Friday, May 06, 2022

Links - 6th May 2022 (1 - Covid-19)

Former Liberal leader says trucker protests are sign that hard-working Canadians feel alienated - The Hub - "The trucker protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates that gridlocked Ottawa and closed key Canada-U.S. border crossings is a sign of the complete breakdown of our political conversation, said former Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff... Ignatieff is an internationally renowned intellectual who was leader of the Liberal Party from 2008 to 2011... “A lot of people don’t like that about liberal democracy, they want a quiet life, they wonder ‘why can’t we all get on?’ Well, the core of a democratic society is contention, argument, debate. And our job is just to keep it from being violent,” said Ignatieff.  Ignatieff also argued that a liberal society should insist on treating people as individuals, rather than relegating them to identity groups... “A liberal puts freedom first, puts freedom ahead of equality, puts freedom ahead of solidarity.”  This differentiates liberals from socialists and social democrats, he argued, and it also differentiates liberal from conservatives because “freedom means changes,” which puts less emphasis on tradition and the past."

GENUIS: Discrimination based on political views undermines democracy | Toronto Sun - "Many constituents tell me they feel less comfortable expressing their opinions, and fear reprisal in certain situations if they speak out. There are limits to what governments can or should do about this phenomenon, but it should still be a source of concern. Strong democracy requires open public debate in which people feel comfortable coming forward with contrary ideas. Freedom of speech is less effective at facilitating good debate if people fear social or professional consequences for their lawful political action.  While there are many factors informing a person’s comfort participating in public debate, the government should be prepared to address instances of direct discrimination on the basis of a person’s political views. Firing people or denying them equal access to services because of their political opinions is a form of discrimination and undermines the ability for people to present ideas that their employer or service provider might disagree with... Canada’s Minister of Justice David Lametti made explicitly clear that people were being targeted because of their (alleged) political views, not just because of involvement in illegal activity.  He said in response to a question about whose bank accounts would be frozen, “Well, I think if you are a member of, you know, a pro-Trump movement who’s donating hundreds of thousands of dollars, or millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried.”  It is not surprising that some Canadians increasingly feel reluctant to engage in the democratic process when the Minister of Justice explicitly suggests the causes a person supports and donates to could be a basis for freezing their bank account. David Lametti probably regrets being so explicit. Going forward, we may see more instances of subtle pressure by governments on private entities, such as banks and social media companies, to engage in political discrimination on their behalf. It is not hard to imagine that large corporations who rely on the good graces of the government for a favourable regulatory environment and for access to procurement opportunities would in turn use their power to politically discriminate in a way that helped them get ahead."

Rex Murphy: Will anyone apologize for falsely accusing truckers of attempted arson in Ottawa? - "we found out that the attempt to burn down an apartment building in Ottawa, which was so widely and wildly heralded during the Freedom Convoy protest, had nothing to do with the truckers. Please let this sink in. At the time, such was the volume of assumption, innuendo and outright allegation that everyone from Nanaimo, B.C., to Nain, N.L., formed the impression that this despicable action, an outrage by any standard, was the work of the truckers.  Not true. False. Nothing to do at all with the protesters. It was allegedly the work of two Ottawa miscreants who were working alone.  You will easily remember that the most grisly feature of this attempt to set the apartment building alight — the affair was caught on security cameras and made it all over the internet — was that the handles of the exit doors were taped shut, so that, had they been successful, residents would not be able to escape the inferno.  Those who saw that could not forget just how vicious the deed was meant to be and could not help but deplore the type of person who would contemplate such a thing. A lot of the contempt and anger it stirred was directed toward the innocent protesters. It’s important to note this. By Wednesday, however, we knew that all suspicions about the truckers, all the condemnations that showered forth from the House of Commons, all the fulmination from the mayor of Ottawa, all the jaundiced comments on Twitter were wrong, after Ottawa police arrested a second person in relation to the arson who was not known to be connected to the protest in any way. Keep in mind that the Ottawa police themselves had never alleged that the crime had anything to do with the Freedom Convoy. All who did, did so on their own.  Also keep in mind that, as one of the most dramatic incidents of the entire protest, it offered a very convenient contributing pretext for the declaration of the Emergencies Act... Consider the words of our current coalition co-prime minister, Jagmeet Singh, on this event. Singh had no doubt who was behind the arson...   You add Singh’s incendiary charges to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s brutal descriptions of the protesters — racists, homophobes, misogynists, etc. — and the alarmist rhetoric coming from MPs and the mayor of Ottawa, and it’s easy to see how the Emergencies Act found so much support... does this kind of wild accusation, made without proof, fall under the government’s newfound concern for misinformation? Will the government work to prevent such malignant mistruths from being spread among its own ranks with the same vigour with which it will surely go after its foes?...   Clearly, we desperately need a public inquiry into why the Emergencies Act got called into play. We need to know the assumptions on which it was based. And we need to know why it was hauled down before the Senate had a chance to vote on it."
Liberal elites hate freedom anyway, so this was convenient
It's ironic that covid hystericists, pre-covid, were the ones hammering on about human rights

