re: Following Government Leadership? (Aug. 27, p.2)

E. Russell Smith | Sep 02, 2020

Your correspondent G. Leslie Balogh asserts that the pandemic mandate is "more 'fear-mongering' than a genuine medical reality — filled with medical propaganda and manipulation." What rock was he born under?

A Canadian citizen like himself, I also taught high school — science in my case, for thirty years. I prodded my students to insist on observable and repeatable evidence in support of any “truths”, including public political assertions. Covid-19 and the steps taken by all levels of government to protect the Canadian population have been subject to this discipline. Americans under Trump cannot make the same claim, and the results are catastrophic.

The public debts our governments have incurred (at very low interest rates) are probably inadequate to the necessary task at hand.

I ask Mr. Balogh, given his dismissal of the current panic, if he would be happy to be returning to the classroom this fall. I would not, and sympathize with, congratulate and admire the teachers who are joining the ranks of first-rank responders to this emergency.

E. Russell Smith