Lessons Learned: Avoid using the words "airborne" and "excess deaths" at all costs!
Warning: This post is for the COVID-literate. If you don’t understand certain words below, I recommend you Google them along with the word “COVID-19”.
For fun, I decided to see how many times certain words showed up in a recently released independent review of the B.C. government’s response to COVID-19.
Aerosol: two mentions—each citing complaints from the public about the “failure of government to admit that COVID-19 is transmitted by aerosol.” In the second instance, “admit” was in quotation marks.
Airborne: zero mentions
Brain: zero mentions
Brain injury: zero mentions
Cardiovascular: zero mentions
CO2 monitor: zero mentions
Excess deaths: zero mentions
Excess mortality: zero mentions
Fisman: zero mentions
Greenhalgh: zero mentions
Heart disease: zero mentions
HEPA: zero mentions
Immune: one mention in a section citing specific points made by people critical of the government. (“Government did not promote healthy living to build immune systems.”)
Immunity: one mention in a section on why the public’s trust in government eroded over time. (“unwillingness to talk about natural immunity”)
Jimenez: zero mentions
Long COVD: one mention in consequences mentioned about Indigenous people. (“There is ongoing concern about long COVID for Indigenous people.”)
N95: zero mentions
Respirator: zero mentions
Stroke: zero mentions
The 144-page Lessons Learned Review document was written by three former civil servants: Bob de Faye, Dan Perrin, and Chris Trumpy.
None of the authors is a scientist. For those who are curious, de Faye studied public administration and international relations in university; Perrin studied economics in university; and Trumpy studied commerce in university.