Large Fierce Mammal

Source: Here

“While I can identify broader causes for the problems we’ve looked at today, they are, I believe, irrelevant to the problem under discussion for which the resolution will only be found when thinking on the pandemic becomes less linear and more systems oriented, something highlighted when the CBC article says of Dr. Croskerry, ‘He expects studies will be done once the COVID-19 crisis is over, to calculate the impact on emergency rooms,’ and that, ‘He said a negative effect seems ‘inevitable,’ due to the additional workload and stress created by the pandemic,’

“We need to stop thinking no further than a theoretical day when, ‘… the COVID-19 crisis is over …’ and look instead at how our systems and their supporting policies need to be reconfigured to work the way they need to whether it ends or not ….” ~ Troubleshooting 101

From the perspective of a professional Troubleshooter living through the pandemic myself, I naturally have first hand knowledge of, and a unique perspective on, how public health measures, official guidance, and media coverage have evolved from the earliest announcement of detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to where we find ourselves today.

Now nearly 2 years on, beyond an evolutionary adjustment in where, when, and how goods and services are exchanged and money changes hands, my professional and personal methods and standards of conduct and daily living haven’t changed in any degree that wouldn’t be expected from the mere passage of time. In short, there’s nothing like the test of time to highlight whether or not you’ve been on the right track all along.

In the cacophony of ideology, politics, media spin, panic, mendacity, obfuscation, wishful thinking, misinformation, disinformation, fear mongering, axe grinding, profiteering, guilt, threats, bullying, societal division, and everything else pandemic related that competes for pride of place in your every waking hour, it’s easy to lose the thread no matter how large the ball of yarn it may come back to. None of this hindered me from finding my way to my present position for reasons I spoke to here just under a year ago:

“Right now, as the world grapples with the reality of a global pandemic, position comes into play on many levels. For a few that means holding, at the outset, of sufficient wealth and influence to sidestep the sharpest edges of the problem, and even become wealthier and more influential in the long term. For a few more, position born of skill, knowledge, and versatility has permitted life to move on relatively unaffected, and possibly in some ways improved. For most, nearly a year in, the deciding factor of where they are now was their position the day the virus dropped.” ~ A Long Winter’s Night — 2020 Edition Day 2: Position

For your enlightenment, Goode Reader, I will today lay out the essential framework that informs my own position, for the most part focusing on these issues as they have arisen in or impinged upon Canada, and as much as possible as they have come to roost in Nova Scotia because that’s where I live and practice. Wherever you may live, and whether or not you choose to embrace any of what follows in your own search for Truth, you will find that not unlike the principles of Troubleshooting, this is universal.

I have broken my assessments into categories, each with its own header in bold type, and ending with a summary. Those of you with a distaste for the details may skip to skip straight to the summary for each section, and then wrap up with my Conclusions and Philosophy of Execution at the end of the article.

SARS-CoV-2 — Threat or Menace?

SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus, and of those the U. S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has this to say:

“Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that usually cause mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses, like the common cold. However, three new coronaviruses have emerged from animal reservoirs over the past two decades to cause serious and widespread illness and death.

“There are hundreds of coronaviruses, most of which circulate among such animals as pigs, camels, bats and cats. Sometimes those viruses jump to humans—called a spillover event—and can cause disease. Four of the seven known coronaviruses that sicken people cause only mild to moderate disease. Three can cause more serious, even fatal, disease. SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) emerged in November 2002 and caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). That virus disappeared by 2004. Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is caused by the MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Transmitted from an animal reservoir in camels, MERS was identified in September 2012 and continues to cause sporadic and localized outbreaks. The third novel coronavirus to emerge in this century is called SARS-CoV-2. It causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which emerged from China in December 2019 and was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020.” ~ Coronaviruses

Medical researchers enjoyed a leg up on this latest variation on the coronavirus theme through having, figuratively speaking, seen this movie before:

“COVID-19 was first recognized because scientists already knew about coronaviruses: their shape and how to test for them. Their origins were also already known (zoonotic with specific animal carriers). Moreover, an understanding of virus mutations had led to an expectation that new coronaviruses could emerge and that their virulence could differ from those already found. Thus, while the virulence of COVID-19 and timing of its occurrence could not be predicted in advance, its emergence was a recognized possibility.

