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Stittsville Golf Club, one of hundreds of Ontario golf facilities closed by provincial order. PHOTO BY TIM BAINES/POSTMEDIA |
Polls keep showing that the public believes COVID-19 disease is way deadlier and more pervasive than it really is
The COVID-19 variants, it was roundly said, were attacking the bodies of young people with unprecedented ferocity. variant had been «proven to be more dangerous in children and young people.» Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe just this week said that the variants are «shown to be more dangerous to young people». «We did not identify an association of the variant with severe disease,» reads a recent study in The Lancet which followed a few hundred patients hospitalized with the B. variant, because it was first identified there. anesthesiologist Pooya Kazemi is one of a community of Canadian doctors actively criticizing overzealous lockdown measures.
In February, a French survey saw respondents estimating that COVID-19 killed one in every six people who caught it. In a July survey out of the United States, respondents estimated that about 40 per cent of U. Poll responses were even more wrong when it came to COVID-19’s threat to children. Respondents said that around eight per cent of fatalities were under 24. In truth, it’s about 0.1 per cent.
«It’s almost maddening trying to change the public perception». Now, as COVID wanes across the developed world, psychiatrists are warning of a wave of COVID-centric anxiety. Mental health concerns aside, there’s the very real policy problem that if the public isn’t reckoning with the realities of COVID-19, they’re more apt to back restrictions that make very little sense. Governments have continued to order the closure of playgrounds despite no evidence for them as vectors of transmission.
Stefan Baral, an associate professor of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health noted back in February that of 99,226 COVID-19 studies to date, not one had identified playgrounds as «common sources in outbreaks». A similar phenomenon has been occurring across the continent through the continued closure of schools in jurisdictions such as Ontario and California. «We know that they’re not major sources of spread, we know that they weren’t major sources of outbreak and we know about the downsides of school closures,» said Ottawa ICU physician Kwadwo Kyeremanteng in a recent video calling for the reopening of Ontario schools. Pediatricians have similarly called out Ontario’s closures of summer camps.
«There really are no medical or other reasons to delay further,» reads a recent statement by Pediatricians of Ontario. Outdoor transmission of COVID-19 is estimated to represent only 0.1 per cent of cases. In one rigorous study that traced COVID-19 cases in Wuhan, China, only one of 7,324 infections occurred outdoors. Ireland performed a careful analysis of all 232,164 their confirmed COVID-19 cases and found that only 262 came from the outdoors.
Nevertheless, broad bans on outdoor recreation remain in place in Ontario, including continued forced closures of the province’s golf courses. This week, the U. CDC reversed its recommendations that Americans should continue to wear masks even after full vaccination. As San Francisco-based physician and epidemiologist Vinay Prasad wrote in a Thursday tweet, «there was no credible evidence ever to ask vaccinated adults to wear a mask». Nevertheless, mask mandates remain in place even for fully vaccinated Canadians.
Health Canada is continuing to demand that vaccinated Canadians follow all social distancing restrictions until at least 75 per cent of Canadian adults have received at least one dose. «The one thing I’m seeing is that the government refusal to provide a roadmap back to normal is actually worsening vaccine hesitancy,» said Kazemi. He pointed to a recent UCLA survey finding that Americans were significantly more likely to take the vaccine if it meant being free to go maskless. It’s why, despite his fervent pro-vaccine stance, Kazemi says he strongly objects to any efforts to shame people who are doubtful of the shot.
When vaccination changes nothing in a Canadian’s life, «it makes people hopeless,» he said.
Source: Tristin Hopper | NP
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