What are some examples of government hiding how serious COVID is?
Time and time again, provincial governments across Canada have dropped the ball on acting or warning the public on the dangers of COVID infection. They have minimized the danger that COVID presents to public health.
- PoP (Protect our Province) NB, an advocacy group, recently released hundreds of pages of government emails and documents acquired through a right to information request proving that the provinces received information from the Public Health Agency of Canada about long Covid since July 2020 and did nothing to warn the public.
- In Saskatchewan, Global News obtained internal government messages showing that Dr. Shahab, Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, warned that the health care system would be overwhelmed over a month before the province began transferring patients to Ontario in the fall of 2021, after initially refusing help from the federal government.
- Emails obtained from BC’s Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry showed that she was attempting to cherry-pick data, misleading the public into believing school transmission of COVID-19 was low.
These examples show that governments in Canada are often not being transparent with the public about the impacts of letting people get infected with COVID. If we expect the government to level with us about COVID— while they pursue the “urgency of normal” with a passion— we will be waiting a long time, at the expense of our health.
Now, a great question is— especially if COVID is so serious, why would governments hide this information, or fail to warn us about it? If you’re wondering why that would be, we have a FAQ about it.