'What a f*cking idiot': On Steven Del Duca, the man who almost harmed thousands with booster mandates

As the science refuses to settle, and third, fourth, and 'bivalent' doses waste away in warehouses, Steven Del Duca's dangerous foray into booster mandates gets hauled out from the memory hole.

Descending from high upon Piz Gloria and his Swiss mountain ‘allergy institute’ (read: the Queen’s Park visitors’ gallery), Steven Del Duca cuts a menacing figure. His head freshly shorn beneath his cap and goggles, Del Duca and his henchmen (read: teachers’ unions) make a valiant effort of chasing down two concerned parents who have read the studies, consulted with a family physician and their child’s pediatrician, and don’t yet feel comfortable with one, two, or even three doses of mRNA.

The year was 2022. The place: Ontario. And I may or may not be confusing the actions of the now-Mayor of Vaughan, Ontario with those belonging to Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

The one-time Liberal leader without a seat, who again saw his party trounced in the 2022 Ontario provincial election, was as deserving of the scorn then as he is now.

Perhaps, especially now.

For months, Canadians have been voting with their feet. More have had bad experiences, or continue to have valid questions about potential missed safety signals. Booster programs have dried up, the ‘bivalent’ rollout has been an utter failure, and only a few sad and sordid types appear to still be stacking syringes in their Twitter bios. With Quebec moving to outright drop their booster recommendation for anyone but the most infirm, this news should be viewed as a step in the right direction given the dangers of overkill in the we’ve-all-been-infected-multiple-times-anyway era.

Only this writer is not in a celebratory mood, not when the Steven Del Ducas of the world, and those like him, were trying to disappear young, healthy, previously-recovered children and young adults from public life mere months ago. And nary a member of Pravda batted an eyelash at the time, or took them to task for their ridiculous demands that hid behind “settled science” that we should all know to be anything but.

Not only was Del Duca an early advocate for the expansion of then-already-pointless and deleterious vaccine passports:

Steven Del Duca @StevenDelDuca

Boosters will protect Ontarians and our economic reopening. Ontario Liberals continue to call on Doug Ford to combat vaccine misinformation, increase access to at-risk communities, and require the third dose for vaccine certificates. #onpoli

thestar.comHigh-risk Ontarians lagging on third doses of COVID vaccineJust 22 per cent of pregnant Ontarians have received third doses, and 10 per cent of homeless people under age 65, according to new data from ICES.

He tried to make it a universal requirement for hundreds of thousands of Ontario schoolchildren (not just businesses) and even campaigned against letting the unvaccinated homeless into liquor stores.

Alex Brown @alexbrown17

When Steven Del Duca campaigns on the promise to ban a few hundred-thousand kids from in-classroom learning, in direct defiance of public health guidelines, and knowing full well the disproportionate damage that he will cause to vulnerable communities and low-income families:

It was a bold and wildly illiberal choice at the time — but not totally out of step with the sudden Zoom-class fever dream that had also overtaken his federal Liberal counterparts.

Thankfully, it meant provincial political suicide. In one of those surefire reminders that Twitter is not real life, the ‘consensus’ from Very Online radical academics and their army of Munchausen’s-adjacent fans who were already members of ME/CFS message boards before 2020, had been that Ontario had to hold onto ineffective Covid controls for longer than anyone else because dammit, we’re the centre of the universe, that’s why!

(Except we’re not. Heck, we’re not even the best province. We don’t get Alberta’s sunshine, and we sure as hell don’t have British Columbia’s temperate weather and stunning views.)

On election day, Del Duca lost the access codes to Piz Gloria, and even the keys to the minivan that shuttled him around town. (One wonders if he ever pulled up next to a group of kids, and asked if they wanted to come inside for a booster. Now that’s stranger danger.)

Losing like that to one Douglas Robert Ford was no small feat; not after Ford took so many well-deserved shots for two years, and almost constantly chose the advice of the hysterics and special interests over the non-zealous who were only asking to keep that pilot light of humanity on during the worst of government-addled suffering, but who were denied even the most basic of human dignities.

Ford first term was awful — the worst premier of my lifetime, and that’s saying something — but Del Duca was dangerous.

“What a f*cking idiot,” an emergency physician tells Acceptable Views, upon recollection of Del Duca’s failed booster gambit.

“A campaign on boosters was a cowardly attempt to pander to his anxious, worried-well electorate, and showed that they had no interest in evidence-based policy.”