November 22, 1963
Do you remember where you were 57 years ago today? You have to be well over 60 to know the answer. I was born the hour JFK was assassinated. It's my claim to fame. I hear it was just as snowy in Ontario that day as it was today. I don't remember a birthday in the last 20 years when I could pull out my cross country skis. Had a good fall coming down the tiniest of hills. It reminded me that I am not 25, 35, 45 or 55 anymore.
Thanks for all the birthday wishes.
It was a weird day. I have a twin brother and sharing this day has always made it a little more special but today was just weird; kind of grey and heavy despite the marvellous snow. Might be a sign of things to come this winter.
7 MILLION ONTARIANS HEAD INTO LOCKDOWN STARTING TOMORROW.
That's half the province. Maybe that's what has cast this grey, heavy pall on things today. I heard from every person I love and then some. I have nothing to complain about but this is tough and I am worried about the folks who will have difficulty weathering the winter. They are shop-keepers, retailers, gym owners, hair dressers and restaurant owners, just to name a few, whose livelihoods are at risk. Everyone has the right to be down right annoyed, even angry. Why should we do all this if there are only 1500 new cases today and 14th deaths? Why put all these livelihoods at risk?
It comes down to a balance between livelihoods and life support. It's the dramatic exponential increase in new cases of COVID 19 and the ridiculously steep trajectory we are heading in if nothing is done.
If we do nothing, it will take only 8 days to reach over 378,000 cases of COVID 19 in Canada ( up 40,000) with 480 more deaths......in eight days.
If we maintain our present level of social interactions, we will reach 20,000 new cases a day nationwide by the end of December with many, many more deaths.
At that point, folks, our health care system is overwhelmed. What does that really mean? Let's say all the Intensive Care Units in Ontario are full by the end of December with every single ventilator in use. These are just two endpoints. Behind those full ICU's and in-use ventilators are hospital wards full of COVID 19 patients who need oxygen without a ventilator. There's pediatric wards, neonatal units, labour and delivery wards and post surgical wards that are all at risk of being over-run by COVID 19. There is an emergency room full of sick people, at capacity with patients spilling out the doors or waiting in hallways.
Did you know that in most communities, your family doctors have signed up to head into those emergency rooms and hospital wards as the whole thing bursts beyond capacity? What does that mean? It means that your GP is not available to care for your sick child, to immunize patients against a whole host of infectious diseases that are presently controlled. It means that high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes are left unchecked. Your cancer screening stops, cold turkey. The emergency rooms have no room to treat the heart attack or stroke, no operating room to treat an acute appendicitis and no one available to assist with that advanced cancer that wasn't picked up in time. And this breaks my heart. That other pandemic, the rapidly rising cases of people in mental health crises, their urgent needs can't be met either.
It's a health care catastrophe that we are trying to avoid. Believe me, I have imagined this scenario many times in the last couple of months. We simply cannot go there.
There is good news. We are just a few months from a vaccine. It's predicted that the entire population will have the chance to be vaccinated by the end of summer. But once you get to a 60 % vaccination rate, which will happen much earlier, the number of new COVID cases start to decline.
By this time next year, there may not be 6 inches of fresh snow to ski on but that weird sense of heaviness and weariness will be gone.
Amen to that
So, here we are. We've been here before. Choices.
These are the recommendations for those of us who are not locked down (yet). The look very familiar:
Stay home
DO NOT TRAVEL IF YOU DO NOT HAVE TO
Work from home
Reduce your contacts
Do not travel if you are from an area with a high incidence of COVID 19 ( red zones)
Sign up for the COVID Alert Ap- over 5 million Canadians already have
Wear a three layered mask. Wash your hands and stay six feet apart.
THAT'S HOW WE TAKE A RAPIDLY RISING TRAJECTORY AND...wait for it....BEND THAT CURVE!!
Let's support local businesses this year. Small business are depending on this. Eat out where it is safe or take out. Support our restaurants too.
Most of all, hang in there folks. This will end. Spring will be glorious and we will see Hope climbing over the horizon well before that.
Anne-Marie
Please share.
Our next webinar is on December 14th
Find a good three layer mask here:
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Check out a great place for mental health support here:
For local assistance with anxiety and depression:
CMHA WW Website: www.cmhaww.ca
Here 24/7 at 1-844-HERE-247 or www.here247.ca.
And for post-secondary students, Good2Talk
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