Prescience To Avoid Dangerous Precedents
Beware false declarations of an NPI-led victory over the virus.
As Ontarians limp into May 2021, hope springs eternal. Despite on-going media hysterics, school closures and stay-at-home orders, it appears that the effect of virus seasonality is upon us as Covid-19 “cases” have plateaued in the province and will soon begin to drop precipitously as seen recently in neighboring New York, Michigan and Quebec. We watch enviously as closures and mask mandates are peeled off one by one in US states.
While this good news is certainly welcome, we must be prepared for our political and public health officials to seize the opportunity presented by virus seasonality to declare a false “victory” over Covid-19 at some point in late spring or early summer, thanks to their interventions (of course).
While many people may be amenable to holding their noses and conceding the win in order to return to some semblance of summer normalcy, doing so will signal tacit approval of the aberrant non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that have been foisted upon us low these past 14 months. It is of critical importance that we all work to ensure that certain key Covid-19 interventions are discredited conclusively, and permanently extracted from the political and public health tool box in order to avoid setting a most perilous precedent.
The PCR test and the definition of a “case”
Recall that in spring 2020, the key indicator of success versus Covid-19 was in reducing hospital impacts and deaths. Once seasonality took hold last spring, the politicians, health officials and media changed gears and turned the focus to “cases” to keep the public compliant with NPIs over the summer months. As more and more evidence emerged about the inappropriate use of the PCR test to detect cases of SARS-CoV-2, even the WHO cautioned about its value as a diagnostic tool when used in this manner. This has not deterred our officials.
We have even seen health officials brazenly alter the cycle threshold value of the PCR test in order to obtain results that suit the narrative of the day. It seems that "case" numbers can be easily adjusted up or down at will. All that is required are people who are willing (or forced) to submit to testing.
False positive test results allowed a case to be made for asymptomatic spread of Covid-19, a concept that even Dr. Fauci correctly expressed “has never been the driver of outbreaks” of respiratory viruses (this was prior to his 180 degree flip from pre-2020 pandemic science). The low impact of asymptomatic spread was further confirmed through a large scale study ironically conducted in China.
In medicine, a “case” of a disease is normally established not simply by a positive lab test result, but additionally through clinical diagnosis of the presence of a disease requiring treatment. Throughout Covid times, positive PCR test lab results (on their own) have been used as a key metric to inform societal restrictions and to establish cause of death, even when comorbidities were the primary culprit.
It is vital that scientists continue to debunk the PCR testing regimen and that lawyers continue to seek judgements on the inappropriate use of the test to assess the presence of the sars-cov-2 virus. Health officials must be forced to return to proper clinical diagnosis as a means of establishing a “case” of a disease.
Quarantine of the healthy to protect hospital capacity (lockdown)
This NPI (fuelled by PCR testing hysteria) has been the most egregious and harmful of all, decimating Charter rights, physical and mental health, the economy (particularly small businesses), arts, culture, sport, education and more, while simultaneously failing to protect our most vulnerable in long term care. The impact of lockdown on our children and young people has been (and continues to be) unconscionable and inexcusable.
The ripple effect of lockdown measures will cause untold collateral harms and deaths for years to come. Pre-2020 pandemic plans (including the 2019 WHO plan) listed quarantine of exposed individuals as “not recommended under any circumstances” (even for severe pathogens) for good reason. Traditional pandemic and emergency management principles recognize the importance of human needs, prioritizing overall societal health by maintaining as much of the normal functioning of society as possible, while addressing the acute public emergency surgically and providing factual and reassuring public communications.
Many Ontarians seem to have a short memory when it comes to hospital overcrowding and hallway medicine; a perpetual problem every virus season that has been making headlines for years and years. There is no indication that hospital acute care occupancy has been any worse in 2020/21 than in past years, in fact, leaked hospital census data seems to indicate that Ontario occupancy was higher in 2018/19 than it has been during Covid times.
If the issue is not hospital occupancy but (in fact) staffing, the solution is completely within the scope of control of health authorities: 14 day quarantine of healthy healthcare workers through contact tracing (incidentally also “not recommended under any circumstances” in the 2019 WHO pandemic plan) and the closing of schools. Front-line worker parents (mostly women) have been forced to stay home to care for children during ill-advised school closures, making them unavailable for duty. Reinforcements were not brought in to help in a timely manner.
While other jurisdictions (US states most notably) have done the accounting, listened to alternate eminent scientific opinions, and reversed course, Canada (and particularly Ontario) has doubled down on harmful lockdown measures despite poor results and a multitude of studies demonstrating their ineffectiveness and net harm. Although Toronto has been locked down since the late fall of 2020, Covid-19 has followed a normal seasonal trajectory unabated (as endemic viruses do). Don’t let the Ontario Science Table, the power-drunk local medical officers of health, the TV doctors, or high school teachers masquerading as biostatisticians tell you otherwise. Their superior brain power and massive egos cannot stop an endemic respiratory virus.
