What a sinister joke.
The barn had been on fire shortly before Christmas. We were given a curfew that the government finds it hard to justify beyond “intuition”. But we are reducing contacts, as good citizens, because we understand that the situation in hospitals is critical …
Critical?
I quote the Deputy Minister of Health Lucie Optarny, Thursday1, while we are at the penultimate level of load shedding (level 3): “Level of load shedding 4 will not be sufficient to obtain the hospital capacity that we will need to treat all the patients that we will have in the next weeks… ”
One would think that under the circumstances, the ban on non-vaccinated entering an SAQ to get a Meursault and the SQDC to find Quebec Gold would have come into effect … now.
Well no !
January 18, Thing. By announcing the measure on Thursday, the state therefore gave 12 days’ notice to the recalcitrant.
I will repeat what I said before Christmas when the PM invited the Nation to an urgent press briefing for nothing, after all, since he had not announced anything. I then asked the question: so, the time, is it serious or is it not serious?
And already, the stake of the lousse given to the non-vaccinated tapped on the big nerve of the vaccinated ones.
The government does not seem to realize that by refusing to tighten the screws on those who are overrepresented in hospitals – the unvaccinated – it risks alienating a large part of the vaccinated.
Martine R., a reader, wrote me this ironic message on Thursday after the press briefing: “It’s true, you have to give them all the time possible to stock up on alcohol and pot, should especially not rush these non-vaccinated. Why didn’t you put this in place a few weeks ago? ”
Another reader, who does not wish to be named, writes to me: “You can close the restaurants and gatherings on December 31st on a day’s notice, which has forced me to cancel a supper at my mother’s house. left alone at home: it’s okay, we adjust. But there, almost two weeks of time for non-vax for them to refuel pot and drink? They will lose our gang membership. ”
The government refuses to really tighten the screws on those who reject the vaccine. They can continue to go to the SAQ, the SQDC, Ardene, Canadian Tire, Provigo, in stores and in shopping centers …
Why ?
In the name of what ?
If the barn is on fire and the non-vax add fuel to the fire, why have François Legault been accommodating them so much for weeks?
When I wrote, six days ago, that the vaccine passport should be extended to all businesses, the non-vaxes of course brought out their analogies from the IIIe Reich, in addition to continuing to send me threats, subtle or not … Continue, that motivates me.
In short, some have criticized me for wanting to let them starve …
Listen, we know that you are not going to starve yourself if the vaccination passport is required at IGA, stop playing comedy, it looks like a Brazilian soccer player who fake to get a penalty. We know that you are going to ask your vaccinated brother-in-law to go do the grocery shopping for you. Or that you will order online. No one is fooled.
And do you count yourself lucky: François Legault is afraid of you. He is your objective ally. You can demonize him, the PM is afraid to really give you the screw that will make you choose between staying at home and going to be vaccinated, François Legault is far from Emmanuel Macron, who decided – downright – “d ‘piss off’ the antivax …
If our PM wasn’t afraid of antivax, I wouldn’t be writing this column.
NIAISAGE – Obviously, citizens have a therapeutic need to pot. They must be able, on prescription, to have access to the SQDC, regardless of their vaccination status.
Don’t tell me that these 12 days of grace exist for similar cases: if we had a pilot on the plane, we would have thought about it before, long before, we’ve been talking about a vaccine passport for a year.
THE EUHEMISM OF “LOSS” – The word “euphemism”, according to Larousse, is “the attenuation in the expression of certain ideas or certain facts whose crudeness would have something brutal or unpleasant”.
Thus, the word “shedding”. We cancel, but we don’t say it, it’s too brutal. So we “offload” some care, in hospitals, because of this ruthless vice: too many patients with COVID and too many caregivers who are sick or in isolation …
We cancel follow-up appointments, surgeries. Seems to me that “offloading” is the children’s version. Suffering is perpetuated, physical and moral, among the “relieved”.
I think of this young woman of my acquaintance who, on Sunday, thought she was still undergoing an operation on Thursday, following breast cancer.
His operation was canceled the day before.
Don’t let go, “Beatrice”.
CURFEW – The government has not proven its effectiveness. Can I point out the obvious? This same government imposed a five-month curfew in 2021, and apparently nowhere in the state apparatus has it been thought to commission a study on the effectiveness of the measure imposed in January, February, March, April and May 2021 …
It would be useful today. But no, “intuition”.
The incompetence of the Quebec state to compile data has existed for a long time2, but it’s inconveniently hurting us these days, 22 months after the start of the pandemic: It is still unclear how many patients have entered hospitals because of COVID and how many were diagnosed positive while they were were in the hospital.
Anecdote, which I often relate: Quebec is so bad at compiling data that we are often excluded from Canadian studies on cancer. Ontario knows exactly how many cancers of the colon, liver and earlobe are detected in its territory, each year …
Not us.
We are distinct, yé.
SINGERIES – The psychiatrist Pierre Mailloux is no longer rife on the radio waves but he still indulges in his shaggy antics on the web. In one of his freak shows, the doctor recently criticized my column of December 31st where I was surprised that non-vaxes are not yet required to order their groceries online.
He then told the story of an unvaccinated patient, on social assistance, who is now afraid of not being able to do grocery shopping for her four children …
And he accused me of “inciting hatred”.
Okay… Two things, Pierre Mailloux.
One, it was you who suggested to encourage mothers on social assistance to be sterilized “to improve the propagation of good genes in Quebec”, right?
Yes, it’s you, in 20123.
Two, it was you who went to say on TV that blacks were less intelligent than whites, “studies to support” studies that had been discredited 12 years ago in the United States, right?
Yes, it’s you, in 2006. The stupidities of the “Bell Curve” were denounced – in substance and in form – as soon as they were published in 1994: it was much more about anti-immigration identity politics and anti-minorities than science4.
Faque, for hate speech and false compassion towards mothers on welfare, Doc, I’m just going to tell you this: nice try.