Free To Fly

[A330PilotCanada]

Good Evening All:

Some humour.....

[Don Hudson]

 

Two vastly different responses to the current pandemic:

- First, BC, showing our vaccine passport, (just like the one we were issued when an applicant had to prove s/he had been vaccinated for small pox, tetanus and so on, before say, going to school, joining the airline, travelling to a foreign country known for cholera or yellow fever, etc.

- Second, the Great State of Idaho, just south of Alberta, where they are discussing the need for "Death Panels" and where the concept of "triage" takes on a whole new "life-or-death" meaning:

British Columbia

 

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/vaccinecard.html

Last updated: September 13, 2021

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Everything you need to know

• Get the BC Vaccine Card
• Places your vaccine card is required for entry
• Vaccination key dates
• Privacy and your vaccine card
• I need help

Personalized information for:

• Families and caregivers
• Students and youth
• Canadian Armed Forces
• People who don't have B.C. ID
• Businesses and organizations

---

Get the BC Vaccine Card

You can save the digital version to your phone or tablet or print a paper copy to carry in your wallet. Both options are accepted everywhere. 

Step 1: Log-in securely

To log-in securely, you need to provide your:

• Date of birth 
• Personal Health Number (PHN)
• Date you got dose 1 or dose 2

If you already have a Health Gateway account, log-in with your BC Services Card App. 

 

Step 2: Save or print

After you've securely logged in, you have 2 options:

• Save a digital copy to your phone or tablet. We recommend taking a screenshot, then saving to your photo album or downloads folder
• Take a screenshot and then print it out. Don't fold or crease the QR code portion of the card

You can save or print a card for yourself or someone else, like a youth or parent.

Step 3: Show your card

Have your card ready when entering a business.

They'll look at your vaccine card and also check your government ID. 

Enjoy events, businesses and services in B.C.

Feel safe knowing that everyone around you is vaccinated. 

 

I don't have access to a smartphone, computer and printer

---

Places your vaccine card is required for entry

This content is a summary of the PHO order — Food and Liquor Serving Premises (PDF, 402KB) and PHO order — Gatherings and Events (PDF, 417KB) documents. It is not legal advice and does not provide an interpretation of the law. In the event of any conflict or difference between this webpage and the order, the order is correct and legal and must be followed. 

By order of the Provincial Health Officer (PHO), proof of vaccination is required to access some events, services and businesses. You must have at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. By October 24, you must be fully vaccinated. The requirement is in place until January 31, 2022 and could be extended. 

The requirement applies to all people born in 2009 or earlier (12+) and covers:

• Indoor ticketed sporting events with more than 50 people
• Indoor concerts, theatre, dance and symphony events with more than 50 people
• Licensed restaurants and cafes and restaurants and cafes that offer table service (indoor and patio dining), including liquor tasting rooms in wineries, breweries or distilleries
• Pubs, bars and lounges (indoor and patio dining)
• Nightclubs, casinos and movie theatres
• Gyms, exercise/dance facilities/studios and these activities happening in recreation facilities

• Businesses offering indoor exercise/fitness
• Indoor adult group and team sports for people 22 years old or older
• Indoor organized events with 50 or more people.
  • For example: wedding and funeral receptions (outside of a funeral home), organized parties, conferences, trade fairs and workshops
• Indoor organized group recreational classes and activities with more than 50 people like pottery, art and choir
• Post-secondary student housing
• Spectators at indoor youth sporting events with more than 50 people

Note: Proof of vaccination is not required to vote in-person in the September 20 federal election or at advance polling places. 

Examples of places that don't require proof of vaccination

You don't have to show proof of vaccination at places like:

• Grocery stores, liquor stores and pharmacies
• Unlicensed restaurants that don't offer table service
  • For example: fast food, coffee shops, food courts, food trucks and takeout
• Tasting rooms without seating attached to wineries, breweries or distilleries
• Local public transportation (BC Transit, TransLink, BC Ferries)
• Salons, hairdressers and barbers
• Hotels, resorts, cabins and campsites
  • Unless it is a setting or event covered by the PHO order. For example a licensed hotel restaurant, wedding reception or conference
  • Does not include exercise/fitness facilities in hotels that are for guests
• Swimming pools (unless it’s the location of an event) and skating rinks (unless being used for adult sport)

• Banks and credit unions
• Retail and clothing stores
• Public libraries, museums, art galleries (unless they are the location of an event)
• Food banks and shelters
• Escape rooms, laser tag, indoor paint ball, arcades and bowling alleys (if they are unlicensed or don't offer food-related table service)
• Post-secondary on-campus cafeterias
• Airport food courts and restaurants
• Health care services, rehabilitation or exercise therapy programs, and drug and alcohol support group meetings
• Social services provided to people in need

 You don't have to show proof of vaccination at events like:

• Worship services
• Indoor youth recreational sport for people 21 years old or younger
• Before and after school programs for K to 12 students
• Student events and activities in K to 12 public and independent schools
• Indoor organized events with less than 50 people, except adult sports

---

Vaccination key dates

September 13: Partially vaccinated

You must now be partially vaccinated to access some events, services and businesses.

