Category Archives: Epidemics/Pandemics

Absolute or Conditional Freedoms

Epidemics/Pandemics, Freedom, Human rights

 

When I attended the recent Steinbach rally against health restrictions and vaccine mandates, there was a lot of talk about freedom. Many of the protesters made it obvious that they think that in a free society they should be allowed to choose whether or not to wear mask or get vaccinated and risk the lives or freedoms of others as they see fit.

I am a freedom loving person. I would hate living in a country like Afghanistan where freedom is now largely absent. I cherish freedom.

I also cherish the right to dissent from authority. We should have the right to choose for ourselves and oppose decisions of the authorities or majorities in a peaceful manner. We should not be slaves to authority. We are free and have the right to be free.

However, dissent to be worthy of the name must be rational. We need to weigh the alternatives, and the evidence in favour of any proposition, and base our conclusions on our own powerful instruments of critical thinking. Irrational dissent (not based on valid reasoning or evidence) amounts to paranoia which can cripple us as much as tyranny can.

The people at the rally in Steinbach claimed to cherish freedom absolutely. Here I disagree. No rights are absolute. Freedom does not mean we have the right to do anything we want to do. Freedoms are always conditional.

Here are a few examples of what I mean.  All of us must abide by speed limits on public roads whether we like them or not. If we don’t, we can justifiably be punished, even in a free and democratic society.  We are not allowed to build a factory or hog barn in a residential district of a small city like Steinbach. We must abide by zoning laws. We are not free to enter into someone else’s home without their consent, except in unusual circumstances. We are not free to do that because they are free to keep us out.  We are not free to dump our garbage into the street, because that violates the right of others to enjoy community life free from garbage of others. We have to pay taxes whether we like it or not, even if the government spends some of our money on goals with which we don’t agree. We are not (at least in Canada) allowed to promulgate hate speech against other groups even if we hate them. We can hate them, but we are not allowed to encourage hatred or violence against them by others. We are not free to shout fire in a crowded dark theatre when there is no fire present, because that might lead to a stampede of panicking patrons that could cause serious injury to others. A person with a communicable illness like HIV/AIDs is not free to have sex with other individuals without warning them of the danger and if we do we can be charged with an assault. We are not free to hit other people just because we don’t like them. We are not allowed to build dangerous structures on which the public have access, because that would endanger their lives. We must always remember and take into consideration the rights of others. Their rights are not absolute either. Sometimes our rights must bend to allow rights of others to work out.

These are all reasonable restrictions on freedoms which we all must accept if we want to live in a free and democratic society with others.

Similarly, and for similar reasons, when Health authorities demand that we wear a mask to protect others, or get vaccinated if we perform certain functions or want to attend certain public events, we must abide by those requirements, because we are not allowed to endanger the lives of others even though such restrictions do in fact restrict our rights to some extent. In a free and democratic society restrictions can be placed on our freedoms for the protection of others. The restrictions must be effective, tailored to the remedy the harm to be avoided, and as limited as possible in the circumstances so that the freedom of others is curtailed as little as necessary to avoid the harm and no more.

Freedom is great, but it is not absolute. We should be happy that it is not absolute. That would be anarchy. None of us would like it.

Vaccine Creators are Heroes

Epidemics/Pandemics, Science

 

Thanks to people who are resistant to taking vaccines, the Vaccine creators have not been given the credit they deserve. Maurice Hilleman created more than 40 vaccines  and saved millions of lives in the process. He was the Chief vaccine scientist at Merck & Co.  Big Pharma in other words. We should celebrate him.  David Von Drehle, of the Washington Post,  put vaccines into perspective for us:

“Vaccination is not a choice. It’s a responsibility. Just as we pay gasoline taxes to use the roads, we suffer an occasional pinprick to live healthier lives than our pre-vaccine forebears.  It is the very small price for very large gains. Are you hideously scarred by smallpox? Born deaf and blind from rubella? Paralyzed by polio?  Did you die in your 20s coughing your lungs out from tuberculosis?  Probably not, because you live in the age of vaccines.”

 

Just today I heard a scientist say on CBC radio, that when this is over we will realize that the science that brought us the vaccines so quickly and efficiently is equivalent to the scientific achievement that put a man on the moon.

We have a lot to be grateful for. We should show it. Don’t thank Dr. Google. He has not helped. Thank the people who brought us the vaccines.

 

Hooray–We’re No. 1

Epidemics/Pandemics, The Sleep of Reason

 

Esquire Magazine used to have the annual dubious achievements awards celebrating outstanding failures. If such awards would happen in Manitoba today, Southern Manitoba would no doubt walk away with some prizes.