“In addition, prior coronavirus research had identified a set of symptoms from previous outbreaks, tested a range of treatments, experimented with vaccines, and implemented preventative measures. Thus, biomedical and public health investigations of COVID-19 had a body of prior research to draw upon. Assessing the extent to which COVID-19 differs from prior diseases might help speed new biomedical and public health research, for example. This is made explicit in some papers, such as ‘Repurposing antivirals as potential treatments for SARS-CoV-2: From SARS to COVID-19′” ~ Coronavirus research before 2020 is more relevant than ever, especially when interpreted for COVID-19

As first sprung upon the national public consciousness with the earliest reported cases in Canada, the symptoms of COVID-19 experienced by a healthy person were reported as mild, ranging from completely asymptomatic to no more than one would expect from a mild cold. With the first COVID-19 death in Canada at a long term care home in British Columbia came this in a CBC article published 10 March 2020:

“An estimated 80% of those infected with COVID-19 will have mild symptoms, according to the WHO.

“As Canada comes to grips with its first death from COVID-19, experts say it’s important not to give in to undue fear around the outbreak but instead to put the tragedy into context.

“B.C. health officials confirmed Monday the patient, a man in his 80s with underlying health conditions, died Sunday night after becoming infected with the illness at the Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver.

“While tragic for those close to the victim, the man’s death should not be used as a way to justify panic for the majority of Canadians who are not at risk of severe complications from COVID-19, experts say.

“More than 80 per cent of COVID-19 infections are estimated to be mild, meaning symptoms are manageable and not life-threatening, compared with 15 per cent that are severe and five per cent that are critical and require ventilation.

“The percentage of people who die from the illness is currently estimated at upwards of 3.4 per cent, according to the World Health Organization, which is significantly higher than the seasonal flu at less than one per cent.

“In patients aged 70 to 79, that fatality rate increases to eight per cent, and for those above 80 years old, it rises to almost 15 per cent ….

“‘The majority of people who get this infection have mild disease and recover,’ said Dr. Jocelyn Srigley, a physician and clinical assistant professor with the department of pathology and lab medicine at the University of British Columbia.

“‘It’s not unexpected that we would see patients in those age groups dying of this disease and it’s similar with many other infections that with age your chance of dying from it goes up.’

“‘Canadians need to understand that the vast majority of us are going to manage well if infected with the illness, with most not even requiring hospitalization,’ says infectious disease physician Dr. Isaac Bogoch at Toronto General Hospital.

“‘We know this COVID-19 infection can disproportionately make individuals who are elderly and individuals with chronic medical conditions more sick, but we also know that almost any infection or condition can make that population more ill as well,’ he said.

“‘It’s not surprising, but it’s still sad, and I think people should be mindful that we can expect to see more cases like this — this is not going to be a unique case.'” ~ Canada’s first COVID-19 death is not cause for panic — but shows need to protect most vulnerable

From the same article:

“(Dr. Jerome Leis, medical director of infection prevention and control at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital, who treated Canada’s first case of the illness) “… said when outbreaks of any respiratory viruses hit long-term care homes, there can be a disproportionately high risk of death, which is why health officials advocate so strongly for flu vaccines to spread immunity to the whole population.

“‘Unfortunately, this is a very vulnerable population,’ he said. ‘The problem in this situation is we have no vaccine against COVID-19 — our whole population is susceptible. And so as it spreads in the community, it is certainly the most vulnerable patients that are at risk.’ …

“(Toronto General Hospital infectious disease physician Dr. Isaac Bogoch) said it’s time to start considering implementing policies and behaviours that will mitigate the spread of the infection in the community. Visiting policies at long-term care homes should be examined closely, he added, especially given the outbreak in Washington state.

“‘Stay home if you’re sick. Even if you have the sniffles, a bit of a cold, your children are feeling a little bit under the weather — keep them home from school. Keep yourself home from work if you’re not feeling well,’ B.C. chief medical officer of health Bonnie Henry said Monday.

