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Tag Archives: The Armed Forces

Covid-19 (16): The Freedom we have …

28 Thursday May 2020

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, Covid-19, The Armed Forces

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Covid-19, Flouting rules, freedom, Premier Doug Ford, Premier François Legault, Testing, The Armed Forces, Young People

Dr Li Wenliang (Photo Credit: The Standard, UK)

a group of people standing in front of a crowd: A statement released by the City late Saturday night says thousands of people packed Trinity Bellwoods Park on one of the first warm days of the year, flouting physical distancing regulations.

© Dr. Eileen de Villa / Twitter A statement released by the City late Saturday night says thousands of people packed Trinity Bellwoods Park on one of the first warm days of the year, flouting physical distancing regulations.

Looking at the photograph above, I cannot help remember earlier posts. You  may recall that once the lockdown was being lifted, Quebec Premier François Legault urged Montrealers returning to the workplace to wear a face mask. The province was about to reopen, but the virus had not gone away. A lady, a journalist I suspect, stated that the Premier, monsieur Legault, was walking a fine line. He wasn’t. I believe the lady was referring to Quebec’s Bill 21, which imposes complete secularization. But the wearing of a mask is a health measure.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford listens to speakers at the opening of a new Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto on Monday, May 25, 2020.

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn Ontario Premier Doug Ford listens to speakers at the opening of a new Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto on Monday, May 25, 2020.

Freedom

  • an anecdote
  • flouting rules
  • Trinity Bellwoods Park

I once told my students that they had kept me awake most of the night and that they should know better. It was frosh (first year students) week. Someone objected that students were adults and that consequently they were free.

Free, I exclaimed? First, I said that since they were adults and therefore free, I would no longer telephone campus security, but the RCMP (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police). Second, I explained to them that one’s freedom ended where the freedom of others began and that this they had to remember for the rest of their life.

On 23 May, thousands of sun worshippers gathered in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park defying all regulations. They did not stand at a distance from one another and they did not wear a mask, which is now recommended by Canada’s top doctor. Premier Doug Ford had to extend the state of emergency.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/trinity-bellwoods-park-to-get-painted-physical-distancing-circles/ar-BB14HWRN?ocid=msedgdhp

We were unprepared, but they knew…

When outbreaks of Covid-19 reached Canada, we were not prepared. But last Saturday, if a person did not know about aggressivity and transmissibility of novel coronavirus, that person had spent the entire lockdown in a coma. Therefore, it would be my opinion that these  young people were engaging in reckless endangerment of human life, no less. There was a flare-up, une flambée, which forced Premier Ford to extend the state of emergency. 

https://www.cp24.com/news/it-s-selfish-officials-disappointed-to-see-large-crowds-at-downtown-toronto-park-amid-pandemic-1.4951953

Canadians have received a great deal of information regarding Covid-19. At no point, did anyone say that the pandemic was over. On the contrary, Premiers and top doctors stated, in both English and French, that Covid-19 was here to stay and recommended the wearing a mask after the lockdown. It may be that Covid-19 will never go away completely. In Montreal, the situation is still critical, but I have not heard of violations of regulations. People wear their mask. In fact, persons using public transportation will be given a face mask and subways will not be crowded. It must end.

The Freedom we have …

It would be useful for people to look upon social distancing and the wearing of a mask as the freedom we have. The virus may linger, but if precautions are taken, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, doctors, opthalmologists, dentists, taxi drivers, etc. will be available. We need services. During the lockdown, nearly all services were closed. As well, thousands of people are now tested everyday.

The Armed Forces

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces were not doing what they do normally. But we could not have managed without them. They worked relentlessly in long-term care facilities, cleaning and sanitizing these facilities, and helping feed patients. Premier Legault will ask that they remain until September while CHSLDs are refurbished and air-conditioned. This is work that cannot be postponed. The province is also hiring healthcare givers for these nursing homes. The Armed Forces have now been called in Ontario where long-term care facilities are built like Quebec’s and are understaffed.

To my knowledge, no one in my building has been infected.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/military-report-reveals-what-sector-has-long-known-ontarios-nursing-homes-are-in-trouble/ar-BB14EL4s?ocid=msedgdhp

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/news/military-report-on-quebec-long-term-care-homes-released/vi-BB14GTxd?ocid=msedgdhp

Would that Dr. Li Wenliang had been heard. Instead, he was silenced, reprimanded, infected and died.

RELATED ARTICLE

  • Chronicling Covid-19 (14): The Mask (15 May 2020)

There are 87,481 confirmed and presumptive cases in Canada.

