But wait, we can’t do that - part 1

I am not anti-vaccination, anti-mask, anti-distancing or anti-anything. I have legitimate questions respecting how we have dealt with a contagious virus. Like many others, I have important questions that have not been addressed. COVID communications are a disaster.    

The isolation and lockdown policy adopted to combat coronavirus spread was doomed. The theory that if we isolate everyone with strict rules to prevent face-to-face contact, a contagious virus cannot spread failed. The core of the concept is to isolate people. Lockdowns are to close regular venues for person-to-person contact and thus stop people from avoiding the rules.

Once on the road to quarantining healthy people to ensure they did not contact those infected, there was no turning back. Governments held that isolation was their policy, and they were sticking to it.

Emergency measures legislation has a thirty-day limit for a reason. If charter rights are infringed on, the government(s) have to show that the rights and freedoms set out in it (are) subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Emergency measures controls have been extended multiple times without demonstrating justification. It is reasonable that the measures can be extended once or twice due to circumstances, but extensions for over that need to be justified. The possibility of overwhelming intensive care units is an excuse, not a reason. Governments have been silent on efforts to expand critical care units to deal with COVID. Critical care units have to deal with more than COVID. Victims of accidents and health trauma need urgent care attention. COVID adds to the load but cannot drive our response.

COVID is one factor in a complex society made up of people who have multiple needs. We have ignored the effects of COVID policies on the population. Isolation, loss of income, loss of financial security, and fear of the future should play a significant role in public policy.

We have had a series of piecemeal programs initiated to counter the worst economic crisis that COVID policies have brought about. Still, many millions have fallen through the cracks and face personal financial concerns.   

But wait – we can’t do that. 

We can’t function without essential services. We need police, fire, water, sewer, garbage, health, and many other services to function. People need to get groceries, household supplies, fill prescriptions, buy hardware for repairs; the list is long.

Essential workers are needed to keep us functional. Retail shelves don’t stock themselves. We need to resupply essential businesses. Factories need to keep producing. Again, the list of essential workers is very long.

The result is that we had, at best, a partial lockdown; tens of thousands of essential service workers came into contact with one another and, in many cases, with the public daily. COVID spread from worker to worker and the public as a result.

But wait, we can’t stop that

We had travel restrictions – of a sort – an ineffective sort, to be truthful. Initially, travellers were asked to complete a COVID survey form and quarantine if they had symptoms. People asked to quarantine on their honour didn’t, and we had coronavirus, and its mutations quickly spread from coast to coast.

I’m cynical, but many national and international travellers are also political party donors. It’s hard to bite the hands that feed you.   

While the federal government was bragging about its strict border measures, the Delta COVID variant spread from coast to coast to coast with an alarming speed that could not have occurred without international and national travel.

The policy was that an incoming international traveller was to quarantine at home. The traveller arrived at an international airport or land entry point and then travelled to wherever he lived to quarantine, and those with COVID infected other people they met all the way home.

Part 2 will take up some of the questions I have.