My Rebuttal To Dr. Arruda

"Il a aussi ajouté que « les gens qui ne porteront pas le masque vont être responsables, sans le savoir, de la mortalité de quelqu'un »."

Bonjour Dr. Arruda,

Ah bon. I think at this point public officials worry me more than the virus!

The healthy are the enemy! Get them!

So the idea citizens never trading liberty for security is a somewhat antiquated notion? I'm a stern and dedicated observer of American history and the concepts of liberty. 

In fact, this has been a very dark year for liberty in North America. We're letting a virus control us. We're following it. We're not leading. Orders are not leadership. So, in a way, the virus IS more intelligent than you think. 

I'm sure you're familiar with the position of 'if you give up your freedoms for security the terrorists win'. Replace terrorist with virus.

Except the virus doesn't know but we're less free. What concerns me is the indefinite nature of this measure. Is the government stringing us along? Mr. Legault says things have changed because we're open. I recall this government assuring us 'don't worry. It's just to flatten the curve' and 'not overwhelm the system'. All governments said this. I didn't believe it then and I don't believe the government here. 

We didn't wear masks at the peak of the pandemic and the numbers dropped. Now the logic is masks will prevent spikes despite the weak evidence. Since March, we've averaged 450 cases - plus ou moins - sans masks. Why the sudden love of masks and more importantly why is it seen so important to the point of making it mandatory despite the weak evidence? When the spread has cut in half? 

I can't make sense of it.

Now you're upset we didn't listen to you. Can it be because we're not ignorant sheep and know that stupid mask in your hand is mostly useless and NOT supported by empirical science? You claim to be saving my live. I beg to differ. You're ENDANGERING it and I reject your bullying. I don't need your flapping gums acting like my father. I want the evidence. 

As if enacted draconian measures based on specious evidence (I recognize there has been an explosion of research supporting them but the key question is: Is it empirically proven?) wasn't enough, now we have leaders who think the healthy are murderers! 

Voyon-donc!

What shall we do? Round them up and throw them in prison? Send them into psych wards as Germany threatened to do? Do we force dot technology or follow them with an app or anklet? 

I hope you've had the time to ponder these words? If not, let me help.

If people call you and Mr. Legault Stalin you walked right into that claim with this comment. Your recent outburst how you can be a 'bad boy' didn't help. I don't know how you think threatening us with your snake oil was a good idea. The arrogance of it all.

Obey!

If we dissect this preposterous assertion we can infer a couple of things. None of them good.

One is it fosters friction among people because it activates their inner most primal fears. Doesn't anyone read Jung or Dostoevsky anymore? Or watched Peter Fonda in The Ox Bow Incident to see where tyranny of the mob can lead?

It's very weird, as a healthy asymptomatic male, to suddenly feel targeted by the government.   

Two is it singles out one group and potentially leaves them fodder for government abuse. Where did we see this before? Hm. Perhaps Stalin with the Poles and Kulaks and Hitler the Jews?

Does Covid-19 change the fact the logic is the same? Whether it be Jews or healthy people, it's pandering to the lowest common denominator. 'Hey! He's healthy - we think - let's get him!'

Where's the deductive reasoning and critical thinking? Did Covid-19 steal it? What of perspective and context? Right. Covid-19. Or shall I say Covid-1984?

When the leader of a province says 'masks is liberty' you know we're down the George Orwell path of bizarro. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. 

And what of respect? Is respect not a multiple-way street? Mr. Legault speaks of respect but hammers its citizens with warnings and tidings of heavy fines if they don't toe his edict. Be good or else I lockdown! We live in a pluralist democracy. You take the good with the bad. You don't earn respect this way. You lose it.

I'm aware of the work done at the Behavioural Medicine Centre and how it seems to hav an influence on policy at the moment. I do not oppose masks Dr. Arruda in principle and can accept research showing strong evidence in a voluntary environment and atmosphere.

