A quarter of Canadians don't want the COVID-19 vaccine. We asked the experts why - National Post

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While the anti-vaccine community is small — estimated at roughly one to three per cent of Canada’s population — it is a vocal one. The WHO says vaccine hesitancy is one of the top risks to global health; if enough people opt to not vaccinate themselves or their children, the WHO says, it can lead to outbreaks of viruses that were previously almost completely eradicated, such as measles. 

In the case of COVID-19, if enough Canadians opt against the vaccine, it could mean that successful herd immunity is put at risk. According to the WHO, herd immunity is “the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.”Depending on how contagious a virus is, herd immunity is estimated to have been achieved when anywhere from 50 to 90 per cent of a population has been vaccinated. 

Why, then, would people decide not to get a vaccine, even when it could help them return to normal life? The reasons are manifold, experts told the National Post.

For a small percentage of Canadians, worry surrounding the time it required to make, test and approve the vaccine, as well as the genetic technology used to create the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, has them on edge. 

Susan Standfield, a self-described “human rights-based, natural health advocate,” forms part of that small percentage. An organizer of anti-lockdown protests, she has stated, without evidence, that COVID-19 is a man-made virus unleashed by the world’s ruling elite to collapse the economy and has circulated claimsthat animal trials were skipped during the testing of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

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2021-01-05 15:36:44Z
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