We live very close to Parliament, where the anti mandate protesters have been camping for the last few days.
One of our neighbours got a text from his vaccine hesitant brother yesterday to ask if he could come up and have a shower. Turns out to have been a prank, and quite a funny one – he’s not here because he has to be at work. I suspect many of these people have nowhere better to be.
But that story gave me a bit of a fright. Could my antivax brother and his family actually be here? Too awful if so. What a bunch of losers.
The interviews that the media are getting are comical and bizarre, but there’s also a sinister aspect. There are blatant threats. There is intimidation. There is aggressive behaviour – a friend’s daughter was on her way to school when she got spat on, in the face, by a protester because she was wearing a mask.
The really irritating thing is that there is so much actual injustice out there to rail against – wealth inequality, institutional racism and sexism, for example. Or how about those poor boys systematically abused in faith-based care homes over decades that we’ve been hearing about this week? Where is the outrage? But I guess there’s nothing so upsetting as something that mildly inconveniences you personally.
And of course, it’s likely to be a super spreader event. Just as the Omicron variant is making itself felt, a bunch of unvaccinated morons come from all around the country to spend time in close proximity. Oh well, at least they won’t be taking up space in our hospital – surely with their fear of authority and science based medical practices, they won’t come near us…