Supporters of masks say they work only if there's over 80% compliance. Dear Lord, shall we wrap ourselves up in bubble? For a virus with a 99.8% survival rate? Do you not see you're engaging in social engineering? The path to hell is paved with good intentions perhaps?

Forget this philosophical musing.

Let us consider the facts. Evidence. Descartes wouldn't demand it.

Care to provide me with the precise numbers of how asymptomatic people kill? We already know a high percentage of people infected died with a co-morbidity and this is literature from around the West. There are theories out there it's been around far longer than we think - as far back as August 2019! Were asymptomatic people killing people then? We also know a high percentage of people who died in Quebec were elderly and in nursing homes and since the peak, the death rate has receded significantly. So how are asymptomatic people leading to deaths? It would seem to me the death rates would spike?

Instead, your assertion seems to correlate with the slight rise in cases. And cases on their own is a meaningless statistic. Nor does it square with the fact death rates have dropped 90% in the United States but cases have gone up. Still more, the CDC estimates 26 million Americans have been infected thus making the death rate even lower! Nothing has been overwhelmed.

2+2 = 4. And not five....yet.

Can it be there's more testing and the fact the average age contracting has dropped? But no murders from the sneeze of the asymptomatic.

Nowhere in the West has this claim, that I'm aware of, been made. I follow the UK, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Germany and especially the United Staes fairly closely and enlightened minds don't dare. They did in Germany but it was  quashed. I think they recalled a certain period in their history. 

I follow, listen and read great virologists and doctors in Europe and the U.S., and I'm left somewhat bitterly disappointed their enlightened views aren't heeded more.

Instead, I notice the Quebec government links sources to the CDC/NIH. A corrupted, incompetent and heavily politicized agency. 

Which spins me to the masks. I've been working to get officials to provide me with evidence to which they base their decisions and instead I get tiresome bureaucratic lingo with the usual vague assertions about masks. But we don't do transparency well in Canada in general. It's much easier to get information on the United States than it does Canada. 

'Masks are good because we say so' is not good enough. Not when you make it mandatory. 

So far, from all the literature I've read, the majority has determined the effectiveness of masks are inconclusive. The literature that supports it can only offer there's some evidence they work. In France, a study has concluded masks did not stop the spread of Covid.

Which passes my basic acid test of articles of faith unsupported by empirical evidence lead to bad outcomes. I fear there's a potential for forming habit where people (in addition to developing some form of OCD), lull themselves into a false sense of security.

What I'm saying is, already getting people to wear a mask based on the evidence was fine because there was no coercion involved. But now that there is, this changes the circumstance. 

This doesn't even factor in poor mask handling which renders this whole exercise almost futile. People constantly pull on it, they dangle off review mirrors and chins. Are we going to fine people for improper usage? Why not? Quebec has issues more tickets than any province since the pandemic began. Maybe we need to call a commission to conduct an impact study to see how many lives were saved punishing people already struggling with fines.

Now that's compassion.

Mr. Legault should perhaps reconsider his aim to social engineer our habits based on the limited evidence. He should also reconsider propaganda photo-ops with children wearing masks. Nothing reveals more you're not listening to the evidence about children and Covid not being a threat to them. I find this an irresponsible move to use kids in this manner. Besides, let's be frank, we know politicians do not follow their own rules they impose on the population. Then they wonder why people are cynical.

Worse still, the government seems to have decided this will be indefinite. What troubles me is you give the impression of not listening to the overall evidence-based reality of masks and this means you won't in the future. Nothing will make you reverse course (unless public outrage is strong enough - and it should be) unless...what? Cases go to zero? There's a vaccine? Are you stringing the population along? 

What changed since you correctly pointed out masks are largely psychological as Dr. Fauci also correctly said before he changed his mind? I notice, minds changed, but the evidence never supported it. 

The CDC and WHO, when you read their recommendations carefully, gently make the point of masks aren't a panacea. 

