Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jim Stanford discusses the reality that even from the standpoint of GDP and economic activity, we're better off implementing strong enough measures to control (or better yet, eradicate) the spread of COVID-19 rather than allowing the virus to run wild. But in the latest signal that far too many provinces are going backward in ensuring people can survive the coronavirus, Kelly Bennett reports on Doug Ford's decision to force nurses to go unpaid while they're in mandatory quarantine. 

- CBS News reports on doctors' observations that COVID-19 can cause worse lung damage than smoking even for people who avoid exhibiting severe symptoms.

- Zeynep Tufecki and Jeremy Howard ask why we haven't seen more of a shift toward better masks for the public as the pandemic continues. And Ian Gauthier rightly calls out Erin O'Toole's complaints about vaccinating people in prison as a public health threat to everybody which serves no purpose but cheap pandering to base instincts. 

- Speaking of which, PressProgress exposes how the Cons have accepted donations from a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi - and are seeking to blame Derek Sloan alone for donations made into party coffers. And Aaron Wherry discusses how little O'Toole has done to depart from the Trump playbook, even as he claims offence at being associated with it.

- Finally, Emma Graney reports on the latest revelations about oil operators misleading Alberta about their failure to clean up abandoned wells. And David Climenhaga writes that Jason Kenney's combination of aggressive anti-environmentalism and reckless determination to bet on a dying industry with public money has resulted in billions going down the drain in the form of the failed Keystone XL pipeline.

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