Short-term rules are there for long-term safety
By Letter to the Editor on June 17, 2020.
I am writing to respond to the letter from Cathy Riley, of Bow Island, in the Thursday, June 4 paper.
You may think rural Alberta shouldn’t have to follow the COVID-19 rules because you don’t have any cases. All it takes is for a member of your community to go to a city (to shop, appointment, visit) and be exposed, to bring it back to your community.
No one is isolated anymore. For the safety of the vulnerable in your community, you need to consider keeping their risk low.
As an elderly senior, I am taking every precaution to stay safe, i.e. staying home, wearing masks when I do have to go out, hand washing. Please consider short-term rules for long-term safety.
Frances Schultz
Lethbridge
8-7
Well stated!
Everybody has to do their part RIGHT old-timer!
Everyone has an opinion. Most of us do know how to protect ourselves, as we didn’t get this old because we are stupid. For the younger up comers they could be told what to do., but to have our safety legislated for us is complete over reach. Because of this over reach, we are going to now entering a time of economic uncertainty, as to when people will go back to work or even have their previous jobs available. Businesses are rising their prices to try to recover their losses after a 3 month shutdown. Combine those to factors and we may have generated a depression which could be worse than this pandemic.
Like it or not, the “economy” is directly related to the well being of the people.
Covid does not warrant throwing millions into unemployment and isolating healthy people. The psychological stress of unemployment and isolation causes far more destruction than Covid. For example, domestic abuse has skyrocketed (including child abuse). There are also significant increases in addiction, and suicides (a 1% rise in unemployment increases suicides by about .8%). Let’s also not forget the people who have died, or suffered further illness because their surgeries were, and still are delayed. Then of course is the massive financial cost that we’ll be paying for dearly in higher taxes and/or reduced services.
Lockdowns also significantly reduce the possibility of herd immunity. Now add that to the needlessly weakened immune system of healthy people due to the stress of the lock down, and it’s just more and more needless illness piled upon the healthy (the vast majority which aren’t affected by Covid).
The bottom line is that only a very minuscule amount of the population are affected by Covid. Those are the people that should be self isolating, not everyone else. Isolating, unemploying, and causing damage to 99% of the population to which Covid has no affect, is utter madness.
Google “Covid lockdown repercussions”. Here’s just one example of many:
https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news-story/10014204-ontario-s-covid-19-lockdown-is-now-harming-health-more-than-it-s-helping-some-experts-say/
the only care i have for the artificial economy is how it degrades the living planet, and how it degrades humanity. the primary issue we face apart from that dire reality is the extent to which govt appears to have authority to exert vast and extensive control over individuals, and the relative ease its attempts to control have been received. we have been into this for over 3 months, and it seems the best we could do is increase the flow of masks (recently), increase the stockpiles of expensive hand sanitizer (some bottles proudly displaying the liquor distiller’s name, which, in most cases, might be the tastiest thing they have yet produced), increase the scope of heroes to just about everyone, and all the while govt has taken away livelihoods from far too many families.
you would think by now we would have built thousands of spaces for covid affected peoples, and those who will inevitably be affected, not to mention respirators – where is the news of thousands of respirators coming off the lines? it is not like spaces and breathing apparatus will be a one off; this is likely the shape of things to come. but, thank god we have now recently anointed almost everyone with a paid job to hero status (since 9/11 we only had firefighters as heroes, plus the usual blessed entertainers/athletes); as the planet pukes up on us, and as politicians sow the deeds of the conniving uppermost of the top 1%,it seems we are going to need all the heroes we can get, especially given the continuing dearth of health care spaces and respirators.
Well said Biff.
You said:
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The extent to which govt appears to have authority to exert vast and extensive control over individuals
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You raised many compelling points in your post, but that point is most important, and it’s 50% of what my whole previous post was about. that.
The average person just reads the headlines from bought out media outlets. The people erroneously think it must be some sort of authority, so they bend over and take it. Then of course, is the proverbial SJW moron with the hashtag of “Stay the F–k home”, without any thought into the repercussions of such.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Services and “blown” money far exceed the people’s wage increase. More specifically, the average worker is closer and closer to poverty.
In other words, what we’re doing is unstainable. The current system will result in global starvation. Is that what is needed for a global reboot?