COVID-19
2017 Influenza VS 2020 COVID19 – A comparison
We’ve all heard the claim “COVID19 is no worse than the flu”.
Is this true? Now that COVID19 has been around for about a year we can look at the numbers and make some definitive observations.
The first case of COVID19 in Canada was reported by Health Canada on Jan. 25, in a Toronto man who had recently travelled from Wuhan. Nine months later, COVID19 has swept the country, devastated economies, and is responsible for the death of over 12,000 Canadians. In some areas measures to control the spread seem to be working, in other areas despite a range of measures, it’s spreading rapidly. There’s still so many unknowns and COVID19 remains nearly as mysterious as when it first appeared. As usual in a situation where knowledge is lacking, fear is not. The Canada Suicide Prevention Service reported to the Canadian Press that in September, 18% of their calls came from people worried about their finances while 26% of their calls were from people very worried that they or someone close to them would contract COVID-19. It’s very likely the claim COVID is no worse than the flu is an understandable response and an attempt to calm this “fear of the unknown”. It is true that so far the survival rate is closer to 100% than it is to 99% for those of us under the age of 60, but can we truly compare COVID and influenza?
The first thing we have to do is dismiss any comparisons with the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic
The only other time millions of Canadians tried to protect themselves with masks was during the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. Actually there is no comparison between the severity of these 2 viruses. The 1918 Spanish Flu was FAR more devastating. We can put this comparison to rest immediately. According to government figures the 1918 ” international pandemic killed approximately 55,000 people in Canada, most of whom were young adults between the ages of 20 and 40.” As of early December, COVID19 is responsible for under 12,500 deaths in Canada. There are fewer deaths (so far) and the age group most severely attacked is much, much older. The majority of COVID19 fatalities are at, or above the life expectancy of Canadians (82.37 years of age in 2019).
So what about the regular flu? Is it true that COVID19 is no worse that the (regular) flu?
Well if you’re going to make a claim that the flu is as bad as COVID19 you’d better pick a pretty bad flu season to compare. 2017 was a bad year for the flu in Alberta. About the worst in the past 10 years. According to the 2017 Seasonal Influenza Summary Reports on the Alberta Health Website:
2017 Influenza – 9,069 laboratory-confirmed influenza cases (the largest number of cases in the previous five seasons)
2017 Influenza – 3,053 hospitalizations, 242 ICU admissions and 92 deaths
Compare these numbers to the stats from the Province of Alberta’s COVID19 website.
2020 COVID19 (to Dec 4) – 64,261 positive tests
2020 COVID19 (to Dec 4) – 2,096 hospitalizations, 379 ICU admissions and 590 deaths.
Up to December 4 there were actually more people hospitalized due to the flu in the 2017 / 2018 season, but that number looks like it will tip toward COVID19 in the next week or less. The other numbers swing heavily toward COVID19 being worse than the flu. Furthermore, it’s important to note COVID19 is NOT behind us yet. So while the numbers here are current to the beginning of December, it could be nearly another year (when vaccines have been widely distributed everywhere) before we’re more-less finished with COVID19 in this first series of waves.
Our final answer
Within the next week or so (after 58 more people are hospitalized) COVID19 will conclusively be worse and in the end far worse than the flu in every category our health system measures.
Interesting Final Note
Having said all this, a remarkable thing is happening with the 2020 flu season. So far there isn’t one. According to Health Canada’s weekly FluWatch Report as of the end of November there is no evidence of community circulation of the flu virus in Canada. Officials are not sure why but they suggest the lack of positive flu tests may be related to the existence of COVID19.
Business
Trudeau gov’t threatens to punish tech companies that fail to censor ‘disinformation’
From LifeSiteNews
A report from the House of Commons Heritage Committee claimed that ‘some individuals and groups create disinformation to promote political ideologies including extremist views and conspiracy theories or simply to make money.’
A report from a Canadian federal committee said MPs should enact laws to penalize social media and tech companies that don’t take action to quell so-called “undesirable or questionable” content on the internet.
MPs from the ruling Liberal, New Democratic Party (NDP), and separatists Bloc Québécois party on the House of Commons Heritage Committee summarized their opinions in a report.
“The Government of Canada notes some individuals and groups create disinformation to promote political ideologies including extremist views and conspiracy theories or simply to make money,” reads the report titled Tech Giants’ Intimidation and Subversion Tactics to Evade Regulation in Canada and Globally.
“Disinformation creates ‘doubt and confusion’ and can be particularly harmful when it involves health information,” it continues.
The report notes how such “disinformation” can cause “financial harms as well as political polarization and distrust in key institutions,” adding, “The prevalence of disinformation can be difficult to determine.”
As noted in Blacklock’s Reporter, the report claims that many of Canada’s “major societal harms” have come from “unregulated social media platforms relying on algorithms to amplify content, among them disinformation and conspiracy theories.”
Of note is the committee failed to define what “disinformation” or “conspiracy theories” meant.
Most of the MPs on the committee made the recommendation that Google, Facebook, and other social media platforms, which ironically have at one point or another clamped down on free speech themselves, “put mechanisms in place to detect undesirable or questionable content that may be the product of disinformation or foreign interference and that these platforms be required to promptly identify such content and report it to users.”
“Failure to do so should result in penalties,” the report stated.
As it stands, the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has plowed ahead to push laws impacting free speech online.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, Canadian legal group The Democracy Fund (TDF) warned that the Liberal government’s Bill C-63 seeks to further clamp down on online speech and will “weaponize” the nation’s courts to favor the ruling federal party and do nothing but create an atmosphere of “fear.”
