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On White Spot Buckets of Poop and Finger-Wagging Our Way Through Dangerous Times

Tea & Two Slices is a long-running local news round-up by NEEDS frontman and veteran dishwasher Sean Orr, who lives and works in Gastown, deeply aware of his privilege.

So do you want the good news or the bad news first? Haha, just kidding. There’s no good news: Canada’s COVID-19 death toll from first months of pandemic higher than thought, data show. It’s so bad that the US, a country that just had 40,000 people pack a baseball stadium, is advising against travel to Canada due to uncontrolled variant spread.

Per capita, BC is one of the worst. We haven’t closed schools because they are magic COVID-free zones; we barely do asymptomatic testing; provide much less data than other provinces; and we don’t have central lab services and must rely on leaks about the P1 variant. They blame young people, tell us to do more, and say parents are being hysterical. We’re being governed by gaslight: How BC Fumbled the Third Wave. ‘Fumbled’ is such a cute turn of phrase. Fumbled is when you drop your house keys. This is criminal negligence resulting in death. No wonder ‘New Death Party’ is trending on Twitter.

It’s just more evidence that BC Public Health and the BC government’s whole strategy has been largely to treat the pandemic as an exercise in perception and feeling management, rather than an exercise in controlling viral transmission. In reality, excess deaths in BC have been exceeded only by excess deaths in Quebec (even after controlling for deaths from overdose).

Mr. Premier, you held an election so that you could have complete control of decision making, yet you’ve done nothing. Your party is full of lying, talentless labour hacks who thumb through polling data and triangulate on consensus. You’re not progressive, you’re “three BC Liberals in an orange trench coat” governing by optics, feeding the public platitudes, and finger-wagging as a health strategy: B.C. premier says it’s ‘outrageous’ people are travelling to Vancouver Island, but has no plans to stop it. It’s been a full year of this neoliberal scolding. It feels like Groundhog Day, but this time around we don’t even have Tiger King.

 

Witness Manitoba, a province which actually had the guts to ban interprovincial travel. Because make no mistake, it’s Whistler-loving chuds from the Alberta oil sands that are responsible: Alberta outbreak of P. 1 COVID-19 variant linked to single person travelling. Alberta, blowing it for the rest of us since Confederation.

It’s not a circuit breaker, it’s a dimmer switch:

Meanwhile, our provincial health officer thinks we can stop these variants with the exact same fucking methods that failed to stop the original Covid. COVID-19: Experts say variants likely make up at least 40% of B.C.’s cases, double what officials have disclosed. You don’t need to be a mathematician or virologist to see that they’re fully just winging it this point. Clearly the same tactics aren’t going to work. Clearly we need 24/7 vaccines to try and get ahead of this disaster. “Several prominent epidemiologists say B.C. is drastically undercounting variants of concern, which could lead to public complacency.” New band name: Variant of Concern.

And she has the fucking audacity to say “I’m not aware that any of the cases in the Canucks organization are related to P.1, I don’t know where that started, but not that I’m aware of.” Vancouver Canucks confirm team outbreak linked to COVID-19 variant, 25 people infected. It’s not uncommon for Canucks fans to want them to forfeit the season, but hockey just isn’t important right now.

Then there’s this:

Crowd chants ‘get out’ at health inspectors issuing shutdown notice to Vancouver restaurant. They have the power to issue tickets to everyone of these spreadnecks but for some reason we’re too cowardly to. Maybe if we tell them that it’s actually a bunch of Indigenous pipeline protesters inside the police will send 40 cops cars.

But it’s clear that the government and the police have no interest in keeping anyone safe. The pro-infection mouthbreather behind the above video literally incites violence and nobody gives a shit until one of his mindless followers takes him up on it: B.C. antimask activist speculates about fate of politicians and health officials if they were living in biblical times. “In a live video on Facebook posted on March 29, Marco Pietro declared that he wants to “get real biblical on those pieces of shit, those assholes, those commie cocksuckers, those evil, sick, twisted, demented, perverted, perverse, deranged, evil, criminal sons of bitches.” He says commie cocksucker like it’s a bad thing…

B.C. business woman compares mask wearing to residential schools. Ah yes, being mildly inconvenienced because a pandemic is ravaging the planet is the exact same thing as the Crown committing genocide and ripping children out of the arms of their parents, beating them and forcing them to forget their language, their customs, and their entire way of life. Yes, Karen, you’re the real victim here.

Meanwhile, the NPA, which demanded an AGM after its board was infiltrated by COVID-denying right wing bros who cozy up to white supremacists and call on the public to “harass” homeless people (but then never actually had an AGM), decided it was a good idea to do a backroom deal to select a white homeless-hating douchebag for its mayoral candidate: Vancouver’s NPA party names John Coupar as mayoral candidate for 2022 municipal election. Two sitting councillors release a statement but it’s not signed by Melissa de Genova, who compared the terrorist attack on the US capitol to housing activists, who constantly derails council meetings, and who only days previously declared that “democracy died” because council voted to clear a backlog in permits. You can’t make this shit up.

This is what John Coupar stands for: Sad Sign for 2017: It’s Freezing, and Vancouver Debates Closing Warming Centres for Homeless.

City, park board and province sign deal to specify roles in shutting down encampments. Don’t read the comments.

Advocates Call on the Vancouver School Board to Immediately Cancel the School Liaison Officer Program. Listen to the children.

This is what reconciliation looks like: ‘This is all stolen’: Canadian man offers to share his land with First Nations.

Satire of the day: Ford introduces “stay at home unless you’re sick and can’t get rid of your shift” order.

Headline of the day: Penticton White Spot franchisee asked to ‘step back’ after poop throwing incident.

There is 1 comment

  1. Honestly expected the comment section on the homeless to be much worse, by Vancouver standards I would consider that pretty good. If anything, reading comments like those just makes me feel as though Vancouver deserves the social issues to has created. Maybe eventually it will get so bad no business or millionaire tourist will ever want to visit because of the neglect of the social issues within the city and maybe then the city/province/country will finally listen.

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