WildPath

This is probably what scares me the most. There's already been a bunch of Conservative politicians saddling up besides the nutjobs. They know there is a US vaccine mandate, they know most of the restrictions come at provincial levels. The US could have stopped Trump, but the spineless politicians saw the following he had and hopped on board the crazy train. Shocked that is happening here too.

Hate to inform you - it is definitely not 4 million anymore(more than double now, of which 1 million is already released) - GoFundMe spurred by trucker protest raises $600K for Indigenous water | News (dailyhive.com) There's definitely more money than brains amongst the clan supporters.

I think there are two major differences between protests between pipelines, BLM, environmental/indigenous causes and what is happening here is: 1) This is largely a protest fueled by misinformation. 2) This is largely a protest selfish in nature in that the participants are unhappy with the consequences of their choices and don't believe they should have to face consequences. These are tendencies, so I'm sure there are actors in left-leaning protests that are truly misinformed, just as I'm sure there are some in this protest that are fully vaccinated and understand the impacts on our healthcare system, but genuinely concerned about state power. It is an interesting observation that the roles are largely reversed however.

Exactly what I would think. It definitely could get stronger, but it likely wouldn't select to get stronger transmission>severity. That being said, I once read an opinion that Omicron is expected to infect 3 billion people. Rolling the dice that many times and hoping that it never gets a more severe mutation that is either equally or more transmissible is a bit scary. I think Jeff Goldblum should synthesize experts opinions and present it to the public through his Jurassic Park character. In regards to Tobacco, that is the plant being used to develop the Canadian Medicago vax - Medicago: Plant-based COVID-19 vaccine sees good results | CTV News

I think the only thing we can reasonably predict is that any subsequent variant will be more infectious than the previous, otherwise it wouldn't spread. I guess it could also evolve to develop longer periods where an individual remains infectious as well, while still remaining as infectious. With the amount of vaccinated people becoming infected, I would also guess developing increasing resistance to vaccines would have a good chance of evolving. We can hope that severity wouldn't increase with each mutation, but I'm not sure that is a given. I'd be interested for any articles or interviews on this subject if anyone has any.

FWIW, my doctor told me you can't really gauge the vaccine effectiveness by the amount of antibodies detected in the blood. He told me he got his blood tested specifically after he got the shot and was not showing any antibodies. I have no reason to suspect he was lying or uninformed, but I haven't seen anything to confirm or deny that. The answer was in response to knowing how well I might be protected from the vax given that I likely didn't receive the full effects due to an autoimmune condition.

Today is a really sad day for me. I had hoped what we've seen in the US come to the fore during the Trump years would galvanize us against going down the same road. I had hoped conservative politicians would show leadership and create intentional separation between themselves and the far right. I thought we were better as a country. Nazi flags, partying at the war memorial, Prime Minister needing to be moved, defacing Terry Fox statue - this in a cause that was known to have ties to the far right, yet was encouraged by self-serving politicians with real power in our country. I'm not sure where we go from this level of divisiveness now and I'm genuinely scared for our future.

Daniel McDonald is the chief compliance officer that was also fined along with Stefanson in the link I posted. I'm willing to bet there's a connection here again. If I made a list of the dumbest and most ignorant connections I have on social media, there would be nearly a 100% correlation to the ones posting garbage about the Flu Trux Klan. The inability to engage in any kind of critical thinking is quite depressing.

This isn't the first time she's had issues: IDA fines Wellington West, compliance officer | Investment Executive She's definitely mixed in with a lot of wealth. She should be forgiven for her performance as our premier during Covid - she's obviously got a lot of other things going on that are more lucrative.

Intensive care unit number hits 4th-wave high as Manitoba reports 14 COVID-19 deaths on Thursday | CBC News Pretty disheartening to see that we're up 6 patients in ICU on a day that they announce 14 have passed away from Covid. This is the result of "waiting to see how this plays out". A predictable outcome when hospitalizations and ICU admissions lag infections.

