Old Journo ignores current science

Vincent J. Curtis

19 Oct 20

RE: Second wave may prove harder to control than the first.  Hamilton Spectator of this date.

Geoffrey Stevens concludes his opinion with the statement: “If [the Trudeau government] can’t get the public on its side again, Wave Two could be long and deadly.”

The amount of information Stevens had to ignore to reach that conclusion is enormous.  As is plainly visible on the Ontario COVID-19 data page, the second wave is already larger than the first.  However, the hospitalizations and deaths, which tracked the number of cases in the first wave, are practically ignoring the cases data in the second.  If the second wave were the same as the first, Ontario should be reporting over ninety deaths per day, but in fact is reporting only five or six per day.  So, it simply isn’t going to be as deadly, and the demographic data explains why.

There is also no reason to believe the second wave will be longer than the first.  If you compare the pandemic curves from Sweden, which didn’t lock down, with those of Ontario, the durations of the first waves are the same, roughly three and a half months, lockdown or no lockdown.  (What “control?”)

The World Health Organization now opposes lockdowns, finally realizing that the health consequences of lockdowns are worse than the pandemic.  There’s a lot of crow to be eaten over lockdowns, but the important thing is not to make that mistake a second time.

Wave two is less deadly than the first, lockdowns don’t work, and will be resisted.

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