You're partially vaccinated with 1 dose. 

October 24: Fully vaccinated

By October 24, you must be fully vaccinated to access some events, services and businesses.

You're fully vaccinated with 2 doses. 

I'm not vaccinated yet

You won't be able to access some events, services and businesses.

• I need to get vaccinated

---

Privacy and your vaccine card

Every BC Vaccine Card has a unique QR code

Every BC Vaccine Card comes with a unique QR code. B.C. is using the SMART Health Card QR code format, a requirement of the federal government. This means the QR code only stores the absolute minimum level of information and is not connected to other health records.

What information is included in your QR code

The QR code contains your:

• First and last name
• Date of birth
• Dates of vaccination
• Type of vaccine
• The lot numbers of the doses you received
• The clinic location where you received your doses

Why this information is included

The information in your QR code will be required as borders around the world reopen to fully vaccinated travellers. Having it in your QR code ensures the long-term validity of your BC Vaccine Card.

In B.C., businesses are required to use the BC Vaccine Card Verifier app to scan the QR code. This app can only read:

• your name
• whether you are fully or partially vaccinated

Businesses are not allowed to keep a copy of any proof without your consent.

Don't share your QR code on social media. This is a personal document. Keeping your BC Vaccine Card secure is key to keeping your information under your control.

Partially vaccinated

Fully vaccinated

No record found

Checking ID

Events, businesses and services will ask to see your BC Vaccine Card and a piece of valid government photo ID, for example:

• B.C. driver's licence or BC Services Card
• Passport
• Photo ID issued by another province or territory

Vaccine card transition period to September 26

To give everyone time to get their BC Vaccine Card, up to and including September 26, you can show other forms of proof of vaccination:

• Wallet-sized immunization record card (given out at vaccine clinics)
• Printed immunization record from Health Gateway
• Immunization record from your pharmacy (AstraZeneca/SII COVISHIELD)
• National Defence Canada COVID-19 vaccine record or card
• Provincial Immunization Registry record (used by Interior Health and others)
• ImmunizeBC record (used by First Nations Health Authority and others)
• Health authority immunization records:
  • Fraser Health
  • Vancouver Coastal Health
  • Northern Health

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Families and caregivers

You can share copies of your vaccine card with your family and loved ones. We recommend emailing copies to family members or printing multiple copies. 

Parents should carry a copy of their child's vaccine card with them. You are allowed to have multiple copies. 

---

Students and youth

Post-secondary students

Proof of vaccination is also required for some on-campus housing.

Out-of-province students

You can use your provincial/territorial or international proof of vaccination. 

We recommend you get a BC Vaccine Card. To get a card, you have to get your immunization record added to the provincial system. Submit your information as soon as you arrive in B.C.

Youth aged 12 to 18

Youth aged 12 to 18 can carry their own BC Vaccine Card, or have a trusted adult carry it for them. 

Youth are not required to show valid government photo ID.

---

Canadian Armed Forces

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces don't need to get a BC Vaccine Card.

You can use your National Defence Canada COVID-19 vaccine record or card and your National Defence ID card. 

---

People who don't have B.C. ID

People who don't have a B.C. ID are also required to show proof of vaccination. You might not have B.C. identification if:

• You're visiting from another place
• You just moved here

People from other provinces or territories

People from other Canadian provinces or territories must show:

• Provincially/territorially officially recognized vaccine record
• Valid government photo ID

International visitors

International visitors must show:

• Proof of vaccination they used to enter Canada
• Passport

 

 

-----The second story:

The Great State of Idaho, U.S.A., where healthcare measures including personal hygiene habits are either banned outright or shamed-and-shunned by anti-vax/anti-mask adherents as one might experience in a religious community, for example, and which brings to fever-pitch, the "clash of rights" now experienced on both sides of the vaccination issue.

 

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/sophies-choice-over-and-over-death-panels-are-the-new-phase-of-the-pandemic/  (my bolding, where seen in the article

‘Sophie’s choice, over and over’: Death panels are the new phase of the pandemic

 

Sep. 11, 2021 at 6:00 am Updated Sep. 11, 2021 at 3:26 pm

(Photo) Registered nurse Jack Kingsley attends to a COVID-19 patient at St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center in Idaho on Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021. St. Luke’s Health System has paused... (Kyle Green / The Associated Press)

By Danny Westneat

Seattle Times columnist

Remember “death panels”? Well, they’re back, and this time, they’re real.

