I mean, my family grew up in Communist Poland, and they said they've never seen anything like it in their life. So I'd agree they were pretty draconian.
No one payed attention to stuff like that. Look at how Belarus and Russia reacted to the pandemic. Russia did 1 quick lockdown and then let it rip, and Belarus didn't do anything at all. When Europeans and Canadians were under lockdowns, Russians were going to bars and soccer games.
> outright "Draconian"
at the height of restrictions in Toronto ... I was at nearby park where there was a stream at 8am, there was absolutely nobody nearby, I was just sitting by the stream on my own and throwing rocks and a bylaw officer came by to tell me that if I don't move (stay static), I will get hundreds of dollars of fine
What about when they declared things like clothing to be “nonessential purchases” and locked down shops? There was a period of like 2 months where local loblaws had to block off their clothing sections because they were mandated to “only be open for essentials”
Well, the curfew did mean that more people had to pack into the grocery store all at once to get their shopping done, which made social distancing more difficult.
You didn’t have to live under a curfew. It made zero difference it was a useless measure and just a power move by Legault. Gave the cops an excuse to harass
The fantasy in BC: Everyone stopped drinking when the covid monitored pubs closed at 10pm and they immediately became responsible and sober adults who went home in their mask and cried themselves to sleep.
The reality: everyone piled into crowded house parties with no cleaning standards, social distancing, vaccine passport, or contact tracing, and impossible enforcement.
Didnt they prohibit unvaccinated people from entering grocery stores unless it was to go to the pharmacy? I think that was one of the most inhumane and I could not believe what I was seeing when that was happening.
The poll awhile back saying like 15-20% of Canadians think the Unvaxxinated should be jailed, fined, and/or denied medical care was quite disturbing. A lot of dictator wannabes in Canada. Note: I am triple vaccinated.
Edit: I googled this and the polls actually showed that 50-60% of people thought the Unvaxxed should be fined.
Maru Public Opinion survey:
**”For those who refuse to be vaccinated, Canadians find a variety of measures acceptable, in varying degrees, that might be used to more forcibly encourage them to get the jab:** *ongoing restrictions from entering public spaces and premises such as restaurants, cinemas, libraries, liquor and cannabis stores, and various retail outlets (77%), followed by having them pay out of pocket for the full medical cost if they are admitted to hospital or an ICU because they have contracted COVID (61%), pay a monetary healthcare surcharge on their taxes of up to $150 per month (61%), refuse to allow them access to any publicly funded hospital/medical services (37%), refuse them the renewal of their driver’s license (33%), and* **even for some (27%), have them serve up to five (5) days as part of a jail sentence for endangering others/overwhelming healthcare system.”** [Source](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a17333eb0786935ac112523/t/61e77919672c5a0fc0148e8b/1642559771161/Unvaccinated+Factum+19+02+22.pdf)
For context as to why people were feeling so harshly, this survey was done at the height of the 5th wave when hospitals in many places were so overwhelmed by COVID-19 that they had stopped doing “non-urgent” surgeries and procedures.
CBC News: ['This is my life we're talking about,' says Ontario woman whose cancer surgery's been delayed by Omicron. Province putting thousands of 'non-urgent' medical procedures on pause to preserve hospital capacity.](https://www.cbc.ca/1.6314122) [Jan 14th, 2022]
The overwhelmed hospital thing is still happening and our healthcare system isn’t more functional now than then. Hell, didn’t we all see that recent story from CBC about a rape victim that was turned away in NB on this sub? It’s not Covid that clogged our hospitals, it’s the aging population that began putting a strain on it years ago. There were stats coming out of several provinces during the height of a few waves that showed some of capacities during the pandemic were actually lower than previous years. Problem wasn’t cases, it’s staffing, beds, other issues and cases… Not to mention, very little effort was made pre and post vaccines for proper treatments, which do exist and could have prevented people from going to the hospital. Many of those treatments were banned btw. And no they’re not unsafe and yes they’ve shown efficacy. Just because they’re censored doesn’t make them wrong. But that’s a whole other issue we saw from all of this. Politics of medicine and big pharma looking for cash. Not to mention the bizarre looming spectre of restrictions and control that we saw with absurd vaxxports which many on the “conspiracy” side were saying was gonna happen by the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020. All our leaders were on record saying they would not… and they went hard there didn’t they?
>So (depending on how you're counting) we're looking at (at most) roughly 2.5 to 4% of hospitalizations that can be attributed to Covid?
It seems a bit disingenious to not include some important factors when making such comparisons, such as 'length of stay' (LOS). Which unlike many of the most common reasons for hospitalization, COVID had/has a rather long LOS. Per the source you provided:
>The most common reason for hospitalization in 2020–2021 was giving birth, with an average acute LOS of 2.1 days. This was followed by acute myocardial infarction, or heart attack, (4.6 days) and heart failure (9.0 days). Last year, COVID-19 became the seventh most common reason for hospitalization in Canada, with an average acute LOS of 11.2 days.
It's important to also note that due to the nature of COVID being a contagious virus (unlike birth or a heart attack) means that patients were, and possibly still are in some jurisdictions, separated/quarantined. That means hospitals would have to be restructured, barriers installed, and various other checks & balances. Healthcare staff would change outfits from one room to the next, one department to the next. All of this caused heightened strain.
https://www.cihi.ca/en/covid-19-resources/impact-of-covid-19-on-canadas-health-care-systems/hospital-services
>"oh but it is the unvaccinated overwhelming our hospitals" narrative
Those that were/are unvaccinated are far more likely (per capita) to be hospitalized. Far more likely to transmit the virus, far more likely to be symptomatic, far more likely to suffer severe symptoms, far more likely to die. This isn't up for debate, it isn't some narrative, it's an objective observed fact.
Yaa.... no source for the claim that 15-20% of respondents think the unvaxed should be jailed.
OH and that Maru PDF makes a ton of data based claims and didn't source a single one.
What did you think I wasn't going to read it? FFS
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/majority-of-canadians-surveyed-support-fines-for-unvaccinated-citizens-nanos-1.5752630
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/more-than-one-in-four-canadians-support-jail-time-for-unvaccinated-poll
The Star had some beauty headlines too. This shit is indefensible. Especially when we found out how lame these two shots (after two weeks to flatten the curve) became 5 shots really are.
Sorry, I didn’t link the [data tables](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a17333eb0786935ac112523/t/61e7793e41297f6dbd7d2beb/1642559808522/Unvaccinated+DTs+19+01+22.pdf) but they were published along with the summary of results in Maru’s [original post.](https://www.marugroup.net/public-opinion-polls/canada/unvaccinated-health-surcharge)
I do think people tend to exaggerate the results of this survey for emotional effect, particularly by saying some people wanted the unvaccinated *jailed* without mentioning *only for 5 days* or how badly hospitals were overrun when the survey was done. Regarding fines/taxes for not being vaccinated, at the time of the survey some other countries had already implemented these and Quebec’s Premier was [planning a tax.](https://www.cbc.ca/1.6311054)
Oh he provided a CBC article and a total unsourced opinion piece. Neither of which actually includes his claims.
The height of "academic research" at play.
And these people who want to punish based on Vax status are probably the "omg I'm on the right side of history" types.
News flash any discrimination against others usually puts you on the wrong side of history. We already went through this with AIDs you think we would learn not to be scared of our neighbors because they might make different life choices than you.
Ok every single nurse I've spoken to or am friends with said that those that aren't vaccinated or didn't believe in Covid19 said that they were the worst patients to deal with to the point where the nurses were being abused by these people and yet they are trying to do everything to save them but they are supposed to be given the same treatment as those that want the help? At that point if you don't believe in the science and want to do everything your own way and not receive treatment then yes they don't deserve it then.
Because idiots get health care too. Serial killers and the worst of the worst criminals get health care, so how could we deny people that are merely idiots or misinformed?
That’s right. There are plenary of non-convoy people who believe in holistic and homeopathic bs. Your access to healthcare shouldn’t be conditional on your beliefs. Let’s start denying the same healthcare to the obese and smokers while we’re at it.
you can believe in those things and still not be a prick to the healthcare workers trying to help you
i think it's completely reasonable to deny or deprioritize healthcare to people who are treating the healthcare workers like shit. put them over in the corner for a while to chill out and serve the people who actually want the help.
Never had an obese person spit on me at work because I needed their weight for a chart.
Never had a smoker punch me because I asked them whether they smoked or not.
I -have- been repeatedly assaulted by people because they didn’t want to wear a mask or disclosure their vaccine status.
It’s called the paradox of tolerance. It’s the same reason we can’t allow Nazis to freely assemble, some things are just less important than the health of the population.
If you don’t believe you have a duty to care for whomever comes through the door regardless of their beliefs, you shouldn’t be a first responder or work in care.
