Dear Editor of the High Country News:
In response to your recent article titled “Freedom in a Floundering World” by Ms. Maranda Rosin, I wish this dangerously misguided MLA would do a shift in any hospital ER or ICU units in Calgary where my friend, Dr. Joe Vipond, risks his family and his own life as an emergency doctor treating surging numbers of COVID-19 patients on a daily basis. Perhaps, by the end of her shift she will learn that this pandemic is real and a highly destructive phenomenon seen throughout human history.
The last worldwide pandemic in 1918, the H1N1 influenza A virus commonly called the “Spanish flu”, infected 500 million people – about a third of the world’s population at the time in four successive waves. It took over three years to contain that “Spanish flu” because of misguided community leaders and politicians like this UCP MLA who down played the seriousness of the pandemic. It took many more years for Europe to recover as a society.
In this current pandemic, we have a much higher population density and much wider transportation means for infections than those in 1918. In this challenging time when Alberta is sustaining the highest COVID-19 outbreak rate of any provinces, I wish the Honorable Maranda Rosin would act as a responsible leader to prevent and reduce the casualty rate in this province.
Sincerely, John Chan
403.246.7155
