If public health, a vibrant economy and preserving our constitutional freedoms were the goal, then Canadian institutions have gotten nearly everything wrong when it comes to COVID-19.
Government policy, academia and mainstream media have fallen to COVID-ism, a condition where the COVID narrative formed in March 2020 must be maintained at all costs and dissent can’t be tolerated. This sickness must be stopped before it destroys our lives and our country.
The latest manifestation of COVID-ism was the announcement by the federal government that Canadians should get booster shots every nine months. This followed a report by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization.
“Protection is minimal by six months since the second dose in adults,” the authors said, noting 86 per cent of Canadians over the age of five had received at least that many. Because COVID protection was “approximately 10 to 20 per cent higher following a third dose,” the authors suggested booster shots should be offered, though they stopped short of recommending them.
The federal government, however, wants the vaccine train to keep chugging.
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In early July, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said, “‘Fully vaccinated’ makes no sense now. It’s about ‘up-to-date.’ So, am I up-to-date in my vaccination? Have I received a vaccination in the last nine months?”
Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam agrees.
“Discussions on whether the definition of up-to-date should be included in vaccine passes is an ongoing discussion,” Tam said.
“I would advise getting that booster shot and masking and improving ventilation.”
Maybe we shouldn’t take advice from someone who calls for masking and better ventilation in the same difficult breath. The two are inherently contradictory. That’s what an occupational health and safety expert testified in a disciplinary hearing for Calgary chiropractor Curtis Wall, who, armed with a medical exemption, kept his face naked during the pandemic.
The expert testified that the N95 mask should be called a “breathing barrier” because it offers no ventilation. Every person he tested who wore one had such low levels of oxygen and high levels of carbon dioxide that were considered unsafe if found in the natural air.
The tribunal banned publication of the names of this expert and others who testified – an example of COVID-ism in itself. A respirologist testified that masking the general public did more harm than good and pointed to the DANMASK-19 study that found them ineffective. “In some jurisdictions, we have seen the highest rates ever despite vaccinations, restrictions, et cetera,” he said.
A professor of viral immunology testified that COVID vaccines only helped where the virus reached the bottom of the respiratory tract, but the latest mutations tend not to get there.
“Current data suggest that [vaccines] are not reducing the spread of the disease at all. … In fact, the remarkable phenomenon and of concern to me is that we’re actually seeing cases occurring predominantly among the fully vaccinated, which might actually be evidence of vaccine-enhanced disease,” the professor said in January.
“If somebody has natural immunity, they’re actually going to be the most protected in the context of Omicron, and they’re going to be the ones that spread the SARS-Coronavirus-2 to the least of anybody in Canada right now.”
An Israeli study in August 2021 found that people who received COVID vaccines were 13.06 times more likely to get a “breakthrough infection” with the Delta variant than those who had been previously infected in January or February of that year. Those infected previously were still almost six times better protected.
The European Union recognized that those who recovered from the virus were worthy of vaccine passports. A vaccine certificate, test certificate or certificate of recovery allowed valid travel across borders. Recent data suggests Canada should take a similar approach when the “suspension” of vaccine passports is finally lifted.
Public Health Agency of Canada data from May 1 to June 5, 2022, reported 127,262 COVID cases. The unvaccinated here numbered 8,436 (seven per cent), while 74,118 (58 per cent) were triple-vaccinated. Hospitals had an influx of 7,625 patients, with the unvaccinated accounting for 1,065 (14 per cent) and the triple-jabbed 4,590 (70 per cent).
In those weeks, 1,707 people in our nation of 38.4 million died of COVID. Only 235 (14 per cent were unvaccinated). The remainder were 1,472 vaccinated people – including 1,113 triple-vaxxed (76 per cent).
Shortly thereafter, our apparently triple-jabbed prime minister contracted COVID. “I feel okay, but that’s because I got my shots,” he tweeted on June 13.
Sure.
I have to share one final excerpt from the professor’s testimony. “[W]e are all going to be infected, for the rest of our lifetimes, with the SARS-Coronavirus-2 repeatedly. It won’t be as often as the flu because, again, it takes longer to mutate. … They will be relatively mild to moderate infections, just like all the other endemic respiratory pathogens.”
That means COVID will go around forever, endlessly mutating but relatively benign. Duclos himself recognized the first two points without conceding the third.
“We will never be fully vaccinated against COVID-19,” said Duclos. “Like the virus, our immunity also evolves.”
If only policies evolved when best evidence no longer supported them. This is why we should get off the vaccination train while it is still going slowly.
Lee Harding is a research associate for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
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