Top Canadian Doctors Challenged to a Debate

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Auklet

Just another way of saying “the ends justify the means.” But, I agree we’ve put our technology to good purpose in that respect.

I'm merely suggesting that the 'end' we seem to be moving towards kind of confirms the means we chose. It could have been much, much worse, if we had done less.

(I think that history will show that this pandemic was pivotal - the first time that public health measures were implemented so widely. In particular, vaccine technology has been pushed forward by a couple of decades. Hopefully, we've learned a lot.)

Originally Posted by Auklet

Good grief. So now we feel put upon to carry a disproportionately greater share of a common load?

I didn't say that. That observation just illustrates how responsible action is necessary to maintain freedoms.

[alctel]

Yeah one good thing about it was it boosted mRNA development into the stratosphere - they are talking about having a universal vaccine for the flu in a couple of years, or even one for types of cancer down the road!

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Auklet

True. Scientist do debate, usually the interpretation of experimental outcomes or observations. Often, they create “models” to forecast outcomes based on experiments or observations. Except for supporting a favored theory with excess passion, the debates seek to explain outcomes and observations without prejudice. But when the discussions pertain to some societal issue such public health or environmental health, the debates become entirely prejudiced and the science, as it were, becomes a prop of the debaters.

Vaccines, quarantines, and mask mandates are public health polices. Epidemiologists and politicians (government health departments) put them in place b/c historically that’s how societies have met public health crises. But as soon as a politician runs a national campaign on vaccine/mask mandate and wins, it’s political. That’s what drives it going forward. The “science”, whatever was there, succumbs to urgency. Many people believe the politicians and the science labs of the government are not paying any real attention to “science” at this point. “Follow the science” has become just another hollow election slogan. And no, you cannot debate the veracity of election slogans. Better for the government to stonewall. To those folks protesting, the overbearing application of the PH policies looks like political suppression of their freedoms (read—life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness) b/c ultimately it appears largely about the politicians staying in power. Peculiar how the “scientific need” for masks begins to fade when enough citizen voters start to resist it, etc.

Only in the us where it became specifically political. Also It didn’t become political the administration openly “ made” it a political issue. A then partisan public totally politically divided picked that up.

You need to look around the world at more cohesive societies. Masks were not objected to and continue to be worn even when not mandatory

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Auklet

Sorry, but a right or freedom is unconditional. Think about the meaning: “…endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…”. Endowed with unalienable rights. Does not sound conditional on responsible behavior. Can’t rescind. What some want it to read is “provisionally granted ‘rights’, rescindable if not used responsibly”, like a driver’s license. Think about the philosophical hollowness of that idea. Couldn’t build a nation on that view of the society. Some folks just object to being forced to take shots on the say so on a majority of others, especially since the purpose has changed from an epidemiological one (stop the spread) because the stuff is everywhere now, to one of personal health and well-being “because it’s better for you if you do catch it” pushed by the government, etc. Those folks know what they are about, and I doubt it’s about shirking their civic duties, IMO.

Leaving aside god or a “ creator “ doesn’t exist and therefore can’t “ bestow” anything , rights are not absolute

For example your rights stop at my nose

All rights have responsibilities or should have.

And yes the vast majority of reasonable nations have built successful and stable societies based on a combination of rights and responsibilities. One could argue that the one obvious one is not stable.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Auklet

No, but represents the underlying philosophy that produced the Bill of Rights, and argued for the justification to break from the government of the time, etc.

Yes but the US constitution unlike many was framed with the underlying distrust of government. The opposite is true in most other countries written constitutions. The US one is the one out of step not everyone else.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

what about $$$.
Covid is a big $$$ business..ask Pfizer what they've coined over the past two years...??

Would you have forced them to make it for free !!

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

Origin and epidimiology are important bc they help to formulate a response. For example had the Dem politicians not shrill against completely closing flights to/from China early in the pandemic we could've potentially escape the worst of it. Not to mention public figures such as Schumer and Pelosi personally going to Chinatowns in February 2020 advocating against labeling China's behavior (hiding the true numbers of the infected) as the proximate cause of additional severity of the virus spread.