“Death panels” was a phrase coined by Sarah Palin, the folksy-talkin’ former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate. She imagined that Obamacare would cause health bureaucrats to ration out medical care, after first sitting in judgment of who was most deserving to receive it.

This was awarded the “Lie of the Year” in 2009, as it was nowhere in any legislation. It was a right-wing fever dream.

But now a version of it has come true — in Idaho. Hospitals in northern Idaho are so flooded with COVID-19 patients that the state has declared an emergency, called “crisis standards of care.” It means when you show up to the emergency room, you may get treated based preferentially on who is most likely to live.

“If your mother has a heart attack, someone will have to assign her a point score designating how likely she is to survive,” the Idaho Falls Post Register wrote, describing the scheme last winter when it was first being contemplated. “If it isn’t high enough, she might not get an ICU bed, and a COVID patient will get it instead.

“We will ask the nurses and doctors who’ve broken their backs trying to save us to make that Sophie’s choice over, and over, and over.”

This past week the 200-bed hospital in Coeur d’Alene had 218 patients — so many it was treating patients in hallways and running out of oxygen to help them breathe, The Associated Press reported.

“What about the people who need emergency care but, because of the exploding COVID crisis here, can’t get it?” asked the Coeur d’Alene Press. “Do we just let them die?”

The answer to that is: “Yes.” Letting them die is actually the plan. The GOP governor of Idaho said it was “an unprecedented and unwanted point in the history of our state.” But he made no moves to try anything else, such as requiring vaccinations for anyone (he earlier had banned the governmental use of “vaccine passports” in the state). It’s a red state, and so for the most part they’re letting the virus rip and run.

Remember years ago when a tea party debate audience cheered the idea of letting someone without insurance die? What’s happening in Idaho is even worse because it’s so preventable.

Doctors in Idaho have said their COVID-19 patients are almost all unvaccinated. “We don’t have any vaccinated patients here,” an ICU doc in Boise told The Associated Press. “Misinformation is hurting people and killing people.”

Idaho ranks last in the percentage of its population having at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, at only 45%. The U.S. is about 63%; Washington state 69%.

But Idaho is not the only place where the “death panel” concept is creeping into the conversation. The main hospital in Yakima is seeing a record number of COVID-19 patients, almost all unvaccinated. They’re raising the specter of rationing care there, too — something the chief medical officer said has never happened at the hospital.

“I sure hope we don’t get there, but that’s where we’re heading,” he warned in The Yakima Herald-Republic on Wednesday.

When I wrote last week about a COVID-19 skeptic and anti-vaxxer who had died of the disease, asking whether society should care, I heard from a slew of readers furious because their own medical care is being delayed or cut off — a diffuse version of the triage going on in Idaho.

“Am I angry? You bet I am,” wrote Mike Morrissey, of Snohomish, who says his cardiac surgery has been put off indefinitely due to a flood of COVID-19 patients. “My heart is failing without intervention. I can’t walk a block without stopping. But their choice [to not get vaccinated] just negated my urgent need.”

Echoed a nurse at a regional hospital: “They’re dying of stupidity by choice, but at the same time taking up space in the hospital and displacing stroke, cancer and cardiac patients.”

“Do I care what happens to those who won’t take a simple step to end this nightmare?” asked reader Jon Kraus, who said his brother-in-law had a surgery to fix a painful back condition put on hold due to COVID-19 levels. “I’m tired of catering to people who don’t care about anyone but themselves.”

This is why Gov. Jay Inslee and President Joe Biden suddenly feel more comfortable mandating the vaccine for groups of workers and businesses. Yes, the right-wing flank of the GOP will sue, march around in tri-corner hats and scream at their local school boards. But people are done. The vaccinated — the majority in most states — have had enough.

Now, as the workplace vax wars rev up, the best point to keep in mind is offered up by reader Michael Andreoni:

“Who I DO feel sorry for are the medical personnel who have to deal with this mess,” he wrote.

It’s the story of our time, how a pandemic that was visited upon us, through no fault of our own, ended up morphing into such a self-inflicted wound for America.

It didn’t take a tyrant or a deep state or a committee of banal bureaucrats to bring death panels to life, as Sarah Palin imagined in her fever dream. We willingly did it to ourselves.

 

Danny Westneat: dwestneat@seattletimes.com; Danny Westneat takes an opinionated look at the Puget Sound region's news, people and politics.

