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https://www.alberta.ca/coronavirus-info-for-albertans.aspx https://www.google.com/search?q=number+of+hospitals+in+canada+by+province&rlz=1C1GGRV_enCA911CA911&oq=number+of+hospitals+canada&aqs=chrome.1.69i59j0i22i30l6j69i60.18743j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 There are 161 hospitals on Alberta and 685 covid cases, on average 4.3 per hospital. Of these 121 are in intensive care, an average of close to one per hospital. If the hospitals are allowed to remain open they should be able to handle this load, this is no excuse to continue measures that compromise our children's future.

Yes if that is necessary which is an argument you have not supported. Hospital transports are better than watching our elderly die by prolonging their isolation.

https://www.alberta.ca/coronavirus-info-for-albertans.aspx https://www.google.com/search?q=number+of+hospitals+in+canada+by+province&rlz=1C1GGRV_enCA911CA911&oq=number+of+hospitals+canada&aqs=chrome.1.69i59j0i22i30l6j69i60.18743j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 There are 161 hospitals on Alberta and 685 covid cases, on average 4.3 per hospital. Of these 121 are in intensive care, an average of close to one per hospital. If the hospitals are allowed to remain open they should be able to cope. In the mean time the government measures are seriously compromising our children's future. This is unacceptable.

Our seniors took care of us when we were young. They loved and cared for us. supporting measures that are causing them pain heartache and death doesn't look good on us. People living in care homes are more afraid of dying of loneliness than of COVID-19, says a new report from the province’s watchdog for seniors. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/10/20/covid-19-loneliness-isolation-can-kill-elderly-dementia-column/3711431001/ These findings tell us something important about the dangers of losing in-person connections for the majority of seniors who live in the community. Many avoid isolation by socializing in religious spaces, senior centers and “third places” such as coffee shops, parks and libraries. Preventable deaths and suffering from isolation will rise if we don’t safeguard the public spaces that inoculate elders against the toll of loneliness.

https://www.alberta.ca/coronavirus-info-for-albertans.aspx https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/ian-mulgrew-b-c-medicare-wait-lists-leave-hundreds-to-die-court-told People are waiting too long for health care in B.C., hundreds even dying, but it’s not because doctors are providing private care, provincial anesthesiologists noted in their closing submission to the marathon medicare constitutional trial. https://www.annalsthoracicsurgery.org/article/S0003-4975(03)02234-3/pdf Insufficient capacity for coronary artery bypass grafting results in waiting times before operation, prioritization of patients and, ultimately, death on the waiting list.

Why do people think that viral infections are threatening to overwhelm our hospitals? There are 1675 covid hospitalizations in Canada, and over 1200 hospitals. That means less than 1.4 patients per hospital on average. Wake up people. the hospitals were running at capacity before the crisis. There were months long waiting lists for cancer, and heart disease treatments. People were dying while waiting for treatments, and then the government shut down the hospitals. Think that didn't cause a problem? Flattening the curve doesn't reduce viral infections, it just spreads them out over a longer period of time. As you can see the flattened curve has fewer infections at first, but over time the curve without preventative measures decreases more rapidly and results in fewer infections. After 8 months we probably now have more infections than if no measures had been taken. Even if we assume that we would have started with twice as many infections as we now have there would still be about 3 cases per hospital. Increased deaths on waiting lists, increased deaths among opiod dependent people, increased domestic abuse and our elders suffering increased mental and physical health problems from being isolated are all totally caused by the government lock downs, not viral infections.

The fact that most of the deaths were in long term care, probably means that those making the rules did not understand the problem, and locked down the wrong people. Perhaps the fact that during the first couple of months of the crisis all the deaths were residents of long term care facilities, means that the people bringing the virus into the facilities did not die from it. Perhaps seeing people dying while waiting for cancer treatments is not a problem for you. Perhaps increased domestic abuse is not a problem for you. Perhaps increased opiod related deaths is not a problem for you. Perhaps the health and well being of our elderly and our children is not your concern. These issues were all the fault of the government, not the virus. Nancy Pelosi recently said “It’s always interesting to me to see how much patience some people have with the pain and suffering of other people,” I find it selfish and wrong. Perhaps if you have someone explain the graph to you, it will dawn on you that flattening the curve does not reduce the number of infections. Viral infections are not overwhelming hospitals, our leaders are.

