We could easily eliminate much of the danger in our world. So why don’t we?
Every year, tens of thousands of Canadians die from things like the complications from obesity and unhealthy lifestyles
Thousands die in car accidents.
In large part, those deaths are preventable.
We could ban all unhealthy food.
We could make people prove they are adhering to government mandated exercise regimens.
We could ban the use of cars in most cases.
We could cut the speed limit dramatically.
Come to think of it, why not just ban air travel as well, since people die in plane crashes?
People also die in fights and in other random accidents when out and about, so why not restrict how many people can leave their homes?
Why not have staggered ‘home exit freedom?’ to limit those who are driving and walking the streets?
Why not combine all the measures listed above, and save a ton of lives.
After all, saving lives and making life safer is the most important thing right?
As absurd as all this sounds, it is reminiscent of the ‘zero-covid’ attitude that has taken hold among many of our elected officials and ‘experts.’
In short, they have made Covid not only the most important policy focus, but the only policy focus.
Reducing Covid case counts has become the overriding focus of our entire society, a focus that is out of sync with how dangerous the virus is.
The current seven day rolling average of covid deaths in Canada is 42.
42 people per day in a nation of 38 million people.
While every death is tragic and is a huge loss to the person’s loved ones, there is a need for perspective when looking at the national scale.
You don’t have to be skilled at math to realize that restricting the freedom of an entire nation, and setting policy based on six people dying per day in a country of our size is incredibly foolish and short-sighted.
And don’t just take my word for it.
Even in New Zealand, a country that has been among the most fanatical proponents of the delusional ‘zero-covid’, they have finally had to admit that it isn’t compatible with reality:
“New Zealand has become the latest country to abandon a zero Covid strategy, with the virus proving much harder to stop now the highly infectious delta variant is dominant.
After adopting one of the world’s strictest approaches to trying to control the spread of Covid-19, New Zealand announced on Monday that the country would no longer pursue an approach that would attempt to eliminate all Covid cases.
This zero Covid strategy, also employed by the likes of China and Taiwan, involves strict lockdowns (even after the detection of just one or a handful of cases) and extensive testing, heavily controlled or closed borders, as well as robust contact tracing systems and quarantine mandates.
The move comes after a lockdown in the city of Auckland failed to stop the virus in the face of the more virulent delta variant. It is estimated to be 60% more transmissible than the alpha variant originally discovered in late 2020, and which itself usurped a previous, less infectious version of the virus.”
The irony is that efforts to eliminate the less severe early form of Covid kept much of the population from being exposed to it initially, leaving more to be exposed to the more serious version. Many governments likely don’t mind this however, since it gives them an ‘excuse’ to continue draconian restrictions on freedom.
But for even New Zealand – a nation that shut down much of the country for a single covid case – to admit their failure is quite instructive.
As I’ve said in other contexts, reality can only be avoided so long.
And in this case, a country or society can only wreck their economy and destroy the mental health of their people before resistance builds and the damage is impossible to ignore.
Will Canada wake up?
Amazingly, even as zealous ‘zero-covid’ governments like the one in New Zealand backtrack somewhat, in Canada many of our ‘leaders’ seem to still be seeking ‘zero-covid’ as the goal.
Vaccine targets have moved from 70%, to 80%, to 90%, and we now have officials saying that all adults must be vaccinated, along with all children, and with ‘booster doses’ on top of that.
The goalposts continue shifting, and every time a goal is met, the goal changes to something currently out of reach in order to ‘justify’ continued restrictions and government authority over individual Canadians.
For example, in Alberta, despite over 75% of people being fully vaccinated, Jason Kenney is talking about ‘booster doses’ and continues to impose centralized government control over how many people Albertans can gather with:
“Ahead of the Thanksgiving weekend, Kenney also cautioned Albertans to follow public health measures closely to prevent widespread transmission.
Outdoor social gatherings are now limited to only 20 people, down from 200.
As well, indoor gatherings are banned for those who are unvaccinated and limited to a maximum of 10 people from two households for those who are vaccinated.
“Indoor gatherings last Thanksgiving sparked the second wave of COVID with cases and hospitalizations surging after millions of Albertans celebrated in close contact with loved ones,” said Kenney.”
Amazingly, we are seeing that those in power have learned literally nothing.
Rather than having strengthened ICU capacity (as they promised), rather than the prioritization of warning people about the risks of obesity and improving health, they simply did nothing much at all, and then pushed the same ‘fix’ over and over again: Taking away more freedom.
And all long, there hasn’t even been a debate over why we have allowed ‘safety’ to supersede everything else, a point effectively made by Glenn Greenwald:
“If you were to propose the speed limit be lowered to 40, almost nobody would support it: even though doing so would save thousands of lives. They would say: we can’t incur those costs. It’s worth it to allow those deaths.
Why is there no rational risk-benefit calculus to COVID?”
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1417521795004051466?lang=en
‘Safety’ is the latest excuse to remove freedom
Notice how ‘safety’ is also used as the reason for government officials to crackdown on social media, and try to restrict independent media?
It is simply the latest and most effective cover for the age-old instinct to dominate and control others.
Giving up freedom for more safety is a bargain with the devil, and it’s one we must reject if we wish to hold on to our values.
Spencer Fernando
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