January!

 

Ok. I admit it. I love January. I typically do not head out for a cross country ski during a snow storm but I am a bit desperate this year.

Exercise is my anti-anxiety/ anti-depressant drug of choice. Snow storm or not, I need that drug everyday so, I bundled up and headed out late this afternoon. Nothing better than a fresh January snow.....my opinion, you can shoot me if you'd like but there is something magical about fresh, sparkling, crisp snow and that blue, grey January sky.

And tonight? A clear sky with those ghostly, magical shadows dancing off the snow. I love it.

I find my mood dips quite low at certain points of the day. It takes a good bit of thoughtfulness and mindfulness to control it. We are living through a very tough time. The chronic, pervasive and collective stress and the fact that what might happen next week or next month is up in the air, is certainly taking it's toll. Calls are rolling in from patients of mine who are suffering in this regard. They a very wise to reach out. Help is out there and reaching out is half the battle.

So, here is what I recommend this evening. Stay focused.

There were 1740 new cases today. We have not seen cases this low since December 2nd. The 7 day rolling average continues to decline.

Jan. 10 3945

Jan. 11 3555

Jan. 12 3523

Jan. 13 3480

Jan. 14 3452

Jan. 15 3273.

Jan. 18 3035

Jan. 22 2703

Jan. 23 2359

And today......2346

We are succeeding at our job which is to adhere to the public health guidelines during this provincial emergency order.

Let's worry about our job and let our leaders and all the very smart healthcare and public health experts with their very smart scientist colleagues make the tough decisions. Trust them. Vaccines will come regardless of protectionist and political posturing. Today I read headlines about delays in the Pfizer roll out and the EU posturing to limit the export of the Pfizer vaccine and I panicked.....but only for a brief second. Then I reminded myself that there are 100 ongoing vaccine research trials, eleven that are ending phase 3 after which they are ready for review, approval and distribution.

Your federal government has purchased hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines.

The Moderna vaccine will start to arrive in large quantities next month.

A Canadian company is now working on an mRNA vaccine which is ready to begin human trials ( phase 1) with phase two expected to begin in May. If approved it will be manufactured in Canada. A domestic manufacturing source will ensure that Canada has a constant supply of vaccines. That doesn't mean that we will have to wait months before a significant number of vaccines are available to Canadians. It means that there are many players in this game with many vaccines on the horizon from different companies.

We are watching a miraculous and unprecedented global effort unfold. We are human. It is going to look messy and uncertain at times but that does not change the fact that the spread of COVID 19 will be controlled by this effort.

You have a marvellous provincial and local team of dedicated people who are preparing for mass vaccination clinics. Be ready. These vaccines will change this game and move us slowly back to a normal life.

Slow but sure. There is no doubt.

Anne-Marie

Please share

For mental health support here:

https://familyserviceguelph.on.ca/

For local assistance with anxiety and depression:

www.here4help.ca

CMHA WW Website: www.cmhaww.ca

Here 24/7 at 1-844-HERE-247 or www.here247.ca.

And for post-secondary students, Good2Talk

https://good2talk.ca/

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-

Plastered against Plexiglass: Man, how things have changed in 1 year.

 

Well, the plexiglass is up. By the end of the day, my staff had already started being creative with it. It's not so bad. They are more protected and that is what counts. It is strange seeing that separation between them.

All part of a year of pervasive changes caused by COVID 19. "This is a marathon not a sprint". How many times have you heard that in the last year? But....even marathons have an end.

1958 new cases in Ontario today. We have not had so few new daily cases since December 12th. Nicely done.

COIVD 19 Patients in Hospital:

1436 down by 85

The number of cases in ICU and on a ventilator have increased by just a few. These numbers follow the number of new cases by about 2 weeks. We should see a dramatic drop here in the next 10 days. That's what the healthcare system needs in order for us to safely re-open.

The Reproductive number is now just 0.87. It was 1.14 the first week of December. That's a dramatic drop. That means the public health measures we are following are decreasing the ability of the virus to move from one person to another.

New Variants? A good quality mask still reduces the risk of transmitting the virus from one person to another. This new variant is more infections. Where the common COVID-19 virus is transmitted to 100, this new variant is transmitted to 160. It may also be more dangerous. We are less concerned about the virus being transmitted from surfaces. The virus hangs in the air for a longer period of time in the cold than in the heat and may be more transmissible at this time of year.

BUT....regardless of the fact that it is winter and colder and the new variant is out there, the risk of getting or transmitting COVID 19 it is infinitesimally small when you wear a good quality mask and stay 6 feet apart. The public health measures still work!

