The Perils of ＂COVID Zero＂ Policies
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Summary
In this episode, True North contributor and op-ed editor Anthony Fury joins us to talk about the dangers of policing public safety in public parks, playgrounds, and public recreation spaces, and why lockdowns are not the answer to public safety issues.
Transcript
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Anthony Fury is a True North contributor and also the columnist and op-ed editor at the Toronto Sun.
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Anthony, always a pleasure. Thanks for coming on today.
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Now, you made an observation that I thought was a very unique one.
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We're not hearing it from a lot of people in the media,
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which was that Ontarians didn't just rebuke this expanded law enforcement power,
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but more broadly, they pushed back against this COVID-0 narrative.
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They didn't know they were doing that, but kind of implicitly through them rejecting all of these outdoor restrictions,
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playground closures, and this basic idea that you have to stay at home regardless of the activity you're doing,
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We want to flatten the curve or, you know, all those buzzwords we've been hearing.
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These activities that we know have nothing to do with spread, why exactly are you forcing that upon us?
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And there's an important distinction, clarification to be made here, Andrew,
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in that a lot of people think that what the Ford government is trying to do now is combat locations and activities that cause spread.
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If you look at the latest Ontario Science Table PDF that was at the last presentation,
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there are multiple pages on that slide deck that talk about bringing down mobility data.
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So they are just obsessed with the idea, Andrew, that how we deal with coronavirus isn't micro-targeting the locations causing spread,
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but just to force everyone to stay at home, to give fewer reasons for the Google Analytics chart,
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which tells you how much people are driving around because they have anonymized cell phone data,
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And there's even a table for recreation, meaning how much people are sort of going out and about in the parks
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and hanging out there and they want to bring it all down.
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And that is consistent with this COVID zero ideology.
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We got to get to zero cases by any means possible.
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Places like New Zealand, Andrew, which have actually closed the parks multiple times as recently as just last month.
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They thought coronavirus was gone in New Zealand.
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No, they still closed the parks, the playgrounds, last month.
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That's an important point because I've had even from people that I would say are ostensibly on the right pushback when I criticize lockdowns
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because they say, you know, if we just did an Australia or New Zealand style lockdown, a short but harsh one, we would beat it.
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But you're right to point out that those jurisdictions haven't beaten it.
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Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I always say is I find it really, really bizarre.
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I mean, it flabbergasts me that we're in the 21st century.
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There's so many really credentialed, bright minds in Ontario that we're privileged to have here.
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We're told we live in the age of analytics, of big data.
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And you're telling me big data can't be used to actually deal with these problems here.
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We can micro-target, you know, ad buys for particular products, but we can't micro-target the data coming out of public health.
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Instead, we have this, quite frankly, really, really, the basic approach to coronavirus right now from COVID zero is,
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well, this virus spreads from person to person, so let's make it illegal for people to be near people.
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Look, if someone had put that on their public health final exam, the very people, the professors advocating for this right now,
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they would have failed those students two years ago.
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This has never been a part of public health literature.
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Infectious diseases physicians who don't support lockdowns have made this very clear to me.
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It's not in any of the plans that Dr. Teresa Tam signed off on as late as 2018 about how to deal with this.
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I mean, lockdowns are actually not a traditional public health protocol.
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And it's interesting how of the many shifts, even this is one that we've seen from the World Health Organization,
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which has said, no, no, no, lockdowns are not something that we like.
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And that's the one area where the governments have decided they're not going to defer to this.
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But this COVID zero idea is also a complete inversion of that stated goal of just make it so that we,
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if we do have harsh cases, we have hospital capacity, we can get our ducks in a row,
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the flatten the curve line from, what, 13 months ago.
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And now it's, you're right, moving more and more towards this idea that we need to do everything
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and anything we can until there are zero cases.
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And what is so bizarre is at the same time, if you ask those very COVID zero advocates,
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hey, is coronavirus becoming an endemic illness, meaning it's just kind of here to stay for the rest of our natural lives,
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hopefully at a much sort of lower level and hopefully much fewer deaths every year,
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they will all agree yes, except one of the latest COVID zero documents that a lot of these people were co-signatories on,
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the very doctors who were on television saying shut her down, but oh, no, we didn't mean the playgrounds,
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we didn't mean the outdoor sports, those very documents, not only do they call for the New Zealand model,
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which does involve playground shutdowns, they also call for continual suppression of the virus,
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meaning various restrictions and lockdown measures, until Canada gets to 40 cases per day.
