“China eats weird animals disease”

Lockdowns in the U.S. and Europe had little or no impact in reducing deaths from COVID-19, according to a new analysis by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.

The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies.

“We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the researchers wrote.

The massed ‘Freedom Convoy 2022’ of Canadian truckers currently stationed around the capital Ottawa is close to raising $10m to support its cause of defeating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “political overreach,” according to the protest GoFundMe page.

… “What may have begun as a peaceful assembly quickly turned into an unlawful blockade. While the Alberta RCMP has been in a position to conduct enforcement, we have been engaged with protesters at the Coutts border crossing in an effort to find a peaceful and safe resolution for all involved. We thought we had a path to resolution, the protesters eventually chose not to comply,” RCMP said in a release.

Twitter – Coutts Border Blockade

Experts suggest containment, fines and giving protesters a deadline to leave

As anti-vaccine mandate protesters continue to gum up downtown Ottawa, many are wondering how long police will let the protesters stay — and how they might eventually move them out.

While many residents have been calling for an end to the noise and disruption caused by raucous demonstrations, observers are calling on authorities to avoid public displays of force.

“It’s in everyone’s best interest that they bring this to some type of peaceful closure,” said Jack Rozdilsky, an associate professor of disaster and emergency management at York University.

No one should downplay, much less deny, the acts of idiocy that went on during the self-styled Freedom Convoy of big rigs in Ottawa.

Making buffoons of themselves by trying to coerce a homeless shelter to provide food or urinating on and otherwise mocking monuments in the Parliament Hill precincts, some (operative word some) did diminish the nobility of the protest. To paraphrase a long-ago colleague of mine in the newspaper business talking about the woo-woo cohort of our subscribers, “some of our fellow citizens are idiots, but those idiots are our fellow citizens.”

Premier Doug Ford’s patience for the truckers convoy is wearing thin.

One day after saying he was “extremely disturbed” with the actions of some of those gathered in Ottawa, Ford urged remaining members of the truckers convoy to go home and “let the people of Ottawa get back to their lives.”

“On the truckers side, I’ve always supported truckers from day one,” Ford said. “But I support vaccinations. It’s very simple. That’s how we have been able to slowly get out of this, and that’s how we’ll continue to slowly get out of it.”

Perspectives are converging — the truckers convoy, national public opinion, public health messaging. They’re all saying the same thing in their own way: It’s time to live with the virus. It’s time to get on with our lives.

First, there’s the convoy: What began as a response to the trucker vaccine mandate has morphed into something much larger, and become a symbol for the frustrations that people of all walks of life now have with the blunt mandates coming from all levels of government.

The crowds around Parliament Hill have thinned, but protesters have vowed to stay the course as the trucker protest enters its fourth day in Ottawa.

Parliament resumed Monday with the backdrop of incessant truck honking, protester speeches, barbecues, drones flying and streets still in gridlock from transport trucks and personal vehicles parked throughout the downtown core. Some protesters were filmed bringing in fuel and supplies to those who are hunkered down in their vehicles.

Don’t be fooled! The Liberals and their friends in the media are misleading the public about what’s really happening on Parliament Hill. #FreedomConvoy2022 #FreedomOverFear #TruckersNotTrudeau pic.twitter.com/vkumQj04GZ

— Candice Bergen (@CandiceBergenMP) January 31, 2022

Ontario reports 63 new COVID-19 deaths; hospitalizations down 25 per cent from January peak

Ontario reported 63 new COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, as hospitalizations continued a slow decline from their January peak.

Ministry of Health spokesperson Alexandra Hilkene said four of the deaths occurred on Monday, 14 more occurred on Sunday and 20 occurred on Saturday, with the remainder occurring between Jan. 28 and Jan. 4.

Over the past 30 days, 1,238 Ontario residents have died of COVID-19.

568 people are in ICU with #COVID19. 84% of patients admitted to the ICU were admitted for COVID-19 and 16% were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19.

There are 2,622 new cases of COVID-19.

— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) February 1, 2022

New modelling suggests hospitalizations will ‘rebound’ in all but most favourable of scenarios

New modelling from Ontario’s science table suggests that hospitalizations are likely to “rebound” and remain at a “prolonged peak” following the lifting of some public health restrictions this week.

The latest projections, released on Tuesday morning, use three different scenarios based on varying levels of immunity acquired through infection to chart the path ahead.

BA.2 33% more infectious than ‘original’ Omicron COVID strain, study finds

The BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron coronavirus variant, which has quickly taken over in Denmark, is more transmissible than the more common BA.1 and more able to infect vaccinated people, a Danish study has found.

The study, which analyzed coronavirus infections in more than 8,500 Danish households between December and January, found that people infected with the BA.2 subvariant were roughly 33 per cent more likely to infect others, compared to those infected with BA.1.

Quebec Premier François Legault has scrapped his proposed tax on the unvaccinated, sources tell CBC and Radio-Canada.

As first reported by La Presse, the premier is set to make the announcement at a press conference this afternoon, at 1 p.m.