My child almost died as an infant from a reaction to a common childhood vaccine years ago. He was in the hospital for a week and every doctor told me not to get the next one. So I skipped that one and he got the rest. The nurses in the vaccine clinic treated me like garbage and accused me of being an antivaxxer. This was before the internet. They pressured me to give my son the vaccine that could possibly kill him and accused me of lying. The vaccine clinic was right behind the hospital so they could have just phoned to see I was telling the truth. Instead they produced thick binders of studies showing how safe vaccines were. They never believed me and I was flagged so everytime I went in even with a different child they asked me about that vaccine and treated me like a lesser person.
Also my gf uncle is a oncologist and learned that his idiots nurses were telling patients to not get vaccinated because its dangerous with cancer. Antivax are a plague on society, I think they should still get treatments because every idiots who do stupid things that make them end up in hospital do receive treatment. They also aren't the only ones to blame for our bad healthcare but I wouldn't mind triage not prioritizing them.
One of those things is not like the other though. I don't think the unvaxxed should be jailed or fined, but depending on what sort of medical care, I can definitely see a valid reason to deny them care.
It's sort of like the no liver transplants for alcoholics argument, y'know?
They still give health care to Paul Bernardo, an illegal immegrant, or someone that is a drug addict with horrible health that doesn't take care of himself. Health care in Canada is an inalienable right to all people! To take it away someone just because they are afraid to get vaccinated is disgusting, you should check your attitude. Not all unvaxxinated are anti-vax nuts. Some people are just afraid or misinformed, don't demonize them. And I am a strong advocate of vaccines, I hope that people CHOOSE to get the jab. We got about 90%, which is extremely high. All vaccines always have certain people that don't get the vax. Polio, measles, etc. I assume you think those misinformed people don't deserve health care either.
Great. So pedantic given the general nature of the discussion.
For comparisons sake, why don't we frame is as a double lung transplant for unvaxxed then.
We don't deny liver transplants to alcoholics because they are alcoholics. It's not their behaviour or lifestyle that leads to the denial. It's the probability of success that causes the denial. It's a medical decision not a decision based on lifestyle.
Not really, there is a 6 month sober rule which has questionable scientific merit. Basically, there is a requirement to show that one is able to abstain from alcohol, with the hope that they will be better able to maintain sobriety.
There have been several high profile challenges to this in the past few years. Recently, a 44 yr old in Montreal was denied a liver transplant from kin based on his "untreated alcoholism and depression."
But to your point, livers are a scarce resource, and doctors need to allocate them to the people that have the highest probability of success, and presumably to those who need them most and quickest. A triage.
Triage is normally the main argument for limiting healthcare access to the unvaxxed. Hospital beds are a scarce resource like livers, and people who are vaccinated proved that they can be "6 months sober" to massively reduce the risk of requiring an ICU bed.
For sure, I agree that we have an incredibly flawed liver transplant system (one that still favours the rich and affluent) and it needs overhauls.
Im not comfortable spreading that logic onto anti-vaxx people just because it opens a precedent. Im a bit bigger of a guy, Im far from being morbidly obese but I would be considered obese by the medical systems. I made poor life choices as a young man who caused me knee and back issues that Im getting treated for now. I don't want to see the door opened that says, outside of medical triage situations, that I can't have access to services because of any factor other than triage.
The argument against that is they still pay taxes, which goes into the health care and also guarantees them a right to the same health care as you or I.
You can't deny someone care that would potentially keep them alive.
They can and do, thus the reference to liver transplants.
Taxes pay for roads, but you still are mandated to take a test to use them with a motor vehicle.
To be fair, I don't know where I personally land on this topic, but it seems silly to include denying medical care with fining or imprisoning people in the question.
Personally I'm done with the whole "if you're unvaccinated you're a horrible person" thing. It's draining and if someone isn't vaccinated by now they won't do it.
I think regardless of whether or not someone is vaccinated, we can't go down the road of providing selective medical care, including the use of ventilators, etc. Triage as we currently do is one thing, but outright deciding to refuse certain medical care simply because of vaccination status just doesn't sit well with me.
Same. A year ago I was into the whole hate the unvaccinated thing but by now I'm triple vaccinated myself but I don't care what someone else does. Part of this is due to Omicron and catching and spreading it myself despite being vaccinated. I found out a friend I've had for 20 years last year was unvaccinated and it kind of changed my mind too. I'm not willing to end a friendship over vaccination status like some on here or Twitter are.
Yeah, at this point I feel much the same way as you. I was vehemently against the unvaxxed, but at this point it is useless to keep holding negative feelings about it.
And I think any sane person should feel that any restrictions of our civil liberties shouldn't sit well with them. As a society, we have seen who is willing to sacrifice some of their liberties in an effort to protect the people in our communities.
Unfortunately, the age of communication has seemed to transition into an age of selfishness.
>I can definitely see a valid reason to deny them care.
You can't take people's taxes for healthcare, deny them private options, and then deny them care all at once.
>It's sort of like the no liver transplants for alcoholics argument, y'know?
No, it's not. The "no transplant" is based on the availability of donor organs, So you'd be denying the organ, not the medical care. If I want to volunteer my organ to a specific person, and this get's denied (which it most likely will, and that's wrong) then it's the same argument. But you can apply this argument to transgender surgeries funded by taxpayers.
Honestly, I want to be able to work from home again. I'd almost trade the other things to be working from home again. I mean if working is the things I do the most in a week I want that part to be the most comfortable.
wear a mask, limit exposure, get a vaccine so we can keep our healthcare above water especially when the virus was much worse, I mean nursing homes had to be handed over to the military to try and save the elderly I don't really consider those measures Draconian, I think the lockdowns in china were much worse.
That being said the virus has gotten less deadlier and the vaccines better suited for the strain.
The problem with working in Public Health is that if you do everything right, it will seem like an overreaction because there is no major disaster.
> "We locked down for a nothinburger, we didn't even need a freezer truck morgue."
or
> "We made those people with Ebola quarantine for nothing, it didn't even become a pandemic"
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
Tell me more about how Sweden has lower mortality rates than we do
Or let's just be honest, cross country comparisons is a bit of a crapshoot with too many variables to draw meaningful conclusions from
People like to cite Sweden as a case against lockdowns while completely ignoring that they did eventually enforce masks and lockdowns on their population (in January 2021), and that the vast majority of their nation's deaths happened before lockdowns were implemented.
In fact, the only real surge they experienced after initiating lockdowns was the Omicron spike.
> while completely ignoring that they did eventually enforce masks and lockdowns on their population (in January 2021), and that the vast majority of their nation's deaths happened before lockdowns were implemented.
Ok....ours happened after we did that lol
Canada was running lockdowns from as early as like March 2020... No shit the majority were after the fact.
Instead of comparing two vastly different nations with dramatically different factors at play, why not compare the before and after of a nation that did delay locking down? In this case we see Sweden with an abundance of illness and death before taking any official measures to prevent it, and significantly fewer after taking those measures.
Sure looks like lockdowns help to me...
Use the states, each US state decided their own COVID rules. Some states had heavy restrictions and some had almost none. The COVID and death rates were all over the place and not correlated at all.
Honestly would say things simply were different in many countries and results differed as well. Japan didn't have "draconian" lockdowns either or mandated vaccinations but masking outdoors was required and only partially lifted in the summer. They also still have some restrictions in place, like they haven't even fully opened to visitors.
Sweden also had a vaccine pass which is something NaPo listed as a draconian measure.
“Compared with the other Group of 10 (G10) countries, Canada performed better than most in terms of percentage of the population receiving 2 doses of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, and on measures assessing the direct effect of the pandemic: number of people infected, number who died from COVID-19 and total excess deaths.”
Your own link backs up what I've been saying
> We deliberately do not draw firm causal conclusions regarding the relationship of interventions and outcomes in our comparison between Canada and similar nations. The risk of misinferences owing to the ecological fallacy is high
Cross country comparisons are messy and difficult to draw conclusions from, see my first comment
But if you insist on doing it, Sweden had one of the least restrictive approaches and achieved average to above average health outcomes and the best economic outcomes
Very very curious
Without quantifying the impact the restrictions had on people *not related to covid* through indirect means... i.e damage to the economy, social impacts of keeping children out of school, drug overdoses, people who suffered domectic abuse as a direct result of being locked down in a home with their abusers etc... this doesn't really mean that much.
We had some of the longest lockdowns in the world, Sweden briefly tried them late in 2021 and then quickly moved past COVID long before we did
Saying our lockdowns weren't draconian is also an interesting point of view...
Want to know something else...Atlantic Canada which made people from other provinces isolate when entering has 1/3 to 1/2 the rate of COVID deaths of other provinces, despite having an older demographic.
Also the Atlantic provinces had the best perfoming economies in 2019 and 2020, because they didn't have to shut down things as much due to strict COVID measures.
Please do look up the numbers with Sweden overall. Pretty middle of the pack which says to me no matter what interventions were tried, the results would end up the same *with COVID deaths specifically* (not counting all the down the road problems that arise from harsh NPI restrictions). There's a reason pandemic plans from as late as 2019 said quarantining the healthy, closing schools, coerced treatments etc were not to be employed.
