As of tomorrow, February 1st, Denmark will be the first country in Europe — arguably the world — to put an end to all Covid-related laws. Even if you have the disease, it will only be recommended that you isolate, and even then only for three days. If you have no symptoms, you can go to meet your friends.
Most remarkably, Denmark is taking this step at a time when Covid-19 cases have never been higher — and are still growing.
Embedded with the truckers. Repairing their rigs. Telling the world what he sees and hears.
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, has dismissed the truck drivers’ freedom convoy now protesting in Ottawa. He says these people are a “small fringe minority” expressing “unacceptable views.” But the public response that the convoy encountered enroute tells a starkly different story.
Another Canadian named Justyn is a mechanic from small town Alberta. He’s part of the convoy. When a rig breaks down, he helps get it back on the road.
… The Liberals and NDP have both disavowed the protests, as has the association representing truckers in Canada. But the Conservatives have embraced them and Mr. O’Toole has called on the Prime Minister to meet with the protesters – something Mr. Trudeau rejected on Monday.
“If we choose to put up with and tacitly support conspiracy theorists and folks peddling disinformation, that’s a reflection on what we choose to do as politicians and who we are as leaders,” the Prime Minister said.
“I think through this pandemic Canadians have seen and have a right to expect responsible leadership. Unfortunately that’s not what we’ve always seen from the likes of Erin O’Toole or even more, [People’s Party of Canada Leader] Maxime Bernier.”
Go Incognito
It says a lot about Canada that a guy like me is labelled (i.e., “denounced as”) a conservative. In any sane world, I’d be instantly recognized as — in almost all respects — just another insufferably doctrinaire Toronto progressive. I live downtown, own an electric car, edit essays for a black-turtleneck web site catering to academics, hold forth on the importance of vaccines, and wile away my evenings tweeting smugly about whatever thumbsucker I just read in The New York Review of Books or BlubberTusk.
The ‘freedom convoy’ against vaccine mandates shows Canadians won’t give up their freedoms without a fight.
Canadian truckers have driven into the heart of the political debate over Canada’s vaccine mandates.
A 70 kilometre-long ‘freedom convoy’ travelled from Vancouver to the Canadian capital, Ottawa, last week, to protest a vaccine mandate for truckers crossing the US-Canada border. An estimated 10,000 protesters then converged at Parliament Hill in Ottawa over the weekend, and pledged not to leave until the vaccine mandate is revoked. The mandate was implemented by prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government earlier this month.
Anti-parasite drug Ivermectin shows an “antiviral effect” against omicron and other COVID variants according to research released Monday by Japanese pharmaceutical giant Kowa.
According to Reuters, the firm has been working with Tokyo’s Kitasato University.
The government of far-left Prime Minister Justin Trudeau withdrew nonessential personnel from Canada’s embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, this weekend and sent the nation’s defense minister to the capital to discuss an alleged potential Russian invasion of the country.
Thousands of people across the world took to the streets over the weekend to protest their governments’ vaccine mandates and COVID-19 restrictions.
Things kicked off Saturday in Canada, where nearly 3,000 truckers and thousands more protesters effectively shut down parts of Ottawa near Canada’s parliament. The self-proclaimed “Freedom Convoy” began on the nation’s west coast in Vancouver as a protest against Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for truckers, and inspired similar demonstrations throughout Europe.
The protests in Ottawa have been a gift to Canada’s Laurentian elite, who have framed it as if Adolf Hitler and Jefferson Davis were assaulting Parliament Hill. The trucker convoy was obviously no Panzer division, but goose-stepping rednecks weren’t needed for a narrative of something similar to be pre-packaged before the protesters even arrived in Ottawa.
Make no mistake the media and political class hate you.
With RCMP warnings unheeded, more than 100 vehicles remain lined up on a Southern Alberta highway blocking access to the border and a small village for the third day in a row Monday.
