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| Health Minister Patty Hajdu with Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Dr. Theresa Tam during a news conference on the COVID-19 pandemic on Friday, Nov. 20, 2020. PHOTO BY JUSTIN TANG/THE CANADIAN PRESS/FILE |
‘It’s not a panacea’ is not a valid argument against rapid testing — or anything else
« Last month only 0.31 per cent of Covid19 cases in Ontario were related to travel». Mind you, here is the sort of thing Liberals said in March when opposition critics called just for targeted border restrictions. If they had just done air-traveller testing to begin with, they could have spared Canadians that concern and themselves a headache. It is a central fact of Canadian politics that Liberals can deride and defame any given idea and its proponents for weeks, months or years, then suffer not at all when they wake up one morning and adopt it themselves.
To wit, here is the sort of thing Liberals used to say about rapid COVID testing.
And here is the sort of thing Liberals began saying once they turned another 180
To be fair, though, when the Liberals cited public health advice to justify their original positions, it was entirely credible. That advice has also been a huge part of the problem. Here is the sort of thing public health officials used to say about masks. The idea that «masks are worse than useless» was, at least, mainstream medical thinking back in February and March.
There is the «not a panacea» fallacy, as if there’s ever a panacea for anything, and the related «not a big problem» fallacy, as if relatively small problems and threats aren’t worth addressing. The idea that less accurate rapid testing is ill-advised, especially when Canada isn’t testing nearly enough people via any method, is based on similarly inexcusable and rigid thinking. For politicians themselves, I think the problem has been threefold.
Source: Chris Selley | NP
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