This son of a bitch pandemic.
We’re locked down again after an afternoon press conference with the Premier of Ontario, the honorable Douglas Ford. Prior to the press conference, the CBC had devoted an hour or two towards a variety of experts speculating on what was coming down the pipe as the GTA confronts a third wave of covid variants.
Every medical expert that spoke prior to Dougie stated clearly that they and the agencies they represent had warned the Ontario Premier for weeks that a catastrophe was coming. They referred to data and restriction relaxations. They talked about the increase in cases and ICU stress. They talked about provisions for triage choice preparedness to decide who lived and who didn’t. Provisions that they had been contemplating, then discussing and then preparing to implement. These doctors and other experts were crystal clear that they had made these facts available to Doug for the last three weeks to a month.
And then it was time for Doug and his entourage.
Doug blamed everything on the Prime Minister. Doug whined about vaccines and PPE and testing capacity. Doug proclaimed that he and his government had done everything and more to support the people of Ontario, but that damned Justin didn’t do his job and provide Doug with the tools Doug needed. Doug dismissed the fact the previous Conservative government had dismantled Canadian vaccine production, and declared that Justin had five years to rebuild that infrastructure. I found it odd that Doug felt comfortable blaming Trudeau for not seeing the future pandemic coming years in advance, when Dougie has struggled with seeing a third wave coming three weeks in advance. A wave that all his own heath experts told him was coming.
Anyway.
Then Doug slapped a shitpile of restrictions on all of Ontario, demanded the Toronto international airport be closed and claimed that Ontario and the GTA in particular should receive the lions share of available vaccines.
And, oh yeah, he closed the Provincial borders and gave the police the temporary power to stop anyone outside their home and make them tell a story. A story about where they were going, why they were going there, and where they lived. After that I guess it’s up to the highly trained officers to decide if they deem your trip a necessity.
I assume that fines will follow if you tell a shitty story.
After listening to Doug I thought that an automobile last name was appropriate for the man. Not Ford though. Dodge is more appropriate I think. Dougie the dodger I guess.
To be fair to Douglas. Its a tough go being a politician in these days of the pandemic. You’re pretty much fucked no matter what you do. If you close the province then everyone starts bitching about the economy and a lost school year, and wearing masks, and not being able to party with friends. If you don’t close the Province then people run amok and in no time we’re staring another outbreak in the face.
Dougie tried the middle ground. Ontario was sort of closed for the last two weeks, but apparently sort of closed might not have been the right choice. And so here we are. Our current state of affairs isn’t a mystery,
But.
Why is Canada having a surge of variants and I’m not hearing about the Americans having the same or worse of a problem? It’s not as if the Americans haven’t carried on with the usual American behavior. Full stadium in Texas for a home opening of a ball game, Miami spring break and the usual give me liberty and or give me death, I’m not wearing a mask to watch golf or go to the Bass Pro Shop stuff. Could it be that the media is bored with covid reporting? Maybe with Don the dementor out of the picture, the press is much more reluctant to point to the continued death toll when it’s happening on Joe’s watch?
It’s a mystery to me.
Because Canada is losing their shit and we had fifty covid deaths today. The Americans had seven hundred and sixty four, and a weekly average right around a thousand. Maybe a year of this shit and a thousand a day is old news in the U.S. and no one really gives much of a fuck. Kind of like the forty five mass shootings in the last month.
Anyway, I find the disparity of reaction on the North and South sides of the 49th parallel kind of a mystery.
I also find China a bit of a puzzlement these days. Granted, I don’t think that too many people outside of China know what the fuck is going on inside China. So. we’re depending on China to keep us informed and they’ve got a bit of a reputation of being transparently challenged. Still. the variants must exist in China, and just recently it was reported that they were thinking of mixing some foreign vaccines with their not so effective homemade version. I found data that says China had almost five thousand covid deaths yesterday, and so it seems that the Chinese and the Americans have pretty much decided that the death toll isn’t worth getting fired up about.
The Chinese are more concerned with Taiwan not being called Taiwan anymore, and the Americans are more concerned with transsexual athletes and voter suppression.
Screw covid, we’re busy with important stuff.
I guess the reaction to Covid fatalities can be looked at from the perspective of how many millions of people a country has. The Yanks for example are losing 2.79 people per million, per day. Canada is losing .85 people per million, per day. So, unless you’re a public health official or an I.C.U. nurse then the likelihood of giving a fuck is low until those numbers appreciably inflate. Or unless someone you know takes one for the team. Which isn’t very likely if the numbers I just quoted are correct, because that death would literally and figuratively be one in a fucking million.
I understand that the variants are more transmissible and more lethal. I understand that we have to do what we can to support the health care people. I understand that the deaths per million would be significantly higher if not for the abilities of our health care people. I understand that we need to protect our vulnerable population and I get it that being irresponsible invites a potential shitstorm of a causality count. But, fuck I’m getting weary of these lockdowns.
Every time I hear the term new normal I cringe a bit. The term suggests that we’re going to live with a variant of covid perpetually. Perhaps one with more lethality, or maybe a continued grinding version of the current one death per million variety. Either way it appears that the fucking virus isn’t going anywhere, and our only alternatives are to contact it and survive, or get a booster every year. Then we wait until we have some sort of hybrid herd immunity. The vaccinated mixed with the immune and the infected survivors.
The pharmal companies are very happy. It’s guaranteed income and that’s a new normal they can embrace.
Also, if this shit is going to be normal then someone needs to do something to protect the health care system. Perhaps an old solution can be reused? Separate the Covid patients from the rest of the world. Covid sanitoriums like the old tuberculosis facilities. Then we can isolate, medicate and intubate with specially trained and equipped staff and still do hernia surgeries and knee replacements in the regular hospitals.
Anyway, it would be nice if Justin would get on with rebuilding Canadian vaccine production capability. It looks like there might be some demand for the foreseeable future.
Because, man I’m really getting weary of the whole situation. I’ll comply with the restrictions for the time being and a mask is almost second nature now. But I’m getting remarkably close to throwing my hands up in the air and not giving a fuck if I get it or not.
That’s weary I guess.