Theresa Tam: Saint or Dictator?

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Apr 20

Before the media grants sainthood or dictatorial powers upon Dr. Theresa Tam, there are a few things the public ought to know.  First, epidemics are her specialty.  She’s a hammer and we are the nails.  Second, Dr. Tam is myopic in her view on the coronavirus to the exclusion of all else, and she has not been scientific in her public health assessments.

Dr. Tam will be ever remembered for her slogan, “we can’t save every life, but we must save every life we can.”  This is not a scientific statement, it is virtue-signaling of the highest order.  As a public health official, Dr. Tam knows there are other causes of death besides coronavirus.  Among these are causes related to anxiety, such as suicide and drug addiction.  Poverty is a remote cause of death, as the Hamilton Spectator’s Code Red series pointed out.  And medical conditions left untreated because the health system is focussed so heavily on preventing the spread of the coronavirus, will become rising causes of death.

A public health official who bases her decisions on science would regard deaths from these other causes as every bit significant as those caused by the coronavirus.  She would be looking to strike a balance for an overall optimum, not focussing exclusively on measures directed to the attainment of one outcome to the disregard of all the rest.  A public health official, based on science, would recognize that a bad hand has been dealt, would expect rising mortality, would speak frankly about minimizing all risks holistically, not excluding all others for the sake of just the most newsworthy (which happens to be her speciality), and would refrain from moralizing rhetoric.


Dr. Tam is a woman of colour who speaks in progressive platitudes, and so it’s no wonder Canada’s media hang on her every over-rated word.
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