Bill C-63 was introduced by Liberal Justice Minister Arif Virani in the House of Commons in February and was immediately blasted by constitutional experts as troublesome.
Jordan Peterson, one of Canada’s most prominent psychologists, recently accused the bill of attempting to create a pathway to allow for “Orwellian Thought Crime” to become the norm in the nation.
Conservative MPs fight back: ‘A government bureaucracy should not regulate content’
Conservative MPs fought back the Heritage Committee’s majority findings and in a Dissenting Report said the committee did not understand what the role of the internet is in society, which is that it should be free from regulation.
“The main report failed to adequately explore the state of censorship in Canada and the role played by tech giants and the current federal government,” the Conservatives wrote in their dissenting report, adding, “Canadians are increasingly being censored by the government and tech giants as to what they can see, hear and say online.”
The Conservative MPs noted that when it comes to the internet, it is “boundless,” and that “Anyone who wants to have a presence on the internet can have one.”
“A government bureaucracy should not regulate which content should be prioritized and which should be demoted,” it noted, adding, “There is space for all.”
LifeSiteNews reported how the Conservative Party has warned that Trudeau’s Bill C-63 is so flawed that it will never be able to be enforced or become known before the next election.
The law calls for the creation of a Digital Safety Commission, a digital safety ombudsperson, and the Digital Safety Office, all tasked with policing internet content.
The bill’s “hate speech” section is accompanied by broad definitions, severe penalties, and dubious tactics, including levying pre-emptive judgments against people if they are feared to be likely to commit an act of “hate” in the future.
Details of the new legislation also show the bill could lead to more people jailed for life for “hate crimes” or fined $50,000 and jailed for posts that the government defines as “hate speech” based on gender, race, or other categories.
COVID-19
Blue Cross Blue Shield forced to pay $12 million to Catholic worker fired for refusing COVID shots
From LifeSiteNews
A jury ruled that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan committed religious discrimination against 30-year IT specialist and Catholic Lisa Domski when it denied her a religious accommodation from the company’s COVID shot mandate.
A former IT specialist for Blue Cross Blue Shield has been awarded $12 million in damages and lost wages for her lawsuit over being fired for refusing the COVID-19 shot, in a major victory for religious liberty.
Newsweek reports that the insurance company fired 30-year employee Lisa Domski in 2021 after she sought a religious exemption to their jab mandate and was turned down. The insurer reportedly questioned the sincerity of her religious objections as a Catholic, but denied religious discrimination in the trial.
Domski further maintained that the rationale behind mandating the shot didn’t apply in her case, as 75% of her work was remote before the pandemic and had shifted to fully remote during it, meaning she could not possibly have endangered others even if the shot did prevent transmission, which has since been admitted to not be the case.
“Our forefathers fought and died for the freedom for each American to practice his or her own religion,” declared her attorney Jon Marko. “Neither the government nor a corporation has a right to force an individual to choose between his or her career and conscience. Lisa refused to renounce her faith and beliefs and was wrongfully terminated from the only job she had ever known. The jury’s verdict today tells [Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan] that religious discrimination has no place in America and affirms each person’s right to religious freedom.”
In response, the company said it was “disappointed” in the jury verdict and would be “reviewing its legal options and will determine its path forward in the coming days.”
Many religious and pro-life Americans like Lisa Domski have a moral objection to using medical products whose existence is owed in some way to abortion.
According to a detailed overview by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson all used aborted fetal cells during their vaccines’ testing phase; and Johnson & Johnson also used the cells during the design and development and production phases. The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s journal Science has admitted the same, and even the left-wing fact-checking outlet Snopes acknowledges the statement “that such cell lines were used in the development of COVID-19 vaccines is accurate.”
Moral qualms are just one of the reasons for the ongoing controversy, next to a large body of evidence identifying significant risks to the COVID shots, which were developed and reviewed in a fraction of the time vaccines usually take under the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative.
The federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports 38,068 deaths, 218,646 hospitalizations, 22,002 heart attacks, and 28,706 myocarditis and pericarditis cases as of October 25, among other ailments. U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) researchers have recognized a “high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination,” leading to the conclusion that “under-reporting is more likely” than over-reporting.
An analysis of 99 million people across eight countries published February in the journal Vaccine “observed significantly higher risks of myocarditis following the first, second and third doses” of mRNA-based COVID shots, as well as signs of increased risk of “pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis,” and other “potential safety signals that require further investigation.” In April, the CDC was forced to release by court order 780,000 previously undisclosed reports of serious adverse reactions, and a study out of Japan found “statistically significant increases” in cancer deaths after third doses of mRNA-based COVID-19 jabs and offered several theories for a causal link.
All eyes are currently on former President Donald Trump, who last week won his campaign to return to the White House and whose team has given mixed signals as to the prospects of reconsidering the shots for which he has long taken credit. At the very least, Trump has consistently opposed mandating them and is expected to fill more federal judicial vacancies with jurists favorably inclined to the rights of employees in similar lawsuits.
Meanwhile, some hope that legal action can succeed in bringing accountability on the issue by legally targeting the companies for misrepresentation rather than their products directly. In Florida, an ongoing grand jury investigation into the shots’ manufacturers is slated to release a highly anticipated report on the injections, and a lawsuit by the state of Kansas has been filed accusing Pfizer of fraud for calling the shots “safe and effective.”
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