“‘Even if you have no relationship to COVID-19, we want you to do that. We want you to clean your hands regularly, we want you to cough in your sleeve. Those are important issues all of us need to take right now.’

“Henry referenced the concept of ‘social distancing’ as a way of mitigating the effects on the most vulnerable populations in society. Social distancing will likely be rolled out in other provinces more formally if increased community transmission is seen outside of B.C.”

Summary:

1. Coronaviruses were far from unknown, in fact well studied by the time SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes — COVID-19 — were first identified and given the names by which we all know and love them today.
2. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is highly contagious and insofar as has been seen, likely to infect anyone who comes into contact with it. However, transmissibility and potential for lethal outcomes in those infected are matters totally divorced from one another as the former is simply a fact of life that can be managed through preventative measures designed to minimize risk of exposure, while the latter is dependent upon the nature of the one infected. If there is one line of continuity that cannot be stressed enough, I posit this to be of singular importance.
3. Up to the point of the first COVID-19 death in Canada, and beyond to the present day, serious illness or death in those infected had been medically observed as unlikely outcomes for people who were neither elderly nor afflicted with chronic medical conditions.
4. Residents of long term care homes were deemed to be especially predisposed to serious illness or death for reasons given as age and preexisting chronic medical conditions. It didn’t help that they were essentially sitting ducks, in no position to initiate any defensive measures on their own, and dependent for all matters of care on a system that was broken well before anyone heard of COVID-19, but more on that in the next section, Know Your Audience.
5. Preexisting and well established provisions for closing of long term care homes to visitors during the cyclical influenza season and at any other time that might present a risk of importing a contagious condition from outside the facility, were being considered as well as general adoption of personal health protection measures in the wider community that would soon become commonplace.

Know Your Audience

Announcement of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic landed upon an aging population in Canada. Here in Nova Scotia, living both inside and outside of long term care frameworks, many members of which shared medical predispositions to severe and potentially life ending consequences even from commonplace and well known seasonal infections such as colds and flu.

In a previous article, I included a quote that I will repeat here:

“In addition to a pandemic of multimorbidity, what we might have on our hands is a pandemic of great expectations. Aldous Huxley said that, ‘Medical science has made such tremendous progress that there is hardly a healthy human left.’ I find that many of my patients have rather lofty and unrealistic expectations of how they should feel at all times. And if circumstances lead to their not feeling well, their doctors should certainly be able to ‘fix’ the problem. We likely have only ourselves to blame for raising peoples’ expectations beyond what we can deliver.” ~ Pandemic of great expectations, Laura Muldoon, MD CCFP

In Canada, and as manifested here in Nova Scotia, another contributing factor was a systemically persistent cavalier approach to provincial budgeting for public health (emphasis added below):

“In 2019, 39% of NS provincial health spending funded hospitals, while 19% funded physicians and 1% funded public health (Nova Scotia Finance and Treasury Board 2020). Since 2000, hospital spending has declined and funding to other institutions increased, while public health spending remained static. This is especially problematic given the recommendations to increase public health spending following the SARS outbreak in 2003–2004 …. Provincial restructuring in 2015 to form the Department of Health and Wellness (DHW) and the two provincial health service and delivery entities (Nova Scotia Health [NSH] and the IWK Health Centre) was expected to fortify public health funding, but this has not materialized …. In NS, public health is delivered through NSH. To better understand historical and current public health spending, we reviewed and analyzed publicly available data from the Finance and Treasury Board – Province of Nova Scotia (Nova Scotia Finance and Treasury Board 2020). We determined that following the formation of NSH in 2015, public health spending has remained chronically low at less than 2% of the NSH budget, and the amount is still less than that in the year that NSH was formed (Nova Scotia Health Authority 2019). The high spending in hospital and physician services versus public health causes major gaps in the health system.

