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COVID-19

Learning loss piles up alongside snow while ‘e-learning’ collects dust

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From the Fraser Institute

By Alex Whalen and Paige MacPherson

During COVID school closures, students in the province missed at least 125 days of school between March 2020 and February 2022, more than any other province (except Ontario), generating a significant learning loss from which students have not caught up.

In a world increasingly connected by technology, and given the Nova Scotia government recently spent tens of millions of dollars enabling at-home learning, one might think that students would seamlessly shift to online learning during the recent snowstorms to avoid losing crucial instructional time. Unfortunately, that’s not happening.

During COVID school closures, the Nova Scotia and federal governments spent at least $31.5 million dollars on “virtual school” and other technological upgrades so students could, according to the provincial government, “succeed, even in an at-home learning environment.”

Unfortunately, the electronic learning infrastructure—which includes Chromebooks, laptops and iPads for students and teachers, and additional support and new teachers for Nova Scotia Virtual School—is collecting dust in a corner while Nova Scotia kids are falling further behind.

This isn’t some blip in an otherwise strong record of instructional time for Nova Scotia students. During COVID school closures, students in the province missed at least 125 days of school between March 2020 and February 2022, more than any other province (except Ontario), generating a significant learning loss from which students have not caught up.

Indeed, according to the latest results (2022) from the Programme for International Assessment (PISA), the gold standard of testing worldwide, Nova Scotia 15-year-olds trail the Canadian average in reading by 18 points and trail the Canadian average in math by 27 points. For context, PISA characterizes a 20-point drop as one year of lost learning.

Moreover, between 2003 and 2022, Nova Scotia student performance in reading dropped by 24 points—more than one year of learning loss—and dropped by 45 points in math. In other words, in math, 15-year-old Nova Scotia students today are more than two years behind where Nova Scotia 15-year-olds were in 2003.

These troubling trends underscore the need to put the existing e-learning infrastructure to work. During a recent two-week period, students in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Centre for Education school district missed seven days of school due to snow. And some students missed an additional five days due to weather and power outages. That’s nearly three weeks. While more instructional time is not a silver bullet for student success—and with power outages, e-learning is not a perfect solution—it could still make a big difference.

According to international research, missed classroom time causes learning loss and impacts children for life, reducing their life-long earnings. Nova Scotia education researcher Paul Bennett found that lost classroom time due to inclement weather compounds absenteeism and sets back student achievement and social progress.

The Houston government should ensure that Nova Scotian students have access to teacher-directed e-learning when schools are closed and, like other jurisdictions in Canada and the United States, abandon the practise of simply cancelling school due to inclement weather. It’s simply common sense. The snow may pile up, but there’s no good reason why learning loss must pile up with it. Parents are right to demand access to the e-learning they’ve already paid for through their tax dollars.

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COVID-19

A new study proves, yet again, that the mRNA Covid jabs should NEVER have been approved for young people.

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2.7 million Spanish children and teenagers. ZERO Covid deaths.

Here’s some news from Spanish researchers: contrary to what American health bureaucrats said for years to justify the increasingly insane mRNA “vaccine” experiment, Covid doesn’t kill kids.

(More facts, fewer guesses. For pennies a day.)

Yes, making categorical statements like “Covid doesn’t kill kids” is foolish.

Look hard enough, and there will be an exception, perhaps a child terminally ill with cancer pushed over the edge by Covid.

But the Spanish study, which was peer-reviewed and published in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, proves yet again that Covid’s risk is too low to measure — not just not to healthy children, but to all children. It is the strongest evidence yet that the oft-repeated claim that Covid has killed 2,100 American children is fiction.¹

The researchers examined medical records from 2.7 million Spanish children and teenagers from mid-2021 through the end of 2022, a period in which the Omicron variant infected almost everyone worldwide with Covid. The vast majority of those kids and adolescents, about 2.2 million, had not been vaccinated.

Yet none of those 2.7 million died of Covid.

None. As in zero.

(Good thing we closed the schools!)

(SOURCE)

There really isn’t much more to say about the paper, except that the authors couldn’t find any difference for Covid hospitalization rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated kids under 12.

For adolescents 12-17, they calculated about 38,000 mRNA jabs were required to avoid one Covid hospitalization — an absurdly high number given the known short-term side effects of the shots and the potential long-term risks of exposing young people to mRNA.

At this point, any physician who recommends Covid jabs for kids (as a handful, mostly in blue states, still are) should be sued for malpractice.