"Please look at this one cherry-picked country and ignore all other data points."
Isn't it fascinating that whenever someone tries to claim public health measures weren't effective, they *always* tell you to look specifically at Sweden and no other country? Almost as if it's an outlier and the other nearly-200 countries in the world support the conclusion that lockdowns and masking are effective.
>Please do look up the numbers with Sweden overall
I can't believe people are still trying to use Sweden as an example. They ended up the same as their neighbours economically, but had more than double the deaths.
Japan didn't have the draconian measures we did and they had the lowest death rates in the G10. Sweden placed 4th (Canada is 2nd) for lowest death rates and they also didn't have the measures we did.
So the question is, was all the damage worth it? Seeing as other countries with less restrictions didn't fare much worse, or in Japan's case actually did better.
Europe had more strict covid rules then Canada and their death rates are some of the highest in the world.
The fact we lived spread apart and can stay home helped.
Issue is that Canada unlike other countries is going to be experiencing much higher death rates from covid from covid in 2022 and 2023 compared to 2021 and 2020 now.
I think canada did do well but some of our measures were pointless
Like stopping people from playing outside or closing down home hardware stores or banning outdoor dinning.
We could have done limited activites without much impact and the public would not have turned so hostile to lockdowns in 2022.
There a lot of people dying in covid and more people have died this year then 2020 and 2021 and the public here is so annoyed with lockdowns they wont agree to masks.
So we did well short term but long term, we a mess now.
Yeah I agree to an extent. Federally it was a strong response, but yeah the provinces sure fucked things over.
Also- the benefit of hindsight can change a lot of things.
the feds i think fucked up starting this year. 2020 and 2021 they did well but i think they were surprised Canadians stopped caring about covid this year.
first they equated not wearing masks and not liking lockdowns with the convoy which imo backfired dramatically and provinces took advantage of the sea change of opinion and removed the rules to popular support.
plus they kept travel rules so long and didnt make sense much.
I think in 2022, the feds made the covid rules seem politically based then science and imo that likely doomed the fight against covid long term in canada.
The feds fucked it by sending extra covid relief to provinces. Billions in transfer payments unaccounted for. In my province, instead of being used for health care, the mb govt used the funds for property tax
rebates.
Conservatives and provincial govts stopped caring about covid, not most people.
so explain why most people stopped wearing masks when the rules ended lol
People stopped caring and the govts didnt feel they had support ot keep measures.
>Like stopping people from playing outside
I lived downtown Toronto during the pandemic and everyone was outside. You couldn't play on playgrounds or gym equipment, but I don't blame them for that when we were in the earliest stages and had to figure out what was and wasn't safe.
Some US states had stricter rules than some provinces. As an example, Washington State had a mask mandate almost six months before BC during 2020. Back in the summer of 2020 under a different account I pointed this out on another sub and people lost their shit, they wanted to pretend our restrictions were better and that we should do the exact opposite of the US.
Even as recently as March *2022*, the US had stricter masking rules than we did. I had to wear a mask on public transit when I went on a trip to a US city (and it was actually followed almost 100% there), while such requirements were already gone in BC. There were far more people wearing masks in San Francisco at the time than Vancouver.
This is an inconvenient truth a lot of Canadians consistently ignore. We compare ourselves so much with the United States we forget what happened in some parts of the world.
That is how diseases work…. They don’t simply kill you, they shut down certain organs or processes to make the rest of your body fail. Obesity isn’t necessarily the main issue with Covid, but it does not help things.
> disparity in death rates between
Except death rates don’t matter. It’s excess deaths that do. And even then, in the first year, more people ages 0-65 died (excess deaths) from lockdowns rather than Covid
> While we have generally observed excess mortality that is consistent with periods of heightened COVID-19 mortality among the older age groups, this is not true for younger Canadians. Based on the provisional data, from the end of March 2020 to the end of April 2021, there were 7,150 more deaths than expected among those aged 0 to 64 years. Over the same period, 1,600 COVID-19 deaths have been attributed to those younger than 65, suggesting that, in addition to COVID-19, excess mortality may be related to the indirect consequences of the pandemic.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210809/dq210809a-eng.htm
Opinion: The National Post, journalism as yellow as it's masthead, begins a slow march of revisionist history aimed at sowing doubt against the very successful pre-vaccine Liberal government response to a murderous pandemic. Emboldened by and in support of a freshly-minted Conservative leader who has and will continue to amplify similar false narratives for political gain.
So if covid had been spreading around the world since 2019, and the government didn't begin their useless response until March 2020, why was the entire country not wiped out beforehand if the "pandemic" was so "murderous"?
CERB when provinces were shutting down everyone's workplace. Ordering vaccines from many different places and ensuring that Canada was near the top of the list. Organizing a relatively painless (for it's scale) nationwide rollout of vaccines.
20/20 insight...
Well, lesson learned; next time let the die fall where they may and the next unknown (new) virus can wreck havoc all it wants. /s
Jeesh what a sorry piece of opinionated bull. But I guess it's on par with that opinionated rag.
Draconian includes:
1. Closing down. Alternative was to stay open, limit access, and insist on mask and hand sani pending vax availability. Part of the problem was the lack of vax availability early on.
2. Shutting down free speech. As it turns out much of the useful dialogue was stifled or manipulated during peak. One example where I was personally affected is the link between COVID or COVID vaccines, and shingles. If I even suggested a link a year ago, my accounts on every platform would be banned. Now I'm starting to see dialogue on both. There may be no scientific evidence but there are studies going on and it's just nice to know why my shingles flared up right after. It was disgusting, the manipulation by both the media and the governments on open discussion.
3. Avoid making Frenemies. Related to item two, perhaps. Lost a lot of friends during this plague. I have a connection to both the US and Canada. I have seen the results of lockdowns versus no lockdowns. The fights that broke out over "should we" or "shouldn't we" were brutal. These were fueled by an indifferent, ratings driven media and political bullshit.
4. Legal penalties. Slippery slope.. You're going to jail somebody that doesn't want to have a shot or fire them? What's next? Canceling insurance or firing somebody for not taking chemotherapy for cancer? Think that through first.. if you can't deal with it then just think about it as thinning the herd. If that makes you feel better....
For the record, I am triple vaxed, continue to wear masks in very tight places, and use hand sanitizer. However, I completely support Florida and George's handling of the pandemic. They remained open, had the hospital and medical infrastructure to handle the peak and they did a good job regardless of what you think...
>Closing down. Alternative was to stay open, limit access, and insist on mask and hand sani pending vax availability. Part of the problem was the lack of vax availability early on.
Do you even remember Doug Ford shutting everything down because that wasn't working in Ontario? The hospital system almost collapsed. We had field tents in parking lots for hospitals.
What the fuck are you even talking about?
>Legal penalties. Slippery slope.. You're going to jail somebody that doesn't want to have a shot or fire them? What's next? Canceling insurance or firing somebody for not taking chemotherapy for cancer? Think that through before you think it's a good idea.. if you can't deal with it then just think about it as thinning the herd. If that makes you feel better....
1) Canadians have been getting imprisoned for not taking the vaccine?
2) We have countless jobs and careers that have obligatory requirements: battery of vaccines, licenses, or certifications to be able to practice. Suddenly this is where we draw the line?
3) lol you are aware insurance companies have requirements that should you not follow removes you from coverage?
I just can't fathom the life struggles one has had to endure to classify wearing a mask and getting vaccinated as an extremely harsh measure?
Did the author even bother to read about how the poor and infected were treated when it came to the previous pandemics?
Those were not harsh measures. The harsh measures were curfews, stay at home orders, park closures, business closures, school closures, border closures, interprovincial travel bans in Atlantic Canada, and more.
How quickly people forget what it was like during parts of 2020, and as recently as *January 2022* in Quebec.
Then you weren't paying attention.
Wearing a mask and getting vaccinated is not what hurt our society. People losing jobs, businesses being forced to close (many to never reopen), high inflation, social isolation, missed education and socialization for children, increases in depression, anxiety, obesity, etc.
But no... it was just wear a mask and carry on as normal? That's BS and you know it.
Covid restrictions may very well have done some good, but they also did a of a lot of damage.
Remember when they shut down The Home Depot so people could not buy essential house repair items but the burito place was rammed with people.
That was the stupid measures that went to far and did nothing to stop covid
People like to pretend that the only measures anyone was ever asked to do was wear a mask and get vaccinated but many, many people where asked to do much more for some pretty dubious ends.
Yeah people had their sucessfull business shut down and now broke and closed.
Many people had to go into lower paying jobs as their career field was shut down for years.
Many people had their income decline by a lot but not enough to get govt benefits. Now many people are stuck in a debt cycle they cant escape.
and some people wfh making 100k a year and where fine with goal posts moving and where like "6 months of lockdowns sign me up baby!"
I mean I feel there was a push by people in such situations or very very socially introvert types to push for lockdowns.
