In the Herald this weekend there were several stories about the US election.  Every story that mentioned that Donald Trump alleged voter fraud was careful to add “without providing proof”.  It is a shame that the media does not use the same degree of skepticism for the Covid lock down crowd.  The Herald gave almost a full page to Dr. Lynora Saxinger from the University of Alberta.  Dr. Saxinger used her pulpit to lie several times.  The Herald did not find it necessary to add “without providing proof” to anything she said.

The first lie was the very premise of the article.  The article was titled “There is a Third Option”.  The third option is a circuit breaker.  What is a circuit breaker?  It is harsh 2 week lockdown.  A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet.  A lockdown by any other name would smell as putrid.  Renaming a lockdown a circuit breaker does not suddenly make it not at lockdown or any less evil.  This is not a new third option it is the old option that did not work last time, repeated with more desire.  Is there any doubt about which direction Dr. Saxinger’s leans in a stiff wind?

To convince us that this is somehow new and necessary Dr. Saxinger tells several supporting Lies.  Dr. Saxinger states that the first lockdown worked and that it bought us time.  What worked was the arrival of summer and we squandered that time planning another lockdown rather than doing anything constructive.

The good doctor was not content with just Lying about how well our lockdowns worked she found it necessary to lie about what is happening in Sweden and how herd immunity is not possible.  She stated that Sweden’s approach did not work because a lot of people died and that even Sweden is re-imposing restrictions.  I have a news flash for the Dr. a lot of people died everywhere not just Sweden.  Sweden is just about the only place where people are not dying with Covid right now.  Sweden also did not imposed restrictions.  They just issued new guidelines that still remain voluntary.  See the plot below and you tell me if you think the Swedes were wrong.

Sweden had a small blip of deaths at the start of influenza season that is already trending back down.  Sweden, with one of the oldest populations in the world has now fallen to 20^th place for deaths/capita and will be passed by at least 3 more “younger” countries in the next few weeks.

Her “proof” that herd immunity was not possible was that we have seen re-infections.  I tried to find out how many and the highest number I could find was from this article.

https://www.cnet.com/health/can-you-get-covid-19-more-than-once-what-we-do-and-dont-know-about-reinfection/

The article is not specific but mentioned a couple dozen.  The only other article I could find from August put the number at 5.  55 million people have already been infected.  Two dozen is a 0.00004% reinfection rate; if you believe that they were re-infected at all.  Twice now these 2 dozen people have had flu like symptoms and a positive PCR test.  You know who else has had more than one positive PCR test?  Elon Musk, in the same day this week he had 2 positive and 2 negative tests.  The singer Erica Badu also had 2 tests from the same lab the same day.  Her right nostril was positive and her left nostril was negative.

Dr. Saxinger wants to lock you in your home for 2 weeks or 2 years, whatever it takes.  The only way she can justify her conclusion is to lie and the Herald is OK with this.  It looks like the only way the Herald will ever be skeptical about lockdowns is if Donald Trump comes out in favor of them.  Our society deserves better than Dr. Saxinger and we sure as hell deserve better than the Calgary Herald.

If Dr. Frankenstein could distil and combine the pure stupidity of Ed Stelmach, the rotting corruption of Allison Redford, and the evil communist sympathies of Rachel Notley he would have an elixir to build a truly frightening monster.  Sadly this monster could not possibly cause more damage than Jason Kenney.  Yesterday, Jason Kenney solidified his position as the worst Premier in Alberta History by announcing his second lockdown, 1 week after admitting the first lockdown killed people.

We have been to this movie before.  The first 2 week lockdown instituted nearly 9 months ago is not over and we have started a new one.  Only 1 covid death happened prior to the lockdown and various restrictions.  392 people have died with covid since Jason decided to start protecting us.  There is no evidence the first lockdown worked and Jason wants to go back.  Jason took over Alberta with a huge majority based on all of his tough talk.  Since taking control Jason has shown that his tough rhetoric was empty.  He has accomplished nothing while he followed Deena Hinshaw and Justin Trudeau like a new puppy.