Read this letter to Parliament signed by prominent academics about the government's declaration of emergency - The Hub - "We write to you as members of Advocates for the Rule of Law, a think tank composed of lawyers, scholars and engaged citizens dedicated to preserving the rule of law in Canada... Even, and especially, in times of crisis, it is essential that members of the public be prepared to scrutinize executive and legislative action to ensure it conforms with the law. As Justice David Stratas of the Federal Court of Appeal has said, the best guarantee of a democracy is not judges or even Parliament, but ultimately a “well-informed, active populace that’s prepared to defend fundamental values.”... we support the federal and provincial governments taking decisive action to end the blockades and restore order.  Any action taken by either order of government, however, must be in accordance with the law. The government, as the executive branch of the state, is duty bound to execute the laws the legislature has enacted in a manner that is faithful to the text, context, and purpose of those laws. Thus, a declaration of a public order emergency may only be made under the EA where the criteria of such an emergency are met. A public order emergency is defined in s.16 of the EA as “an emergency that arises from threats to the security of Canada and that is so serious as to be a national emergency.”  To this end, the burden rests with the Government to demonstrate, firstly, that there is an emergency arising from “threats to the security of Canada,” and secondly that the situation “is so serious as to be a national emergency.”  The term “threats to the security of Canada” is defined in section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. That section enumerates four potential types of “threats to the security of Canada.” The Government has anchored its declaration to the third, which reads: “activities within or relating to Canada directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective within Canada or a foreign state.” In essence, this is a threat akin to terrorism, and there must accordingly be evidence of a threat of “serious violence.”  Once the Government has demonstrated that there exist “threats to the security of Canada” it must then show that these threats rise to the level of a “national emergency”. For something to constitute a national emergency, two additional criteria must be met. First, pursuant to s.3 of the EA, there must be a situation that either “seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it,” or “seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada.”... Secondly, to constitute a national emergency, the situation must be such that it “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.”... In sum, the Government of Canada must demonstrate three things to justify its declaration of a public order emergency: 1) that Canada faces terrorist-like threats of “serious violence” intended to achieve an ideological aim, 2) that the situation either exceeds the capacity or authority or a province, or seriously threatens the ability of the government to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada, and 3) that the situation cannot be effectively dealt with under existing laws. These are high hurdles to overcome, and purposefully so. Once an emergency is declared, the government has wide-ranging powers, all of which potentially threaten the rights and freedoms of Canadians. And while actions taken under the EA are of course subject to the Charter, that is cold comfort since by the time the Government’s conduct is judicially reviewed, much of the damage will have been done. The Government must therefore only invoke the Emergencies Act in the most extreme circumstances, with Parliament serving as the first and best check against potential overreach... Maintaining this declaration of emergency will endow the Government of Canada with far-reaching powers and it will set a dangerous precedent. If the Government can declare an emergency based on these facts, then it will also be able to do so the next time there is a railway blockade, a threat to pipelines or any other endangerment of national infrastructure. To be sure, each of these is a serious situation that calls for decisive action. But normalizing the declaration of emergencies, especially before other less intrusive (but still significant) measures have been attempted, threatens to render hollow the rights and freedoms guaranteed to all Canadians; it risks a gradual erosion of Parliament’s role in favour of executive power; and it amounts to a damning admission of a failure of state capacity. If Canada is to remain a functional and free democracy, then it must be able to solve problems using existing laws and established institutions, and without resorting to the most extreme measures except where absolutely necessary. We want to emphasize that our assessment is based on the evidence and allegations contained in the Government’s own Explanation"