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That's actually in this Canadian Shield document that COVID zero advocates, they liked,
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They came up with that because it's one case per million,
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40 cases per day with a country with a border as long as ours, not an island nation like Taiwan
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and New Zealand, when it's an endemic illness that we're also admitting we will never get rid of
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in our natural lives. I mean, it's crazy talk is really what we can call COVID zero. It is total junk science.
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Explain to me what's happening with Doug Ford's legitimacy as a leader right now,
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because one thing I saw on Friday was that a lot of the criticism that he was getting was from the
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right and the left. I was not seeing any real defense of the Ontario police measures. Now,
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the province has since backtracked a little bit on that, but as you know, they've not admitted
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wrongdoing, and even the language they used was not, you know, we got it wrong. They said,
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no, no, no, they were going to, quote, refocus, unquote, the powers. Paul Calandra yesterday
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gave a little bit more. But even then he said, no, no, no, it was just a communications problem.
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Well, when you ask what's going on with Doug Ford's legitimacy, I mean, nothing's going on
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with it. There is no legitimacy right now. They announced these measures on Friday. A lot of
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people were immediately outraged, closed down the playgrounds, randomly stopped me. And then by the
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weekend, you had most police forces in Ontario saying, we ain't doing those random stops. I was
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bicycling around downtown and I saw all the new rules that are enacted. And there's a lot. Yes,
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the playgrounds were shut down, but picnic tables are still banned. You can't sit on those. You can't
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play catch with a friend in a park. That is illegal. All you can do is walk through parks and so forth.
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I can tell you, traveling through the streets of Toronto, nobody was following those rules. Some
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of them, because they probably said, I'm going to do civil disobedience. Others, because they don't
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listen to this stuff anymore. They don't care. They've tuned it out. And then you've had mayors like
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Patrick Brown and Brampton, the mayor of Aurora and others who have openly said these need to be
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repealed. So there's a major legitimacy problem. They've got to get these laws off the books because
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you can't have a society in which these laws are just everybody's kind of mocking them. Nobody's
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following them because if they think they have a problem on their hands now, well, if we're asking
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what's the point of these laws, why should we follow them? There's going to be a cascading effect.
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I guarantee you more and more rule breaking is going to happen because of that. And the government's
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put themselves in a very dangerous situation where their legitimacy is collapsing right now.
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Yeah. And you're right that that then makes it very difficult for people to go along with advice
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or guidance that may actually be rooted in science if they're so used to stuff that is not. And the
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playground ban, I think, is a very real thing. I don't want to make it just about the symbolism,
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but symbolically, it also, I think, does reveal the government has just completely abandoned that idea
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of linking science with the guidance. And when you mentioned it at the beginning of our discussion
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that it's not about targeting where transmission is occurring, parks, I'm not aware of any outbreaks
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there. And then for Minister Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier Christine Elliott, to say that people
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not wearing masks at parks is part of the reason for spread is, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, where's the
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evidence? Yeah, it's absolutely shocking that they would go out and say numerous factually incorrect
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things during that press conference, which I think really frustrated people. I mean, are there
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anomalous examples of outdoor spread in the literature? Sure. One of my favourite lines in one of those
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studies is that most examples of outdoor spread have an indoor component to them. And you're like,
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what? What does that mean? So there's an outdoor barbecue. And then, well, people decide to take it
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indoors to get some beer from the beer fridge, hang in inside and in a close, you know, space for 20
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minutes. Oh, OK. So outdoor spread just wasn't outdoor spread. It was actually indoor spread. It's
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basically not really a thing that's happening. And yet here we have all these restrictions
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on outdoor activities. It's if the people of Ontario want to say that's unacceptable,
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we got to get this rolled back. Well, they're already hearing from other mayors who are saying
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just that. Anthony Fury is an op ed editor and columnist at the Toronto Sun and my colleague
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here at True North. Anthony, always a pleasure. Thanks for coming on. Likewise. Thanks. Thanks for
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listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.