I have been blogging about the death of truth. Now I find the issue is potent in my home town.
Recently, The Winnipeg Free Press reported how the head of a Rural Municipality near us reacted to suggestions he should wear a mask at council meetings:
“A Manitoba reeve has unmasked his conspiracy-laden skepticism about the validity of COVID-19 just as health officials moved his community to “critical” on the pandemic-response scale.
RM of Labroquerie Reeve Lewis Weiss used the word “plandemic” in an interview with the Free Press Friday, implying the deadly global health crisis was orchestrated by people in power.
“It’s almost like it’s been planned out, and maybe it didn’t get as bad as they hoped it would, so they’re just playing it like it did,” Weiss said. “It’s a terrible thing.”
They have a political leader who disparages science in favour of conspiracy theories!
Weiss made these remarks just as Southern Health-Santé Sud health region, the regional health district that includes Steinbach and the neighbouring rural municipality of Labroquerie has been elevated to Code Red on the provincial analysis of the status of Covid-19 there. This requires masks to be worn in public indoor places such as Municipal Council Chambers. This did not sit well with Weiss who has not been wearing a mask.
The community of about 6,000 people located southeast of Steinbach is in the Southern Health-Santé Sud health regional authority, all of which will join the Winnipeg metropolitan area at the code-red level of infection-suppression protocols Monday. This is what he said when asked if he would wear a mask: “I told some of my council members, when we talked about masks, I said if I’m ever forced to wear a mask, I’ll probably just wear a snowmobile helmet.” In other words he thought mask wearing was a joke. He also made this amazingly stupid statement: “Who am I affecting, by me not wearing a mask? I am not putting anybody in jeopardy because I am not sick.”
Meanwhile with leaders like this in our area it is hardly surprising that we here in the Steinbach area have among the highest active rates of Covid-19 in all of Canada and our hospital is crammed with patients as never before and health care workers are warning they are exhausted and cannot sustain working like this indefinitely.
When ignorance marches, people had better seek cover.