 

Disclosing my bias: Like some others here who have family in the healthcare system, we have a daughter who is an Emerg Nurse in a local hospital. They have three young children, (6 & under);  her husband is a firefighter. Both of them see the severe results described here and elsewhere of the choice to not vaccinate. Both see a system under strain.

Many are leaving the healthcare profession due to burnout in the ICU.

People with other health issues are having critical surgeries foreshortened or cancelled.

We are appealing to you: Please reconsider your choice not to vaccinate as the decision has a material, extremely deleterious effect on many others.

 

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Don Hudson

[J.O.]

Every conspiracy theorist who contributed to this mess should face charges of criminal negligence causing death.

[Don Hudson]

Hi J.O.

There is a moral failing in such a charge [in a mere charge of negligence], I think - it is much deeper, not apprehendable by normal legal/quasi-legal or even philosophical means, (or if one reaches it, it is essentially meaningless to do advance for one must weep first, by no means for the first time...). One cannot be charged for an absence of humanity and empathy with the present human condition for lack of anything better to describe it. There is no "moral high ground here", nor is there its opposing "low" ground, but only an absence of awareness of "the other" - it is as though we were all an "it" because that is the way "the enemy" must be believed to be before dismissing it in favour of one's own. One can't castigate, blame, target or empty one's feelings towards such pedantry that forms such incapacitious thought; it just "is". But it is having an effect on our chances here, and elsewhere, for thriving and emerging.

With response and outcomes varying across the country and some here attuned to our southern neighbour hardened against science-based human health initiatives with known benefits of preventing one's death, what defence is mustered by a continued anti-vax stance? According to the CDC latest, the unvaccinated are 4.5 times more likely to contract COVID-19, 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die. These are moms and dads, (leaving children with one/no parent...), husbands, wives & grandparents, not "faceless" humans.

I concur with mandates because all of us are more important than any one of us. Yes, in the end it is still a choice but it IS a choice with requirements which are just the same as those that accompanied previous highly-communicable diseases that killed like AIDS. You had to be honest.

If one is unvaccinated, one must care for others as best as one can by distancing, masking and staying away from large, unmasked groups.

Republican Jordan for one of many proselytizers, who is characterizing vaccination as "un-American". Really? So, how many deaths will come from Rep. Jordan's statement? How to count, how does one & one's loved ones defend themselves?

But for the sore arm for a few days, it is as simple as washing one's hands. I understand the exceptions.

 

Quote

Jim Jordan says vaccine mandates are un-American. George Washington thought otherwise.
(Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/09/07/jim-jordan-vaccine-unamerican-washington/

By Timothy Bella
September 7, 2021 at 3:18 p.m. EDT

At a time when the delta variant’s summer surge has renewed the nation’s divisions over coronavirus vaccines, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Monday said mandates enforcing vaccination do not reflect what it means to be American.

“Vaccine mandates are un-American,” Jordan tweeted.

But critics panned Jordan’s Labor Day message as being off — way off — by nearly 2½ centuries. George Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, made the bold decision in 1777 to require that his troops be immunized after a smallpox outbreak devastated the nation.

The act would be repeated by presidents and military leaders throughout U.S. history — including last month by the Defense Department — and a 1905 decision by the Supreme Court upheld mandatory vaccinations as American.

“Congressman Jordan is just wrong. There’s more than enough history to show we have a precedent for requiring vaccines that goes all the way to George Washington,” Julian E. Zelizer, a political historian at Princeton University, told The Washington Post. “This claim that it’s somehow un-American doesn’t match with the actual historical record. I don’t think there’s much of an argument here.”

A spokesman with Jordan’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Jordan’s dismissal of vaccine mandates as un-American comes as the summer surge in coronavirus cases, driven largely by the highly transmissible delta variant, has generated a sharp rise in public fears and intensified the ongoing partisan debate surrounding vaccinations and mask-wearing.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that although the increasing number of employer mandates may boost vaccinations, the potential for blowback remains high. About 7 in 10 unvaccinated workers who are not self-employed say they would probably quit if their employer required them to be vaccinated and did not grant medical or religious exemptions.

Fewer than 2 in 10 American workers say their employers require those who come to work in person to be vaccinated. Among workers whose employers have not imposed a requirement, about 3 in 10 are unvaccinated. Although roughly 8 in 10 Democrats support vaccine mandates for workers, more than 6 in 10 Republicans remain opposed, polling data shows.