We finally made it. We had to work hard but we did it. Steinbach beat out Winkler and reached No.1  status in the Covid-19 wars.

Winkler and Steinbach are highly competitive communities. Each thinks it is the fastest growing community in Manitoba. Each brags about its religiosity. Each thinks it is more successful financially than the other. Each likes nothing better than to beat the other. Now Steinbach has come out on top.  And it was a most dubious distinction.

As the Winnipeg Free Press recently reported,

“People in the Southern Health region are being infected with Covid-19 at a rate five-fold Manitoba’s capital city, as small communities continue to grapple with low vaccine uptake and ongoing  spread of the novel coronavirus. The latest numbers show from the province show Southern Health–home to more than 207,000 residents across the 27,000 square kilometres–notched 10 cases per 100,000 people a day in the last seven days, compared to 2 per 100,000 reported in Winnipeg.

Perhaps even more disturbing were the remarks by a University of Manitoba assistant professor of Community Health, Souradet Shaw who said things could get worse for Southern Health! This is because people tend to cluster by vaccine status. In other words, people tend hang around people with the same vaccine status. Like seeks like. That could mean that in our area the vaccine might spread even more vigorously.  As Shaw said, “Once the virus gets into vulnerable pockets, we will see very rapid spread within these pockets.”

For quite some time now we have seen the daily reports of cases with Southern Health having more cases than Winnipeg, even though Winnipeg has a population of about 5 times that of Southern Health. That is having a profound effect.

The figures don’t lie.  As Danielle Da Silva reported,

“As of Thursday, Steinbach had the second-highest per capita infection rate in Southern Health after the surrounding health district of Hanover. [which means they have the highest and second highest rates in the province!] The two communities also have the highest number of active cases in the region , with nearly two dozen cases reported at area schools  in the past two weeks.”

 

In other words, Steinbach and its surrounding area have the highest rates of Covid-19 infection in Manitoba while having a very low rate of vaccine uptake. Who is surprised?

The Southern Health Region has many Mennonites, Conservative political leaders that keep getting re-elected no matter how dismal their performance, low vaccine uptake rates, and the highest rates of infection with Covid-19. That is a bounty of achievements. Too bad they are so dubious.

 

What Freedom looks like

Epidemics/Pandemics, The Sleep of Reason

 

Things could look a lot worse in Manitoba than they do. As Tom Brodbeck said in the Winnipeg Free Press:

“Almost 80 percent of Manitobans over the age of 12 are now full vaccinated, most people are wearing masks in indoor public places and proof-of-vaccination is required to access many public places.

Without those measures, we would still be huddled in our homes, cut off from friends and family and wondering how this pandemic would ever end. Potentially, case numbers would be soaring and intensive care units would be overflowing–as they are in provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan where vaccine mandates and public health measures were rejected for political reasons until recently.”

 

These two provinces have been decimated by the 4th wave. Manitoba, which imposed stricter health restrictions has been faring much better (so far!), though in the 3rd wave Manitoba  needed help from those same 2 provinces (and Ontario) for its intensive care patients. In contrast to these two provinces, since July 2, 2021 Manitoba’s test positivity rate has fallen by more than half to 2.3% from 5.4%. The number of Covid-19 patients in hospital has dropped to 71 from 163. As well according to Brodbeck, Manitoba has the lowest per capita  case of new infections in the country west of Nova Scotia at 58 per 100,000. Yet things are much worse in both Saskatchewan and Alberta. As Brodbeck reported, “By contrast, new infections in Saskatchewan and Alberta (the two provinces with the lowest vaccine uptake in the country) are more than 8 times higher.”

 

People who deny the effectiveness of the vaccines have to get more and more creative every day to justify their intransigence.

 Brodbeck put it this way: “The evidence is indisputable: vaccines not only save lives and reduce severe illness, they are allowing the return to normal living.”

That does not mean the battle is over and we can return to ignoring the pandemic as so many are urging. But it sure does demonstrate that the vaccines can lead  us out of the wilderness if only enough of us agreed to take them. Vaccines are even allowing hospitals to permit some of the surgeries and other medical procedures that have been held up.  This is is why Chris still has her surgery set for September 29, 2121 (tomorrow) and we are hoping things continue this way. Her life has been on precarious hold since January.

Brodbeck summed up the situation in Manitoba this way:

“…the measures have allowed the vast majority of Manitobans to resume living in safe, largely virus-free environments with friends, family and other members of the public.  If that isn’t freedom, I don’t know what is.’

