The CBC is Pushing Third Wave Fears to Justify Ongoing Restrictions

In a recent article from the CBC written by Adam Miller, it seems that Canada’s publicly funded media is slowly starting to push the idea that Canadians must stay in some form of a lockdown or the third wave of COVID-19, and new coronavirus variants will sweep through the country. 

Although Miller acknowledges that cases of COVID-19 have fallen across the country which is why many provinces are starting to lift many of the most restrictive lockdown measures he still feels the need to state that:

But even provinces and territories that have had fewer COVID-19 cases are still at high risk of devastating outbreaks, overwhelmed health-care systems and severe outcomes for vulnerable populations if variants spread rapidly.

Miller is basing his coverage on what Canada’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Theresa Tam has been pushing during press conferences regarding ongoing COVID-19 news. The CBC article quotes Tam saying that “Overall, we’re still doing well…but things could change rapidly.” 

What comes off as concerning in the CBC’s coverage of a potential third wave is how they seem to be learning into the government’s position that seems to be stating ‘even if it is safe to open we still should not,’ and that restrictions and lockdowns are the answer to all outbreaks of COVID-19.

Miller also quotes Raywat Deonandan a global health epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa who, like everyone else quotes in the article, shares the perspective that lockdowns and government controls are the only way COVID-19 infections can be curbed.

Deonandan, regarding the third wave, said:

The first is: It is avoidable with sufficient public health response and precautionary action, but our history shows us that most governments are unwilling to do the hard public health response, and most populations are unwilling to tolerate that level of action.

It seems rather ignorant to dismiss the general public’s opposition to tough lockdowns as “unwillingness” when for the unemployed and desperate business owners the lockdowns have become an impossible state of living. The CBC article ignoring the economic issues of lockdowns says a lot about the MSM priorities.

What seems to be overlooked by the CBC by only coming in from the angle that assumes lockdowns work, and it’s worth severely damaging the economy to curb COVID-19 cases seems to miss the very mixed evidence on whether or not tough lockdowns even have a significant effect.

When you compare the rise in COVID 19 cases between California, which has had ongoing tough lockdown measures, and Florida which has stayed quite open throughout the pandemic it can be seen that rises and falls in infections follow a similar pattern in spite of policy.

The same pattern can even be observed in a similar fashion overseas in the United Kingdom compared to other European countries like Sweden, France, Albania, or even Georgia. It doesn’t matter what the policies are, the trends tend to be pretty much the same. 

It seems that the Canadian government, and the media entities that they fund, are invested in lockdowns being the answer to the pandemic until vaccines can be made available. The CBC is not covering the news as much as reporting the evidence and opinions that make Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party’s defense of their pandemic response as easy as possible.

One of the hardest things to do in life is getting the government to admit to a mistake and right now the government is incentivized to keep championing lockdowns especially when the MSM will not challenge them on their approach unless they soften their lockdown measures.