As the worst effects of the COVID-19 pandemic fade, some public fitness officials frankly admit that their functionality failed the test. Widespread skepticism about the effectiveness of vaccines, mandates, lockdowns and masks has undermined public confidence in the credibility of public fitness officials. Once lost, public acceptance as true is difficult to regain.
In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that it “did not reliably meet expectations,” a profound understatement. Although CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the purpose was “accountability, collaboration, communication and speed,” her review noted the failure of each and every aspect.
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There has been no duty for the CDC’s slow and confusing response, nor for the mixed and conflicting messages about masks, mandates, social distancing and testing. Nor was the harm caused by CDC’s random guidelines, school closures, and closures investigated. . UNESCO estimates that more than 1. 5 billion academics have been affected by school closures. The consequences have been most pronounced for young and disadvantaged academics.
Because medical remedies and tests have been delayed due to pandemic guidelines, there has also been a sharp increase in rates of depression, anxiety, obesity, and fatal alcohol and drug abuse.
The CDC review said its rules were “confusing and overwhelming. “Walensky said the problems were due to inadequate funding, but not a word about the lack of diligent leadership.
Canadian fitness officials have made similar mistakes: wrong messages that are not based on science and an unclear duty between federal and provincial authorities.
To allay fear, officials in both countries made decisions more political than scientific. They could have identified early on that they were operating in uncharted territory where uncertainty and replacement were inevitably components of the solution.
Higher priority has been given to older people, who are by far the most vulnerable.
Once a hub for vaccine production, Canada was slow to get vaccines and attempts to produce a Canadian COVID vaccine have been disastrous. Early attempts were thwarted through a joint venture with China that failed miserably. And while the Prime Minister promised to produce vaccines at a National Research Council site in Montreal until November 2020, we’re still waiting. Why was no effort made to collaborate with the United States on Operation Warp Speed?
There is much to report on the relative good fortune of Hungary, Singapore, Israel, Sweden and Taiwan, whose locals believed their government’s handling of the pandemic highlighted their country’s political forces. Those in most other countries believe their government’s handling of COVID revealed political shortcomings.
Canada’s ultimate indefensible example of hype came, not from public health officials, but from the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act to rescind protests by the convoy of truckers opposing a vaccination order that crippled their income. The banks dutifully succumbed to the tension to block the budget intended for the protesters. Fundamental civil rights have been violated, but to this day no one has been held responsible for this stain on Canada’s democratic values.
Lockdowns and mask mandates have been the most radical experiments in the history of public fitness. Experts like Dr. Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci believe they failed because they didn’t go far enough. The Wall Street Journal concluded that “Fauci’s legacy will be that millions of Americans will never again accept government fitness experts as truth in the same way. “
The real effects belie supporters of stricter measures. States with the most restrictive policies fared no better on average than those with a less restrictive approach.
Florida and Sweden have been heavily criticized for keeping schools and businesses open without a mask-wearing order, but their policies have been largely justified. Florida’s excessive death rate is lower than California’s, which has suffered one of the strictest lockdowns in the country. The meta-analysis of global studies from Johns Hopkins University concluded that lockdowns “have little or no effect on COVID mortality. “
Donald Henderson, an American epidemiologist who effectively led the foreign effort to eliminate smallpox, once said that “experience has shown that communities facing epidemics or other adverse occasions respond more and with less anxiety when the overall social functioning of the network is less disrupted. An astonishing expression of common sense, which has been ignored by COVID authorities.
It is also transparent that vaccines and vaccination mandates were not a universal panacea to prevent the spread of COVID-19, as expected. They would possibly have attenuated some of the effects of the virus. But U. S. President Joe Biden, who is fully vaccinated and doubly reinforced, hit twice last summer. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and many others have had similar experiences.
Precarious before the pandemic, Canada’s fitness formula is worse today. The consequences of the pandemic are expected to prompt ambitious political and structural adjustments in a formula that bears more similarities to that of the former Soviet Union and North Korea than to any industrialized country. democracy.
It is time for governments, with some humility, to conduct a comprehensive and independent review to be better prepared for the next pandemic. A reorganization of the top culprits for the failed control of COVID-19 would be a smart start.
National Post Office
Derek H. Burney is a former diplomat who served as ambassador to the United States from 1989 to 1993.
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