One final note: this week’s immigration articles have gotten a LOT of likes and comments, more than any recent Covid or mRNA pieces. More new subscribers too.

I expect that will be true again today, though I hope you’ll prove me wrong. I understand. We all have moved on.

But when studies like this new one come out, covering them is crucial.

Nearly 1.5 billion people received mRNA Covid jabs worldwide, including perhaps 100 million kids and teenagers in the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe, and elsewhere. And the American public health establishment and legacy media outlets continue to push mRNA on children and fight even modest efforts to tighten restrictions on mRNA Covid jabs.

Witness the furious pushback Food and Drug Administration chief medical officer Dr. Vinay Prasad received in late November after he reported FDA reviewers found Covid shots had killed children.

So, even as I write about immigration, healthcare fraud, and other topics vital to you, I believe I have a duty to continue to update the factual record about the mRNAs. Duty is not too strong a word. In June 2023, I covered a paper from South Korean researchers about cardiac deaths of young adults who had received the mRNA jabs.

It is no exaggeration to say no one else — no other journalist or scientist covering Covid or the jabs — paid attention to that paper at the time . But now, in the wake of Prasad’s bombshell memo, I’ve again raised that paper. Even the mRNA fanatics at the Atlantic have been forced to acknowledge it.

It’s impossible to know if these articles will matter today, tomorrow, or years from now. But as long as the mRNA companies and their public health handmaidens keep pushing this troubled technology, I’ll keep trying to build the most complete possible record.

(And I hope you will support me.)

(More facts, fewer guesses. For pennies a day.)

1

That 2,100 death figure, which the American Academy of Pediatrics loves to quote, appears to come from a 2023 paper from the National Academy of Medicine paper that in turn relies on Centers for Disease Control data. But the CDC figures no distinction between “with” and “from” Covid deaths, which are particularly important in groups at low baseline risk from Covid. Further, the fact that the number hasn’t been updated in almost three years suggests that the people quoting it know it’s nonsense and don’t want to double-check it, much less try to update it.

What, kids just stopped dying from Covid in 2023 after getting mowed down during the first three years of the epidemic?

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Unreported Truths
Unreported TruthsAlex Berenson
Independent, citizen-funded journalism
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COVID-19

Judge denies Canadian gov’t request to take away Freedom Convoy leader’s truck

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

A judge ruled that the Ontario Court of Justice is already ‘satisfied’ with Chris Barber’s sentence and taking away his very livelihood would be ‘disproportionate.’

A Canadian judge has dismissed a demand from Canadian government lawyers to seize Freedom Convoy leader Chris Barber’s “Big Red” semi-truck.

On Friday, Ontario Court of Justice Judge Heather Perkins-McVey denied the Crown’s application seeking to forfeit Barber’s truck.

She ruled that the court is already “satisfied” with Barber’s sentence and taking away his very livelihood would be “disproportionate.”

“This truck is my livelihood,” said Barber in a press release sent to LifeSiteNews.

“Trying to permanently seize it for peacefully protesting was wrong, and I’m relieved the court refused to allow that to happen,” he added.

Criminal defense lawyer Marwa Racha Younes was welcoming of the ruling as well, stating, “We find it was the right decision in the circumstances and are happy with the outcome.”

John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), said the decision is “good news for all Canadians who cherish their Charter freedom to assemble peacefully.”

READ: Freedom Convoy protester appeals after judge dismissed challenge to frozen bank accounts

“Asset forfeiture is an extraordinary power, and it must not be used to punish Canadians for participating in peaceful protest,” he added in the press release.

At this time, the court ruling ends any forfeiture proceedings for the time being, however Barber will continue to try and appeal his criminal conviction and house arrest sentence.

Barber’s truck, a 2004 Kenworth long-haul he uses for business, was a focal point in the 2022 protests. He drove it to Ottawa, where it was parked for an extended period of time, but he complied when officials asked him to move it.

On October 7, 2025, after a long trial, Ontario Court Justice Perkins-McVey sentenced Barber and Tamara Lich, the other Freedom Convoy leader, to 18 months’ house arrest. They had been declared guilty of mischief for their roles as leaders of the 2022 protest against COVID mandates, and as social media influencers.

Lich and Barber have filed appeals of their own against their house arrest sentences, arguing that the trial judge did not correctly apply the law on their mischief charges.

Government lawyers for the Crown have filed an appeal of the acquittals of Lich and Barber on intimidation charges.

The pair’s convictions came after a nearly two-year trial despite the nonviolent nature of the popular movement.

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