Semi-trucks, cars and farm equipment filled Highway 4 south of Lethbridge on Saturday, in support of a national convoy to Ottawa with a stated goal of repealing a federal mandate requiring unvaccinated Canadian truckers re-entering Canada from the United States to get tested for COVID-19 and to quarantine. Some participating in both protests have expanded that goal, demonstrating against health orders and the federal government as a whole.
Critics are slamming Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “coward” for reportedly fleeing his residence in the country’s capital of Ottawa as a massive anti-vaccine mandate protest converged on the city.
“What a complete coward. He won’t even face the citizens he has discriminated against,” Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe tweeted.
The Freedom Convoy of truckers left Vancouver for Ottawa on Jan. 23 to protest the federal government’s vaccine mandates for cross-border truckers and is calling for an end to coronavirus restrictions. The convoy reached Ottawa on Saturday and was joined by thousands of other Canadians protesting the mandates.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he “won’t give in” to the so-called “freedom convoy” protest in downtown Ottawa.
He made the comments Monday as the trucker convoy still lined the streets around Parliament Hill, with protestors demanding an end to public health mandates, vaccine mandates, and even calling on Trudeau himself to resign.
“I want to be very clear: we are not intimated by those who hurl abuse at small business workers and steal food from the homeless,” he said.
He’s afraid.
A majority of Canadians now say it is time to end COVID restrictions, according to an Angus Reid poll, a sharp increase from when the same question was asked in early January.
The latest poll, taken Jan. 27-28, found 54% want restrictions to be lifted compared to just 39% who wanted restrictions lifted when the same question was asked two weeks earlier.
Ontario reports another 32 deaths in patients with COVID-19 as hospitalizations and outbreaks continue to decline
Ontario is reporting another 32 deaths in individuals who have contracted COVID-19 but hospitalizations and outbreaks continue to steadily decline.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health says that 31 of the deaths occurred over the last 17 days, including eight on Saturday.
The latest data pushes Ontario’s COVID-19 death toll to 11,444.
2,983 people are hospitalized with #COVID19. Please note that not all hospitals report on weekends.
There are 583 people in ICU with COVID-19.
There are 3,043 new cases of COVID-19.
Today’s numbers will be available at 10:30 a.m. at https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) January 31, 2022
Full list of COVID-19 restrictions lifting in Ontario today
At 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Ontario will enter the first step of its three-step reopening plan, meaning that a number of restrictions imposed earlier this month in an attempt to curb transmission of the Omicron variant will lift.
As of Jan. 31, social gathering limits will increase to 10 people indoors and 25 people outdoors.
Indoor dining, gyms, retailers, shopping malls, and cinemas can reopen at 50 per cent capacity. Museums, galleries, aquariums, zoos, casinos, bingo halls and other gaming establishments can also reopen. The government will also allow spectators at sporting events, concert venues and theatres at 50 per cent seated capacity or 500 people, whichever is less.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tested positive for COVID-19
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday he has tested positive for COVID-19 and, so far, he’s feeling “fine.”
The positive result comes after he was exposed to one of his children who also tested positive for the virus last week. In a social media post, Trudeau said he would stay in isolation and work remotely while he recovers.
Calling Ottawa protests ‘peaceful’ downplays non-violent dangers, critics say
Police haven’t reported any physical violence at the ongoing Ottawa rally against vaccine mandates and other government-imposed COVID-19 restrictions, but critics warn that conflating the absence of bloodshed with “peaceful” protest downplays the dangers of the weekend demonstrations.
For two days, the downtown core of the nation’s capital has been a no-go zone as trucks and crowds have snarled traffic, with some members defacing monuments and wielding signs with violent and hateful imagery. Police are also investigating what they describe as threatening behaviour toward officers, city workers and other individuals, as well as damage to a city vehicle.
But as of Sunday afternoon, there were no arrests related to incidents of physical violence during the demonstrations, a police spokeswoman said, though a statement issued that evening said “confrontations and the need for de-escalation has regularly been required.”
