There are (finally!) large-scale protests about Canada's (continued) stringent public health measures

Two years into this pandemic and there are two noteworthy things in Canada I will emphasize in this post:

(1) Canada is ranked #9 in the world, at 81%, for the portion of the population that is fully vaccinated. Canada also ranks #7 out of 195 countries for the most stringent covid restrictions imposed over the past 2 years, which include school closures, restricting public gatherings, restrictions on internal movements, stay-at-home requirements and travel bans.  The only country in the world that is higher than Canada in both these categories is China.  So we ranked behind an authoritarian regime in terms of our willingness to restrict the rights and freedoms of fully vaccinated persons.  IMHO, this should be a source of great shame and embarrassment.  How did we end up with among the highest vaccination rates and the highest restrictions? You might think the former would rule out the latter, or the latter would only be needed if you had low vaccination rates.  

To be honest it still perplexes me, I think the reasons for this are multi-factorial.  I will  highlight three things that I think contributed to this tragic situation:  

(a) Canadians often define themselves in contrast to Americans, so Trump's anti-lockdown stance simply fueled the appetite many of my compatriots had for going "uber-restrictive".  The city of Toronto, for example, had the longest indoor dining ban in the world in 2020/21.  And despite it reaching among the highest vaccinations in the world by the end of 2021, it was locked down (this time with the whole province!) yet again in December 2021.   

(b) Because of the public's appetite for prolonged restrictions, the government did not pursue what would have been the most effective and rational public health measure to pursue during this pandemic- increasing healthcare capacity.  Two years have gone by and somehow the media continues to focus on reports of fully vaccinated University students partying outside, unvaccinated Canadians "overwhelming ICU beds" (despite the fact that most of these beds are used by non-COVID related patients).  Healthcare capacity is not fixed, and yet almost all of the public dialogue and debate presumed it was.  This is symptomatic of a larger problem in Canadian politics- the lack of discussion about private healthcare.  We prefer to stick our heads in the sand.  But this pandemic has revealed the major cracks that exist in the current system. 

(c) Public health officials have continued to obfuscate the issues of deaths and hospitalizations with and from Covid.  This has served their goal of galvanizing broad public support for lockdown measures, but only by imposing a neurotic mindset and anxiety upon most of the population who have been scared into thinking that the young and healthy will likely die from the virus.  Schools are not nursing homes, and truck drivers are not healthcare workers.  But you would not know there is any difference given the amount of school closures over the past two years and the vaccine mandates for workers that work in isolation driving a truck.   

Which brings me to the second point I want to highlight in this post:

(2) The "Freedom Convoy" protests have brought the city of Ottawa to a standstill for over a week now.  To be honest I thought this would have occurred back in June 2020.  Only now are more Canadians finally waking up to notice the reality that they will not get a return to normal life unless they demand their provincial and the federal governments give it back.  Let's hope the protests remain peaceful, and the governments and general population realize that this virus is not going away and we need to find a way to live with it without forfeiting our mental health, education, socializing and pretty much everything else that makes life worth living.  

Now is the time for courage and leadership.  The latter has been lacking since the start of the pandemic.  And the former has never been more important than now.  

Cheers, 

Colin