Doug Ford extended the emergency orders until June 9th
and I ask, for what purpose?
We were told these measures were to flatten the curve so our
healthcare system was not overwhelmed.
If you accept that justification then please review the current
hospitalization statistics. We have
33,000 ward beds in Ontario; right now 850 people are hospitalized with
Covid19. We have 2000+ ICU spaces, right
now 134 spaces are being used for those with Covid19. My neighbors are both nurses, they have told
me that the Hospitals have been ghost towns, though now finally some regular
things are starting to pick up again.
If the justification was flatten the curve - to what
level? Below the capacity of our
hospitals. It’s been done. What is the purpose at this point?
They tell us to prepare for a second wave. There was never a first wave. The projected ‘bad-case’ scenarios were so
far off it amazing. Examples: Hamilton maximum 19 of 450 extra Covid beds
were ever used. Burlington Joseph Brant Hospital: rushed to
erect a 93 bed Covid19 unit for the uprush in patients, none were used yet to
my knowledge.
I have posted statistics twice in the past on here relating
to age category cases and deaths. 97% of
deaths are amongst those over age 60.
The last time I checked zero deaths had occurred under age 20, your
chances of fatality if you are age 20-39 is 0.3% (worst case), if you are age
40-59 is 1% (worst case).
I say worst case because these numbers are based on cases
revealed by testing. Not everyone with
Covid19 is tested, only those with the worst symptoms who are bad enough to go
to the hospital. There are many more
cases present in the community than have been revealed by testing.
For example, Spain completed anti-body testing amongst
60,000 of their residents. This antibody
study revealed that only 9.2% of cases had been revealed by testing. Basically this means that you can adjust the
death statistics downwards by a factor of 10, so 0.3% becomes 0.03%. 1% = 0.1%.
This coincides with studies in other jurisdictions which indicated that
the number of actual cases could be up to 20x more than those revealed by
testing. In fact CDC has now reported
that the estimated Case Fatality Rate amongst all age categories is 0.26% or 1
in 385. This is very low. The yearly flu rate is about 0.15%.
Why would we shut down the entire economy, lock people at
home and put them out of work for something that is of negligible risk to the
vast majority of the population? 65 is
the age of retirement in Ontario. I would
hazard a guess that well over 90% of people over age 65 do not have to go to
work to earn an income day by day. It is
much easier for them to stay put. Those
aged 20-60 though is another story; most of us do need the opportunity to earn
an income. All ages are important and
all people are important, but it is a fact that some can stay at home and protect
themselves easier than others. I will
gladly serve our elders and bring them groceries etc. if it means that my friends can all go back to work.
Where has the danger really been? Long-term-care (LTC) facilities. What a travesty. 83% of Canadian deaths have been amongst residents
of LTC facilities, in Ontario that is some 1789 deaths of 2155 total. Let that sink in. Only 366 deaths amongst 14,730,000 people of
Ontario not in LTC. 1789 deaths among
the +/- 70,000 residents of long-term care facilities.
Some stats on LTC residents: 90% have some form of cognitive
impairment, 86% need extensive help with activities such as eating and going to
the washroom, 80% have neurological diseases, 76% have heart/circulation
disease, 40% need monitoring for acute medical conditions, 50% of residents are
over age 85. The average time spent by a
resident in a long-term care facility before death is 2 years – this is the
last stop before heaven. I am not saying
their deaths are any less of a tragedy, but these people are already ‘locked
down’ – and it doesn’t help them. People
have brought the virus to them anyways.
Imagine being locked down in your home, but people kept coming and going
all day long and you could do nothing about it.
It was known that these were the people at risk, so
ignorance is no excuse. We had ample
data from Italy showing that the deaths were amongst those age 80+ and mostly
in LTC. Ontario’s own statistics on
case-fatality-ratios (CFR) from the slides presented April 2, 2020 showed that
only 7 of 67 deaths at that time had been among those less than age 60, while
36 were above 80, with a CFR of 16%. So
why were the elderly not protected? They
should have been testing everyone who went in and out from day one.
Quarantine the sick. But
once the virus is out – we are all assumed sick, so there is no point in a
lockdown. Places where the vulnerable
are located such as LTC facilities can be protected through restricted access
and testing.
Once the virus is in the population it is impossible to stop
it spreading. It is debatable whether
the lockdowns can even slow the spread.
Perhaps to a small degree at best.
It has been documented though that within the United States there is no
correlation between the degree of lockdown measures and the spread of the
virus. If anything, the states with stronger
isolation measures were hit harder. In
any case, the spread in Ontario has been slowed sufficiently that hospitals are
not at risk of turning anyone away. It
is well past time for the lockdown to be ended.
