myata

Over the centuries' experience we have learned and (should) know: authoritarians and totalitarians love scare. You can look and see where the scare is, and is coming from. And you can remember what you learned and should know. At least this choice is yours.

Anybody can use current events to their advantage and it was done so many times that yawn. But in a society with a tradition and mindset of a glaring absence of any independent oversight of the authority it can be real dangerous. They tried, they got it and they liked it! Why would they want to abandon it, with no accountability or controls? Why would anyone?

Everyone is spending (public funds and out of public's pocket) on their priorities. Some, on security in the changing geopolitical environment; and some on elections to have more of the same, hoping that the situation will just fix itself (perhaps with the pandemic too). If the public has no priorities of its own, just don't bother me doesn't count, it will have to be someone else's. This is how the book goes for a long, long time nothing new to discover here.

And please don't take it as dark prophesies. No, it's a fact we're already here. When someone is allowed to make arbitrary, poorly justified mandates for the citizens with no accountability or oversight for an extended period or indefinitely, when something is controlling the media and using it to pump the scare it's not a democracy any longer. Yes it's a fact: we have stepped past the borderline of contemporary, responsible democracy. I'm not guessing where it could or will go from here, but this much is a fact. And it didn't even take much.

The fact that they are driving on confusion and fear as almost exclusive argument should tell any objective observer that it's the only language they trust and possibly, understand. And it cannot be a basis or the rationale for an intelligent conversation. Right there, there's an obvious problem. No, not with people - with you.

The cost of a nuclear submarine is 2.6 - 2.8 billion (US). The election cost us 0.6 billion (CAD). To each, their own.

A health scare! A good and scary and reasonably long to settle in health scare. Could there be a better path to a benevolent dictatorship (don't worry to claim the prize, there's a host of post-apocalyptic utiopias long way back on this very topic, V for Vendetta, Johnny Mnemonic etc). With a bureaucratic system that's been running itself happily with no controls or accountability for close to two centuries, why wouldn't someone figure out how to use effectively for the greater good of course (and their own, as a bonus)?

So delta variant is twice more contagious among non vaccinated in Ontario (if numbers to be trusted) than in the studies in the US. A major discovery? A great scientific breakthrough? A Nobel perhaps? How's nobody noticed? Experts, the world should know!

Actually there's something interesting here. According to Ontario numbers, 10 million out of 12+ eligible population has been vaccinated with at least one doze, that is 1 : 5 non vaccinated to vaccinated ratio. Published peer reviewed studies tell us that the infection rate in non vaccinated for delta has to be 4.6 times higher. That makes 4.6 : 5 for the infected cases ratio, almost same expected number of cases between groups. Question: why in Ontario we have twice that (397 : 204)? Is it a) different population in Ontario b) different delta variant in Ontario or c) another funniness with Ontario's numbers? Take your pick of the probabilities.

Like it wasn't collapsing before. Like it wasn't collapsing any time in the past two decades. How can you people be so boringly non inventive? Just come up with a better story at least it would be more entertaining.

This is quite easy to see: you have 2/3 of the cases in a smaller (non vaccinated) population so the infection rate has to be higher in that group. That is difficult to argue with. But what is your chance of getting infected by each group is a different question. Statistically in an ideal approximation your chance to encounter a carrier in each group is proportional to its size and the rate of infection in it. With the breakdown of the vaccinated vs non vaccinated currently, your chance to encounter a vaccinated carrier can indeed be higher simply due to the size of the group. Then there's a question of the rate of transmission in each group that we don't know much about either possibly because were so busy drumming and marching (and preaching foregone conclusions on TVs rather than finding out what is actually going on in reality). The point is not that the infection rate is equal between the groups, it would be surprising given all the evidence so far. But that vaccinations do not eliminate transmissions and as it appears, by far. So there's no rationale and certainly no precedent for mandatory measures, especially with novel types of vaccines for which longer term effects are yet unknown.

These are clearly different questions. The risk is measured by the number of cases by the population of the group and the report says it's higher in the non vaccinated group.

