We must live

Attention Horgan, Dix and Henry.

You have all had the past 14 months in which to organize BC and put the infrastructure in place to flex the healthcare system to meet future spikes in covid related demand. We are told some hospitals are now approaching 95% occupancy. Are we supposed to be surprised? Should this elicit a state of even more panic and fear? In many past years BC hospitals have operated at 100%+ capacity, sometimes up to 115%+. Previous to covid, did anyone pay attention to the workload and stress levels of our frontline healthcare workers? I don't ever recall any praise or support from media or concerns from politicians around this issue. In a growing population, on a downward trend of reduced front line healthcare staffing and capacity per capita, it has been an example of sheer negligence in not ramping up to meet demand. For 14 months you have had the opportunity to attract the best healthcare talent from around the nation and from all over the world. Incentives could have been offered, and we could have set ourselves up for the medium to long term. So in terms of healthcare infrastructure and planning, a FAIL.

Instead the only strategies seems to have been nauseating daily press conferences spewing out the same “try harder” narrative. We have tried hard. For 14 months. We are tired of trying hard. The people on the beach in Kitsilano are tired., The young people seeing their hopes and dreams ebb away are tired. The business owners are tired. We all want our lives back. Our faith in your direction and your restriction is dwindling and many now feel we cannot do enough and you cannot produce the right guidance to help us through this. Your collective leadership seems uninformed, desperate, rudderless, and uses broad strokes instead of laser guided precision tactics. In terms of a successful strategy, the handling of spike 2 indicates a FAIL.

80% of cases have always come from the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley area. All through this pandemic, any casual observer could see what drives the numbers. The solution is quite obvious, and might be unpalatable to you, but the concentration of population, higher density, and diversity needs addressing. The pareto effect is something worth researching. You will find that if you address these two key areas with targeted specific lockdowns and controls, we will start to move out of this. The rest of BC doesn't want or need to suffer unnecessarily. So please deal with your own back yard before destroying other communities. In terms of effectively addressing the root of the problems in a targeted manner, a FAIL.

With reference to the 1.5% of cases associated with indoor dining, a fact which drove the decision to shut down dining and therefore add more woes and stresses to small businesses. The data indicates that this was focused very much on Whistler and the Lower Mainland as source areas. So why not close down just those areas. Why should a cafe on Fort Nelson, a Pizzeria in Keremeos or a Keg in Kelowna have to suffer? Why should those business owners and employees be forced to stress about their paychecks and income? Your willful obfuscation of the data infuriates even the local media. Yourselves, and your representatives in government, refuse to provide the public with information. What type of regime (dictatorship) is this? In terms of fairness across the province, a huge FAIL.

At this point you resort to generic lockdown type strategies and limits on mobility that go against WHO guidelines on pandemic management. Lockdowns and restrictions that destroy the human soul. Strategies that cause severe mental health issues. Frontline mental healthcare workers are seeing an incredible increase in suicidal thoughts and suicidal ideation, anxiety and stress. The WHO has indicated recently that the post pandemic fallout will cause mental health issues on a scale worse than after WW2. The social destruction will be way worse than the moderate death count of covid. In terms of understanding that the pandemic has more dynamics than just a daily regurgitated case count, a massive spectacular FAIL.

As we look at the historical chart of cases we see that the decline period after spike 1 was an ideal opportunity to build up our acquired immunity, encourage some level of infection with a fully opened economy, so we could increase the population's resolve to fight the bigger picture. But the total focus on case reduction worked against overall pandemic management. It's almost as if nobody listened to the genuine experts in immunology, epidemiology, and virology. Decades of proven research and successful tested approaches have been tossed out of the window. And clearly, what has been tried in its place, is failing. For long term pandemic planning and expertise, nothing short of a FAIL.

In this process, you have removed all choice. Individual risk assessment and risk-reward analysis have been removed. No longer can an individual sovereign being, a self determinate, innate, living, thinking, feeling, emotionally awake human being, make their own life decisions. They cannot decide whether to wear a mask, they cannot decide which stores to patronage based on health related policies. They have no choice in who can visit their home, and they are told who can visit their community. They cannot welcome responsible out of province visitors. They have no choice in suggesting that all visitors be welcomed, on the basis that we must accept a level of risk for the greater good of actually having jobs and businesses and human relationships. We cannot exist for months on end hiding behind our sofas, wearing two masks, having an endless supply of junk food delivered, watching a steady diet of negative, mind-numbing, fear driven media. For understanding of humanity and human emotions and needs, nothing short of an abject FAIL.

We must live. We must have our lives back. We must do more than simply exist. We must allow those who need to shield and work from home or isolate to do so. We must fund and support anything to help the most vulnerable. There must be choices.

In your war on the people of this Province, it now feels like we live in Communist China. You are destroying our humanity. That will be your post pandemic legacy. Total failure, preceded by a period of temporary smugness, then delivering a mish mash of incoherent, failed efforts, as society and the small business economy is run into the ground. Yet we are given meagre scraps so that we can gather at the church of the big box store and pray at the altar of Amazon.

You give us no hope, no plan, no optimism, no choice, and no faith in what you are doing. You have sown division and resentment. Unmasked against masked. Unvaccinated against vaccinated. Those that demand their freedom against those who demand extreme totalitarian protection at all costs. The confinement, independent and healthy against the weak, scared, and fearful. Those who want to work and prosper against those who want to exist at the behest of the taxpayer. Those who want to be human against those who want to be isolated and distanced from everything that is human.

You have almost achieved that which I thought to be impossible. The almost total destruction of our humanity, and the conquest of the human spirit. You are apparently doing everything in your power to destroy the human soul.

You will ultimately fail...

Ricky Daytona, West Kelowna