An Abundance of Fear and Ignorance

The MLB season started today and as of now, the Toronto Blue Jays do not have a home. This is because the Government of Canada did not allow the club an exemption to the 14-day quarantine rule that affects all visitors to the country. The NHL was able to negotiate just such an exemption and will use Toronto and Edmonton as its hub cities with players in secure bubbles, but the Blue Jays and the visiting teams are considered too risky given the outbreaks in the US, despite rigorous testing for all members of the travelling parties.

The Canadian government is not the only one that has overreacted to such a tiny number of people coming in. The Blue Jays had reached an agreement with the Pirates to play in PNC Park, only to have that denied by health officials in Pennsylvania. Apparently having 60 games hosted in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia is acceptable, but an additional 24 (there are some conflicts) is far too dangerous. These decisions show just how little those at the top really understand risk as they ignore far more insecure situations to continue unabated.

Having the Blue Jays play 30 games in Toronto presents far less risk than the thousands of truckers crossing the border daily with their essential (and non-essential) goods. They are not tested despite many of them coming from hotspots, and they are certainly interacting with the public more than the players ever would. But this inconvenient fact is ignored by the media.

My dislike of the Canadian government has become full-blown disgust at their high-minded hypocrisy. Five months into the pandemic and leaders are still propagating fear, helped by a media desperate for eyeballs. The public, unable to think for themselves, act like we are at the beginning of the Plague, instead of well into the spread of a disease that has an infection fatality rate (IFR) of approximately 0.05% (that is 1/2000) for people under 70, with almost all of those resulting from known co-morbidities.

Why are people still frightened? We know that the disease is primarily transmitted in indoor venues where people spend an extended period of time, especially while not wearing masks. There is no evidence of the disease being transmitted in an outdoor setting while wearing a face covering or social distancing. The protests showed this. The best way to prevent further spread of the disease is to keep places such as restaurants, bars, casinos, churches, and offices closed until the infection rate is low enough (whatever that may be), and to enforce a mask mandate, particularly on subways and other modes of transport. With the Rogers Centre next to a hotel at which players could isolate, it would be quite easy to keep the players separate from the general public. Of course, it is not a perfect bubble, as hotel workers would come back and forth, but that will be the same situation as facing the NHL. You cannot eliminate risk, but you can certainly minimize it. People saying the NHL plan is perfectly fine while MLB's plan is too risky have not thought this through.

Remember when the whole point of flattening the curve was to avoid overwhelming hospitals? Now it seems like the goal in many areas is to huddle down until a vaccine is found. This despite the fact that a vaccine is no guarantee against infection; viruses mutate and who knows if the vaccine you receive will protect you against the variant you might encounter in a year. The flu shot reduces the risk of catching the flu by 40-60% according to the CDC, with the caveat "during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well matched to the flu vaccine viruses". Well matched. That doesn't happen every year.

Of course, on the opposite end of the spectrum are those rallying against masks and calling the whole thing a hoax. Leaders such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (a Republican) have made grave errors by reopening too early, and the public, again lacking a understanding of how this disease works and possibly turned off by all the fear-mongering, rushed out to infect each other in restaurants, bars, and churches. Covidiocy indeed.

It is a lamentable fact that the coronavirus has become a political issue in the United States. The left is terrified while the right is defiant and they react to each other, while those in the center are forced to suffer either way. In New York, the curve has flattened to where we have a positive test rate around 1%. Still, Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo has instituted a poorly conceived (and impossible to enforce) policy that requires those who have visited one of 31 states where infection rates are rising to self-quarantine for 14 days upon entering New York. He has also threatened to close down all bars and restaurants because a few have not been following the rules. It was his incompetence and dithering back in March that helped New York become the world leader in the COVID-19 death rate; now he acts like we are all little children and he is our grand protector. Sorry Andy, but those of us who can read and have working minds are fully capable of taking care of ourselves. Instead, tell us the goal. Are we waiting for an infection rate of 0% before getting back to normal? There is no reason that the Yankees and Mets could not host a limited number of fans following social distancing protocols, but we hear nothing about when this could actually happen. Fear of another outbreak is the dominant theme, rather than starting conversations about how to continue the return to normalcy.

Sadly, it is now obvious that we will be in this mess for a very long time. Pandemics generally last at least two years, and with the clueless leading the clueless (on both sides of the political divide), fear and ignorance will continue to be the primary drivers of behaviour. By the way, this is not the first time I have written about scaremongering and media complicity as I lived in Japan during the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown.

For now, I urge you to read as much as possible from a variety of sources (certainly not relying on this blog, which serves as my way to release pent-up anger), including those who might present a different viewpoint from your own. Reach your own conclusions; stay fearful if you must, but there is no excuse for remaining ignorant. And who knows, maybe I will see you at a game in 2021.

Update: The Jays will be playing in Buffalo in 2020, and Cuomo is happy with that. So he is not a complete loss.

Best,

Sean