BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is in response to 'LETTER: Convoy supporters don't speak for all Canadians, says reader,' published Feb. 3.
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A couple things to consider regarding ‘accepting pandemic measures’.
While yes, millions have accepted the measures, especially early on when less was known about the virus, millions more have been forced to accept the measures (mandates included) or lose their livelihood, business or job, which is (forced) measures that infringes on our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Now, some may say "well, this is a public health emergency that is ongoing," but we now know that these measures are often proven to be more harmful than good. The risks definitely outweigh the benefits in many cases.
Let's take children, for example, who have an almost immeasurable risk of serious infection to COVID-19. It’s time to do what a growing list of countries (most of western Europe) have done and announced they are going back to normal, beginning with recognizing that what we’re doing to kids is unnecessary and horrible.
I’m a dad of a four-year-old in a local kindergarten. Myself and a growing number of parents I talk to in the area feel that with kids who have a COVID survivability rate of 99.98 per cent are being told to ‘mask up’ like bandits. Unfortunately, what is getting stolen
from them is their education, their sanity and social skills.
In the U.S., since the pandemic began, 49,000 children died of all causes and 331 were COVID-related (and of those, all had
serious co-morbidities). Kids' lives have been turned upside down at school because of this non-risk.
To put this in perspective, fewer kids died of COVID than died of heart disease, cancer, suicide, and homicide.
Have we put tinfoil on the ceilings of schools to protect against power lines? Have schools stopped serving meat, burgers and fries? Have we even addressed the growing incidence of suicide during the pandemic among children?
Remember that the U.S. was the hardest hit country with the virus. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) itself has said that masks on children are not recommended.
Early in the school year, myself and other parents noticed immediate nasal congestion among youngsters in kindergarten while trying to adjust to masks with their under-developed lungs.
A study released this week from Johns Hopkins University pointed out that lockdowns we all suffered through had little impact on reducing COVID deaths. Last July, President Joe Biden said "you’re not going to get COVID if you get vaccinated." We now know that to be false.
We as society have to elect political leaders that reverse the decades long trajectory of defunding health care and increasing capacity rather than continuing these mandates and restrictions. I know several people who are extremely stressed out due to the mandates for the vaccine that they do not want for various reasons and their present, their future income and livelihoods for their families is at stake.
It’s time to take a different approach knowing what we know now and return to what resembles normal.
Jeff Hiemstra
Barrie
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