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COVID-19

Pandemic: We need to be smarter than China (and Italy)

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19 minute read

**This article has been amended in light of the ongoing situation in Italy.  It was originally posted to dredles.com.

Dr J Edward Les is a Pediatric Emergency Physician practicing in Calgary.

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In the winter of 2017 two 17-year-olds with a 3-D printer created a little spinny thingy called the Fidget360 and promoted it on social media.

Fidget spinners quickly went viral.  And because there was no patent, dozens of companies hurried to produce knockoffs.

By May of 2017 the little gadgets accounted for 17% of all online toy sales and had spun their way into every nook and cranny of the globe.  Every kid I tended to in the emergency department of my hospital was spinning one of the plastic gizmos—and more often than not, so were their parents.

But then—just as quickly as it started—it was over.  By September of 2017 fidget spinners had vanished, consigned to trash bins and forgotten corners of toy rooms and closets.

There’s a word we use to describe this sort of phenomenon, where something spreads quickly throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population before burning itself out.

That word is pandemic, of course.  We use it to describe massive outbreaks of disease, typically, not outbreaks of fidget spinners.

It’s a scary term—one that conjures up images of the Spanish flu, which wiped out up to 100 million people in 1918 (five percent of the world’s population); or of the bubonic plague, which ravaged the globe in the 14th century, killing half of Europe’s people and knocking the world population down to 350 million from 475 million.

Not all pandemics are as lethal as the Black Death or the Spanish flu, mind you.  The H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009, for instance, killed approximately half a million people—a big number, but roughly on par with the death toll extracted by the seasonal flu each year.

Another pandemic—COVID-19—now threatens the world.  This time the viral assassin is a novel coronavirus that originated in China.

How much danger we are in remains a matter of intense debate.  Death toll predictions run the gamut from the ridiculous to the obtuse, from epic eradication of mankind on the scale imagined by novelist Stephen King in The Stand, all the way to: “Nothing to see here, folks, keep calm and carry on.”

Rampant misinformation, relentless spin, and wacky thinking amplified by social media hasn’t brought clarity, suffice it say.  U.S. President Donald Trump labeled the coronavirus a Democratic conspiracy.  Paranoid wing-nuts blather on about Chinese bioweapons.  Some people blame a vengeful God; others warn shrilly (and wrongly) of the risk of mail from China or of the danger of eating in Chinese restaurants.

I wrote about the coronavirus outbreak on February 20, seemingly an eternity ago.  At the time I wasn’t overly stressed—just a bit fidgety.  Twelve thousand people were infected and 250 were dead, pretty much all in the epicentre of Hubei province in China; but it seemed like a drop in the viral bucket compared to the seasonal flu, which takes out up to 600,000 people globally per year.

Plus, after initially dismissing the virus as a threat, the Chinese had reacted with unprecedented measures, locking down Wuhan and a slew of other cities, cordoning off Hubei province, shutting down mass transit, closing airports, and confining 60 million people to their homes—berating those who dared to venture outside with government drones.

It seems to have worked for the Chinese.  Epidemiologic data show that the virus continued to spread post-lockdown, but primarily among families already infected pre-quarantine.  Community spread was stopped in its tracks.

The number of cases in Hubei province ultimately crested at around 67,000, with 2900 dead.  (Just a smattering of new cases are being reported.)

By the time the Chinese instituted their draconian quarantine measures, of course, the viral dandelion had gone to seed: infectious spores of coronavirus had already blown around the world.

Still, the worst-case scenario for Canada, I surmised, surely couldn’t be worse than what Hubei endured.

Applying Hubei’s experience—a population infection rate in that province of only 0.11% (67,000 divided by 60 million) and a case fatality rate of 4.3%— to Canada’s population of 37 million would mean roughly 41,000 cases and 1750 dead in Canada.

Bad enough—but seasonal influenza kills 3500 Canadians every year; traffic accidents kill 2000 people.

So not a huge deal, right?

But here’s the problem: Canada is not China.  Neither is the U.S., or any of the other countries where coronaviral spores have taken root.

In one sense, at least, that’s a good thing: our air is much cleaner, and far fewer of us smoke cigarettes, leaving us with lungs presumably less hospitable to invading coronavirus.

However, we are not going to quarantine entire Canadian cities and provinces (it’s too late for that now anyway).

We’re not likely to close airports and shut down mass transit.

We’re not going to chase our citizens with drones.

We’re not going to mandate that entire city populations stay in their houses for weeks or months on end.

