The good and the abysmal

Re: It was the pits, start to finish; and Lament for a lost year, hope for a new one, Tyler Dawson, Dec. 26

The Dec. 26 issue of the National Post held a couple of notable perspectives.

One, Tyler Dawson’s view on a lost year, and hope for a new one. Insightful, practical and hopeful, Mr. Dawson captures everyman’s ( and woman’s) view of the past year. My dog says Hiya.

Secondly, the sorry inclusion of the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his finance minister in a glean called Lessons Learned in 2020. These two individuals continue to “not learn” anything. They have blindly marched on toward their sophomoric idealistic vision of what they want Canada to be, without listening to Canadians. It is clear to many Canadians, these two have not learned a thing.

R. Paul, Edmonton

It’s a bit silly to talk about 2020 being ‘ the worst year ever,” not just in comparison to other terrible times throughout the ages, but also because this pandemic is far from over. Viruses don’t know about calendar years or any other such human time frames. That said, the human reality on Earth has changed vastly since the “Black death” plague of the 14th century. First of all the global population is about 20 times greater today. On the other hand medical science today is vastly superior to the primitive methods available back in the Dark Ages. To say nothing of basic sanitary living conditions. So though this pandemic has and will continue to spread to a scale that will dwarf previous widespread outbreaks, the eventual casualty rate will undoubtedly be minute by comparison. But the real open- ended question about this pandemic, will be trying to assess what toll it will take on long-term socio-economic standards across our global community, once it has fully run its course. And on that level I would guess that attempts at comparisons with past major crises will prove to be pretty much useless. Charles Leduc, Vancouver