Rand Paul slams vaccine passport plans

We must resist the latest COVID-era power grab: the 'vaccine passport' | The Hill - Rand Paul:

April 5, 2021 - "A Democrat politician famously said, 'never let a crisis go to waste.'  Boy, did this pandemic really see them put their shoulder into that old axiom. From mask mandates to business shutdowns, from church closings to schools shuttered, there was very little in American life that was not impacted by the decisions made by local petty tyrants and their accomplices in the federal government. You’ve all heard my opinions on government bureaucrat Anthony Fauci. But it goes wider and deeper than any one person. And now we are in danger of their creeping fascism staying in our lives forever if we don’t stand up and resist.

"The newest power grab comes in the form of an alleged “Vaccine Passport” which would determine your social suitability to engage in your everyday life. Want to go to the store? Show your vaccine card. Want to go to a restaurant or concert? Did you tell the government what vaccines you’ve had? "Want to travel? VACCINE PAPERS PLEASE....

"Let’s start with a few things the media will no doubt try to get wrong. I’m in favor of vaccines. I’m a Duke Medical School trained M.D. and I studied immunology before moving on to my career in eye surgery. Vaccines are a marvel of modern medicine, and the speed and effectiveness of the COVID vaccines have been great. I’m also in favor of people making their own medical and personal decisions.

"By early summer, everyone in America will have been eligible for a vaccine. Between those who took the vaccine or had COVID, there is little to no doubt we will have herd immunity by then, and danger from COVID will be low. Even the CDC now admits what I said months ago (and Dr. Fauci denied) — those who have been vaccinated are not getting sick and they are not passing along the disease to others. This makes the idea of a vaccine passport — which is a terrible idea for freedom — a simply poor idea overall, as it should have no impact on anyone. If you are vaccinated, you don’t have to worry if a small segment of the population is not.

"We can’t let government tyrants and media fearmongers push us into accepting this terrible idea that we need their permission to go back to our lives. I know for a fact, they want to keep this power. We should never have let them take it in the first place in the form of lockdowns, mandates and closings. Now that we know those didn’t work, and that they intend to keep pushing anti-science, anti-freedom ideas, we must resist. 

The freedom part is easy. The science part gets ignored by the media and those who seek to keep power. For example, both the pediatricians and the CDC have said schools are safe for children since last JUNE, yet an entire school year has been lost and wasted in the futile search for perfect safety. Kids and families have been harmed, perhaps irreparably in some cases. Childhood learning is falling behind, and depression and suicide among kids is rising at an alarming rate. All for the sake of worshipping at the altar of government power.

"Lockdowns caused losses of jobs, businesses and homes. And they didn’t work, as any study of states that were locked down versus those who minimized them can show you. One year of government getting more and more out of control. One year of loss of freedom. One year of kids being harmed.

"I say enough. I urge everyone to get the vaccine if you think you need or want it. And then I urge everyone in America to throw away their masks, demand their schools be open, and live your lives free of more government mandates and interference. Burn your vaccine passport if they try to give it to you, and vote out any politician who won’t do the same."

Read more: https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/546412-we-must-resist-the-latest-covid-era-power-grab-the-vaccine

Ontario seniors beg to be allowed outside this year

Long-term care residents beg to go outside after year-long COVID-19 confinement | CBC News Toronto - Colin Perkel:

March 30, 2021 - "Residents of Ontario's long-term care homes begged on Tuesday to be allowed outside, saying anti-pandemic restrictions that have confined them indoors for more than a year make no sense given almost all have now been vaccinated. Some compared their situations to solitary confinement, and urged the provincial government to act on what they called a gross violation of their basic human rights.

"Chuck Ferkranus, a resident of a home in Newmarket, Ont., said no one in the building has COVID-19 and yet residents are stuck in their rooms. Ferkranus, who challenged those in authority to live as he does for even a week, said residents are being treated worse than criminals. 'We did nothing wrong; we're not guilty of any crime,' he said. 'If vaccinations don't end the rules, if no one having COVID doesn't end the restrictions, then what does it take before this comes to an end?'