As coronavirus fears spike, Biden’s ratings sag and workers split on vaccine mandates, Post-ABC poll finds

Jordan’s home state of Ohio is recording a seven-day average of 6,022 new daily coronavirus cases, according to data compiled by The Post. Nearly 3,300 people in the state are hospitalized with covid-19, as hospitalizations have increased by 16 percent since last week. Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the Ohio Department of Health, said in a news briefing last week that roughly 98 percent of those hospitalized with covid were unvaccinated, describing the situation in the state as a “hospital pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

Even though less than 49 percent of the state is fully vaccinated, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has reiterated that Ohio will not have a vaccine mandate. Speaking at a news conference in August, DeWine said vaccination is “an individual decision that people will have to make, and government should not be involved in mandating it.”

Yet there is a long history of mandatory immunizations supported by American leaders. Benjamin Franklin supported inoculation against smallpox constantly in his Philadelphia newspaper. In his autobiography published posthumously, Franklin said he had “long regretted bitterly, and still regret” that he had chosen to wait to inoculate his 4-year-old son, Franky, who died of smallpox. John Adams and Martha Washington were also immunized against smallpox.

Ben Franklin’s bitter regret that he didn’t immunize his 4-year-old son against smallpox

After seeing how the disease had ravaged American forces, George Washington instructed an army doctor in Philadelphia to begin administering “inoculation” — a controversial method of immunization in the 1700s in which patients developed mild cases of smallpox before becoming immune — to the soldiers.

“I have determined that the troops shall be inoculated,” Washington wrote in February 1777. “Necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure, for should the disorder infect the Army in the natural way and rage with its usual virulence we should have more to dread from it than from the Sword of the Enemy.”

Mandatory immunization for the military: As American as George Washington

The smallpox epidemic killed more than 100,000 people between 1775 and 1782. While the measure was not popular among soldiers, there is no evidence of mass refusal against immunization, according to the Library of Congress. The much safer vaccination method using cowpox — the word vaccine derives from the Latin word for “cow” — would not be developed until 1796.

The issue of mandatory vaccinations in the United States made its way to the Supreme Court in the early 1900s, when a smallpox vaccination law in Cambridge, Mass., was challenged by a man who refused to comply. Massachusetts had led the nation in passing vaccine law, but Henning Jacobson, a pastor, said his refusal to be vaccinated against smallpox was a personal decision.

In a February 1905 decision, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 that public health could supersede individual rights. “[T]he liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly free from restraint,” Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote for the majority. “There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good.”

Smallpox ‘virus squads’ and the mandatory vaccinations upheld by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court recently declined to take up a case challenging a vaccine mandate at Indiana University. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who received the request because she is the Supreme Court justice tasked with reviewing emergency petitions from that region of the country, did not give a reason for the high court’s declining to block the mandate.

But the “partisan resistance to public health” that Jordan and many Republican leaders are raising amid the latest surge in cases is something the nation has not previously encountered to this degree, Zelizer said.

“What we haven’t had is almost a party position that just flies in the face of public health experts who are not only saying this about the importance of the vaccine but also demonstrating it in the data,” he told The Post. “And these are big platforms [on which] Jordan and Republicans are expressing these views. That’s quite a combination, and it’s why it’s been such a difficult challenge.”

In response to Jordan’s tweet, critics and liberals on social media noted George Washington’s efforts, and the first president’s name trended on Twitter well into Tuesday. Some, like MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin, said Jordan “either doesn’t know his American history or is lying to score political points.”

“There is nothing anti-American about a vaccine mandate,” tweeted Robert Reich, former secretary of the Labor Department during Bill Clinton’s administration.

As The Post’s Philip Bump wrote in his analysis, Jordan’s “broadly espousing the idea that mandated vaccinations are incompatible with the idea that America is predicated on individual freedom” gets a little gauzy when the country’s history of vaccinations is explored.

Zelizer said that although Jordan’s tweet might suggest individual liberty to be the only tradition in the United States, the public good, the foundation of public health policy, remains “just as strong of a tradition in this country and has been recognized in the courts again and again.”

“We need to make sure that tradition is important,” he said. “Certainly, there’s a scenario where this resistance is stronger than what it should be for what is a rational decision. But that thirst for normality could at least make a dent in the Republican argument that Jordan and others are still holding onto.”

Gillian Brockell contributed to this report.

 

 

Edited September 14, 2021 by Don Hudson

[deicer]

Good Morning Don!

You should know better than to let facts get in the way of a good argument 

 

[deicer]

While it is a 'humourous' meme, it makes a good point.

 

[Bobcaygeon]

I can't believe I'm saying this but Manitoba was waaaaaayyy ahead of the rest of the country when it came to vaccination passports. I received mine on June 8th. 

 

Since then I've has no one kick in my door or tail me. I have had my personal email hacked but that's happened before my vaccinations too. Keep on removing privileges from those that choose not to get vaccinated and adding perks to those that have is fine by me.

