); and while not unintelligent, his self-opinion
is to my way of thinking a tad sycophantic and entirely lacking in necessary self-criticism.

Or put another way.......I really don't like him. LOL
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Gotcha, and I agree with all that. But I also think he has a very important voice and I think when you're in a position like he's in with so many trolls, confidence and shooting from the lip is a necessity.
 
tiffer24 said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1430855473595621380
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Doug Ford's reaction to any kind of vaccine passport/certificate...
three-wise-monkeys-not-see-not-hear-not-speak-vintage-engraving-vector-id1036940772

From link.
 
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