"Many of an estimated 150,000 nursing home residents have been confined to their rooms or floors for as long as 15 months now, cut off from most relatives as well as the outdoors.... Advocates also say the restrictions make no sense. Scientific evidence, they note, indicates COVID-19 is far less likely to spread outdoors than indoors. They also point to evidence that extreme isolation is physically and mentally damaging, especially to residents of nursing homes, many of whom suffer cognitive difficulties and need familiar faces and touch....

"Alfred Borg, another resident in Newmarket, said he hasn't been allowed outside for more than a year or even had a shower for five or six months. Instead, he said, residents only get in-room sponge baths when even the law guarantees twice a week baths or showers. 'All day long we just sit in our room,' Borg said. 'Why are we being treated so much differently from everyone else? It is not enough just being alive. We need a better quality of life.'

"Dr. Amit Arya, a palliative care physician in long-term care, said quality of life is crucial and infection control can't be allowed to trump all. The restrictions, he said, cannot be justified in light of the 'profound harm' social isolation and loneliness can cause seniors. Jane Meadus, a lawyer, called the restrictions a violation of human rights.... 'All along, these detentions have been illegal,' Meadus said....

"At a news conference on Tuesday, Ford expressed some sympathy but gave no indication he would act on the concerns.... Health Minister Christine Elliott confirmed more than 90 per cent of long-term care residents have been fully vaccinated but did not address the confinement issue."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/long-term-care-covid-confinement-1.5969825

Unconstitutional lockdown plan dropped in Finland

Finland withdraws COVID lockdown plan after it was deemed unconstitutional | Reuters:

March 31, 2021 - "Finland’s government has withdrawn a proposal to confine people largely to their own homes in several cities to help curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Wednesday. The decision followed a statement from a constitutional law committee that deemed the proposal too vague and not in compliance with the constitution....

"Last week the government proposed locking down residents of five cities, including the capital Helsinki, and only allowing people to leave their homes for limited reasons, to curb rising coronavirus infections and hospitalisations."

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-finland-lockdown/finland-withdraws-covid-lockdown-plan-after-it-was-deemed-unconstitutional-idUSL8N2LT6PT

Finnish prime minister withdraws COVID-19 lockdown proposal deemed unconstitutional | Yahoo News: 

March 31, 2021 - "The proposal to largely confine people to their own homes in areas with most infections was deemed too imprecise by the constitutional law committee of parliament.

"'It would be impossible for residents to predict what is prohibited, allowed or punishable,' committee chairperson Antti Rinne said, but acknowledged that the arguments for more restrictions were justified....

"The committee said the wide-ranging proposal should be changed to targeted restrictions for where the risk of contracting the virus was significant, such as private gatherings and crowded places such as shops."

Read more: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/finland-withdraws-covid-lockdown-plan-162014055.html

Voluntary distancing vs. lockdowns

[Note: this article is still a work in progress]

Lockdowns and libertarianism (3): Voluntary distancing vs. lockdowns

We have all been hearing the term "social distancing" for more than a year, by now, and I am sure that everyone believes they know what it means. For most people, though, that is not true; they may know a meaning, and understand perfectly the concept for which it stands; but they do not understand the full meaning, and all of the underlying concepts. In fact, "social distancing" is a good example of what Ayn Rand used to all a 'package deal' - a label applied indiscriminately to different concepts, to hide or blur the differences between them; in short, to equivocate between them. In this case, the concepts are not only different, but in contradiction. 