Trudeau calls public inquiry into use of Emergencies Act during convoy protests - "The Conservatives argue the Liberals are using that approach to deflect attention from the government's own actions and decisions.  "The Liberal government is doing everything in their power to ensure this inquiry is unsubstantial and fails to hold them accountable," said a joint statement from Conservative MPs Raquel Dancho, Dane Lloyd and Gérard Deltell.  The Canadian Civil Liberties Association — which is suing the federal government over its decision to invoke the act — said the inquiry does not appear to be focused on government accountability... Mendicino also did not commit to waiving cabinet confidences — the discussions and deliberations between cabinet ministers that are protected by law...   When first announced, premiers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec expressed concern over invoking the act"

Richard C. Owens: The Emergencies Act wasn’t the only sledgehammer - "The lawsuit claims over $300 million for private and public nuisance and punitive damages. This seems like a figure meant more to intimidate than compensate, especially given that businesses affected by the protest have already received federal government compensation of $20 million. The truckers were opposed to lockdowns, after all. If anyone should be sued for economic losses from lockdowns, it’s the governments imposing them, not people opposing them. No one has impunity to protest government policy by abusing rights or property (toppling statues comes to mind). But as Justice Hugh McLean said in his no-honk order: “… provided the terms of this Order are complied with, the Defendants and other persons remain at liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful and safe protest.”...  asset seizures on private initiatives harm Canada’s reputation as a safe place to invest. They could also obviously be used against protestors on the left whose actions arguably harm others... This government’s willingness to resort to violence and calumny to stifle opposition to its policies is chilling — and all the more reason for courts to resist.  As one American jurist warned, “The rights of political association are fragile enough without adding the additional threat of destruction by lawsuit.” There is little if any precedent for civil liability for peaceful protest, at least in Canada. The courts should be extremely cautious before extending it."

Nanos: Free speech, freedom growing concerns for Canadians - "Recent polling from Nanos Research shows Canadians are increasingly concerned with issues around free speech and freedom, a possible sign that Canada's recent trucker protests are having a lingering effect on the broader public... of all the national issues of concern to Canadians, free speech and freedom came out as the second-most common at 8.3 per cent, behind coronavirus at 13.1 per cent and after the environment at 7.5 per cent.   These and other issues raised in recent surveys were shared to Nanos unprompted, with the concerns around freedom likely tied to the trucker protests earlier this year in Ottawa and other areas of the country... "I've been polling now, wow, I think it's been for 35 years and, unprompted, freedom and free speech has not really been on the agenda or on the radar from a public opinion perspective""

Chicago has added literally every state to its COVID travel advisory, which is funny because its daily case rate is markedly higher than the rest of the country's

Florida Gets Kids and Vaccines Wrong and Ukraine's Health Crisis: COVID Quickly, Episode 26 - Scientific American - "Lewis: Last week Florida’s surgeon general created an uproar. He said he wouldn’t recommend vaccines for healthy children because the shots didn’t help and might even cause harm. That goes against all sorts of evidence, doesn’t it?
Fischman: What Florida officials said isn’t true, Tanya. In children, research shows COVID vaccines prevent infections and hospitalizations. I’ll run through that. The policies of Florida’s health department seem more in line with the politics of the state governor, Ron DeSantis, than they are with reality... his surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, has added that, for healthy children under age 17, vaccination risks may outweigh benefits.  And that’s where the “not true” part comes in. Two groups of independent vaccine experts, one that advises the FDA and one that advises the CDC, have looked at this research. The FDA group voted 17 to zero to authorize the vaccines for young kids because the benefits are greater. The CDC group voted 14 to zero... Matthew Daley, a pediatrician who studies vaccine safety at Kaiser Permanente’s Institute for Health Research, disagrees. He’s on the CDC vaccine panel, and he told me they graded the data showing the vaccines prevented infection in children as having “high certainty.” The Florida health spokesperson told me the burden of proof is on scientists to show the vaccines help children. It’s clear, unless you are playing politics, that the proof has been given."
The usual covid hystericist arrogance. Of course "the science" is what liberals in the US say it is and everything that contradicts that is dangerous "denialism", even if places like Sweden do not recommend that kids get vaccinated (but covid hystericists hate Sweden already, so)
Weird. I thought the vaccines were never intended to prevent infection

FIRST READING: Follow the scientists! (Unless they say something you don't like) - "Ontario’s top doctor, Kieran Moore, was pilloried Wednesday after saying that the province would not be mandating vaccines for children until they had some more data on the shot’s effectiveness and its potential side effects. “We want more experience with it before we mandate it,” said Moore.  One of the most extreme reactions came from Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca, who accused Moore of feeding “vaccine hesitancy” and said he should resign if he didn’t retract the statement. Except that Moore was telling the truth. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization authorized the Pfizer vaccine for pediatric use only in November, and the approval was accompanied by some pretty major caveats... it’s not the first time that a Canadian scientific agency has been accused of “anti-vax” sentiments merely for presenting a nuanced view of vaccine safety."
Damn politicised science denial!

