Juno News - The UK has dropped all COVID-19 restrictions – will Canada ever follow suit？

00:00:00.000 The United Kingdom has announced an end to COVID-19 protective measures. No more masks,

00:00:05.940 no more vaccine mandates, the pandemic is basically over. I'm Candice Malcolm and this

00:00:10.720 is The Candice Malcolm Show. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into this show. Now first

00:00:19.340 off I need to apologize because I am recording this show right now from a hotel room. I am on

00:00:25.160 the road right now. I thought I was going to be home in time to record today's show so I didn't

00:00:29.040 bring any of my normal equipment that I would bring when I'm traveling. I don't have a camera,

00:00:33.320 I don't have a microphone, I don't have proper lighting and so my apologies for the way that

00:00:37.780 this looks and sounds but let me assure you we will be back in studio and things will go back

00:00:43.100 to normal. Tomorrow again I wasn't anticipating having to record the show. I thought I'd be back

00:00:47.720 but alas travel is not as easy as it used to be and so here I am stuck doing this video from my

00:00:53.880 hotel room. So now that I've got that out of the way I want to talk to you today about this

00:00:58.480 extraordinary news out of the United Kingdom and now of course you can be cynical and you can say

00:01:02.460 look Boris Johnson is in the fight for his political life. He's in huge trouble from all

00:01:09.540 sides in the UK. He was caught you know breaking his own COVID rules and having these sort of

00:01:14.520 so-called illicit parties at Downing Street. The Conservatives were not happy when the government

00:01:20.320 introduced more COVID measures. As Conservatives should be unhappy about this. The idea of continuing

00:01:26.680 to lock down society given everything we know, given the fact that we know that that staying

00:01:32.640 at home creates more harm and good for most people. It creates more diseases of despair.

00:01:37.400 We've seen huge growth in isolation, in suicides, in drug overdoses, all kinds of things. People

00:01:43.960 missing early diagnosis of other diseases. We've seen huge explosions of other health issues

00:01:50.840 because of COVID and instead we have this sort of singular focus on COVID even in the midst of a wave

00:01:56.440 that just let me tell you it's completely mild. My entire household has now had COVID. We had it

00:02:01.640 sort of various stages over Christmas. The latest person to get it is my mom, my kids grandma and let

00:02:08.440 me tell you you know she is in an age group that you would be concerned about. You know her age, her past

00:02:14.920 health conditions, she's at risk and yet the COVID that's hit her right now is very mild. It's basically

00:02:20.760 like the flu. She's got a sore throat, a bit of a runny nose, you know she's been down for a couple 0.98

00:02:25.880 days and she's already feeling better. My son had COVID over Christmas. We barely even noticed it. If it

00:02:31.400 wasn't for the fact that his swim teacher had COVID, told us that she had COVID, so we tested him. We

00:02:36.840 tested him three times. The first two times he was negative. The third time he was positive, but if it

00:02:41.560 wasn't for that test we wouldn't have even known that he had COVID because he barely had any symptoms

00:02:46.840 whatsoever and he's better. So this wave of COVID is different and it doesn't have the negative

00:02:52.440 impact that previous waves have. I'm not saying that that it's completely safe. Obviously people

00:02:57.800 are still getting sick, people are still going in the hospital and you can still have negative impact

00:03:02.280 of COVID, but for all of society to lock down over it just makes no sense at this point. It's completely

00:03:09.080 illogical given what we know about this strain. If anything you know healthy people should want to

00:03:14.920 go out and get this strain of COVID so that they get the antibodies, they get the natural immunities

00:03:18.920 and they can better fight future waves. All that's to say conservatives in the UK were not happy with

00:03:24.040 Boris Johnson. Perhaps that is why he gave this triumphant speech in the House of Commons over in the UK

00:03:31.320 where he announced basically an end to everything. It's over. No more restrictions, no more vaccine

00:03:36.520 mandates, no more masks, no more masks for children in school. Thank goodness. One of the worst,

00:03:41.400 absolutely most jacronian cruel policies imaginable, making little kids who are just learning how to

00:03:48.120 speak, learning how to communicate, learning how to be social, forcing them to wear masks. I can't

00:03:53.320 imagine a worse policy than that. So that's all over in the UK. I want to show you a clip of Boris Johnson

00:04:00.440 in the House of Commons in the UK delivering this wonderful speech.

00:04:03.640 We can return to Plan A in England and allow Plan B regulations to expire.

00:04:12.280 As a result, from the start of Thursday next week, mandatory certification will end.

00:04:18.360 Organisations can, of course, choose to use the NHS COVID pass voluntarily, but we will end the

00:04:24.120 compulsory use of COVID status certification in England. From now on, the Government is no longer

00:04:30.120 asking people to work from home. And people should now speak to their employers about arrangements

00:04:35.880 for returning to the office. And having looked at the data carefully, the Cabinet concluded that once

00:04:43.240 regulations lapse, the Government will no longer mandate the wearing of face masks anyway.