The first concept is that of simply keeping a distance from other people, or giving them their own space. It is not only a polite thing to do - more so, ironically, in more crowded societies like Japan - but it is also smart or prudent, given that people have always been able to spread diseases to each other. It becomes even more prudent in a pandemic: If one is susceptible, limiting face-to-face contacts with random others is the easiest and most natural way to protect oneself (as well as one's family, by not passing the disease on to them). Examples include not just staying home rather than going out, talking to friends rather rather than visiting them, working from home if possible. It is an example of people changing their own behavior to manage their risks; a part of the concept - an instance or example - of adults running or managing their own lives, and being free to do so. We can label this concept "voluntary distancing." 

A second, different concept, though, is the one guiding policy in this pandemic. Lest I be accused of misstating it or strawmanning its advocates, let me quote a definition from one of its most influential advocates, social media writer Tomas Pueyo, in his wildly influential medium article, "Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now": 

The only way to prevent [mass death] is social distancing today. Not tomorrow. Today.
That means keeping as many people home as possible, starting now.
As a politician, community leader or business leader, you have the power and the responsibility to prevent this.

Pueyo is not talking not about people managing their own risks, but about politicians and other assorted leaders managing those for them; not of people changing their own behavior, but of those "leaders" changing it for them. It is an instance or example of people not being allowed to run their lives, but of some people claiming the right to run the lives of others. The second covers governments "closing companies, shops, mass transit, schools, enforcing lockdowns..." (to again use Pueyo's words) We can label that second concept "forced distancing" or, to use the shorter term now in general use, "lockdowns."

The two concepts could not be more different. But there are other reasons than equivocation to confound them. In this pandemic, both began at roughly the same time in mid-March. And at least in Canada, public health has relied on both. Every province enacted lockdowns. At the same time the media has been filled with public health messaging, advising people of risks and urging them to take precautions on their own.  It was understandable for non-scientists to view the view both phenomena as one unified response, and to attribute the temporary success of that response entirely to the lockdowns. 

The scientific literature was no help. The only mention of voluntary distancing I could find last spring was an April National Bureau of Economic Research paper, "Voluntary and Mandatory Social Distancing: Evidence on COVID-19 Exposure Rates from Chinese Provinces and Selected Countries," which declared flat-out that 

that voluntary self-isolation driven by individual’s perceived risk of becoming infected kicks in only towards the peak of the epidemic and has little or no impact on flattening the epidemic curve.

That finding could be an anomaly of the situation. It is uncontroversially accepted that voluntary distancing during a pandemic is affected by messaging, on information and best practices, by both public health authorities and the media. In Communist China, though, both public health and the media are under tight government control; and the official Chinese government policy pre-lockdown was Covid denial. Not only did the government not tell its citizens about the coronoavirus: it censored and even arrested those who tried to.   

Despite that, the assumption that voluntary distancing was insignificant, and only lockdown-style inverventions could cut virus transmission, quickly became entrenched in the literature. Neil Ferguson's infamous death model, for example, simply assumed that only government interventions could reduce human contact enough to affect the R (reproduction) number. The same unrealistic assumption appeared in the Flaxman death model from IC in May. The latter, which was published in Nature, has been cited over and over as proof that lockdowns save lives; even the lockdowners' manifesto, the John Snow Memorandum, cited it.

  

The failure of the precautionary principle

The Post-COVID-19 Blueprint (Part 1): How Precaution Failed | The Risk-Monger - David Zaruk: 

April 6, 2020 - "Ten weeks wasted! As the COVID-19 coronavirus spread throughout Asia in early 2020, Western risk managers did nothing. They hoped … they watched … they told the public to wash their hands. In almost every Western country, no credible risk reduction measures were implemented until it was too late, the outbreak was out of control and lockdowns were the only option.... And their only practical risk regulatory tool, the precautionary principle, was not fit for purpose.

"Precaution is a tool that should only be applied when risk management efforts do not succeed.... In the last two decades though, particularly in the EU, it has become more a strategy of ... unless you can prove, with certainty, that a product, process or substance is safe, then you must take precaution.... Europeans were promised a world of food without pesticides, energy without nuclear reactors and products that were 'chemical free' and any regulator who did not guarantee it, or tried to protect certain technologies with risk management measures, paid dearly. 