I don't care too much if other countries are doing poorly too. Flattening the curve doesn't result in fewer deaths, it redistributes them. The curve where no measures are taken in time will cross below the flattened curve, resulting in fewer infections. The result is the same number of infections, not less. The government also overestimated the effect of the virus. https://www.webmd.com/lung/qa/ive-heard-80-of-people-with-coronavirus-covid19-have-mild-symptoms-what-are-mild-symptoms. A large majority of people have few to no symptoms. They have a positive test for the virus but no symptoms. Mild symptoms can range from sore throat, congestion and runny nose, nausea, vomiting,diarrhea, and headache to a low-grade fever and cough. If you have mild symptoms, you should stay home and recover. Just make sure to stay isolated so you don’t spread the infection to others. People with severe symptoms typically have a high fever, severe cough, and possibly shortness of breath and often need hospital treatment to recover. The recovery rate is also higher than you are led to believe. https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html Of the resolved cases of covid 19 344,000 have recovered, 13,000 have died. That would be a 96.2% recovery rate. However 75% of the deaths were in long term care facilities, or retirement homes. https://hillnotes.ca/2020/10/30/long-term-care-homes-in-canada-the-impact-of-covid-19/ Of course thes residents were the least likely to be attending live music, or sporting events. They were not as likely to be doing their own shopping and were not affected as much by the lock downs. The recovery rate among people who were effectively would be higher than 96% perhaps in the 99% range. The government could have spent $5 to $10 billion to bring long term care homes, and actually prevented deaths instead of causing many deaths in people on hospital waiting lists, opiod dependent people, and our elders who were isolated, essentially abandoned to die loneliness.

https://www.britannica.com/science/virus Virus, infectious agent of small size and simple composition that can multiply only in living cells of animals, plants, or bacteria. The name is from a Latin word meaning “slimy liquid” or “poison.” It is not the virus that closed our hospitals while people were dying on waiting lists, it was not the virus that spent $300 billion paying people to not contribute to our economy while adding to the debt that will rob health care of future funding. It was elected leaders who did that. There is some commonality between the two though, so I can see where you went wrong.

I believe that our governments dropped the ball with their response to covid 19. I believe their policies have resulted in more deaths, and have burdened our health care system while reducing it’s capacity to fight another virus if one should come. It has also hurt the most vulnerable in society.

It seems that you would in fact win that bet. That is why I am not a betting man. I do wear a mask when mandated by law (which it is in all public indoor spaces in B.C. currently), or requested by merchants or other hosts. I do find that air that I have not just exhaled is more pleasant of odor, and richer in oxygen. My contention is with the idea that these measures prevent the spread of the virus. I believe that they just flatten the curve, and spread the same number of infections over a longer period of time. I believe that the crisis has lasted long enough.

I am all for people wearing masks, social distancing, staying home when they have symptoms. These are common sense measures that hurt no one. If we had started with twice as many cases in the first month, that would mean 4 people per hospital. This is manageable, and would rapidly decline. To me the horror is locking people who need life saving treatments out of hospitals, watching them die, and believing we have done the right thing. To me the horror is instead of providing our children with the tools to prepare them for the future, we lock them out of their schools. To me the horror is isolating our seniors, leaving them feeling abandoned and dying loneliness. To me the horror is a federal government that has borrowed $300 billion dollars with plans to borrow an additional $200 in the coming year, a total of half the debt we accumulated in the first 153 years as a nation. By putting the brakes on the economy at the same time, there is no hope of paying it back for generations, especially since we are headed in the wrong direction. If you think the hospitals are stressed now, wait until the government has to severely cut their funding, because debt repayment will consume so much of government funding. The crisis has damaged our sense of community. People we used to greet on the street, and wish them well are now threats of disease. Anti maskers harass people on the streets for wearing a mask and supporters of the restrictions harass those that will not wear a mask. We should be better than that.

