May 27, 2022 - "The province of Newfoundland and Labrador has announced that its mandatory vaccination policy for public service employees will no longer be in effect starting June 1. It comes as the government said it is also suspending its COVID-19 Vaccine Regulations under the Health Protection and Promotion Act, which became effective in December 2021.
"This means workers in the following sectors will also no longer need to get vaccinated against COVID-19:
Personal care homes
Assisted living facilities
Home care
Charitable organisations providing services to persons in need
Private health clinics
Private schools
Post-secondary institutions
Fire departments
Ambulance providers
Businesses employing regulated health professionals
Organisations providing childcare services
Organisations providing therapeutic, supportive, and residential services to children, youth, and families
"According to the provincial government, while the policy helped in maintaining the safety in workplaces, the current pandemic situation in the province allows for its suspension....
"Health Minister John Haggie said they will be ready to reinforce the mandate again should the COVID-19 situation goes bad again.
"'While these regulations for employees and service providers of specified businesses will end based on our current situation, we will continue to monitor the situation carefully,' said the minister. 'If our situation down the road suggests we need to enforce these regulations again, we will reinstate them.'"
May 28, 2022 - "Along with the four mainstream parties, five candidates of lesser-known parties are campaigning for votes in Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes for the June 2 provincial election. Stephen Ireland is running for the Ontario People’s Front, Daniel Kitsch wants to represent New Blue, Glenn Malcolm is the Ontario Party candidate, Dave Senger is on the ballot for the Populist Party and Mark Snow is the local candidate and provincial leader of Ontario’s Libertarians.
"The five candidates are mostly trolling for votes in the same political pond. They are on the right wing of the political spectrum, oppose COVID-19 mandates, advocate smaller government and are fishing for the votes of Ontarians who have become disenchanted with the major political parties, particularly the Progressive Conservatives....
Mark Snow
"Libertarian Party candidate Snow is retired after 30 years in the Canadian military and lives on an acreage near Oxford Mills.
"Snow is also the party’s provincial leader, meaning he has spent part of the campaign travelling the province to support the 15 other Libertarians running for election.
"Unlike the other four small parties that were formed within the last four years, the Libertarians have been around since the mid-1970s, advocating smaller government and less interference in people’s lives.
"'We believe that government has grown too big with too many regulations that interfere with property rights, individual rights, medical choices, education choices, land-use choices,' Snow said in an interview. Government red tape, a myriad of regulations and high taxation interfere with people’s ability to earn a living and retain more of their income, said Snow, who acknowledged that some rules on health and safety are necessary.
"Snow said the Libertarians would end all subsidization of green-energy projects and get rid of carbon taxes. Climate change is real and is a naturally occurring phenomenon, but 'you can’t tax your way out of climate change,' he said. Snow said that when the business case for wind and solar power is there, then business will pursue them. There’s no need for government subsidies, said Snow, adding that the party’s opposition to subsidies extends to large corporations and others that get taxpayers’ money."
New data from British Columbia sheds light on one of the most contentious social media arguments that raged throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the dispute over 'deaths with Covid' versus 'deaths from Covid'. During the pandemic, many countries used the 'deaths with' standard: fatalities were reported as Covid deaths if they occurred within a reasonable time (usually a month) after a positive PCR test. The U.S., Sweden, and the U.K. all reported 'deaths with' Covid figures; not coincidentally, all have higher Covid mortality rates. Other countries, such as China, counted only 'deaths from': the only deaths included in the Covid count were those verified, by an investigation (a postmortem or even an autopsy), to be caused by the virus; again not coincidentally, China has one of the world's lowest reported Covid death rates.
A big deal? Not to me. My main interest was in comparing countries, and so long as most most of them used 'deaths with', I could happily compare apples to apples. However, social media witnessed many bitter battles waged over it. Whichever standard one uses will affect the reported figures. Counting all 'deaths with' will give a higher figure, artificially high if it miscounts clearly non-Covid deaths (such as poisoning or accident wounds), and using it exaggerates or inflates the virus's impact. But how much higher?
