We must be saved

Saved from individual and collective national bankruptcy, from the uninformed herd, and from the iron fist of our government. I gathered a few thoughts prompted by Gregor Jezik's reply to my letter of April 20th 2021. As Gregor stated, “the fearful and scared are dictating the rules”. They demand that we must be safe and must be kept safe. Government must keep us safe, in the way that we keep children, pets or animals safe. However by misplacing our trust in government, we are clearly becoming unsafe and our lives are being threatened by an overbearing overdose of “safe”.

What exactly is “safe”? How does one live a safe life, and yet, experience life? Is “safe” the equivalent of driving everywhere at 10km under the speed limit? Wearing two masks while jogging alone? Always going to the same vacation destination? Never dating anyone interesting, unique, or different? How do we experience any sort of “life lived” if we are forever to be “safe?” How do we avoid an existence of mundane uneventful mediocrity?

Firstly by assessing our own risk especially in relation to covid, we can identify our personal risk level, as the US CDC has broken down the age range risk factors, which helps guide us to how at risk we are. Do we have comorbidities that increase our risk? Are we exposed to others that may be highly contagious (working in healthcare, for example). Have we educated ourselves on the actual minimal risk of infection through contact with fomites? A recent MIT study (Chandler, A Method to Assess Covid-19 Transmission Risks in Indoor Settings, 2021) and other work done to assess risk levels such as Mondelli et al (Low risk of SARS-CoV-2 Transmission by Fomites in Real-life Conditions, 2020) may help you better understand a few of these risks. You won't hear this from our PHO, who merely tells us to work harder at an ineffective failed strategy, as small businesses die a slow death. I feel that the PHO has done nothing to alleviate fear, in fact using it as a tool to increase the power of the PHO, to maintain the State of Emergency, and to encourage acceptance of health orders that breach our Charter Rights. There has been a consistent failure in educating the public about these issues. As a result, unnecessary fear appears in all things everywhere all the time. And we are told to accept a narrative where everyone wants to be safe, all the time, forever.

We own our own risk and we make choices and decisions every day, many subconsciously. Sometimes low incidence with low consequences. Sometimes low incidence with high consequences. You scare me when I'm approaching a traffic light on Harvey doing 60 and you're sitting there waiting to turn left across me. I see you, distracted, yapping to your passenger, twitching, your vehicle rolling slightly forward. You have the ability and potential to kill or seriously injure me. Yet you don't scare me when you're not wearing a mask, I don't know you from Adam, you don't show any visible symptoms, and you're exactly 1.72 metres away from me. Real life risk assessment. Yet the majority of people seem to be more afraid of the unmasked terror than death by MVA. I humbly suggest that those who want to be kept “100% safe” sell their vehicles and burn their drivers licence. Then you'd have to walk everywhere. Or take transit. And people on transit may carry viruses. So don't leave the house, else you may get hit by a car, or transit bus. Stay home, save lives. be safe. Have you done a personal risk assessment of what the new federal budget will do to your personal finances and those of your offspring? Have you compared it to levels of previous national debt and percentage of GDP? Are you more scared of this new debt than of the maskless? Is it better to be scared of everything, just in case, just to be safe?

In an “unsafe” threatening world, increased stress, anxiety and depression is dangerous. It can load up against the immune system. It encourages psychological and physical problems. It results in illness and infection. So being safe (afraid of everything) may actually kill you. Not exactly what you want to happen in a pandemic. So why does our government and PHO load up the public with daily doses of fear? Why are we treated in such an infanticized, insulting manner? Surely a PHO would be better offering a calm, informed, supportive narrative that reassures the public? In a crisis, you never want a leader who is a headless chicken, flapping and panicking.

I reflected on all this for a while. Perhaps we deserve it? Perhaps it is the overarching human nature of modern life that we are just too lazy to research and self inform. We expect everyone to do everything for us. Maybe there's not enough time to self educate and Netflix surfing is just too important. Perhaps the public simply finds it far too easy to place their trust in government. The sheer energy and mental effort to be put in to make your own discoveries, use up energy assessing and analyzing data, facts and research, it must just be a step too far. Being smart and informed is hard work, and critical thinking hurts the brain.

So then I spent a bit of time trawling through Castanet's social media where I found articles that featured covid, health orders, or vaccination related content. And I was quite surprised. I had the impression that the herd of Bankrupt Bonnie believers made up 80% of the population. But the overwhelming amount of comments and opinions were the inverse to my prior perception. And it was quite refreshing. A hostile, critical majority of comments came from the resistance. They are the people opposed to excessive public health orders. Concerns about freedom, religious expression, freedom of thought, concerns for Charter Rights, free association, mobility, and way of live dominated the comments section. I can only assume that like in many scenarios, public expression of opinion from the Believers is a noisy but influential minority.

So speak up. You have a voice, and your opinion matters. You are the majority, so rise up, you beautiful, strong, confident, responsible, intelligent, independent, articulate, informed people.

Government has failed us in the handling of this pandemic. It has failed to reassure us, and it has spread unnecessary fear and panic. We are on our back foot, defending our businesses against political attack, defending our personal rights, constantly questioning the guidance from a third rate PHO. We have not received the clear guidance we deserve, and there are massive chunks of information conveniently missing from the narrative put forth in the daily broadcasts of fear and misery.

We must be saved from a slow lingering death by the lowest common denominator, from apathy, from blind unthinking acceptance. And we must work hard to reject this infantile, condescending diatribe from the BC PHO. We must resist and reclaim our lives from the death grip of health tyranny.

Ricky Daytona, West Kelowna