There's a lot of fear and anxiety out there as provinces begin to lift the isolation measures put in place to slow the spread of the novel and mostly benign coronavirus. That's understandable, with so many comparisons to the lethal and devastating Spanish Flu still floating around its only natural for some to be worred. And in our polarized world of right and wrong, black and white, good versus evil, lots of people are seeing this as an either or question.
Intelligent people though know that life is seldom that simple, especially in areas of government mandated public policy.
First of all it has to be realized that the isolation measures put in place, (such as they are and were) were never meant to stamp out this virus. The purpose was to slow the spread, to flatten the proverbial curve so that our health care system would not be overloaded. I think its more than reasonable to say that this goal has been accomplished.
Obviously there was still viral spread happening even with isolation measures, but that was unavoidable given the essential nature of the supply chain. I don't even like imagining the chaos that would have ensued if grocery store shelves were empty for weeks at a time with people forced to stay inside their homes. Those eagerly awaiting the Zombie Appocolypse would have gotten their wish.
Flattening the curve doesn't stop viral spread, it simply delays it. And unless we're all willing to hunker in our bunkers for another year or more (perhaps indefinitely) while we wait for a vaccine, then at some point the clamps have to be loosened. And as restrictions are eased we're going to be seeing more infections, its inevitable and we should expect it.
Beyond just flattening the curve and delaying infections, isolation measures have bought us time so that now we know so much more about this novel Coronavirus and the resulting Covid-19 illness.
We know that overwhemlingly most negative outcomes happen in the elderly and health compromised. Dr. Tam herself acknowledged this with the news that 81% of Canada's deaths are occuring in Long Term Care type facilities, where residents are both old and sick already. Even in the small number of younger people getting sick and dying of Covid there's emerging research suggesting a link between Vitamin D deficiency and serious illness.
We've learned a lot thanks to social distancing, and we can use this knowledge to make informed decisions going forward. Not everyone will listen, that's to be expected, we've had decades of research and science telling Canadians to stop smoking, and yet millions still do, I'm one of them.
In short the number of cases isn't the number to watch in my opinion, its the number of hospitalizations and the degree to which our health care system is under strain. And we should also remember that our hosptials were often over capacity even before this pandemic. The term "hallway medicine" didn't result from Covid, it was already a normal state of affairs.
Lockdown measures are not a cure all, and in of themselves come with all manner of negative health issues and death. As we slowly open back up we just need to be smart and protect the people the science says are most vulernable.
Thanks for reading, I'll have more to say later.
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5 comments:
Well Suzi, I am 72 and quite ready to die so you can have a big mac.
I disagree with your premise: Ignore government advice during a bacterial or viral outbreak. You are remiss on a number of issues. The add the popped up on my book displayed a young women who apparently is ready to fulfill.... A change in advertising may be needed.
Stop encouraging bloggers to ignore government directives during a pandemic.
Anton, I just re-read this entry and nowhere do I see anything advocating that advocates ignoring government advice. Criticizing government action does not mean advocating disobedience....this is what we do in progressive western cultures.
Gordie, I don't know what province you're from but voluntary isolation/distancing measures have proven their worth here on Vancouver Island. The provincial centre for disease control reports no new cases and just one patient still in treatment but not in intensive care. 126 cases in all.
I have been impressed at how well people in our communities responded to these efforts not only to safeguard themselves but also to protect their neighbours. We've also been guided by the best medical officer of health in the country, federal or provincial.
The disparity in outcomes from nation to nation, from province to province, proves that your "one size fits all" arguments are flawed.
As George Monbiot pointed out yesterday, until last year the US and the UK were rated #1 and #2 in pandemic preparedness. Then the Trump administration jettisoned the pandemic response team/programme that was bequeathed to them by Obama and British Tories chose BoJo to be the country's prime minister. Now they're #1 and #2 again but in a diametrically different connotation.
BTW, have you been writing Steve Mnuchin's talking points?
Disaffected Lib....thanks for reading and commenting.
I'm in eastern Ontario, the area is largely rural so things haven't been bad here either. I think there's a tendancy to draw cause and effect relationships, it makes life easy. We look at a country like the United States, especially a city like NY and then compare it with Japan and Tokoyo....we look at the numbers and said 'wow, the Japanese followed direction and socially distanced and all the rest, that's why their numbers are so much better'.
Personally I think that's a little simplistic. When I look at the rates of obesisty in Japan versus the United States....the US is far worse, roughly one third of the population has a BMI of 30 or more, the threshold for clinical obesity. A health index I looked at had Japan as the number 2 country in the world for health (looking at things like obesisty, diet, incidence of heart disease, diabetes etc)....the #1 country was Singapore, another country (city state really) with incredibly low deaths to covid.
A currsary look at VI's demographics show a population of ~800K in 2018 with about 500K of those listed as being 64 and younger. I haven't seen anything about health statisitics though...how healthy are people in Victoria? Japan has the world's oldest population.....
No doubt so called "lock down" measures have had some impact....but I don't think they're the definitive factor in determining how well a large populous region fares. I know New Brunswick has done similarily well...but that is likely due to that province's very low and sparse population....
As for Steve Mnunchin....I don't know who that is, link me something up if you wouldn't mind.
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