Mr. All Hat No Cattle didn’t even show up for his own press conference.  He was in contact with someone who tested positive so he was self-isolating.  He made a point of telling us that even if his test is negative he will finish the 14 day self-isolation as prescribed by Deena Hinshaw.  This is a page right out of Justin Trudeau’s play book.  Use Covid as an excuse to stay home and play video games.  Justin found the less Canadians saw of him the more they liked him.  Jason is hoping Albertans will appreciate his absence; I certainly would if it was permanent.  Jason is nothing more than a Justin Trudeau wannabe.

Deena and Jason were very concerned that cases and deaths are rising in Alberta.  As you can see below we are now seeing twice as many people die with covid as we saw in April.

Again they were careful not to put anything in context.  In April we are coming out of influenza season, deaths normally drop by 31 per week (7 per million).  If covid deaths were rising at a time when deaths should have been falling we should have seen excess deaths, yet we did not. Where were the 17 deaths per week of covid?  Now we are showing 39 covid deaths per week.  Deaths normally rise as winter approaches.  Even without Covid we should see deaths increasing by 66 every week (15 per million).  The deaths we are seeing now are not outside the bounds of what we should expect every November.  See the plot below

As per usual they took questions at the end of the presentation.  If I had been there I would have been thrown out for asking the following uncomfortable questions.

Questions for Deena Hinshaw

• You have given us incomplete data. Are total respiratory illnesses outside the bounds of normal for November?
• Almost every government in the world has now admitted that covid 19 is an airborne virus. All of your policies are just an extension of the old policies designed for infection from droplets.  Why are we still using the same policies when we have new information on how the virus is transmitted?
• You mentioned masks several times. If masks are such a panacea why are most of the new infections in Calgary and Edmonton where masks have been mandatory for more than 3 months?
• In 9 months the only medical advice you have dispensed is that we should be afraid and we need to hide from the virus. Shouldn’t you be more concerned with establishing treatment protocols and training AHS staff?
• As our chief medical officer you have at your disposal the entire resources of Alberta Health services. AHS has 106 hospitals and over 100,000 employees.  Given those enormous resources why is it so difficult to treat the 225 Covid patients in the hospital right now?
• Do you think someone who can’t figure out how to find space for 225 people in 106 hospitals should be our chief medical officer?
• In what class in medical school do they teach that unemployed people are less susceptible to viral infection than employed people?
• Can we see a copy of your medical degree and can you provide a list of people who will testify that you attended class?

 

Questions for Jason Kenney

• You spent a considerable amount of time explaining how Alberta business owners have done such a good job that we have not seen any serious outbreaks due to the business resumption. Given that, how are we safer by now closing those businesses?
• Nowhere in the world have lockdowns and restrictions flattened the curve in any way that could be attributed to the measures. Why do you think repeating these policies will work this time?
• Corona Viruses are seasonal, a second wave has been anticipated for months. Why is our hospital capacity the same as it was 9 months ago?  What have you been doing for the last 9 months?
• How has wringing your hands and lecturing Albertans for 9 months enhanced our ability to treat sick people?
• What makes you think that a viral outbreak can be stemmed by government decree? Do you really think you are a God?
• Do you have an accurate accounting of the people who were killed by your first lockdown?
• Will you apologize to the families of the people who were killed by your first lockdown?
• How many people do you expect to kill with your current lockdown?
• Does being god mean never having to say you are sorry?

If there had been a real journalist in attendance some or all of those questions would have been asked.  Instead the first question came from the Edmonton journal.  The media personality (not to be confused with a journalist) pointed out that the new restrictions are similar to, but less stringent than the ones in Ontario that are not working.  Instead of coming to the obvious conclusion that these types of restrictions don’t work he asked why the Alberta Government was not going to go further.  Typical left wing lunacy; pick something that has not worked and advocate for doing more of it.

The subsequent questions did not get any smarter.  We are doomed.  Despite ample evidence to the contrary our decision makers believe they are gods.  The only people allowed to question these self-appointed gods are left wing lunatics, incapable of critical thought.  This is not the blind leading the blind.  It is the delusional being enabled by the deluded.