Some Covid libertarians (opponents of Covid mandates) argued that public health authorities were using the 'deaths with' standard to deliberately exaggerate the death toll. In turn, the pro-mandate crowd argued that counting 'deaths from' would give an artificially low figure (by excluding uninvestigated deaths), and accused Covid libertarians of trying to trying to minimize the toll. The ongoing debate generated much heat, with one side accusing the other of alarmism, and the other accusing it in turn of denialism. However, for me it generated little light; whatever actual information emerged was merely drowned out in the tide of mutual recriminations. Many others also appeared to get little from the debate, as they argued in turn that it was a debate about nothing – that the distinction made no difference, as the differences between the two counts would end up being insignificant..
Which is why I found recent news out of British Columbia worthy of comment. As per a May 26 story on CTV News, B.C.'s Center for Disease Control (BCCDC) "changed the way it counted COVID-19 deaths back in early April". The province had previously reported mortality using a 'death from' standard: "Before April 2, B.C.'s health authorities manually updated the pandemic death toll after investigating each death to determine if COVID-19 was a factor." After that date, the reporting standard became 'deaths with': "anyone who dies within 30 days of a COVID-19 diagnosis has been automatically flagged and reported as a death possibly caused by the disease."
"The province's Vital Statistics agency reviews each possible COVID-19 death and determines what the underlying cause was, a process that can take as long as eight weeks," CTV reporter Ian Holliday notes. Before April 2, then, it could take as long as eight weeks before a death was added to the provincial total. Switching to 'deaths with' makes for more immediate reporting, which is probably the reason most countries use it. The agency still investigates all deaths, though, and the data for those verified as being caused by Covid are released later. That gives a reader the chance to compare the two figures, and see how much higher (if any) the 'deaths with' figure is.
Holliday reports:
According to the BCCDC's weekly "situation report" released Thursday, there were 424 deaths between April 2 and May 14 that were flagged as potentially caused by COVID-19 because the person who died had tested positive within 30 days of their death. Of those, more than half (218) were still pending review by Vital Statistics to determine the underlying cause of death. Of the 206 deaths for which an underlying cause had been determined, 94 were considered to be caused by COVID-19, while the remaining 112 had some other underlying cause.
As Holliday notes, that 94/206 ratio "works out to slightly less than 46 per cent of reported deaths between April 2 and May 14 for which an underlying cause has been determined." Or, as summed up in the headline: "Fewer than half of COVID-19 deaths reported since B.C. changed counting methods were caused by the disease."
These preliminary statistics (which may be the only ones that do get reported) allow us to compare the two counting methods: counting 'deaths with Covid' will give a figure at least twice as high as counting 'deaths from Covid'. That in turn allows one to compare reported deaths between jurisdictions which use different methods.
Of course, these findings are preliminary. One should ideally look at all the data, from as many jurisdictions as possible. B.C.'s figures are only one data set, still incomplete, and possibly an anomaly. So this report's findings are hardly the last word on the subject. They are, though, an important first word, one which we have sorely lacked throughout the pandemic.
May 27, 2022 - "'Conflict, COVID, the climate crisis and rising costs have combined in 2022 to create jeopardy for the world's 811 million hungry people,' the UN's World Food Program warned earlier this month. The organization went on to name Russia's invasion of Ukraine, climate shocks, 'the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic,' and rising food prices as culprits.
"This was hardly the first warning along these lines. In June 2021, the International Monetary Fund cautioned that 'early lockdown measures and supply chain disruptions induced a spike in consumer food prices.' Then we saw Thanksgiving headlines in the United States about the cost of serving a holiday meal at a time when the price of food worldwide had risen by almost a third over the previous year. International disruptions in the supply of precursor chemicals prompted Svein Tore Holsether, the CEO and president of fertilizer giant Yara International, to predict a 'food crisis.'
"A combination of always-unpredictable weather, trade disputes, and pandemic lockdowns stretched budgets, boosted costs, and threatened farmers' plans for growing seasons to come. And that was before Russian troops crossed the order of Ukraine, threatening the ability of two major breadbasket countries to satisfy global demand. 'Between them, Ukraine and Russia produce almost a third of the world's wheat and barley and half of its sunflower oil,' UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted on May 18. "There is no effective solution to the food crisis without reintegrating Ukraine's food production, as well as the food and fertilizer produced by Russia and Belarus, into world markets — despite the war.'