And we’re not likely to be as good at keeping infected patients alive—not because we lack the know-how, but because we lack adequate space, supplies, ventilators, and personnel.

The WHO’s Bruce Aylward, commenting on the case fatality rate observed in China, had this to say about the regime’s efforts:

“That’s the mortality in China — and they find cases fast, get them isolated, in treatment, and supported early. Second thing they do is ventilate dozens in the average hospital; they use extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (removing blood from a person’s body and oxygenating their red blood cells) when ventilation doesn’t work. This is sophisticated health care. They have a survival rate for this disease I would not extrapolate to the rest of the world. What you’ve seen in Italy and Iran is that a lot of people are dying.”

Canada may do better than Italy and Iran.  But our hospitals are already stuffed to the gills (and people won’t stop suffering from heart attacks and strokes and trauma and cancer just because COVID-19 is kicking around).

We can’t, like the Chinese, build enormous hospitals almost overnight specifically for coronavirus patients.  (We can’t even build a pipeline in this country.)

Does all of the above mean we’re screwed?

Not at all.

Certainly, we can’t do what the Chinese did.  Nor should we try.  The Italians are trying, and their country is descending into unmitigated chaos.

We must adopt a radically different strategy.

First, we must acknowledge that stopping this virus is like trying to stop the wind.

We must acknowledge what any seasoned epidemiologist can tell you: viral pandemics burn themselves out—but only after millions of people get sick and recover, freshly equipped with powerful antibodies to the virus.  The resulting collective population immunity—called herd immunity—prevents the virus from hopping from person to person to person with epidemic speed, and the pandemic dies out.

There are no other options.  Well, there are two, but neither are on the near horizon: complete eradication of the virus (as mankind did with smallpox), or the development of an effective vaccine.

We must let this pandemic burn itself out.

But just as importantly we must control how that happens.

The novel coronavirus has an R0 value of 2.2, which means that each person can infect 2.2 others.  The case fatality rate across all of China was 2.3% (it’s higher in Wubei province and outside of China—it’s over 4% in Italy, for example).  Those numbers, ominously, aren’t much different from the Spanish flu.

Knowing that most of the world cannot replicate China’s totalitarian lockdown to control viral spread, epidemiologists estimate that between 30-60% of the world could end up infected with coronavirus.

Wait a minute, you say:  Hubei province had a population infection rate of only 0.11%. That’s a far cry from 30%.

Sure.  But the Asian elephant in the room is that China, by its draconian quarantine measures, prevented community spread—which also very likely prevented the development of herd immunity.

When Wuhan and her 15 sister cities are re-opened; when the stranglehold on Hubei province is released; when the airports re-open and the trains start running and commerce restarts:  we may see a second wave of infection in China.  The virus is not gone, and because the Chinese prevented community spread from continuing for two months, most of their population is probably not immune.

It was the second wave of the Spanish flu, remember, that killed most of the people in that pandemic.  And China could be on the cusp of a second wave of COVID-19.

We must not allow this to happen globally with COVID-19.

If epidemiologists are correct even at the low end of their estimates—30% of the world’s population infected and a case fatality rate (also at the low end) of 2.3%—that means 53 million dead: roughly 255,000 of them in Canada (73 times the death toll of the seasonal flu).

Horrific stuff.  But the achilles heel of the coronavirus is that it primarily kills old people.  And we can exploit that.

The Spanish flu killed across demographics, disproportionately killing those in the age categories of 20 to 40, over 65, and younger than five. The high mortality in healthy people was a unique feature of this pandemic – as was the case with the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.

But that’s not the case with COVID-19: it kills mostly the elderly and the infirm.  The mortality rate in those over 80 is 15%; in those over 70, eight percent; and in those over 60 it’s just under four percent.  In Italy, where the death toll stood at 366 as of Sunday, the average age of those who have died is 81.

At younger ages the mortality rate drops off dramatically – the vast majority of younger people, especially kids, recover without incident, most of them with mild or no signs of illness.

But—and this is key—even though children (and healthy adults) may be completely symptomatic or have only mild symptoms after they acquire coronavirus, they still carry the virus: they are vectors, much like the rats that spread the bubonic plague in the 14thcentury.

We are not going to exterminate the children as we did the rats—but we can take real steps to mitigate the risk of viral spread.

Those most vulnerable to the deadly effects of this virus—the elderly and the medically compromised—should self-quarantine while we judiciously allow the virus to do what it does among the rest of us.

That means that we all continue to protect ourselves sensibly, just as we do from the flu: wash our hands, cough into our elbows, stay home if we are sick, learn the “Ebola handshake”, and stay away from hospitals and clinics unless truly necessary.

