We must remember that so called lockdown measures were never put in place to save lives or to stop people from contracting the novel coronavirus. The rationale from the start was to slow, (not stop) the spread and to flatten the proverbial curve so that our health care system would not be overwhelmed.
That was the reason, full stop.
You can't change the narrative after destoying the lives of millions of people, heaping pain and misery on counltless individuals including young children. People get sick and die, it's been happening since time began and Canadians know that it's reality. That's why we don't do this every year.
8,511 Canadians died from the flu in 2018 as per Statscan, including young children, , the 6th leading cause of death that year. But we accept that because our health care system is used to it, so we have to practice hallway medicine and perform triage, that's the price of having a functioning society.
About 12,000 people are killed or seriously injured on Canada's roads every year, again inlucluding young children. And here too, we accept that because nobody has wanted to live in a society with Big Brother watching our every move, restricting all driving to only that which is strictly essential.
And this year we're seeing people die from Covid-19. Death is death is death. Somone dying of Covid isn't more dead than somone who died of the flu, or from cancer, or from being in a head on collision because of texting and driving. Canadians accept death. It happens. This year Canada was expected to have somewhere around 290,000 people die, regardless of Covid.
Could we bring in draconian measures and mitigate some of these deaths? Absolutely, but we don't, or at least we never have until this year. And we only did it because Covid-19 was so lethal that our hospital ICU beds were going to have people lined up 8, 9, or 10 deep waiting for a ventilator, or so the computer models said anyway.
Well, that never happened.
In Ontario the number of patients being treated for Covid has been dropping steadily for weeks. I started tracking daily on May 25th after the massive gathering took place in Trinity Bellwood park. Remember how that was going to cause a surge of patients needing treatment? It never happened, on May 25th Ontario Hospitals had 878 patients, now that number is down to just 527.
It's hard to fault the Ontario government for moving slowly, after all they and their media mouthpieces have spent the past 3 months trying to scare the bejeebers out of everyone. And by and large they accomplished their goal, many people are still terrified of the novel and mostly benign coronavirus.
On my facebook page high school friends of mine admonsihed me for my views, and I was told that a classmate of mine had contracted the virus. "Gordon, you have to take this seriously, Morag (not her name) has Covid and she's fighting for her life". As it turned out she was quarantined in a motel room in the northern part of the GTA after contracting the coronavirus at an LTC where she works.
Yes, Covid can be deadly, for less than 1% of the population. But it's not anywhere near as deadly as early computer models predicted. Incidentally, for anyone who isn't clear on the subject, computer modelling is not science.
I'm convinced the Ontario government is aware of this, that the crisis is over, that in fact there never really was a crisis. But politics is politics and they just can't wave a flag and say: "Okay, everyone go back to life as normal". Not after weeks and months of doom and gloom, that would be electoral suicide. Sorry for all the suicides, deaths from cancelled surgeries and to all the kids locked down with out of work, abusive alcoholic parents but the computer told us to do it.
Instead we get 10 person bubbles, which anyone with any degree of critical thinking skills knows is frought with so many problems as to make it almost totally pointles. I see it as a pretty much an empty gesture designed to make it look like something is being done.
"I don't want Bob's family in our bubble, I asked Joe about his but he said his bubble is already full, and Jane wants Jeff's family in her bubble but they have five kids". What a joke.
"I don't want Bob's family in our bubble, I asked Joe about his but he said his bubble is already full, and Jane wants Jeff's family in her bubble but they have five kids". What a joke.
One last note. While the crisis is over for over 99% of the population, there's still that small minority for whom Covid is extremely serious and potentially deadly. My biggest fear is that complancency will set in and that people will behave recklessly around those for whom Covid could very well mean a trip to the ICU and possibly a ventilator.
Peace.
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4 comments:
I certainly recall and agree with your statement that the lockdown was to flatten the curve and relieve hospitals of shock numbers of infected patient intake. And guess what? It generally worked for the first month till mid-April, although Canada is way down the list of better-performing countries. Deaths in Canada, over 8,000 but in Australia 29. And that comes down to crap for-profit LTC's for over 80% of the deaths here in Canada.
CBC reported on both of these topics yesterday with reporter Terence McKenna, long a well-known shit disturber and not owned by anyone. Australia has its head screwed on straight in regulating and auditing long term care facilities. We don't, being only a slightly more civilized version of the USA where profits are more important than people.
In Ontario, the number of daily confirmed CV-19 cases hasn't gone down, just those of the numbers of people in hospital for it. And yes, of course many people have been denied proper normal health care because of one-track mind dopes running Public Health, totally incapable of juggling two balls at once. It's disheartening to say the least.
I note that Ford's social circle allows people to hug each other, which is certainly not the case in my province of Novas Scotia where our social bubbles still have to practise social distancing.
