COVID-19: THE WAY FORWARD – PART 2

We now know the mortality rate of COVID-19 is somewhere around 0.1% to 0.2%. This is very similar to the seasonal flu (a study in Norway just confirmed this again). It is almost entirely harmful to very sick older people (in long-term care facilities), and others with serious pre-existing conditions. Knowing this likely means that everyone else is safe from dying of the COVID-19 infection. Public Health Ontario on May 23^rd reported that 70% of all COVID deaths are 80+ years old. The percentage of deaths under 40 years old was 0.38%. Just eight people under the age of 40 died in Toronto of COVID-19. Zero people under the age of 20 years of age have passed away.  Typically, every year as many as 8,000 Canadians die of influenza (the flu virus), and generally not much is said. Certainly, no one dons a mask and quarantines at home. These are the FACTS based on science.  Why then are businesses closed and we are still social distancing? Why are children and teens not in school?

Social distancing is the death of airlines, hotels, bars and nightclubs, department stores, gyms, restaurants, convention centres, reception halls, offices, resorts, movie theatres, passenger train systems, public transit, sporting events, concerts, classrooms and more. It is impossible to profitably or reasonably run any of these businesses with social distancing.  There is no middle ground compromise and there shouldn’t be. The impact on tourist areas like the Caribbean will be devastating, likely bankrupting several countries, impoverishing them for certain. Worldwide, unemployment A YEAR FROM NOW will be unmanageable. It will be a far bigger crisis than this ‘pandemic.’  Many people will not find employment for years. The ability for any government to tax will be greatly diminished because less companies exist, and those that survive will likely make little to no profit to tax. There will be fewer employees to tax. Here at home, HST remittances will also plummet. All levels of government will struggle and there is a reasonable chance some governments will collapse, even here in Canada. Where will the money for social programs come from? It just won’t be available, so these programs will get greatly reduced or canceled. Don’t delude yourself that the government will fix this because they can’t, and they won’t. Our governments do not have the funds to fix this. The hardship will be brutal for all but a few. The obvious immediate financial cost of this shutdown is the estimated $275 billion deficit we will see this year (17X more than 2019).  The entire 2019 Federal government spend was $350 billion including the deficit. The real cost is the trillions of dollars of lost wealth in business losses, stock market losses, real estate losses, the draining of savings accounts, retirement accounts, and so much more. Pension funds are being decimated. This wealth has evaporated, and all of us will feel this impact greatly. 

In March, all governments were shocked into “shutdown” mode by wildly inflated mortality models. The Canadian government expected up to 350,000 deaths initially when the decision to shut down was made. Great Britain was told it could see 500,000 deaths and the USA was expecting 2.2M deaths. The British and American figures were provided by Neil Ferguson from the Imperial College of London (ironically, he is now famous for his unreliable mortality models going back 25 years. He famously estimated that up to 150 million could die from bird flu, between 2003 and 2009, 282 people died of the bird flu). He is an idiot and why anyone relied on him is the real scandal. Two weeks later, he revised his COVID-19 models down greatly. Too late, government action and citizen fear were underway like a runaway train. The likely reality for Canada is 10,000 deaths, Great Britain approximately 50,000 deaths, and the USA 120,000 deaths. While this represents terrible news, it is10-35X lower than the estimate that moved all governments to this unprecedented action. Would Trudeau have shut down Canada if he was told we would see 10,000 COVID-19 deaths? I doubt it. Whoever modelled 350,000 deaths should be publicly flogged. The overreach from this estimate is why we are now here.

Now, you’re going to say, “Ya, but the actual mortalities reflect a total shutdown and social distancing.”  Maybe this is true, but the “flattening of the curve” agenda would only reduce deaths if hospitals got overrun with patients (they didn’t). Flattening the curve doesn’t reduce infections, it just delays infections.  The point is, we all social distanced, we shut down the economy, and we “flattened the curve.” Hospitals have plenty of rooms to spare, and they always did. They likely had enough hospital capacity without the “flattening of the curve.” Of course, we will never know because that option was never recommended to us. The government asked for our cooperation and we complied. We were never told to adhere to quarantine for several months to stop the spread of COVID-19. You can’t reasonably stop the spread of COVID-19, it is a virus, that is its ‘raison d’être,’ it spreads as best it can.  We slowed the spread of the virus, but we cannot slow it indefinitely without killing the world economy and ultimately many humans living on the planet.

