> Also, I am highly confused by China's zero coivd policy. Just by the nature of how viruses work, that seems impossible.
It worked for original SARS, no?
It worked for original SARS, no?
It is possible to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 in countries with competent public health systems. However, most countries did not attempt elimination. Instead, they followed their standard pandemic response plans, which are based on influenza, and which only aim to slow the spread of the virus.
Notably, a number of countries did not follow the standard response plans for an influenza pandemic, and instead went for (and rapidly achieved) complete elimination: mainland China, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, and others.
Your claim that it doesn't work because of the "nature of viruses" seems belied by the facts on the ground.
Neither assumptions are backed by evidence.
If this disaster spreads to other Chinese metropolitan areas it would be devastating.
It simply doesn't do the job well enough, but good luck trying to make the Chinese leader choose an American product.
So the stubbornness of the regime is at fault, but with no limits on terms anymore, i see only bad things for the future of China.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-walvax-says-has-m...
Better late than never must be the motto China is going for.
We find Chinese confirmed infections match the distribution expected in Benford’s Law and are similar to that seen in the U.S. and Italy.
https://kevinbasset.medium.com/i-used-benfords-law-to-analyz...
Tough both are reporting on old data which tells nothing (good or bad) about the current situation.
To the contrary, there is no evidence to suggest that China has had the spread necessary to kill 3 million people nor any evidence suggesting that they have covered up 3 million deaths.
You might naively think we have no way of checking, but this level of spread would be trivial to infer from antibody tests of people traveling to China. We have seen no indication of a deception anywhere near the scale you are suggesting.
> this level of spread would be trivial to infer from antibody tests of people traveling to China.
Who is doing that testing?
China's decision to continue on the zero-covid route seems extremely unwise once it was clear that breakouts were happening across the globe and containment was no longer an option - but initially pursuing containment was an extremely wise policy.
It's now clear that the best strategy would have been to focus on protecting the most vulnerable, as recommended by leading experts back in 2020.
China has averted 3 million deaths and most of the country has been free of lockdown for the last 2 years once they got the virus under control. That is "scientific reality". Claims that China's numbers are problematic, while probably true, are not the same as saying that China has hidden millions of covid deaths, which basically nobody who studies this believes.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646
The only human virus we have eradicated is smallpox. And that only worked because there were no animal reservoirs, and the vaccines were fairly effective at preventing infection and transmission. That situation does not obtain with SARS-CoV-2.
The countries that pursued an elimination strategy (a.k.a. zero-CoVID) have had orders of magnitude fewer deaths, and were able to enjoy long periods of time with virtually no restrictions on everyday life. Life in the vast majority of China has been basically normal for most of the last 2 years. People have been going to restaurants, holding parties, going to concerts, etc. without having to worry about the virus, because it hasn't been spreading in the country.
> recommended by leading experts
The Great Barrington Declaration isn't some sort of consensus of "leading experts." It's a document drawn up by a libertarian think tank, that a small number of academics signed. For political reasons, most Western countries have ended up following something close to this strategy since fairly early on in the pandemic, and the results (both in terms of deaths and economic impact) have been abysmal, particularly in comparison with the zero-CoVID countries.
It’s impossible to have zero Covid unless you vaccinate all mammals in the world.
See also: this article. What is happening in china right now is just slightly more advanced than what many countries and states did for themselves.
And no, there is no human right to be protected against the risk of disease.
Literally the first one is to life.
https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/human-rights#:~:text=Hum....
The UDHR you linked to mentioned freedom from detention, freedom of movement, the right to peacefully assemble, to work, leisure, and education, and to participate in cultural life. All of these rights were negatively impacted by lockdowns which many people did not agree with.
In the example of the pandemic: Would it have been better to offer support for the vulnerable (people with a 1 in 10 chance of dying if they caught it), rather than punish those who were not vulnerable (people with a 1 in 100,000 or greater chance of dying).
When is it ok for one person's rights to come at the expense of others? Is it ok for a few politicians to decide to impose on a bunch of unwilling people to do something they don't want to do? Should we lockdown every year for the flu, because some people will die? Should we allow the majority to force their views on the minority becuase they believe it is for the greater good?
I don't believe so. Not when there are other options.
> 3. The above-mentioned rights shall not be subject to any restrictions except those which are provided by law, are necessary to protect national security, public order (ordre public), public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others, and are consistent with the other rights recognized in the present Covenant.
Or is there some other clause you are referring to that this is actually violating?
I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding your comment. Are you saying that restricting rights to protect public health is more important than the right of freedom of movement and other rights?
This is why I mentioned the flu as an example of how difficult it can be to draw a line. Why don't we lock down everyone for the flu every year? Is it because the numbers are different? People still die. Even when people agree on the numbers they don't interpret the risk the same. Some people don't think covid was that big a deal, certainly not worth the impact lockdowns had on everyone. And I also mentioned the idea of helping protect the vulnerable without punishing those who don't feel they are vulnerable. I think a lot more could have been done in this regard.
I just don't get why some people feel justified imposing on the rights of others when there are other approaches. Different values, I suppose.
And besides, the UN is a joke. It's a nice little debating society, but otherwise in the real world no one takes it seriously.
Well either viruses typically are very good at killing you (SARS style) and so you can curb it fast or they aren't and stick around awhile until you can vaccinate a ton of the population and build immunity (measles). If they adapt too rapidly that they escape the effectiveness of a vaccine faster than you can develop and deploy them, you have the flu. Covid seems to be in the third camp rather than the other two.