The news this weekend was full of panic inducing stories about the alarming increase in Covid 19 cases in Canada.  The Media turned to their stable of fake experts to declare that Canada needs a nationwide lockdown again.  Lockdowns have not worked anywhere they have been tried and have led to more not fewer deaths.  The data on this is becoming clearer by the day, our Premier just admitted to it on camera.  Clamoring for a return to lockdowns is just the lunatic left reading from the only playbook they have.  For the left the answer to every problem is to do what did not work last time we tried it.  They refuse to believe their lunatic ideas just don’t work.  Instead they choose to believe their plan is divine and failed due to the slovenly efforts of imperfect humans.  To the left millions of unemployed and a 350 billion dollar deficit is clear evidence we did not try hard enough last time.

There is nothing going on right now that we should not have expected.  Cases are surging in Canada now for 2 reasons.

1. It is fall and this is a seasonal virus. Sorry Jason your yellow tape and closed restaurants had nothing to do with low cases during the summer.
2. Canada simply did not have enough cases during the initial outbreak.

I wrote this for our old discussion group on August 12 warning about just that

 

Yesterday I linked a video that showed Sweden has gotten back to normal.  I have no video of Belarus but since they never left normal, I suspect it would be easy to find video of packed streets in Belarus (especially now when protests against the president have broken out).  Sweden and Belarus had the courage to let nature take its course and let people get sick.  The reward for their courage is that they have not destroyed their economy and terrified their population.  Right now, Canada looks very much like Sweden and Belarus, except for the economic destruction we insisted on in Canada.  Infections and Deaths have been dropping for weeks and are now at very low levels.

 Here are the deaths in Sweden

And here are the deaths in Canada

 

 They look quite similar and they both look like the outbreak is over.  So why is everyone running around wearing masks in Canada?  There is one worrying caveat I must discuss before declaring Covid over in Canada.  Not enough Canadians have been exposed to the virus.  Things are over in Sweden and Belarus; here is how they compare with Canada for infections/million.

Sweden and Belarus have very similar cases per million.  It is hard to tell on a logarithmic plot, but Canada has less than ½ as many infections/capita.  Sweden has done less testing than Canada, but Belarus has done more so this is not simply a matter of testing.  I am sure that when Theresa Tam or Deena Hinshaw see this plot, they will tell you that is because the restrictions worked.  That is an easy conclusion to make until you look at the time frame.  Restrictions were imposed in Canada immediately.  Canada hit 10 cases per million on March 11.  Most provinces had imposed restrictions within one week of that date.  In Alberta, the restrictions started March 17^th.  If you look at the plot Canada tracked right on top of Sweden for 50 days and restrictions were in place for 6 of the 7 weeks.  The virus has a 4 to 5-day incubation period and a 14 to 17-day total life cycle.  If the restrictions worked, we would have shown a departure from Sweden within the first 2 weeks, yet we followed them for 4 weeks after that.  The lower cases in Canada probably have more to do with the nature of how people are spread out through Canada than any silly government regulations.  Canada is the least densely populated country on earth.  We have immense distances between settlements and our cities are newer.  The younger cities in Canada are built around the automobile.  We have sprawling cities consisting of mostly single-family homes.  Cities in Europe were already large before automobiles were common, so they tend to be more densely populated and have fewer single-family homes.  Sweden by European standards has a low population density but is still 6 times more densely populated than Canada (Belarus is 11 times).  58% of swedes live in multifamily dwellings (apartments and condominiums) where only 46% of Canadians live in multifamily dwellings.  The city of Stockholm is 3 times more densely populated as Calgary.  Our Geography makes Canadians naturally socially distant.  We should expect a virus to move more slowly through Canada than Europe or the united states.

 Our Geography gives us a natural advantage that we should have exploited.  We did not have to shut down.  As the virus moved from place to place, we could have used hospital space and other resources from places that had not seen the virus yet or who were already done.  We could have cooperated, like we do on pipelines; wait a minute I now see a flaw in that plan.  Canadian’s do not have a great recent history of cooperation with other Canadians, we save our compassion for non-citizens who break our laws.  We do have a long history of wasting money without producing any measurable benefits.  From that perspective our current Prime Moron is the quintessential Canadian Prime minister and his Covid 19 response plan would have to be his crowning achievement.  It is hard to imagine how we could have spent more money to get less accomplished.