[doubledouble]

3 hours ago, Bobcaygeon said:

I can't believe I'm saying this but Manitoba was waaaaaayyy ahead of the rest of the country when it came to vaccination passports. I received mine on June 8th. 

 

Since then I've has no one kick in my door or tail me. I have had my personal email hacked but that's happened before my vaccinations too. Keep on removing privileges from those that choose not to get vaccinated and adding perks to those that have is fine by me.

This may be the stupidest thing I've ever seen on the internet and that's coming from a guy who uses Facebook!

Are you insane?  I want more government control.  I want more tracking.  I want more restrictions on my freedoms.  I, for one, welcome my new overlords.  That's ok, friend, in a few years you'll know the truth.  It will be too late but you'll know it.  Maybe after your 4th or 5th booster shot, maybe after your immune system is so f'd that you're a basket case.  You'll find your "added perks" and freedoms disappear after 6 months unless you get the booster - better line up.

[Vsplat]

Hmmm.  Maybe time to give decaf a try.

Vs

[A330PilotCanada]

3 hours ago, doubledouble said:

This may be the stupidest thing I've ever seen on the internet and that's coming from a guy who uses Facebook!

Are you insane?  I want more government control.  I want more tracking.  I want more restrictions on my freedoms.  I, for one, welcome my new overlords.  That's ok, friend, in a few years you'll know the truth.  It will be too late but you'll know it.  Maybe after your 4th or 5th booster shot, maybe after your immune system is so f'd that you're a basket case.  You'll find your "added perks" and freedoms disappear after 6 months unless you get the booster - better line up.

Good Evening Doubledouble:

With what has gone on so far what is your recommendation for dealing with the COVID-19 Pandemic which has hit the world just as hard as the Influenza pandemic post WW1. Are you in favour of letting it burn through society to achieve herd immunity? Yes there have been break through events of those who have been vaccinated but they do not need to go to hospital and the results are not as severe as those who are not vaccinated ie death. In Mississippi a couple of days ago a news report about a 64 year old heart attack victim could not find a ICU bed in state or out of state who eventually died. Looking forward to you reply on how one manages this and makes sure the population survives this

[Guest1]

I am not the author but I wish I was.  

[conehead]

5 hours ago, doubledouble said:

This may be the stupidest thing I've ever seen on the internet and that's coming from a guy who uses Facebook!

Are you insane?  I want more government control.  I want more tracking.  I want more restrictions on my freedoms.  I, for one, welcome my new overlords.  That's ok, friend, in a few years you'll know the truth.  It will be too late but you'll know it.  Maybe after your 4th or 5th booster shot, maybe after your immune system is so f'd that you're a basket case.  You'll find your "added perks" and freedoms disappear after 6 months unless you get the booster - better line up.

Shouldn't you be protesting at a hospital somewhere?

[UpperDeck]

Far too intense. John's expression of opinion or Harry's is of interest and keeps me occupied but otherwise is irrelevant.

So...just to excite those brain cells or to provoke contrarian thought....let me ask this:

In nature, culling of the herd by disease or vulnerability to predators is considered desirable. The survivors are more disease-resistant and stronger. When "we" undertake species protection, culling by permit becomes necessary to control the population because it is generally accepted that controlling population is to the ultimate benefit of the herd.

Leaving aside an omniscient being...."God"....is it beyond possibility that the human population requires control and that lethal diseases etc are essential to the ultimate survival of mankind?

Are we "toying" with a grand design? Bear in  mind that GENERALLY, Covid has been a contributing cause of death to individuals who were pre-disposed; had compromised immune systems or co-morbidities such as obesity-related vulnerabilities including diabetes.

Of course, from a religious perspective, God gave us the will and ability to develop defenses so.....

Okay, okay...in vino veritas...but I remember the "joke" when Aids became known; God said I gave you herpes but you wouldn't listen. Now I give you AIDS.

[FA@AC]

16 minutes ago, UpperDeck said:

Leaving aside an omniscient being...."God"....is it beyond possibility that the human population requires control and that lethal diseases etc are essential to the ultimate survival of mankind?

Are we "toying" with a grand design?

Covid is mostly avoidable with precautions, and severe Covid is usually avoidable thanks to vaccines.

I'm sure that you don't advocate leaving most cases of cancer or heart disease untreated and that you don't discourage adopting lifestyles that make them less likely to occur in the first place, so I don't understand your point.

[deicer]

When one talks about the statistics of the covid pandemic, this shows that as much as some tout the hazards of vaccination, the reality of catching the disease are far worse.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/15/health/us-coronavirus-wednesday/index.html

1 in 500 US residents has died of Covid-19

As of Tuesday night, 663,913 people in the US have died of Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University data. According to the US Census Bureau, the US population as of April 2020 was 331.4 million.

