Deadline day: Are you vaxxed?

Let’s cut to the chase.

If you’re employed by the Province of Nova Scotia but today find yourself barred from work and not getting paid — because you still refuse, without legitimate reason, to be vaccinated against COVID-19 — you’ll get no sympathy here.

Or, frankly, almost anywhere else in the region.

We’re now 20 months into a historic pandemic. Highly effective vaccines that help avoid or blunt coronavirus infections have been available for nearly a year. They’ve been widely distributed since spring.

At this point, the continued spread of the disease and emergence of new variants like omicron are being largely fueled by the unvaccinated. Except for those who legitimately cannot be immunized, the days of cutting them slack are over.

The N.S. government is cutting some slack — and rightly so — for those who have, for whatever reason, received at least one shot. Under the province’s policy that’s encouraging compliance, they have until the end of January to get fully immunized. But until they are, they’ll still be subject to health and safety measures like testing.

And, of course, there must also be clearly understood exemptions for those who cannot, for medical reasons, be vaccinated.

Anyone rejecting the clear science behind vaccines shouldn’t be teaching kids or providing health care, period. Not to mention the greater threat the unvaccinated, because they themselves have no protection against infection, pose to the immunocompromised or others in fragile health.

We’re all tired of the pandemic and its accompanying restrictions. The unvaxxed are delaying our ability to end this international crisis.

And spare me the antivaxxers’ house of mirrors arguments, where zealots rant that established vaccine science must be endlessly questioned, yet routinely avoid applying the same level of scrutiny to their own sketchy “research.”

Their ill-informed opinions flood social media, confusing some honestly trying to understand what to do.

Thankfully, the latest numbers released by the province show extremely high levels of compliance with the vaccination mandate.

As of Nov. 23, the Nova Scotia Health Authority, IWK Health Centre, Emergency Health Services and longterm and home care — along with education — all report their personnel are 95 per cent or better fully vaccinated.

Other services, including daycares, adult day programs (for seniors and long-term care), Community Services (disability support program and child and youth caring program), Hearing and Speech Nova Scotia and correctional services, also report well over 90 per cent vaccination rates.

While that’s encouraging — it’s well above Nova Scotia’s overall rate of nearly 80 per cent of the population being fully vaccinated — unfortunately the response of the province’s judges has been disappointing.

The Nova Scotia judiciary, while rightly saying it is exempt from provincial government jurisdiction, won’t disclose whether it has a vaccination policy for judges.

The judiciary’s reasoning? That if courts hear legal challenges to the government’s vaccination mandates, they must not appear biased.

“The public needs to know that these matters will be heard impartially,” Jennifer Stairs, the judiciary’s communications director, told SaltWire last week. “With that in mind, there are no plans for the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court to disclose such information.”

Many legal experts reject such reasoning as flawed logic.

“If there actually are impartiality concerns [around disclosure] — and I do not think there are — it is difficult to understand how the issue of impartiality would turn on the court being secretive as to whether there is a vaccination policy: either the policy exists or it does not,” Ottawa law professor Amy Salyzyn, president of the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics, told the Lawyer’s Daily in September.

Other Canadian courts, though not all, have been more forthcoming. But the Supreme Court of Canada has disclosed that all its justices are fully vaccinated and stated its policy is for all court staff to be vaccinated.

At least Nova Scotia Chief Judge Pamela Williams says all sitting judges in this province, now and in future, will be fully vaccinated.

The vaccination status of judges now on medical leave is unknown.

Let’s wrap this up.

I expect provincial vaccination mandates to be around a while longer, so better get used to them. At some point, boosters will likely also become mandatory.

As long as this pandemic is ongoing, public health measures such as these are going to be needed.