For a Friday

All the double-dipped money in the world can't buy blind loyalty all the time:

The head of the organization representing Canada’s doctors says the health care system was “not prepared” for the current pandemic, and doesn’t see why the federal government doesn’t fully acknowledge the weaknesses exposed by the COVID-19 crisis.

“I am trying to understand the government’s response today because I think everyone was caught flat-footed," said Sandy Buchman, president of the Canadian Medical Association. “The front line is telling us over and over that they are not prepared and they are scared. We are hearing it from everywhere.”

Because the government doesn't admit mistakes (or learn from them). It is figure-headed by a soy-boy who denied groping a female reporter and wearing blackface three times and then, when it became pointless to deny these things, tried to turn his moral errors onto everyone else.

And then there is the excessive fawning of a communist dictatorship whose human rights abuses carry on to this very day.

When Justin declared his "admiration" for China's iron fist over its people, everyone treated it as a bit of fluff, something with which to thumb one's nose at the austere members of Parliament who saw  value in holding China at bay (but still trading with them) as though their partial lack of blinders was something terribly gauche.

Now that China has been caught red-handed in the global pandemic jar, the calls for serious questions about trading with the paper dragon and covering for their craven and depraved indifference to the suffering of even their own people are getting louder.

The Trudeau government refused and still refuses to adopt measures that in other countries have stemmed the tide of infections and total shutdowns. It expects its docile citizenry to last in their homes well beyond Christmas.

The situation has become so untenable that even provinces that blindly trust Ottawa are bucking that custom for protecting their own provinces.

Trust isn't waning. It has waned:

“B.C Premier John Horgan — whose province has shown progress in flattening the curve of its coronavirus outbreak — was so angry he used an expletive and called the ordeal a waste of time, said sources.

On the call with the prime minister, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, chair of the Council of the Federation, questioned why the federal government keeps raising the act, which the provinces consider a non-starter.”

No one is trusting those cocooned b@$#@rds on the Hill:

Premiers across the country roundly rejected the idea of the federal government invoking the Emergencies Act during a conference call Thursday afternoon. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had written to each of the provincial and territorial governments to consult them on invoking the Emergencies Act in order to take on specific powers.

Trudeau’s letter cited Section 8-1, specifically subsections A, D and E.
If the federal government imposed the act — something no government has done since it came into effect in 1988 — it would allow travel restrictions, force essential workers to follow federal orders on when and where to work, and would put the feds in charge of the distribution of essential goods, services and resources.

The act is very different from laws in the United States that are invoked with declaring a state of emergency in order to allow federal funding to disaster zones. The law in Canada would mostly allow the federal government to take over provincial powers, something most premiers don’t want.

The same government that wouldn't stop flights coming in from China or quarantine the passengers is quite willing to use this crisis it didn't act on earlier to get the kind of dictatorial reach no government in the history of Canada has ever had:

The RCMP announced new powers aimed at enforcing the Quarantine Act, while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hinted Friday that rules could be loosened this summer if Canadians act now to contain the spread of COVID-19.

The police force says it has been asked to assist in enforcing the act in the midst of the pandemic. Officers could visit homes to ensure anyone entering Canada is self-isolating for 14 days, and police can now make arrests, rather than issue a court appearance notice or summons.

**

Federal and provincial health officials are recruiting small armies of staff and examining technology options such as cell phone location data as they ramp up Canada’s capacity to do contact tracing.

Woe to anyone who points out these planned abuses or any other shocking absence of good judgment. That would leave one open to Justin's favourite political strategy: blame.

 

Justin at al are following an all-too familiar pattern: deny, blame and, when that becomes too absurd for words, pretend contrition only to cast the blame on everyone else.

I think Justin is at stage two:

Disappointed in the partisanship of the Prime Minister today. He knows Parliament is not holding up the wage subsidy.

He is.

His gov admits that whether the House passes his latest bill today or next wk, business cannot even apply for the wage subsidy for another 3 weeks

— pierrepoilievre (@PierrePoilievre) April 9, 2020

 

(Sidebar: this wage subsidy bill.)

How dreadful it must be to have sharp-eyed members of Parliament point out that attempts to seize power and keep the population down are just not done in countries that haven't gone full banana republic.




No one owes you a favour, whiners:

No one speaks of China’s impending elevation to primacy over America now. Canadians of all people should have noticed this, and contemplation of the Chinese alternative, especially after its shameful performance in the coronavirus crisis, is a sobering thought. In reviving America, Trump is carrying the whole of the West with him. Our failure to perceive that is more disappointing than our ingratitude.

Where is your outrage for Cottage-Boy (twenty-nine days in hiding)?




It's just an economy:

The 2021 federal deficit is now expected to reach $184 billion, or 8.5 per cent of GDP, as Ottawa unveils pricey new spending measures to combat the economic fallout from COVID-19.

**

Canada lost a record-breaking 1 million jobs in March while the unemployment rate soared to 7.8 per cent, official data showed on Thursday, as the new coronavirus outbreak forced the closure of non-essential businesses.

**

Any person who applies for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) will be automatically approved for COVID-19 financial relief, regardless of whether they qualify for the funding or not, the federal employment minister confirmed on Friday.

(Sidebar: just like people while self-isolate, right?)