“Trends in the Nova Scotia DHW budget from 2015–2016 to 2019–2020 … (show) … that the government does not necessarily spend too much or too little on healthcare, but it spends far too little on public health. While the absolute value of the investment in health service and delivery has increased 12.1% from 2015–2016 to 2019–2020, there has been little change in the amount as a percentage of the Nova Scotia provincial budget. Public health has seen an annual increase of 3.3%, accumulating to an overall increase of 20% in absolute funding from 2015–2016 to 2019–2020 ($38,684,000 to $44,229,000 …), but it has remained at less than 1% of the Department’s budget since 2015–2016 …. Overall, health spending rose by 2.1% annually from 2010 to 2018, but in 2019 it only increased by 1.5% (Canadian Institute for Health Information 2019). In 2006, the NS government was encouraged to more than double the 1.2% public health investment to 2.4% within a decade …. In addition, the less than 1% investment … remains well below the suggested investment of 5% of healthcare spending per federal government recommendations …. Despite the growing investments in the delivery of health services and supports in NS, public health has not benefited; the budget remains well below this recommendation (Canadian Institute for Health Information 2019; Hampton 2020). Astonishingly, the last time that the public health budget in NS met the recommended funding levels was in 1975 (Hampton 2020).” ~ Farewell to Nova Scotia? Public health investments remain chronically underfunded

As discussed in our first section above, with the advent of the current pandemic it soon became clear that a large reservoir of the most vulnerable in the population were residents of long term care homes, formerly known as nursing homes, and it was there that two of the Four Horsemen — Pestilence and Death — had a field day in the early months. Exacerbating inherent vulnerabilities were facilities, administration, and operational failings falling squarely at the feet of those in government charged with their funding, regulation, and oversight.

The news out of Ontario was particularly damning including:

• Comprehensive nursing home inspections caught up to 5 times more violations. Why did Ontario cut them? from 25 September 2020;
• Ontario ‘completely ignored and bulldozed’ problems in long-term care: former inspector from 29 April 2021; and
• Nursing homes with repeated violations continue to break law, despite Ontario’s promise to crack down from 4 June 2021.

When intervention from the Canadian military was called in to some Toronto nursing homes, the resulting reports “… describe, “heartbreaking” and “horrifying” conditions within two of the Toronto facilities. Among the most startling claims are allegations of neglect, malnutrition and a suggestion that COVID-19 deaths at one home ‘paled in comparison’ to general deaths.”

Here in Nova Scotia, while the death toll was smaller, conditions weren’t much better, and would likely have stayed that way had this tiny virus, optimized by its Nature to thrive wherever it could find itself a host, not shown up to highlight what value is placed on people whose age and condition make them unlikely to vote. What could possibly go wrong?

In my own back yard, this CTV News article published 9 July 2021 —Nova Scotia to add beds and upgrade long-term care homes in wake of COVID-19 deaths — points a bony digit at the Liberal government of Premier Iain Rankin:

“The Nova Scotia government says it will create new nursing home beds and upgrade 17 seniors facilities, as the condition of the homes is shaping up to be an election issue.

“In an announcement Friday, Premier Iain Rankin pledged a total of $96.5 million for 264 new beds in the province’s central zone and to replace and upgrade 1,298 beds at 14 existing nursing homes and three residential-care facilities around the province….

“Rankin, who appears poised to call a summer election, made the announcement at the Victoria Haven Nursing Home in Glace Bay, N.S., saying it will bring total spending in the sector to over $1 billion in the 2021-22 fiscal year….

“The Liberal government has faced years of criticism from opposition parties for neglecting the state of the province’s 133 long-term care facilities.

“A review published last September into 53 deaths at the Northwood facility in Halifax during the pandemic’s first wave concluded shared rooms and staffing shortages were among the key factors contributing to the outbreaks and spread of COVID-19. There have been a total of 93 deaths in the province from COVID-19 to date….”

The Premier’s plan promised that the first project was “expected” to be complete by 2026-27 making it, under the circumstances, more than a day late and a dollar short, and hardly a realistic atonement for the sins of the past. The expected election was called, Rankin’s government went down to defeat, to be replaced by the Progressive Conservatives under now Premier Tim Houston, whose lot have yet to prove themselves much of an improvement.