The graph shows more than that. It shows that with protective measures we get fewer infections early, but more later. It is now later, and we may be seeing the more infections now because of the measures. The point of the lock down was to prevent the hospitals from being overwhelmed, and reduce deaths. When your hospitals are stretched to their limits, with people waiting on months long ques for life saving treatments for cancer, heart disease and other ailments, and then close the hospitals, the waiting lists get longer. Some people will die waiting for treatments. Stop doing procedures, more people will die. Of course when the hospitals reopened, people who were in need of treatment, but but unable to be diagnosed during the shut downs were now able to be scheduled for treatment adding again to the que. Ontario now has 725 covid hospitalizations, and 384 hospitals. This means less than 2 cases per hospital (1.88 to be overly precise). The government created a problem, and is now trying to blame the virus. The lock downs also caused an increased number of deaths in opiod dependent people. Domestic abuse also increased as a result of the shut downs. Covid is a virus that has infected a small portion of the population, most suffering mild to moderate symptoms and the with a very large majority of the people recovering. The governments response affects almost everyone, and will leave people burdened for decades. Lockdowns mean the same number of infections, we will just have to live with them longer.

Quite true, I did seem to miss the fact that it was addressed to someone else. In view of that I might have taken it too personally, my apologies. As for blanket statements, they often mean that you have nothing specifc to say. As for the lock downs they were meant to flatten the curve. This means less infections at first more later. The graph shows that there is a point in time when you have more people with the virus under the lock downs than you would have had without them. It is the lock downs that put stress on the hospitals, not the virus. The lock downs kill many save no one.

Your willingness to speak with authority on subjects that you know nothing about, makes it unlikely that you have a good grip on what is stupid. I do not in fact have fellow Trump supporters, and when the U.S. election results were verified they were to my liking. As for right or left wing, I actually prefer two wings. Having only one might explain why you spend so much time going in circles, and arriving nowhere.

Kind of a blanket statement. It doesn't seem that much thought went into that one. I am not saying that this makes your post seem stupid... but?

I believe that lockdowns are a bad idea. They are bad for our economy, bad for our healthcare system, and result in many deaths that should have been avoided. Most of my reasons are explained in the topic Should it be illegal for government to prevent businesses from operating?, but I could go through them again.

In order to have economic recovery you need to let business do business.

At the start of 2020 Canada’s federal debt was over $900 billion dollars. This year Justin has borrowed another $300 billion. As this was happening the gdp (gross domestic product) fell by 38% in the second quarter of the year. This has resulted in an unprecedented 114% rise in the debt to gdp ratio. This needs immediate attention by a leader with the will, and ability do address that situation. Justin is not that guy. During his time in office he has run deficits during times of prosperity. Increasing the debt during good times. This is a departure from the precedent set by former prime ministers. With a stated intention of borrowing a further $200 billion this year he clearly is not the answer to our problems.

My contention is that a delayed death is not a prevented death. The deaths resulting for the government actions on the other hand were totally preventable. The cruelest of these being the isolation of many of our seniors has resulted in them abandoned and dying of loneliness.

The restrictions in fact made the health care facilities less able to cope. These facilities we temporarily closed meaning that they did not cope at all. Cancer and heart disease are the 2 leading causes of death in Canada. We have made great inroads in treating these conditions, however serious cases left untreated usually result in death. During the lock downs many cases were left untreated resulting in many deaths. Of course many sufferers of these conditions were not even able to be evaluated, and have treatments scheduled. This situation will become worse, because increasing government debt will mean less funding for healthcare in the future. Of course when the hospitals did reopen they were less able to cope with now increasing waiting lists needing more resources, not less. There has never been a large ratio of covid cases per hospital.

The measures of course are not preventative. they are meant to flatten the curve. If you take a look at the curve you will see that the curve called Without preventative measures rises more sharply, and falls more sharply. There is a point where the curves cross resulting in fewer infections from the unrestricted curve. The measures have however resulted in many deaths from cancer, heart disease and drug overdoses.

Many people believe that the government restrictions have prevented deaths from covid 19. They have not. While no deaths have been prevented large numbers of non viral deaths have resulted from these actions.

When entrepreneurs they stop being human beings. Why is it okay for the government to knock them down instead of help them up. Entrepreneurs are people who work harder than than most, people who sacrifice to build something positive. Why is it okay to say I don't care id they go broke I will get my coffee somewhere else. These people are not the cause of our problems, they are the solution to our problems. When did our fear stop us from caring about the well being of others.

The lockdowns caused deaths, they didn't prevent them.