 It might be over in Canada, but I fear not enough Canadians have been exposed to the virus and this fall we will see a second wave.  Since our politicians seem to be incapable of admitting mistakes, they are unlikely to learn from them.  We could see a return to the ineffective destructive restrictions we have not even worked our way out of in the first place.  I hope not.  I hope this time our political masters will have the courage to ride it out and let people get sick.  That means more people will die.  Restrictions or no restrictions this is going to happen so we should be prepared for it.  So how many people will die?  Not as many as you think.  Remember when I quoted the doctor who said in 29 years, he had never seen someone die of influenza?  His point was that these types of respiratory viruses only kill people who were on death’s doorstep, so it is incorrect to blame the influenza instead of the condition that caused them to be near death anyway.  That got me wondering.  I showed this plot in a previous rant 

It is very easy to see the big spikes in the bad flu years.  So does a bad flu season turn in to a bad year; no not really.  See below

The blue bars are flu season (the first 4 months of the year) the orange bars are the year average.  You can see that there is a large variation in flu season from year to year but not much change in the overall year average.  You can’t die twice; if you die in flu season you can’t die again later in the year.  This makes the doctors argument.  Most of the people who die with influenza would have died later in the year had they not contracted influenzas.  So how many people actually die from influenzas?  We are starting to see the same thing with Covid 19.  I showed you this for Canada previously

We started the year with a very low influenzas spike.  We had a sharp covid spike and then immediately fell far below average.  We are seeing the same thing in less dramatic fashion in other countries.  

Like Canada, Sweden and Germany entered the year well below average, saw a Covid spike, and then fell below average.  Sweden entered the year so low that even with their covid spike of 5774 deaths they are only about 3000 deaths above average for the year.  Now that they are running well below average, they are likely to end out the year not significantly different than any other year.  97.2% of the Covid fatalities in Alberta had at least 1 serious health condition other than Covid.  73% had 3 or more underlying health conditions.  We need to ask ourselves how many people really die from Covid and not from other causes?  Only 6 people in Alberta have died with no pre-existing health condition.  I know every life is precious, but we have spent billions of dollars in a futile attempt to save 6 people.  To make it worse I am aware of at least 2 people who have died due to the lockdown.  We have spent billions of dollars to kill more people than the virus did.  Remember that the next time you see Jason Kenney, Justin Trudeau, Deena Hinshaw, and Theresa Tam step up to the microphone to congratulate themselves on what a stellar job they have done.

 

As I explained in August, you do not need government intervention to keep Canadians apart.  Our geography does that for us.  This summer People should have been encouraged to go back to normal and let the disease circulate through the healthy population when the Terrain was the strongest and the virus was the weakest.  Instead the government closed fitness centers, locked you at home, and forced a mask on you.  Our government did everything in its power to compromise your immune system and delay your exposure to the virus until winter when the virus is at its peak.  In short everything our government has done seems to have been designed to maximize the body count.  How is that not murder?

I looked up the definition of Manslaughter in Canadian law.  Here is what I found.

Manslaughter charges

Any “culpable homicide” that does not meet the definition of murder is said to be manslaughter. Culpable homicide is defined to include when a person causes the death of another human being by:

(a) by means of an unlawful act;

(b) by criminal negligence;

(c) by causing that human being, by threats or fear of violence or by deception, to do anything that causes his death; or

(d) by willfully frightening that human being, in the case of a child or sick person.

 

I want to take a minute to comment on A through D.

1. By means of an unlawful act

In my opinion nothing any government I Canada has done in the last 9 months is lawful.  How was suspending our rights lawful?  Most governments enacted restrictions under their public health acts which are arguably unconstitutional.  Then these governments kept restrictions in place after the emergency declarations expired.  How is that lawful?  Some businesses were closed while other competing businesses offering the same products or services were allowed to stay open.  Where in Canadian law does it say that governments are allowed to discriminate between business owners?  Governments at every level in this country have been disregarding the law since March.

 

1. Criminal negligence

It was not hard to see that the actions the governments were taking would lead to deaths.  Many people, legitimate experts, warned them of this.  The government chose to ignore the voices of sanity and listen exclusively to the sky is falling experts who have never in history been correct.  I am no legal expert but I don’t know how you describe the willful ignorance displayed by governments as anything other than negligence.

 

1. Threats or fear of violence or deception

People were threatened with fines for not wearing masks, businesses were threaten with fines for opening.  We are constantly threatened with a return to lockdown if we do not show 100% obedience to our government and bureaucratic overlords.  There has not been a single day in the last 9 months when the government did not issue some sort of threat.