So I think the zero covid policy is a decent idea if you can contain the disease before it spreads overseas but that a lot of western democracies are no where near well positioned enough to follow suit and, if you are the only country with a zero covid policy then there's going to be a really big tidalwave if the virus stays alive long enough to mutate and spread back into your country.
It sucks but this thing was global before lock downs were taken seriously so focusing bureaucracy on containment instead of preparing for the eventual return wave seems unwise.
I don't think your comments about moving to China are at all productive to the dialog though.
I want to address this. Why is it not productive? One great thing about the world is that we have different jurisdictions that value different things, so they can compete and like minded people can potentially get together somewhere and live as they want. Many people are moving to Florida e.g. because of its approach to covid. If you want the opposite, and your initial comment I understood to basically be support for China's approach, there are jurisdictions you can go to that provide that. It's better for you because your priorities are supported, and it's better for people in other places with different priorities. What's not productive is trying to lobby the government to force everyone around you to behave the way you want them to.
Seriously, if you support China's approach, and value it more than what you're getting in Canada, move to China, don't try and make Canada any more authoritarian
Canada is an abstract concept - just like Florida - it isn't authoritarian or freedom loving as an inherent property, it is responding to the will of its populace. I personally think my ideals would help Canada be a safer and more prosperous country, so why should I say "screw all these guys" and jump ship... I'd prefer to stay and try and make my neighbors safer. That said, I'm actually a US-Canadian dualie so it is an adopted home.
And I guess I should add that our constitution and history make liberty and minimal government power the default here, so all of the authoritarianism that's come with covid is an attack on what was once a free country. Which is why I think it's better if you leave if you don't like it.
My central philosophy in life is basically to strive to have a positive net impact on those around me - and it's why I find that old Franklin quote "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." so problematic - it comes from a good place (basically it can, IMO be read as a scathing indictment of America's response to 9/11) but it gets taken so far overboard so often. Everyone just wants to live, when we're threatened with an existential (for some of us) threat like a pandemic, we need to coordinate an appropriate group response to sanely respond to it. When the threat is minor we can delegate that to the individual and let folks do as they will - but when we're talking about a pandemic group action is required to overcome the issue.
I'm fine seeing wide ranging debates on the political stage over national drug care and the like - but this pandemic is a very serious threat that has killed a lot of Canadians. I don't think it's fair to paint pretty reasonable quarantine restrictions as authoritarian when that word, to so many people, draws up the image of Stalin or Hitler.
I personally think that the rule should be "don't impose on others".
The murder example you used is an imposition on another person. Telling someone that they can't impose on someone else is not an imposition, it is preventing an imposition.
There can be problems if we allow the majority to impose whatever they want on the minority. It seems that many people seem are ok with that, as long as they are in the majority.
I think a lot has to do with quantifying the risk. We don't mandate masks during flu season. Covid has killed 10 times as many people per year in the U.S. than a bad flu season. Somewhere in between is where we as a society have drawn the line, at least on short notice for a scary new virus. And that line is in a state of flux, given better treatments, vaccines, less deadly variants, and lockdown fatigue, etc. It seems that the numbers matter when it comes to these issues, which is why we don't lock down or mandate masks every year for the flu and other diseases.
If the numbers matter then it is a shame that the media didn't do a better job of informing people. It seems that the headlines were focused on worst case scenarios, anecdotes, and controversy at the expense of probabilities, perspective, and measurements.
Personally I wish that we could have given N95 masks, which effectively protect the wearer, to everyone who felt vulnerable and was unable to isolate.
I usually see Canada being described the other way around, and to be honest if someone asked me for the most free countries Canada would not be the first in my list.
Ah, the same mindset that caused Justin Trudeau to say
>There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada ... the first postnational state.
in a New York Times interview (<https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/magazine/trudeaus-canada-...>). If he hadn't been explicitly quoted, his supporters would say that attributing such words to Trudeau is actually an alt-right white-nationalist Trumptard conspiracy theory to make him look bad.
and
> I can work remotely and we have an income sufficient to rely on instacart and delivery for food.
Quite obviously only a minority of the population shares your personal situation. And yet you are calling for global lockdowns, which would include lesser developed countries where a vanishingly small percentage of the population is in this situation.
I shouldn't even be having to point this out. It's been a continuous theme that office-workers and IT workers have been self-indulgently calling for economies to lockdown because "Hey, why not just work from home?". And people have made the response I have above many times, which kills this dumb argument. So why is it still being made?
This line of thinking is short sighted. It stops right at "See, this works for me, everyone should do this" and never carries the thought through to its conclusion. Mainly, how will these enforced measures affect everyone involved (and you) now, and in the long term, contexts being taken into account.
Frankly, as Canadians, we are thought of as respectful and considerate of other people. This thinking is the opposite and it's abhorrent.
Aside from all the other self righteous defenses of authoritarian measures due to your personal, in my view health paranoid views on COVID, this section above was particularly self indulgent. Who delivers your food? Your lockdown notions don't apply to them because, "oh, but I need to have my meals"?
Also, very basic thing: a vanishingly small percentage of the world's population can afford to totally lock down at home for more than a few days. They literally need to be on the streets and among crowds nearly every single day just to barely scrape by. I live in a developing country and few things about privileged, middle class WFH-capable people's lockdown arguments gall more than this absurd accidental or willful ignorance of how 80% of the planet lives.
Finally, most of Canada's population is vaccinated. Those that aren't had every opportunity to be and simply chose not to. What credible reason is there for any continuing lockdown nonsense given this? Simple reflex? Emotional paranoia? Please explain.
Why is it only recently you have noticed?