 

I want even more freedom, but I am very grateful for what we have got now. The way to get more freedom is not by protests in front of hospitals, or elsewhere, but by having more people get vaccinated.

Working for Unbelievers

Epidemics/Pandemics, The Sleep of Reason

 

Sometimes we have to feel sorry for doctors. Think about the southern bible belt of Manitoba with compassion for doctors. According to the Winnipeg Free Press,

“Just over 40% of Winkler residents and less than 25% of Stanley residents (which is the rural municipality surrounding Winkler) have received at least one dose of the vaccine. as the region is experiencing the highest per capita infection rate in the province.”

 

Steinbach and its surrounding rural municipality, Hanover, is doing slightly better with vaccine uptake, but well below provincial averages. The rates of infection in Steinbach are also very high.

The paper interviewed a physician, Dr. Eric Lane, living in Winkler who was considering moving out of the community, because he feels under appreciated since so many of his patients are ignoring his sound advice to get vaccinated. Can you blame him? Dr. Lane said, “After attending births, deaths, cancers, and other health needs, most of my colleagues and I feel that our advice is no longer valued.” He’s right it isn’t valued. He said a number of his colleagues are considering moving away. It is easy for physicians do that, because they are needed everywhere. Unlike lawyers. It could be a big loss for the community. Communities need doctors or they can’t thrive. Or even survive.

That’s what happens when people get their medical advice from Dr. Google.

Facts over Fear

Epidemics/Pandemics, Fear, Fellow Feeing, reason, The Sleep of Reason

 

Fear is a powerful emotion and it can be a force for good as well as force for bad. . We all need some fears. Young children learn to fear hot stoves thanks often to their mothers who instil that fear in them. That is a healthy fear. We could be seriously hurt if we did not have that fear. There are many positive fears like that which help us to avoid danger or harm. That is all for the good.

Other fears can be completely disarming. An example I often use is the United States. It is a country dominated by fear. They spend more money on arms and weapons than the next 8 or so countries behind them combined. That is what fear drives them to do. Everyone knows they would be much better spending the money on other things, many of which could actually make some of those fears go away. For example, Americans have a great fear of crime. As a result they spend vast sums on policing or weapons and that does little to drive away the fear. Fear can make us do stupid things.

There is plenty of fear going around these days. Recently, I attended an anti-vaccination rally in Steinbach and the leader of the rally as far as I could determine was a woman called Sheena Friesen. She spoke a lot about fear. She claimed fear of Covid-19 was making us do stupid things.

One person held a sign that read, “Facts over Fear.” I agree entirely with that sentiment, yet I think he and I have a very different conception of what we should fear. It seems he thought we were mistaken in fearing the virus that causes Covid-19. I think our fear of that virus is healthy, but we should not let it get out of control.

The difference is this. I believe that fears are valid and a force for good so long as they are kept under control and are rationally based on evidence of harm which the disease can cause. In other words, some fears are reasonable others are unreasonable. By definition, an unreasonable fear is called paranoia. Such fears are always a force for evil since they are not based on evidence.

American philosopher, Martha C. Nussbaum had important things to say about fear in her fine little book, The Monarchy of Fear. The title itself says a lot, suggesting we should not be controlled by fear. We should never let fear be our boss or king. Here is what she said,

“There’s a lot of fear around in the U.S. today, and this fear is often mingled with anger, blame, and envy. Fear all too often blocks rational deliberation, poisons hope, and impedes constructive cooperation for a better future.”

 

This is precisely right. The real problem with fear is that it can and often does interfere with rational decisions making. For example, I admit that I have an unreasonable fear of heights. It is not a rational fear. If I get to the edge of a tall building or structure I start getting scared even when there is nothing to fear. After all, I am not going to pitch myself off the building. I am not going to fall over the edge. There is nothing to fear, but I can’t stop being scared. I even get scared when I see total strangers getting what I think is uncomfortably close to the edge, when they have no such fears. My fear is unreasonable. Therefore, it is an irrational fear and I should learn to control it and not allow it to control me. That is easier said than done however. Nussbaum says fear can disrupt rational deliberation, leading to unwise choices. I think we can all think of many examples of exactly this.

Beyond making us suffer, irrational fears can lead us to make bad decision for our community and our country. From a public policy perspective we should not allow fears to lead us to faulty decision making. It can be dangerous. For example, Nussbaum said,

“What is today’s fear about? Many Americans themselves powerless, out of control of their own lives. They fear for their own future and that of loved ones. They fear that the American Dream–that hope that your children will flourish and do even better than you have done–has died, and everything has slipped away from them. These feelings have their basis in real problems: among others, income stagnation in the lower middle class, alarming declines in the health and longevity of members of this group, especially men, and the escalating costs of higher education at the very time that a college degree is increasingly required for employment. But real problems are difficult to solve, and their solution takes long, hard study and cooperative work toward an uncertain future. It can consequently seem all too attractive to convert that sense of panic and impotence into blame and the “othering” of outsider groups such as immigrants, racial minorities, and women. “They” have taken our jobs. Or: wealthy elites have stolen our country.”

