The long term cost of lock downs

[Anonymous]

Senator Rand Paul says anyone who wants to participate in the vaccine trials should be allowed to. I agree with them.



"What they should do is, if they want to continue the trials, instead of 40,000 people why don't we make them 4 million, so at least another 3.5 million could be enrolled in the trials," he said.



"I don't see why you can't have people who voluntarily want to take it, and I think there are millions who want to take it," he added. "Let them get started and that way we can head towards immunity, combining natural immunity, and vaccinated immunity, to get to what we want to much quicker but I think waiting another four months is foolish."

I'm sure millions of Canadians and Americans would volunteer to participate in stage three vaccine testing if they could.

[Anonymous]

Politicians that think the only damage caused by lock downs is permanently closing family owned businesses are in denial.



Suicidal thoughts are on the rise in Canada -- why are officials ignoring this?



there is so much more going on in terms of widespread societal damage that our politicians are recklessly ignoring whenever they announce new restrictions on Canadians' lives.



This includes a sharp rise in thoughts of suicide across the country, according to a new release from the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA).



The numbers have climbed to "1 in 10 Canadians (10%) experiencing recent thoughts or feelings of suicide, up from 6% in the spring and 2.5% throughout pre-pandemic 2016."



The spring numbers come from a poll conducted in the middle of May, during the first wave. The newly released poll was conducted in the middle of September, before the second wave lockdowns began.



This means suicidal thoughts have more than doubled from a baseline number of 2.5% of Canadians in pre-pandemic times to 6% during the first wave. But now we're seeing those numbers almost double again from May to September, from 6% to 10%.



Given how tough the past few months have been – with restrictions increasing and the cold weather setting in – it stands to reason that those numbers are even higher now and will only go up.



"Cold weather, uncertainty, eroded social networks and restrictions on holiday gatherings are hitting at a time when people are already anxious, hopeless and fearful that things are going to get worse," says CMHA's National CEO, Margaret Eaton. "I am afraid that many people are in such despair that they can't see past it."



The other troubling part of the CMHA report is that while 10% of respondents have had suicidal thoughts, 4% have engaged in some form of "deliberate self-harm" in response to these thoughts.



A report published in May in the journal Psychiatry Research used modelling to project that the number of excess suicides in Canada caused by the pandemic will range from between 418 to 2,114.



While public health officials and politicians occasionally admit the broader societal toll when pressed, they mostly sidestep the issue to focus more on rising case numbers and hospitalizations, as if these are the only truly important metrics. There are really only a few outliers.



Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, to his credit, has given equal weight to the societal trauma happening all around us. For example, when he announced new restrictions for Alberta, he referenced a woman who "spoke of her husband, who had taken his own life as he faced the extreme stress, uncertainty and loss of the impacts of the restrictions we saw this past spring."



And last month, Dr. Vera Etches – Ottawa's chief medical officer – called for "a more balanced approach" citing "really signification harms from the closures and the impact on people's businesses and employment and people's mental health."



The undeniable facts now tell us that the majority of Canadians who are dying of COVID-19 are elderly persons with multiple underlying conditions who live in congregate care settings.



But it is also a fact that incidences of suicide are almost evenly spread across adult age brackets in Canada.



If you take just the projections of added suicides and cross-reference it with the number of COVID-19 deaths by age bracket, it appears that more people in their 20s, 30s and 40s will have died from lockdown-related suicide than from the virus itself.



And this is just suicides. Experts have already sounded the alarm on lockdowns causing a rise in opioid deaths as well as persons missing life-saving hospital treatments, to name just two more death tolls to be added into the mix.



A total tally of lockdown-related deaths is beyond the scope of this column but hopefully academic researchers are already taking up this important question.



The permanent closure of small businesses in our communities is indeed awful. But it may just be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the human suffering that restrictions are causing.



It's time for politicians and health officials to stop dodging these facts.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/furey-suicidal-thoughts-are-on-the-rise-in-canada-why-are-officials-ignoring-this">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... oring-this">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/furey-suicidal-thoughts-are-on-the-rise-in-canada-why-are-officials-ignoring-this

[Anonymous]

This is from Alberta, but Ontario's small enterprises are in the same boat.

Jobs, Economy and Innovation Minister Doug Schweitzer said Tuesday that previous health restrictions in the spring led to 300,000 job losses across Alberta, of which up to 250,000 jobs have been recovered.



Schweitzer said the new restrictions mean up to 40 per cent of small businesses in Alberta might not be able to turn the lights back on without government support.