**

 “The plan, while still in its infancy, is picking up in part from where the government’s economic strategy was headed before COVID-19 turned everything topsy-turvy: with a climate budget. “When the recovery begins, Canada can build a stronger and more resilient economy by investing in a cleaner and healthier future for everyone,” said Moira Kelly, a spokeswoman for Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.

**

The recession is so stark and sudden a business counselling hotline is taking suicide calls from shopkeepers, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business yesterday told the Commons finance committee. Parliament meets Saturday to pass a $73 billion payroll rebate bill that comes too late for thousands facing ruin, MPs were told: “I can’t underscore enough just how dark and dangerous these days are.”

In this time of crisis, there have been people whose actions are selfless if not downright heroic. There were the Chinese whistle-blowers who defied their own government to report the truth. There are the medical professionals who work to the point of exhaustion to care for the sick. There are the truck-drivers and shop-workers who work to supply necessities to others. There are so many more who do kind and necessary things for others.

And then there are these guys:

A Markham home for adults with disabilities is in dire need of help after an outbreak of the novel coronavirus caused the majority of staff to walk off the job.

Participation House is home to 42 adults with disabilities and as of Friday, had a confirmed 10 residents and two staff members test positive for COVID-19, Debra McLaughlin, a member of the board of directors, told Global News.

McLaughlin said Shelley Brillinger, executive director of Participation House, told staff about the outbreak Thursday, which then caused workers to walk off the job. McLaughlin said that Brillinger and four other managers were providing care for the residents. ...

“Our regional staff are working closely with Participation House to ensure appropriate staffing levels are in place and that all steps are being taken to protect staff and residents. Personal protective equipment is available and in use, and more is on the way.”

**

When the public health officials and police arrived at the Herron, they found no one in the building who was in a position of authority, the sources said.

“More importantly, the place was described as something akin to a concentration camp,” said a source who agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

“There were (two) patients who were dead in their beds,” the source added. “Their deaths had not been recognized. There were patients who had fallen on the floor. There were patients who hadn’t had any basic care for a number of days, diapers that hadn’t been changed for three or four days, excrement that was covering their skin and patients who hadn’t been fed.”

“Their whole second floor was infested with COVID,” the source continued. “It was a hot floor. And there were just two orderlies for the entire (137-bed) institution.”

Nurses discovered that some patients were so dehydrated, their mouths so dry, they were unable to speak at first, the sources said. One patient was triple-diapered with feces seeping out. There are concerns some records on medications may have been falsified.

Before the pandemic struck, there were more orderlies at the Herron, but they lacked personal protective equipment, the source explained.

The coronavirus has claimed the life of a hospital worker:

An Ontario hospital employee has become the province's first-known health-care worker to die of COVID-19 as the province confirmed 483 new cases Thursday and reported 4,097 more tests completed — considerably less than the daily capacity of 13,000 tests per day.

The use of ventilators for coronavirus patients:

With some Ottawa patients, “we’re giving them all the oxygen we can give them without putting them on a breathing machine, and they’re wide awake and talking,” Downar said. In some situations, people are being flipped onto their stomachs, into the prone position, to improve gas exchanges.

With high-flow nasal oxygen, little plastic tubes are placed in the nostrils, “and those high flows actually generate a little bit of positive pressure within the patient’s upper airway, which helps keep the lungs open and improves the oxygen levels in the blood,” said Dr. Claudio Martin, a critical care physician and medical director of critical care at London Health Sciences Centre and Western University.

However, when giving oxygen with such high flows, “there’s a high possibility the viral particles in the airways are being aerosolized,” increasing the risk of particles spreading in the environment, Martin said. “Which is why if we do use that it has to be in a negative pressure environment, so that you contain the air in the room.” It also means any staff looking after the patient need to be wearing N95 masks.

What is the reason behind this resurgence of the coronavirus in South Korea?:

South Korean officials on Friday reported 91 patients thought cleared of the new coronavirus had tested positive again.

Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), told a briefing that the virus may have been "reactivated" rather than the patients being re-infected.

South Korean health officials said it remains unclear what is behind the trend, with epidemiological investigations still under way.

The prospect of people being re-infected with the virus is of international concern, as many countries are hoping that infected populations will develop sufficient immunity to prevent a resurgence of the pandemic.

The South Korean figure had risen from 51 such cases on Monday.

Also:

North Korea continues to report no coronavirus cases but doubts have been cast on whether the infection has failed to reach the country.

Quite.




Don't worry. Next Easter, they will come roaring back:

Pope Francis presided at a “Way of the Cross” service held in an empty St. Peter’s Square on Friday because of the coronavirus outbreak and listened as both prisoners and their victims recounted their sorrows.

It marked the first time the procession, commemorating the last hours in Jesus’ life, was not held at Rome’s ancient Colosseum since the modern-day tradition was re-introduced by Pope Paul VI in 1964.

Also:

China’s first canonized saint was martyred by suffocation on a cross in Wuhan, the epicenter of today’s coronavirus pandemic.

St. Jean-Gabriel Perboyre, a Vincentian missionary priest from France, was betrayed by one of his catechumens for money, bound in chains, tortured, tied to a wooden cross and strangled to death in Wuhan in 1840.