Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.
- Zania Stamataki warns that we can't afford to treat vaccines as a magic bullet against the dangers of the coronavirus when public health regulations remain needed to limit its spread and severity. Brishti Basu examines the reasons for both concern about the Delta variant of COVID-19, and for hope that its harm to the public can be contained through high vaccination rates and continued public health measures - at least in provinces which are bothering to pursue them. And Madeline Holcomb reports on the recognition by CDC Director Rochelle Wolensky that any COVID deaths at this point are entirely preventable.
- But Dhruv Kullar notes that the Delta variant is particularly dangerous to unvaccinated people - making Scott Moe's elimination of precautions in the face of Canada's lowest vaccination rate particularly destructive. Jonathan Levin reports that U.S. states where people have refused vaccines are seeing surges in case numbers. And Sophie Harman, Eugene Richardson and Parsa Erfani discuss the need for global vaccine justice to enable anybody to be fully protected from COVID-19, while Abdi Latif Dahir points out the growing case numbers in Africa.
- Nora Loreto calls out the refusal of most provincial governments to provide any transparency about viral transmission and associated illness and death caused by hospital outbreaks.
- Meanwhile, Dorothy Woodend invites us to consider what we've learned from the "great pause" caused by COVID-19.
- Finally, Shawn Micallef writes about Toronto's ugly and violent response to people camped in Trinity Bellwoods park - making for a particularly stark contrast against the kid gloves used toward anti-maskers who actually present a threat to the public. And Charlie Smith highlights why there's growing reluctance to set up unreserved celebrations of a history steeped in genocide.
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ReplyDeleteOn the Toronto encampment thing, what I've always wondered is why that sacred thing our society worships, private property, suddenly stops being property if it's owned by a poor person--the cops seem to feel free to just steal everything a homeless person owns and throw it away--who knows, perhaps keep selected bits, it's not like anyone asks questions. If the cops walked into a middle class person's home and took all their stuff, that would be news; even though the cops were doing it, it might even be considered theft. But if you have almost nothing, taking it apparently isn't worth remarking on, let alone a crime.
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