  • Quebec: 49,139 confirmed (including 4,228 deaths, 15,319 resolved)
  • Ontario: 26,483 confirmed (including 2,155 deaths, 20,372 resolved)
  • Alberta: 6,901 confirmed (including 139 deaths, 6,048 resolved)
  • British Columbia: 2,541 confirmed (including 161 deaths, 2,122 resolved)
  • Nova Scotia: 1,053 confirmed (including 59 deaths, 975 resolved)
  • Saskatchewan: 634 confirmed (including 8 deaths, 549 resolved)
  • Manitoba: 281 confirmed (including 7 deaths, 269 resolved), 11 presumptive
  • Newfoundland and Labrador: 260 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 255 resolved)
  • New Brunswick: 122 confirmed (including 120 resolved)
  • Prince Edward Island: 27 confirmed (including 27 resolved)
  • Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed (including 13 resolved)
  • Yukon: 11 confirmed (including 11 resolved)
  • Northwest Territories: 5 confirmed (including 5 resolved)
  • Nunavut: No confirmed cases
  • Total: 87,481 (11 presumptive, 87,470 confirmed including 6,760 deaths, 46,085 resolved)

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2020.

The Canadian Press

Love to everyone 💕

—ooo—

Frederica von Stade: Trois airs français

Three airs français arranged by the Norwegian musicologist Arne Dørumsgaard. From a recital in Edinburgh, 1976, with Martin Isepp, piano.

479px-Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_033

The Good Samaritan by Rembrandt (Wikiart.org)

© Micheline Walker
28 May 2020
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Chronicling Covid-19 (12): Caregivers

27 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by michelinewalker in Covid-19, Pandemic, Québec

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Covid-19, Doctors, Montreal 2020, Teachers, The Armed Forces, Vanitas

Vanitas by Harman Steenwyck (artyfactory.com)

A Foreword

I was shocked when I realized the extent to which Covid-19 affected Montreal and decided one could not like a post containing the following information:

  • half of Canada’s victims of the Covid-19 pandemic live in Quebec;
  • the province of Quebec is failing its elderly citizens;
  • Premier, François Legault, and his Health Minister, Danielle McCann, were struggling to find hands to fight Covid-19;
  • 20,000 of Canadian cases of Covid-19 were Québécois.

Finding helpers

On the 8th of April, police found neglected seniors in a long-term facility: Herron. This facility is private, but private nursing homes are nevertheless subsidized, to a point, by the Quebec government. Conditions drew a parallel with concentration camps.

 

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/public-health-police-find-bodies-feces-at-dorval-seniors-residence-sources/

Given this emergency, Premier François Legault and Health Minister Danielle McCann called on teachers to help in nursing homes, the CHSLDs (Centre d’hébergement et de soins de longue durée [long term care facilities]).

Teachers

On Friday, the 10th of April, Quebec’s Premier, François Legault and Health Minister Danielle McCann tried to “force employees in the education sector to help in the health sector.” Schools were closed and the province had an emergency. Teachers did not enter long-term care facilities or nursing houses.

“Confédération des syndicats nationaux [Unions] did not take long to respond. It said it recognized the gravity of the crisis and the need to resort to exceptional measures, but is worried about how this decision would be implemented and the potential for abuse.”

“Forcing education personnel to work in the health network, without any form of consultation with those affected, is at the very least heartbreaking,” said CSN [Confédération des syndicats nationaux] president Jacques Létourneau.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/quebec-looks-to-force-teachers-to-help-health-care-workers/

Doctors

Premier Legault then called on 2,000 health workers: general practicioners, specialists and nurses. He appealed to doctor’s “sense of duty.”

https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/coronavirus-legault-appeals-to-doctors-sense-of-duty-to-help-in-chslds/wcm/2d952926-7959-4875-8f68-80db081e89f6/

However, it had been discovered that some of the elderly who had been transported to hospitals were not the victims of Covid-19.

Dr. Vinh-Kim Nguyen says the Jewish General is seeing more and more seniors admitted — not necessarily for COVID-19, but because of issues related to dehydration and starvation.

“We started to see a shift in the kinds of patients we’ve admitted to the hospital,” Nguyen told Global News.

“More and more patients are coming from old-age homes, nursing homes and CHSLD long-term care facilities, most of them coming in with dehydration, hypernatremia, high blood sodium, renal failure.”

These patients were not ill because of Covid-19.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6860377/jewish-general-hospital-seniors-chsld-dehydration/

After three days, Premier Legault thought he had not made himself clear.

“I think I am clear today: we need, ideally, 2,000 doctors — whether they are general practitioners or specialists — to come treat the people, wash patients, feed patients, to come and do the work of nurses.”

Danielle McCann was quite convincing:

“There are many GPs and specialists who go on humanitarian missions outside Quebec, to Africa and other countries,” added Health Minister Danielle McCann. “They go help. They are quite devoted. What I want to say to them today is that this time the humanitarian mission is in Quebec — it is in the CHSLDs.”

