I cringe as mom swings her leg over the seat of her bicycle as she and Dad head off on their daily bicycle ride on an old, deserted dirt track near where they live in the Okanagan. I encourage her to get an easier bike to ride but she prefers to “do it the way I know how.”
I visited them recently for some precious Thanksgiving days that included biking, walking, talking, reminiscing and enjoying meals together in their small, character home. They are both 92 years old, live independently, and have been carefully practicing the public health preventive-health measures for COVID-19, which include wearing masks, social and physical distancing, washing hands, and vaccination.
I recall anxiously waiting for the time about a year after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown began here in B.C., when they were finally eligible to receive their first shot. I was worried they were going to contract it and I knew their risk of becoming severely ill and dying was relatively high. They have made well-informed choices all their lives.
They have lived productive and healthy lives. Family, friends, career and community are important to them. They feel blessed and express gratitude for their lives lived every day.
Many have not been so fortunate and my heart hurts for all those who have lost loved ones to this insidious disease.
Now in October 2021, we are not where I had hoped we would be. COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and deaths increasingly burden and cripple our healthcare system. Surgeries are being cancelled, ICUs overflow, patients are being transferred to other hospitals, and healthcare workers are burning out.
And now, as my parents’ immunity to COVID- 19 undoubtedly wanes, they are still at risk. Sure, they are still doing their part, practicing the same preventive-health measures despite wishing they could re-join some of the social activities they loved to do before the pandemic began. But they know it isn’t safe yet and so they continue to do what is best for themselves, their family, and their community.
And why are we still fighting this battle with COVID-19? Why have we had to seesaw with the re-introduction of lockdowns and closures, which affect the lives of everyone and put many small businesses out of business?
It is because we now have a disease of the unvaccinated.
There would be no need for mandatory vaccination if everyone who is eligible for it simply got vaccinated. Why? Because there would be very little disease.
But a segment of the population refuses, even though they have no valid medical reason for not getting the shots. They say it is “my body, my choice.” Whether because of fear, ignorance, religion, false fixed beliefs spread by social media, conspiracy theory, oppositional disorder or whatever other multitude of reasons they find, they choose to fuel the enemy, which is COVID-19.
If only their choice only affected them. But their ill-informed choice affects everyone. COVID-19 cannot exist without bodies to inhabit. If it cannot infect someone, it dies. We should not be fighting with each other. The enemy is COVID-19. If you are not doing everything you can to fight it, and this means most importantly being fully vaccinated, then you are helping it survive, mutate, infect and kill people.
The scientific evidence becomes more clear every day. The risks associated with COVID-19 far outweigh the risks of vaccination. There is no debating this fact.
If you care about your family, your friends, and your community, and if you have the privilege of living where we live, and being eligible to be vaccinated, then join the fight against COVID-19 and get vaccinated. This will also help protect those who are not eligible to be vaccinated.
I am hoping that if you still have an open enough mind to make a well-informed choice that you will choose to do what is best for everyone and get vaccinated.
This is very personal. I want to be able to ride a bicycle with my mom while she still can. I don’t want her to die of COVID-19 before it is her time.
Please become part of the solution in keeping our loved ones alive. Together we can beat COVID-19.
