Still Grinding That Dull Axe

Don't the Liberal strategists read? Aren't they interested in keeping abreast of the facts on the ground? Don't they think that by betraying their own ignorance by belligerently braying on a matter they appear to know little about, they will lose the trust, let alone the interest of the electorate? Can't they see that their ineffectual, juvenile strutting and hysterical shouting in the House of Commons gains them little respect? Guess not.

At the present time, roughly 8% of the Canadian population has been infected by H1N1. The worst-case scenario envisaged by Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones, in accordance with what WHO officials led the medical community to expect in naming H1N1 a pandemic, would be more like a quarter of the population. Few people who have become infected have required hospitalization, and thankfully, far fewer yet have died.

Canada's public health agency has posted a figure of 20 deaths in the last week, totalling 135 deaths due to H1N1 complications since the first round of the virus occurred in the spring. As infectious diseases go, this one has still proven to be fairly innocuous. Of course that impression doesn't sit well with those who have lost family members to the onslaught, particularly previously-healthy children. They have been few, but even a few are difficult to absorb.

Reality, however, remains: seasonal flu sees between four to eight thousand Canadians meeting their maker. That translates to 250,000 to 500,000 people each year, worldwide. Seven months into this pandemic - which we are all supremely grateful, though it's been named a pandemic, hasn't proven to be the deadly strain we might have anticipated - Around the world an estimated 6,260 people have succumbed.

So why the panic? We can certainly lay much of the sensationalism surrounding this new flu strain at the doorstep of the media, anxious to air every conceivable detail, and hypothesis - and most certainly stressing out faithful readers, listeners, viewers. And no less the medical community among whom there has erupted some disagreements of opinion with respect to H1N1's potential, its severity and the need to inoculate - or not.

None of which excuses the Official Opposition's bluster and blunder, characterizing the government's actions to date as inefficient, inadequate and uncaring. When the simple truth is, far more Canadians in the critical category have been immunized than citizens of the United States, Britain and France, all of which countries are far, far behind Canada. Immune-impaired Canadians with chronic health problems, the very young and health providers have been well looked after, once the first flush of delivery awkwardness passed.

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq is confident that all Canadians who wish to receive either type of vaccine, adjuvanted or not, will be accommodated by the end of December, perhaps into January. By then, the H1N1 will have long gone past its peak. Local health authorities have done a very good job in a very difficult environment; some far better than others, but in total a respectable enough showing.

The Liberals are still confusing issues, perhaps unaware of jurisdictional responsibilities in their eagerness to lay blame before the federal government. Their strenuous efforts to foment hysteria among an already-alarmed public does them justice if they're practising as performing jackasses.

Nothing seems to faze them, they just keep wading into the muck and mire of disinformation....