[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus

There just aren't 100s of thousands of unvaccinated people in the 60+ demographic in AB. In most cases the population is 90% fully immunized and you're simply not going to get that number to 100% for a variety of reasons. Even in the 50-60 range, there are simply not 100s of thousands unvaccinated either, with AB sitting at just over 80% uptake with 2nd dose numbers rising every day.

In Alberta there are 115K 60+ year olds that aren't fully vaccinated and another 140K 50-59 year olds. That represents a pretty significant hospitalization risk if cases get out of control or there's continuous widespread infections in the coming months.

The 19-35 demo in the province is the clear issue that is leading to the cases spreading into the younger and older populations as they do have the 100s of thousands of unvaccinated remaining, and are the ones spreading the virus by being the most being socially active.

The Increase rates you list are pretty meaningless as well since the caseload in the younger demographics wouldn't have increased as much having higher caseloads to begin with months prior (and for most of the spring).

There is certainly a point to be made that 19-35 is far less likely to suffer severe illness, however, limiting spread and the need to shut down business again should be the goal. To do this right, you don't target a few thousand remaining boomers who are for the most part living in a smaller bubble to begin with. You put out a vaccine passport to make life incredibly difficult on the selfish citizens still not getting the jab that think the worst outcome of Covid is that they feel bad for a day or two. More often than not they still don't consider passing this along to someone who may die or become seriously ill. Vaccinated or not.

The evidence is clear across the provinces and countries willing to put out a passport. Uptake immediately increases significantly, and will in turn keep many more people safe and the provinces open.

I guess I'm just of the mind that because basically nowhere has managed to maintain low cases levels while returning to normal (regardless of vaccination rate), that a huge part of the population is going to be exposed this fall/winter. So that means the most important thing is getting the people most likely to end up in hospital vaccinated. If a vaccine passport doesn't do that for that age cohort, then we need to figure something else out or we run the risk of having the shut everything down again if it keeps spreading widely.