BC cases have leveled off and settled at about 650 a day; we are far from perfect but we are also far from locked down. Masking and the metro Vancouver restrictions have worked and once again we have outperformed all provinces but the maritimes. Unfortunately we will have to go through another round of restrictions in mid January as people's bad decisions around Christmas and the associated holidays bear their unpleasant fruit. Each renewed appeal wears down the community's patience and unity, and each time more people decide they now know more than the experts.
Easy to conclude that the virus only really bites the aged population, people who are in their declining years anyway and would have died of something else if not covid (people point at influenza and pneumonia). According to the numbers posted, only a very tiny proportion of under 60 people experience symptoms sufficiently severe to kill them. If we take another step in the same direction and say, "Just let the virus run its course and we'll get on with life in the meantime," will the result be acceptable? The answer doesn't require a debate about the morality of letting seniors die, because the deaths in the below 60 age group will skyrocket if we let the virus run unchecked. If we release all restrictions, our economy will suffer more than it does now because of the widespread illness - not enough people to work because so many are at home sick. Deaths per capita will greatly exceed our current rate because the hospitals can't handle the press of numbers and people who could have been treated successfully won't all be able to access care.
Those numbers show cases of covid in the under 60 bracket is 1% of the population of Canada. Extrapolate then if the entire country got the virus and yet we somehow kept the death rate the same: that would be 48,500 working age people (and some children) dead. But of course the per capita numbers would double or triple due to medical system overload - don't forget doctors and nurses are mostly under 60 as well. Does it make sense to put us on a track where 100,000 or 150,000 young and ostensibly healthy people would die?
The aim of the restrictions isn't to stamp out the virus altogether; that is an unattainable goal. The aim is simply to spread the peak out so we don't all get the bug at about the same time and the health system remains able to treat all who need it. This is very much a numbers game; anyone working in epidemiology has a very close understanding of statistics and the law of large numbers.
