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The Democrats have been boxed in: they were reduced to demanding a long-term shutdown — six months according to the perpetually fatuous mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, 18 months (until a vaccine is discovered) according to Zeke Emanuel, Biden’s medical adviser and think-alike brother of Chicago’s spectacularly failed former mayor, Rahm Emanuel. They are in a hopeless position. Trump tweeted authoritarian Democratic governors, “Liberate Michigan,” etc., which some naive Canadian observers took as an incitement to violent rebellion. In fact, Michigan has had some of the strictest lockdown measures in the country, banning travelling between houses to visit relatives in many cases, along with the sale of non-essential items, such as paint. Police have even gone into private residences to look for unauthorized house parties. It is to these depths of authoritarian (and almost certainly unconstitutional) absurdity that the lockdown regime is reduced. The Democrats raged against South Dakota’s governor for not shutting her state down (where there has been one coronavirus death). They want vertiginous unemployment and have a candidate who has trouble with a coherent answer to friendly questions that they can keep in his basement.

Presumably, Canada will follow again

Presumably, Canada will follow again. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has had his election, but he has a minority government. There is a desperate economic crisis in Alberta without the coronavirus as the oil industry is in dire straits (thanks to Trudeau’s policies aggravated by international events), and the strain on the banking system will be considerable, in a country that has not had a major bank failure since 1923. The fear over the virus is not subsiding spontaneously, but the unsustainable economic facts will clear our minds. We can avoid a huge spike in deaths as restrictions are lifted as long as the immune-challenged are sheltered and elemental precautions are taken. Sweden has not had a comprehensive shutdown at all and has a fatality rate per million of population of 211, against the U.S. (156), U.K. (293), France (332), Italy (429) and Spain (482). Canada’s is 60, among the lowest believable numbers from the Northern Hemisphere, which means someone is doing something right. This is one Canadian who has died from the coronavirus for every 17,500 people in the country. All deaths are sad and many are tragic and life cannot be monetized. Sane public policy requires however, that we also keep in mind that Canada has also self-inflicted over a million unemployed and stock market declines of $670 billion in two months, a staggering $330 million for each of the nearly 2,200 lives that have been lost to this pandemic in Canada. The vast majority of those who die from COVID-19 are over 65 and have other problems that increase vulnerability. This segment of the population is comparatively easy to protect (though the prime minister is right that the armed forces in homes for the elderly is not a long-term solution).