It is incredibly important to challenge the proportionality and constitutionality of the Covid-19 emergency orders even when the restrictions are relaxed, otherwise politicians and unelected health officials will have license to do this again whenever it suits their purpose. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it’s nearly impossible to put it back in.
Powerful special interests (such as the teachers unions and hospital authorities) have leveraged the Covid-19 situation to hold us all hostage to achieve political gains. There is far too much money, power and control available to those who seek it to prevent this situation from occuring again unless significant consequences are levied against the persons responsible. It’s clear that it will never be “just two weeks”.
Mandatory masks
There are certainly some people who will say “what’s the big deal about masks? If they help a bit, why not?” I would probably agree if masks were merely “recommended in crowds, or in situations where extended close contact is unavoidable”. It is the mandatory aspect that is wrong, particularly in the way mandatory orders have impacted children in schools and service workers. The irrational, near religious tribal fervour surrounding face masks has become concerning to say the least.
An extremely high burden of proof should be placed on authorities to transparently prove proportionality and effectiveness of NPIs. A proper risk assessment should be produced. None of that happened with masks. Mandatory orders were implemented based on position papers full of junk science hastily brought forward by lobbyists, in full ignorance of the extensive body of pre-2020 science on masks versus respiratory viruses.
Mandatory masks presented an opportunity for politicians and health officials to appear to be “doing something”. The mask lobbyists advertised that “if only 80% of people wore masks, virus spread would essentially stop”. Once the data was in, clearly demonstrating ineffectiveness, many authorities doubled down on masks instead of re-evaluating. “Just wear two or three”. Yep. That’ll do it.
When a measure becomes law, a noisy portion of the population inevitably expects the law to be strictly enforced (or may attempt to enforce the law themselves). Disputes (sometimes violent) were an inevitable outcome of mask mandates. By making laws, and promoting masks as virtuous, authorities oversold the effectiveness of the measure, universally recognized as the least effective in the hierarchy of infection control measures versus Covid-19.
Since mask mandates have begun, people have lost all common sense, wearing masks outdoors (even if no one is nearby), or in their cars. The noisiest mask hysterics continually demand ever-stricter mask requirements, most egregiously for kids in schools (even outdoors and while exercising). Children do not transmit Covid-19 well, and bear very little risk of negative outcomes from the virus. Our spineless politicians and dogmatic public health officials are only too happy to oblige the demands for more masks.
The forced masking of service workers has created a new brand of grotesque classism where workers are expected to mask up, lest they infect the people who they serve. The health and psychological effects of all-day mask wearing for school kids and front-line workers is an afterthought. Even for the rest of the population, wearing a mask in public is dehumanizing and reduces person to person empathy. Human non-verbal communication is vital.
Business owners and industry leaders have embraced mandatory masks orders (so far) as a means to reopen their businesses, or to make their customers “feel safe”. I believe this to be extremely short sighted. The majority of people will avoid doing anything “non-essential” while wearing a mask. Who wants to take transit, go to a movie, or spend hours browsing in a mall in discomfort, breathing laboriously through a stinky cloth rag? You can order just about anything online, order take-out and watch any movie you want on the couch. Masks don’t make people feel safe, quite the opposite. They signal that danger is present. Transportation, retail, arts, culture, hospitality and other impacted industries should all be actively working on getting rid of mask mandates.
Challenging mask orders is tricky. Sweeping exemptions have been written into the orders so that wearing one is essentially voluntary. Enforcement is done through virtue-signaling, peer pressure and coercion. Most of our children at school don’t want to be “the one kid who stands out”.
Creativity solutions are required to figure out how to conclusively challenge the science of community masking in order to get rid of the mandates (especially in schools), whether it be through health and safety complaints, political activism, or by convincing powerful industry lobbies that mask mandates are not in their best interest. My fear (if we fail to act) is that the notion of “you need to protect my health by covering your face” will become permanently (if not seasonally) ingrained into the culture in many jurisdictions. We must protect the right to choose to breathe unimpeded (I can’t believe that I am saying that in the year 2021, in Canada).
Mandatory vaccination
No matter your opinion on vaccinations, it must be acknowledged that they were every bit as polarizing before Covid-19 as they are now. In order to ensure high vaccine confidence and uptake in the past, manufacturers and health officials weaponized “the science” and applied extreme virtue-signaling messaging through mainstream media partners to ensure that the mob tossed anyone who raised any questions about the vaccine schedule, vaccine safety or manufacturer accountability into the tinfoil hat/conspiracy theory “anti-vaxxer” bin for cancellation. We won’t go down that rabbit hole here.
It is my opinion that the vast majority of people who are against Covid-19 NPI measures tend to fall into this profile when it comes to vaccines:
Trust the traditional vaccines due to their long term safety profile.