[Anonymous]

This is from Alberta, but Ontario's small enterprises are in the same boat.

Jobs, Economy and Innovation Minister Doug Schweitzer said Tuesday that previous health restrictions in the spring led to 300,000 job losses across Alberta, of which up to 250,000 jobs have been recovered.



Schweitzer said the new restrictions mean up to 40 per cent of small businesses in Alberta might not be able to turn the lights back on without government support.

Same in Manitoba.

[Thiel]

My business is one of those struglling because of lockdowns and/or COVID restrictions. I'm getting some federal and provincial supports, but they can't keep an enterprise afloat no matter how generus and well intentioned.



And Manitiba has had over 250 deaths since the government suspended liberties and invoked a code red.

[Anonymous]

Stephen Duckett, who used to head Alberta Health Services gave an interview praising his Australian state's(Victoria) response and belittling Alberta and other North American jurisdictions. It's a ridiculous apples to oranges comparison. There are nearly 400 million people between our 2 countries. Australia has 25 million people and no borders and has much better control over who enters their country than Canada and the US.



The virus is too widespread in North America for even 8 week lock downs to be as effective as 4 week lock downs down under. No matter what we do, zero cases is impossible unless we unleash a continent wide COVID-19 final solution. I'm sure libtards haven't ruled that out.

[Anonymous]

Stephen Duckett, who used to head Alberta Health Services gave an interview praising his Australian state's(Victoria) response and belittling Alberta and other North American jurisdictions. It's a ridiculous apples to oranges comparison. There are nearly 400 million people between our 2 countries. Australia has 25 million people and no borders and has much better control over who enters their country than Canada and the US.



The virus is too widespread in North America for even 8 week lock downs to be as effective as 4 week lock downs down under. No matter what we do, zero cases is impossible unless we unleash a continent wide COVID-19 final solution. I'm sure libtards haven't ruled that out.

Lock downs without masks worked well in March..



Lock downs with masks are not as effective in the second wave..



The virus has spread so much now.

[Anonymous]

Lockdown legal challenges have merit



If you don't like the law, fight to change it. That includes the evershifting hodge-podge of restrictions placed on individuals and businesses in jurisdictions across this country.



Some restrictions make sense. Others, not so much. Some are just downright absurd.



Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister thinks he can beat back the scourge of COVID-19 by making retailers rope off certain shelves in their stores to limit access to what's been deemed "non-essential" products.



These are images reminiscent of former Soviet states and they have no place in Canada, even during a pandemic.



The evidence just isn't there to justify the closure of many establishments, let alone specific shelves.



[size=150]The Ontario government, for example, can only confidently attribute 0.1% of COVID-19 cases to the retail sector.[/size]



Yet governments have still closed down stores in various parts of the country. They do this despite the pleas of stores to be allowed to stay open with tight restrictions, such as only allowing three customers at a time.



It's this unfair and fact-free scenario that has caused some business owners to take a stand.



One of the most famous cases of pushback in Canada to date has been that of Adamsons BBQ, which saw a disproportionate over-reaction as police on horseback stormed in to shut the place down.



But there are many other examples of retailers big and small pushing back.



Some have proudly announced their defiant re-openings, only to be shut down by the law. Others have simply skirted the rules on the sly when a customer comes knocking.



In the case of our nation's oldest company — The Hudson's Bay Company — they're taking their fight to the Ontario Superior Court.



They want the right to re-open immediately for the Christmas shopping season.



As reported by Brian Lilley, in an application filed with the court on Thursday The Bay calls the lockdown measures that shut them down "unreasonable, inconsistent with the statutory purpose, irrational, arbitrary, and leads to results incompatible with the legislative scheme." That sounds about right.



Quite a few of the restrictions across Canada aren't fair, they aren't evenly applied, they cause damage and turmoil and — here's the kicker — they likely don't even reduce the spread of the virus.



Legal challenges like The Bay's have merit.

[Anonymous]

Responding to questions raised in a Toronto Sun column, Ontario Minister of Long-Term Care Merrilee Fullerton confirmed in October that the COVID-19 death toll in LTC homes was comparable to that of the 2017/18 flu season. In order to detract from this remarkable admission, she added: "But I don't want to talk about numbers, you know, it is about people."

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

The Sovietization of California



I am writing this column upon returning home to California after five days in Florida. For the first time since my first trip to Los Angeles in 1974 and moving there two years later, I dreaded going to California.