In an earlier version of this piece I wrote: “We must not close the schools, the airports, the theatres, the restaurants.”

I’m no longer so sure.

This is a fast-moving epidemic, and it is imperative—imperative—that we pay close attention to what is happening elsewhere as this virus marches around the world.

Reports out of Italy are deeply sobering: the elderly are dying, and they are sickening at a furious rate.  Hospital resources have been completely overwhelmed.

The Italians were utterly unprepared for the sheer volume of critically ill patients requiring intensive care all at once.

And so is Canada.

We need to slow the virus down.  We need to impede the rate of its spread to the elderly.

It may be prudent, as COVID-19 establishes a foothold in Canada.  to proactively close schools and universities, and to cancel concerts and conferences and other mass gatherings.

Messaging is key.  School closures should not incite fear and alarm.  The risk to the young and healthy remains very low—whether or not we close schools and cancel concerts doesn’t change that.

But we must do whatever we can to slow the dissemination of virus to the elderly and medically compromised, to as much as possible lessen the strain on our health care resources.

It is far easier for hospitals to deal with a crush of infected, critically ill patients over a four month period than over a four weekperiod.

We must, in the language of disease, “flatten the epidemiologic curve”.

We must sequester the elderly and the medically compromised away from the rest of the population.  They should avoid crowds, travel, and children—likely until August or later.

We cannot do this by decree—that will never work.  But we must shout this message of self-quarantine from the rooftops loudly and repeatedly so that the elderly and medically compromised understand that if they do not comply, they stand a high risk of dying.

At the same time, it is essential that we protect heath care workers and those who are medically at-risk in hospitals: we must enact systems of external triage (a.k.a. drive-through emergency medicine), external treatment sites, telemedicine, mobile treatment teams, and so on.

These measures are critical to to lessen the coming unprecedented demands on our health care system, to reduce the death rate and to buy time until we either have herd immunity or an effective vaccine.

Our politicians and medical leaders have dropped the ball on this.  They’ve been fidgeting while this virus burns, spinning confused and garbled messages of half measures and wrong measures.

It’s time to stop the fidgeting, to do away with the spin, and to lead with strength and clarity.

We must not allow the world to succumb to chaos.

We must not allow the economic infrastructure of the world to be destroyed, and society completely upended, by a viral pandemic that targets primarily the elderly and medically compromised.

My date with self-isolation amid the Covid 19 scare

There is no need to panic.

We should remain calm and carry on.

But nor should we keep our head in the sand.

As Bruce Aylward put it:

“Get organized, get educated, and get working.”

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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COVID-19

Canada’s top doctor signed oath to withhold COVID info that could ‘embarrass’ Trudeau’s cabinet: records

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Dozens of Canada’s top health managers and the nation’s top doctor were required to sign a secret oath that prevented them from divulging information relating to the COVID crisis to not “embarrass” the federal government at the time.

Access to Information records show that Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, and “quite a few” other COVID pandemic managers had to sign the pledge, as noted by Blacklock’s Reporter.

An internal staff email sent in 2020 from Alan Thom, vaccine supply manager with the Public Health Agency, showed he complained that so many managers had to take an oath of secrecy “at a certain point the Department of Public Works determined individual non-disclosure agreements were no longer needed for federal employees as we are all covered through our responsibilities as public servants.”

In total, 29 managers signed the oath with the Public Health Agency and Departments of Foreign Affairs, Health, Industry and National Defence.

The oath came right after the federal government, under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, signed a deal to buy mRNA COVID jabs with pharmaceutical companies.

The oath noted, in part, that “Unauthorized disclosure of any confidential information, including but not limited to disclosures or communications to supplier competitors or to the media may result in embarrassment, criticism or claims against Canada and may jeopardize Canada’s supplier relations and procurement processes.”

It continued, stating, “As an employee of the Government of Canada I acknowledge I have read and understood the Values And Ethics Code For The Public Sector,” the pledge stated. “I remain bound by my oath.”

Tam is a strong proponent of the COVID shots. At the peak of the COVID crisis in Canada, the Trudeau government signed about $8 billion in contracts with multiple companies, including, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Medicago, Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer and Sanofi.

The first COVID jab to be approved for use in Canada was Pfizer’s BioNTech mRNA injection, which became available on December 9, 2020. Moderna’s mRNA jab followed a couple of weeks later. Of note is the launch of the jabs came after the Trudeau government gave vaccine makers a shield from liability regarding jab-related injuries.

