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https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/coronavirustracker/

Yesterday, there were 20,765 confirmed and presumptive cases of covid-19 in Canada. Quebec has 10,912 confirmed (including 175 deaths, 827 resolved).

Quebec: 10,912 confirmed (including 216 deaths, 1,112 resolved)
Ontario: 5,759 confirmed (including 200 deaths, 2,305 resolved)

If the above numbers are accurate, I live in the province of Canada that is home to half the confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the country.

The WHO (World Health Organisation) warned of a potential pandemic at the very end of 2019.

Dr Li Wenliang died on 7 February 2020.

Dr Li Wenliang

As soon as Dr Li Wenliang died, we knew. At that point, North-Americans needed to find the persons who had been in the immediate proximity of the first victims and test them. In other words, medical experts should have been mobilized. It didn’t happen. I need not remind anyone that President Trump reassured Americans. Yet, the time had come to test Americans and forbid the young from spending the March break on beaches and partying. Dr Jerome Adams, the surgeon general of the United States, has stated that Covid-19 was spread mainly by the young. Many Quebecers travel to Florida during the March break.

If an extremely dangerous and unknown virus surfaces, doctors must guide leaders. I read in the Washington Post, that Americans were organizing to map out a strategy the President cannot put forward. There are times when democracy fails us. The plan is to test the population and have the healthy occupy positions formerly held by persons who have fallen ill many of whom have yet to recover or have died, and other positions. There is a healthy population and there are experts: doctors, chemists, and economists. They and elected officials must work together.

No, we cannot count on Mr Trump. He is not qualified to deal with this matter, but the United States has other leaders and it has experts.

In other words, Quebec and other North-Americans have to find people who can keep the population safe and the economy afloat. We have to test people. Many of us are healthy and can work.

I have heard libertarians scream: this is a “free country.” Well, there is freedom and then there is freedom. No one is free to infect other persons. As I have written in several posts and taught my students, one’s freedom ends where the freedom of others begin and expertise overrides uneducated popularity.

I’m not suggesting mutiny and revenge. Violence is out of the question. I am simply sharing what I read in the Washington Post. But I would like to see fine and qualified human beings make sure that

the sick are sequestered and treated,
that a force is making sure doctors and other health professionals are fully protected,
that tests, tests, tests be performed,
that the healthy return to work.