Cost and efficiency of the lockdown measures is largely unknown today precisely for the reason that the govt and the media have not allowed for an open and vigorous debate on the issue. How many cancers were not treated in time to not become fatal? How many mental health emergencies were needlessly aggravated? How many were additionally battered by their lockdowned partners? How many children developed life long developmental problems due to masking at an early age? None of these questions were or are being openly and thruthfully debated.

Covid hospital admissions were also mostly theatrics. If there is no officially approved treatment for Covid why hospitalize mild cases which could've been teated at home setting?

As far as cost of "an avoidable deaths" this is on all those politicians who pandered to their base when fighting against immediate and strict border crossings early on in the pandemic. How many lives would be saved if we really stopped ANY flights to/from China and surrounding regions say in early January 2020 instead of lukewarm and full of exceptions limits which were eventually enacted in March or later?

As an analogy - nuclear energy and weapons are science but using them or not in any context is politics. Same with the "science of pandemic". We cannot separate the two from each other into "science vs politics".

Again the fortress mentality simply cannot be followed by many countries it’s simply not a useful collective response. It’s the ultimate “ f-U I’m all right jack “ policy.

By the time the nature of the initial spread was known it was too late for most developed countries. Europe has shown Covid was circulating as early as November 2019 not March 2020

It’s simply not a tenable approach unless you’re a middle earth kingdom off the coast of Antarctica

In a situation like the USA or Europe with large land borders , the fortress approach simply isn’t going to be effective

[Auklet]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Leaving aside god or a “ creator “ doesn’t exist and therefore can’t “ bestow” anything , rights are not absolute

For example your rights stop at my nose.

If I’m not infected then there is nothing to stop. My right not to accept medicine for a condition that I do not have and may never have is not an impingement on your personal boundaries. You’re making this up. You see a “potential” infringement, not an actual one like a fist coming at you. You may not realize but this is the same mentality that drives “profiling.” or “guilt by association.” If someone falls into a certain category, then to be avoided, confronted, denied, reviled, or whatever. Are the unvaccinated to be “profiled” and “punished” and demeaned by a President, whether or not an actual threat to anybody by virtue of not being sick? There might be nothing to be stopped at your nose!

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Auklet

If I’m not infected then there is nothing to stop. My right not to accept medicine for a condition that I do not have and may never have is not an impingement on your personal boundaries. You’re making this up. You see a “potential” infringement, not an actual one...

Pandemic control is a numbers game. If the Basic Reproduction Number (R0) can be held below 1 (doesn't matter how you do it )... you no longer have a pandemic, and your healthcare system is no longer in danger of being overwhelmed by it, and your society/economy is no longer in danger of being ground down by it.

There are few absolutes; I suppose that if you stay absolutely isolated all the time and have groceries and stuff delivered safely, or if you somehow have full immunity to all the COVIDs, then you're absolutely not going to be a factor in spreading the disease. Otherwise... we are all part of the spread risk to a greater or lesser extent. There are a number of sliding factors that control this:

• how "protected" one is from catching or becoming severely ill with COVID (from previous illness, vaccination, general health)
• how much one is in contact with others
• one's compliance with basic measures like masks, social distancing, avoiding unnecessary public gatherings, travel, etc

If someone refuses to get vaccinated, and/or refuses to isolate, and/or refuses to mask or follow the other common-sense precautions, they are statistically at higher risk of catching AND SPREADING COVID. There's no getting around that. If you have a lot of such people, it will take longer to get to an R0 of 1 or less.

That is proving to be a significant "impingement" on societies; the current and past COVID statistics (eg waves after "openings") clearly confirm what happens based on public behaviour.


tl;dr: the more people refusing to cooperate, the more spread, and the longer the pandemic hangs around.