If they want to talk about freedom and equality, use their trucks and loads of free time to bring food to remote First Nations. Donate the money raised to ensure reserves have clean drinking water. A group of entitled people expecting to be free of any responsibility to the rest of society is what this is. Self-victimization and promoting themselves as heroes to Canada. Backed and encouraged by people that know how to manipulate them.

I prefer Flu Trux Klan

I'm sure that some of them are good people, but I've heard some of them yelling racial slurs and personally know a few supporters that have some pretty horrible views on race, homosexuality, etc. etc. I would be shocked if a good contingent of the ones participating did not hold similar discriminatory views. There is surely a strong correlation by right wing extremist views and this convoy. It is unfortunate that they feel powerless in our system, but I put a lot of the blame on dog whistle politics. There has been a lot of window dressing and high risk situations being fully open when other areas face more severe restrictions. I think this has been one reason so many people are sick of restrictions - they often don't make sense "If _______ is open, why can't I __________". Having bars open around Christmas while telling people to only gather with a small amount of family members comes to mind. If they would come right out and say "we are keeping these industries open for economic reasons" that would at least be more acceptable than to just ignore it outright and go ahead with nonsensical restrictions. Both US and Canada require people to be vaccinated to cross the border, are you saying truckers should be exempt from both rules? There's no mandate that truckers get vaccinated anymore than there is for the rest of the population. Is there any other population that you think should be exempt from the rules on both sides of the border? I can see the argument for truckers somewhat, but not for teachers, seeing as they are in one of the most dense workplaces that exist in our society. Having them unvaccinated puts others at heightened risk. The same with healthcare professionals, especially since they are dealing with especially vulnerable people. I don't agree with mandatory/enforced vaccinations, but trying to protect people from the stupidity/selfishness of others makes sense to me. I have no problem with them dealing with the consequences of not getting vaccinated when our healthcare system is being dragged down by them. We'd need way more unvaccinated medical professionals for this to work or accepting that unvaccinated people will get less attention and a lower standard of care. And we'd have to ignore aerosol transmission in buildings. Ignoring the realities of the situation, I think both vaccinated and unvaccinated people should be fine with this.

Poliovirus - Wikipedia Measles - Wikipedia I guess we are not technically 100% done with these viruses, but they are pretty under control. Not saying we can get to the same place with Covid, I have no clue, but effectively wiping out viruses is possible. Genuinely interested to hear how you would like us to approach the virus and restrictions. I'd agree that a lot of what we've been doing lately does not make sense in terms of what is allowed and what isn't if that's all you're saying.

I have a lot of friends on social media who aren't the most intelligent people and they've been promoting the whole convoy / store shelves being empty thing a bunch. Extremely frustrating. If they knew who was backing it and what they stand for, they would quickly change their tune. They're ignorant, not jerks like those behind the protest and many of those in the protest. Unfortunately the situation has been seized upon by some a-holes looking to get their own 'stop the steal' going in Canada and they've done it fairly effectively.

Worker absenteeism — not trucker vaccine mandates — impacting store shelves: Metro (yahoo.com) According to the CEO of a major national retailer, the effects of the trucker vaccine mandates are not the primary reason to blame for inflation and empty shelves at grocery stores - people being affected by Covid is. Unfortunately this does not stop many politicians in Canada from pointing the finger at Trudeau (ignoring that a US vaccine mandate exists) and saying that Trudeau is to blame and he is the one responsible for causing divisiveness amongst Canadians. Totally ignoring that there are more provincial mandates than federal. Incredibly disappointing that we have politicians that see what is going on in the US and realize how much easier it is to manipulate the dumb and ignorant rather than develop policy that is attractive and effective. Andrew Scheer and Pierre Poilievre surely know and understand the situation, but are using the idiocy of those involved to score political points. The same way Mitch McConnel and and Co. are doing in the states. "If you see empty shelves blame Justin Trudeau." 🙄

Agreed. I was meaning it more that even though he is being a selfish jerk, it worked out that someone else was helped through the situation.