I'm looking only at published peer reviewed results and I haven't seen any (it does not mean that they couldn't exist) that reported the rate of infections to be the same in the two groups. The ones that were widely discussed recently from US studies place vaccinated group as 4.6 lower risk to infect than non vaccinated. This applies to reported cases and the risk including non symptomatic cases could be anywhere from just higher to much higher. We could have known it better if invested in voluntary testing and measurement rather than propaganda marching.

This is correct but not entirely and that can be a problem. Vaccination almost certainly reduces the chance of infection but exactly by how much we don't know (including non symptomatic cases) because we haven't asked that question and haven't found out, while marching and drumming. And so a fully vaccinated medical worker can still carry a non-symptomatic infection and be a source of it for the patients. By how much is the risk reduced, and should anything else be done to reduce, and would it create a false sense of security, like walking with a mask on in a park then taking it off in a restaurant for two hours these are real and important questions. Who's asking though and who's thinking and who's trying to make sense, while everybody's gone vaccine marching?

Is it the time to face an obvious question: do lockdowns; mask chases; vaccination marches do something in the reality; or are they things in their own right and for their own sake? One could tell clearly where masks can be useful and ask for voluntary compliance; One could show how vaccines help in preventing severe cases especially for the vulnerable and ask for voluntary participation. Why mandating? Why marching and drumming? Why making an issue, a glorious struggle where it's not clear that the problem exists? Or do they exist, and have been crated to distract from and cover something? Like what? What about an inefficient and entrenched system at capacity with a host of problems even before the pandemic that couldn't stand to any serious challenge, while the bureaucracy in two decades from the previous warning spent countless public billions on just keeping itself while promising to fix it for a generation? Which option makes most sense? Or at least any sense?

How to deal with propaganda? Pare it, peel it, scrape it, bring it up into the light, make it obvious. Let's take this piece, for example: "As delta surges among unvaccinated focus on science..." (CBC). The title seems innocent enough, sure science, but it already plants a misconception that it's the problem is of the unvaccinated only, "an epidemics of unvaccinated", foregone conclusion, wait, based on what argument or evidence? The evidence, peer reviewed and published in several countries around the world on the contrary shows that infections are growing among vaccinated as well, so could be, by any chance, surging among them as well? Ah, such an innocent omission. Then, thanks to honest science, we know that for the vaccinated the risk of being infected with the delta variant is 4.6 times lower, and including unreported or non symptomatic cases, possibly / likely significantly higher than that (because in reality there would be more of infection cases than those that were reported). It means that approximately one quarter to one third of the vaccinated population could produce infections at the same rate as the non vaccinated one. Looking at the recent numbers one can see (not deep science, just Grade 3 arithmetic) that there has to be up to six times more of vaccinated than non vaccinated without strong protection for another reason. So what does it do to the number of infections? 6 times the population divided by 4 times lower risk is 1.5. That's 50% more cases overall that can be expected from the vaccinated. Sorry whose epidemics did you say it was? But here it goes: "With the majority of COVID-19 cases appearing in unvaccinated people, experts say it's as important as ever to increase vaccination rates across Canada to stem a delta-driven fourth wave" (by the way spell checker here does not like "unvaccinated" but one of the leading news sources in the country surely knows better). Remember, one quarter to one third of the vaccinated population will produce infections at the same rate as the non vaccinated? Now, under drums and fanfare, drive those pesky "unvaccinated" ones down to the absolute minimum even to holy zero itself. What will happen to the infections? Still, one quarter to one third of the vaccinated population will produce infections at the same rate as the non vaccinated. Without addressing the cause, still significant infection rate in the vaccinated yes you can make non vaccinated into new huguenots and with time and glorious effort perhaps drive them all the way to zero. But Grade 3 math tells us very clearly that it wouldn't reduce the cases to zero, without understanding and addressing the problem. So are you trying to understand it or hoping that by marching and drumming you'll make it somehow fix itself? And yes that's it, all the explanation you're going to get from the experts. Remember that experts said earlier about: travel from Wuhan; masks; lockdowns; returning to normal as result of vaccinations (even now ads run on TV without masks) and now you can have complete confidence that it'll work out exactly as said this time around. Without any meaningful explanation. With no supporting arguments that can be shown and defended. And the rest of the informative piece, all 36 sentences of it out of 37 are about how to convince someone to vaccinate. Sorry, you were expecting focus on science? Of course this is just propaganda. Is it any different from Soviet, CPC, etc propaganda, in the form or justification (always and by default, greater good)? If so I'd like to see how and where. It misleads, does not answer any questions, sidetracks and ignores them and presses its own agenda based on proclaimed assumption that is never substantiated in any meaningful way. Why, with a very high level of voluntary compliance it is important to invest efforts and resources into propaganda that will not do much to change views of those who either cannot or decided not to do it voluntarily? Why is it not better to invest it into understanding what is going on, and based on this knowledge find effective solutions that can work now instead of chasing alternating panaceas to an uncertain but certainly bright new dawn, future? Well questions can be asked, many and for a long time. There's one problem though: no one is listening and so don't expect many answers. Looking for answers is not what propaganda is for.