FIRST READING: The end of COVID approacheth (for real this time) - "B.C. made waves across the country by announcing that it was effectively going to start treating COVID-19 like the flu. The province is going to stop contact tracing and is now asking healthy people to simply stay home for a few days if they get sick. “We cannot eliminate all risk, and I think that’s something we need to understand and accept,” said Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry. She added that B.C. would henceforth be treating COVID-19 “much more like how we manage influenza.”  Alberta quickly followed suit, with Premier Jason Kenney saying that the province would be “significantly relaxing” restrictions once hospitalizations fell to a sustainable level. “We have to just learn to live with this”... All across Europe, countries that were meeting Omicron with stringent lockdowns just weeks ago are now lifting pandemic measures and treating the disease like the flu. Earlier this month, Ireland had some of the world’s highest caseloads of Omicron. “Science has given us the answer to protect ourselves,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said recently. “We have to evaluate the evolution of COVID from pandemic to an endemic illness.”... If you’ve ever thought that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms seems to do a terrible job of defending either of those things, you aren’t alone. At the outset of COVID-19, it was widely believed that some of the more stringent pandemic measures (such as mandatory quarantine hotels) would be found unconstitutional. Instead, the Supreme Court of Canada has applied a Charter-approved rubber stamp to any number of pandemic-related infringements on freedom of conscience and the right to “remain in and leave Canada.” National Post reporter Tyler Dawson writes that this actually isn’t all that out of the ordinary. While many Canadians mistakenly believe that the Charter confers “absolute” rights, the document is actually quite open about allowing governments to steamroll whichever right they want as long as they have a good reason. One of the themes of the Omicron wave has been how easily Canada’s health care system was brought to the edge of collapse by only a few hundred extra hospitalizations. It’s largely due to the fact that Canada has some of the lowest rates of hospital beds in the developed world – and this is despite Canadians paying more for health care than almost anyone else. So where does all the money go? A new book, Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health-care Crisis, finds that Canadian health care dollars are being chewed up by a top-heavy bureaucracy. One particularly illustrative factoid is that Canada has one healthcare administrator for every 1,415 citizens as compared to one healthcare administrator for every 15,545 in Germany."

FUREY: Public health faces an uphill battle deradicalizing the COVID obsessed | Toronto Sun - "Dr. Henry didn’t really announce substantial changes to the actual rules...   Maybe Dr. Henry wants to drop more of the rules but knows a lot of people just can’t handle it.  There are many people who have only been exposed to relentless doom and gloom and tall tales about the ravages of long COVID. There are doctors on social media who go on like carnival barkers about the need for triple-vaccinated people to wear N95 masks.  No wonder people are traumatized. They’ve been radicalized.   The truth is we no longer have that much of a society-wide problem with COVID-19. Instead, we have a challenge with hospital capacity issues that are in part about bed occupancy but also involve staffing logistics that have been complicated by isolation policies. But good luck getting that across to the COVID obsessed...   For all the talk about anger at the unvaccinated and how they’re the ones prolonging the pandemic, we’re also being held back by healthy vaccinated people who just can’t get on with their lives, who plug their ears when the likes of Dr. Henry offer good news or, worse, lash out at her in confusion and call for her resignation."

Ben Woodfinden: The long-term effects of COVID have nothing to do with health - "If you’re truly convinced that Canada is no longer a free country and that it has imposed medical segregation and forced people to take experimental vaccines, chances are that you aren’t just going to forget this once things get back to normal... Winning elections isn’t the only way to influence politics. Smaller parties, and movements, can punch above their weight, whether by putting new or neglected issues onto the agenda, or forcing larger political parties to shift and absorb parts of their agenda. This doesn’t mean we’re going to see a major political party become anti-vax, but politics works in strange and unpredictable ways.  If you’d told someone a decade ago that it would be right-wingers, not left-wing soccer moms and academics, who would be warning about the dangers of Big Pharma in 2022, that person would probably have thought you were crazy... the real long-term effect COVID has on our politics might be a bit more subtle, and even harder to predict. Polling might consistently show support for COVID restrictions, but it gives us a good lesson in the limits of polling.  Broadly speaking, people might support restrictions, but that doesn’t mean they actually follow the rules. Most of us will know of examples of this. We have certainly seen politicians who fit this description, preaching one thing and doing something else. This may well breed broader feelings of cynicism and distrust that manifest politically down the road. People might generally follow the rules when they need to, but arbitrary and silly restrictions, of which we have many, contribute to this low level of cynicism. How many people seriously think there’s any non-arbitrary rationale behind keeping restaurants open in airports but closed everywhere else? And how many small business owners will see these kinds of rules and not be rightfully enraged? How many people have found themselves wondering about the absurdity of having to wear a mask in a restaurant when you’re going to the washroom, but not when you’re sitting down?  And then there’s the random assortment of traumatic things people have had to endure that will stay with them. Some people weren’t able to be with their loved ones in their final moments. Kids have lost out on their education and we have no idea what the long-term effects on their social development might be.  We have a portion of the population that seems like they are never again going to be able to leave their houses without being terrified that everyone around them could be carrying a virus that will kill them. And we have a whole generation that has effectively been priced out of the housing market in major cities."

