Vaccine rate of 75 per cent is good, but not good enough

Re Canada has hit a major vaccine milestone. There’s still more work to do but reasons to feel good about what’s been accomplished, Sept. 17

The milestone is 75 per cent of adults in Canada. Is that is a reason to feel good?

When what is being said is that 25 per cent declare it is their right to become infected, to be a carrier of COVID-19, to usurp medical facilities to the degree that many other patients are denied treatment and have to endure the consequences, and to facilitate this pandemic, now in its fourth wave, to a fifth or sixth.

Yes, they claim their right to not be vaccinated. Just where did this “right” come from? Most would say it’s embodied in our constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our politicians certainly act as if that right is so enshrined. But as the opening paragraph of the charter states, there is no such thing as an absolute right. There are limits: “Limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

It is time that we quit this dance of vaccination certificates, vaccination passports and refusal to be vaccinated as a personal choice. It is time to make vaccination mandatory.

David Kister, Kingston, Ont.