One of the biggest challenges Canada has faced throughout this pandemic is that so many leaders and so many voices are involved in the official response. Politicians give regular press conferences. Public health officials do the same. Advisory committees of independent experts speak up and challenge not only governments, but other experts. Researchers, clinicians and journalists all have something to say. Our fuzzy federalism makes this that much harder, as it multiplies voices and points of authority. In order to get through this third wave, and stave off a potential fourth wave in the fall, this needs to change.
A look back at the last several weeks provides ample evidence of why Canadians are bewildered. As the third wave built in Ontario, public health experts recommended a draconian shutdown and paid sick leave for essential workers. The premier closed the schools (after some local medical officers of health acted on their own), but also outdoor playgrounds. He empowered the police to engage in random checks of out-and-about citizens. Howls of outrage from angry public health experts followed. Police forces almost uniformly said they would do no such thing.
Then the chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), in the middle of a brutal third wave in Alberta and Ontario, told Canadians to wait for the mRNA vaccines if they were at low risk of catching COVID. Other public health experts piled on immediately and the prime minister asked Canadians to take any vaccine they could get as quickly as they could. No wonder people are confused.
How do we reconcile the role of experts — who provide important advice to governments, yet often disagree amongst themselves in the face of rapidly evolving research — and the responsibility of elected officials to make decisions based on their advice?
There are no easy answers here, but to successfully get through the third wave, and to stave off a fourth, the role of politicians and experts needs to be clarified. There is no trade-off between competent management of the pandemic and political success. The data are clear.
[Interesting Read]
Lockdowns Do Not Control the Coronavirus: The Evidence
The use of universal lockdowns in the event of the appearance of a new pathogen has no precedent. It has been a science experiment in real time, with most of the human population used as lab rats. The costs are legion.
The question is whether lockdowns worked to control the virus in a way that is scientifically verifiable. Based on the following studies, the answer is no and for a variety of reasons: bad data, no correlations, no causal demonstration, anomalous exceptions, and so on. There is no relationship between lockdowns (or whatever else people want to call them to mask their true nature) and virus control.
NO amount of evidence that lockdowns don’t work will ever convince those that are responsible for the catastrophic destruction to our society. Economic and humanitarian carnage for which they and they alone are responsible. But for them their is no price u>not worth paying if only they can escape what they deserve.
https://www.aier.org/article/lockdowns-do-not-control-the-coronavirus-the-evidence/
Do lockdowns not work? Why Florida and Texas are doing better than Ontario and Alberta
Why are lockdown-free states suddenly doing as well or better than locked-down provinces?
https://winnipegsun.com/news/canada/do-lockdowns-not-work-why-florida-and-texas-are-doing-better-than-ontario-and-alberta/wcm/f0b4ceb7-c76b-441b-bc62-0c5d650ff394
So getting vaccinated is akin to taking the birth control pill 3 months into the pregnancy? What the F**K is the point! What an insufferable (fill in the blank)
Over the weekend, Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, told an online audience that even the fully vaccinated can still spread and contract COVID-19. “There’s reduction in your risk of transmission, but it doesn’t necessarily eliminate your risk of transmission,” she told a virtual town hall.
The statement is technically true. But the risk of transmission for the fully vaccinated is so infinitesimally low – about 0.01 per cent according to U.S. data – that Tam may as well be highlighting the dangers of getting strangled by a seatbelt.