Andrew Nikiforuk writes that our approach to fighting COVID 19 has been all wrong:
Last January, one strain of this novel virus began its assured global conquest, and since then our leaders have hardly learned a goddamn thing.
The old COVID-19 doubled its numbers every 40 days under a particular set of restrictions; under the same conditions, the variants double every 10 days. That means they can outrun any vaccination campaign.
That means if you haven’t eliminated — or almost eliminated — cases in your region, you are going to learn the meaning of grief.
These highly-contagious variants have emerged in jurisdictions with high infection rates: the U.K., Brazil, South Africa and California. They became global tourists months ago, before you read about them.
To illustrate it, British mathematician Adam Kucharski recently compared a virus mutation that was 50 per cent more deadly with one that increased transmission by 50 per cent.
With a reproduction rate of about 1.1 and a death rate of 0.8 per cent, current strains of COVID-19 now deliver 129 deaths per 10,000 infections.
A virus that is 50 per cent more lethal will kill 193 people in a month. A variant that is more transmissible wins the game with 978 deaths in just one month.
Some countries got it right. They refused to take half measures:
COVID-19 should have taught us one glaring lesson by now: If you do not stamp out this virus, the shapeshifter will come back to defeat you.
New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Iceland and Taiwan got it right. They went to zero and eliminated the virus. Atlantic Canada and the North got it right, too.
Theirs was a really tough approach. And it worked. But in Canada's two largest provinces we were weak-kneed:
Now here is the problem: The virus is evolving while our reactive response is devolving out of neglect, incompetence and fatalism.
In many parts of Canada, our vaccine programs are being administered improperly.
In Quebec, the authorities are not following proper schedules. If you don’t follow the schedules, the vaccine won’t work very well. That means Quebec has created an experimental population of half-vaccinated individuals who can support viral evolution.
As the variants rapidly move through the country, politicians are doing what they did last spring — reacting instead of getting ahead of the virus.
We've got trouble -- big trouble.
Image: CNN
16 comments:
Communicable disease experts predict the British B117 variant will predominate in Ontario by March. That's one of the variants that's 50% more transmissible.
Experts are also telling us that the masks most of us are currently using aren't good enough. They're recommending widespread use of N95 masks, so where the hell are they?! It's been a year now. 3M has an Ontario plant that makes N95s, so why aren't they available in stores? The only ones I can find are Chinese KN95s of indeterminate quality.
I know a couple of PSWs working in long-term care facilities who don't even have them. They're still wearing the blue surgical masks while going between floors with Covid patients on oxygen and floors with healthy patients! It's absolutely unbelievable! The standard of care in LTC facilities is negligent towards patients and caregivers. And Ford continues to allow this despite promising an "iron ring" of protection for the people most at risk of dying. Ford's not even reacting, let alone getting ahead of the virus.
Let's not let the feds of the hook either. Why hasn't Trudeau called a national emergency yet? How many more deaths do we need, how much more economic damage before we put the full resources of the federal government behind this? Governments should have learned by now that half measures don't work. Quit dicking around and do what's needed to get to zero cases.
Cap
Nikiforuk's. article is pretty much bang on and I would hope that with all the renewed half measures (trips to Caribbean and Mexico out, Hawaii and Florida ok) and mealy shutdowns in Ontario and Quebec and almost hero worship of Bonnie Henry in BC, that a much needed sober second thought is about 8 months overdue. Vaccination roll out is the next big debacle, with most people handing their hopes on the thought that this will get us out of this entirely human created mess, that community spread of variants is now the order of the day and ensures CoVid 19's presence for an indefinite period of time. If anything good comes out of this, it would be a complete overhaul of long term care, which treats our seniors as worse than inmates in maximum security prisons. We've come to accept their deaths as meaning the pandemic is no big deal, it only attacks the elderly, nothing to worry about. Also well past time to get tough with the anti mask demonstrators- treat them as superspreaders, not free speeches as they are currently viewed as. I will try to remain optimistic, but we've blown are chance to be done with this thing by summer 2021. BC Waterboy.
We know what has to be done, Cap. What's lacking is the political will to do it.
We can do a much better job, waterboy. And we have the example of countries who have done a much better job. But we cannot -- must not -- excuse our failings.
I read this article the other day, Owen, and it left me with the conviction that we are always going to be playing catch-up with the virus. We just are not as smart as we think we are.
The Current mentioned the 3M factory in Brockville this morning. I wasn't able to hear the whole bit but I think they said the plant was still tooling and ramping up.
