Wrapping oneself in conspiracy theories won’t fight COVID-19
I was gobsmacked at the level of paranoia about Big Brother which B.W. Lowe ranted on about with rumours, misinformation, out-and-out disinformation, in his letter that Trudeau is planning to curtail our freedoms.
It is always prudent to question things which governments do. But at this stage in the pandemic, Mr. Lowe’s disjointed arguments against tougher measures make no sense. It reminds me of a couple letters in other Black Press community papers where writers claim that it is all a left-wing media conspiracy and that the truth is out there.
Wrapping oneself up in conspiracy theories might be comforting to some, but I prefer reality, and what our government is being guided by is the latest information from top scientists and experts in how viruses work and how they spread rapidly through populations.
I had wondered why the unstable genius, Donald Trump, and Boris, the British prime minister, had so abruptly changed their do-nothing attitude about the pandemic to actively fighting it as if their political lives depended on it. Not for a moment do I believe that the U.S. president cares about people, but he does care about salvaging his re-election chances.
What changed their thinking was a report that was released by The Imperial College London which stated bluntly what Britain faced if it continued to do nothing about the pandemic sweeping other parts of Europe. That report was shared with American authorities and its message even managed to penetrate Trump’s notoriously thick skull.
The message was that if Britain continued to do nothing, that in a worst-case scenario, a half million Brits could die. Trying to mitigate against the virus would see a quarter million Brits die. Suppression was the only logical option to stem the death totals to a few thousands or perhaps tens of thousands. Britain has now done the right thing by going into lock-down mode as has large parts of the U.S.
The scientists at The Imperial College stated in their report that COVID-19 is the most serious respiratory virus to show up since the Spanish Flu which killed millions around the world. This is no time for Mr. Lowe to craft his paranoid Big Brother theories which, given the severity of the pandemic, which, if not suppressed by all means possible, will sweep the world, might mean some civil liberties might be curtailed in the short term.
It should be noted that the draconian measures that China took have now resulted in zero new cases of COVID-19 in the original ground zero area within that country. All new cases are from people coming in from outside China. Fortunately for China, they didn’t have the equivalent of Mr. Lowe trying stop their government from doing the right — and only responsible options — to suppress the initial outbreak of COVID-19.
Robert T. Rock
Mission City