"Scientists and innovators have been excluded from public dialogue in precaution debates. The public didn’t want technological solutions; they demanded that the bad things be taken away. In 2019 when the public believed humanity would go extinct in ten years from climate breakdown and ecosystem collapse, no large populations were calling out for more nuclear energy, scientific solutions or innovative technologies – they wanted to ban flying, ban cars, ban meat.... We have limited research in gene editing, tried to sideline medical device technologies and made it uneconomical to develop new generations of antibiotics.... These disgraceful cult elitists campaigned for a world without pharmaceutical companies – I wonder how they feel now. These precautionary zealots were moving toward a plastic-free world not considering how our doctors and nurses relied on plastics to deliver healthcare – I wonder if they require medical support now.... 

"This risk-averse, expedient precautionary mindset was unprepared for the COVID-19 crisis.... Despite loud warnings from Mike Ryan at the WHO, for two months the public wanted to hear that things were fine.... As risk managers in China, South Korea and Singapore were applying risk reduction measures to address their coronavirus outbreaks, as they were providing proper PPE for their front-line medical staff, as they were increasing detection and testing methods and isolating victims, European and American authorities did little more than reassure their populations they were safe.... By the time Western European countries woke up, when Italian hospitals were suddenly overwhelmed, it was too late. The one remaining tool, a tool of last resort (the precautionary principle), was the only way the risk managers could respond: reduce the crisis by locking down entire populations. The lockdowns are precautionary: until you can prove with certainty that it is safe (for the entire society) to go out, then you need to stay in your home. If proper risk reduction measures had been applied early, then a massive loss of social and economic benefits could have been avoided....

"Like other precautionary measures, the lockdowns are practically useless from a risk management perspective. Sorry to be blunt, but these Western lockdowns are not about protecting the public from COVID-19 at all (what risk managers would be tasked to do). The lockdowns are about protecting the healthcare systems from collapsing from unthinkably large numbers requiring ICU beds and ventilators at the same time. Flattening the curve means fattening the curve: allowing the virus to infect more slowly with the hope that some lives could be saved. The only real risk management strategy coming out of the lockdowns is to wait for herd immunity: either with a vaccine to be developed (hopefully in less than 18 months) or, in the meantime, to wait for herd immunity to arrive through the survival of the fittest (with perhaps hundreds of millions dying). Precautionary lockdown measures are merely meant to slow the deadly consequences of failure; slow the failed risk management strategy so fewer people would die outside of overwhelmed hospitals. Our leaders, Western risk managers, are incapable of offering any other solutions. 

 "This didn’t have to happen. Our Western precautionary mindset created an entitled public assuming benefits without risks, no compromises and simple solutions to complex problems. Growing fat from affluence, our populations expect any uncertainty to be managed simply and surely by removing the source of the problem without any need to consider consequences or lost benefits. Over the last two decades, the precautionary principle has been the key means (often only means) to manage any and all hazards in this privileged world without want. Nuclear energy might be a risk? Ban it! Seed breeding technologies have evolved? Not in our food chain. The precautionary principle will save us. We can afford to pay more for renewable energy, organic food and all-natural products. The poor may suffer but they don’t donate to the NGOs pushing precaution and deindustrialisation....

"With no focus on the effects of its consequences, precaution has had a long history of preying on the poor. When the lockdowns were abruptly imposed and large populations lost their jobs, wealthy states could drop cash on their citizens by the trillion. Risk management, on the other hand, is a tool to protect populations from losing benefits and suffering severe consequences. Risk managers would do whatever they could to reduce exposure and prevent a lockdown; they would be able to see in advance how those helicopter trillions would lead to bigger problems long-term.

