We need to understand and address the concerns of the vaccine-hesitant
By Gaauree Chawla Research associate Frontier Centre for Public Policy As of Sept. 7, the Ontario government requires all workers in high-risk settings to either take the COVID-19 vaccine, provide a medical reason for refusing vaccination or undergo regular testing and education. This includes workers in health-care, educational and child-care settings. Ontario won’t make vaccines…
We need a lot more ‘we’ people than ‘me’ people – in professional sports and everywhere else
National Basketball Association training camps are in full swing and 50 or so players (of about 530 total) have yet to receive a single COVID-19 vaccine dose. That’s an issue NBA executives and coaches were hoping to avoid. This summer, league officials proposed a mandate requiring all players to be vaccinated against COVID in order…
Politicians and bureaucrats need to stop ignoring the data
Ontario updates its citizens regularly on the province’s hospital and ICU (Intensive Care Unit) statistics, using a dedicated website. It frequently tweets about these numbers, too, through the accounts of premier Doug Ford and health minister Christine Elliott. The statistics generally contain a breakdown between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients. For instance, as of September 27,…
The pandemic may have presented a golden opportunity for the industry to reflect on its future
Did we have too many restaurants before the COVID-19 pandemic? Did the pandemic only wipe out ‘extra’ restaurants in Canada? With the labour shortage, the cost of food ingredients exploding, and the list of regulations growing almost every year, making a restaurant profitable has become difficult. Certainly, the pandemic has presented a golden opportunity for…
Impact of COVID on tourism greater than 9/11, SARS, '08 economic crisis combined
The COVID-19 crisis led to significant travel restrictions around the world. Canada has totally or partially closed its borders to tourists and non-essential travellers. Travel between provinces has also been restricted. Provinces such as New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador banned non-essential travel or all travel between provinces. And we were told not…
Printing money to address short-term needs will lead to inflation and dampen any potential economic recovery
The financial consequences of COVID-19 and the shutdown of economies are difficult to evaluate. But some of those consequences have begun to appear and could hinder economic recovery. Inflation is one of these harmful consequences. In the United States, consumer prices jumped 4.2 per cent in the 12 months through to April, up from 2.6…
The pandemic is making scapegoats of those that only yesterday we called fellow citizens and neighbours
American writer Lance Morrow recently identified our current moment as the golden age of stupidity. No evidence exists that the author of America: A Rediscovery and Second Drafts of History was peeping across the border watching the 2021 Canadian federal election when he made the claim. That’s probably a good thing. Morrow's language might have…
Blood transfusions from people who recovered from the disease didn’t help patients improve
Giving severely ill COVID-19 patients a blood transfusion from donors who have already recovered from the virus did not help them improve. In some cases, according to a major Canadian-led clinical trial reporting results in Nature Medicine, it made them sicker. “Convalescent plasma had been found to boost immunity in patients infected with some other viral…
Rather than subsist on government aid, Air Canada should urge officials to ease travel restrictions
A year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, the only thing keeping Air Canada alive is the federal government bailouts. They’re delaying the inevitable and sensible way out: cutting travel restrictions, encouraging tourism by ensuring effective containment and encouraging vaccination. In April, the government granted the firm another $5.9-billion loan to keep it afloat…
The public system, on the other hand, failed in its response to Covid-19
As Ontario’s public schools struggle to accommodate students in a new school year amid what could be a fourth wave of COVID-19, what can the provincial government learn from the last 17 months? For starters, the government needs to accept that huge, industrial-scale schools (typical in the public system) are pretty weak at responding to…
By Gaauree Chawla Research associate Frontier Centre for Public Policy As of Sept. 7, the Ontario government requires all workers in high-risk settings to either take the COVID-19 vaccine, provide a medical reason for refusing vaccination or undergo regular testing and education. This includes workers in health-care, educational and child-care settings. Ontario won’t make vaccines…
