To the Editor,
After reading Scott Anderson’s comments in the April 8 edition on our entirely appropriate response to this pandemic (Anderson: Virus response an ‘economic atom bomb’), I thought it would be interesting to imagine a world where instead of putting expert physicians with decades of experience, like Dr. Bonnie Henry in charge, Anderson, a politician, was given the reins.
He was firm – life would go on. We’d protect the vulnerable, but everyone else would be left to their own devices. Millions chose not to maintain their social distance, and carried on as normal. They went to work, the mall, restaurants and bars – and all along they were transmitting the virus before they even knew they had it. One person gave it to three people, who gave it to three people and so on. Before we knew it, almost everyone in Canada was infected by this new virus no one had any immunity to, and unlike a typical flu season, it was all at the same time.
All these COVID-19 patients were hospitalized at the same time, taking up our supply of ventilators, so when people came into the Emergency Room with traumatic lung injuries, COPD, pneumonia, lung cancer, etc., we had to let them go.
There was just nothing we could have done!
At least it wasn’t COVID-19 that took them, and even still — it was just a flu! The death rate was only about three per cent, meaning we only had to sacrifice a million Canadians.
A tiny amount that was well worth it – after all, no human life is as important as keeping the deficit down and the economy moving. Sure, the morgue at Vernon Jubilee Hospital was so overwhelmed that we had to bury the Vernon’s 1,200 COVID-19 victims in mass graves up at the DND, but we came out of the pandemic without having to implement any costly stimulus packages.
Thank God the experts are in charge, and people like Scott Anderson are stuck preaching their dangerous nonsense on Facebook.
Please, to anyone reading this, stay at home – for your family, your friends, your neighbours, your community.
Now is not the time to get complacent.
We will beat this, but only if we all do our part and stay committed to each other.
No cure is ever worse than the disease.
Keenan Nurmsoo
Vernon