Canada’s Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) was launched in December 2020 after the government gave vaccine makers a shield from liability regarding COVID-19 jab-related injuries.

Recently, VISP injury payments are expected to go over budget, according to a Canadian Department of Health memo.

As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, a government-funded inhaled version of the COVID mRNA vaccines developed with abortion-tainted fetal cell lines is now entering Phase 2 clinical trials.

The federal government continues to purchase the COVID shots despite the fact its own data shows that most Canadians are flat-out refusing a COVID booster injection. It also comes as the government has had to increase spending on VISP, as reported by LifeSiteNews last week.

Canadians’ decision to refuse the shots also comes as a Statistic Canada report revealed that deaths from COVID-19 and “unspecified causes” rose after the release of the so-called “safe and effective” jabs.

LifeSiteNews has published an extensive amount of research on the dangers of the experimental COVID mRNA jabs that include heart damage and blood clots.

The mRNA shots have also been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children, and all have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies.

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COVID-19

Study finds nearly half of ‘COVID deaths’ had no link to virus

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MXM logo MxM News

Quick Hit:

A groundbreaking new study has delivered a searing indictment of the global health and media establishment’s COVID death narrative. According to Ian Miller’s analysis on OutKick, a thorough investigation into hospital deaths in Greece reveals that nearly half of the cases officially labeled as “COVID deaths” had nothing to do with the virus. The findings undermine years of data used to justify lockdowns, school closures, and vaccine mandates. Miller argues that the so-called scientific consensus pushed by Dr. Anthony Fauci and the media is collapsing under the weight of real evidence.

Key Details:

  • A Greek study found that 45.3% of registered COVID deaths were not caused by COVID at all.

  • Just 25.1% of deaths were directly caused by the virus, with 29.6% contributing indirectly.

  • Only 54.9% of death certificate-listed COVID deaths matched reality after rigorous review.

Diving Deeper:

For years, COVID death tallies dominated media coverage and shaped public policy. Networks like CNN broadcast running totals, while bureaucrats and politicians used them to enforce sweeping restrictions. But according to OutKick’s Ian Miller, a new peer-reviewed Greek study discredits much of that narrative by proving that the way deaths were defined was deeply flawed—and in many cases, outright misleading.

“In Greece, a more concise and simple definition was used, defining as COVID-19-associated death, any death occurring in a person with positive testing for SARS-CoV-2 at the time of death,” the researchers stated. That definition, however, failed to discern whether the virus actually caused the death.

The study, which covered seven major hospitals in Athens over an eight-month period in 2022, went beyond death certificates. Researchers analyzed medical charts, lab results, imaging data, and conducted interviews with treating physicians. As Miller notes, they did “the work that the ‘expert’ community should have been doing” all along.

The findings were stunning. Just 133 of the 530 recorded deaths (25.1%) were directly due to COVID. Another 157 (29.6%) were cases in which COVID contributed to a chain of events. But a full 240 deaths—45.3%—had no connection to the virus, despite being officially registered as COVID deaths.

What’s worse, Miller reports that death certificate data was wildly unreliable. COVID was listed as the primary or contributing cause in 528 out of 530 cases. After the study’s thorough review, that number dropped to 290. “Just 54.9% of the deaths labeled as primary or contributing COVID, per death certificates, actually met that criteria,” Miller writes.

The data also crushed another major narrative: that the unvaccinated were overwhelmingly the ones dying. Of the 290 deaths partially or fully attributed to COVID, 53.8% were fully vaccinated or boosted. In the group labeled “with” COVID, that figure jumped to 63.3%. “Remember the ‘95% of deaths are among the unvaccinated!!!1!!’ hysteria?” Miller quipped. “There was no statistical significance to vaccination when it came to predicting outcomes.”

And perhaps most damning, 42.5% of COVID-positive patients had contracted the virus inside the hospital—despite mandatory masking and PPE policies. “Because masking does not stop COVID transmission,” Miller points out bluntly.

Miller didn’t mince words in his conclusion: “This study quite frankly obliterates almost every single facet of ‘expert’ and scientific consensus. Masking doesn’t work. A significant portion of COVID deaths were not directly caused by the virus… and death certificate data is not reliable.”

As policymakers and media figures continue to sidestep accountability, this study provides hard proof of what many Americans already suspected: the public was misled. And those who raised questions were dismissed as “deniers” or “conspiracy theorists.” In Miller’s view, this was not just a public health failure, but a failure of integrity and truth. And the consequences, from economic devastation to lost trust in institutions, are still being felt.

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