A recent article in a national newspaper (September 20, 2020) appeared with the heading “Cases may be spiking, but fewer people are dying”. Such positive information (buried on page 4) will likely go unnoticed by the public. Fewer people are reading newspapers – if at all – these days, or at least, not beyond the front page. At the same time, the media continues its zeroing-in on the growing number of new cases, the second wave of COVID-19, and any scrap of distressing news they can uncover.

Let’s go back to that article. It reproduced 2 graphs showing a steady and continuous decline in deaths and in hospitalizations across Canada. It is not a revelation that cases will go up when all provinces are conducting more tests. It is a statistical logical outcome. The facts, however, are clear.  The number of Canadians in hospital with COVID-19 peaked at just over 3’000 at the height of the pandemic. Last week that number was 302! The Public Health Agency of Canada also has confirmed that the fatality rate has dropped substantially in Canada since the pandemic began while the recovery rate has shot up.

What does this mean? After 6 months of COVID-19, we are certainly better positioned than in March 2020, when we were taken by surprise. The public is more disciplined with sanitation and cleanliness, hospitals are better prepared and have sufficient ventilators, treatment and supportive care have improved and many of the conditions in our senior home community have at least started to be addressed. Let us not forget that residents of senior homes accounted for more than 75% of all deaths by COVID-19.

Here is another example where the media reports in a way that leads to hysteria rather than any kind of reassurance.  Some statistics are now reported using the millions of population scale rather than the usual percentage to give the numbers more weight. Check the following: The latest statistics for September 2020 indicate that confirmed cases per million in Canada are 3809 which sounds larger than a percentage of 0.4%. Death per everyone million people in Canada, is 244 which as a percentage is 0.1%.

Without minimizing the severity of the pandemic or the loss of lives, we must get better at evaluating the reliability of our sources of information. Learn to recognise the positive signs that indicate progress and take a moment to feel good about it. The doom and gloom we are constantly exposed to by social media has not stopped for the last 6 months. Rest assured, it will continue. Sensational news and preferably bad news “sell”.

So, just in case you are looking for some bright spots, check out these additional statistics. FACEBOOK revenues are 98% from advertising. There Q2 numbers showed revenues up 11% and net income up by a healthy 29%. These results follow their Q1 results that showed revenues up by a gigantic 18% and net income up by a whopping 78%. You can check yourself the results of ALPHABET (The parent of GOOGLE), MICROSOFT, AMAZON, NETFLIX, ZOOM, LOBLAWS, WALMART and others, just to mention a few.

To the best of my knowledge, all three levels of government and related institutions have had a steady and reliable payroll as well. Yes, we are all in it together but the pains of the COVID-19 storm have not been evenly distributed. Not all large corporations have done well, do not get me wrong, the travel, hospitality and entertainment sectors have been hit hard. Many essential services operated by the government have worked overtime to keep us safe, but none has been hit as hard as small and medium size businesses. SME’s may not lead in GDP contribution, but they definitely lead in the employment picture and they have been clobbered severely by the shut down. Many have already folded.

While we need to keep a vigilant watch over the COVID-19 pandemic and continue with a disciplined approach to safety and cleanliness, it is time to get back to work.