Dr Bonnie Henry: "This is our time to be kind, be calm, and to be safe."

Great article. She is leading a great team. Her previous role as Executive Director of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and then the Deputy in the job she holds now has made her the most effective Public Health officer in the country. Be kind to her team and acknowledge them as well.

Dr. Joseph Finkler, a St. Paul’s Hospital emergency-room physician who survived COVID-19, credits Henry for repeating sound medical advice in easy-to-understand language.

In a phone interview with the Straight, Finkler pointed out that B.C.’s success is also integrally linked to a bunch of experts—in fields ranging from epidemiology to mathematics—who have done impressive modelling work underscoring what Henry says.

“When Bonnie Henry speaks, her script is made by a whole bunch of background researchers,” Finkler said. “It’s like Hollywood. She’s not quite the actor, but a little bit…She’s done a great job.”

I don't see what is disgusting. She doesn't name them. It's a cautionary tale because cases are going up. I don't think she has handled this perfectly but I think she has done a good job of steering a path where people have a little empathy for each other. If you listen to her press conferences, the media consistently tries to bait her into condemning people and their behaviour. If the pandemic gets out of control in BC, she will probably pay a political price but I've been impressed at her communication strategy overall.

By big beef with Dr. Henry right now is that she has not instituted a mandatory mask mandate in Metro Vancouver, and COVID cases are surging. Metro Vancouver is currently the only large city in Canada that doesn't have a mandatory mask mandate.

That's not true of so many people whose lives have been ruined by dictatorial government actions masquerading as public health strategy.

I don't see how things have been 'dictatorial' here. From the beginning of the pandemic, the impetus to use a heavy hand has been pushed pretty strongly by many in the media. Do you remember how hard the media was pushing the War Measures Act in March? I think the government has generally resisted the demands of the most anxious and authoritarian. 

I haven't followed your posts that closely on this topic but I get the impression that you seem to think the response to Covid has been overblown. Do you know many people who work in healthcare or in reopened schools and do you find they share your opinion? My relationships with workers in those fields and their opinions on the subject are the main reason why I've bought into the Covid response. In general I find many of them wish the government's response had been stricter. What you call dictatorial seems more like basic solidarity to me.

As Left Hand points out, BC has tended to avoid mandatory bans and decrees, often in opposition to an anxious public and media that has wanted to see stronger measures. The strategy instead has been to try to use persuasion as much as possible and the use of anecdotes like the one you find so "disgusting." Again, I don't think BC's response has been perfect but the peanut gallery has a much easier task coaching from their armchairs.

Remember the adage, "the plural of anecdote is not data?" Each individual gathering is unique as the person or group of people attending. There were so many other variables that could have happened. Why focus on just the covid aspect?

I believe it is overblown, and this is in large part a manufactured panic. You have the news media extensively focusing on covid and tilting their coverage to make everything covid related. You also have social media platforms that are designed to be addictive and pull people in, and of course the algorithms are going to magnify covid fear because that is on everybody's minds. How do you expect anyone to have a rational, objective discussion about the risks of covid in this context?

As for your relationships with health care workers and teachers? Obviously they need our support to do our jobs properly. But for teachers in particular, is there any objective reason why schools need to close down or be extra careful, when it is quite clear that children are a very low risk from covid? These "teachers" who wrote to the government asking for "stricter measures," did any of the reporters even bother asking that question? When it comes to asking for restrictions, that crosses a line for me, because I don't think it's appropriate for, suppose 100 doctors, to demand restrictions on the movements of millions of people. I also find it too much of a coincidence that after lockdowns in Europe and the UK, with the media here talking about lockdowns (or the bullshit euphamism known as a "circuit breaker") that suddenly these "experts" are writing letters calling for lockdowns. For all we know there are more front-line doctors and professionals begging the government not to lockdown, but they aren't receiving any attention. Speaking of supporting front-line health care workers, is it fair to them to ask them to homeschool their children after grueling 12-hour days in the hospital?

There is another note about personal relationships with people in different professions that I think is relevant. I have relatives who served as dispatchers in police call centres. You talk to police officers or anyone close to them, and they will tell you how hard police officers work. They will tell you that it is a constant thankless job, and they are very defensive at the suggestion that anyone who hasn't chased down someone caught breaking into a house, been spit on, and then let off in court over a technicality has any business telling them how to do their jobs. In their minds, as long as you obey the law you are fine, and anyone who has a problem with police usually did something to bring that on. Obviously that viewpoint does not dicate public policy, and it needs to be balanced against other interests. It's the same with other professions.

Police officers have experience with criminal courts, and since many people know police officers, of course they are going to agree with the police point of view.

My overall point is that you can't let the view of any one profession dominate or make all the rules that everyone else has to follow. That's also true of medical experts. Think of how much freedom we would lose if we turned over the reins of power to medical experts to ban or control anything they deem dangerous. For example, do you or anyone you know like hanging out on the beach in the summer? If it was up to dermatologists, that would not be allowed.