Sunday, May 24, 2020

Bellwood or no Bellwood the coronavirus is not going away anytime soon - It may never go away

Lots of people are expressing anger, frustration and disbelief about reports of thousands of people gathering in Toronto's Trinity Bellwood park recently.  Part of this anger is based on the misguided and completely false notion that if not for this kind of behaviour the pandemic would be over and people could go back to living their normal lives.  

Well folks here's your daily dose of simple reality, the novel coronavirus is not going away any time soon.  In point of fact it may never go away.  At some point we may very well have to come to grips with the fact that people are going to die from Covid-19.  

Can we handle that?  

Of course we can, we already do in our day to day lives.  Even with a vaccine people die of flu/influenza every year including young children, 8,511 in 2018 alone according to StatsCan.  We can't function as a society with this constant focus on trying to prevent death, its not healthy.  Even before the coronavirus Canada was expecting to have about 290,000 deaths this year, close to 800 each and every day on average.

Could some of these deaths be prevented?  Absolutely!!!  We could ban smoking, shutter schools every year during flu season, impose bans on all driving that is not absolutely essential.  We don't do those things because we accept that, well....life sucks and people die, every single day.  

You can't cheat death, it always wins in the end.  If you're a person of faith, then death isn't the end it's the beginning.  And if you're a person without faith, it doesn't matter....you're still going to die, nobody gets out of here alive.  




3 comments:

The Disaffected Lib said...

Gordie, you really have to work on this 'straw man' thing. Who do you know who imagines that, if it wasn't for these frolickers, Covid-19 would be licked? Have you read the information from the medical and science experts? Do they say anything remotely like that? No, of course not. Gordie, c'mon. That's sophistry. You know better. They will set back the progress that has been made at the cost of real human lives, to be sure. How much? I don't know. I do know, from what the medical and science-types, people who do know tell us, that, if this becomes a "thing" we can expect something more or less akin to what happened during the summer of 1918 when populations deemed that contagion over and returned to "normal." FFS, Gordie, this was thoroughly documented, analyzed and chronicled decades before you were born. You really need to stop spinning this nonsense.

Anonymous said...

I can see you're going to bang your same old drum come what may. On my favourite forum, we call people like that trolls. Nobody's going to sway their dogmatic stance but they feel they must ensure they repeat theirs a thousand times. You never know, a passing twit might be converted. All getting a bit boring if I may say so. Issue an update once a week so we know you're still there. Don't bother writing an essay every couple of days, we know where you stand.

Quoting statistics which I attempted to show you are entirely suspect - no doubt you'd have a right old ding-dong talking to my brother the doc, you being the expert and all.

Your solution to Covid-19? Let 'er rip, baby! Those medical staff working away hard in Ontario where the plague rate is still rising I saw almost in tears tonight on TV? Your advice. Stop. You're wasting your time. Take a break and forget about it, enjoy a well-earned vacation. Sheesh, what's the panic all about anyway? All those medics and pols deliberately trying to ruin the economy? Misguided dopes. People are gonna croak anyway, let the old ones croak a bit earlier.

About sum up your position? Might as well join the Trump parade. It's the economy, stupid, yeah, that's the ticket. Nothing else matters really and it's all been damned personally inconvenient too. Spare us your moderate but progressive view if this is all it amounts to, repeated ad infinitum.

BM

Gordie Canuk said...

Diaffected_Lib....

I know a number of people who've expressed the sentiment that "if everyone would just follow the rules I could go visit my grandmother again". So its not a straw man fallicy, I'd be shocked if you haven't encountered the same sentiment. Its almost like some people think we're on a collective time out, and that if everyone would just sit quiet and do as they're being told, then we could all go out and play.

A thought occured to me recently with respect to Bellwood. Among those gathering in the Toronto park I'm sure there are a number of people who are still working, in grocery stores, factories and warehouses....including facilities that have had outbreaks. Of course its okay for them to go and work, to be indoors and in close proximity with non-family members...and we're told the vast majority of viral transmission inside.


BM, expressing my views on my own blog doesn't even belong in the same area code as trolling, but if you want to engage in name calling that's alright, I remember middle school.

As for the reliablity of the statistic being out by various health agencies...they are what they are, I'm sure they're not 100% accurate but they're all we have to go on. I'm trusting the numbers published by the Ontario Hospital association for the number of patients receiving treatment for Covdid as well as the ICU/Ventilator numbers. And I'm not making any predictions, the experts have said that 10,000 people gathering as just happened will lead to significant viral spread....and I don't think they're wrong. The important thing is that it's said this will lead to our hospitals experiencing a surge in patients....we shall see if that happens. I hope it doesn't, I'm hoping the experts with their computer modelling are wrong again.

Thanks for reading.