 

1. Willfully frightening a human being.

The government has done nothing but issue panic porn since March.  Even after Admitting lockdowns had resulted in increased deaths Jason Kenney still could not resist adding that anything other than 100% compliance would kill seniors.  The media has also taken part in spreading panic.  Panic kills and there are thousands of politicians, bureaucrats and media personalities that have done nothing other than stoke panic for months now.

 

The Covid crisis has been almost entirely man made.  The Government and their helpers took a bad flu season and turned it in to a killing machine.  Thousands of people have actively participated in creating conditions that have increased the number of deaths.  How is that not manslaughter?  Some politicians are waking up to the realization that they may no get away with murder.  Politicians like Doug Ford in Ontario are starting to introduce legislation to prevent their own prosecution.

In the US, AOC (Justin Trudeau’s ideological soul mate) wants Nuremberg style trials to purge the US of Trump supporters.  I agree with AOC, crimes on the scale we are witnessing now call for Nuremberg type trials.  I do not agree with AOC on who should be on trial.  Trump supporters have not killed anyone, many of them have been victims of government crime.  We have seen too many unnecessary deaths to let this slide.  This went past incompetence and crossed the line into criminality a long time ago.  Governments and their enablers in the media need to be held accountable.

 

I was thinking about statistics and how they can often be contradictory.  Like how can such a high percentage of people be so concerned about a virus that threatens such a low percentage of people?  Shouldn’t the public concern about a virus be proportional to the effect that virus has on the population?  Because of the American election I was thinking about how Canadian’s are reacting to it.  Donald Trump is highly unpopular in Canada.  Even in Alberta where Trump has the highest support in Canada, 68% of Albertans support Joe Biden.  65% of Albertans have post-secondary education, which is high by world standards.  So that goes around right?  A highly educated population supports the candidate that would be best for them right?  God I wish it were so.

Alberta has been struggling in recent years.  We had not even recovered from collapsing world oil prices when a corrupt, anti-pipeline, anti-oil, imbecile took over our Federal government and promptly canceled 3 pipelines.  Those 3 pipelines would have allowed Alberta to sell more oil to Canadian’s and would have opened overseas markets.  Right now Alberta produces about 4 million barrels/day.  We sell 1 million to the rest of Canada, 3 million to the United States, and nothing to any other country.  Canada is only our second biggest customer and they are small compared to the United States.

Alberta is struggling because we are having problems with our second largest customer yet 68% of Albertans think it will be better if Joe Biden gets elected.  Joe Biden is a corrupt, anti-pipeline, anti-oil, imbecile.  Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau are peas from the same pod.  Justin Trudeau is just a younger version of Joe Biden.  There is no way that having a corrupt, anti-pipeline, anti-oil, imbeciles in Ottawa and Washington at the same time can be good for Alberta.

With the 1-2 punch of Biden and Trudeau controlling our only customers and Jason Kenney whining impotently from the sidelines, Alberta is in for a world of hurt.  If Joe Biden takes over in January Alberta is set for declining population, boarded up buildings, collapsing businesses, and chronic high unemployment.  Why are 68% of Albertans in favor of that?  68% of a highly educated population openly supports their own destruction.

It is tempting to correlate level of post-secondary education with intelligence but Alberta proves that no such correlation exists.  The contradiction between the 2 statistics of education level and support for Joe Biden clearly demonstrates that.

So what does American politics have to do with covid other than demonstrating more contradicting statistics?  Joe Biden had only 2 planks to his election platform.

1. Joe Biden is not Donald Trump
2. If Joe was in charge no American would have died from Covid.

The second plank in his platform is impossible.  No one other than God can stop a viral outbreak yet Americans believed him.  The media has succeeded in panicking the population to the point that they believed Joe’s Messianic proclamations.  If you take away the covid panic you take away 50% of the reason for anyone to vote for Joe Biden and Trump wins in a landslide.

For 9 months now I have maintained that Covid 19 is nothing other than a run of the mill virus that in the absence of political dumbassery won’t be much of a problem.  Boy was I wrong.  If Joe Biden takes over the white house in January, Covid 19 will have destroyed Alberta.  All without producing a single excess death.