What's important here

 Today the BC Coroners Service reported that 2224 people died of illicit drug overdoses in 2021, that's an average of 6 per day. Mostly young people. In comparison, as of today 2725 people died either from Covid or with Covid. In fact these numbers are suspect as the BC CDC admitted that anyone entering hospital in BC is tested for Covid and if they subsequently die then Covid goes on the death certificate. However, and more importantly, the death rate is .25 per day, mostly old folks like myself but with one or more comorbidities

So what is the reaction of the government? With respect to overdoses, crickets! With respect to Covid, panic, over reaction, coercion and irrational lockdowns.

Why?

I don't know. I would have thought that 6 young people dying every day for a year would have drawn more attention from the government versus one person from God's waiting room every four days in the space of nearly three years.

I have my suspicions, I'm not a conspiracy theorist but, the infamous but, it seems to me that the pandemic was the perfect opportunity for public health to try out all their theories about pandemic control as lunatic as they turned out to be. 

On the other hand, overdose deaths are a public health concern but public health have no clue as to how to deal with this problem so they are ignoring it in the hopes, I surmise, that the public will be more involved with the supposed pandemic and not paying attention.

What do you think?

Return fire

 I was astounded to learn this morning that for the past two years Health Canada has been tracking me via my cell phone. I should pay more attention. That public health officials would violate my privacy in this way is beyond the pale.

 To confirm this piece of news I went to the Health Canada website. It says that "Health Canada is responsible for helping Canadians maintain and improve their health.", how does tracking my cell phone help maintain and improve my health?

 I also went to the Public Health Agency (PHA) website, silence on the issue. That website sets out that the PHA has a  "focus on preventing disease and injuries, responding to public health threats, promoting good physical and mental health, and providing information to support informed decision making.". No mention of a focus on tracking Canadians or why they should track Canadians.

Why are they undertaking this tracking. I cannot find out. There is no mention of the practice on the Health Canada or PHA websites and a search of the federal website only takes you to the notification app which we all knew about and which the BC government declined, rightly, to participate in and which does not track information or a persons whereabouts. 

In an article I saw this morning the newspaper reported that the Commons Ethics Committee was undertaking and emergency meeting to investigate the  the practice of collecting data from mobile phones to " understand the travel patterns during the COVID pandemic.". How that prevents disease is not made clear and a politician noted that the application to extend the programme, which was the precipitating incident for the emergency meeting, was made just before Parliament paused for the holiday break and appeared to him to be a process more opaque than transparent.