In Great Britain, Canada and the United States, some on the far right continued their anti-lockdown protests to start the Pandexit without delay. They weren’t concerned about the contagious, deadly virus – a disease that had taken the lives of more than 270,000 worldwide as of May 8.
These extremists hoped to pry the doors of world’s economy open, regardless of the warnings they’re received from public health officials. To them, public health were a collection of know-it-all scientists, doctors and nurses. Lab coat wearing numbskulls. A gaggle of clucking Henny Pennys (or Chicken Littles, if preferred).
The Pandexiters gathered at town halls – usually in small numbers – waving ultra-patriotic placards, fearful of a communist takeover instituted through public health and government initiatives to restart the economy. The connections to public health, social democracy and communism were unclear and misguided, but they were frightened. Even worse, some of the Pandexiters were armed.
For the Pandexiter, the coronavirus lockdown’s a conspiracy.
The lockdown has been a negative experience for most – layoffs are massive, goods and services are harder to obtain this spring, schools have been shutdown throughout the country, agriculture in the prairies became threatened even before the 2020 growing season started.
Yet, the non-political-minded guidance from public health has saved lives in Saskatchewan and the rest of Canada.
There’s been some ironic moments in Pandexit movement. Some American protesters have worn facemasks as they held their automatics high at a rally on April 30 in the Michigan state capitol of Lansing, where they attempted to force Governor Gretchen Whitmer to reopen the state, even as they wore PPE in public, matched with camo jackets and shiny gun barrels.
The lockdown has driven people mad. However, from a scientific perspective, the lockdown and social distancing shouldn’t be ending anytime soon.
Timothy Sly, an epidemiologist and professor at the school of Public Health at Ryerson University, wrote an opinion piece in the April 22 issue of Macleans. Sly’s an authority on diseases – he’s also familiar with the mechanics of pandemics, especially after his involvement involvement in the management of SARS in 2003, when the disease hit Toronto.
In Macleans, Sly wrote: “How much longer before we can get back to normal life? This is the most frequent question I’ve heard. Let’s be very clear: without social distancing, the only guaranteed way to end a pandemic is to have enough people develop immunity. It doesn’t have to be 100 per cent of the population, but 40 to 60 per cent of the population. They would need to have been infected, survive, recover and produce antibodies to see the curve permanently flatten and decline.
“Alternatively, the same result can be achieved rapidly and safely by the use of an effective vaccine, but don’t hold your breath for that. Vaccines are complex and require both effectiveness testing and safety assessments.”
This virus is spread through close contact by coughing, sneezing and talking. The droplets containing COVID-19 either land on the ground, attach to surfaces, or remain in the air, travelling long distances in search of targets.
The SHA is correct for taking this deadly, contagious and comparatively unknown virus seriously.
Dr. Ankit Kapur of Regina made the decision to self-isolate from his clinical surroundings and family home because of clinical-related exposure to the coronavirus.
He explained his reasoning for self-isolation and social distancing in a SHA profile on March 20. “We need to send home the message that the better we are at these preventative measures, the more it will seem like this wasn’t needed. If it turns out there are only 10 cases, it was because we did this so aggressively right off the bat,” Kapur said. “We want to get ahead and get so much social distancing early on that we slow this thing way down before we get to the stages Italy, China and Iran are in.”
