Here is the News

(The fact that I had not written a blog for several weeks caused some confusion among my fan, this is my third day of reassurance that I am alive and well, even if sometimes boring)

In common with many New Brunswickers I receive a copy of one of the local English newspapers every week day. While there are two of them, the Telegraph Journal and the Daily Gleaner, they are so close to being identical that it does not matter which one you get your news from. In these day of digital media I also subscribe to the Globe and Mail and also the Times of London. Of course we really get our news from the CBC at 7am, the BBC world news at 6:30pm and various Canadian TV stations between 7 and 7:30 pm. As if that was not enough there are all those clips that you get shown on Facebook, and the news that Microsoft thinks you ought to see whenever you start your computer up.

No wonder I am confused, and also of course, an expert on everything depending on where I am coming from. I use that phrase advisedly

Lets look at the COVID story: The New Brunswick Government in consultation with Public Health has done an excellent job in controlling the pandemic, and we tend to look down our noses at the bigger Provinces to the West who have been much less successful. Canadians as whole tend to point out the failure of the United States to control the pandemic, and largely blame President Trump. The BBC world News attempts to be just that and reports on COVID disasters world wide, but all the data and reporting from any source is not totally objective and feeds to the prejudices of the source.

It is interesting to note a couple of issues that relate to the different attitudes and results in the UK and the USA. The number of cases per million population in the USA on August 13 was 16, 429, on the same day the number for the UK 4,620, Obviously the UK is doing better? Or is it the number of deaths per million in the USA is 516 and in the UK 609. President Trump has blamed the higher number of cases to higher numbers of tests. On August 13, both the UK and the USA reported 208, 000 test per million population.

It is hard to believe that the survival rate of COVID victims is four times better in the confused and expensive medical sector of the USA than in the universally available UK system. one wonders if we are comparing apples and oranges? However you view the statistics in a global sense the problem is by no means over, we need to stop arguing about it and to continue to use our best efforts to keep it under control.