Public Health Scotland will stop publishing data on covid deaths and hospitalisations by vaccination status – over concerns it is misrepresented by anti-vaxx campaigners.
The public health watchdog announced the change in policy in its most recent covid statistical report, saying the frequency and content of the data would be reviewed.
Instead, officials will focus on publishing more robust and complex vaccine effectiveness data.
tl;dr: Obfuscation.
h/t Mauser 98
… Basically, the car and the boy’s apartment — worth millions of dollars — is simply an example of money laundering taking place in the open in Vancouver. It’s such a prevalent tactic, particularly for the ruling governing elite in China, it’s got a name — the “Vancouver Model.”
People running for office have always bent opinion, lied and obfuscated about their positions, politics and facts. Often they believe their truths, which may be very different from someone else’s truth or the “real” truth. This is part and parcel of a democracy. One might even say, it is the “American Way.” It is not the government’s job, to determine what we believe, what we wish to vote for or to ensure accuracy of campaign speech.
Justin Trudeau’s government uses national emergency powers to try to end the trucker protests
The ongoing saga of Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” took an extraordinary turn this week. In response to protests in Ottawa and blockade actions at some Canada–U.S. border crossings, the Canadian government invoked the Emergencies Act, giving itself exceptional powers to try to end the nearly three-week-long protests. It’s difficult to overstate the legal and political magnitude of this decision, which is undoubtedly among the most controversial in Justin Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister and will be the subject of debate for years.
In the ongoing struggle of SARS-CoV-2’s genes versus our wits, the virus that causes Covid-19 relentlessly probes human defenses with new genetic gambits. New variants of this coronavirus with increasing transmissibility have sprung up every few months, a scenario that is likely to continue.
Random mutations are random – unless they’re engineered.
Ottawa’s interim police chief says officers are working to keep more protesters from getting close to Parliament Hill as they try to end the occupation of downtown streets.
Steve Bell told the Ottawa Police Services Board early Thursday afternoon a major increase of police officers will be seen throughout the core.
“Only those with lawful reason to enter the core, such as residents, businesses and others with lawful reasons, will be allowed in the area,” Ottawa police tweeted around the same time as his remarks.
Ottawa’s new emergency law enlists a huge range of financial players in a bid to cut off funds to protesters tied to the trucker blockades, but questions remain about who will be targeted and whether it will even work.
A new order and regulations under the Emergencies Act, which the federal government invoked on Monday, requires a long list of entities — this includes banks, insurance companies, credit unions, trust and loan companies, payment processors and online fundraising platforms — to continuously determine whether they should freeze accounts and halt services for individuals or companies tied to illegal assemblies and blockades that have gripped the country for weeks.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Thursday financial institutions have moved quickly to freeze the accounts of people linked to the demonstrations in Ottawa, leaving an unknown number of protesters in financial limbo.
Freeland vowed to take more accounts offline in the coming days in an attempt to starve the organizers of the funds they need to continue their occupation of the nation’s capital.
Freeland, who is also the finance minister, said the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies have been gathering intelligence on convoy protesters and their supporters and sharing that information with financial institutions to restrict access to cash and cryptocurrency.
He’s also exposed a massive flaw in Canada’s constitutional order.
… At no point in the last 34 years has anything that happened in Canada met either of these standards. By declaring that a medium-sized irritation — a group of truckers protesting in Ottawa — is severe enough to buck the trend (mostly, it seems, because the truckers happen to be his political enemies), Justin Trudeau has disgraced himself and his office.
This is the most monumentally stupid, monumentally arrogant, and monumentally misguided decision by a prime minister since 1867.
When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in his sophomoric musings on the nature of Canada some years back, famously declared that Canada has “no core identity,” most of us thought he was stating his opinion, however ridiculous, of the country as he saw it at the time.
We were wrong, ever so wrong. He was stating an ambition. He was declaring a goal.
A future in which special powers are invoked for fake emergencies is one in which freedom cannot be said to exist
There are few things as freeing as an emergency. There are also few things as dangerous as an emergency.
For two years now, to varying degrees the people of the United States and Canada have been living under emergency rules. On Monday, in Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced a new state of national emergency, not because of COVID this time, but because of the supposed threat posed by truckers protesting COVID restrictions.
Canada’s Justice Minister, David Lametti, has told Trump supporters who donated to the “Freedom Convoy” to “be worried” about having their bank accounts frozen.
Speaking with CTV News, when Lametti was asked if regular citizens who donated to the “Freedom Convoy” protests in opposition to the vaccine mandates should be worried about having their assets frozen by the government, Lametti singled out pro-Trumpers.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is obsessed with the money donated through crowdfunding sources to the truckers protesting cross-border vaccine mandates.
Trudeau has repeatedly expressed his concern about foreign money — mostly from the U.S. — supporting the trucker convoy. In just a few weeks, first through GoFundMe and then through GiveSendGo, supporters pitched in more than $10 million and then $8.4 million to the anti-vaccine mandate protest.
New fencing has been erected on the Parliament Hill side of Wellington Street, right next to where ‘Freedom Convoy’ demonstrators have been camped out for three weeks.
It’s the latest sign that police action to break up the downtown Ottawa occupation could be imminent. On Wednesday, police handed out notices to demonstrators warning them to leave the area or face arrest.
Groups of Ottawa police officers could be seen arriving downtown Thursday morning in the vicinity of the protest red zone.
Ontario reports 37 more COVID-19 deaths; hospitalizations continue to drop
Provincial health officials reported another 37 virus-related deaths and under 1,400 people in hospital with COVID-19 as capacity limits were lifted in most indoor settings today.
A Ministry of Health spokesperson said 36 of the latest deaths occurred over the past 27 days with one death on Feb. 16, nine on Feb. 15 and six on Feb. 14. One death happened more than a month ago.
356 people are in ICU with #COVID19. 80% of patients admitted to the ICU were admitted for COVID-19 and 20% were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 2,327 new cases of COVID-19.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) February 17, 2022
Ontario further lifting capacity limits on businesses, gatherings
Capacity limits are lifting in more Ontario settings as the province continues to roll back pandemic restrictions in light of improving COVID-19 indicators.
Starting today, restaurants, gyms and cinemas that must screen patrons for vaccination against COVID-19 have no limits on capacity.
