it's not in our collective self-interest to taunt the american military personnel we have stationed here. i mean, we do want them here.

listen, the canadian government is trying to build up this anti-american narrative to distract from it's own middling handling of the problem. it's true that the case rates in the united states seem to have diverged from those in canada recently, but we've always been a few months behind them, and if you divide out statistics related to population with that time lag in mind you'll see that canada is doing a little bit better - but not substantively better.

we'll see if the kind of infection rates we're seeing in the deep south make their way to canada in august or september or not. based on any evidence i've seen, that's a reasonable projection - that we will continue to follow them, at levels more proportional to our population levels.

so, the reality is that the contrast is fairly muted, which is why the government is fomenting this anti-american distraction and exaggerating the differences in the process.

i'm not interested in this. from a public health standpoint, the border has been open the whole time, we've just restricted americans coming over by car. the effects of this policy are merely assumed; there's never been any attempt to actually measure what kind of effect this might actually have on reducing transmission. nor is there reason to be optimistic about it; in the abstract, virtually all of the studies ever done on the topic indicate that border closures have almost no efficacy in slowing the spread of pathogens.

so, this is all just empty political rhetoric; the government sought the easiest way out, by fomenting anti-americanism, and it seems to have worked, to some degree, whatever the consequences. opening the border is therefore now a political question, not a public health question. and, my pleas to look at the science are likely to fall to the wayside, as evan solomon takes centre stage over the summer.

i'm not flailing against unwinnable battles. but, i'm profoundly disappointed by the stupidity of all of this, and i can only hope it lifts relatively soon.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/american-military-airforce-members-harassed-winnipeg-1.5644364