These protesters play right into Justin's new dawn of benevolent dictatorship in perpetuity. Really it looks more and more as a dead end, with no direction of a positive change remains even theoretically possible. How could two centuries of "just don't fix it" end any different though?

Isn't it weird that we were talking about how hospitals (can/should) be denied to non vaccinated but not to smokers etc and now it's moved to something else? Who decides what "the consequences" should be, and how do we do that? Do they do crystal-balling or shaman dancing? If not then surely it can be explained in plain human language?

I would agree with that. The rationale for all mandatory vaccinations so far has been strong suppression or eradication of the disease. If this is not the case here we cannot make any steps toward mandatory vaccinations without detailed examination of the evidence and possible outcomes, and until it's done it's voluntarism bordering on blatant irresponsibility. Suggesting and encouragement are fine; forcing like in the cited case, a no-no unless justified and defended as necessary in a specific situation like working with vulnerable population (and again vaccines do not prevent infection, so it would still be a question). In a normal country the matter will be before courts in no time. But do we have them here?

Are we talking the number of cases, or cases per capita (vaccinated vs non vaccinated)? If the latter I would be interested to see it. But the numbers in the published US studies are consistent with higher cases in vaccinated simply because they are more numerous.

This is called circular logic: I want vaccines so vaccine it has to be. There's no risk at all in quitting smoking or starting a healthy lifestyle and it's effective in preventing serious disease. So why wouldn't you apply the same standard to those who make a conscious choice not to?

It's in the literature for reported cases 4.5 times lower, including unreported and non symptomatic has to be (much?) less. Note that vaccinated population by now is several times if not a full order of magnitude greater than non vaccinated.

Would the same logic apply to any of your friends and/or relatives who smoked regularly or led unhealthy lifestyle? Why shouldn't it if they are taking the beds I'm paying for as a taxpayer?

Seriously, this is how it works in your book? Someone has done something entirely stupid (your word); they remain in the position of authority without any oversight or accountability; they are free to do whatever they like. And they are expected to do something better this time around, because the accountability starts with the next? Why would they do anything better in this picture? Where is the logic in this? And surely here's what was done (incomplete list above). How can you prove that masking worked, not as a tool in specific situation when necessary and justified, but as a universal panacea, if waves two and three reached all-time highs with full masking in place? How do you know that anything you say makes sense or works in this picture when the conversation is only with yourself, and any fault or failure can be dismissed with ok it was yesterday but we're now so let's just begin all over again.

Is it said now (2021) or twenty years back (SARS, 2002)? Sure this can go on for- funny- ever, always next time to hold accountable. In place of a grown up intelligent conversation. Nope, zero interest in this old and tired tune. Who spent two decades and countless taxpayer billions so that our great healthcare ended up in a state that can be easily decimated by a long predicted epidemic? Who sang "not a problem for our great system oops"? And how do they look now, with please (scratch that) you mask up and march up and down here and there? Is there a mirror around before embarking on great endeavors of holding accountable, always next time though?