Opinion

Leona O'Neill: Vaccine passports are a sensible approach to Covid - not evidence of a dictatorship

Stormont's plan to introduce so-called vaccine passports, though it has arguably come too late, has been met with opposition from anti-vaxxers and others. Protestors need to understand the move is part of a common sense approach to help keep people safe, says Leona O'Neill

Protestors against Stormont's vaccine 'passport' plan gathered at Belfast City Hall on Saturday. Picture by Mal McCann
Protestors against Stormont's vaccine 'passport' plan gathered at Belfast City Hall on Saturday. Picture by Mal McCann Protestors against Stormont's vaccine 'passport' plan gathered at Belfast City Hall on Saturday. Picture by Mal McCann

AT the weekend hundreds of people gathered outside Belfast City Hall to protest at the introduction of vaccine passports to Northern Ireland.

They came mostly maskless, brandishing anti-vaccine and anti-Covid certification placards and banners, some of them held aloft placards bearing swastikas and stars of David, comparing new measures with Nazi Germany.

The passport move came after a majority of Stormont ministers backed the introduction of a Covid certification scheme to Northern Ireland which will see people having to demonstrate evidence of a Covid-19 vaccination, or a negative lateral flow test result, or indeed proof of a Covid infection within the previous six months before entering a nightclub, bar, restaurant and some other settings from December 13.

Looking at it from above - which is where I always like to view a situation, away from the emotion, the colour, the raised voices, where you can have some space to contemplate and room to view the situation as a whole - it doesn't look anything like a dictatorship to me.

It looks a lot like common sense. It is not forcing people to have a vaccine if they don't want to, it's just asking them to take a test before they enter a premises where they will be mixing with other people so as to stop the spread of a deadly virus.

It's really not complicated, in fact it's simple, indeed it's common sense.

Some 53 Northern Irish people died of Covid in the last week. How are we as a people accepting that?

Our infection rate is sky rocketing again so therefore our vulnerable people are being put at increased risk with high community transmission.

Our hospitals are buckling under the pressure of Covid and normal winter stresses. Last week one Northern Ireland hospital had to divert ambulances because of the pressure in its A&E department.

It is clear something has to be done.

The measures introduced by Stormont will go some way to tackling those issues.

What exactly is wrong with checking if you have a highly contagious virus before mixing with other people and potentially putting them in hospital?

Why protest over something that will keep yourself and others safe?

The people standing at the gates of Belfast City Hall last week may as well stand outside our hospitals and stick two fingers up to our tired and battle-weary health workers who fought at the frontline of this pandemic for almost two years.

I understand people's hesitancy over getting the vaccine. I know people who were vehemently opposed to the vaccine, didn't believe Covid was real, thought it was a conspiracy invented by the government to control the population etc. That was until they got it themselves, got extremely sick, ended up in hospital or with debilitating long Covid symptoms that have

totally changed their lives.

There are tragic stories out there of people who refused to be vaccinated dying and leaving their young children behind, of plunging their families into grief, of being young and fit and healthy and still succumbing to this awful disease, of pleading from their death beds for other people not to make their mistakes and get themselves vaccinated before it's too late.

Anti-vaxxers last week protested outside my boy's school. They handed out leaflets to children and told some of them that they would die if they got the vaccine. They upset so many children.

A few months back the same anti-vaxxers went into a vaccination clinic for pregnant women and screamed through loudhailers that they were murdering their babies by getting the jab, leaving pregnant and vulnerable women terrified and in tears.

Anti-vaxxers across Northern Ireland have been sending our politicians death threats, engaging in abusive online pile ons with journalists covering the facts, having their 'facts' uncovered as lies time and time again and found to be making money from peddling their misinformation.

I know what side I want to be on, and it is definitely not that one.

There is very clear independent medical evidence that the vaccine works, it is safe and it drives hospitalisations and deaths down.

My family got their vaccinations because we wanted to stay out of the hospital, we didn't want to burden an already overburdened system and put pressure on an already exhausted medical workforce and we wanted to stay alive.

We got it because we wanted to give ourselves the very best chance against this horrible illness.

I hope wherever you are on the issue, you take care of yourself and your family.