Today's letters: COVID — Canada's approach worked better than that of the U.S.
Randall Denley was inconvenienced by what he considers the unnecessary anti-COVID-19 regulations involved in crossing the border and suggests that we should adopt the laissez-faire American approach. While I am weary of COVID restrictions, I am less certain that the American’s have much to teach us.
Throughout the pandemic the United States has had a consistently higher death rate from COVID than has Canada. The spread has narrowed in the last weeks but as of April 2, the American death rate was 2.02 per million while the rate in Canada was 0.95 per million.
We can live with minor restrictions for a few more weeks if it saves lives. It is unfortunate that Premier Doug Ford and Randall Denley don’t realize this.
Alan McCullough, Ottawa
Statistics tell the real COVID story
I guess Randall Denley doesn’t read statistics. The U.S. took a very different approach to the pandemic and now has the dubious honour of having more than one million deaths from COVID. According to the Worldometer website , it has 3,020 deaths/million (18 th place worldwide) compared with 987 deaths/million in Canada (92 nd place). Each of those one-million-plus deaths represents a family without a father, brother, sister or child.
Wearing a mask and avoiding restaurants and other public places is a small price to pay if it keeps people from dying or battling long-COVID. Sadly, the government of Ontario has chosen to pretend that the pandemic is over and completely opened the province. We are seeing unprecedented infection rates among young children who don’t have the benefit of vaccines. Community spread is the biggest predictor of increased outbreaks in long-term care and retirement homes where some of our most vulnerable citizens reside.
Sorry Mr. Denley, I would rather have restrictions and some inconveniences if it means having fewer deaths from COVID.
Grace Welch, Ottawa
Media are exaggerating COVID danger
Randall Denley’s welcome column offered a different outlook on how to live with COVID-19. In a city of one million and with no more than 19 people in hospital with COVID-related infections, there appears to be an ongoing exaggerated sense of alarm.
For many people, the past two years have been like a nightmare roller-coaster ride. With the vast majority of people now vaccinated and protected from COVID’s more serious health effects, the ongoing heightened concern expressed by some does not appear to match reality. Perhaps it would be more beneficial and less alarming if there was a balance in the information being communicated.
Dale Boire, Ottawa
Putin’s real lesson for the UN
Re: Stop Putin’s war or close your doors, UN told, April 6.
A statement once made by political economist and philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenel seems most appropriate to describe what Volodymyr Zelenskyy must think of the current United Nations: “A society of sheep must, in time, beget a government of wolves.’
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