Zeitgeist

So pleased that we still have courageous columnists. Rex Murphy reminds us, as too few do, about our Canadian values: https://apple.news/AL8ClyKAqRzW1MjWiqm8ohA

So this is how it ends: More and more people have to start mocking the restrictions and mandates as futile draconian attempts to control a virus that is now endemic. End the mandates for testing, screening, masking, and vaccination. Promote protections such as vaccination and anti-viral treatments. Treat serious illness of all kinds in hospitals, which was always their mandate (not endlessly testing every close contact of a Covid case, whether or not that person has mild, serious, or no symptoms at all). Most people have gotten or will get Omicron and be over it in a week. Covid is permanently part of our reality. It’s time to return to normal, but it requires a new attitude and social outlook on Covid. Influencers and media have to get on board as well. Eventually public opinion should force government to follow suit.

Forget testing, vaccination status, and whether people have Covid. Most people have had or are getting Covid. Focus on treating the very sick. That’s it. Make the anti-viral pill, vaccines, and whatever other protections there are, available. That’s it. Drop all restrictions. We can live with the virus and have normal lives. This pandemic has become mainly psychological, because Covid is endemic.

You’re absolutely right. In Australia the government is resorting to fascist oppression against the unvaccinated. They will no longer be able to leave their homes except for three reasons. Even exercise will be considered non-essential for them. This may not yet appear as drastic as the Holocaust, but the motives and tactics are similar. Take away people’s rights in the name of purity, this time health purity rather than racial purity. It is evil. I’m not sure if our mandatory QR codes are the “mark of the devil”, but I do know that they are being used as a way of ensuring that only those who participate in the vaccination program can enjoy a semblance of pre-pandemic freedom It’s sick I’ve played ball so far I’ve got my booster appointment this month, but what else will government coerce me to do in order to enjoy basic freedoms? Where is our discretion of choice, the ability to say that this or that remedy is right or wrong for us? Why won’t Health Canada approve over the counter anti-viral pills? Is this because our government has made procurement commitments that we’re now obligated to respect? How much longer will I have to pay hundreds of dollars for tests that are hard to get completed on time in order to enter my own country? How much longer will I have to show proof of vaccination on top of all this in order to be allowed to travel and enjoy basic freedoms? Where does this end? Is this really serving us? Minister Duclos is a creepy dude. End all restrictions immediately and get these totalitarians out of office. America, please shine your light of liberty on Canada. Free the slaves.

It’s worth the freedom. Also, the death rates are much more similar now. The levels of freedom are not.

No. We should not be wearing masks for years and clamping down endlessly on human freedom because a few can’t handle mild risk

You don’t appreciate rhetorical devices or comedy. My whole point is that you place too much faith in and onus on government to take care of you. It’s a relinquishing of personal responsibility. I think I touched a nerve because it’s clear that we’ve lapsed into a mindless reliance on authority to direct our behaviour. Why the hell should an adult accept being told they can’t dine out or see more than five friends or go to a theatre? He or she has the passport you made them carry as proof of vaccination (enough of an affront that this is required) and even wears the mask as required indoors. In Florida my freedom and judgment are respected. I can get vaccinated as needed, wear a mask as needed to protect myself, and I can move freely in and out of my country. Freedom is substandard in Canada.

I was talking about the brewmaster. There’s a difference between an unvaccinated person getting Delta and a vaccinated person getting Omicron. How old was he? How fat? Any other ailments? Every person is different. Restrictions don’t take that into account. Blunt instruments are perhaps appropriate for blunt-brained populations. Why give freedom of decision making to regular people, right? Our government knows how much freedom we deserve and how we should live. Don’t worry, Justin loves you.

Don’t you see any difference between where we started and where we are now? This is why we can’t have nice things.

I’d pay it if it meant enjoying the freedom people in Florida have versus the creepy restrictions we live under in Ontario. It really is another world, but Canadians think that what we’re living right now is typical and necessary. It is not.

Clearly our system isn’t working because we have to shut our businesses and make people stay home when other countries such as the US and UK are carrying on.

I’ll pay for it. Remember how services cost money?

This is the problem. People are acting as though nothing has changed since the start of the pandemic. Now we have an almost fully vaccinated population in Canada and a milder dominant variant that almost everyone gets over in a week.

Omicron or Delta? Vaccinated or unvaccinated?