 

Fear drives us to make unreasonable decisions. For example, if people have an unreasonable fear of government or authority they can refuse to listen to them when they give us good advice such, advising us to take vaccines that mountains of research and by now millions of actual experiences such irresistibly that our vaccine are safe and beneficial.

I think fear of others led Americans to make a disastrous decision in electing Donald Trump as president in 2016. It was a disastrous choice and led to near catastrophic results. Americans irrationally feared others such as Muslims, Mexicans, and elites. The last of those might have been a rational fear. Certainly more rational than the first two.

As Nussbaum said,

“The problems that globalization and automation create for working-class Americans are real, deep, and seemingly intractable. Rather than face those difficulties and uncertainties, people who sense their living standard declining can instead grasp after villains, and fantasy takes shape: if “we” can keep “them” out (build a wall) or keep them in “their place” (in subservient positions), “we” can regain our pride and for men, their masculinity Fear leads, then, to aggressive “othering” strategies rather than to useful analysis.”

 

The most effective means of dealing with such “othering” is to rely on our sense of fellow feeling. Empathy can chill many a pervasive fear. In fact, fellow feeling is the opposite of “us” vs. “them.”

According to Anti-vaxxers like Steinbach’s Sheena Friesen we are overly scared of Covid-19 and as a result we impose irrational restrictions on others like forcing people to wear masks or take vaccines that are dangerous.

In my opinion, fear of Covid-19 so long as it is held in check is an entirely reasonable fear. Millions of people have already died from it. Millions more have got sick, often with permanent damage. Millions more again, have had important medical treatments such as life-saving surgeries dangerously delayed. These are not unreasonable fears. These are completely reasonable fears which lead us to take reasonable precautions such as wearing a mask or getting vaccinated. Hundreds of millions of people have already taken the vaccines with remarkably few serious side effects. Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s Chief Medical Officer of health recently said he and his team have so far found no deaths in Manitoba that could properly be attributed to taking the vaccine and very few cases of serious illness resulting from the vaccines. At the same time, they have saved thousands of lives in Manitoba.

I think the antivaxxers, not the rest of us, have been dominated by unreasonable fears of the vaccine. They are ruled by unreasonable fears, not those who are taking reasonable precautions at very little cost.

 

The Evidence is in

Epidemics/Pandemics, The Sleep of Reason

 

I am finding Anti-vaxxers and their allied freedom fighters increasingly difficult to understand. The facts are in. We get them every day in the news. This is not speculative science. This is the data we get in the news every day.

The rates of Covid-19 infection, hospitalizations and death from Covid-19 are now overwhelming among the people who have not been vaccinated or have only had their first of 2 vaccinations. As Covid-19 continues to rage through Canada and elsewhere, vaccinations are proving safe and effective against this disease. Yet people continue to resist taking the vaccines. Before this pandemic began, I would never have believed that people would continue to ignore such clear evidence. But they do. I was wrong.

In Manitoba, where I live, the Southern Health District is the hotbed of new Covid-19 cases and surprise surprise is the region with the lowest rates of accepting vaccines in Manitoba. Here is how the Winnipeg Free Press reported it today:

 “People living in the Southern Health Region are being infected with Covid-19 at a rate five-fold Manitoba’s capital city, as small communities continue to grapple with low vaccine uptake and ongoing spread of the novel coronavirus. The latest numbers from the province show Southern Health—home to more than 207,000 residents  across 27,000 square kilometres—notched 10 cases per thousand people a day in the last seven days, compared to 2 per day reported in Winnipeg.”

 

What more evidence does any one need to see that it is a smart idea to take the vaccines?

In the Age of Anger loud Voices Prevail

Epidemics/Pandemics, Rebellion and Resistance, The Sleep of Reason, True Believer

 

Melissa Martin is a very good writer working for the Winnipeg Free Press.  Talking about Covid-19 and the antivaxxers and anti-mandaters, she said she found “Sadness amid the Madness.”  Why was that?

