For over a year, CMOH and Public Health have been focusing New Brunswick's entire pandemic response on vaccinations.
Vaccinations are extremely important and extremely beneficial. They are, however, not capable of stopping the pandemic by themselves.
Before we go any further, let me unequivocally state that vaccinations prevent serious illness and are absolutely necessary in fighting the pandemic.
Anti-vaxers with no data literacy will argue that there are as many vaccinated deaths in New Brunswick as unvaccinated deaths. Is this true?
Sort of.
As of the most recent GNB update, 50.7% of Covid deaths were among people who were protected (two or more doses). 49.3% were among people with partial or no protection.
That sounds bad, until you take into account the populations of each group.
This trick-of-the-math is referred to as "base rate fallacy" and looks like this in New Brunswick:
177 deaths out of 657,661 protected New Brunswickers (0.03%).
172 deaths out of 93,094 unprotected New Brunswickers (0.18%).
Unprotected New Brunswickers are dying 6.9 times more than protected New Brunswickers.
So vaccinations are awesome. However, they are not a silver bullet which will stop the pandemic by themselves.
The strength of COVID vaccinations is in their ability to reduce the impacts of infection, vaccinations are not guaranteed to prevent transmission.
Public Health's insistence on vaccination as a way to "live with covid" belies the situation we are in.
Even a 100% vaccinated population will be susceptible to mass disease and surplus death in the face of the evolving virus.
We can see how the vaccines-only policy played out in New Brunswick with the Delta and Omicron waves.
98.8% of total NB cases were recorded after vaccines were available.
94.3% were recorded after NB achieved 75% double vaccination rate.
86.8% were recorded after boosters became available.
Similarly, we see that with a vaccine-only policy, deaths slow but do not cease.
97.7% of total NB deaths were recorded after vaccines were available.
86.8% were recorded after NB achieved 75% double vaccination rate.
67.3% were recorded after boosters became available.
Continuing without additional interventions assures that cases will continue unabated. We have seen first hand that unmitigated transmission leads to more loss than is morally acceptable.
So what else is needed?
We need "vaccines-plus" policy.
Global vaccination
Acknowledgment of airborne transmission
High quality masks when needed
Ventilation/filtration
Effective testing
Clear criteria for when to use each measure
NB Public Health has never officially acknowledged airborne transmission; they have crippled and undermined effective testing programs; they have stated no criteria for implementing mandated or personal mitigations; and they have discontinued RHA vaccination clinics.
Vaccination rates are a beneficial scapegoat metric because they transfer responsibility and accountability away from Public Health and onto individuals.
Public Health asks us all to bear unprecedented illness while we wait for vaccination rates to increase, but when/if they do, nothing will change.
Vaccine-only policy is bad.
If the goal is to establish a "normal" world where we all "live with covid", that world must have non-pharmaceutical protections that are widespread and made equitably available to all New Brunswickers.
Vaccine-only will not deliver this world to us.