“China eats weird animals disease”

Ontario is reporting 3,887 cases of #COVID19 and nearly 53,100 tests completed. Locally, there are 1,331 new cases in Toronto, 871 in Peel, 267 in York Region, 208 in Durham and 204 in Hamilton.

— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) April 30, 2021

MPP Randy Hillier charged after organizing Kemptville anti-lockdown rally

Ontario Provincial Police have charged independent MPP Randy Hillier for his role in an anti-lockdown rally last month that drew dozens of people to a restaurant in Kemptville, Ont.

Hillier was one of four people charged Thursday for defying COVID-19 restrictions at the South Branch Bistro on April 8, 2021.

Police identified Hillier, the MPP for Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston and a vocal opponent of the province’s COVID-19 rules, as an organizer of the rally.

Hmmm …

UK rate of Indian Covid variant spikes EIGHT-FOLD in a fortnight as cases surge to 400 and PHE confirms there are THREE types of the strain

Here’s an example of some outside the COVID box thinking that might start catching on in other parts of the country. Out in the eastern part of Oregon, many of the residents and business owners of Baker City (population: 9,752) have long since grown tired of the lockdowns and mask mandates being kept in place by Governor Kate Brown. Mayor Kerry McQuisten, who was just sworn in this January, listened to the complaints of her constituents and began a process to determine if there was anything that could be done about the situation. The result was a proposal to declare Baker City to be a “Common Sense Sanctuary” dedicated to ending the harm being caused to businesses and residents by the mandates.

OTTAWA – More than 2,000 people returning to Canada since mandatory hotel quarantines began have tested positive for COVID-19 and more than a quarter of them were infected with a variant of concern.

The data supplied to The Canadian Press by the Public Health Agency of Canada comes as the federal government is being pressured to take even more steps to keep new variants from getting into the country.

Data shows between Feb. 22 and April 11, 2,018 returning travellers tested positive on a test taken when they arrived in the country.

Legal challenges to the federal quarantine hotel policy continue to work their way through the courts, with another decision that was released on April 23. This decision was a minor procedural setback that will not have a bearing on the challenge to the policy. But the decision has attracted significant attention and is worth understanding.

… “In light of how quickly COVID-19 spread in long-term-care homes, every day that implementing mandatory requirements was delayed made a difference in the effort to control its spread,” Lysyk said in her report.

Lysyk said in her report that the province was aware in March, 2020 that 98 per cent of the COVID-19 deaths in Italy had involved elderly people with pre-existing conditions and should have recognized the risk the virus posed to long-term care homes.

It was neglect and incompetence that killed them.

More… Ontario long-term care homes were poorly prepared for COVID-19 pandemic, auditor-general report says

The report also noted that 13 of the 15 homes with the highest numbers of COVID-19 deaths were operated by for-profit entities. The 15 homes had only 4.4 per cent of all long-term-care home beds but accounted for 28 per cent of all resident deaths.

Lysyk’s report makes 16 recommendations to address the findings.

Those include requiring operators to renovate and upgrade homes more quickly, and coming up with a provincial strategy to address “root causes” of staffing shortages. It also urges development of a pandemic plan for the sector.

And then there’s this.

Last week I received this letter from Runnymede the hospital where my Mother contracted Covid. It’s a request that she fill out a patient experience survey. When her condition worsened she was transferred to a Covid ward at a nearby hospital where she died. They know or should know she passed away. I arranged to pick up her belongings at Runnymede and informed staff of her passing. They were so kind that along with her personal items they included a bag of her soiled bed linens which I tossed back into the lobby along with a few choice remarks.

Ontario is reporting 3,480 cases of #COVID19 and nearly 50,200 tests completed. Locally, there are 961 new cases in Toronto, 589 in Peel, 341 in Niagara and 290 in York Region.

As of 8:00 p.m. yesterday, 4,907,203 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered.

— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) April 28, 2021

Ontario largely ignored long-term care as COVID-19 crisis began, internal documents reveal

Internal government documents obtained by CBC News show few signs that Ontario prepared the long-term care sector for the risks from COVID-19 before the virus began its deadly spread through the province’s nursing homes.

CBC News asked the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Long-Term Care for all reports, memos and briefing notes concerning the novel coronavirus/COVID-19 and long-term care homes in February, March and April of 2020.

Only a handful of documents from the ministries mention protecting long-term care residents in February, even as cases were steadily arriving in Ontario and the devastation from the infections in Italy became apparent.

I still don’t understand how my late Mother was never offered the vaccine while confined to a physio-rehab hospital. A hospital where the majority of patients were elderly and which had previous outbreaks. She passed away March 5th from Covid she contracted in that hospital. Why was she and so many others left unprotected?