"Perhaps the most egregious transgression in this weak risk management framework is how the precautionary principle has been exported to developing countries. Many of these countries mirror the EU regulatory decisions either because they lack the risk assessment structure or fear losing export markets. But they lack the prosperity to protect their populations once the consequences of precaution (lost benefits) set in.... Now large developing countries from Nigeria to India are locking down their populations to prevent the spread of COVID-19. How do you practice social distancing in a slum with a population density of one million people per square mile? How do you enforce stay-at-home measures when the homes are not safe or enclosed? How do you keep people off the streets when their livelihoods are there and their governments cannot afford helicopter cash? Once again, precaution works for the wealthy and pays no heed to any suffering imposed on the vulnerable.

"Precaution’s failure to protect populations from the COVID-19 coronavirus has been spectacular. This principle has been shown to merely be an expedient stain remover for cowardly policymakers pushed into a corner by relentless activist interest groups. Tens of millions of the poorest of the poor will likely die from failed lockdowns with no risk management alternatives, likely unaccounted and likely long after the precautionistas have applauded themselves for saving a few lives in the affluent West."

Read more: https://risk-monger.com/2020/04/06/the-post-covid-19-blueprint-how-precaution-failed/

Ford shuts down Ontario again

Ontario imposes provincewide 'emergency brake' as 3rd wave of COVID-19 hits hard | CBC News - Adam Carter:

April 01, 2021 - "The Ontario government is imposing a provincewide "emergency brake" starting Saturday, but stopped short of a stay-at-home order, despite modelling showing such a measure could significantly curb the surge in COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations. The measure comes into effect as of 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, the province said in a news release, and will be in place for at least four weeks....

Restrictions will include:

• Prohibiting indoor organized public events and social gatherings, and limiting the capacity for outdoor gatherings to a five-person maximum — except for gatherings with members of the same household, or gatherings of members of one household and one other person who lives alone.
• Limits on in-person shopping: a 50 per cent capacity limit for supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, indoor farmers' markets, other stores that primarily sell food and pharmacies; and a 25 per cent limit for all other retail including big box stores.
• No personal care services.
• No indoor and outdoor dining. Take out, delivery and drive-thru options are allowed.
• Prohibiting the use of facilities for indoor or outdoor sports and recreational fitness, with very limited exceptions.
• The closure of day camps.
• Limiting capacity at weddings, funerals, and religious services to 15 per cent occupancy per room indoors, and to the number of people who can maintain two metres of physical distance outdoors. This does not include social gatherings associated with these services such as receptions, which are not permitted indoors and are limited to five people outdoors.

"In hotspot regions like Toronto, the new measures are very similar to restrictions that are already in place. At a news conference Thursday afternoon, Health Minister Christine Elliott said that the province did not issue a stay-at-home order like the one from the start of the year, because officials saw then that it had 'tremendous ill effect on children and adults.'"

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/covid-19-ontario-shutdown-hospital-intensive-care-icu-patients-1.5969831

California children disguised as illegal migrants

Parents Disguising Kids As Illegal Immigrants So They Can Receive In-Person Teaching | Babylon Bee: 

March 31, 2021 - "Upon hearing that San Diego teachers were providing instruction to migrant children but not American citizens, many clever parents began disguising their kids as illegal immigrants in hopes that their kids could finally see the inside of a classroom.

"'OK, Aiden, remember -- if they ask you what your name is, just say, "No hablo ingles",' said one parent as she dropped her kid off near the Mexican border in Chula Vista. 'And don't pick at your fake mustache; it'll fall off'.... 

"After waving goodbye to the kids, the parents peeled out in their minivans as they experienced their first taste of freedom in over a year -- the kids happily being taught by teachers as the moms went out and got mimosas for brunch.

"Unfortunately, the kids do have to sleep in cages with foil blankets now, but the parents say it's a sacrifice well worth making."

Read more: https://babylonbee.com/news/san-diego-parents-disguising-kids-as-illegal-immigrants-so-they-can-receive-in-person-teaching