Conrad Black: Coronavirus hysteria will soon come to an end

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It has also been my contention that in Canada we have been too much influenced by aspects of the coronavirus crisis in the United States that have been driven by political tactics in the election campaign in that country. The incumbent administration was practically certain of re-election prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis. The Democratic opposition saw a path to victory by agitating for a gigantic economic shutdown, which would lead to an economic recession that could then be portrayed as a needless depression generated by incompetent public-health management on the part of the Trump administration, even though the administration was following its opponents’ advice in shutting down, and is bringing the nation back to work more quickly than had been thought possible. The U.S. economic growth rate was 32 per cent in the third quarter and the United States has vastly outperformed all other advanced countries in the world since coming out of lockdown.

But in Canada, we have been sluggishly and doggedly attached to a shutdown policy based on infection rates, even though our fatality rate has been comparatively good. I know that the motives of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Toronto Mayor John Tory and other Canadian leaders are in these matters sincere and commendable, but the policy has been mistaken from the beginning, and the longer it continues, the more damage it will cause. We are fundamentally shutting down the normal lives of up to 60 per cent of the population and the leisure time of 90 per cent of the population out of an exaggerated concern for only two per cent of the population who are in fact seriously vulnerable to this illness. It is not too late for Canada to show some leadership, even though we have been long preceded by Sweden, which wisely never imposed a general shutdown. But in around 10 days, the U.S. election will be over, and whatever the result, the rationale for the Democratic anti-Trump press (faithfully parroted by the Canadian media) to incite public hysteria will be over. The American media will cease to hammer public sensibilities with gruesome formulations about “grim milestones,” and other sombre fatuities. Canada will, as usual, plod along behind the Americans, without the excuse of an election, and continental unease will subside. We could have done so much better.

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