Covid-19: Common cold may give some protection, study suggests

Lasting COVID legacy: a nation of rulers, not laws - "“The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced,” noted the late musician and satirist Frank Zappa. I often think of that snarky comment as I write about the sausage-making process in city councils, state legislatures and the federal government. Did I mention that California’s state government has 518 agencies, boards and commissions?  Our system of checks, balances, more checks, additional balances, impact reports, legal challenges, voter initiatives, regulatory rulemakings and administrative hearings frustrates people who want to “get something done.” Americans spent $14 billion on the 2020 election cycle to influence political outcomes – and that was just for the presidential and congressional races.  I once ran a modest state bill to reduce the insanely onerous licensing regulations for people who shampoo hair at salons. After months of hearings and debate, the Assembly defeated it for going too far. That explains the public’s desire to cut through the red tape and, as Arnold Schwarzenegger once promised, “blow up the boxes” of government...       As we saw throughout the country but in California in particular, governors were happy to dispense with the usual checks and balances and impose rules by executive order and fiat. Some initial rules were defensible during a public-health crisis, but it wasn’t long before elected officials operated like czars – imposing illogical and contradictory restrictions that made no rhyme or reason.  They kept moving the goalposts. One day, counties were on lockdown based on such and such infection rates, but the next day standards changed. In September 2020, for instance, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a re-opening blueprint based on COVID cases per 100,000 population, but then he refused to let counties that met the standard to loosen up their rules... Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, published a 138-page document detailing the 400 laws the governor had unilaterally changed following his State of Emergency declaration. “Our founders had good reasons for rejecting autocratic models of government in favor of separation of powers, checks and balances, and the rule of law – all of which Gavin Newsom has discarded”"

NPR - Posts | Facebook - "If someone states a false belief, you can validate them by acknowledging that it's hard to make our way through the disinformation landscape. Then pivot to the truth, this expert says."
Spike Cohen: "Step 1: before starting a debate with the other soccer moms about something the CDC told you was "misinformation" a few weeks ago, check to see if they've recently acknowledged it as being true. Because they do that a lot."

Being Libertarian - Posts | Facebook - "Pfizer has decided to resurrect and monetize the old hip-hop meme that is DJ Khaled in the wake of booster-vaccine hesitancy. The vaccine is obviously effective; after two years and two COVID shots, the nation still faces strictly enforced mask mandates in planes and schools, and “The Science” is mandating vaccines for some jobs, but Pfizer emphasizes that you can never be too safe...."

Thread by @ZubyMusic on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Millions of people in the West have replaced God with Pfizer and they don't even know it... It is safer to question, criticise, attack, and mock God, than the Pfizer shot. Tell me I'm wrong. Even the Pope has more to say about people who dare question Pfizer, than people who criticise and attack Christianity. It's mad weird. I've never seen any product, let alone a pharmaceutical, so aggressively defended. With such religious fervour. There are literally people who believe you should be censored, ostracised, punished, even jailed for questioning or not taking a pharma product. They demand blasphemy laws. This type of religious extremism is usually only found in certain parts of the Middle East and Africa. No talk of general health. No talk of supplements. No talk of treatments. No talk of natural immunity. There is only ONE path to salvation. The rest is heresy. When people say 'misinformation' they are really saying 'blasphemy'. Because they don't care about factual correctness nor accuracy. Just orthodoxy and dogma."