00:04:51.080 Mr Speaker, from tomorrow, we will no longer require face masks in classrooms and the Department

00:05:11.640 for Education will shortly remove national guidance on their use in communal areas. In the country at large,

00:05:20.600 we will continue to suggest the use of face coverings in enclosed or crowded spaces, particularly when

00:05:25.800 you come into contact with people you don't normally meet. But we will trust the judgment of the British 0.98

00:05:31.880 people and no longer criminalise anyone who chooses not to wear one. The Government will also

00:05:39.080 ease restrictions further on visits to care homes. And my right honourable friend, the Secretary of State,

00:05:44.520 for health and social care, will set out plans in the coming days. Mr Speaker, as we return to Plan A,

00:05:52.200 the Huttons will know that some measures still remain, including those on self-isolation.

00:05:57.800 No more vaccine mandates, no more vaccine passports. It's all going to be voluntary now in the UK.

00:06:03.080 No more working from home, no more masks, no more masks for children in the classroom. So key.

00:06:08.040 And I love the last line that you delivered there. We are going to trust the judgment of the British 1.00

00:06:13.640 people. Can you imagine? Can you imagine a leader in Canada saying that they're going to trust the

00:06:18.440 judgment of the people? It was music to my ears. So refreshing to hear. And I'll tell you why this

00:06:23.800 gives me hope. Okay. So over the last two years, we've sort of been living through multiple experiments.

00:06:29.720 Lots of different governments in different jurisdictions have taken totally different approaches

00:06:33.720 to COVID. Look at how Sweden approached it. You know, very little lockdowns. They focused very much

00:06:38.920 on the people who had, who were most at risk, who had underlying conditions. You know, people

00:06:44.200 scolded them. People emphasized, the news media emphasized any negative thing that happened over

00:06:48.440 there. But things are looking pretty good in Sweden. You can look down at the United States and see

00:06:52.600 the exact same kinds of examples, where you had states like Florida and states like Texas, who basically

00:06:58.360 just said, we're going to live and let live. We're going to get back to normal. And so they did. They

00:07:03.000 opened up their societies. They didn't have the same kinds of restrictions. You can compare that to

00:07:07.400 other states that had the sort of more Canadian mindset, like California or New York, that stayed

00:07:11.960 locked down. You can compare the data, look at the hospitalizations and death rates, and you can have

00:07:16.840 some interesting discussions. The only thing is, in Canada, we didn't really have experiments like that.

00:07:22.440 There were some mild disagreements. But overall, the premiers in this country were sort of in lockstep.

00:07:27.640 It didn't matter if you were an NDP, a Liberal, or a Conservative. They were pro-lockdown. They wanted to lock you

00:07:32.120 down. We were stuck inside. We had to work from home. We had restrictions. We had vaccine mandates.

00:07:38.440 They sort of scrummed it up. And instead of looking to the U.S. for some of these examples of saying,

00:07:44.040 okay, look, there are other approaches. There are other ways to go. That didn't happen in Canada. And

00:07:48.280 I don't expect it to. I know that Canadians, this sort of anti-American sentiment runs deep within

00:07:53.800 Canada, especially our political culture, especially when there are Liberals in charge, like we have

00:07:58.840 federally with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. So I don't expect Trudeau to say, oh, hey, look,

00:08:04.360 Ron DeSantos is doing some pretty cool stuff in Florida. I think we're going to try that. Or,

00:08:09.080 hey, let's look at Texas and see how they did. I don't expect that to happen in a million years.

00:08:14.840 However, the UK is different. I think that perhaps Canada could look to the UK. They could see the UK

00:08:21.240 as a pure country and say, okay, let's wait and see. Let's watch what happens over there. If things go

00:08:26.600 according to plan and the Omicron variant is mild and it's already peaked and we're already getting

00:08:31.400 past that. And now so many more people have natural immunity and we could just kind of go on with our

00:08:36.200 lives. And, and, you know, if you're in that risk group, you can protect yourself. If you're elderly,

00:08:41.240 if you have underlying conditions, you can protect yourself. But for everyone else, it's like,

00:08:45.480 let's just get on with our lives. Let's get back to normal. Let's put a new emphasis on health,

00:08:49.960 make sure that people are taking care of themselves, make sure that people are getting the vitamins that

00:08:54.360 they need, getting the exercise that they need, getting the nutritious foods that they need. Let's,

00:08:58.680 let's put an emphasis in our society back towards health, back towards crusting the judgment of the

00:09:04.440 people, individual responsibility. Let's move on with our lives. So I'm really hopeful today. I hope

00:09:09.720 that the Canadian government, the Canadian prime minister will look to the UK, notice what's going

00:09:14.840 on over there. And, and hopefully this will be a step towards the end of this awful, awful pandemic.

00:09:21.720 Thank you so much for watching. We'll be back in studio with our normal setup next week.

00:09:25.800 I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

Juno News - January 20, 2022

The UK has dropped all COVID-19 restrictions – will Canada ever follow suit？

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