We Totally Have This Coronavirus Under Control

Disgraced chief medical officer attempts to salvage her reputation after a small spike in coronavirus cases in New Brunswick:

New Brunswick's provincial legislature abruptly adjourned, a day after officials confirmed a health-care worker who had travelled outside New Brunswick was at the origin of a cluster that has grown to at least six cases in the Campbellton area.

Premier Blaine Higgs has said the health-care worker was in contact with "multiple patients" over a two-week period after returning to the province without self-isolating. The area, near the border with Quebec, will now have to return to tighter restrictions on physical distancing.

Tam said the response shows public health officials across the country are taking a cautious approach to reopening.

"I think there has always been the message in different jurisdictions that there's a flexibility in the public health system to reinstate or pull back on some of the measures as they see fit, based on their own epidemiological context," she said.

Gloating over these preventable cases would be beneath a person with any sort of scruples, but not Theresa Tam.


Also - Saskatchewan, it seems, does not feel that families should fined for being normal:

Officials in Saskatchewan say no fines have been levied against those who took part in two large family gatherings that triggered an outbreak of COVID-19 in Saskatoon.

Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province's chief medical health officer, said up to four cases of infection have so far been tied to the 60 or so people who attended the events on different dates earlier this month.

He did not disclose details of the gatherings, but health officials say close contacts are self-isolating.

A public health order restricts crowd sizes to no more than 10 people, but that is to increase next month to 15 people indoors and 30 when outside.

Although Shahab said those who violate the gathering order could face fines, officials decided in this case the best course of action was education.

"Obviously there's the possibility of issuing a ticket and fines but progressive enforcement has worked well for us in the past," