A fourth wave will be statistically mild compared to what we've been through and the faster it comes and goes, the better.
That's right, I'll repeat that.
We need more Covid cases right now so that we can largely be done with the pandemic.
Let us remember and consider that sanitary measures including lock-downs,
mask-wearing and social distancing were put in place to 'flatten the curve,' not to eliminate the virus which was an impossibility.
Those measures successfully ensured that our health system wasn't overloaded whilst we were waiting on the vaccine.
But
now our situation has evolved and is vastly different. Our hospitals are empty of Covid patients and most of us are vaccinated. In another month we'll be at a point where everyone who intends to be fully vaccinated will be and new vaccinations will stagnate.
Waiting will serve no useful purpose and in fact, continuing sanitary measures will be counter-productive.
It will be time to let the virus loose on the vaccine 'refusenicks' in order that they acquire their immunity through exposure even if it means suffering through the disease. A modern and updated "Chicken Pox Party" for the un-vaccinated will help speed us through the pandemic.
“Before the chickenpox vaccine, parents held these pox parties for their children as catching the virus was almost inevitable.
“So if your cousin or neighbour had it, you went to their house to catch it and get it over with”.
Admit it.
How many of us who took the socially-responsible decision to vaccinate are secretly hoping that the idiot refusenicks get Covid quickly, if not for anything else but just desserts.
And perhaps a quick spike in Covid cases among the unvaccinated will convince some that they should get the vaccine.
It's a route we need to take because protecting the un-vaccinated through continuing wide sanitary measures will just prolong our agony. The highly transmissible 'Delta" variant will get the refusniks sooner or later, so better for us all if it is sooner. A quick month or two spike in cases will allow us to achieve a very high level of resistance allowing us to return to normal.
Yes, there will be some cases of breakthrough cases in those fully vaccinated but it will happen no matter what, sooner or later.
There will be pain no matter so it's better to get it over with.
At any rate......
How is it that a mere civilian like myself has the audacity to make a claim with confidence that my solution is better than what the government and its panel of experts recommend?
Well, I pride myself on statistical analysis. I possess no special insight except a keen and inquisitive mind, unshackled by a political agenda willing to go where the science and statistics take me.
And by the way, I've been right before where Health Canada was dead wrong.
Really!
I wrote a blog piece on Covid-19 way back at the beginning of the pandemic which in retrospect was nothing less than prescient, based only on data collated from widely available information coming out of China.
Yup, 16 months ago on March 13, 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic, I wrote this piece.
The Government is Handling Covid-19 All Wrong...
The gist of which is summarized in this passage;
“But there is another path, one that would allow us to manage the outbreak and preserve our hospitals to reasonably cope with the outbreak.
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”.
By all means, read the whole article and tell me I wasn't right then and Health Canada wrong.
How many thousands of lives would have been saved had the government listened to me and not Health Canada?
Bravado aside, I guess I deserve the right to say 'I told you so" and am now telling you once again that our pandemic measures are fatally flawed.
I understand that political considerations were at play, but the prevailing opinion at the time based on the convenient canard of "evolving science" pedalled by Health Canada, could not have been wronger.
" In January, (2020) for example, leading Canadian federal politicians and health officials told us cases of coronavirus would be rare in Canada, that border closures were wrong-headed and unnecessary, and that there was generally no need for private citizens to wear face masks in public." Edmonton Journal
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Instead of telling Canadians the truth, that is that Health Canada didn't have any real answers, she made up a response that was tragically disastrous.
It is an amazing thing that she hasn't lost her job and continues to offer Canadians gratuitous advice after being so criminally wrong.
Fool me once.....
And so we come to the fourth wave of covid which is now running rampant in the USA, a situation which we are warned will happen here if we are not super diligent.
But we are not in America and our situation is different. Canadians will soon achieve a rate of vaccination that dwarfs that of America. We have suffered fewer cases and fatalities during the pre-vaccine period because we as a nation embraced the sensible sanitary measure when they were vital in keeping cases low when it counted.
The only failure was that of our government and Health Canada which failed to keep covid out of the retirement homes with disastrous effect.
So to paraphrase Prince Harry who put it so succinctly....
"We are on a different path than our American brothers"
Let us consider the evolving situation;
There will be no 'herd immunity," the concept that tells us that if enough of us are vaccinated, the disease will peter out.
Unfortunately, the new and emerging variants have put paid to that idea.
The Covid virus has proven resilient and resourceful through its many new iterations especially like the current "Delta" variant which is running amok, more virulent and easier to spread. Scientists reluctantly agree that this makes the idea of herd immunity unlikely because the percentage of those who need to be vaccinated is at a threshold higher than we can hope to achieve, largely thanks to the idiot vaccine 'refusniks' who number about 15% of us.
Read this article in New York Times.
