Canadians are now getting a first-hand look at where so-called “zero COVID” policies lead.
The extraordinary protests in China against the suffering it has caused to ordinary people — as opposed to Chinese President Xi Jinping and the ruling elite of China’s communist party — demonstrates that even in brutal dictatorships, people will revolt against arbitrary and unfair public health restrictions.
As the Canadian national soccer teams head to their respective FIFA World Cups, Derek Van Diest is on the scene to cover all the action. Expect expert insights and analysis in your inbox daily throughout the tournaments, and weekly on Thursdays for the rest of the season.
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China, once praised by Canadian public health officials for its efforts to combat the spread of COVID in the country where it originated, continues to pursue a zero COVID policy that even the World Health Organization, another early China cheerleader, says is unsustainable and misguided.
About to enter its fourth year of the pandemic, China’s zero COVID policies have continued to place a third of its population in full or partial lockdowns in almost 50 cities, accounting for 40% of the nation’s economic growth.
People have been confined to tiny apartments and homes for months, deprived of food and other basic necessities, subject to arbitrary and harsh treatment by the police.
Canada is not China. Our governments, like most in the world, have abandoned the idea that COVID can be eliminated — which is what “zero COVID” means, as opposed to treating the virus as an endemic — like the annual flu season.
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That said, there is an elite class in Canada that seems to never want COVID-related public health restrictions on other Canadians to end, constantly calling, for example, for the provinces to reimpose mask mandates and other public health measures.
We’ve seen the deep societal divisions these restrictions have caused in our own country — the Freedom Convoy was just one example — when people believe their democratic rights and their ability to earn a living are curtailed by unreasonable public health measures.
The way ahead for Canada cannot be a never-ending merry-go-round of imposed, cancelled and reimposed restrictions on the rights of Canadians, including vaccine mandates and passports.
After three-years of hard-won knowledge, we now know how to fight COVID — by protecting the most vulnerable and by continuing to encourage the widespread use of voluntary vaccinations, voluntary masking and basic personal hygiene measures that have worked for decades to contain the spread of viruses, from COVID to the flu.