Summary:

1. At the start of the pandemic, living conditions and standards of care routinely delivered to residents of long term care homes across Canada were at a level of quality well below the already very minimal standards established by regulators to govern what has become a growth industry.
2. Inherently unsound methodologies employed by bureaucrats charged with inspecting and regulating long term care homes permitted repeatedly identified and potentially lethal shortcomings in standards of care to persist absent any consequences to offenders.
3. The bringing in of the Canadian military may prove to have brought some level of justice that came too late for some, it no doubt saved lives both by imposing and maintaining order and exposing unconscionable derelictions of duty. Notwithstanding this, it must be presumed that some aspects of the prepandemic state of affairs will persist due to the inertia of spooling up a dysfunctional system that has been permitted to deteriorate.
4. It is my opinion that the spike in deaths caused by the long term care/nursing home tragedy lends itself dangerously to statistical exploitation going forward as evidence of the efficacy of measures currently promoted that did not exist at the time. More on that below.

Lockdown … Kind of, Sort of

Closing borders to travelers from areas where COVID-19 is known to be prevalent has been a matter of contention in Canada from the first reports of its appearance in Wuhan, with the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau entrenching itself behind the twin defenses that any such measure even suggested be brought to bear on travellers from China might be inherently racist, and that travel restrictions won’t work because “the science” says viruses don’t respect borders.

For purposes of this discussion, I will ignore the racist argument on the grounds that viruses are not, and so the term does not factor in any useful conclusions that may be drawn. And because viruses are extremely simple non-sentient life forms that are incapable of respecting or disrespecting anything, any suggestion that borders will be meaningful to their sensibilities ignores the way they travel, which is inside of infected hosts, thousands of whom board aircraft daily. You might want to look to that because it seems “the science” missed it.

With advent of the “omicron” variant, the Canadian government seems to have lost its distaste for travel bans, however an examination of recent news shows a few issues that one might consider disturbing if they weren’t so expected. Specifically, travel bans really aren’t “bans” at all by the generally understood definition of the word. In application, they are so porous as to be meaningless because of the way the world works in general, and in particular the way air travel factors into that.

Closer to your own door, the citizenry of Canada shares the common experience of being ordered to stray no further from it than the yard, assuming you had one, and when that relaxed to only shop, one shopper per household, for essentials at businesses that were on the list of authorized purveyors. Occupancy limits were declared to control how many were on the premises at one time, masks were to be worn, and a separation to be maintained between people that was no less than 2 meters. Stores erected plexiglas barricades between cashiers and customers, applied one way markers to the floors of their aisles to control traffic and keep people apart, and assigned their lowest ranking staff to “disinfect” shopping cart handles, point of sale terminals, and cash counters between customers. Public service announcements explained proper hand washing by telling people to do it to the tune of “Happy Birthday” to make sure it was done long enough, and after a brief shortage, hand sanitizer was everywhere.

Schools and public playgrounds were closed.

As with so many officially mandated responses to the pandemic, to call it unsustainable is an understatement, but it did serve as the well remembered tip of the Sword of Damocles to leverage social pressure to get vaccinated when it became possible to be so.

Summary:

1. It slowly came to be accepted by government health agencies that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, being a coronavirus among many long known to exist including that responsible for the so called “common cold”, is transmissible in exactly the same ways as colds and other unrelated respiratory viruses including influenza.
2. Coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 are therefore subject to the same defensive measures as will work for all other respiratory viruses. Excluding heavy handed restrictions on life that have gradually been dropped with the advent of vaccines, the efficacy of the basic personal measures that became the norm is not open to debate with warnings that Easing pandemic restrictions likely to mean the return of seasonal flu.
3. Wearing even a non-medical grade mask at work or in public where a separation of 2 meters between people is not possible, properly diligent hand washing, use of hand sanitizer when entering and leaving spaces not your own, twice weekly personal testing for COVID-19 infection if possible, and staying home if symptoms of COVID-19, which bear a huge similarity to those of cold and flu, are present in you or your household, have demonstrated proven efficacy against infection by respiratory viruses, with or without vaccination.