Reaching ‘Herd Immunity Is Unlikely
The sooner the un-vaccinated refuseniks get sick, the faster we'll be over the pandemic. In fact, the failure of these people to vaccinate is effectively holding us hostage to the virus.
Those in Canada over sixty years old have a vaccine rate of something like 90+ percent and so letting the virus loose on the un-vaccinated will make many sick but will result in few deaths and hospitalizations because refusenicks are mostly young and healthy.
The last argument for maintaining sanitary measures is the fact that children under twelve haven't been vaccinated but again the statistics tell us it isn't really necessary.
For these children, Covid represents a negligible risk.
There have been 7,888 cases of COVID-19 in patients under the age of 20 in Canada, according to Public Health Agency of Canada data last updated Monday night. Of those thousands of young infected patients, only one has died. CTV NEWS
A child involved in a car accident has a 1 in 100 chance of dying.
A child who contracts Covid-19 has a 1 in 10,000 chance of dying. (In fact, the number is vastly higher because most infected children are asymptomatic and don't even know they had the virus.)
At any rate, extrapolating data from Health Canada, during that same 18 months period of the Covid-19 pandemic, tells us that somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 children under 12 years old died in road accidents. Transport Canada.
Should we ban children from driving in cars?
Those who argue that children can be a vector for transmission are correct, but so, I maintain that that is a good thing because we need to encourage the fourth and hopefully final wave.
Those who are immuno-compromised will be able to hide out during this wave which should not last more than a month or two after which we will largely be done.
It isn't a perfect solution but the best option we have.
Takeaway.... Bring on the fourth wave now,
Of course you were right in your March 13, 2020 editorial. And, as you state, we all had the info from China vis a vis who by age demographics and by pre-existing conditions covid targeted. This can be verified by a WayBack Machine search for March, 2020. In addition, we had the "perfect" laboratory setting of the Diamond Princess which pretty much confirmed all of this.
ReplyDeletePrescient, yes. And important to note that your prescription was echoed by the Great Barrington Declaration some 7 months later, in October of 2020. Written by the world's top epidemiologists (well, considered the bet of the best UNTIL covid struck and they didn't comply with most governments' narratives).
I note the following passage from your editorial:
"A fourth wave will be statistically mild compared to what we've been through and the faster it comes and goes, the better.
"That's right, I'll repeat that.
"We need more Covid cases right now so that we can largely be done with the pandemic."
Imagine if those under 40 did NOT social distance and wear masks etc. back in March 2020. This age demographic was at virtually zero risk of dying from covid. Had they passed the virus amongst themselves, we would have had a HUGE chunk of the population innoculated through natural immunity because a large percentage of those individuals would have been infected, developed antibodies, and then not only be protected against further infection but provide a huge step towards herd immunity. Perhaps enough to have prevented a second, third, and now fourth wave. The first wave of covid was nature's (or if you are a conspiracy theorist) China's responsibility; the subsequent waves were our own making because we let the virus persist and mutate, something that may not have happened had the 90 day window to create herd immunity been hobbled by inept social distancing, mask-wearing, and self-isolating public policy.
Gee, it would have been like having half the population vaccinated for free, all within 90 days. 90 days is the usual life expectancy for respiratory seasonal viruses; there is NOT indication that covid would have been any different in this regard from prior seasonal viruses.
And the retort to this that I've often seen is that: well, we had to also impose restrictions on those at low risk because they could have infected those at high risk, such as the elderly. But the elderly were supposed to be self-isolating anyway (remember all those photos in the media of frustrated adult children holding Happy Birthday signs up to their aged parents peering out of their retirement home windows?), so there was no need to shelter high-riskers from the low-riskers because the high-riskers were supposed to be self-isolating anyway.
I'm no expert and, of course, I could be totally wrong on all of this. But there are experts who have devoted their lives to the pursuit of studying seasonal viruses who hold this position and have held it since the outbreak of this thing. We always seem to have Royal Inquiries into disasters after the fact; surely we will have one on covid once the dust settles. This alternative policy must be considered along with everything else -- without prejudice -- when we are studying this with calmer and more neutral minds. The frightening thing is, when those who advocated these policies in the midst of the pandemic tried to speak out, they were censored...all in the name of the greater good. Well, it very well may turn out that they were right and almost all governments were wrong. But we need to consider all possible solutions that could have been implemented with full objectivity and no more censorship or political game-playing.
Tony, your comments are based on Mr. Peabody's Way-bac machine, i.e., hindsight is 20/20. Between you and Phil, it seems you're only counting the deaths. What about those "long-termers" who are suffering, and probably will be for the rest of their lives. I'm sure many of their lives will be cut short. Hindsight is easy to criticize.