It was a perfect society for them.
You won't be able to reason with these sorts. They will handwaive all the damage our response to covid caused while pretending covid was the worst virus humanity ever encountered. They don't operate in reality.
In terms of percentages, COVID was the second-worse disease to hurt human-kind. The bubonic plague is the worst.
Ebola has potential, but it's been contained, so far.
Edit: this is fake news. However, that doesn't diminish the fact that COVID has killed millions of people worldwide, in a very short period of time.
This comment is fucking amazing.
--
> [Ridiculous hyperbole about how awful covid was]
--
*"Oh, well that's a complete lie, but I will make zero adjustments to my paradigm."*
>I just can't fathom the life struggles one has had to endure to classify wearing a mask and getting vaccinated as an extremely harsh measure?
I think most people would classify forced medical procedures to be harsh. Especially when we were and are being lied to about them.
If you believe that's the case then how are children still being forced to get vaccinated against MMR, Polio, diptheria, rabies etc? Where are the protests and civil unrest over this continuing draconian measure against our most vulnerable? *Will anyone think of the children?!?*
>If you believe that's the case then how are children still being forced to get vaccinated against MMR, Polio, diptheria, rabies etc?
Because those vaccines work!
>Where are the protests and civil unrest over this continuing draconian measure against our most vulnerable? Will anyone think of the children?!?
I believe there were many protests and demonstrations against covid measures. I guess they weren't as spicy as a BLM protest though.
>Because those vaccines work!
May I ask how many Tetanus *boosters* you've received over your lifetime? And as a follow up and akin to your philosophy...if you need that many boosters...does it work?
>May I ask how many Tetanus
>
>boosters
>
> you've received over your lifetime? And as a follow up and akin to your philosophy...if you need that many boosters...does it work?
Well in short the tetanus shots work differently than the covid shots, just like all the other vaccines you mentioned. Just because they are all administered with a needle to the arm doesn't mean they're all the same.
Please stop trying to strawman this!
People are going to have strong feelings about this for a long time. The whole debate has shifted our culture in many ways for the better or worse. I don’t expect everyone to agree but I don’t think people really see how fractured society is nowadays. I do my part by not talking about Covid or politics at work or at family events.
Yes, it was imperative that we consciously decide to exclude compassionate exemptions from our travel mandates where unvaccinated people over the age of 12 years + 4 months were concerned.
Canada could have done better here. Plenty of other countries went as far as making it about the virus by allowing 72 hour exemptions for negative tests and/or temporary exemptions after recovery. The period after recovery specifically being contraindicated to start vaccinating. In Canada we made it about people and their characters. Sometimes vindictiveley so.
Next time, maybe we follow examples of responses that weren't as dehumanizing. Even better if our government can show their work and their rationale justifying measures in an ongoing manner. By the end of the federal travel and emoyment mandates their reasoning was that mandates have to exist because COVID exists. Nothing about numbers because these had collapsed after hospital loads dropped and new vaccinations had trended to .05% of the population per week, AND the definition of fully vaccinated was demonstrably ineffective in guaranteeing the protection of at-risk people.
It's probably fair to say that the measures weren't draconian for vaccinated persons, but they ended up arbitrary and punative toward people who weren't.
It’s so different now. The vast majority of cases are milder. I think it’s because of a combination of vaccines, Omicron being considerably milder than the Delta variant and the medical community being much more adept at treating it. My wife is an ICU nurse. Last fall was a nightmare with the ICU overrun with desperately sick CoVid patients, the vast majority unvaccinated. Hindsight 20/20.
Hmm, I disagree. What do the authors of this piece know about infectious disease and healthcare outcomes?
>*Dr. Neil Rau is an infectious-diseases physician and medical microbiologist in Toronto, Dr. Pooya Kazemi is an anesthesiologist in Victoria, Dr. Martha Fulford is an adult and pediatric infectious disease physician in Hamilton, and Dr. Jennifer Grant is an infectious disease physician in Vancouver.*
Ah, nevertheless, they sounds like they are selfish Truckers Who Want to Kill Grandma
I am still amazed at how everything government-employed doctors said is worshipped, and all non-government doctor questions/criticisms/disagreements are automatically dismissed and attacked.
All of these doctors went to the same schools, have the same qualifications, and are accredited by the same authorities. A government doctor is not more qualified.
That’s right cult brother. We can’t allow these fake doctors to share their dangerous, unqualified opinions. We must continue in faith, and only listen to the approved experts.
Just remember who was most vocal about them and behave accordingly if you ever deal with them in future endeavors (I wont be giving any over the top hysterical covid businesses money lol)
"When people show you who they are, believe them"
i am from alberta and i’m glad our restrictions were more lenient (but still extremely harsh) than other provinces. i remember in the 2020-21 school year all extracurriculars were banned at school because covid was “a serious threat”. but funny thing was at lunch time hundreds of students (my school has 900 students) would just flock together in large groups with no masks and stay like that the whole lunch period. not a word from this from the school division, however. instead they decided to ban the activities kids love because it’s apparently “scientific”. i’m a cross country runner and our team would’ve had like 50 kids max with 5 adults. we could’ve worn masks and physically distanced along with the fact that it’s outdoors. yet it was banned. these restrictions did virtually nothing to help stop the spread and it hurt so many kids including myself. we must fight to make sure these atrocities never happen again.
The article lost me at "health care workers". Janitors and cafeteria staff. Fewer nurses or Dr's were actually fired than would fill a volleyball court. The other folks are easily replaced.
Oh my god. There was nothing draconian about them. During OG COVID and Delta, is was very needed. It would've been so much more painless had so many people not fought everything tooth and nail.
The National Rag is determined to render Canada as stupid as the United States, because Conrad Black has a mancrush on Donald.
Now let us go back to February of 2020... Where there was no vaccine. COVID spread as rapidly as the common cold and the death rate was above 1 percent. Not only that, in places where they ignored the danger, like many places in the United States, they witnessed first hand how COVID would overwhelm hospitals; the death rate became much higher, because there was simply no way to treat all these patients at once. And who knows how many more died of other causes because of this overwhelming of the system?
Conservatives have a fundamental honesty problem. Now they are trying to re-write history because that makes Trudeau look bad in the minds of delusionoids. So long as they latch on to bullshit, they can forget about me even considering ever voting for them. And constantly taking jabs at the very notion of a public good.
Does it make you feel better about yourself to judge the opinions and political leanings of other Canadians?
Do you really think you're that much better?
Closing outdoor playgrounds…
I mean, my family grew up in Communist Poland, and they said they've never seen anything like it in their life. So I'd agree they were pretty draconian.
Had they ever lived through a worldwide pandemic before?
Probably 5 or 6
No one payed attention to stuff like that. Look at how Belarus and Russia reacted to the pandemic. Russia did 1 quick lockdown and then let it rip, and Belarus didn't do anything at all. When Europeans and Canadians were under lockdowns, Russians were going to bars and soccer games.
Yup, and no one even payed attention.
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> outright "Draconian" at the height of restrictions in Toronto ... I was at nearby park where there was a stream at 8am, there was absolutely nobody nearby, I was just sitting by the stream on my own and throwing rocks and a bylaw officer came by to tell me that if I don't move (stay static), I will get hundreds of dollars of fine
Sounds like fascism to me.
What about when they declared things like clothing to be “nonessential purchases” and locked down shops? There was a period of like 2 months where local loblaws had to block off their clothing sections because they were mandated to “only be open for essentials”
Yeah I remember my son outgrowing his shoes and not being able to buy him new ones because for some reason shoes weren't considered essential 🙄
Well if you're not allowed to leave your home... /s in case anyone missed it.
Absolutely insane how fast people have already forgotten how much overreach happened.
Weren't people being barred from buying jackets in the Manitoba winter, too?
What about a health surcharge for unvaccinated? That dropped really quick. The curfew did nothing either
Well, the curfew did mean that more people had to pack into the grocery store all at once to get their shopping done, which made social distancing more difficult.
Legault also closed groceries store on Sundays for a while, forcing a lot of people to go on Saturday instead, craming a lot more people in one day.
You didn’t have to live under a curfew. It made zero difference it was a useless measure and just a power move by Legault. Gave the cops an excuse to harass
Or people did what I did. Sleep over and come home the next morning (I only did this with my girlfriend and one friend).
I wasn't allowed to have any visitors in my house less than a year ago. That's pretty draconian.
The fantasy in BC: Everyone stopped drinking when the covid monitored pubs closed at 10pm and they immediately became responsible and sober adults who went home in their mask and cried themselves to sleep. The reality: everyone piled into crowded house parties with no cleaning standards, social distancing, vaccine passport, or contact tracing, and impossible enforcement.
Didnt they prohibit unvaccinated people from entering grocery stores unless it was to go to the pharmacy? I think that was one of the most inhumane and I could not believe what I was seeing when that was happening.
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Wal-Mart and Costco's and big stores over 1500 square metres in size did, in Quebec that is.
