Thread by @DonaldWelsh16

Warren Kinsella succinctly noted yesterday the collapse of "trust" in gov't and its messaging. Unsurprising given the poor public health campaign without a comparator in modern Canadian history. 1/

https://twitter.com/kinsellawarren/status/1390421223281135620?s=19

Coercive public health campaigns have a start and an end point (vaccination). Everything in between supports a preset story line. Official statements need not be accurate, they are manipulative and designed to challenge your sense of emotional/physical security. 2/

Needless to say, it's a disingenuous way to treat citizens and such campaigns are highly corrosive to society. They are typically reserved for serious viral threats which C19 isn't. One can readily garner that by examining publicly available data. 3/

The ship for policy change sailed long ago and Canada is stuck with this ill considered approach to the bitter end. Don't expect truth or honesty, its all about the end point, vaccination. 4/

The fundamental issue with coercive campaigns is that they adopt a scorched earth policy. The ends justify the means and its assumed that the societal damage will be fixed later. 5/

The problem is that the societal costs have been huge. Its seen everywhere irrespective of the sector. Economists are starting to describe it as the single largest policy failure, post WWII. 6/

https://twitter.com/anthonyfurey/status/1386817457231380486?s=19

I'm sure politicians and public health are acutely aware of this, thus the rush to vaccination. Its hard not to notice the injection of political expediency and the need for public health to absolve themselves. 7/

The reasonably good news with vaccination is that efficacy is approximately 70% for higher risk populations. The not so good news is that we are learning about safety in real time and issues are cropping up. 8/

https://twitter.com/prof_shahar/status/1390664048761458690?s=19

This is less than ideal but the policy mistakes were made long ago and gov't seems determined to end this. Like it or not, gov't has few options and poor public health policy put them in this situation. 9/

Lets hope Canada learns from this debacle and publicly acknowledges its serious mistakes. It shouldn't be repeated and it reflective of an unprepared public health community and academics who foisted fringe epidemiological concepts on society. 10/

Its also time to recognize far more successful approaches. The Great Barington Declaration was one implemented with success in Florida. Their public health outcomes were solid, the vaccination program successful and the economy is booming. 11/

https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1389330809312645127?s=19

Most importantly, trust in gov't is high. That's a consequence of solid leadership in public health and in the governor's office. Canada has quite the opposite outcome and it will take years to recover. End.