"Food prices around the world were up in April by 29.8 percent over the already elevated costs seen in the same month last year, according to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization. That fueled demonstrations, food riots in Iran, and violent protests that toppled the government in Sri Lanka, which destroyed its own agricultural sector with a ban on modern fertilizers. Understandably, officialdom in many countries panicked.
"So, in typical political form governments are cutting off trade in what food they have, threatening to make the matter worse. 'India has defended its decision to ban exports of wheat after initially saying it would help ease a global supply crunch created by the war in Ukraine,' Voice of America reported earlier this week.... Malaysia banned the export of chickens, Indonesia restricted (after first outright banning) palm oil exports, and Ghana now blocks the export of rice, maize, and soybeans. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) currently counts 19 countries that forbid the export of some foods, and another seven that require government licenses.
"Historically, these requirements tend to spread, the organization warns, as governments emulate their neighbors to secure domestic supply. 'Export restrictions often had a cascading effect — when one country announced restrictions, others often followed suit, further exacerbating supply problems and creating a panicked atmosphere in global markets as importers sought to secure new suppliers, sending prices even higher,' according to IFPRI researchers Joseph Glauber, David Laborde, and Abdullah Mamun. 'Other countries have an incentive to have similar policies for similar reasons, and therefore this augments the problem and pushes food prices further up,' Michele Ruta, lead economist at the World Bank for macroeconomics, trade and investment, agreed in a statement to the The Wall Street Journal.
"The export bans can also be devastating for local producers who are cut off from international markets. That may mean ... fewer producers going forward, especially when production costs, including fertilizer and other inputs, are through the roof. 'Exporting helps keep the farms running, because the government's ceiling price at RM8.90 (US$2) keeps chicken prices low, but costs of chicken feed keep increasing month by month,' a Malaysian poultry farmer told ChannelNewsAsia this week. Indonesia's palm oil producers similarly protest restrictions on exports. They warn that because of the controls and a resulting glut of domestic supply, 'prices no longer cover costs.'
"It's difficult to find economists who think that export restrictions on food are a good idea. But politicians often support them anyway because they tend to play well with politically powerful urban constituents.... The inevitable result of export restrictions on food, though, is higher costs around the world, and often reduced production at home as farmers go out of business or switch to unrestricted crops. That means more poverty, hunger, and suffering going forward.
"It's all that much more infuriating when you remember that we previously enjoyed decades of steadily declining poverty and disappearing hunger thanks to innovation, free markets, and open societies. The current chaos can be largely laid at the feet of profoundly stupid policy decisions. Yes, drought, floods, and frosts played a significant role, but nature has never been cooperative, and humans have grown increasingly skilled at producing sufficient calories despite the fickleness of weather and climate. It took lockdowns, trade disputes, ignorant protectionism, and old-fashioned warfare to make the cost and availability of the next meal once again a matter of concern for a growing, rather than shrinking, portion of the world's population."
May 25, 2022 - "In March 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US military wanted President Joe Biden to reverse President Donald Trump’s last-minute removal of US military trainers from Somalia right before he begrudgingly left office. Instead, without any public or congressional debate, Biden decided to redeploy US troops to Somalia to fight against al-Shabab, an armed non-state group that has launched attacks against civilians and government forces for decades — and against whom the United States has never officially declared war.
"As has become the trend under this presidency, establishment forces in the administration appear to have once again given the president advice that is both politically and strategically short-sighted — and he’s far from the first. Like in Afghanistan, US policymakers have chosen militarism and perceived realpolitik in Somalia for the last four decades: President Ronald Reagan and Henry Kissinger cozied up to the genocidal Siad Barre regime.... There was the infamous Black Hawk Down disaster during the Clinton administration; undeclared CIA drone strikes for the last two decades; the list goes on and on. Trump quickly ramped up US drone strikes and special forces operations in these areas, including Yemen, Somalia, and Libya....
