“China eats weird animals disease”

This once easy-going country has become illiberal, mistrustful and divided.

Australia is currently ranked 104th in the world for coronavirus deaths – a victory of sorts in the eyes of the laptop class which now runs much of our lives. Yet the cost of this achievement is incalculably high and the damage to civil society may never be fully repaired. The ever-changing list of petty edicts has tugged at the threads of the social fabric in countless ways, and Australia is a less companionable country as a result.

It’s common practice in war time for generals and other senior figures to be subbed-out if things aren’t going well.

Yet here in Ontario, where the province has just been plunged once again into lockdown because of healthcare capacity issues, all of the top healthcare execs are still sitting comfortably in their cushy jobs.

Ontario is moving schools online for at least two weeks, temporarily closing indoor dining and gyms and pausing non-urgent medical procedures as it faces record-high case counts that, according to public health officials, threaten to overwhelm the province’s health-care system.

Premier Doug Ford announced the changes at a morning news conference Monday. He was joined at the announcement by his ministers of health, education and finance, as well Ontario’s chief medical officer of health and the CEO of Ontario Health.

You didn’t imagine it. It wasn’t a bad dream. You were told COVID-19 vaccines would stop the spread of this virus.

In March 2021, Rochelle Walensky, the head of the CDC, declared: “our data from the CDC, today, suggest, you know, that “vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick…”

DR. ROBERT MALONE: For me, the disclosure of emails that Cliff Lane, Tony Fauci, and Francis Collins actively conspired to destroy any discussion of the appropriateness of lockdown strategies, and the mainstream press hardly covers it, and there are no consequences…

We’re in an environment in which truth and consequences are fungible. This is modern media management warfare. The truth is what those that are managing the Trusted News Initiative say it is.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is meeting with his cabinet on Sunday to discuss additional public health restrictions, CBC News has learned.

Two sources, who spoke with CBC News on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, said the cabinet meeting is being held Sunday afternoon.

Ontario reintroduced capacity limits at restaurants, bars and retailers on Dec. 19, in an effort to slow the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

Ontario hospitals facing staffing challenges as COVID cases continue to mount

TORONTO — Ontario hospitals are feeling the brunt of soaring COVID-19 case counts as the virus rips through the province at record speed and infects high numbers of patients and health care workers.

The situation has become so serious that some hospital networks are reporting hundreds of their staff members have tested positive for the virus, are symptomatic or are in isolation after an exposure.

Pastor Artur Pawlowski and his brother Dawid Pawlowski, who gained notoriety last year as the heads of Calgary’s health order-defying Street Church, were arrested on Saturday evening after attending a protest that allegedly took place outside Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping’s home.

The unseemly rush by governments to vilify Canadians refusing to be vaccinated as the root of all evil ignores the fact government actions throughout the pandemic have contributed to vaccine hesitancy.

To begin with, it is a myth to claim everyone who refuses to be vaccinated is irresponsible, reckless, racist, misogynist, throws stones at the prime minister or demonstrates outside hospitals.

There was a distinctive moment, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, that neatly encapsulated the mistakes and confusion of Britain’s early efforts to tackle the disease, says Mark Woolhouse. At a No 10 briefing in March 2020, cabinet minister Michael Gove warned the virus did not discriminate. “Everyone is at risk,” he announced.

And nothing could be further from the truth, argues Professor Woolhouse, an expert on infectious diseases at Edinburgh University. “I am afraid Gove’s statement was simply not true,” he says. “In fact, this is a very discriminatory virus. Some people are much more at risk from it than others. People over 75 are an astonishing 10,000 times more at risk than those who are under 15.”