A leading infectious disease specialist says he’s worried about vaccines becoming politicized just as B.C. heads into its fall COVID and influenza immunization campaign.
Dr. Brian Conway, medical director of the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre, made the comments a day after the BC NDP released a video of BC Conservative Leader John Rustad saying he regretted taking the “so-called” COVID vaccine and claiming vaccine mandates were about “shaping opinion and control on the population.”
The comments were recorded in a June meeting with a group called BC Public Service Employees for Freedom.
“We need to quickly depoliticize the whole issue of vaccination, and I think the two of them together, (BC NDP Leader David) Eby, Mr. Rustad have a unique opportunity to do that,” Conway said.
“I would challenge him to get out there and as soon as this year’s flu shots and COVID shots are available to go and get them, go and get them on camera maybe next to Mr. Eby to depoliticize the issue.”
On Tuesday, Rustad confirmed he would get his flu shot and said both the flu shot and COVID vaccine need to be available for “vulnerable people.”
Rustad has repeatedly evaded questions about whether he believes the science behind the COVID-19 vaccine or what he meant by “control on the population.”
But speaking with CKNW’s The Jas Johal Show on Monday afternoon he offered an explanation as to why he said he wished he regretted receiving the vaccine.
“After receiving the second dose of the COVID vaccine, about six weeks later I actually had a heart problem,” he said.
“And when I went in and talked to some health officials about it, the question wasn’t what were the circumstances or anything, they said, ‘Moderna?'”
Conway said that there is some evidence of heart inflammation issues associated with the vaccine, though typically in younger men.
But he said those instances were rare, and minuscule in comparison to the risks of heart disease associated with COVID-19 itself.
“The risk of cardiac side effects, cardiac symptoms as a result of COVID far outweighs any risk that’s associated with the vaccine,” Conway said.
The BC NDP, however, showed no sign of easing up their focus on the issue on Tuesday.
The party released another clip of Rustad from same June video which appears to show him agreeing that health officials had minimized the seriousness of the pandemic.
In the video, a speaker claims the government was “padding statistics” to “create the perception that COVID-19 is worse than it actually is,” to which Rustad responds, “You’re absolutely right, I think institutions have done that,” before pledging to ease access to information laws “so that it’s not about spin, it’s about facts.”
Rustad was asked directly Tuesday if he believed the government had inflated the impact of COVID.
“We need to look at the results and we need to look at the results compared to other jurisdictions, and that is something that will be looked at but it’s not a priority,” he said, accusing the NDP of using the issue as a distraction.
“That is an issue that has gone in the past, what I am looking at is what we need to do going forward.”
“You’ll find him agreeing with a conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 pandemic was deliberately exaggerated and in fact wasn’t as bad as we all knew it was,” said Vancouver Kingsway candidate Adrian Dix, who served as NDP health minister.
“This is the same kind of thing that was shouted at healthcare workers at times during the pandemic — he is supporting that view.”
Conway, meanwhile, said he hoped the election campaign could stick to substantive issues based on facts, and that all parties could get behind efforts to prepare for the fall respiratory illness season.
The COVID vaccine, he said, has saved millions of lives, and the virus continues to circulate, putting people’s health at risk.
“I would encourage us all to go to our candidates, to go to whoever we are supporting be it a Conservative, an NDP person or anyone else, and say, ‘British Columbia needs you guys to come out and support the fall vaccination campaign for COVID and flu and I really hope you do,'” he said.