ReplyDeleteIndubitably, there has been absolutely no shortage of misinformation, and this will probably go on for sometime to come. Already there are countries who don't recognize the AZ vaccine, so AZers are not admitted to some countries or certain public events. Then there are those countries that will not admit anyone who mixed their vaccines one way or the other.
The worst thing that could happen has happened. The good ol' US of A has turned the virus into a political fiasco. These highly contagious diseases are not a political issue, they are a social issue. I'd almost would like to make this a civil liberty issue...almost, but not quite. The simple fact of the matter is that those who ignore common sense unfortunately impact those who are compliant.
I can understand that over time, our trust in government has waned, and thanks in part to being better educated, we are better able to make decisions thanks to that additional know-how. Indubitably, governments have tried to, and have successfully deceived the greater population in the past, and that has led to their decline in credibility. Let's face it though: Vaccines have done far more good than harm. We have eliminated small pox from the planet, hoping nobody reintroduces it for biological warfare. Polio is a thing of the past where we inoculate, so are the mumps(I had them and I lived), tetanus, and other assorted diseases thanks to vaccines. The COVID vaccines have been helpful and have had mostly excellent results.
It is government that dictates what is put into baby formulas, various pain killers and other medications per Health Canada regulations, the FDA in the US, and other government departments in other countries and jurisdictions. While no governments are perfect, I like to think here in the First World we try to do what's right more often than not. Leave it to dictatorships to do what is in their personal best interests vs their countrymen and women. Sadly, dictatorships tend to be horrible for those stuck in those countries, but that's beyond the scope of First World countries.
In most cases, it is the doctors hired by democratic governments to act in the best interests of their respective countrymen and women, and I'm satisfied most have used good common sense, leaving the politicians and internet hacks who look to throw wrenches into cogs of the machinery out. As for the latter who are the nemeses, esp. the twice-impeached-one-term hack at the helm until this past January, screw them!
Mr. Sauga, why would you feel it appropriate to write, in response to my post, the following:
ReplyDelete"Vaccines have done far more good than harm."
Is there something -- anything -- in my post that suggests I am an anti-vaxxer?
Just the opposite. And I attempt to appeal to pro-vaxxers, such as yourself, to understand that Nature or Darwinian Evolution or whatever you want to call it has evolved a system over the past 200,000 years in which the equivalency of vaccines -- antibodies -- is enabled in a vast percentage of the population by actually doing little at all from our side. And that perhaps we interfered with this process through our covid policies of social distancing for the low-risk groups. Isn't the end result of vaccines -- antibodies -- something we should encourage to happen as quickly as possible in as many people as possible?
P.S. It may interest you to know that the Internet Wayback Machine was named after Mr. Sherman's Wayback Machine of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame.
Vaccines HAVE done MORE HARM than good, from the very first vaccination. See the book "Dissolving Illusions - Disease Vaccines and the Forgotten History" bu Suzanne Humphries, MD
ReplyDeleteand Roman Bystrianyk for PROOF.
Hi Tony! I just don't think one can compare SARS-type viruses to chicken pox or even most common colds. I confess I didn't study viruses at length, and indubitably our First World governments kept bouncing like rubber dice when it came to giving advice; nevertheless, an awful lot of people died already from this virus.
ReplyDeleteDo as many die from other flu-type viruses? I don't know, but I don't think so. Too, do many or few flu strains leave people with chronic, or at least, long-term problems that take a long time to heal?
Your argument about COVID's mutations MAY have merit, but look at how hospitals were overwhelmed with people contracting and dying from this virus. How would the medical profession be able to handle the overload if we left bad enough alone? Antibodies may have worked eventually, but I think the costs would have been too high before that process would have ironed itself out. Even with the vaccines, mutations are still going on. When it comes to more "conventional" colds and flus, they go around every year, some years markedly worse than other years, but colds and the flu are a part of live...always have been, always will be. We may now have this same problem with COVID, and now we're in a fourth wave, and THIS time with so many Canadians having been compliant, we're doing better, but here come the new cases that are about as contagious as the chicken pox. Will our vaccines at least soften the blow? I hope so.
Finally, FYI, my bro and I had quite the collection of comic books at one time, including a few Rocky and Bullwinkle issues, so Way-bac was spelled this way by the author. A mere technicality.
Mr. Sauga, are you familiar with the internet Wayback Machine?
DeleteI just so became by looking up its objective. I'm not sure why you're asking me if I'm familiar with it, so I'll answer "no". Educate me, thanks.
DeleteA great research tool. If you have, say, a link (ie, URL address) to a website that worked 10 years ago but no longer does because the owner has taken it down, the Wayback Machine can reproduce it for you. The site is a storage of snapshots of the internet of each day and of each page going back into, I think, the 90s.
DeleteThanks!