The Agreement

Doctors responded, but money talks. Two thousand doctors are working in nursing homes and seniors are losing their life to Covid-19. One doctor has died. However, it has been agreed that doctors “will be paid $211 an hour, regardless of their tasks, to a maximum of $2,500 a day. The average wage of an orderly now is $21.50 an hour.” It’s “danger pay.” I doubt very much that a Quebec doctor would have accepted to work in nursing homes without a generous danger pay.

The Military

Premier Legault’s has nevertheless requested further help from the military. He needs 1,000 soldiers who would work in a CHSLD (long term care facility.) I doubt that they will receive “danger pay.”

Similarly, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario has also requested the assistance of the armed forces. So the military is becoming the “force … of last resort.”

BB13dDxa

© Graham Hughes A member of the Canadian Armed Forces arrives at Residence Yvon-Brunet a long term care home in Montreal, Saturday, April 18, 2020, as COVID-19 cases rise in Canada and around the world.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/the-pandemic-could-end-up-changing-everything-%e2%80%94-including-the-military/ar-BB13dhz7?ocid=msedgdhp

One can count on a soldier’s sense of duty. They came, they assessed and they found a strategy. In other words, soldiers can organize, which is what the first group did. The request for one thousand soldiers is Quebec’s second request.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/coronavirus-live-updates-most-seniors-very-concerned-about-their-health-survey-shows/

I have since read that the death toll in Quebec was 1,243, which means that “Quebec with 23 percent of Canada’s population, is home to 52% of cases and 57 percent of the death.” But the death toll has now risen to 1,446 and keeps rising.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/the-latest-numbers-on-covid-19-in-canada/ar-BB138bYy?ocid=msedgdhp

There are 43,888 confirmed and presumptive cases in Canada

  • Quebec: 22,616 confirmed (including 1,340 deaths, 4,724 resolved)
  • Ontario:13,519 confirmed (including 763 deaths, 7,087 resolved)
  • Alberta: 4,017 confirmed (including 72 deaths, 1,397 resolved)
  • British Columbia: 1,853 confirmed (including 98 deaths, 1,114 resolved)
  • Nova Scotia: 850 confirmed (including 16 deaths, 392 resolved)
  • Saskatchewan: 341 confirmed (including 4 deaths, 280 resolved)
  • Manitoba: 252 confirmed (including 6 deaths, 174 resolved), 11 presumptive
  • Newfoundland and Labrador: 256 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 199 resolved)
  • New Brunswick: 118 confirmed (including 104 resolved)
  • Prince Edward Island: 26 confirmed (including 24 resolved)
  • Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed (including 13 resolved)
  • Yukon: 11 confirmed (including 8 resolved)
  • Northwest Territories: 5 confirmed (including 5 resolved)
  • Nunavut: No confirmed cases
  • Total: 43,888 (11 presumptive, 43,877 confirmed including 2,302 deaths, 15,521 resolved

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2020.

a person standing in front of a plane: Red Cross volunteer Stephane Corbeil adjusts an opening in a tent at a mobile hospital at the Jacques Lemaire arena in the Montreal suburb of LaSalle, Sunday, April 26, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues in Canada and around the world. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Red Cross volunteer Stephane Corbeil adjusts an opening in a tent at a mobile hospital at the Jacques Lemaire arena in the Montreal suburb of LaSalle, Sunday, April 26, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues in Canada and around the world. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Conclusion

There is more to tell: herd immunity, lifting the lockdown… But it suffices to say that one has very little respect for doctors in Quebec who will not come forward until their union negotiates a salary of $2,500 a day. There are good doctors, but, by and large, it’s all about money. They have a powerful syndicate and one fears being a snitch. The fact remains that in Quebec, half the victims of Covid-19 are the elderly. I suspect that the orderlies left because they feared contamination.

You may know that I lost fourteen brothers and sisters to a congenital blood disease. The Insurance Company ceased to contribute money, but my father’s employers footed the bill. It was small. These were the days when I could phone our doctor and say: “Dr Saine, Thérèse has a fever and she is in considerable pain. I don’t know what to do.” He said the magical words. “Don’t worry Micheline, I’m coming over.”

But I will stop here. I was kept away by a case of sadness. The videos show the Premier, Danielle McCann and Quebec’s top doctor: Dr Horacio Arruda. Canada’s top doctor is Dr Theresa Tam.

More than 2,500 coronavirus deaths in Canada as confirmed cases cross 46K.

Love to everyone 💕
I was not able to enter all captions. My post disappeared. I will try to enter captions and credit later.

Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas
Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble of Shadows, ‘Va(r)nitas, vanitas… (…omnia vanitas)’, dall’album ‘Dead Lovers Sarabande’ (1999)

See the source image

A Vanitas (a gracious and very lalented artist)

© Micheline Walker
26 April 2020
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