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
AND.....the R value is 0.86. Pretty darn nice!
Slow and steady wins the race folks. Now a definite downward trend. We are winning.
Anne-Marie
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