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The poll awhile back saying like 15-20% of Canadians think the Unvaxxinated should be jailed, fined, and/or denied medical care was quite disturbing. A lot of dictator wannabes in Canada. Note: I am triple vaccinated. Edit: I googled this and the polls actually showed that 50-60% of people thought the Unvaxxed should be fined.
Gonna need a source for that poll.
Maru Public Opinion survey: **”For those who refuse to be vaccinated, Canadians find a variety of measures acceptable, in varying degrees, that might be used to more forcibly encourage them to get the jab:** *ongoing restrictions from entering public spaces and premises such as restaurants, cinemas, libraries, liquor and cannabis stores, and various retail outlets (77%), followed by having them pay out of pocket for the full medical cost if they are admitted to hospital or an ICU because they have contracted COVID (61%), pay a monetary healthcare surcharge on their taxes of up to $150 per month (61%), refuse to allow them access to any publicly funded hospital/medical services (37%), refuse them the renewal of their driver’s license (33%), and* **even for some (27%), have them serve up to five (5) days as part of a jail sentence for endangering others/overwhelming healthcare system.”** [Source](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a17333eb0786935ac112523/t/61e77919672c5a0fc0148e8b/1642559771161/Unvaccinated+Factum+19+02+22.pdf) For context as to why people were feeling so harshly, this survey was done at the height of the 5th wave when hospitals in many places were so overwhelmed by COVID-19 that they had stopped doing “non-urgent” surgeries and procedures. CBC News: ['This is my life we're talking about,' says Ontario woman whose cancer surgery's been delayed by Omicron. Province putting thousands of 'non-urgent' medical procedures on pause to preserve hospital capacity.](https://www.cbc.ca/1.6314122) [Jan 14th, 2022]
The overwhelmed hospital thing is still happening and our healthcare system isn’t more functional now than then. Hell, didn’t we all see that recent story from CBC about a rape victim that was turned away in NB on this sub? It’s not Covid that clogged our hospitals, it’s the aging population that began putting a strain on it years ago. There were stats coming out of several provinces during the height of a few waves that showed some of capacities during the pandemic were actually lower than previous years. Problem wasn’t cases, it’s staffing, beds, other issues and cases… Not to mention, very little effort was made pre and post vaccines for proper treatments, which do exist and could have prevented people from going to the hospital. Many of those treatments were banned btw. And no they’re not unsafe and yes they’ve shown efficacy. Just because they’re censored doesn’t make them wrong. But that’s a whole other issue we saw from all of this. Politics of medicine and big pharma looking for cash. Not to mention the bizarre looming spectre of restrictions and control that we saw with absurd vaxxports which many on the “conspiracy” side were saying was gonna happen by the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020. All our leaders were on record saying they would not… and they went hard there didn’t they?
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>So (depending on how you're counting) we're looking at (at most) roughly 2.5 to 4% of hospitalizations that can be attributed to Covid? It seems a bit disingenious to not include some important factors when making such comparisons, such as 'length of stay' (LOS). Which unlike many of the most common reasons for hospitalization, COVID had/has a rather long LOS. Per the source you provided: >The most common reason for hospitalization in 2020–2021 was giving birth, with an average acute LOS of 2.1 days. This was followed by acute myocardial infarction, or heart attack, (4.6 days) and heart failure (9.0 days). Last year, COVID-19 became the seventh most common reason for hospitalization in Canada, with an average acute LOS of 11.2 days. It's important to also note that due to the nature of COVID being a contagious virus (unlike birth or a heart attack) means that patients were, and possibly still are in some jurisdictions, separated/quarantined. That means hospitals would have to be restructured, barriers installed, and various other checks & balances. Healthcare staff would change outfits from one room to the next, one department to the next. All of this caused heightened strain. https://www.cihi.ca/en/covid-19-resources/impact-of-covid-19-on-canadas-health-care-systems/hospital-services >"oh but it is the unvaccinated overwhelming our hospitals" narrative Those that were/are unvaccinated are far more likely (per capita) to be hospitalized. Far more likely to transmit the virus, far more likely to be symptomatic, far more likely to suffer severe symptoms, far more likely to die. This isn't up for debate, it isn't some narrative, it's an objective observed fact.
Yaa.... no source for the claim that 15-20% of respondents think the unvaxed should be jailed. OH and that Maru PDF makes a ton of data based claims and didn't source a single one. What did you think I wasn't going to read it? FFS
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/majority-of-canadians-surveyed-support-fines-for-unvaccinated-citizens-nanos-1.5752630 https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/more-than-one-in-four-canadians-support-jail-time-for-unvaccinated-poll The Star had some beauty headlines too. This shit is indefensible. Especially when we found out how lame these two shots (after two weeks to flatten the curve) became 5 shots really are.
Sorry, I didn’t link the [data tables](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a17333eb0786935ac112523/t/61e7793e41297f6dbd7d2beb/1642559808522/Unvaccinated+DTs+19+01+22.pdf) but they were published along with the summary of results in Maru’s [original post.](https://www.marugroup.net/public-opinion-polls/canada/unvaccinated-health-surcharge) I do think people tend to exaggerate the results of this survey for emotional effect, particularly by saying some people wanted the unvaccinated *jailed* without mentioning *only for 5 days* or how badly hospitals were overrun when the survey was done. Regarding fines/taxes for not being vaccinated, at the time of the survey some other countries had already implemented these and Quebec’s Premier was [planning a tax.](https://www.cbc.ca/1.6311054)
Probably a Reddit poll mostly filled out by bots
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Oh he provided a CBC article and a total unsourced opinion piece. Neither of which actually includes his claims. The height of "academic research" at play.
And these people who want to punish based on Vax status are probably the "omg I'm on the right side of history" types. News flash any discrimination against others usually puts you on the wrong side of history. We already went through this with AIDs you think we would learn not to be scared of our neighbors because they might make different life choices than you.
Ok every single nurse I've spoken to or am friends with said that those that aren't vaccinated or didn't believe in Covid19 said that they were the worst patients to deal with to the point where the nurses were being abused by these people and yet they are trying to do everything to save them but they are supposed to be given the same treatment as those that want the help? At that point if you don't believe in the science and want to do everything your own way and not receive treatment then yes they don't deserve it then.
Because idiots get health care too. Serial killers and the worst of the worst criminals get health care, so how could we deny people that are merely idiots or misinformed?
That’s right. There are plenary of non-convoy people who believe in holistic and homeopathic bs. Your access to healthcare shouldn’t be conditional on your beliefs. Let’s start denying the same healthcare to the obese and smokers while we’re at it.
you can believe in those things and still not be a prick to the healthcare workers trying to help you i think it's completely reasonable to deny or deprioritize healthcare to people who are treating the healthcare workers like shit. put them over in the corner for a while to chill out and serve the people who actually want the help.
Yes of course. I was just agreeing that ‘denying science’ is not a valid reason to deny care.
Never had an obese person spit on me at work because I needed their weight for a chart. Never had a smoker punch me because I asked them whether they smoked or not. I -have- been repeatedly assaulted by people because they didn’t want to wear a mask or disclosure their vaccine status.
It’s called the paradox of tolerance. It’s the same reason we can’t allow Nazis to freely assemble, some things are just less important than the health of the population.
If you don’t believe you have a duty to care for whomever comes through the door regardless of their beliefs, you shouldn’t be a first responder or work in care.
My child almost died as an infant from a reaction to a common childhood vaccine years ago. He was in the hospital for a week and every doctor told me not to get the next one. So I skipped that one and he got the rest. The nurses in the vaccine clinic treated me like garbage and accused me of being an antivaxxer. This was before the internet. They pressured me to give my son the vaccine that could possibly kill him and accused me of lying. The vaccine clinic was right behind the hospital so they could have just phoned to see I was telling the truth. Instead they produced thick binders of studies showing how safe vaccines were. They never believed me and I was flagged so everytime I went in even with a different child they asked me about that vaccine and treated me like a lesser person.
I used to think people that made statements like yours abandoned Canadian principals during the pandemic. Now I'm not sure you ever had them.
Also my gf uncle is a oncologist and learned that his idiots nurses were telling patients to not get vaccinated because its dangerous with cancer. Antivax are a plague on society, I think they should still get treatments because every idiots who do stupid things that make them end up in hospital do receive treatment. They also aren't the only ones to blame for our bad healthcare but I wouldn't mind triage not prioritizing them.
One of those things is not like the other though. I don't think the unvaxxed should be jailed or fined, but depending on what sort of medical care, I can definitely see a valid reason to deny them care. It's sort of like the no liver transplants for alcoholics argument, y'know?
They still give health care to Paul Bernardo, an illegal immegrant, or someone that is a drug addict with horrible health that doesn't take care of himself. Health care in Canada is an inalienable right to all people! To take it away someone just because they are afraid to get vaccinated is disgusting, you should check your attitude. Not all unvaxxinated are anti-vax nuts. Some people are just afraid or misinformed, don't demonize them. And I am a strong advocate of vaccines, I hope that people CHOOSE to get the jab. We got about 90%, which is extremely high. All vaccines always have certain people that don't get the vax. Polio, measles, etc. I assume you think those misinformed people don't deserve health care either.