As I said a few pages back, vaccine status does (at least in some jurisdictions) change prioritization for transplants. If the doctors judge that not being vaccinated will harm the chance of survival of a patient - then someone who will have better survivability should get priority - especially if it is something that is readily accessible and a matter of making a decision (a vaccine). If the patient overrules the doctor and decides they understand medicine better, then they have the consequences - unfortunately the family and others that rely on this father will be impacted unjustly. Fortunately, someone who is willing to accept doctors understand medicine better will receive the heart. Ironic that an act of selfishness can turn into a selfless act by providing the heart to someone else in need 🤔

And they see all the supply chain problems as Trudeau's response to unvaccinated truckers. No awareness of shortages of medical staff or lack of workers in other industries that might be caused by a global pandemic or something. The lack of critical thinking skills is reaching new lows. Unfortunately there will be political leaders and others emboldening and supporting them in an effort to boost their own profile...

Its sad that he likely caused others to be influenced by the anti-vax garbage that likely led to a few more deaths. Dying of Covid while being an anti-vaxxer really puts a whole new meaning to 'Bat out of Hell' though.

Doctor's Manitoba and most health officials would disagree with you. To think that reducing the amount of high risk situations (bars, etc) being unable to have an impact on Omicron spread is interesting and would be contrary to anything our government has said, including the most recent press conference. The difference is they've tried to wash their hands of responsibility and tell Manitobans they need to protect themselves. Stefanson all but confirmed in her last press conference that she has overruled public health recommendations in consulting with the business community and others. She's also repeatedly claimed we have the strongest restrictions in the country which is just absolutely false. Let's ignore that restrictions have a delay in bringing down case numbers, hospitalizations, etc... You can't compare case counts anywhere right now as there is no accuracy when testing capacity is exhausted. Let's say that I concede that they current case counts are accurate, using the three examples you gave (QC, ON, BC) - We have significantly higher case counts per 100k people than both ON and BC that have more stringent restrictions than us. QC is the only one you noted that is slightly ahead of us. I think a more measurable and important metric is hospitalizations (especially when testing numbers mean little). We are the worst, yet again, in Canada. We have more hospitalizations than QC, almost twice the hospitalizations as ON and almost three times the hospitalizations as BC. We are very close to pushing ICU capacity limits. Southern health was reported to be lagging in Omicron as the primary variant, but news today is that it is starting to breakout there. There are many other provinces in far better shape than even BC. ** These statistics were accurate as of yesterday when I typed this originally. We have announced 12 more deaths today and 19 additional in hospitalization, so I'm assuming the statistics would reflect even more poorly on how Manitoba compares to the rest of Canada. ** The news article below references some of the stats from above along and provides illuminating commentary from a critical care physician. ‘We will get through this,’ premier says amid Omicron pressure, climbing hospitalizations - Winnipeg Free Press "COVID triaging — that’s the only thing we’re not doing. We’re triaging every other aspect of health care," the doctor said. "Our health-care system unequivocally is failing many people and, unequivocally, I think is an embarrassment to Manitoba."

102 millionaires, including Abigail Disney, have signed another letter asking governments around the world to raise their taxes (msn.com) A group of 102 super-wealthy people have signed a letter asking governments to raise their taxes. The current tax system is unfair and leads to trust erosion, they said. They are calling on leaders meeting at the World Economic Forum this week to address the issue.

Out of respect to the posters above I will wait until tomorrow to respond to this. Sorry for both of your losses. I've been a lurker here and on OB for a long time. Definitely remember and appreciated TF.

Her laser-focus is too busy promoting Crown Royal. Check the thread, some of the replies are golden. The replies noting that CR alcohol content are twice her approval rating are my favourite. Apparently people are a little disappointed she would post this on a day where 20 Covid deaths were announced while they evaluate how things will play out.

Let's hope this time they can avoid a press conference that justifies genocide this time around...