‘Why?: Part 1’
CAERS SUBSTACK ARRTICLE #43
There are many times when it is difficult to answer the question ‘Why?’. This is particularly true in medicine. Why did I get cancer and why did I get it now? We can sometimes stall by giving an answer that only results in another ‘why’ that is equally legitimate, and just as challenging to answer. And that can continue to what seems like an infinite regress.
Having said that, I have been asking a lot of ‘why’ questions during the pandemic which I think are not only important but which I believe do have definitive answers. In a democratic country like Canada, one which finds the scientific process useful, it is our duty to ask questions. Canadian citizens have the right to demand that those in positions of leadership give the most complete and accurate answers available in a transparent fashion.
The following list of my questions dates from the start of the pandemic, moving forward in time. Maybe you have been asking these questions, too, and maybe you have even found answers that satisfy; however, I am still waiting.
Why did the authorities very early on not explain that mortality and case fatality rates cannot be known with any accuracy unless we know how many people have had the disease but who may not have had symptoms or been tested and who therefore may not have been identified?
Why did no one explain that ventilators do not cure disease, they only buy time while treatments cure disease?
Why did the experts not admit that because there was no treatment for COVID, ventilated patients had a mortality rate of over 80% worldwide, so ventilators were not likely to be a panacea?
Why did specialists not educate the public that the number of ventilators might not be the major problem, that instead it might be the enormous challenge of finding enough qualified staff like physicians, nurses and respiratory technicians that would be the rate-limiting problem?
Why was so little attention paid to the COVID outbreak on the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship that was like an ideal ‘laboratory’ for study, as a mechanism to understand the true morbidity and mortality of SARS CoV-2?
Why was it not explained that in general, the more lethal a virus, the less easily it is transmitted and therefore viruses tend to mutate to becoming less lethal and thus more transmissible over time?
Why did experts not explain that PCR tests can be run at different cycles and that at high enough cycles the test would detect amounts of virus or bits of virus that could not cause serious disease in most people?
Why were the critical concepts of sensitivity and specificity of the PCR tests not explained so that the public could understand the incidence of false positives and false negatives with respect to the PCR testing?
Why did the experts not explain that a PCR test was a screening test and that viral culture was the definitive test to confirm that COVID was the cause of a patient’s disease?
Why were so few autopsies performed on those dying of COVID so as to better understand the ‘novel’ SARS CoV-2 virus better?
Why was the concept of viral load (that a very small amount of exposure to a virus would not induce serious disease in most people but might even induce immunity instead) not discussed?
Why were the most vulnerable not protected better and offered services to limit their exposure as much as possible, instead of having everyone follow the same mandates irrespective of disease risk?
Why were the authorities not pleasantly surprised by the fact that children rarely got COVID, and why was such an anomaly not vigorously investigated? And why was natural immunity not discussed or confirmed by testing (which likely would have explained why children did not get sick)?
Why did public health offer so little advice on how to improve our overall health, including our immune systems (such as sunshine, exercise, fresh air, vitamins C and D, stress reduction, etc.)?
Why, instead, did public health authorities mandate measures that could adversely affect our health (like social isolation, financial deprivation, disruption of education, limitations on exercise, etc.) and not acknowledge the risk of doing so or monitoring the harm?
Why did no one acknowledge that all other medical problems and conditions would be necessarily prioritized below COVID and therefore non-COVID patients would have their care adversely affected? And why was this not monitored?
In my next article I will provide questions that I started asking once the vaccines were made available. Like the list above, it is not exhaustive, but it does provide some food for thought about the level of transparency during the pandemic, which is now almost three years old.
J. Barry Engelhardt MD (retired) MHSc (bioethics)
CAERS Health Intake Facilitator
Great questions, as always! Thank you Dr Englehardt!
I doubt that any truthful answer will come from the people who chose to manage humans like cattle, and who still silence and threaten anyone who questions their "policies".
I pray that we will find a just way out of the horrible consequences that these ill-conceived policies had on the very fabric of our lives. Loving, hugging, rejoicing together, sharing meals, songs and laughter... that's what human life is all about.
Also, passionate conversations where we find our way out of disagreements are profoundly human too! Let the holiday "after dinner" family arguments, regrets and reconciliations roll! We need to talk about our mistakes, talk about our intoxication with fear and anger, talk about our guilty silences, our guilty compliance and participation to unjust orders and segregations! We need to repair our friendships and our families to move forward and never again let bureaucracy crush our better judgement.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to us all!