Look past the next month and see the horizon
Not great news today but expected. In the last 10 days or so there has been significant surge in new cases across the county. In Ontario, 67% of new cases are caused by the B.1.1.7. UK variant of COVID 19. Those who catch one of the new variants of COVID-19 are more likely to be hospitalized or die because of it. With the B.1.1.7 variant the risk of dying is 1.5 times higher, the risk of requiring a ventilator is three times higher and the risk of transmitting it quickly to another person is 2.5 times higher. This COVID is killing faster and it is killing people in a younger age group. More and more people under sixty are ending up in hospital. Entire families are being admitted to ICU's all at the same time. Thus. this new lockdown preventing us from gathering on yet another Easter weekend. I read my church's email announcement about this coming Easter Sunday's indoor service being cancelled and with that email came a reminder which at some level, in a strange way, brought me comfort. “Days and seasons of discouragement will occur. None of us are exempt from the human struggle of difficult times." Suffering is part of the human condition. In more affluent countries like ours, the majority of us might forget that and be somewhat offended by our present circumstances. After all, it has been more than a year of this harsh new reality of lock downs and mask wearing and physical distancing. But, here we are facing an even deadlier virus. Will we still win against this virus? You bet we will. Will our days of suffering continue forever? No way. In general, our public health measures of masking, gathering only with our households and maintaining physical distance still work against the B.1.1.7 variant. Our vaccines are proving to be just as effective against this variant but we can't mess around. Allowing a virus to spread allows that virus to replicate itself in the human host a million times over. Each time a virus takes over a human cell it turns that cell into a virus making factory where replicative errors can occur. Meaning, as it is reproducing itself, mistakes can be made which change the make-up of the virus and more specifically, change the surface proteins of the virus. With the COVID-19 B.1.1.7. variant, it appears that the surface spike proteins have been altered. Remember, the spike proteins on the surface of the virus are what allows the virus to attach to the human cell through a receptor site or a point of entry. The altered spike proteins may make this cell entry system much more efficient. Breath in the old COVID-19 virus and your immune system kills a lot of the virus before it infects. Breath in this new variant and it can sail past your first line of immune system defence and then more easily enter your cells making your body become quickly overwhelmed by the virus. The more virus that is allowed to infect your cells, the more illness you may experience, the more serious that illness may be and the more likely that the virus can kill. None of this is new science. This is what viruses do. Give them hundreds of millions of hosts to infect and they will mutate with the stronger mutated viruses taking over. Have no fear. The vaccines are here and and millions will arrive this month and next month. If we stay hunkered down for just a bit longer, we will be able to vaccinate the majority of people in this country while not giving the present COVID-19 variant a chance to race too far ahead of us. Young people are now at risk. Can we get this message to people between the ages of 20 and 39? We really need to. 6 million doses administered in Canada so far. And we are just ramping up now. GWD has administered 50,000 doses. That's 17.3 % of our population. We just need to get to our target of 75 %. None of the mass vaccination clinics are running at full capacity yet but they are ready and as more vaccines arrive, we may be able to vaccinate more than 15,000 people a week. Ten weeks, 250,000 people......do the math. We are GOLDEN. Click on to this link to follow the status of vaccinations in our region: https://wdgpublichealth.ca/your-health/covid-19-information-workplaces-and-living-spaces/covid-19-information-public/covid-19-1 Our job is to make this vaccination process easy and effective by taking the first vaccine we are offered and adhering to the public health guidelines. Deprive this virus of the hosts it needs to survive. Not an easy time ahead of us. We are suffering. Reach out if you need to. Find people who are suffering more than you are and serve them in anyway you can. That's how we thrive in dark times. Our next Finding the Balance during COVID-19 webinar is on April 6th. Very timely. Our medical officer of health, Dr. Nicola Mercer will be our guest. Here is the link to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/.../reg.../WN_J9N1Dr9NSM2a4m8QOACaTQ Please note, people 60 and above in the WDG health unit can now register online along with other Phase II eligible groups. Here is the link to register online: https://register.wdgpublichealth.ca/ OR Call to register: Pre-registration/Appointment Booking: 1-844-780-0202 (7-10 day response time) Open Monday to Friday 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. 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-
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