It's worth also mentioning the CDC determines the evidence on face shields to be weak. Yet, we allow people to wear them 'just in case'. Above all, the CDC and WHO strongly discourage the uses of medical masks recommending cloth which do seem to at least provide some kind of protection. But to the point of a mandate? 

Experiments have been made to show how infected with bacteria poor mask handling lead to and that oxygen levels drop. I won't let the government jeopardize my family in this way. PPE experts in the U.S. are starting to speak out because they feel doctors are misrepresenting people. Doctors aren't PPE experts. One doctor, wearing a cloth mask specifically against the warnings by the WHO to do so, showed that wearing a mask doesn't lower oxygen levels. 

On a superficial logical level this made no sense. Sure enough, it was explained by a PPE expert in Michigan that extra air are pumped through the vents in hospitals because doctors wear masks and don't want them facing.....low oxygen. The doctor didn't have all the facts. 

 The head doctor in South Korea said anything below N-95/KF94 is mostly psychological with marginal benefits.

We're in superstition territory and now I have to restrict my movements and shopping to eBay and Amazon. Too bad the borders are closed because I'd tavel to Vermont in peace and gladly pay the premium on the exchange for my liberty.

So why this rule?

Why not tell people that they've been through enough and that you will monitor the situation? Until then, follow our reasonable protocols. But you've convinced yourselves you can be more 'intelligent' than the virus. More dubious, for 'many, many months'. 

I don't think the virus cares too much about copy/paste, one size fits all mask mandates and arbitrary rules. Even social distancing is not exactly rooted in stone. The world and WHO says three feet. Here, for reasons unknown, it's six feet. I get the impression we don't know very much and just blindly assume certain measures 'work.'

I know. I'm a skeptical eye. I'm the one they line-up at the wall. 

I have not liked the decided authoritarian turn this province has taken in recent days. Not too long ago, you declared you don't regret the lockdown. I beg to differ. Leaving aside we quarantined the healthy for the first time in Western history (the ancient Greeks and Venetians understood shut down the economy, and you invite social ills only the devil can love), and the 'trade-offs' have been astonishingly poor in the West. 

I believe this government is of mind to lockdown if they deem it so. I wonder. Will this time they lock down ALL businesses? Funny how corporations remained open but small businesses were bullied into submission. Or will they arbitrarily and ridiculously divide the world into 'essential' and 'non-essential?' Seems to me, we made one part of the economy pay the price for it while others stayed home with a paid vacation #bakebread.

Ca va bien aller is starting to lose its lustre. When you decide to lockdown, because I'm almost certain the flu season will panic people (they're nervous now despite the numbers being low and stable) and we will over react again, perhaps you can ask government workers to take one for the team with a pay cut? Maybe if they all see what it's like to have your right to work taken from you and uncertain how you will be the bills (despite government programs. And I'll never forgive the government for forcing me, a business owner who doesn't take hand outs - for putting me on the CERB) they'll be less ready to cheer it on. After all, 'we'e in this together' right?

Until we're not. Can you please shut your business down to keep me safe? You staying open is selfish. Masks are liberty. War is peace.

I find the people who think we have a responsibility to someone else (if we did then we may as well become communists) are the ones who didn't miss a pay check. Let's reverse the tables and see how they think after. Let's see them deal with a difficult landlord. I have to wear a mask for someone, so by this logic, should they help out with my rent?

The 'tragedy of the commons' kicks in suddenly when they have to sacrifice something. 

I take it officials never read Frederick Bastiat and the 'unseen'? 

Let's contrast Quebec with South Dakota:

"When asked how she made her decision to not issue a closure of businesses in South Dakota and to not issue a statewide stay-at-home order like many other governors did when the crisis was beginning, Noem told Breitbart News that she was focused on providing the best and most scientific response to the coronavirus crisis.

