What They Don't Tell You About Covid-19

Way back in the Spring I watched an interview with a young college type who was being chastised by a reporter for ignoring the rules by frolicking with like-minded Spring breakers on a Florida beach. He told the reporter that Covid-19 wasn't much of a danger to him and his fellow collegians and when challenged that he could be spreading the disease, he told the reporter that those in danger should stay home and isolate themselves.

What a Jerk! 

That's what I thought then but now have come to believe that he was absolutely right and despite the government and the media exhorting us to shut down our lives, the reality is that the policy of isolating our entire society is deeply flawed, based on erroneous conclusions, desperation and panic.

Now I'm not an anti-masker, anti-vaxxer or a conspiracy nut, just someone with above-average intelligence who enjoys sifting through reams of data to either validate or reject what officials are telling me to do.

 If you think that I'm an arrogant Besserwisser, someone who rejects government advice because I have a default right-wing paranoid distrust of authority, you are grossly mistaken. I have shared some conclusions through this blog that time has actually borne me out as often more accurate than what the government has peddled. This is partly based on the fact that I don't have a political agenda like that which forces officials to lie in order to protect what they believe is the greater good or in the worst case, their own greater good.
An example of this was the advice that masks were not necessary because of the shortage at the time and the fear that health workers would be deprived. It was perhaps sound public policy but a lie just the same.
I myself bought N95 masks on Ali-express (Chinese: Amazon) so that I wouldn't remove any from the supply here and it took a month to get them, but get them I did and I am still wearing them.
It is a tiny example of how the government makes decisions mostly in good faith but not always in the individual's best interest. 

When we were told back in the early spring by Health Canada and the laughable sadsack Dr. Theresa Tam that Covid-19 wasn't dangerous or likely to have a significant effect on the nation, I read the data coming out of China and concluded that we were going to be slammed. The data was clear to anyone who cared to study it with an open mind and Its logical conclusion that the virus was loosed upon the world and that there was no going back.
Our health minister Patty Hadju swore up and down that closing the border was actually counter-productive, an utterly stupid and foolish notion that the World Health Organization was pushing at the time.

Now I'm not saying that if we closed the border earlier, we would have done much better but the Health minister destroyed her credibility in stridently lecturing us about the counter-productive nature of such a border closure, just days before the Prime Minister, following Donald Trump's lead, did exactly that. Hadju and Dr. Thersa Tam embarrassed themselves by disseminating such harmful and irresponsible ideas and both should have been fired or resigned over their incompetence.

Of course, in their defence politicians and defenders tell us that the advice was based on the best science available at the time, which is a crock of bullshit.
While the Chinese were remiss in reporting the onset of the disease, once denounced by the rest of the world for harbouring the secret, China decided to open up its data including the genome of the virus which led to the rapid discovery of a vaccine. A trove of statistics related to transmission was made readily available. It was those facts and figures that were the basis of my conclusions, which could and probably was known to health agencies in the western world.
I'm actually sure that within Health Canada, there were those who knew the truth, that we'd be in for a monumental catastrophe. The experts and statisticians could analyze the data even better than I, but somewhere a political decision was made to downplay the unfolding disaster.

In a post I wrote on March 13, 2020, at the very onset of the pandemic, I described quite plainly what was coming and offered an opinion on what we should do. Remember, I wrote all this back in March.

"All the experts and all the health professionals know that we cannot stop Covid-19 dead in its tracks, that ship has sailed or never even was in port.
Restricting foreigners at airports may stall the propagation somewhat, but the virus is already here and will work its way through the population, no matter what.
The shutdown of public gatherings is useful only because it will slow (but not eliminate) the spread, giving our limited medical resources more room to react."....

"We must immediately impose a self-quarantine on everybody over 65 years old and those in vulnerable health categories. 

Seniors would be obliged to go into home self-quarantine where they would be forced to ride out the storm. Senior residences would be put on lock down with no visitors and employees would be restricted to working in just one senior residence, reducing contamination from one home to another."

Please read that entire post;

 The Government is Handling Covid-19 All Wrong...

I took my own advice, arranged my affairs, bought all the disinfectant and personal protective equipment needed for myself and my extended family and battened down the hatches, prepared to go underground for the duration.

So what else can I tell you that the government isn't eager for you to know, facts that I've concluded through painstaking data analysis? 

1. The Virus is almost no Threat to the Young

The virus poses a deadly threat to older people, by which I mean those over 80 years old who are particularly susceptible. Remove this demographic from the data and the pandemic is infinitely less dangerous.

In other words, let us as the Springbreaker told us, isolate as best the old and infirm and let the rest of society get on with life.

Here are some readily-available statistics that nobody in government or the media wants to present because the data contradicts the message they are peddling, that Covid is a danger to us all.

As of this date, there have been some 8,000 deaths due to Covid-19 in Quebec, not a number to be scoffed at for sure.
But out of all of those deaths, less than 50 deaths occurred in those aged less than fifty years old which is less than 1% of the total, and this includes the obese, hypertensive and otherwise immune-depressed within that group.
The under 50 years old demographic makes up almost 60% of our Quebec population and represent over 5 million people out of the 8.5 million living in Quebec. It is a stunning fact that nobody wants to admit publicly.

During the nine months of the pandemic and within this under 50 age group, historic statistics tell that about 250 people would have been killed in car accidents, in the same time period, making death by vehicle 5 times more likely than death by Covid-19.

For those of us under fifty, the measures imposed are causing more harm than good. Children are falling behind in their studies and their socialization is suffering immeasurably. For adults, the economic toll of losing one's livelihood is devastating and mental-health issues related to twiddling our thumbs at home exacerbated with reported conjugal violence, suicide, alcohol and drug abuse increasing. Locking down a group that has limited risk is a policy debacle enacted by panic.

