Are we losing perspective amid crisis?

Vincent J. Curtis

5 Apr 20

The Ontario government released grim sounding figures concerning the number of deaths that could occur in the province as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.  The numbers quoted were between three and fifteen thousand dead over the next eighteen to twenty-four months.

What was not given was perspective.  How many people will die over that time frame from all causes – cancer, heart attack, car accidents, and plain old age?  With a population of nine million, let’s assume that the number of people that die per year from all causes is 100,000.  That means that roughly 150,000 to 200,000 Ontarians will die from all causes over the coronavirus time frame.  The lower end of the coronavirus estimate amounts to a rounding error in the Ontario total.  The higher end places an upward nudge in the overall number.

The health officials used a surprisingly long period, eighteen to twenty-four months.  How long do they really expect this thing to run, given the extreme quarantine conditions we are subjected to?  How long will those conditions remain given the time frame of two years?

Self-isolation is supposed to put the bug out of business in short order.  If we are going back to work in a month to six weeks, when are most of these deaths supposed to happen, surely not after June?  If so, why are we shut down now?

I’m getting the feeling that no one has a real grasp of the overall situation, or of what to do.  The economy is suspended, but it can’t remain so for long.  Nobody is talking about selective quarantining of seniors and those with lung problems – who are notably at risk of fatal infection.  On the other hand, children under eighteen years are practically unaffected by the coronavirus.  Can’t they, with exceptions, go back to school soon?

It could be that the extreme quarantine measures are a panicked over-reaction.  Of course the medical professionals want a mass quarantine.  They get still get paid and they’re not out of work.  The only economy they’re responsible for is their own.

We have a bunch of hammers each looking at the problem as if it were his nail.  What we need is a generalist who is able to say that a certain level of risk must be expected in this life, and allow the province to return to a form of normal.

Cue the virtue signallers.
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