When the Only Tool You Have is a Hammer, Every Problem Looks Like a Nail

When after a truncated trial period of unprecedented brevity, vaccines designed to protect against or at least mitigate the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection were released upon the world, governments expecting a mad dash of rolled up sleeves were in for a disappointment. So it was in Canada.

The official pushback on this is abundantly stated in the official Government of Canada position on vaccines and vaccination, opening with Canada’s winning strategy:

“Canada’s vaccine strategy has been to vaccinate as many people in Canada with a first dose of a 2-dose series as quickly and safely as possible for the greater benefit of everyone. The strategy has prevented many cases, and helped to save many lives, by protecting us as individuals and as a community.

“You win with the:

• protection you get from being vaccinated and
• lifting of restrictive public health measures in your community as case counts drop

“You can also feel good about contributing to the protection of others in your family and community.

“Progress is being made every day as more and more people get vaccinated. Vaccination is a strong tool in our fight against COVID-19. When combined with public health measures and personal preventive practices, it’s much more impactful.”

First, I will state that I have no doubt the current list of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines on offer in Canada will work, subject to caveats that I will get to. I do have problems with the unfortunate framing of the government message.

First, it has long been established that people who are not among those for whom age and/or medical condition are a concern will, if infected by SARS-CoV-2, most commonly experience mild symptoms if any at all. Inflammatory announcements notwithstanding, a young and healthy person becoming gravely ill or dying from COVID-19 is an anomaly that points more to other contributing factors than the insidious lethality of SARS-CoV-2. Since the widespread availability of vaccines, it has been announced that fully vaccinated people who are not among those for whom age and/or medical condition are a concern will, if infected by SARS-CoV-2, most commonly experience mild symptoms if any at all. I am left to wonder what part the vaccine played in this equation when both situations are identical.

Secondly, how does one measure their way to an absolute statement that a strategy of vaccination, “… has prevented many cases, and helped to save many lives …”?

Thirdly, the listed second “win” is problematic with its promised, “… lifting of restrictive public health measures in your community as case counts drop”. This is the Sword of Damocles I referenced above and dangerously equates vaccination compliance with a ticket to the Promised Land. It has come to be seen and demonstrated by government messaging on Federal and Provincial levels that restrictive public health measures driven by case counts discount cases in which fully vaccinated people are clearly the driving force behind a rise in infections. The blame is placed instead on the unvaccinated and there the blame is left to fester at the point of a wagging finger.

Fourthly, while vaccination is undeniably one tool in the fight against COVID-19, just how strong a tool is open to debate for reasons having more to do with how governments have deployed and promoted them than innate failings of the products themselves.

Here is some advice from the CBC show, White Coat, Black Art, titled Here’s what’s safe this fall when it comes to indoor activities that will serve to illustrate my point:

“As society reopens and the weather gets colder, we’re spending more time indoors in groups. If you’re double vaccinated, you may be wondering what’s safe when it comes to indoor activities this fall.

“‘It depends on when you were vaccinated. It depends on who you are. Depends on where you live. And it depends on the nature of the indoor environment,’ said Raywat Deonandan, epidemiologist and associate professor in the faculty of health sciences at the University of Ottawa.

“‘In general, though, vaccination is awesome,’ Deonandan told Dr. Brian Goldman, host of White Coat, Black Art and The Dose. ‘It offers an awesome amount of protection, especially if everyone in the room is also vaccinated. So it’s pretty good — but it’s not perfect.'”

“The delta variant, he said, has detracted from the vaccination’s ability to prevent initial infection, and has also affected its ability to prevent serious disease, hospitalization and death. If it’s been several months since your second shot, the vaccine may have lost some efficacy.

“With that in mind, Deonandan said there’s a lot to consider when planning indoor activities.”

With all due respect to Dr. Deonandan, whether or not vaccination offers any protection at all in an indoor setting comes with so many “depends” that it sounds more like “probably not”. I do admire his unusually expansive application of “awesome” though.

For a physician to say that vaccination, “… offers an awesome amount of protection, especially if everyone in the room is also vaccinated ….” to be particular egregious in its implication that encounters with the virus when shed by a vaccinated person are somehow subject to different rules than those for an unvaccinated person.