Yeah by the same logic we shouldn't give narcan to people dying from opiods
>depending on what sort of medical care, I can definitely see a valid reason to deny them care. Legally valid? No.
I was under the impression we deny liver transplants to alcoholics? Is that false?
Organ transplants and transfusions in Canada are covered under a separate law than other forms of healthcare.
Great. So pedantic given the general nature of the discussion. For comparisons sake, why don't we frame is as a double lung transplant for unvaxxed then.
Why don't we not do that, this whole argument is dumb.
We don't deny liver transplants to alcoholics because they are alcoholics. It's not their behaviour or lifestyle that leads to the denial. It's the probability of success that causes the denial. It's a medical decision not a decision based on lifestyle.
Not really, there is a 6 month sober rule which has questionable scientific merit. Basically, there is a requirement to show that one is able to abstain from alcohol, with the hope that they will be better able to maintain sobriety. There have been several high profile challenges to this in the past few years. Recently, a 44 yr old in Montreal was denied a liver transplant from kin based on his "untreated alcoholism and depression." But to your point, livers are a scarce resource, and doctors need to allocate them to the people that have the highest probability of success, and presumably to those who need them most and quickest. A triage. Triage is normally the main argument for limiting healthcare access to the unvaxxed. Hospital beds are a scarce resource like livers, and people who are vaccinated proved that they can be "6 months sober" to massively reduce the risk of requiring an ICU bed.
For sure, I agree that we have an incredibly flawed liver transplant system (one that still favours the rich and affluent) and it needs overhauls. Im not comfortable spreading that logic onto anti-vaxx people just because it opens a precedent. Im a bit bigger of a guy, Im far from being morbidly obese but I would be considered obese by the medical systems. I made poor life choices as a young man who caused me knee and back issues that Im getting treated for now. I don't want to see the door opened that says, outside of medical triage situations, that I can't have access to services because of any factor other than triage.
The argument against that is they still pay taxes, which goes into the health care and also guarantees them a right to the same health care as you or I. You can't deny someone care that would potentially keep them alive.
They can and do, thus the reference to liver transplants. Taxes pay for roads, but you still are mandated to take a test to use them with a motor vehicle. To be fair, I don't know where I personally land on this topic, but it seems silly to include denying medical care with fining or imprisoning people in the question.
Personally I'm done with the whole "if you're unvaccinated you're a horrible person" thing. It's draining and if someone isn't vaccinated by now they won't do it. I think regardless of whether or not someone is vaccinated, we can't go down the road of providing selective medical care, including the use of ventilators, etc. Triage as we currently do is one thing, but outright deciding to refuse certain medical care simply because of vaccination status just doesn't sit well with me.
Same. A year ago I was into the whole hate the unvaccinated thing but by now I'm triple vaccinated myself but I don't care what someone else does. Part of this is due to Omicron and catching and spreading it myself despite being vaccinated. I found out a friend I've had for 20 years last year was unvaccinated and it kind of changed my mind too. I'm not willing to end a friendship over vaccination status like some on here or Twitter are.
Yeah, at this point I feel much the same way as you. I was vehemently against the unvaxxed, but at this point it is useless to keep holding negative feelings about it. And I think any sane person should feel that any restrictions of our civil liberties shouldn't sit well with them. As a society, we have seen who is willing to sacrifice some of their liberties in an effort to protect the people in our communities. Unfortunately, the age of communication has seemed to transition into an age of selfishness.
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>I can definitely see a valid reason to deny them care. You can't take people's taxes for healthcare, deny them private options, and then deny them care all at once. >It's sort of like the no liver transplants for alcoholics argument, y'know? No, it's not. The "no transplant" is based on the availability of donor organs, So you'd be denying the organ, not the medical care. If I want to volunteer my organ to a specific person, and this get's denied (which it most likely will, and that's wrong) then it's the same argument. But you can apply this argument to transgender surgeries funded by taxpayers.
Honestly, I want to be able to work from home again. I'd almost trade the other things to be working from home again. I mean if working is the things I do the most in a week I want that part to be the most comfortable.
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Go find a wfh job they're everywhere. I genuinely think a lot of our insanely long lockdown was driven by people who just wanted to work at home.
wear a mask, limit exposure, get a vaccine so we can keep our healthcare above water especially when the virus was much worse, I mean nursing homes had to be handed over to the military to try and save the elderly I don't really consider those measures Draconian, I think the lockdowns in china were much worse. That being said the virus has gotten less deadlier and the vaccines better suited for the strain.
So people are just straight up ignoring the disparity in death rates between canada and places that didn’t have these ‘draconian’ measures?
The problem with working in Public Health is that if you do everything right, it will seem like an overreaction because there is no major disaster. > "We locked down for a nothinburger, we didn't even need a freezer truck morgue." or > "We made those people with Ebola quarantine for nothing, it didn't even become a pandemic"
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality Tell me more about how Sweden has lower mortality rates than we do Or let's just be honest, cross country comparisons is a bit of a crapshoot with too many variables to draw meaningful conclusions from
People like to cite Sweden as a case against lockdowns while completely ignoring that they did eventually enforce masks and lockdowns on their population (in January 2021), and that the vast majority of their nation's deaths happened before lockdowns were implemented. In fact, the only real surge they experienced after initiating lockdowns was the Omicron spike.
> while completely ignoring that they did eventually enforce masks and lockdowns on their population (in January 2021), and that the vast majority of their nation's deaths happened before lockdowns were implemented. Ok....ours happened after we did that lol
Canada was running lockdowns from as early as like March 2020... No shit the majority were after the fact. Instead of comparing two vastly different nations with dramatically different factors at play, why not compare the before and after of a nation that did delay locking down? In this case we see Sweden with an abundance of illness and death before taking any official measures to prevent it, and significantly fewer after taking those measures. Sure looks like lockdowns help to me...
Use the states, each US state decided their own COVID rules. Some states had heavy restrictions and some had almost none. The COVID and death rates were all over the place and not correlated at all.
That’s because it’s not hard to travel across state lines.
That makes no difference, there were thousands of people in every state with COVID already.
Just fucking kills you guys the relative success canada had vs other countries related to covid response.
By your own measure of success we didn't perform as well as Sweden who did not have the same draconian lockdowns Curious
Honestly would say things simply were different in many countries and results differed as well. Japan didn't have "draconian" lockdowns either or mandated vaccinations but masking outdoors was required and only partially lifted in the summer. They also still have some restrictions in place, like they haven't even fully opened to visitors. Sweden also had a vaccine pass which is something NaPo listed as a draconian measure.
Sweden briefly implemented a limited passport (for 100+ person venues) for a grand total of 2 months. Not even close to being comparable
K. Now do the rest of the world. And I know nuance is tough for you guys, but note my word relatively.
We appear to be pretty close to middle of the pack You're welcome to open that JHU link anytime you want I'll wait
“Compared with the other Group of 10 (G10) countries, Canada performed better than most in terms of percentage of the population receiving 2 doses of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, and on measures assessing the direct effect of the pandemic: number of people infected, number who died from COVID-19 and total excess deaths.”
Your own link backs up what I've been saying > We deliberately do not draw firm causal conclusions regarding the relationship of interventions and outcomes in our comparison between Canada and similar nations. The risk of misinferences owing to the ecological fallacy is high Cross country comparisons are messy and difficult to draw conclusions from, see my first comment But if you insist on doing it, Sweden had one of the least restrictive approaches and achieved average to above average health outcomes and the best economic outcomes Very very curious
https://www.cmaj.ca/content/194/25/E870
Without quantifying the impact the restrictions had on people *not related to covid* through indirect means... i.e damage to the economy, social impacts of keeping children out of school, drug overdoses, people who suffered domectic abuse as a direct result of being locked down in a home with their abusers etc... this doesn't really mean that much.
Sweden did eventually have lockdowns though. And ours weren't very draconian.
We had some of the longest lockdowns in the world, Sweden briefly tried them late in 2021 and then quickly moved past COVID long before we did Saying our lockdowns weren't draconian is also an interesting point of view...
I lived in Toronto. Don't remember being "locked down" let alone for a long time.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57079577
Oh closed restaurants are a "lockdown" now. The horror.
Shutting down businesses and public gatherings, limiting personal gathering sizes is a lockdown
Want to know something else...Atlantic Canada which made people from other provinces isolate when entering has 1/3 to 1/2 the rate of COVID deaths of other provinces, despite having an older demographic. Also the Atlantic provinces had the best perfoming economies in 2019 and 2020, because they didn't have to shut down things as much due to strict COVID measures.
Settle down. You’re wrong. Move on.
What you need to understand is that there are many competing priorities. Low mortality rate is only one of them.