Specifically, she wrote an interesting piece about a man and woman with a child at one of the innumerable Covid-19 protest rallies in Winnipeg, who held a sign that read, “It’s my choice. Live with it. I will.” These people had gone to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, thinking there was protest rally there. One had been held there a few days earlier and the protesters disrupted health services. Some health workers were afraid to go to work to help others in desperate need. Not just Covid-19 patients either.  Not really the best place for a protest rally. So, organizers, sensing a lack of public support for a rally there, changed the location at the last minute and this man and his wife and young daughter were not aware of it. They were wandering around largely by themselves. Martin said it was sad.  She also said,  “Anti-vax protests point out a tragic societal fracture that seems beyond mending.”

I think she is right because this is no longer a health issue. It has probably never been a health issue. It is a political issue. In fact, it is a theological issue.  People hold anti-vax and anti-mandate views as they hold religious views.  They are held so tightly that no evidence and no reason can change minds anymore. Just like religion.

The family seemed lost and deflated. As Martin said,

“Imagine what led you there. Imagine what vicious rhetoric you’ve consumed that would allow you to see a hospital entrance as an appropriate place to make your stand. Imagine waking up that day ready to protest outside a hospital, only to find your family arriving alone, sign dangling from your hands.”

 

Martin also saw, what I have been seeing—the same type of people appear at anti-vax rallies as showed up at pro-Trump rallies and worse,  at places like the riot on Capitol Hill in Washington on January 6, 2021.  The people at the hospital rally, or the Winkler rally or the Steinbach rally, were not rioters, but they appeared angry. After all, as Pankaj Mishra said, “this is the age of anger.”  People are angry. When they get angry they get mean and nasty. And thoughtfulness flies out the window. Lately, we have seen this in Winkler and Steinbach as I blogged about earlier.

As Martin said,

“It could have been worse. A lot worse. Since the start of the pandemic, one of the animating factors in resistance to public health orders and, now, vaccines has been rage, the same combustible rage that drove far-right protesters to storm the U.S. Capitol in January. It’s driven by many of the same players. It shares the same characteristics.

On Twitter, one woman responded to a video of an Ontarian People’s Party of Canada candidate firing a rifle, and said the candidate should “bring that bad boy to tomorrow’s raid on Toronto General Hospital,” because protesters would “get inside and show the world that COVID is fake.”

They didn’t go into the hospital. Yet while one shouldn’t put too much stock in the hot air a random person spews on Twitter, the naked aggression is alarming, and the threat has precedent. Last year, self-appointed “truth seekers” entered hospitals to “prove” the virus was a hoax; it’s entirely possible it will happen again.”

 

People are so angry that they feel it is legitimate to try to intimidate our over-worked health care workers who have not done anything to impose the mandates on them. They are just ordinary health care workers doing their heroic work to save lives during a pandemic. Anger directed at them is frankly much worse than sad. It is not surprising that some of them revolt. One frustrated hospital worker in a Calgary hospital put up a sign in a window that read, “Go intubate yourself.”

These protesters don’t believe science which they think is a hoax. Yet they believe  government officials are trying to impose health mandates to control us. again I have heard this personally. Others think doctors are hiding real cures like horse de-wormers. Yet as Martin said,

“When the numbers show that hospitals are in crisis and vaccines are both safe and effective, they are dismissed as “manipulated.” Everyone on Facebook anti-vaccine groups knows a guy who knows a guy whose cousin is a nurse and swears ICUs are empty; when ICU nurses speak about what they’ve endured, that information is disregarded.”

 

I know this too as I have been told the same thing. Martin acknowledged that there are reasonable questions about Covid-19. One of my cousins last week told me there is evidence that people who are vaccinated can spread Covid-19 as easily as those who are not vaccinated. If that is true it blows a major hole in the case against mandatory vaccinations. More on that later.  There is room for reasonable discussion. Science is not crystal clear. People are suffering from the restrictions in business and in mental health. But it is very difficult to have reasonable discussions when people harass health care workers. Or shout absurdities.

Martin summed up the problem this way:

“The problem is, none of those concerns can be given a fair hearing, when the loudest voices in opposition are tied up in threatening health-care workers, propagating conspiracy theories and potentially deadly misinformation, and thunderously insisting that the only relevant consideration is “personal choice.”

That’s the thing about a pandemic. It puts light on the error in the main ideological streak underpinning these most aggressive protests: the idea that anyone lives as an island, our choices not affecting others. A pandemic is a virus infecting society as one body; it requires the co-ordinated response of the whole body to fix it.

“It’s my choice,” the man’s sign said. “Live with it.” That’s exactly the problem: we already are. What’s sad is, he cannot see it.”

 

As I have been saying, Goya is right, “the sleep of reason brings forth monsters.” And we have to fight them.