From https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-canadas-current-pandemic-response-isnt-supported-by-the-facts

Goto the link for interesting comments at the end of article.

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RINNER: Canada's current pandemic response isn't supported by the facts

Author of the article:
Dr. Claus Rinner
Publishing date:
Dec 14, 2020

A few weeks ago, British philosophers Ian James Kidd and Matthew Ratcliffe wrote about “Covidworld, our new altered reality where accepted norms do not apply.” They note how the entire planet is captivated by COVID-19 as the one and only issue of importance. And they describe the “enormous and wide-ranging collateral damage caused by lockdowns and other measures.” Like many critics of the ongoing tunnel vision on SARS-CoV-2, I am concerned about the lack of proportion in our collective response and allege that this response is not backed by the facts about the pandemic.

Responding to questions raised in a Toronto Sun column, Ontario Minister of Long-Term Care Merrilee Fullerton confirmed in October that the COVID-19 death toll in LTC homes was comparable to that of the 2017/18 flu season. In order to detract from this remarkable admission, she added: “But I don’t want to talk about numbers, you know, it is about people.”

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Unfortunately, there are major issues with the COVID-19 data –bad enough for world-renowned epidemiologist and statistician John Ioannidis to call SARS-CoV-2 a “once-in-a-century evidence fiasco.” For example, we still do not know how many Canadians die from the virus as opposed to those dying from other causes but with a positive test. Why are the media not reporting that most COVID-19 victims (90% according to Statistics Canada) are already vulnerable from pre-existing diseases? We also do not know, or are not told, how many hospitalizations occur due to serious cases of COVID-19 rather than other unrelated illness, where the patient just tests positive upon admission or gets infected in hospital.

The publicly available COVID-19 statistics currently rely on the PCR test, which may be unsuitable for monitoring key trends in the pandemic. The inventor of the PCR procedure, Kary Mullis, has stated on record that the test can be used to “find almost anything in anyone.” The test detects genetic material of the virus in a person but cannot determine whether a person is ill or infectious. The state of Florida has now mandated that laboratories specify the cycle threshold count for positive test results, a measure that correlates with infectiousness. How much longer will it take our provincial governments to develop an approach to analyze and report these data?

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