“I looked at our state and our people here and knew they would take on the personal responsibility that would be necessary to protect their families and their communities,” Noem said. “I had a real honest conversation with them and told them what we were facing and that I needed them to make some decisions to follow CDC guidelines and that by doing that we could look at how this virus would impact our state and peak hospitalization rates going forward and do it together.”

“I’m not one who believes in a one-size-fits-all approach, and even in South Dakota I’ve got pretty diverse communities,” she noted. “I’ve got some that are pretty sparse with not many people and then I’ve got some that are big cities as well. So I wanted to leave some flexibility there for local folks to make decisions but also recognizing that when it comes down to it that these guys had to take on the personal responsibility that is necessary to really go after this virus.”

In the beginning, I believed Quebec was going this enlightened route. Now I can but take solace there are places that have kept their senses and respect their citizens enough to treat them like adults. 

Sweden took this approach as well and for some reason is a pariah. Let's compare with Quebec:

Quebec: 56 859 cases 5636 deaths as of July 15. 6768 cases per million. 671 deaths per million.

Sweden 76 492 and 5572. 7572 per million cases and 552 death per million. 

South Dakota: 7652 and 111 deaths. 8656 cases and 128 deaths.

No lockdowns. No masks obligatoire. Do you think they want to copy Spain, Michigan, New Jersey and Quebec? The peace of mind accorded the people of those places is alone priceless. Their psyche remains in tact and there was no potential extra-judicious destruction of their economy. 

I don't agree with the Ombudsman. I don't think it's reasonable. Not when we have examples of actual reasonable policy.

I reckon future studies will likely confirm the suspicion the lockdowns, rooted in poor models by a UK professor who has since been fired in disgrace, will be seen as excessive.

And now for my final trick! I will attempt to spin your assertion back to you.

It is not disputed the lockdown have had unforeseen (though I think entirely foreseeable) consequences. For example, higher suicides. extraordinary debts, domestic and child abuse, alcoholism, unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression, patients not getting treatments, double-digit GDP contractions, the WHO estimated in May 265 million people were on the brink of starvation due to lockdowns, lives ruined and the biggest silent killer of them all: Stress.

It stands to reason, based on your logic, you - and politicians across the world who jumped on this specious decision - contributed far worse and I delivered you facts to back up my assertion. I can even expand this, though more tenuously, into charing the government is at fault for what happened to the elderly. It's only since the 1980s I've been hearing about the treatment of our elderly and veterans. And what was done by our politicians? Nothing.

So, in an indirect way, government deserves scorn for their role in this mess. 

And it's more stark and easier to make this claim to the Governors of Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey (all Democrats) actively sent infected patients to nursing homes to die despite having the example of Italy to NOT do that!

How is this not a dereliction of duty.

Let me conclude with one last example.

If you don't open the schools, that's malice and threatens the sanctity of not only the rights of education of children but their mental health as well.

On-line education is not optimal and never will be for children. 

Why? The body of evidence from around the world is children are safe. Nor are they super spreaders. In fact, they tell us influenza is more dangerous. Nor are protocols necessarily needed. Paediatricians all over North America (67 000 in America declared that schools must open) as well as the Toronto Children's (I believe the head of the Montreal Children's concurs) say schools from Kindergarten to Secondary Five must open.

Ask yourself. Have we sent a good message to our kids? Are we projecting our fears not them? Have we taught them to lead with enlightened thought or did we teach them to cower, use coercive action to a complex issue and divide people with poor rhetoric and confused messaging? 

Yet, I get the feeling public officials stubbornly conflate adults with children despite what the literature says. Anecdotally, I know paediatricians, doctors and psychiatrists across North America and they too feel we're beginning to create the conditions of a health panic.

I think, I made my case, that you should retract your comment. Or at the very least, adjust it because it leaves me unnerved a politician would believe this. 

The population is already on edge and you thought this to be an appropriate statement?

I wish the government would reconsider its decision and your comment. 

For the first time in my life, I feel have a pessimistic outlook on the future.