I’m not antivax. Nice try. Canada’s current pandemic approach is most certainly totalitarian. Read the comparison to other jurisdictions. We have chosen shut-downs and restrictions instead of respecting people’s judgment to handle a manageable health risk. I’d say though that you’re right, most Canadians don’t realize how much they’ve compromised.

Better yet, let’s spend next year’s health budget on setting up a Royal commission to create a report that tells us what we already know. They key is, consult consult consult and take many years to complete it. Make sure that the recommendations include many ideas that have nothing to do with healthcare, but would certainly bankrupt the country upon implementation. Also, make sure that for every dollar spent there are no measurable outcomes or accountability. The trick is to pay high salaries to a lot of bureaucrats, make them look busy, and find new ways to tax people and create slush funds that can be drawn upon to buy votes, especially in the Maritimes and places with the highest unemployment levels, because people love freebies.

Add stars or a hammer and sickle to the Liberal logo and Canadian flag. Good to go.

Well you could move to China. Very safe. I want to become an American now. Canada is becoming a sad and miserable place where it’s fine to destroy businesses and mental health over a manageable health risk. We have to wait until the coddled triple vaccinated public can handle minor risks. It’s so weak. Oh well, I can have up to six months a year in Florida, so at least I can escape the Soviet iceberg for a while, even if it means spending several hundred dollars on PCR tests to get into my own country when I have to come back.

Canada is heavily influenced now by the Chinese totalitarian approach, which is why Canada’s response to the “5th wave” is among the harshest in the world. No land of the free here. https://apple.news/At7G6CYNTSry-sAycZE0hCA

Well let’s see how it goes. Brampton, the worst hotspot most of the pandemic in Ontario, removed its Orange Alert. Again, the focus should be treating the seriously ill now, not treating everyone who tests positive like an invalid.

Already happening and we’re managing. People are recovering well, including the immune-compromised.

The bigger picture here that so many people seem to miss or downplay is the question of freedom itself. Is it worth anything anymore? Are people “irresponsible” for wanting to meet people and see their faces? Is it unreasonable for kids to play sports, and for people to attend community events or stadiums? We keep hearing that it’s about keeping the hospitals from becoming overwhelmed, but what we measure becomes us. If we look for Covid through endless testing, even in mild cases or asymptomatic people, we’re going to find it, and our screening will make these people stay home from work. What’s the value in that? To slow the spread? Once people get it they have months of immunity, and the next time they get it they have better resistance. Is the plan to flood households with tests, find Covid, and scare people back into isolation? What we’re doing is sick and dysfunctional. Covid is everywhere in a milder form and most people are well-protected through vaccinations. They can mask up if they so choose. People indeed are falling apart, and not because of catching Covid, but the endless fear-mongering and psychological damage from leading sedentary lives in isolation. The restrictions under which we live are indeed drastic and totalitarian, and they cannot be justified, certainly not at this stage. End all restrictions immediately.

I want a libertarian. It’s not about left versus right anymore. Hell I used to be a member of the Liberal Party in the Chrétien era. They’re garbage now. Just an affiliate of the coastal Democrats and Xi’s Comm Party of China. They only know how to subsidize expensive identity politics pet projects, raise the cost of living, and shut down natural resource development. They’re destroying Canada. The Conservative Party of Canada isn’t measurably different. I just want the essentials from government, not directives on what to think and how to live, especially when I don’t even respect these people.

Well that’s another reason why we have to shift to allowing citizens to make informed health decisions that are right for them. Trudeau is pretending that vaccine holdouts are the reason the pandemic continues. The vast majority of the public are vaccinated. Omicron is relatively mild. Millions have had and are getting it daily. Almost all recover well. Covid is endemic, but that doesn’t fit the narrative of fear that Trudeau and Biden are telling. Trudeau is trying to justify his budget and temperance lady health puritan story. It’s not about what’s right for the public or the health of our democracy; it’s about him and our other leaders being perceived as right.

I’m fully vaccinated and my boost is scheduled for mid-January. I wear masks all day at work. Nice try. With 90% of adults and well over 80% of 12-18 year olds fully vaccinated, soon followed by 5-12 year olds, do you really think having more of the population boosted is going to suddenly end this? Get real. Ending the pandemic is an entirely political choice at this point. It requires being honest with the public about what can and is reasonable to control in a free society. We are more than safe enough from Covid to end restrictions and shift to personal responsibility. It’s so sad what our country has become, a place of the unquestioning weak-kneed and infantilized. Only a unified opposition can shake this. It must be large, reasonable, vocal, and persistent.