As the Omicron variant proves to be much weaker than previous incarnations of COVID-19, we should be thrilled. We should be celebrating how while the variant is spreading like wildfire, the symptoms are remarkably weak. Most people don’t even realize they are infected until they actually test positive for it..Alberta’s official COVID-19 active case count is 62,733 people. Dr. Deena Hinshaw has said that the number is likely ten times that. That means over half a million Albertans are currently infected with Omicron — so how is this turning out for our hospitals?.Among ICU admissions in Alberta, 11 are identified as Omicron infections. Of hospitalizations in general, a mere 66 are Omicron cases. These are the sort of medical pressures that a bad outbreak of the common cold presents..We got lucky. The virus could have mutated into something more rather than less deadly. The high transmissibility of the Omicron variant may be a hidden blessing. While we are seeing pressures in workplaces due to staff calling in sick, we are also seeing people gaining a new level of immunity against COVID-19 through a low-risk infection. Researchers have found that many people who have been vaccinated and then become infected with Omicron are gaining what they are tentatively calling “super immunity”. They may have as much as a 1,000% better resistance against COVID-19 than somebody who has not been vaccinated or infected..So how are the usual doomsayers responding to these new developments?.They are working to raise the level of fear, demanding more lockdowns and even calling for mandatory vaccination across the country..A number of unions in Alberta are calling for complete lockdowns of the province. Why? Our hospitals aren’t even close to being overwhelmed at this point..Some journalists have gone completely off the rails..Randy Boswell wrote in a Global News column: “How hard should Canada be pushing unvaccinated citizens to finally get inoculated against COVID-19?.,.We should be pushing them extremely hard. We should be persuading and pressuring vaccine holdouts in every way we can think of — educating, incentivizing, penalizing — short of all-out public shaming or frog-marching them to clinics and forcing needles into their arms. “.Not sure where Boswell thinks he has stopped short of public shaming of those who choose not to be vaccinated. The entire rest of his column is dedicated to shaming them and inflaming public sentiment against them. The measures he proposes and supports to “push” people into vaccination are not terribly short of the frog-marching he spoke of..While children are at very low risk of harm from all variants of COVID-19 so far, panic-mongering advocates are demanding school closures and the implementation of even stronger masking mandates..We do have a new subculture of people doing harm to the entire nation due to their ideology. These people need to be called out and shamed for the damage they are doing. I am not talking about the unvaccinated though. I am talking about the lockdown cult..There are some people who have built their entire essence around the COVID-19 pandemic and terrorizing people over it. They have taken the most negative approach to every development of the pandemic and they have built a sense of purpose around it. These people are self-styled heroes who believe they are saving the world from itself by pressuring governments to reduce individual liberties as much as possible. They do not want the pandemic to end as they would suddenly lose this feeling of purpose and superiority over the unwashed who haven’t joined them on their rollercoaster of fear..These purveyors of panic get outright giddy when case counts rise and warn of doom and gloom being but two weeks away whenever case counts drop. They have adopted a zero-risk outlook towards pandemic control despite it being impossible. They overlook all damage caused by government restrictions while actively exaggerating harm caused by the virus itself..For every example of something positive, these zealots will seek out something negative to counter it. They were almost jubilant when a 14-year-old Albertan was listed as the province’s first COVID-19 fatality. Their sanctimonious cries of “I told you so!” were hard to miss. The disappointment was evident in them when it was found that the death of that young man had nothing at all to do with COVID-19. They then scoured the Internet to find outlying cases of young people succumbing to the virus in other parts of the world in a desperate hope to maintain the illusion that COVID-19 threatens kids. They just don’t want to accept any good news..As with any cult, there is no reasoning with the adherents of this one. We can only learn to sideline them and ignore them just as we would any other lunatic howling that “The end is nigh!” while accosting people on city streets..We may be nearing the end of this two-year nightmare and we should be looking ahead to better times. The people who have learned to love living within this emergency don’t want to let it go though. Their voices are getting ever more shrill and their predictions direr as they face the prospect of normalcy in people’s lives..Let’s work to ensure the voices of reason begin to dominate the discussion as we start to see a light at the end of the tunnel. The doomsayers have disproportionately loud voices for their numbers. We can shout them down with a message of cautious optimism. To let them win now is to accept a perpetual state of restrictions..Cory Morgan is Assistant Opinion & Broadcast Editor for the Western Standard.cmorgan@westernstandardonline.com
