Crucial quote (from 8:12):
The cure has become worse than the disease. I have recently spoken with senior advisors to provincial governments in Canada. There's no endgame in sight. The idea that Canadian policy is or should be governed "by the science" is not only not true, it's also not possible as there is no simple pathway from the facts of science to the complexities of policy.
We are deciding, by opinion poll, to live in fear, and to become increasingly authoritarian in response to that fear. That's a danger, too! And it's increasingly real. How long are we going to flail about, hiding behind our masks, afraid to send our children—who are in no danger more serious than risk of the flu—to school? Charging university students full tuition for tenth-rate online education, pitting family member against family member over vaccine policy, and, most seriously, compromising the great economic engine upon which our health also depends?! Until we decide not to.
There are no risk-free paths forward. There's only one risk, or another. Pick your poison! That's the choice life offers.
I'm weary of living under the increasingly authoritarian dictates of a polity hyper-concerned with one risk and oblivious to all others. And things are shaking around us.
Enough, Canadians! Enough, Canadian politicos! Enough masks! Enough social-gathering limitations! Enough restaurant closures! Enough undermining of political and social trust. Make the bloody vaccines available to those who want them. Quit using force to ensure compliance on the part of those who don't. Some of the latter might be crazy, but by and large, no crazier than the rest of us.
Set a date! Open the damn country back up before we wreck something we can't fix.
All this applies to more than Canada, I daresay.
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