Monday, February 14, 2022

Dear Globe and Mail: How's that "Freedom Convoy" op-ed working out?

Oh, dear ...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's see... Grope and Fail...
- Trudeau hate (check)
- Standing up for the extreme right (check)


I see they are continuing their tradition of always being wrong.

Rev.Paperboy said...

"there were many good Germans that you just don't hear about, even some within the Nazi party. Sure, their ideas about exterminating Jews and taking over the world were bad ideas, but that doesn't necessarily make them bad people. Hitler, for example, was very kind to his dogs...this whole war has mostly been Mr. Churchill's fault for refusing to negotiate with Germany."

-Globe and Mail editorial, Sept. 1945

Anonymous said...

National post hasn’t been much better, and I’ve seen countless articles and editorials, blaming Trudeau for everything, saying these are peaceful protests and should be listened to as respected, that these people should be listened to by everyone, etc. Hopefully someone somehow is able to hold our media accountable for feeding this problem of treating a handful of fascists like respectable citizens who just happen to have a different opinion that deserves attention and respect. They built this problem just as much as anything the organizers or crowdfunding have done, in my opinion.

thwap said...

What about the utter, complete stupidity of the convoy's complaints? Prairie hospitals routinely get overwhelmed because of the pandering to these dipshits. COVID will obviously harm more people than the vaccines POSSIBLY will. You're too immature to wear a mask during a pandemic caused by a repiratory virus??? Fuck you and your feelings!

Is it every flu season that denizens of retirement homes die in droves requiring the military to step in and reveal the deplorable way our seniors and their caregivers are treated?

Are they mentioning that these stupid yahoos comprise maybe 15% of the population? And that talk of "dividing Canadians" is dog-shit??? Because we're pretty darned united about treating this crisis seriously and wishing these assholes would fuck-off to Fuck-Head Land.

Rev.Paperboy said...

Anon, you will get no argument from me that the NP and the various Postmedia publications are part of the problem. I am in uh....let's say a position to know. Many of the papers in the chain are staffed by good democratically-minded people and conscientious journalists, but there a central control of opinion content that skews heavily to the right, which is why the likes of Tasha Kherridian and Andrew MacDougall pollute the pages of your local paper - hell the former VP of editorial is now Doug Ford's Chief of Staff. In addition to the National Post, Postmedia also owns most of the major English-language daily papers outside of Toronto and the Maritimes and the Sun chain of birdcage liners.
They pretty much see Trudeau as Satan and have a vested interest in angrying up the stupids. You won't see any outright condemnation of the truck-nuts coming from them, just handwringing about how much "Trudeau's inaction" is costing the country. They take much the same approach to Trudeau as the Toronto media took to Bob Rae when he was premier - If he walked on water the headline the next day would be " Trudeau can't swim"

Anonymous said...

The thing the Trucknutters of the Fuckers Brigade keep saying is that they're all about freedom of choice, without realising that their choices might have unintended consequences. I mean, no one is forcing them to get the vaccine. They've made the CHOICE to not get it. No one is forcing them to put on a mask. They've made the CHOICE to not wear one when asked to.

In turn, a lot of businesses (likely even without the mandates) have CHOSEN to not allow people into their buildings without wearing a mask, at minimum. Their house, their rules. It's one thing if you're discriminated against due to, say, the colour of your skin. That's a human rights issue. The current situation is a health issue.

I know they like saying that only 1% of people who become infected with Covid-19 die from it - if they even admit THAT much - and it's not a big deal. I don't know about you, but I think if 1% of an entire group passes away from ONE thing that's highly contagious, there might be some alarm bells going off. To put things in a little perspective, the percentage of people who died during World War II - accounting for the Earth's entire (estimated) population at the time - was around 3%-3.7%**, and it's not like WWII was a small event. I guess to the Trucknutters, it's only a big event if half the population is wiped out.

To add a little more perspective, the United States Covid-19 death rate of those who have been infected is around 1.19%*. If we take away the number of people who still have outstanding cases, it puts the number closer to 1.85%*. As a percentage of the country's entire population, the death rate is a little over 0.28%*. In comparison, the number of Americans who died in WWII compared to the entire U.S. population at the time was 0.32%**. For something that only [/sarcasm] killed 0.32% of the country's total population, there sure have been a lot of American films made about that war throughout the years...but I digress.

Canada's Covid-19 death rate as a percentage of those infected is 1.11%*, so slightly less than the U.S. Even taking those out without a final result, the number only increases to 1.16%*. As a percentage of Canada's population, the number is 0.09%*.

To demonstrate the differences even more between Canada and the U.S., Canada has 84.21%^ of its population with at least one dose, and around 79.36%^ with two doses. The U.S., on the other hand, has 75.9%^^ of its population with at least one dose, and 64.4%^^ with two doses. Given the above, it's probably not a surprise that the percentage of people that have been infected with Covid-19 is dramatically different (23.87%* for the U.S., 8.37%* for Canada).

Given Canada's more stringent mandates and all, it appears what we're doing is working pretty well. Not perfect obviously, but I know where I'd prefer to be...though it might not matter soon, since all provincial mandates are dropped here in Manitoba as of March 15th. Apparently Covid-19 is cancelled as of that date.


* - Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. Numbers accurate as of 8:00 p.m. CST, 02/14/2022.

Formula for death rate percentage of those infected with Covid-19: (total deaths/total cases)*100
Formula for death rate percentage of those with a final result: (total deaths/(total deaths+total recovered))*100
Formula for percentage of people who died of Covid-19 compared to population: (total deaths/population)*100
Formula for percentage of people infected with Covid-19 compared to population: (total cases/population)*100

** - Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

^ - Source: https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccination-coverage/. Numbers accurate as of 8:00 p.m. CST, 02/14/2022.

^^ - Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-onedose-pop-5yr/. Numbers accurate as of 8:00 p.m. CST, 02/14/2022.