Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Mickey Djuric writes about the rising COVID-19 hospitalization numbers driven by unvaccinated people - but lest anybody treat past shots as an excuse for complacency, Fenit Nirappil and Dan Keating report on an increase in deaths among vaccinated people who are elderly and/or immunocompromised. Jason Moyer-Lee writes that there's no reason to celebrate the elimination of masking and other protections for people who will needlessly face avoidable disease and suffering. Adam Miller discusses what it might look like for COVID to become a more seasonal disease - while noting that we're still far short of the point of being able to predict its future waves. And Morgan Godfery calls out the right-wing attempts to diminish and criticize the successes of zero-COVID policies in New Zealand and elsewhere as more government simply abandon their constituents to the pandemic. 

- Austin Lee reports on a new study showing that a safe consumption site in Calgary resulted in savings of millions of dollars (to say nothing of the improved well-being of the people able to use it). And Zak Vescera reports that the federal government has gone so far as to invite Prairie Harm Reduction to apply for its funding directly for lack of any willingness by Scott Moe to make similar investments in health and safety in Saskatchewan.

- Drew Anderson highlights how refineries and other industrial polluters are doing untold damage to residents of Edmonton and surrounding areas. And the Canadian Press reports on the fine eventually issued to Husky for releasing harmful substances into a North Saskatchewan River tributary in 2018.

- Aryn Baker writes that the food supply crisis caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine offers a deadly preview of what's in store as climate breakdown affects agriculture around the globe. And CBS News reports that California is already facing drought conditions long before its usual dry season.

- Finally, Leah Gazan and Kim Pate make the case for a guaranteed liveable basic income in the wake of a pale imitation thereof which nonetheless managed to reduce poverty and improve welfare in the midst of a pandemic.