[deicer]

Even if you get sick, then recover, a big number of people suffer 'long covid'.  Do you want to risk it?

The first link is the actual Science Table report, the second a news summary of it.

https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/sciencebrief/understanding-the-post-covid-19-condition-long-covid-and-the-expected-burden-for-ontario/

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/this-is-going-to-have-widespread-effects-more-than-57k-ontarians-experience-a-post-covid-19-condition-1.5584776

'This is going to have widespread effects:' More than 57K Ontarians experience a post-COVID-19 condition

TORONTO -- A newly released report by Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table has found that at least 57,000 to 78,000 people in the province had, or are currently experiencing, one of 200 post-COVID-19 conditions following their initial diagnosis.

The 18-page brief finds that while the majority of people with COVID-19 will fully recover, it may take others weeks or even months to return to their pre-illness health level.

“It can affect anybody who is infected,” Fahad Razak, internal medicine physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and a member of the COVID-19 Science advisory table, told CTV News Toronto.

“And unlike the infection itself, where we clearly saw that it was more severe and we were worried most about older individuals or individuals who had a lot of health conditions, the post-COVID condition, or long COVID can affect anybody.”

The science table identified more than 200 different symptoms impacting 10 body organs that can be associated with the post-COVID condition.

A post-COVID-19 condition, or long COVID-19, generally occurs when an individual experiences symptoms or related health conditions that persist beyond the initial infection.

The table says the most prevalent symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, general pain or discomfort, anxiety and depression.

In more serious cases, the report says that individuals may have impaired cognitive and physical functional status, including “limitations in the ability to perform activities of daily living.”

The World Health Organization has reported that about one in four people infected with COVID-19 has experienced a post-COVID-19 condition for at least one month. One in 10 people experience symptoms lasting beyond 12 weeks.

“Patients with the most severe illness during initial infection, and especially those who require intensive care unit (ICU) admission, are expected to have significant long-term health consequences,” the report reads.

The report also cites a systematic review coordinated by the Public Health Agency of Canada, whose initial findings showed that about 83 per cent of patients with a lab-confirmed case of the novel coronavirus experienced one or more post-COVID-19 symptoms within four to 12 weeks, while 56 per cent reported symptoms 12 weeks after diagnosis.

In Ontario alone, the science table says that at least 57,000 to 78,000 people have experienced a post-COVID-19 condition—although they warn those numbers are a “conservative estimate.”

“That number honestly was bigger than I expected and that is the low end,” Razak said. “So to me, that was surprising. That's an incredible number of people just in this province who we’ll have to really think through how to care for in the months to come.”

“I'm very convinced, as are my co-authors, that this is an important entity that is part of the long term, public health and societal picture of what will be the legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The brief also touches on how getting the COVID-19 vaccine reduces the probability of developing a post-COVID-19 condition simply by reducing the chance of becoming infected in the first place. The science table also cites emerging evidence that the vaccine reduces the risk in the event of a breakthrough case.

Razak warns that the long-term consequences of contracting COVID-19 has not been well studied but that it could have a significant impact on health-care systems, as well as the insurance industry, businesses, families, and social supports.

“I think a lot of the attention has focused on the acute infection, people ending up in hospital. The long-term consequences are a lot harder to quantify, and they've been less studied than what happens in those early days of the infection. And so I don't think that there's been enough attention on it,” he said.

“It's really an important area for all of us to focus on, because it's not just about the medical system or medical care anymore, this is going to have widespread effects

Edited September 15, 2021 by deicer

[Specs]

I was watching my kid in the school yard yesterday after arriving to pick her up.  (I let her play with her friends until the last one goes) The energy on display in that field certainly was impressive but every kid out there was running around wearing a mask.

Now I don't want to support the Anti Masker crowd in the slightest but the sight in that field did cause me to wonder about the long term effects of breathing in the fibers from those masks.  Most of the kids are re-wearing the things and you know that whatever coatings they were initially treated with are probably worn through by now and that fibers or the chemicals are entering the kids respiratory systems.  

Has anybody seen any real research on that issue?   

Edited September 15, 2021 by Specs

[Guest1]

2 minutes ago, Specs said:

I was watching my kid in the school yard yesterday after arriving to pick her up.  (I let her play with her friends until the last one goes) The energy on display in that field certainly was impressive but every kid out there was running around wearing a mask.

Now I don't want to support the Anti Masker crowd in the slightest but the sight in that field did cause me to wonder about the long term effects of breathing in the fibers from those masks.  Most of the kids are re-wearing the things and you know that whatever coatings they were initially treated with are probably worn through by now and that fibers or the chemicals are entering the kids respiratory systems.  

