The Wall Street Journal recently published an article by John Tierney (see Fauci and Walensky Double Down on Failed Covid Response, August 18, 2022) on the failed response to COVID-19 in the United States and in most western democracies.
The article was totally in keeping with what many have been saying for the past 2 1/2 years. That the response to COVID-19 was unprecedented, not in keeping with all the hard documented lessons learned from previous pandemics. In addition, it was both dangerous and deadly.
“Lockdown” is a new word in the language of pandemic response. It was invented after the Chinese response in Wuhan at the start of the pandemic and it became the norm for the world. Media and Medical Officers of Health became transfixed with this brutal, authoritarian government response.
Lockdowns are, in fact, the use of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs), sometimes called Non-Pharmaceutical Measures. There are fifteen NPIs which have been studied and documented with the latest complete summary in a WHO document dated September 2019, three months before the SARS CoV-2 virus was announced.
The fifteen NPIs are:
- Hand hygiene
- Respiratory etiquette
- Isolation of sick individuals
- Other environmental measures
- Surface and object cleaning
- Face masks
- Avoiding crowds
- Travel advice
- Contact tracing
- Quarantine of exposed individuals
- Workplace closures
- School closures
- Entry and exit screening
- Internal travel restrictions
- Border closures
Many research studies have shown that only the first three have some affect in helping to diminish the transmission of viruses like the SARS CoV-2.
Again, decades of peer reviewed studies have shown that contact tracing, quarantine of exposed individuals, closure of workplaces and schools, internal travel restrictions, and border closures had almost no effect. That is why in the pre-2020 provincial and federal pandemic plans, these NPIs were discounted. Nevertheless, in the COVIC pandemic, they were enforced.
Other actions are potentially useful. The wearing of face masks is effective in hospital settings, when the right type of mask, made of the correct material, is worn for limited times to exacting standards. In all other cases masks were found to be of little effect in limiting the transmission of the COVID virus. That is why Dr. Anders Tegnell who led the pandemic response team in Sweden, strongly and repeatedly recommended against using masks by the general public.
The use of some NPIs comes with dangerous and deadly collateral effects. The worst is the closure of schools which effectively crushed the education and social development of children – which will affect them throughout their lives. The use of some NPIs will affect Canadians for a generation. As stated by Professor Douglas Allen, of Simon Fraser University, “It is possible that lockdowns will go down as one of the greatest peacetime policy failures in Canada’s history.”
In Canada, devastating effects have been documented in a number of areas:
- Individual mental health;
- Societal health;
- Our children’s socialization and education;
- Severe health effects for people with diabetes, heart diseases, cancer, and dementia;
- Economic debt which has damaged both individuals and governments viability;
- Industry and businesses have been damaged; and
- The confidence Canadians have in our democracies, the rule of law, and individual rights and freedoms.
What is not discussed in detail in the Tierney article is that many experts have been trying, at least since March 2020, to have government and medical officials recognize that their response was dangerous and deadly. These contrary-minded experts have been ignored and censored by our governmental officials, the Medical Officers of Health (MOH), and by the media.
And yet the evidence, wave after wave, was obvious. Countries like Sweden and various states in the USA (like Florida) have managed the COVID-19 pandemic better than others that implemented severe “lockdowns.” In addition, these same “non-lockdown” jurisdictions have not suffered the massive collateral damage experienced in “lockdown” jurisdictions.
One must note that with the Mass Formation belief (a form of crowd madness) in “lockdowns” that has been inflicted on the public by our government, the damage will continue until the NPI-based response is reversed.
A government in a democracy is almost powerless in enforcing rules if the people do not have the will to follow those orders. If draconian Public Health Orders are implemented again, the public must not comply with them. The public, by their actions, must just say “no!” It starts by simply not wearing masks. Parents must send children to school, owners must not close their business, insane social distancing rules must be ignored.
As citizens of a democracy, we must never follow these insane policies again. And Canadians need to hold their elected officials accountable for their deadly, criminally negligent response to the COVID pandemic.
As stated by John Tierney: “It was bad enough that Dr. Fauci, the CDC and the WHO ignored the best scientific advice at the start of this pandemic. It’s sociopathic for them to promote a worse catastrophe for future outbreaks.”
David Redman had a distinguished military career before becoming the head of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency in 2004 and led the provincial response to the devastating floods of June 2005. He also led the team in the development of the 2005 Provincial Pandemic Influenza Plan. He retired in 2013. For more on this topic see https://fcpp.org/authors/david-redman/