"All these episodes have one thing in common: US policymakers perceive Somalia as a battlefield rather than a country full of people caught in the cross-fire of armed men vying for power. So there was the hope of a new approach when Biden’s team reportedly halted US drone strikes in so-called 'areas outside of active hostilities' — locations like Yemen, Libya, and Somalia ... as part of his administration’s proclaimed counterterrorism policy review.
"Biden’s decision to send US troops back to Somalia officially dashed any hope that the administration’s counterterrorism review would end or, at minimum, significantly curtail its undeclared, often covert wars in Somalia and beyond. His decision to engage the US military in another nation-building project with zero congressional authorization is eerily similar to what was attempted in Afghanistan. Given that the past decades of US covert action and trying to build a national military have merely led to a strengthening of al-Shabaab (as has been the case in other countries, the US is conducting counterterrorism) rather than its weakening. It begs the question: what was actually 'reviewed' by the administration over the last year?
"Unfortunately, even before Biden decided to return US troops to Somalia, it had been clear for some time that the president was not going to change the course of the United States’ post-9/11 wars. Officials in the National Security Council told me last fall that the chaos of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan cooled any appetite for withdrawing US troops from other war zones. And while the administration never announced an official end to the counterterrorism review, its new counterterrorism czar — then at the Department of Homeland Security — debuted that the future of these wars was essentially no new strategy.
"There’s little to no evidence that this administration has wrestled with the facts that the US government is fundamentally inept at training and professionalizing foreign militaries, the ineffectiveness of (let alone the racism inherent to) concepts like countering violent extremism (CVE), and that providing weak institutions with millions or billions in money for war incentivizes corruption and conflict. So instead, the prescription is more CVE, more rebranded counterinsurgency and drone wars, and more lawlessness to establish the rule of law. The main difference is merely the explicit focus on exporting the duty of carrying out these wars to foreign militaries.
"All of this brings us back to ... the mission’s intention to create and train a professional and capable national Somali security force that can eliminate al-Shabaab and has legitimacy in the eyes of the Somali people. This recycling of past failed strategies once again misses why there is no US military solution in Somalia: a state’s legitimacy does not come from foreign military training, and it certainly won’t come from a security force trained by the very foreign military that continues to kill the very people Somali forces are supposed to protect.....
"In returning US troops to Somalia, Biden has kept the US stuck in a military-first mindset that focuses on eradicating or undermining the enemy on the battlefield — not addressing the root causes of insecurity and conflict. It is now up to Congress to check his decision — only Congress has the sole constitutional duty to declare war. But the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force application to Somalia is flimsy at best. The president’s deployment certainly meets the 'introduction in hostilities' threshold of Section 8C of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, meaning that the deployment of US troops to an active war zone puts them at imminent risk of war, requiring Congress’ affirmative approval. But with Congress in a militaristic crouch on Ukraine, it’s unclear whether there is political will to invoke its war powers over renewed US war in Somalia."
May 25, 2022 - "The Justice Centre has reviewed the decision of Ontario Superior Court Justice Kevin Phillips regarding the appeal of Tamara Lich’s bail conditions. Ms. Lich was one of the participants of the peaceful protest in Ottawa against vaccine passports this past February.
"In a decision given orally on May 25, 2022, Justice Phillips said the Courts are not 'thought police' and are not in the business of controlling political views. While Justice Phillips upheld a sweeping social media ban which Ms. Lich’s lawyer objected to, he also said that Ms. Lich has the presumption of innocence, and did not find that she violated any of her previous bail conditions.... Justice Philips set new bail conditions.... Ms. Lich is prohibited from communicating with other pro-freedom activists, using social media, organizing or aiding protests, and entering the downtown part of Ottawa unless for court.
