It’s Time to Consider Opposing Views on Lockdown Measures
Commentary
The pandemic has done much to illuminate how groupthink harms the ability to develop a measured response to society’s challenges. The debate around the pandemic response has been remarkably free of nuance, not to mention unadaptable and unreceptive to new information.
Despite the vaccine rollout, lockdowns continue to be the immediate answer to any statistics that might be remotely perceived as a harbinger of catastrophe. Of course, some polls show that swathes of the public support certain lockdown measures; a Maru/Blue poll from early January showed that the majority of Ontarians are in favour of measures such as closing non-essential businesses (80 percent), closing schools (70 percent), and heavy fines for anyone who willfully violates lockdown rules (68 percent).
Lockdowns Are ‘Not Supported by Strong Science’: Ontario’s Former Chief Medical Officer
Ontario’s former chief medical officer criticized the province’s lockdown measures in an open letter sent to Premier Doug Ford on Monday.
“Our well-intentioned but misguided efforts to control Covid are only compounding the tragedy,” Dr. Richard Schabas wrote. “We need to change course.”
Schabas served as Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health from 1987 to 1997 and was Chief of Staff at York Central Hospital during the outbreak of SARS in 2003.
“Lockdown was never part of our planned pandemic response nor is it supported by strong science,” Schabas wrote. “Reasonable estimates of the infection fatality rate from Covid have been declining as we learn more,” he continued. “Models that predicted hundreds of thousands of deaths from Covid in Canada were badly wrong because they used incorrect, exaggerated inputs.”