As it represents the kind of advice people are hearing from doctors these days, I find this statement troubling: “The delta variant … has detracted from the vaccination’s ability to prevent initial infection, and has also affected its ability to prevent serious disease, hospitalization and death. If it’s been several months since your second shot, the vaccine may have lost some efficacy.”

When a vaccine designed to create an immune response when it encounters a specific viral variant is faced with another variant of the same virus, the protective response may be anything from none at all to just as good as ever. If the new variant isn’t particularly inconvenienced by the introduction of a vaccine, or even natural immunity from prior infection by the earlier variant, this is not because it has done something to “detract” from or “affect” the efficacy of response. The vaccine either works or it doesn’t to whatever degree is possible in the face of the new variant. Less anthropomorphizing if you please sir! The stated decline in efficacy overall is also not inspiring of confidence in the enterprise.

Conclusions and Philosophy of Execution

All this being said, where we are today in Nova Scotia is a state of affairs in which people wishing to enter non-essential spaces operated by businesses or organizations that include but are not limited to federally regulated transportation facilities (ferries and airports), restaurants and bars, gyms, movie and live theatres, universities, your kid’s school, and even shooting ranges must show proof of vaccination supported by a government issued ID, or proof of a valid and rarely granted exemption.

The result? A regularly updated and seemingly never ending list of exposure sites throughout the province published to the Nova Scotia Health website here, where on any given day nearly 100% name venues that require proof of vaccination to enter.

Rather than soliciting the obvious question — how in hell is this possible? — the explanation given is insufficient vaccination of the provincial population, and if these rates don’t go down soon it’s back to the gulag. Could it be that this relaxation of masking and physical distancing requirements for vaccinated Nova Scotians has permitted them to mix and mingle in a fashion that not so many months ago would have been publicly vilified as “super spreader” events? It seems to me that the gift of compliance has something resembling the stink of excrement upon it.

Looking back to the beginning graphs of infection rate, hospitalizations, and deaths, and coming forward to today, we see a pattern. Two actually. The first is confirmation that people in the extreme high risk demographic were already dead before vaccination was possible, and for the rest, the curves over the past nearly 2 years and through the seasons look much the same when you compare month to month. Almost as though vaccinations really haven’t played much of a part in it all. The second is that the high death rate in the beginning has come to be counted as proof of vaccine effectiveness where the dead are simply unavailable to die again to prove the point.

In my dealings with the world beyond my personal perimeter, the same precautions are taken now as were practiced before the days anyone heard of SARS-CoV-2 or Covid-19. This means being mindful of any environmental threat to my own as well as on the other side of the equation from interactions with clients, friends, relatives, et al.

The known or suspected presence of infectious disease in-house, cold or flu for example, does now and always has invoked stringent containment measures. At present, all protective and physical measures proven effective in preventing infection by respiratory viruses of all types are practiced as a matter of routine, and required as needed of those we must interact with.

Lastly, I do not recognize any inherent personal or public safety in proof of vaccination, both for reasons discussed above and because I believe the provincially maintained exposure site notifications to be ample evidence that the places that require it are far from safe. Proof of vaccination is, therefore and in my considered opinion, a pointless and dangerous enterprise. I will not refuse to show such proof while demanding entrance to a space requiring it, I simply won’t be there for reasons aforesaid.

In conclusion, I posit that it is better to operate on the assumption that everyone already has, and is simultaneously vulnerable to, COVID-19. That they can become both infected and infect others in equal measure — unlikely of course but safer overall for all concerned and therefore demanding of proven precautions. That a person’s vaccination status may or may not provide protection against the virus for the one vaccinated and those that encounter them, however vaccinated they may be.

As we enter a phase of the pandemic in which the appearance of every new variant comes with renewed calls for boosters in case previous vaccinations won’t work, it is past time for governments to start actually viewing vaccines as a tool and not a magic silver bullet. As I have previously written, society may find its way out of this, but not by repeating the same ineffective behaviours expecting a different outcome.