Sunday, April 25, 2021

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Rich Mendes reports on new research showing that the longstanding focus on physical distance as a means of avoiding the indoor transmission of COVID-19 has been misplaced. Erin Anderssen and Marcus Gee examine some of Canada's hardest-hit intensive care units to show the day-to-day disaster caused by the spread of the coronavirus. And Denise Lu reports on the U.S.' excess death total which is higher than the one caused by the 1918 pandemic.

- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus writes about what should be a fairly simple choice for wealthier countries who can either keep the population of the entire world at unnecessary risk by prioritizing intellectual property rights over vaccinations, or help protect everybody at the cost of a few windfall profits. And Stephen Buranyi likewise argues that patents shouldn't stand in the way of vaccines for everybody.

- Andrew Nikiforuk discusses how Jason Kenney's UCP has provided a laughable excuse for consultation in order to push ahead with coal mining in the face of public opprobrium and the complete absence of an economic case for it. Ubaka Ogbogu and Lorian Hardcastle criticize Kenney's choice to protect the profits of long-term care operators responsible for the spread of COVID-19 among their residents, rather than at least allowing families to seek to hold them accountable. And David Climenhaga notes that the conservative "resistance" in Canada has lost both any influence it once claimed over climate policy, and any credibility with voters who have seen the consequences of its negligence in governing through COVID times. 

- Hiroko Tabuchi reports on a new U.N. study which concludes that methane leaks - and reliance on natural gas - are incompatible with our achieving any reasonable climate targets.

- Finally, Kerry Black takes the insolvency of Laurentian University as a starting point to question our refusal to properly fund universities generally.

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