As many as 30 % of people with COVID 19 have no symptoms and people who are about to develop symptoms start spreading the virus 3 to 5 days before symptoms develop. We all need to wear masks at all times while in public.

Check out the integrity of the cloth masks you are using. If they are old, frayed or thinning, replace them. A good quality three layer mask is recommended and one of those layers should be polypropylene. That mask needs to cover all of your face from the nose down from ear to ear ( like the one shown in this photograph). It should fit comfortably but it needs to be snug. If it slips easily off your nose when you speak or move your head and neck, it is not the right fit.

Hides in Hands in Rockwood make a great mask. It is time for me to head over there and replace some of the pre-Christmas masks I have been wearing and ladies, gentlemen/ significant others, please watch your spouse/partner/people you care about. I know mine is not keeping track of his mask. I sneak a new one into his car and throw out the old when he is not looking.

The number of new cases in your health unit may be climbing. They have climbed in the Guelph-Wellington-Dufferin Public Health region. It is unfortunate and devastating but most of these new cases are the result of out breaks in areas where people are close together like long term care homes and work places. General community spread has dropped. It is safe to go to the grocery store and you do not need to wash down your groceries. I am not so sure about the big box stores like Costco and Walmart. They really need to improve their in store enforcement of the public health guidelines before I am heading back any time soon.

Some great news! Our public health unit will have immunized all of the folks in long term care by the end of the week. Thank you, Dr. Nicola Mercer and her public health team. Strong, confident, smart leadership....even when the vaccines are stalled in their arrival.

We are getting there folks. Stay strong and wear that mask with pride.

Anne-Marie

Please share

For mental health support here:

https://familyserviceguelph.on.ca/

For local assistance with anxiety and depression:

www.here4help.ca

CMHA WW Website: www.cmhaww.ca

Here 24/7 at 1-844-HERE-247 or www.here247.ca.

And for post-secondary students, Good2Talk

https://good2talk.ca/

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-

My, aren't we becoming 'TRENDY'.

Trending down that is.

Number of new cases in Ontario today:

2349 down by 313

The 7 day rolling average:

Jan. 10 3945

Jan. 11 3555

Jan. 12 3523

Jan. 13 3480

Jan. 14 3452

Jan. 15 3273.

Jan. 18 3035

Jan. 22 2703

And...today 2359

How to calculate the 7 day rolling average: Add up all the new cases from the last 7 days and divide by seven. It provides you with an average number of cases over time, and it knocks out the big peaks and valleys in the day to day readings.

Take home message, over the last 7 days, the number of new cases continues to decline at a fairly good rate. IF we keep this up, we will be at less than 1,000 new cases a day by next weekend. Pretty dramatic and positive effect of our efforts!!!

https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data#case_numbers_and_spread

COIVD 19 Patients in Hospital:

1521 down by 21

Number of cases in ICU:

383 down by 5

Number of cases on a ventilator:

291 down by 2

87 deaths yesterday and 52 today.

We are saving lives folks. Get outside if you can today or put your eyeballs near a window. Take in the sun. It reduces the hormones that cause depression and, it just brings hope!

Thirty minutes of walking fights depression and hopelessness too. Take a three layered mask with you and put it on if people are close by. I wear mine dangling from one ear and slip the other loop on when I am approaching other people. It's easier than keeping the mask in my pocket, pulling out and putting it back in all the time.

Anne-Marie

Please share

For mental health support here:

https://familyserviceguelph.on.ca/

For local assistance with anxiety and depression:

www.here4help.ca

CMHA WW Website: www.cmhaww.ca

Here 24/7 at 1-844-HERE-247 or www.here247.ca.

And for post-secondary students, Good2Talk

https://good2talk.ca/

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-

Plexiglass politics

In so many ways COVID has changed our lives. I keep dressing up for work. Office dress, make-up on, hair as decent as mine can look....and then, I get to work and cover myself head to toe in PPE. Over the last several weeks, I have added goggles to my wardrobe for added protection for the patients I see in the office. They are very becoming, the goggles I mean. My patients are too! I purchased a headset a couple of months ago. Telephone appointments with the phone crooked between my ear and my neck was aging my rapidly. I think the look has a space age quality to it. Like I am at Nassau watching a lift off.

My mother, God rest her soul, was proud of the fact that man had travelled to the moon in the sixties. She sent me to school in a silver coat with a moon-themed lunch box. I had strabismus in one eye which meant I wore glasses with one eye patched. She was raised by my Italian, immigrant grandparents during the 30's and 40's in the east end of Hamilton. My grandfather worked at Stelco as a steelworker. They had to be frugal. A plastic patch for a crooked eye was a waste of money so my mother fashioned a patch made out of a piece of crica 1960 gold linoleum. I think it was the same linoleum that covered the floor at the back door of our tiny 1960's bungalow on SunnyLea Crescent in Guelph.