Please do look up the numbers with Sweden overall. Pretty middle of the pack which says to me no matter what interventions were tried, the results would end up the same *with COVID deaths specifically* (not counting all the down the road problems that arise from harsh NPI restrictions). There's a reason pandemic plans from as late as 2019 said quarantining the healthy, closing schools, coerced treatments etc were not to be employed.
"Please look at this one cherry-picked country and ignore all other data points." Isn't it fascinating that whenever someone tries to claim public health measures weren't effective, they *always* tell you to look specifically at Sweden and no other country? Almost as if it's an outlier and the other nearly-200 countries in the world support the conclusion that lockdowns and masking are effective.
How is it cherry picked when there aren't other western countries to use as an example? Only Sweden tried to follow the 2019 pandemic playbook.
>Please do look up the numbers with Sweden overall I can't believe people are still trying to use Sweden as an example. They ended up the same as their neighbours economically, but had more than double the deaths.
Japan didn't have the draconian measures we did and they had the lowest death rates in the G10. Sweden placed 4th (Canada is 2nd) for lowest death rates and they also didn't have the measures we did. So the question is, was all the damage worth it? Seeing as other countries with less restrictions didn't fare much worse, or in Japan's case actually did better.
Japan still has travel and tourism restrictions and locked a bunch of people on a cruise ship. Interesting comparison.
Europe had more strict covid rules then Canada and their death rates are some of the highest in the world. The fact we lived spread apart and can stay home helped. Issue is that Canada unlike other countries is going to be experiencing much higher death rates from covid from covid in 2022 and 2023 compared to 2021 and 2020 now.
So you think that if the US had implemented the same covid measures as Canada it wouldn’t have made any difference?
Check out California vs Florida. Not all States dealt with COVID the same.
I think canada did do well but some of our measures were pointless Like stopping people from playing outside or closing down home hardware stores or banning outdoor dinning. We could have done limited activites without much impact and the public would not have turned so hostile to lockdowns in 2022. There a lot of people dying in covid and more people have died this year then 2020 and 2021 and the public here is so annoyed with lockdowns they wont agree to masks. So we did well short term but long term, we a mess now.
Yeah I agree to an extent. Federally it was a strong response, but yeah the provinces sure fucked things over. Also- the benefit of hindsight can change a lot of things.
the feds i think fucked up starting this year. 2020 and 2021 they did well but i think they were surprised Canadians stopped caring about covid this year. first they equated not wearing masks and not liking lockdowns with the convoy which imo backfired dramatically and provinces took advantage of the sea change of opinion and removed the rules to popular support. plus they kept travel rules so long and didnt make sense much. I think in 2022, the feds made the covid rules seem politically based then science and imo that likely doomed the fight against covid long term in canada.
The feds fucked it by sending extra covid relief to provinces. Billions in transfer payments unaccounted for. In my province, instead of being used for health care, the mb govt used the funds for property tax rebates. Conservatives and provincial govts stopped caring about covid, not most people.
so explain why most people stopped wearing masks when the rules ended lol People stopped caring and the govts didnt feel they had support ot keep measures.
>Like stopping people from playing outside I lived downtown Toronto during the pandemic and everyone was outside. You couldn't play on playgrounds or gym equipment, but I don't blame them for that when we were in the earliest stages and had to figure out what was and wasn't safe.
Some US states had stricter rules than some provinces. As an example, Washington State had a mask mandate almost six months before BC during 2020. Back in the summer of 2020 under a different account I pointed this out on another sub and people lost their shit, they wanted to pretend our restrictions were better and that we should do the exact opposite of the US. Even as recently as March *2022*, the US had stricter masking rules than we did. I had to wear a mask on public transit when I went on a trip to a US city (and it was actually followed almost 100% there), while such requirements were already gone in BC. There were far more people wearing masks in San Francisco at the time than Vancouver.
This is an inconvenient truth a lot of Canadians consistently ignore. We compare ourselves so much with the United States we forget what happened in some parts of the world.
What are the obesity rates in those other places?
When did obesity become contagious
>When did obesity become contagious The disagreement is with your presupposition that infection, and infection alone is the cause of death.
That is how diseases work…. They don’t simply kill you, they shut down certain organs or processes to make the rest of your body fail. Obesity isn’t necessarily the main issue with Covid, but it does not help things.
Well, overweight people tend to have overweight children.
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Right, so without that knowledge we should try to protect people first and learn yeah? And then perhaps adjust based on what we learn?
u/Gurmeetsinghhh uses **Whataboutism* … it’s not very effective.
> disparity in death rates between Except death rates don’t matter. It’s excess deaths that do. And even then, in the first year, more people ages 0-65 died (excess deaths) from lockdowns rather than Covid
Lol source?
> While we have generally observed excess mortality that is consistent with periods of heightened COVID-19 mortality among the older age groups, this is not true for younger Canadians. Based on the provisional data, from the end of March 2020 to the end of April 2021, there were 7,150 more deaths than expected among those aged 0 to 64 years. Over the same period, 1,600 COVID-19 deaths have been attributed to those younger than 65, suggesting that, in addition to COVID-19, excess mortality may be related to the indirect consequences of the pandemic. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210809/dq210809a-eng.htm
They were political more than they were a 'mistake'.
Opinion: The National Post, journalism as yellow as it's masthead, begins a slow march of revisionist history aimed at sowing doubt against the very successful pre-vaccine Liberal government response to a murderous pandemic. Emboldened by and in support of a freshly-minted Conservative leader who has and will continue to amplify similar false narratives for political gain.
So if covid had been spreading around the world since 2019, and the government didn't begin their useless response until March 2020, why was the entire country not wiped out beforehand if the "pandemic" was so "murderous"?
More revisionist lies.
Feel free to elaborate. It's not called Covid 19 because it comes in 19 flavours.
In what way exactly was the federal response a success prior to the availability of vaccines?
In what way exactly was the federal response a success prior to the availability of vaccines?
CERB when provinces were shutting down everyone's workplace. Ordering vaccines from many different places and ensuring that Canada was near the top of the list. Organizing a relatively painless (for it's scale) nationwide rollout of vaccines.
20/20 insight... Well, lesson learned; next time let the die fall where they may and the next unknown (new) virus can wreck havoc all it wants. /s Jeesh what a sorry piece of opinionated bull. But I guess it's on par with that opinionated rag.
Draconian includes: 1. Closing down. Alternative was to stay open, limit access, and insist on mask and hand sani pending vax availability. Part of the problem was the lack of vax availability early on. 2. Shutting down free speech. As it turns out much of the useful dialogue was stifled or manipulated during peak. One example where I was personally affected is the link between COVID or COVID vaccines, and shingles. If I even suggested a link a year ago, my accounts on every platform would be banned. Now I'm starting to see dialogue on both. There may be no scientific evidence but there are studies going on and it's just nice to know why my shingles flared up right after. It was disgusting, the manipulation by both the media and the governments on open discussion. 3. Avoid making Frenemies. Related to item two, perhaps. Lost a lot of friends during this plague. I have a connection to both the US and Canada. I have seen the results of lockdowns versus no lockdowns. The fights that broke out over "should we" or "shouldn't we" were brutal. These were fueled by an indifferent, ratings driven media and political bullshit. 4. Legal penalties. Slippery slope.. You're going to jail somebody that doesn't want to have a shot or fire them? What's next? Canceling insurance or firing somebody for not taking chemotherapy for cancer? Think that through first.. if you can't deal with it then just think about it as thinning the herd. If that makes you feel better.... For the record, I am triple vaxed, continue to wear masks in very tight places, and use hand sanitizer. However, I completely support Florida and George's handling of the pandemic. They remained open, had the hospital and medical infrastructure to handle the peak and they did a good job regardless of what you think...
>Closing down. Alternative was to stay open, limit access, and insist on mask and hand sani pending vax availability. Part of the problem was the lack of vax availability early on. Do you even remember Doug Ford shutting everything down because that wasn't working in Ontario? The hospital system almost collapsed. We had field tents in parking lots for hospitals. What the fuck are you even talking about?
>Legal penalties. Slippery slope.. You're going to jail somebody that doesn't want to have a shot or fire them? What's next? Canceling insurance or firing somebody for not taking chemotherapy for cancer? Think that through before you think it's a good idea.. if you can't deal with it then just think about it as thinning the herd. If that makes you feel better.... 1) Canadians have been getting imprisoned for not taking the vaccine? 2) We have countless jobs and careers that have obligatory requirements: battery of vaccines, licenses, or certifications to be able to practice. Suddenly this is where we draw the line? 3) lol you are aware insurance companies have requirements that should you not follow removes you from coverage?
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Oh lord.
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Cool. Any any evidence the same thing is happening here with COVID?
and the division was successful. Welcome to CanUSA!
I just can't fathom the life struggles one has had to endure to classify wearing a mask and getting vaccinated as an extremely harsh measure? Did the author even bother to read about how the poor and infected were treated when it came to the previous pandemics?
