The Flight from Reality - Nikiforuk

 

The Tyee's Andrew Nikiforuk writes that we're being left to our fates as province by province lifts Covid-19 restrictions.

Like most modern politicians, [Boris] Johnson couldn’t be bothered with dealing with the complications of an evolving virus that comes in controllable waves.

So he lifted all protections including masks and told his people to move on and live with a nasty novel virus — a policy that favours the rich, dooms the poor and makes a mockery of reality.

Here’s what that kind of “freedom” from COVID actually looks like — because it is coming to a province near you. Canada, too, is in political retreat from reality, feeding and strengthening a sixth wave of COVID propelled by the highly infectious variant: BA.2.

Since Johnson’s gleeful declaration of freedom last year more than 35,000 U.K. citizens have died. Last week alone more than 1,000 people there perished from a pandemic that most Conservative politicians officially pretend is over. One in 13 people are now infected.

As proof, Nikiforuk cites three examples - the UK, Denmark and South Korea - where restrictions were lifted and the pandemic returned. Then he turned to Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan’s Premier Scott Moe, another denier of reality, declared the pandemic over three months ago. Since getting rid of indoor masking and other precautions, more than 256 citizens of his province have died. That’s one-fifth of Saskatchewan’s total COVID deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney also ignored the science, capitulated to the anti-maskers and removed all protections. In the last three months, 700 Albertans have died while thousands more will likely come down with Long COVID. Across Canada, 7,000 have died from COVID over the same period. For context, Canada’s 2018-19 flu season — before the pandemic — killed 224 people a year.
The grim facts above all speak to the evils of political expediency. What we need now are leaders who understand exponential growth, viral evolution and the physics of masking and ventilation. Science (but not pollsters) will tell you that viral evolution likely leads to new variants with unpredictable severity and better abilities to evade vaccine or natural immunity.

Depending on who is counting, Canada is now in the fifth or sixth wave of Covid-19 with the highly infectious BA.2 variant taking the crown from Omicron. We have seen what happens when premiers like Alberta's Kenney sound the "all clear" prematurely.