I have the same impression, Lorne. It appears that the virus is smarter than we are.
It's been a year, rumley. And we still can't mobilize the resources we need.
There's an old saying..."you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time", but I see all of our politicians trying to accomplish the latter rather than simply doing what absolutely needs to be done in order to minimize the effects of this virus.
The problem I see is that those who adhere to Reform beliefs (and they basically run the old Conservative Party which seem to have banned anything remotely described as "progressive") are full of some form of evangelical religious dogma, coupled with a large number of anti-vaxers and throw in the old "I don't need no government telling me how to live my life" types and here we are. We have a large number of politicians (most notable Ontario and Alberta) who are so busy catering to their base while trying to portray they represent all voters and here we are -- worse off than we were at the start of this mess.
And don't even get me started on the effects of privatising the care of our elderly and most vulnerable citizens!!! We are a couple in our 80's and it frightens the heck out of us that we most likely will have to face being warehoused in one of these facilities in the future.
We're trying to do things on the cheap, Lulymay. And, when we do that, we always wind up paying more -- much more.
@ Lulumay,
And don't even get me started on the effects of privatising the care of our elderly and most vulnerable citizens!!! We are a couple in our 80's and it frightens........
Welcome to the world of the disposables.
TB
New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Iceland and Taiwan got it right.
I always find it amusing that writers keep forgetting China and Hong Kong.
On another subject, I believe I heard yesterday that the Ontario Gov't was dedicating money for school modifications to make them safer. This seems to show the basic incompetence of Ford and his advisors. The time to to school modifications was in May, June, and July of 2020 not in February or March of 2021!
The pandemic has exposed just how callously we treat our elderly, TB.
The Ford government has been behind the curve since the beginning of the pandemic, jrk.
Its all about the money. Every time a health officer or politician wants to shut things down, you turn on the t.v. and there they all are crying how its going to ruin the economy, ruin their business, etc. It really is time some of these people put on their "big girl and boy panties". there have been towns in this country which just closed up and that was it when industry moved out. We have ghost towns or near ghost towns all over the country. If any one has any doubt, just watch CBC and "Still Standing", yet these urban types seem to be of the opinion, others should die because they want to make money.
Its tough when you pour your heart and soul and all you money into a business only to see it die, but really, better your business than a human. Our country and others have come through great depressions, recession, etc. and rebounded. No one rebounds when they're dead. Politicians need to grow a set and citizens need to grow up. this disease kills.
You can not continue as if nothing is wrong.
Even if we have a vaccine, as time progresses the vaccine may not be as effective with variants. Not all people will get vaccinated, so the disease is not going to go away. Its time people understood life has changed forever. we also don't know for how long this vaccine will last.
I'm one of those who remembers when there was no polio vaccine. People died. Others wound up in wheel chairs for life. Scarlet fever could kill kids. AIDS killed millions. I know disease kills, but we have people who were born in the last 40 years or so who have not been exposed all that much to death due to disease outside of perhaps cancer and heart failure.
People need to learn and enforcement has to be stepped up. this past weekend the VPD raided and arrested people who were at an "informal" night club in a private penthouse, Telus towers, in Vancouver. The owner of the apartment was arrested and spent the night in jail. In my opinion all of them ought to have been taken to a COVID jail and left here for a couple of weeks. give them some time to consider their actions and quarantine. yes, i know there are rapid tests, but a couple of weeks in a jail might get them to re consider what they are doing, which is, killing others should they be infected.
Cap, calling a national emergency which many would ignore won't help things. It also requires enforcement and there aren't enough police around to do that work. What Trudeau, in my opinion, ought to have done is closed the borders to all except emergency situations or very essential services. We've had way too many people coming and going in this country.
Yes, the privitization of seniors care has not helped any of this and the continuing lack of improvement in these pest houses hasn't helped. Fortunately class actions law suits are now being filed which may cause some corporations to get out of the business. for all of those who voted for governments which privitized seniors care, this is where life comes back to bite you in the ass. No one thought it was a big deal but then they got old and we got COVID. Once upon a time here in B.C. seniors were placed in extended care and there were community based care homes, some even community controlled. Then things changed and really changed after el gordo became premier. We have a new government and they have taken over some care homes owned by foreign corporations for failure to meet standards and that was before COVID. the other problem is no one cared about the workers, who were mainly female and people of colour.
You make a good point about ghost towns, e.a.f. There are lots of dead mining towns all over this country.
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