Meme - "Trying to follow the science of the protected needing protection from the unprotected by forcing the unprotected to use the protection that doesn't protect the protected."
Vaxholes don't believe the vaccines work
Fearing and demonising an outgroup is very human

Spain is keeping a registry of people who refuse the Covid vaccine and sharing it with other EU nations. But that’s no big deal and there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.

We have now reached the "get a V tattoo to show you've been vaccinated" stage

Younger People Make Up Growing Share Of Serious COVID Cases : Shots - "COVID 'Doesn't Discriminate By Age': Serious Cases On The Rise In Younger Adults... More than 30% of the U.S. population is now fully vaccinated, but the vast majority are people older than 65 – a group that was prioritized in the initial phase of the vaccine rollout."
So much for following the science. We've known since the start that age is one of the biggest risk factors
Apparently mathematics is hard - if you vaccinate the elderly first, of course younger people are going to be a bigger proportion of serious cases

Supermarkets roll out 'chat-friendly' tills to battle COVID loneliness

Meme - "I'M GLAD We GOT OUR BOOSTERS."
*Grabs chest and bends over*
"What is it?"
"IT'S CLIMATE CHANGE."

Washington Free Beacon on Twitter - "MSNBC's panel grudgingly admits that "if you really look at the numbers" from Covid, "Florida actually came out all right...And the economy is strong." Less than 30 seconds later, they say it's "not all rosy" and "caution us from heaping a little too much praise" on DeSantis."

Temasek-led investor group in $250 million vaccine bet on Germany's BioNTech

Pfizer Vaccine Potentially Linked to Hearing Loss - "The World Health Organization is investigating rare instances of hearing loss and other auditory disturbances associated with COVID-19 vaccinations – primarily the Pfizer-BioNTech shots"
Time to shut down the WHO for spreading fake news and encouraging vaccine hesitancy. Too bad for all the people forced to get fourth, fifth and subsequent shots on pain of losing their jobs. They just need to accept that being forced to suffer side effects for neglible added protection is the price of living in a civlised society

Japan's tough entry restrictions stand out as WHO urges easing - Nikkei Asia - "Japan has maintained tight entry restrictions to stop the spread of the coronavirus, making it an outlier as other countries ease their measures along with progress in vaccination and treatment for COVID-19. A panel of experts under the World Health Organization urged nations to relax or abolish coronavirus-related travel restrictions, arguing that they create economic and social burdens without bringing the intended results. Blanket travel bans "are not effective in suppressing international spread"... Japan's tough approach has drawn heat from the business community, which likened it to the "isolation policy" of the Edo period... A Nikkei opinion survey last month found that 88% think the entry restrictions are appropriate. Support for the Kishida cabinet has risen to 65%, the highest since he took office in October"
And this was in January

George Takei on Twitter - "In the current pandemic, I often am led to recall the words of Spock: “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”"
When liberals stopped caring about minority rights
Replies: "Didn't Discovery show the Vulcans abandoning this mantra as when applied in the modern age it would mean thinks like BAME or LGBT rights aren't importants since those people are "the few"."
"True, but they are ignoring People who have the Antibodies = Natural Immunity which lasts longer. This is True Science. Pfizer & other Pharmaceutical Companies are about $. They have the highest paid Lobbyists & donate $ to Politicians/Government Bribes. #NaturalImmunity"
"That was an individual deciding to sacrifice himself for others. It was not about forcing others to do something they don't want to do."
"While I agree, certain liberties should not be breached. Is this a situation where a personal liberty outweighs the state's interest? IDK Certainly we would think so if it was forcing or prohibiting abortions."
"It is very unfortunate that you don’t see how this tweet is the exact opposite of everything you stand for. When you are part of the “many” it’s easy to forget the “few”. The few got sent to internment camps. The few were not given the right to marry."
FB: "Do you mean the needs of the hundreds of millions (soon to be billions) that have been forced into extreme poverty (and certainly diminished their life expectancy) by the economic crisis caused by the restrictions imposed by governments to (ineffectively) slow the spread of COVID-19 and (possibly) save a few hundred thousand at risk lives?"
"And how many laws would disappear if using this "logic" - certainly any pertaining to the disabled, children, potentially women as they are still seen as a minority by some males""
"That same logic put your family in an internment camp."
"And its used all the time to dismiss and disregard the needs of the disabled, neurodivergent, trans people, LGBTQ+ people, jewish people, black people and so on. It depends who you are defining as the few and what those needs are."
"Except Spock's choice was an individual one. He was not ordered to sacrifice his life to save the ship by Capt Kirk. Maybe people should be as selfless as Spock but it's an individual choice."

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