"During the bail appeal hearing that took place on May 19 and 20, 2022, Assistant Crown Attorney Moiz Karimjee argued that Ms. Lich should be put back in jail because she had accepted the Justice Centre’s 2022 George Jonas Freedom Award. Mr. Karimjee suggested that Ms. Lich had breached her bail conditions by agreeing to attend the June 16 Justice Centre’s George Jonas Freedom Award dinner in Toronto, however there was no evidence before the Court that she planned to attend in person. When Ottawa police sergeant Mahad Hassan was called to give evidence for the Crown, he had no evidence other than a post on the Justice Centre website about the June 16 dinner. Sgt. Hassan speculated with his own opinion that it was a reasonable inference that Ms. Lich was attending at the annual award....
"Lawrence Greenspon, counsel for Ms. Lich, argued for the lifting of the bail conditions, specifically the ban on social media, which prevented Ms. Lich from exercising her Charter freedoms of expression and association. He argued that a finding in favour of the Crown would put the criminal justice system in disrepute.
"Justice Philips said, 'No court will ever seek to control the manifestation of political views. The courts are not the thought police and are only meant to control conduct.' However, Justice Philips justified leaving the complete social media ban in an attempt to 'prevent toxic group think.'
"On February 17, 2022, Ms. Lich was charged with counselling to commit mischief and obstructing police, among other charges. The day before Ms. Lich was charged and jailed, Ontario Superior Court Justice Hugh McLean had decreed that Ms. Lich and other Defendants in a civil action to stop honking in downtown Ottawa were 'at liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful and safe protest.' The Prime Minister [had] declared a national emergency on February 14, in spite of the fact that Ottawa police had not arrested any of the peaceful protesters or charged anyone with a crime in the preceding weeks. Ms. Lich was jailed for 18 days, and eventually released on bail....
"'In our criminal justice system – innocent until proven guilty – and for someone with no previous criminal charges, it is our view that these revised bail conditions still excessively restrict Ms. Lich’s fundamental Charter rights of speech, assembly, association, and political advocacy,” said Eva Chipiuk, Justice Centre lawyer. 'The extent to which the Crown has pursued Ms. Lich is troubling. Homicide detectives, crown attorneys, and scarce court time are being expended on persecuting Ms. Lich and her peaceful activism against two years of repressive government lockdowns and mandatory vaccination policies,' added Ms. Chipiuk."
May 24, 2022 - "Billed a COVID-19 success story as its economy boomed through the pandemic, Taiwan is now battling a record wave of infections as it eases restrictions that had kept outbreaks at bay to start life with the virus. For the whole of 2021, Taiwan reported less than 15,000 locally transmitted cases. Now, it's registering around 80,000 cases a day....
"'We could no longer achieve the goal of zero COVID because it was too contagious,' former vice-president Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist, said in a video released by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party on Sunday. Most cases in Taiwan are of the less severe Omicron variant, with more than 99.7 per cent of cases exhibiting mild or no symptoms, he said. 'This is a crisis but also an opportunity, allowing us to walk out of the shadow of COVID-19 quickly,' Chen said.
"Despite a peak of infection forecast for this week, the government is determined to end a policy that included largely closing its borders. It has relaxed restrictions, such as shortening mandatory quarantines, in what it calls the 'new Taiwan model' — gradually living with the virus and avoiding shutting down the economy.
"Unlike some countries where new case spikes overwhelmed medical systems and disrupted everyday life, Taiwan hospital beds earmarked for COVID patients are at 56 per cent occupancy. Shops, restaurants and gyms remain open, and gatherings continue, with mandatory mask-wearing. Still, the island of 23.5 million people is recording 40 to 50 deaths a day, bringing its year-to-date total to 625 deaths. Deaths stood at 838 from 2020 through to the end of 2021....
"The surge in cases is now sparking new precautions. Starting this week, classes in Taipei schools were moved online while subway ridership has fallen to about half average levels.
"'Taiwan didn't really have a choice. Naturally, we need to move on to coexist with the virus,' said Shih Hsin-ru, who leads the Research Center for Emerging Viral Infections at Taiwan's Chang Gung University. She said the government was not well prepared for the shift away from the zero COVID approach, pointing to the initial shortage of resources, from vaccines to antivirals. But things are looking better after what she described as a 'scramble' by the government. 'We are slowly getting back on track,' she said. 'We are likely to see less impact compared to neighbouring countries.'"
