LEADERSHIP

Politics is not my area of expertise. I steer away from giving my opinions about things on which I have no deep understanding or experience. I stick with what I know and leave the rest to people that do have the experience and understanding. But, I will step out on a limb just briefly. Please take what I am about to say with a grain of salt. I am not an expert.

We need to change our way of doing politics. How many times have you heard that line? The cracks and deficiencies in our political system are completely exposed during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. I don't think it matters which party is in power or which people are the MPPs, MPs, Ministers and Premieres except that they must be skilled and they must understand when to call on someone else if they are outside their area of expertise. Presently, these folks are all part of the same democratic system where the focus on power, pleasing the power brokers and re-election are obstacles to completing the vital work that must be done to create a healthy, equitable and diverse society where suffering is minimized and all citizens are given the opportunity to reach their God-given potential.

All citizens.

I don't have the answers. But here is what we can do collectively. This is from Dr. Brian Henry Dingle who is a retired oncologist/ hematologist at London Health Sciences who was actively involved in this province's SARS crisis in 2003 ( also an outbreak caused by a coronavirus). He wrote this in the comments section of my last post.

"As we draw closer to the next election, our first question to every candidate has to be, repeatedly until they get the answers, "What is your pandemic preparedness plan for the country, for surveillance, for rapid response, for vaccine production, for PPE storage and inventory, for public health control, for business cooperation, for intermittent community lockdown, for world-wide cooperation." The only way to protect our first responders and our front line health care personnel is through preparedness. And God knows you will need them the next time."

I would add this: How will you make sure that the next political leaders follow the advice of the experts that are appointed to advisory positions at the beginning of the next pandemic?

You follow, they lead. You set aside your political aspirations and lead where the best leaders lead..... from behind your team with humility and compassion and no regard for your future political position.

A true leader never, ever throws one of their team members, (federal, provincial or public health) under the bus in order to make themselves look better or in order to absolve themselves of responsibility.

We have leaders like this in the world right now. And their countries are handling the pandemic very well.

Here is what your scientists and medical experts have recommended:

1/ Get everyone vaccinated as quickly as possible. Start with the most vulnerable and then the most at risk. Find the hotspots and vaccinate everyone in that hotspot.

2/ Provide paid sick leave to individuals who, at present, do not have the option to stay home when sick or to stay home from high risk work environments. Of the 4250 new cases in the province of Ontario today, 70 % are in the hotspots: Toronto, Peel, Durham, Hamilton and Ottawa. Most of the cases in these regions are occurring in low income areas where people work in manufacturing plants and live in multi-generational homes.

3/ Continue with strict stay at home orders but make them fair and based on the science with a focus on avoiding indoor gatherings AND education on how to be active outdoors safely.

4/ Shore up the mental health services we desperately need.

If we do all of this, your healthcare teams in emergency rooms and ICU's will be protected from burnout and will have the capacity to make our healthcare system strong again.

Feel free to write every government official in your area asking them to follow the advice given by our science and medical advisory committees.

BACK ON TRACK

Regardless of how confused and upset we feel, we are still only weeks away from having this third wave under control. Not months but weeks.

Almost four million Ontarions have received at least one dose of vaccine. That is 30 % of the eligible population. That makes me do a happy dance!

Source: https://howsmyflattening.ca/#/home

Despite the political issues, this mass vaccination effort will continue quietly in the background; regardless of the political noise and confusion that is drowning out the legitimate reasons we should be very hopeful.

THE ASTRAZENECA VACCINE: Some perspective

There may be an association between this vaccine and a rare clot called vaccine-induced pro-thrombotic immune thrombocytopenia (VIPIT). Our National Advisory Committee on Vaccinations ( NACI) is following the research closely and will give us new recommendations this week. If this risk exists it appears to occur in 1 out of every 250,000 to 1 million vaccinations. The group of people who may be most at risk are women under the age of 55.

- the odds of developing a regular clot that can be life-threatening are 1 in 5 for people hospitalized with COVID-19

- the risk of a woman between the ages of 15 and 45 developing any sort of blood clot is 1 in 3,300.

- if they take birth control, the odds are 1 in 1,600.

- if a woman is pregnant, the risk is 1 in 300.

I am not suggesting we should be comfortable with anyone developing a clot but medical recommendations are based on a risk- benefit analysis; which intervention is the least likely to cause harm. Unfortunately, we are in a situation where not being vaccinated against COVID-19 confers the highest risk, by far the greatest risk of harm.

Many pharmacies in the province have the AstraZeneca vaccine. If you are over the age of 55 and have not yet had a vaccine, book an appointment and get it. New guidelines from NACI may lower that age limit making this vaccine available to younger people. Stay tuned.

Anne-Marie

Please share.

This coming Tuesday, April 20th, we will be hosting a special edition of the Finding the Balance during COVID-19 webinar.

The event is free. Our guest is one of those great leaders I am talking about, Dr. Nicola Mercer, medical officer of health for the GWD Public Health Unit.

Click her to register:

https://us02web.zoom.us/.../reg.../WN_DF9g-C6hQLGkc-xboSd0wA

For non-Facebook users, you can find this post here:

https://braceletofhope.blogspot.com/

And if you'd like to help Bracelet of Hope work towards making sure that Lesotho has access to these vaccines, donate here:

https://www.braceletofhope.ca/ways-to-