Freedom of choice comes with responsibilities and consequences. Trade union leaders and others who have been loudly opposing plans to establish public sector safe zones should not overlook that fact as they carry on their campaigns which serve no greater purpose than to perpetrate anti-vax sentiments.
Their efforts to rally the decreasing number of public sector workers who refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine are not based on facts and gloss over the debilitating effect the pandemic continues to have on this country.
Citizens have a choice when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine and in exercising that right there might be consequences related to public health efforts to keep the population safe from severe illness or death.
This is an extremely polarizing issue. The clamour from those who reject medical science in favour of myths will reach a crescendo over the next month as the country gets closer to the new safe zones deadline of February 17.
In the past week, two groups at the forefront of the “my body, my choice” movement, the National Trade Union Centre (NATUC) and the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM), have made some claims in the public that they are yet to back up with facts.
One had to do with an allegation of a severe adverse effect suffered by someone who took the vaccine. The other was the extremely dangerous and misleading claim of “significantly low risk of death or hospitalisation from COVID-19" contained in a letter to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.
The latter statement makes light of the fact that more than 3,000 citizens have died and in recent weeks the daily COVID-19 death count has averaged between 20 and 30 people. At that rate, in the absence of stringent public health measures, including the vaccination programme, the disease could decimate the public sector workers whose rights the union leaders claim they are defending.
There is already evidence that this misguided right to choose campaign is undermining efforts to get at least 80 per cent of the population vaccinated against COVID-19. Latest figures from the Ministry of Health show a worrying decrease in vaccinations with first shots now below 1,000 a day.
At the same time, there continues to be great demand on the parallel health system. According to Principal Medical Officer Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards, there are currently 623 patients warded with COVID-19, 482 in hospital and 141 in step-down facilities. In addition, occupancy levels in High Dependency Units (HDUs) and Intensive Care Units (ICU).
Many of these cases can be linked to the exercise of freedom of choice to not get vaccinated and sadly there have been fatal outcomes in some instances.
It is unfortunate that other interests are making it difficult to have truthful, fact-based conversations about the pandemic. Those are the types of discussions that should be taking place now as we all need to be adapting and learning to live with this disease.
Safe spaces are being created in the interest of the health and safety of the wider population. Citizens will be able to freely choose whether they will do what is needed to gain access to these spaces.