Consequences matter more than intent

“This means that consequences matter more than intentions – and not just the immediate consequences, but also the longer run repercussions of decisions, policies, and institutions” - Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy

Looking at the plethora of data and research articles being published on COVID-19 that are churning out like Twinkies on a conveyer belt, I am bewildered at the incompetency of Canadian health authorities and government officials to properly handle the pandemic. I am not usually a cynic, but the policies surrounding mandating lockdowns, vaccines, vaccine passports and masking, has me questioning what type of future does our Prime Minister want? It is apparent that our Prime Minister and his party decided to take the totalitarian route in response to the pandemic – and I hypothesize with a high belief and degree – that it was for the worst.

It should be clear that our government displayed a lack of trust in Canadian citizens to be responsible and do what is best for themselves and others. Instead of leading with clear communication, transparency, compassion, and empathy, Justin Trudeau opted for the complete opposite. He decided that it was necessary to shepherd us through the pandemic with his policies that infringed on our charter of rights and freedoms.

These policies that our government implemented displayed their intention to do good, protecting citizens from the virus, but completely forgot the basic concept of opportunity cost or the consequences of such policies. In my previous post, I delineated the ineffectiveness of lockdowns in reducing mobility, transmissibility, and mortality. Since the first lockdown, numerous articles are still coming out demonstrating the consequences such as: reduction in hospital presentations of various health issues regarding preventable and chronic diseases, delayed surgeries, increased rates of suicide, alcoholism, anxiety, depression, loneliness, obesity, eating disorders, total years lost for children, inflation, bankruptcy of businesses in various sectors, and the list continues. If public health officials and government were to have done a proper cost/benefit analysis, it would be noticeably clear that the decision to lockdowns would be fruitless.

If we look at the vaccine campaigns, Canada urged citizens to get their vaccines with their initial doses reserved for the elderly and down the line of age groups. This made sense since the elderly who are prone to health complications had lower immune systems which increased their susceptibility to morbidity and mortality of COVID-19. In fact, the elderly is of the highest risk factor of COVID-19. As the age groups below 85, the reasons for hospitalization or admittance into ICU or severe symptoms is because they are immunocompromised, have comorbidities 1-5+, obese, and morbidly obese. The overall population, which had a 99.5% survival rate (which stayed consistent for two years) meant that the overwhelming amount of people did not suffer to the virus (Canada has roughly 38 million citizens with about 3 million reported cases and ~38,000 deaths).

Which begs the question as to why we were pushed with advertisements (at least we were not as bad as the UK using fear advertising) to vaccinate. Instead of letting citizens decide for themselves whether they wanted the vaccine or not, they decided to introduce vaccine passports to remove unvaccinated individuals from participating in society. This cannot be seen in any other way than coercion in trying to get vaccination rates up – even when there is no evidence to suggest these vaccines reduce transmissibility and the greatest benefactors of it were the vulnerable population (reduces chances of mortality and severe complications). Yet everyone was forced to get the vaccine or suffer consequences decided by public health and government officials.

Let us not forget that Justin Trudeau repeatedly labeled anyone who did not want to get the vaccine or opposed mandates on masking and lockdown policies as antivaxxers. This ignited some of the vaccinated people to weaponize their morality onto others and shamed people that were against the master narrative. Moreover, in one of Justin Trudeau’s interviews, he stated that antivaxxers were racists and misogynists. How interesting that our Prime Minister is supposed to lead with honesty and integrity that he had to go to such lengths in name calling, creating a two-tier class system, and misinformation to coerce citizens to vaccinate.

The same goes for mask policies, which the CATO institute did a critical review on the meta-analysis' on masks and determined that they were unsure whether they provided if any benefits at all. Those studies that did determine there were benefits were modest at best. What is interesting is these studies were privy to the likes of public health officials and yet their guidance was to mandate masks? If you are going to mandate something, you better be sure that the evidence must overwhelmingly support such a measure.

If I had to theorize why the government and public health officials decided on mandating these interventions without a sound foundation, I would have to say it was for political reasons. Justin Trudeau and his party wanted to be the savior, the hero in the face of a crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic. Their naiveness and being out of touch with reality, thought it was necessary to take control of the situation by dictating your actions. They knew that using their narrative of lockdowns and vaccinations to protect you and others would garner them votes in their effort to “Successfully defeat the virus.” Justin Trudeau even called for a snap election in the midst of a pandemic when he clearly told everyone to limit gatherings (To make sure he and his party stay in power?).

All that was necessary in the pandemic was to let people get the vaccines if they want. Let businesses decide whether they want to close or stay open. Let people decide whether they want to wear a mask or not. This would have been the sane thing to do, but no they had to politicize the pandemic and used it as a proxy to push their political agenda (Justin Trudeau also spent $200 billion during the two years of the pandemic and more now. I am certain basic economics tells me government spending of this kind contributes to inflation). Yet some Canadians still think lockdowns, masks, mass vaccination campaigns, and vaccine passports were effective and efficient.

The canaries are already signaling the failure of such policies: Freedom convoy, loss of jobs, shut down of businesses, increasing prices of food and more – the economy has taken a dramatic toll. We will experience the damage in the next upcoming years, 5 or even 10 years from now. Thomas Sowell said it best that we should focus on consequences rather than intent.