To keep you home, we are being lied to, or best-case scenario, misled. The reported ‘media’ mortality rate is 5-7% (50-70X higher than reality). This is because only very sick people get tested. Mortality rate = dead/# infected.  The number of infected is grossly understated. The media and the government know this fact.  The huge majority of infected do not get sick or significantly sick. 99.9% of people who get infected survive, just like the seasonal flu.  The government and media will not come clean on who has died. We need it broken down with demographics. Of all those who have died, how many had serious pre-existing conditions? Give us the science. Let us see the truth. Did our government really need to make people this terrified? If you listen carefully and read the facts, you will discover that approximately 80% of ALL deaths (at the time of writing, 5,100 of 6,500) occurred in long-term senior care facilities where all patients have one or more serious pre-existing conditions.  Of the remaining 20% (1,400 deaths), it is likely that 50% at least suffered from one pre-existing condition such as diabetes, heart disease, etc. In Canada, that leaves 10% (or 700) of the deaths occurring with potentially healthy people. This represents a 1 in 50,000 chance of a person dying of COVID-19 in Canada. The chance of dying due to a vehicle-related incident is 1 in 8,000. Over the last 4 months, a relatively healthy Canadian is 6X more likely to die in a car accident than by COVID-19. So why are we so afraid? Well, this is exactly what our government wants. It is how they got us to quarantine in the first place. The media and the government won’t tell you this fact. This is just science and simple math, and it is the truth.

We need to protect those at risk and everyone else needs to realize the risk of death is statistically zero; 6X less than dying in a car accident. No politician would suggest measures remotely close to a quarantine and economic shutdown to avoid car accidents. Viruses are a fact of human life. Why did this virus elicit such a Draconian response?

We must go back to work; we must stop social distancing. We as a population must protect those most likely to get very sick. We must save our economy and our civilization from the needless madness that has gripped our government. At this point, they are no longer rational about the risk to our population. The government is shouldering the blame for every death. Our government cannot protect us from deaths by car, heart disease, flu, or cancer.  Why are they shouldering this responsibility?  It is because they are in too deep. They fear they will now be blamed for all possible outcomes. It’s now the politics of survival for all politicians and leaders. If they are somehow culpable for any deaths, then it is political suicide. They need to be honest and change the narrative. If we do not rationally rethink our reopening, it will be too late. People won’t blame them for COVID-19, they will blame them for their mishandling of the COVID response. It may be hard to fathom now but we have already made the cure worse than the disease. You can’t see it yet, but a tidal wave of economic and human destruction will arrive in a few months. We have been lulled into complacency by government largesse. This will end, as it must, and the reality will set in a few months from now. It will create anger and finger-pointing to all those that allowed this response to get out of hand.  Governments will be punished for this slow, painful ‘reopening.’  They will be punished for not knowing better and analyzing the data better. While we will be mired in a bad recession, the economic effects in Canada will look like Disneyland compared to 3^rd world countries. Tens of millions around the world are going to die because of our shutdown, as compared to a likely 500,000 deaths from COVID-19 worldwide.  It’s unlikely that quarantine and social distancing will prevent the 500,000 world-wide COVID-19 mortalities, just as it doesn’t prevent the potential 650,000 annual flu deaths we see around the world.  Quarantine and social distancing in the west will directly result in a 3^rd world economic collapse and tens of millions starving to death.  How do we justify this to the continent of Africa, South America, and much of Southeast Asia? Their job loss, homelessness, disease, and starvation will be unmanageable. This could cost our world a decade just to get back to February 2020 living standards. If we move quickly now, we can save ourselves from ourselves. Protect all those at high risk to COVID-19, let the rest of us return to life and work.

If you agree with the contents of this essay, please send it to anyone you know. We can make a difference. Contact your councillor, mayor, and Federal representative and make your feelings known.

Open Canada now!

Brad J. Lamb