The coronavirus crisis
Re: Does Trudeau know this is an emergency? John Ivison, March 12
The U. S. A. is closing its borders to all travel from the European continent in an effort to freeze out COVID-19. Meanwhile, our government cannot see fit even to restrict travel from global hot spots like China, Iran, Italy and South Korea. It will not be long before Trump closes the Canadian border due to the unbelievable lack of action here.
The seeming indifference of Canadian leadership as compared with American action makes for a sharp contrast. Our government has put the physical health of every Canadian at risk, and now succeeded in putting the financial health of every Canadian business at risk. Someone please tell the government that it is time to get serious. Ben Anson, Montreal
A recent video by The Black Swan author Nassim Taleb is required viewing for all public- health and government officials. Good natured and gentlemanly, Taleb’s discussion is nonetheless a searing indictment of how the COVID-19 pandemic has been handled.
In short, he says that by relying on “naive empiricism” and superficial statistical knowledge, a tsunami of infection may have been unleashed.
Where asymptomatic contagion is concerned, “evidence-based” analysis doesn’t work because by the time the evidence is in, many will have been infected.
Better, he says, “to err on the side of precaution, even if you make mistakes, than to make a mistake due to lack of precaution.”
Having failed at containment, we are now stuck with costly mitigation procedures that will exhaust resources and place the health of front-line workers at risk, not to mention the heavy price that will be paid in the economy and, very likely, lives lost. Margret Kopala, Ottawa