Juno News - August 09, 2020


The science shows schools can re-open safely


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

173.02553

Word Count

777

Sentence Count

39


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Perhaps the most contentious debate that is underway in Canada right now about the different
00:00:10.000 reopenings of aspects of society is the one pertaining to the school system, and to what
00:00:15.200 degree we reopen schools in September, and what protocols we put in place to keep them safe.
00:00:20.960 Now, in some respects, I totally get this. I speak as a parent of some young children myself,
00:00:26.240 and we all know that caring for our children, that is top priority for everyone, for all parents out
00:00:31.680 there. So I get that there's going to be extra alarm, extra caution when it comes to things
00:00:36.240 involving our kids. But at the same time, I feel like this is one of those subjects that has been
00:00:41.680 completely lacking all evidence-based decision making, all science, as the liberals like to
00:00:47.440 proclaim, as if everything is science, until the moment it's not. When Dr. Theresa Tam says masks
00:00:52.240 don't work, that's science. And then the next day, when she says they do work, and I want to mandate
00:00:56.720 all of you to wear them, suddenly that is also science. Okay, fine. But where is the science when
00:01:02.240 it comes to the school debates? Because we have a lot of concerns out there, a lot of fear-mongering
00:01:06.720 going on. And look, I get there's a lot of conflicting stuff going out from experts. You
00:01:12.640 turn on the cable news, and at one moment you see some senior epidemiologists saying this thing,
00:01:17.840 and then in the very next program, you see another epidemiologist saying the exact opposite. So it's
00:01:23.120 really frustrating. And sometimes you're not able to take basic facts with assurances that you can
00:01:29.680 actually take them to the bank, that they are going to be 100% valid come the week after or the week
00:01:34.720 after that, when some new evidence comes along and pushes the old evidence aside. I do think, though,
00:01:40.560 the school system and how coronavirus affects children is one of those that we've been pretty
00:01:46.000 consistent on throughout. And we're seeing a lot of evidence that tells us, relax. There's really
00:01:51.440 not that much to be afraid of when it comes to going back to school. A lot of studies out there
00:01:57.120 that tell us children hardly get coronavirus at all. And if they get it, they are not particularly
00:02:02.720 hard hit by it. And there is no indication that they are actually really spreading it to adults all
00:02:08.480 that much. Very little evidence of it. So when I've spoken about this or written about this before,
00:02:13.840 some people say, okay, fine, the kids themselves, they're not going to get it. But what about the
00:02:18.160 teachers? And what about the kids taking it home to their parents and their grandparents,
00:02:22.000 people who might be immunocompromised? Well, right now, the evidence just doesn't show that
00:02:26.560 that's something that's happening. Although you better believe the teachers unions are latching on to
00:02:31.200 whatever fearmongering facts they can to justify more and more from the school system, from the boards,
00:02:36.800 and from the taxpayers. Now, I think one of the most probably slam dunk statistics that tells us
00:02:43.520 we don't have to be worried about our particular kids per se, regardless of whether or not they
00:02:47.920 spread it to adults, is the numbers of kids who have been infected in Canada, and more particularly,
00:02:53.520 the number who have been hospitalized and the number who have died. There have only been 100 kids
00:02:58.480 who have been hospitalized in Canada. And by kids, I actually mean people under the age of 19,
00:03:02.720 under the age of 20. So that includes teenagers. The number of people under the age of 20 who have
00:03:08.000 died in Canada from coronavirus, get this, one. And it's believed that person already had another
00:03:14.720 underlying illness. So maybe you can't actually chalk their death up to coronavirus. Maybe their
00:03:20.080 death was more caused by something else. Because we have this weird accounting mechanism in place,
00:03:24.640 where if you die while you have coronavirus, but you have actually died of that other thing,
00:03:29.600 it's counted as a COVID death. So there you have it. All the facts, the statistics, research them,
00:03:34.640 look around. They really suggest that while there are some things we should be more concerned about
00:03:38.720 than others, like our elderly and long-term care facilities, the school system doesn't seem to be
00:03:43.920 the case. So yes, let's try and implement as many measures as we can, enhanced hygiene, hand washing,
00:03:49.040 and so forth. But I really don't think we need to be afraid of kids and the return to school.
00:03:59.600 So
00:04:11.680 what do you think?
00:04:17.120 Check out other people