2. The media is guilty of spreading panic
The media shoulders much responsibility in panicking the general public over Covid-19 by constantly focusing on the deaths of younger people, fathers, mothers, health workers and first-responders,
media attention that is incommensurate with reality.
The overwhelming majority of deaths occur in patients over 80 years old, those who are generally uninteresting to the media and so a distorted view is presented to the public. Every time the media airs or prints a story about some unfortunate 40'something  who died of Covid-19, they should also air 100 stories about an elderly patient killed by the virus,
It is the very definition of a "man bites dog" media event.

The same goes for reporting allergic reactions from the Covid-19 vaccine which serves only to panic those already jittery over the prospect of getting vaccinated.  Such disproportional media coverage reinforces the reluctance of trypanophobics and anti-vaxxers to accept getting vaccinated.
I suspect that if everyone in the general population were forced to drink a glass of milk the number of anaphylaxis reactions would be higher than with the vaccine

3. The Carnage in the senior residences will endure

The government cannot stop the slaughter in the old people's homes because the cat is out of the bag and remedial action to mitigate the carnage is futile. With seniors living in cramped quarters with personnel travelling between floors and indeed between residences, spread is inevitable and the same goes for any residence where many people are living communally like dorms, hospitals and religious orders.
The problem of senior residences is of course the reduced ability to fight the virus.

4. Asymptomatic transmission is simply not true

From the beginning, officials haven't really understood transmissibility and have erred on the side of caution by telling us that the virus can be spread by infected people not showing any fever or outward signs of infection.
But since the summer, health professionals, as well as government and even the World Health Organization, have concluded that asymptomatic transmission is simply not a problem,
In other words, people who don't demonstrate symptoms, but are infected do not pass on the virus.

"On June 7, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, told a press conference that from the known research, asymptomatic spread was “very rare.” “From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.” She added for emphasis: “It’s very rare.”

Are you shocked by that analysis? 

I certainly was when I read it. It means that if you are infected, yet exhibiting no outward signs of the virus, you are not a danger to others.

Read:

Asymptomatic Spread Revisited

5. Mask-wearing in public protects you, not others

Over the course of the pandemic, the government has reversed itself a number of times over mask-wearing, much to the discredit of its reputation. First, they told us not to wear masks because they were unnecessary, then they told us that we should wear masks to protect others and now they tell us that mask-wearing protects everyone.
I encourage everyone to wear masks as a defence mechanism against idiots who go out in public knowingly infected. To that end, the government has encouraged us to wear flimsy cloth masks because at the time, they were fearful of a shortage of infinitely more effective N95 masks, essential for health care workers.
That shortage has passed and instead of encouraging us now to procure and use the more effective masks (which are now readily available and inexpensive,) the government has stayed criminally silent, likely because reversing itself one more time is a bridge too far vis-a-vis its credibility.
It's as foolish as going outside in winter wearing a flimsy Spring jacket when what is needed is a substantial winter coat. 
If you're going to wear a mask, wear an effective N95 mask and skip the flimsy cloth mask, even if others have adopted it as the norm. 
Remember, contrary to the foolishness the government is pedalling, wearing a mask is for your safety first.

6. More important than masks, the government should enforce public temperature checks

More important than masks is stopping those who are infected and displaying symptoms from mixing with the general public.
We all are aware of the covidiot couple who boarded a plane while the husband was knowingly sick and who promptly died in his seat, infecting many others around him.
His wife admitted that her husband was displaying symptoms yet decided to board anyways, underlining the fact that many among just don't give a hoot.
Had the airline done a simple temperature check at the gate, the symptomatic traveller would have been denied boarding. Checking temperature with a handheld wireless device is simple and fast. It should be done at the entrance to all public buildings and stores. The guy or gal who makes sure you are wearing a mask at the Loblaws entrance can easily check your temperature and eliminate all the sick and selfish morons who put their convenience ahead of public safety. 
China adopted this policy early in their pandemic to good effect and it surprises me that such a simple, fast and inexpensive tool is not being put to use.

7. Prompt action by the government over the vaccine would have saved ten of thousands of lives in the western world, including Canada

Once China released details about the genetic makeup of the vaccine, it took just two days to design a vaccine. Yup...two days.
The testing phase took months and months instead of years and indeed was rushed according to modern standards.
The testing consisted of giving one group of volunteers the real vaccine and another a placebo. All the volunteers were sent home and asked to live their normal lives.
After long months and months, researchers compared the data and concluded that the group that got the real vaccine were protected from the virus and contracted the disease up to 95% less than those volunteers who got the control fake vaccine.
But all these months-long, people were dropping dead at an alarming rate. In fact, hundreds of thousands died and now many are asking if the government did the right thing in refusing to take the "Challenge" testing route which would actually expose all the who got the real vaccine to the virus and see how they reacted.
While exposing young healthy volunteers to the real virus is deemed unethical, given the scale of the disaster it would seem that it was a risk that had to be taken, given that young people are almost never fatally affected by the virus.
Had volunteers been given the opportunity, (and perhaps $50,000) the efficacy of the vaccine would have been established in early summer.
Yes, there were risks, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

8. Health care workers need to stop carping about their workload and risk

I have enormous respect and admiration for health care workers but cannot abide by their carping about being over-worked and exposed.

We are in a battle against a virus that is as deadly as anything we have seen since an actual war. Whether they wanted to or not, they have been drafted to man the front lines, just as the young men who were sent off without any choice to the killing grounds of Europe in World War II.
I couldn't imagine those soldiers complaining about being overworked or missed vacation. 
In today's feminist world, nurses are being asked to share the burden of service and sacrifice.
It is undignified to carp and complain.

With that, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Here's hoping things will turn around quickly and we can get back to normal....