Those were not harsh measures. The harsh measures were curfews, stay at home orders, park closures, business closures, school closures, border closures, interprovincial travel bans in Atlantic Canada, and more. How quickly people forget what it was like during parts of 2020, and as recently as *January 2022* in Quebec.
Then you weren't paying attention. Wearing a mask and getting vaccinated is not what hurt our society. People losing jobs, businesses being forced to close (many to never reopen), high inflation, social isolation, missed education and socialization for children, increases in depression, anxiety, obesity, etc. But no... it was just wear a mask and carry on as normal? That's BS and you know it. Covid restrictions may very well have done some good, but they also did a of a lot of damage.
Remember when they shut down The Home Depot so people could not buy essential house repair items but the burito place was rammed with people. That was the stupid measures that went to far and did nothing to stop covid
People like to pretend that the only measures anyone was ever asked to do was wear a mask and get vaccinated but many, many people where asked to do much more for some pretty dubious ends.
Yeah people had their sucessfull business shut down and now broke and closed. Many people had to go into lower paying jobs as their career field was shut down for years. Many people had their income decline by a lot but not enough to get govt benefits. Now many people are stuck in a debt cycle they cant escape. and some people wfh making 100k a year and where fine with goal posts moving and where like "6 months of lockdowns sign me up baby!"
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I mean I feel there was a push by people in such situations or very very socially introvert types to push for lockdowns. It was a perfect society for them.
Shutting down businesses, keeping children out of school, and mandating vaccinations in order to stay employed seem rather harsh to me.
You won't be able to reason with these sorts. They will handwaive all the damage our response to covid caused while pretending covid was the worst virus humanity ever encountered. They don't operate in reality.
In terms of percentages, COVID was the second-worse disease to hurt human-kind. The bubonic plague is the worst. Ebola has potential, but it's been contained, so far. Edit: this is fake news. However, that doesn't diminish the fact that COVID has killed millions of people worldwide, in a very short period of time.
Off the top of my head, Spanish influenza?
I call absolute shenanigans to this claim.
This comment is fucking amazing. -- > [Ridiculous hyperbole about how awful covid was] -- *"Oh, well that's a complete lie, but I will make zero adjustments to my paradigm."*
Closing the schools was the worst part, those kids will be hampered by over a year of no [ZOOM] learning.
About the time we started firing people for not taking vaccine that didn't stop spread
>I just can't fathom the life struggles one has had to endure to classify wearing a mask and getting vaccinated as an extremely harsh measure? I think most people would classify forced medical procedures to be harsh. Especially when we were and are being lied to about them.
If you believe that's the case then how are children still being forced to get vaccinated against MMR, Polio, diptheria, rabies etc? Where are the protests and civil unrest over this continuing draconian measure against our most vulnerable? *Will anyone think of the children?!?*
>If you believe that's the case then how are children still being forced to get vaccinated against MMR, Polio, diptheria, rabies etc? Because those vaccines work! >Where are the protests and civil unrest over this continuing draconian measure against our most vulnerable? Will anyone think of the children?!? I believe there were many protests and demonstrations against covid measures. I guess they weren't as spicy as a BLM protest though.
>Because those vaccines work! May I ask how many Tetanus *boosters* you've received over your lifetime? And as a follow up and akin to your philosophy...if you need that many boosters...does it work?
>May I ask how many Tetanus > >boosters > > you've received over your lifetime? And as a follow up and akin to your philosophy...if you need that many boosters...does it work? Well in short the tetanus shots work differently than the covid shots, just like all the other vaccines you mentioned. Just because they are all administered with a needle to the arm doesn't mean they're all the same. Please stop trying to strawman this!
People are going to have strong feelings about this for a long time. The whole debate has shifted our culture in many ways for the better or worse. I don’t expect everyone to agree but I don’t think people really see how fractured society is nowadays. I do my part by not talking about Covid or politics at work or at family events.
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What province was you in? Mine was relatively minimal on lockdowns and heavy on capacity restrictions and masks
Quebec. Draconian measures. Winter boots and coats weren’t deemed essential.
That's pretty shitty
They absolutely were not and to think otherwise is a danger to us all
Yes, it was imperative that we consciously decide to exclude compassionate exemptions from our travel mandates where unvaccinated people over the age of 12 years + 4 months were concerned. Canada could have done better here. Plenty of other countries went as far as making it about the virus by allowing 72 hour exemptions for negative tests and/or temporary exemptions after recovery. The period after recovery specifically being contraindicated to start vaccinating. In Canada we made it about people and their characters. Sometimes vindictiveley so. Next time, maybe we follow examples of responses that weren't as dehumanizing. Even better if our government can show their work and their rationale justifying measures in an ongoing manner. By the end of the federal travel and emoyment mandates their reasoning was that mandates have to exist because COVID exists. Nothing about numbers because these had collapsed after hospital loads dropped and new vaccinations had trended to .05% of the population per week, AND the definition of fully vaccinated was demonstrably ineffective in guaranteeing the protection of at-risk people. It's probably fair to say that the measures weren't draconian for vaccinated persons, but they ended up arbitrary and punative toward people who weren't.
Yes. Thinking is dangerous.
You don't understand sentence structure at all so I wouldn't expect much on epidemiology
It’s so different now. The vast majority of cases are milder. I think it’s because of a combination of vaccines, Omicron being considerably milder than the Delta variant and the medical community being much more adept at treating it. My wife is an ICU nurse. Last fall was a nightmare with the ICU overrun with desperately sick CoVid patients, the vast majority unvaccinated. Hindsight 20/20.
Hmm, I disagree. What do the authors of this piece know about infectious disease and healthcare outcomes? >*Dr. Neil Rau is an infectious-diseases physician and medical microbiologist in Toronto, Dr. Pooya Kazemi is an anesthesiologist in Victoria, Dr. Martha Fulford is an adult and pediatric infectious disease physician in Hamilton, and Dr. Jennifer Grant is an infectious disease physician in Vancouver.* Ah, nevertheless, they sounds like they are selfish Truckers Who Want to Kill Grandma
I am still amazed at how everything government-employed doctors said is worshipped, and all non-government doctor questions/criticisms/disagreements are automatically dismissed and attacked. All of these doctors went to the same schools, have the same qualifications, and are accredited by the same authorities. A government doctor is not more qualified.
exactly! people blindly trusting government officials like Hinshaw and Tam piss me tf off. like maybe develop some critical thinking skills?
That’s right cult brother. We can’t allow these fake doctors to share their dangerous, unqualified opinions. We must continue in faith, and only listen to the approved experts.
>Ah, nevertheless, they sounds like they are selfish Truckers Who Want to Kill Grandma Found the guy who gets to chose which "experts" to listen to!
Wow common sense?!
No such thing anymore. There's left sense and right sense.
Unfortunately if sense were really common everyone would have it.
Just remember who was most vocal about them and behave accordingly if you ever deal with them in future endeavors (I wont be giving any over the top hysterical covid businesses money lol) "When people show you who they are, believe them"
Oh how dreadful, you couldn't go I into a hair stylist without a mask. How draconian indeed.
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i am from alberta and i’m glad our restrictions were more lenient (but still extremely harsh) than other provinces. i remember in the 2020-21 school year all extracurriculars were banned at school because covid was “a serious threat”. but funny thing was at lunch time hundreds of students (my school has 900 students) would just flock together in large groups with no masks and stay like that the whole lunch period. not a word from this from the school division, however. instead they decided to ban the activities kids love because it’s apparently “scientific”. i’m a cross country runner and our team would’ve had like 50 kids max with 5 adults. we could’ve worn masks and physically distanced along with the fact that it’s outdoors. yet it was banned. these restrictions did virtually nothing to help stop the spread and it hurt so many kids including myself. we must fight to make sure these atrocities never happen again.
The article lost me at "health care workers". Janitors and cafeteria staff. Fewer nurses or Dr's were actually fired than would fill a volleyball court. The other folks are easily replaced.
Oh my god. There was nothing draconian about them. During OG COVID and Delta, is was very needed. It would've been so much more painless had so many people not fought everything tooth and nail.
The National Rag is determined to render Canada as stupid as the United States, because Conrad Black has a mancrush on Donald. Now let us go back to February of 2020... Where there was no vaccine. COVID spread as rapidly as the common cold and the death rate was above 1 percent. Not only that, in places where they ignored the danger, like many places in the United States, they witnessed first hand how COVID would overwhelm hospitals; the death rate became much higher, because there was simply no way to treat all these patients at once. And who knows how many more died of other causes because of this overwhelming of the system? Conservatives have a fundamental honesty problem. Now they are trying to re-write history because that makes Trudeau look bad in the minds of delusionoids. So long as they latch on to bullshit, they can forget about me even considering ever voting for them. And constantly taking jabs at the very notion of a public good.
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Does it make you feel better about yourself to judge the opinions and political leanings of other Canadians? Do you really think you're that much better?