Pandemics end when they become endemic. This one is close.
Our government will be reluctant to admit it is over
People often ask “when will this pandemic end? History has shown that pandemics don’t often end, but rather underlying viruses mutate until a strain is created that is highly tranmissible but not particularly virulent. The season flu is a good model.
Government leaders pretend they want the COVID pandemic to end, but more likely enjoy the excuse to enact legislation that increases government control of people’s every day lives. Lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine passports and restrictions on the size of gatherings are ordered despite such laws inconsistency with the freedoms set out in our Constitution. Freedom of assembly, privacy of medical records, even freedom of speech are tossed into the wastebin by our leaders for the “public good”. It is a great time to be a leader when you can overtly damage the economy and shutter successful businesses yet claim success in preventing loss of life and rally support for doing so.
It works for Justin Trudeau. His endless speeches about COVID and his smarmy condescension when speaking are being soaked up by his Liberal base and opposition leader Erin O’Toole is suffering a sharp decline in popularity. It is lonely in the wings while those in power have every opportunity to flourish in the eyes of an adoring public.
But the pandemic will end and the end is becoming evident with the soaring case rate arising from the Omicron variant which dominates the news cycle. Early indications are that Omicron is highly transmissible but relatively mild. Rapid rises in case numbers are not paralleled by rapid increases in hospitalization or deaths. The past few weeks tell the tale.
For months, political leaders have vilified the “unvaccinated” and described the pandemic as the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” and issued edicts restricting the freedom on people who chose not to be vaccinated in an effort to coerce them to take a medical treatment they preferred to avoid. In the late summer, Trudeau was promising “consequences” for federal employees who chose to remain unvaccinated.
The rhetoric was vile and included shrill cries that the “unvaccinated” were a threat not only to themselves but also to others, and some pundits like Financial Post columnist Diane Francis called for rules requiring the unvaccinated to pay for their own hospital care, denying them the benefit of our public health system for which they (like all others) have paid dearly for their working careers. It is a small step to expand that logic to deny publicly paid health care to smokers, obese people, people who use narcotics, or, people injured in skiing accidents. It is not the kind of Canada I grew up in.
The most recent data show the unvaccinated may have made the better choice. The current vaccines (before a booster shot) provide little protection from infection and the rise in “breakthrough cases” has outpaced the rise in “unvaccinated cases” by a wide margin.
The “positivity” rate (infections per 100,000 persons) for fully vaccinated persons is now greater than for unvaccinated persons or partially vaccinated persons. This seemingly anomalous data arises from two factors. First, Omicron infects the fully-vaccinated just as readily as the unvaccinated (except those who have had a third or “booster” dose” which restores disease resistance almost fully). Second, fully-vaccinated people have been encouraged by ill-conceived “vaccine passport” policies to attend large gatherings under the impression they were safe from infection.
The number of cases is almost certainly understated since testing capacity is limited. By any measure, COVID has become the pandemic of the vaccinated today.
Politicians seem certain to over react to the surge in cases. Hospital admissions and deaths remain very low in relation to the days early in the pandemic when case levels were this high, and the rampant spread of Omicron will result in many people adding a level of natural immunity to their vaccine-acquired immunity. Barring a more virulent mutation, daily case reports of 10,000 infections or more will become commonplace yet the health care system should remain more than adequate to cope. But political leaders will continue to rail about the “catastrophic rise” of case numbers to mandate more lockdowns, limits, masks, and business restrictions, all of which will cause economic harm and save very few lives.
Ontario leaders need to do three things:
1. Encourage vulnerable people to get a booster shot. That will restore a high level of immunity to infection and help ensure any infection leads to mild disease.
2. Stop attacking the unvaccinated. They are not a threat to anyone. Abandon the “vaccine passports” before they do even more harm.
3. End senseless lockdowns and business closures. Ontarians know how to stay safe and mandated lockdowns are an undesirable infringement on constitutional freedoms that break down the very fabric of our democracy.
Note: All data displayed in the charts are from Ontario’s COVID data catalog.