Has anybody seen any real research on that issue?   

This looks like the place to start:

Need for assessing the inhalation of micro(nano)plastic debris shed from masks, respirators, and home-made face coverings during the COVID-19 pandemic (nih.gov)

[doubledouble]

8 hours ago, A330PilotCanada said:

Good Evening Doubledouble:

With what has gone on so far what is your recommendation for dealing with the COVID-19 Pandemic which has hit the world just as hard as the Influenza pandemic post WW1. Are you in favour of letting it burn through society to achieve herd immunity? Yes there have been break through events of those who have been vaccinated but they do not need to go to hospital and the results are not as severe as those who are not vaccinated ie death. In Mississippi a couple of days ago a news report about a 64 year old heart attack victim could not find a ICU bed in state or out of state who eventually died. Looking forward to you reply on how one manages this and makes sure the population survives this

I'm just a bluecollar working Canadian as you can tell from my user name.  I'm not a Starbucks elitist.  Anyone can look backwards and tell you what coaching decisions they would have made to win the game after the game is over.  There are very few situations where the path forward is clear and obvious.  I don't think this was or is one of them.  So, short answerr, I don't know what to do.   But, not knowing what to do is not the same as knowing what not to do if that makes any sense.  The problem I had with the post above is the cheering for more government control and government tracking and checkpoints and governemnt controlling where you can go and what you can do and rewarding those who comply and punishing those who don't.   Where have we seen that before?  Once that system is up and running it will never go away.  The pandemic may end in a couple of years but by then the passport system will have morphed into a National ID passport.  The v-passport will be endemic and will ultimately have a far bigger effect on society than the pandemic itself.

[Specs]

14 minutes ago, Kargokings said:

This looks like the place to start:

Thanks.  That seems pretty authoritative and credible.  No easy task finding that these days.  

And there does seem to be some incentive there to be a bit more disciplined with the use of masks on children.  

[doubledouble]

16 hours ago, conehead said:

Shouldn't you be protesting at a hospital somewhere?

Careful now, that's how it starts;  first you're using Trudeau's dribble to get a laugh and next thing you know you're smoking cigarette butts from the gutter and swilling the dregs from empty beer cans. 

If you want to get a cheap dig in, at least write you own material.

[FA@AC]

5 hours ago, doubledouble said:

I'm just a bluecollar working Canadian as you can tell from my user name.  I'm not a Starbucks elitist.

It's wonderful at last to hear from someone who truly understands that matters of public health are all about social status and where one buys coffee.

[doubledouble]

19 minutes ago, FA@AC said:

It's wonderful at last to hear from someone who truly understands that matters of public health are all about social status and where one buys coffee.

That's nice.  I choose to provide a little personal information for context and you grab it to use as an attack vector against me.   Well, as my mother would say, that says more about you than it does about me.

Personally, I'd be embarrassed to post what you did but you be you.

[FA@AC]

7 minutes ago, doubledouble said:

That's nice.  I choose to provide a little personal information for context and you grab it to use as an attack vector against me.   Well, as my mother would say, that says more about you than it does about me.

Oh of course.  Just like the post in which you called someone stupid for supporting the idea of a vaccine passport to reduce the spread of Covid-19.

[boestar]

19 hours ago, UpperDeck said:

Far too intense. John's expression of opinion or Harry's is of interest and keeps me occupied but otherwise is irrelevant.

So...just to excite those brain cells or to provoke contrarian thought....let me ask this:

In nature, culling of the herd by disease or vulnerability to predators is considered desirable. The survivors are more disease-resistant and stronger. When "we" undertake species protection, culling by permit becomes necessary to control the population because it is generally accepted that controlling population is to the ultimate benefit of the herd.

Leaving aside an omniscient being...."God"....is it beyond possibility that the human population requires control and that lethal diseases etc are essential to the ultimate survival of mankind?

Are we "toying" with a grand design? Bear in  mind that GENERALLY, Covid has been a contributing cause of death to individuals who were pre-disposed; had compromised immune systems or co-morbidities such as obesity-related vulnerabilities including diabetes.

Of course, from a religious perspective, God gave us the will and ability to develop defenses so.....

Okay, okay...in vino veritas...but I remember the "joke" when Aids became known; God said I gave you herpes but you wouldn't listen. Now I give you AIDS.

This is why the human race is suffering.  We found a way to circumvent natural selection and keep the sick and slow alive and allowed them to breed.  This has severely weakened the herd.  It is a first world problem.  Problem is that thte first world is now supporting the third world in the same manner.

We cannot, as a species, evolve and grow when the herd is slowly dragging us all down.