Are likely to be vaccinated and to have fully vaccinated children.
Respect informed consent and do not believe in state-mandated forced vaccination.
Are concerned about the haste in which the Covid-19 vaccines have been brought to market and the lack of transparency in the messaging surrounding the safety profile of the various Covid-19 vaccines.
Feel that the emergency use Covid-19 vaccines should prioritize those at high risk of a negative outcome from sars-cov-2 with careful evaluation of results.
After high priority vaccination, every other adult should receive a vaccine if they want one (with transparent knowledge of their personal risk from both SARS-CoV-2 and the vaccine- a.k.a. informed consent).
Children and youth should not receive this vaccine until all trials are complete and more is known about the safety profile of the suite of vaccines.
Under no circumstances should vaccine passports be implemented, or the Covid-19 vaccinations become mandatory, either directly or through coercion (enforced by private industry for example).
We know that the risk of poor outcomes from SARS-CoV-2 is limited to a small segment of the population (the elderly and people with severe comorbidities). The suite of Covid-19 vaccines does not necessarily prevent transmission or infection. The claim is primarily that the vaccines reduce the severity of the illness. If this bears out, it is indeed great news for those most at risk from the illness and (once those at most risk are vaccinated) should allow for a full, unconditional reopening of society.
What we have heard from our Canadian leaders, however, is that vaccination status does not necessarily mean the end of NPIs. This makes no sense. Either the vaccines work or they don’t. We must vigorously defend our bodily autonomy and the right to choose whether to undergo medical therapy or not, with true and transparent informed consent. I have no doubt that the legal community will rise to the occasion if mandatory or coerced vaccinations and/or vaccine passports are officially proposed in Canada.
What needs to happen next?
Some have proposed a Covid-19 response Royal Commission, some feel that an international judicial process needs to be undertaken (a Nuremberg 2.0 if you will), but primarily we need to ensure (by whatever means necessary) that this type of assault on humanity never happens again by ensuring that accountabilities are levied against key players.
In Ontario (and Canada), we need to find out (among many other things) why our carefully considered pandemic plans weren’t followed and why public health officials and unaccountable, conflict of interest infested science advisory boards were put in charge of the response to Covid-19 instead of emergency management professionals.
We need to hold the media, our credentialed “experts”, academic institutions and special interests to a higher standard of accountability to ensure that they do not fuel irrational and damaging public hysteria driven by their individual conflicts of interests.
We must look at mechanisms to recall politicians (at all levels of government) should they choose to govern in a manner that is not consistent with the electoral mandate that they were provided by the people, including failure to uphold the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Finally, we must carefully re-evaluate the powers granted to unelected public health officials to ensure that they are held accountable to provide irrefutable evidence and obtain legislative approval prior to infringing on the charter rights of the people who they are purported to serve.
Once again, congrats on a comprehensive analysis using data and facts, to articulate how our politicians and unelected health officials have trampled on our rights and freedoms without ever being properly held to account. This essay reinforces why and what we need to do but the key questions we need to spend our time on is how will this happen with media, health officials and politicians all controlling the narrative? And lastly who will drive this? Sans whistleblowers who are protected, I am not confident that any of this will ultimately happen. Brown and Williams out yesterday claiming that the latest lockdown measures are the reason why cases, hospitalizations and deaths look to be plateauing. It is sickening!
The courageous doctors are pledging to uphold their oath to do no harm and the TV doctors are attacking blocking coercing people. Very different character. These tv fools are whitewashing their tweets and trying to be pro humanity which is laughable. We will not forget the Fear they terrorized the people with for a year. Their failed predictions causing untold pain and suffering. Daring us to not hug our children and loved ones. The citizens are disgusted in them and they can brag about their followers all they want. Their followers are part of those harms put on the people so we can see all those who engaged in terrorizing demoralizing Fear.
Let's be on the right side of humanity and thank Dr. Patrick Phillips Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Dr. Caroline Turek Dr. Ash Kaur Dr. Benoit and all the others who will do no harm to us will allow us informed consent under the Nuremberg Code . Let's thank the courageous lawyers like Rocco Galati John Carpay and Justice Centre Ryan OConnor and all the other lawyers. Let's thank all the police officers who are courageous like Police on Guard for thee and those who have refused to ticket. I have saw many go by and do nothing to those playing basketball. Let's thank all the courageous teachers and nurses speaking out and thank all on social media showing their humanity. We thank all those hurting with lost businesses lost jobs lost homes or in arrears of mortgages and rents and thank them for remaining peaceful in spite of the injustices. It takes lots of courage to go against the mainstream. To be the only one in a store with no mask. Are hearts feel for those wearing the mask with health exemptions where they are labelled murdered threats to the public. Plain stupidity and hate. The law is health exemptions are legit. So your breaking the law harassing the maskless. Your not righteous or honorable.