[Auklet]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Leaving aside god or a “ creator “ doesn’t exist and therefore can’t “ bestow” anything, rights are not absolute

Written at a time before Origin of Species, there was no other place to look then for “authority” over kings. These writers of the Declaration were attributing natural, native “rights” to God’s gift, but, in fact, to preserve one’s life, to wish for liberty, and to pursue happiness, predated civilization. You have many organizations that have recognized and have tried to defend these natural “rights” among the animals. It’s nature’s endowment. Try to build something that impedes the movement and liberty of certain beasts in the wild and you’d get an uproar from the very same folks who now want to shut down the livelihood of transporters by blocking their freedom of movement, i.e., their liberty. To force compliance; take a medicine so the rest us will “feel safe.” We’re not talking the plague here; it’s a flu virus with a 98.2% survival rate. And big surprise; the old and sick suffer on average the greatest mortality rate—that’s how the flu works. But it seems worse for everybody b/c it’s in our face everyday and now drives global politics. Malign your fellow Canadians over that?

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Auklet

...the folks who now want to shut down the livelihood of transporters by blocking their freedom of movement, i.e., their liberty, for political theater. To force compliance; take a medicine so the rest us “feel safe.”

If you're referring to the Ottawa Truckers protest, or the copycats... that is theatre at its very finest. 90% of Canadian truckers ARE vaccinated. And the south Asian truckers who make up a significant percentage of the Canadian truck drivers ...(and their biggest issue is getting shafted by employers and bogus contracts) are strangely under-represented in Ottawa. I don't think any Canadian professional trucking associations have endorsed the protest.

And what's the point of Canada unilaterally dropping their mandate for cross-border trucker vaccinations, when the US has pretty much the same requirement??

But yes, they are also demanding the end of all COVID restrictions.... most of which are already scheduled to end... and are mostly a provincial and not a federal (Ottawa) matter...

So you have a small core of protesting truckers, and a whole-lotta bandwagon-jumpers-on. With US money and US politicians happy to hitch a ride. Serious theatre, indeed.

Sorry... I think you were mentioning something about "liberty"?

[Auklet]

Begins vaccinated if coerced does not imply agreement with mandates. So that’s irrelevant.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Auklet

Being vaccinated if coerced does not imply agreement with mandates. So that’s irrelevant.

Irrelevance is demanding an end to something that will change NOTHING, unless the US also changes their trucking restriction.

And demanding an end to restrictions that are already ending... seems close to irrelevant too. But very theatrical.

[Pelagic]

Many have said that the protests are all theatrics because restrictions are already being phased out. Let's hope that is true.
Regardless of that, it is not a bad thing to challenge the Government when a sincere group of people believe that a harmful overreach is occurring.

That debate is not solely based on the sciences and statistics, but also philosophical and sociological in discussing ....
IF AND WHEN a national referendum should be put to a vote on major government restrictions on personal freedoms.

I see this as being an opportunity for people to listen to different points of view and not a mandate on civil disobedience.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Many have said that the protests are all theatrics because restrictions are already being phased out. Let's hope that is true.
Regardless of that, it is not a bad thing to challenge the Government when a sincere group of people believe that a harmful overreach is occurring.

That debate is not solely based on the sciences and statistics, but also philosophical and sociological in discussing ....
IF AND WHEN a national referendum should be put to a vote on major government restrictions on personal freedoms.
I see this as being an opportunity for people to listen to different points of view and not a mandate on civil disobedience.

It's been hard for the citizens of Ottawa to listen to much of anything with 24/7 airhorns and "rolling coal" and an almost impassable downtown.

And I do question the sincerity of people who claim to be mounting a meaningful challenge to COVID restrictions, when they are framed as government overreaction, coercion or worse, or they downplay COVID, or when F*CK TRUDEAU and the rollback of democracy are planks in their platform. And when the offending restrictions are SO CLOSE to being lifted anyway.

There will be a time and a place to look back on all this, to acknowledge the misses, and think hard about what should be done when a pandemic happens again. It seems counterproductive to have it right now, in this fashion. But it's been very productive for those elements of the Canadian political spectrum who hope to inject a little more US-style divisiveness and acrimony into our ho-hum political sphere.