I have mentioned before the wide and unregulated "cause of death" reasons doctors in Canada are permitted to put down on certificates. Basically any somewhat reasonable cause is allowed. Nobody audits it. So I personally believe not a great deal of the stats floating about. Yet you'd have to be blind to not notice the crisis in deaths of old people from CV-19 compared to a normal flu season. Or the NYC fiasco. That's where I really beg to differ from your one-note essays. You seem incapable of absorbing new information and push your one idea as strongly as you now accuse governments of not 'fessing up to having been too draconian in their CV-19 response. Positions set in concrete on both sides, and therefore of limited value to anyone really trying to get at the truth.
The epidemiology of the various Public Health authorities has been little short of rank amateurish, which I've also noted to you before. Here in NS, we have had for weeks perhaps one new case a day and now only 6 people in hospital. But we have no pro-active testing, we just wait for people to self-identify symptoms to get a test. Scientific? Not in any way at all. Yet we are locked down to June 28 with a new extension of Emergency, because presumably Public Health hasn't got the first clue as to asymptos and is scared of lifting restrictions.
I'm willing to change my mind as new info becomes available. Are you? Or is it to be the same old theory you've espoused for months, and an incapability to update your thoughts? All you seem to be saying is "I was right" with no nuance whatsoever, and there's no real background random testing to prove your off-top-of-your-head assertions either. Nor is there any way to back up Ford's new huggable moments. It's been a shit show almost from the beginning to end from a scientific POV, in my opinion.
BM
So you're now speaking for the medical community, are you Gord? Remind me who appointed you medical officer of health. No one? Really?
No, Gord, the 'priority' was to flatten the curve, to keep the hospital system from being overwhelmed, while precautionary measures dropped infection rates as low as possible until a vaccine arrives. You leave out most of that because it contradicts your premise.
My hematologist abruptly shut down his practice to head up the Covid-19 programme at our regional hospital. Our physicians and a cooperative public did a terrific job. This island has become, for now, Covid-19 free. It's also strep-free, seasonal flu-free, measles and mumps-free. All these readily transmissible viruses have been driven into the ground - for now.
It's not going to last. We all know that. Word gets out that this is a Covid-safe place and drylanders choose to visit our many resorts, some of which have closed to avoid just that. What are we going to do? We can't scuttle the ferries.
We'll probably have to do this all again in the fall. I think we're resigned to that. Yet we know what we can do and how to go about it. How's everything going out your way?
Disaffected Lib. You seem to be under the misguided impression that there is a singular medical point of view, that there is a broad based consensus....there are lots of dissenting voices within medical science saying that lockdown measures are doing more harm than good. Among them are:
-Dr. Neil Rau, an infectious diseases specialist and medical microbiologist in private practice in Oakville, Ont. He is also an assistant professor at the University of Toronto.
-Dr. Susan Richardson is a retired infectious diseases physician and medical microbiologist and professor emerita at the University of Toronto.
-Dr. Martha Fulford is an associate professor at McMaster University and an infectious diseases physician at Hamilton Health Sciences.
-Dr. Dominik Mertz is an associate professor at McMaster University and an infectious diseases physician and hospital epidemiologist at Hamilton Health Sciences.
-Dr. David Katz is American physician and former director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center that was founded at Griffin Hospital in Derby, Connecticut. He has an MD degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and an MPH degree from Yale School of Public Health. He is board certified in preventive medicine
And what's this about "Until a vaccine arrives"??? Are you a time traveller now? You've been to the future and know that for the first time a vaccine there's going to be a successful vaccine program for a coronavirus?
My own guess, and it's just a guess, is that we'll have some form a vaccine next year and that it will be an annual shot like for the flu....somewhat effective but not entirely, and I won't be lining up because typically safe and effective vaccines take 3+ years to develop, not 12 or so short months.
As for what happens in the fall.....if people are getting infected but by and large aren't getting sick and needing treatment, then there will be no need pile pain and misery on millions of people.
Don't expect everyone to have your fear, not everyone was scared of Iraq's WMD either.
As for my way, they identified one additional case in my county well east of the GTA in the last day or two as per reporting...life is slowly getting back to a semblance of normal. Most people here aren't wearing masks out and about or at the grocery store. Some are like you....they're scared and want everyone to share their fear, it looks to me to be about 50/50.
Keep well.
BM, as to your question of whether or not I'll be willing to change my views if new information comes to light.....well, of course. If Covid-19 does mutate and suddenly becomes broadly serious and potentially deadly for more than just a tiny segment (less than 1%) of the population...then it would be rank ignorance not to.
I don't fault the authorities for taking the measures they did at the start, based on the information being provided by the computer models Ontario was going to need 1,300 critcal care beds in our ICUs, and that was "BEST CASE" if social distancing and all the rest was super duper successful....thankfully the computer models were horribly wrong, (in a very good way).
Now with less than 500 Covid patients in Ontario's roughly 500 hospitals....alright. I agree with the medical experts who are saying our response has to be dictated by health care capacity, not case numbers.
It seems to me that so many who bought into the doom and gloom forecasts, they now want them to come true so they can justify their fear....like hoping and praying that Saddam had WMD to justify the second Persian Gulf war.
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