DeletePART I
DeleteMr. Sauga writes:
"When it comes to more 'conventional' colds and flus, they go around every year, some years markedly worse than other years, but colds and the flu are a part of live (sic)...always have been, always will be."
But that's my point: certainly, covid is worse than the average respiratory virus of other years but it nevertheless is, like flus and colds of other years, a respiratory virus. And the human condition has evolved a process by which we quite effectively deal with respiratory viruses: natural herd immunity. It is this very effective "process" that we abandoned almost from Day One in our fight against covid. And my point is that in looking back and accessing what we did right and wrong in fighting this thing, we should consider whether we allowed this quite effective and time-proven process to do its thing.
We didn't.
Certainly, protect those at high risk, such as the elderly and those with underlying conditions. But those at low risk -- anyone under 40 or 50 and those with no underlying conditions -- let them be the foot soldiers in the natural herd immunity army.
I know it sounds counter-intuitive but allowing those at low risk to get the virus, spread it amongst themselves, come down with covid, and then develop antibodies is a process that has worked time and time again -- almost without exception -- to defeat seasonal viruses. Imagine if, back in March 2020, we had allowed nature to take its course, in about 90 days we would have had the majority of the population immunized via antibodies without having to worry about waiting for a vaccine. And a vaccine does what: it creates antibodies in the body which is exactly what happens via the natural herd immunity process each and every flu season.
So we experimented. Instead of relying on a tried and true process, we hobbled it by social distancing, masks, self-isolation etc. How can the virus spread itself amongst the low-riskers is we prevent that from happening? This, I suggest, may have been why we had such a deadly second, third, and now fourth wave. I mean, hey, there is a reason why this virus performed differently from viruses of other years and we should look at what we did differently from other years to investigate whether this may be the cause of why we didn't defeat it as we successfully have done for, oh, the past 200,000 years of human existence.
PART II
DeleteYou say "antibodies would have worked eventually." No. Antibodies are the only way it WILL work...that's why there was such a frenzy for creating a vaccine because vaccines work by creating antibodies. I'm saying that if the goal was to get as much of the population armed with antibodies, the best way to have done that was via natural herd immunity because it has proven itself to work. And NOT allowing this process to work means that the virus gets to survive in greater numbers so that it can mutate into more deadly strains. Again, with the proviso that we protect members of high-risk groups.
You write that "look at how hospitals were overwhelmed with people contracting and dying from this virus. How would the medical profession be able to handle the overload if we left bad enough alone?" But overwhelming hospitals with cases of seasonal viruses is something that happens each and every flu season; it's nothing new. Google it. Certainly, yes, we would have been overwhelmed this time out had we let natural herd immunity do its thing, but overwhelming healthcare facilities is something we always deal with. And it would have certainly been better than the alternative.
All I'm saying is that we should look at this as something we should have done. The "natural herd immunity" approach is precisely what the Great Barrington Declaration folks said we should have considered. In hindsight, let's look at it and consider it.
What we DO know with pretty much 100% certainty is that we overreacted. The measures put into place were done on the basis of projections (computer models) based upon fatality rates that were greatly exaggerated. Indeed, the source of the overinflated fatality figures -- WHO --- quickly downgraded their projections but most governments didn't recalibrate their policies in tandem. Why not? Had we not been given the overinflated figures -- and the computer models predicting disaster based upon them, such as what came out of Imperial College in London -- we would never, ever have locked down; covid would have just been labelled a particularly bad flu season, probably on par with the Hong Kong Flu of 1969 when we did nothing and the thing went away by itself (ie, natural herd immunity).
Both hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin PREVENT COVID. There would have been hardly any hospital admissions if the proper outpatient treatments had been applied. Would any health care professionals have died at all? Why have these proven, inexpensive treatments been withheld?
ReplyDeleteWhy is there a fourth wave in the Summer? It's not even flu season. Could the spike proteins being produced by modified DNA be causing the disease? Are the vaccinated transmitting spike proteins to the UNvaccinated aka HEALTHY?
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/americas-frontline-doctors-covid-vaccinated-can-shed-spike-protein-harming-unvaccinated/
Proof about Ivermectin is here: http://www.bird-group.org
Anyone noticed the latest R. Martineau's article in JdeM?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.journaldequebec.com/2021/08/15/lobsession-identitaire-tue-le-vivre-ensemble
A tireless identity warrior for the Francophone culture denouncing identity politics of others.
Un candidat italien pour La Petite Italie?
Un candidat grec pour le quartier grec?
Un candidat noir pour Montréal-Nord?
All bad
A francophone candidate for BQ in the next federal election, with a mission amounting to no more than a promotion of an identity?
Probably good.
The perquisites are falling on their own sword, finding out that others can play this identity game too, and that the game is not always going to turn out in your favor and always give you an advantage. At some point others will beat you at it and benefit from it at your expense.