Penticton Candidate and Former Pandemic Modeler Keith MacIntyre Calls for End of Covid-19 State of Emergency
October 15, 2020
PENTICTON – Keith MacIntyre, the BC Libertarian Party candidate for the Penticton riding, has issued an open letter to Dr. Bonnie Henry calling for an end to the province-wide state of emergency and health orders that have been in place since March. In the letter, he notes that there have only been 2 deaths due to Covid-19 in the Interior Health region. This is not grounds for a state of emergency in this large part of BC, and reporting on a regional basis would paint a very different picture.
MacIntyre may not be a medical professional, but he has extensive experience with data and statistics as they relate to disease outbreaks. He says, “I am a software engineer and have an extensive background in pandemic simulations and modeling as well as a strong background in data science and analytics. I personally wrote, from scratch, algorithms to simulate pandemic spread based on CDC modeling documentation. I modeled the effect that interventions had on disease spread and tested hundreds, if not thousands of scenarios. The software was used in several large scale training exercises prior to H1N1.”
Based on this experience, MacIntyre sees major issues with how the provincial government and media are reporting Covid-19 data now that testing is being done at a much higher level than it was in the spring.
In his letter to Dr. Henry, MacIntyre states, “’Young People are Spreading the Virus’ – this is a very misleading statement. The narrative in the media is that young people must have been following the restrictions in the spring and summer better. This is a dangerous narrative and blatantly false. The virus didn’t magically start infecting young people recently. It is clear that young people weren’t testing positive in the spring/summer because we weren’t testing them because they had mild or no symptoms.”
Another point MacIntyre makes is on the mental health aspects of the restrictions and isolation, especially on seniors. This is causing much more harm than good, and a more strategic approach needs to be taken that recognizes the impact on the well-being of the elderly of excessive and not medically justified restrictions.
On Seniors Residences and Care Homes, MacIntyre pleads with Dr. Henry, “I would ask you to have meaningful conversations with staff in care homes and seniors that live there. I have heard it described as jail, feeling out of control, and sadly, residents discussing ending their lives. The staff at these care homes are overworked and stressed. A local care home one night had 7 of 13 staff on double shifts getting paid 200% of the salary. They are consistently 25% short on staff and overtime is the norm not the exception. Restricting workers to one care home perhaps makes sense in a large city, but in a city like Penticton with 35,000 people this is not a manageable situation. We cannot continue to burn people out as we are doing right now.”
Background:
Founded in 1986, the BC Libertarian Party’s mandate is to advocate for individual liberty, lower taxes, free markets, and social tolerance. We have stood against all forms of government abuse and overreach. We feel that it’s time to recognize that the COVID-19 emergency has passed and it’s time to return the province to a state of normalcy. Bill 19, the COVID-19 Related Measures Act, gives the government broad sweeping emergency powers. We must remain very mindful of the tendency for governments to find emergency powers incredibly useful in achieving their unrelated goals and if such powers become permanent, it could be an irrecoverable loss for civil liberties.
Policy Highlights:
- The lockdown mentality is causing irreparable harm and human suffering
- End the provincial state-of-emergency
- Remove case totals as a primary policy driver
- End all orders of the Public Health Officer except those relating to long term care-homes
- Continue to carefully protect the elderly and vulnerable
- Replace mask mandates in public services with a recommendation for mask-wearing
Contact:
Keith MacIntyre, candidate for Penticton
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (250) 419-7648
British Columbia Libertarian Party
703-1180 Falcon Dr., Coquitlam, BC, V3E 2K7