Healing vaccination divisions 'might be a generation in the making,' Winkler residents fear

Some residents of a southern Manitoba city with one of the province's lowest vaccination rates say the divide that's sprung up around immunization status has shaken their community and they're worried about how long it will take for it to heal.

"It's not going to happen overnight. I don't think it's going to happen in the next five years," John Froese said as he sold pumpkins at a farmers' market in Winkler, where as of Wednesday only40.8 per centof eligible people had one COVID-19 vaccine dose roughly half the provincial average.

"I think it's something that might be a generation in the making."

Froese lives in the nearby communityof Hochfeld, which is in the only part of Manitoba with a lower vaccination rate than Winkler: therural municipality of Stanley, which surrounds the city. Only 23.9 per cent of the eligible population in the RM not even one in four people has been vaccinated.

WATCH | CBC's Karen Pauls reports from Winkler:

People in Winkler, Man., fear divisions over COVID-19 vaccination may last years

3 years ago

Duration 2:54

As of Sept. 22, only 40.8 per cent of eligible people in the southern Manitoba city had one COVID-19 vaccine dose roughly half the provincial average.

Froeseis among the few who have been vaccinated. He said while he's not ashamed of that status, he's decided it's not something he'll offer to talk about, either.

"In order to maintain proper ties with my neighbours and stuff, I try not to mention it too much. And nobody mentions it too much to me," he said.

"They know where I stand, but I'm not going to make a big scene about it."

At the next stand over at the market,baker Lena Wiebesaid she has no plans to get vaccinated.

But seeing the growing rift between people who have been immunized against COVID-19 and those who haven't, she worries about the future of her community, too.

"I hope we will be united again," she said. "It's going to be hard."

Winkler Mayor Martin Harder said animosity around pandemic restrictions has only grown since he raised concerns about divisions in the community, roughly 100 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg,last fall.

"I can go back [to] a year ago, when I said the impact of the COVID restrictions and the environment of COVID is going to have a generation of impact on our community. It will last a lot longer than COVID will," Harder said.

"I wish that would not be true, but I'm afraid it is."

Doctors disheartened

In the past, adversity always pulled the community in Winkler together, Harder said. But things are different now that people have chosen sides.

"The stress that we have these days is pulling the community apart," he said.

That division has also been disheartening for doctors in the area. Manynow find their longtime patients no longer trusting their expertise when it comes to the science behind vaccines, said Dr. Don Klassen, afamily physician who has practised for decades in Winkler.

"I think if there's a discouragement now, it tends to be that you've trusted us on all of these things for many years, on finding the appropriate care for you and delivering appropriate care for you," Klassen said.

"And now to seemingly not trust us on what we think we've learned about the pandemic, the virus, the vaccine, how we're going to get out of thisit's a little difficult."

And after so much work has been done to recruit and retain health-care workers in the region, Klassen said he hopes his colleagues see the situation as "a giant bump in the road" and not something that makes them rethink where they want to spend their careers.

"I'm not worried about an exodus. I'm worried about even one or two people reconsidering whether they want to be here in the long haul."

Zachary Hildebrand said he's done his best to keep the divisions in the larger community out of his Winkler coffee shop.

When Manitoba recentlychanged its pandemic restrictions to require proof of vaccination for indoor dining, he wentback to only offering takeout at Whitecap Coffee so he wouldn't have to deny service to, presumably, more than half his customers.

It's been challenging, Hildebrand said. But he's still hopeful his community will find its way back to what it once was.

'Remembering who we are'

"Winkler used to be known as such a generous and caring and loving community. And we're still those people," he said.

"For better or for worse, we're still a community. So maybe it's just remembering who we are, remembering what we're capable of and remembering that at the end of the day, what is most important is caring for people."

Klassen, too, is still feeling optimistic.

While some of Winkler's unvaccinated residents find their opposition rooted in conspiracy theories, he said he believes a much bigger group just want to do the right thing.

"The right thing might not be exactly what I would choose, but they want to do the right thing for their health, for their families," he said.

"I hope they will come to see that the medical advice can be trusted, that many conspiracy theories, almost by definition, don't come true. And that they will go ahead and help get us out of this pandemic."