That first trip, as a 25-yearold New Yorker, I experienced the palpable excitement looking at the American Airlines flight board at JFK airport and seeing "Los Angeles." For most Americans, the very name "California" elicited excitement, wonder, even envy of Californians, and most of all ... freedom. While America always represented freedom, within America, California exemplified freedom most of all.



Yet, here I am, sitting in a state where corruption reigns (one of the leading Democrats of the last half- century told me years ago that politicians in California are window dressing; the real power in California is wielded by unions) and where, for nine months, normal life has been shut down, schools have been closed and small businesses have been destroyed in unprecedented numbers.



During these last five days in Florida, a state governed by the pro-freedom party, I went anywhere I wanted. First and foremost, I could eat both inside and outside restaurants. At one of them, when I stood up to take photos of people dining, a patron who recognized me walked over and said, "I assume you're just taking pictures of people eating in a restaurant." That's exactly what I was doing. I even took my two grandchildren to a bowling alley, which was filled with people enjoying themselves playing myriad arcade games as well as bowling.



None of that is allowed almost anywhere in California. It is becoming a police state, rooted in deception and irrationality.



Restaurants have been shut down ( except for takeout orders), even for outdoor dining, for no scientific reason. After ordering Los Angeles county restaurants closed, the health authorities of Los Angeles county acknowledged in court that they had no evidence that outdoor dining was dangerous; they ordered restaurants closed, even to outdoor dining, solely in order to keep people home.



The left's claim to "follow the science" is a lie. The left does not follow science; it follows scientists it agrees with and dismisses all other scientists as "anti-science."



Science does not say that eating inside a restaurant at least six feet from other diners, let alone outside a restaurant, is potentially fatal, but eating inside an airplane inches from strangers is safe.



Science does not say mass protests during a pandemic (when people are constantly told to social distance) are a health benefit, but left-wing scientists say they are — when directed against racism. In June, Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist, tweeted: "In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus."



She cited the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tom Frieden: "The threat to Covid control from protesting outside is tiny compared to the threat to Covid control created when governments act in ways that lose community trust. People can protest peacefully AND work together to stop Covid. Violence harms public health."



Even The New York Times, in July, acknowledged the double standard: "Public health experts decried the anti- lockdown protests as dangerous gatherings in a pandemic. Health experts seem less comfortable doing so now that the marches are against racism."



Science does not say, "Men give birth" or, "Men menstruate." But the left routinely argues that "science says" such things and that "science says" there are more than two sexes, many more.



The last time I felt I was leaving a free society and entering an unfree one was when I visited the communist countries of Eastern Europe. As a graduate student majoring in communism, during the Cold War, I would travel through the countries known as Soviet satellites: Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. In the middle of my trips, I would stop in Austria to breathe free air.



Never did I imagine I would ever experience anything analogous in America, the



Land of the Free, the land of the Statue of Liberty and of the Liberty Bell. But I did yesterday, when leaving Florida and returning to California.



There is no question that America is becoming, if it hasn't already become, two countries: one that values liberty, from small businesses being allowed to operate to people being allowed to say what they believe, and one that has contempt for liberty, from eating in restaurants to free speech.



I am asked almost daily by friends around the country and by callers to my national radio show whether I intend to stay in California. Were it not for all the close friends who live here and the synagogue I and a few friends founded, the answer would be no. But at a given point, I am sure that I will leave this Soviet satellite for a free state. The bigger and far more important question is: How long will the Soviet states of America and the free states of America remain the United States of America?



After ordering Los Angeles county restaurants closed, the health authorities of Los Angeles county acknowledged in court that they had no evidence that outdoor dining was dangerous; they ordered restaurants closed, even to outdoor dining, solely in order to keep people home.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/prager-the-sovietization-of-california">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... california">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/prager-the-sovietization-of-california

[Anonymous]

https://i0.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/so-is-there-tax-we-can-pay-to-end-coronavirus-or-does-that-only-work-for-climate-change.jpg?resize=520%2C338&ssl=1">

[Anonymous]

Lockdown measures have been catastrophic for recovering addicts, and mental health.

[Anonymous]

Lockdown measures have been catastrophic for recovering addicts, and mental health.

There is nothing good that came out of lockdowns. Overall death rates in Manitoba are about the same in January 2021 as they were in January 2020. All that has changed is that the cause of death is now listed as Covid instead of cancer, pneumonia, coronary heart disease etc.

[Thiel]

https://i0.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/so-is-there-tax-we-can-pay-to-end-coronavirus-or-does-that-only-work-for-climate-change.jpg?resize=520%2C338&ssl=1">

LOL!