My father was a bank manager at The Royal Bank of Canada. He was transferred every few years during a time when the powers that be thought moving to new towns over and over again during a child's early years was not a bad thing. At every new school, I was the new kid and my knick name was 'silver-coated four eyes'. My earliest, traumatic childhood memories. Kids can be so mean.

Looks and feels to me like my 'silver-coated four eyed' child within has re-surfaced but re-invented herself.

I still have that TIM's on my desk from the ever loyal folks at the TIM's on Eramosa. I would not want to start my day anywhere else. I have switched to their new dark roast. Not bad, I must say.

This week, I added a long piece of plexiglass suspended between my two beloved admin assistants. Kyle and Tanya seemed a little sad that I had separated their desks even farther apart and now divided them physically with this ugly piece of plexi. It was necessary though. I love these guys. We are all adhering very strictly to the provinces emergency orders but there is a COVID variant out there and until we know more about it, we need to protect people in their work spaces. I suggested today that we give our new plexiglass friend a weekly theme. I can just imagine what creative drawings and objects will cover that thing next week.

So. Here we are at the end of an extraordinary week. There is a new president and a new but guarded sense of decency and hope. All week long, our 7 day rolling average has declined. Pfizer is delaying the shipment of Canada's next vaccine. Lot's of anger, angst and argument over that. I think it's a waste of emotional energy. Winter ends in two months. Before then, there will be millions of vaccines available in the country with a vaccine roll out infrastructure that is tried, true and ready.

"Ontario has showed 10 consecutive declines in its seven-day average, a metric that helps to spot long-term trends compared to daily numbers that can spike up and down." CBC

"That's the first decline we've seen in Quebec and Ontario for quite a while. In our models, it looks like a genuine decline." Caroline Colijn, Infectious Disease modeller at Simon Fraser University

If we stay the course, we will see hospitalizations and deaths decline in the next two weeks as well. When the health care system settles into a place where it can effectively manage the number of new cases without becoming overwhelmed, that's when we will start discussions about opening up.

Transmission is still happening in essential workplaces. We are still seeing people getting infected at work and then bringing it home to their family. That's a mode of transmission that is not addressed by this lockdown.

Some say we need improvements to paid sick leave benefits to allow workers to isolate without worrying about lost income.

Targeted, rapid testing in more high-risk workplaces.

More isolation centres to reduce household spread and protection for the homeless. We'll get there and when we do, our number of new daily cases will fall closer to 1,000, a good target for re-opening.

As our governments work to tackle the work place issues, keep wearing a mask everywhere. Three layers, cover the nose, wash it everyday. If you are an employer, get that plexiglass up and strictly enforce masks and distancing if you can. Remember, many of us are small businesses. Mine is a small business. The PPE and the plexiglass and everything else that is required to keep our employees safe is coming right out of our expenses. Say thank you to the employers that are taking these extra measures. It is at their own expense.

The 7 day rolling average:

Jan. 10 3945

Jan. 11 3555

Jan. 12 3523

Jan. 13 3480

Jan. 14 3452

Jan. 15 3273.

Jan. 18 3035

AND....Jan. 22 2703

https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data#case_numbers_and_spread

AND.....the R value is 0.86. Pretty darn nice!

https://howsmyflattening.ca/#/dashboard

Slow and steady wins the race folks. Now a definite downward trend. We are winning.

Anne-Marie

Please share

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-

There are bright and sunny days ahead.

Stay the course folks.

Take a look at this graph. Click on the link and find the graph titled 'New Cases by Date'. Ontario, Quebec, Alberta......all on significant declines.

https://www.covid-19canada.com/graphs

And look at this one: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Click on Canada ( left hand column) and then look in the bottom

right corner. The yellow daily cases graph.....also showing a decline.

It's a sweet thing.

Sleep well tonight and don't worry about a delay in the Pfizer vaccine. The province is ready and the doses will come. Moderna is out there and the Astrazeneca/Oxford vaccine is waiting in the wings.

We've got this.

Anne-Marie

Please share.

For mental health support here:

https://familyserviceguelph.on.ca/

For local assistance with anxiety and depression:

www.here4help.ca

CMHA WW Website: www.cmhaww.ca

Here 24/7 at 1-844-HERE-247 or www.here247.ca.

And for post-secondary students, Good2Talk

https://good2talk.ca/

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-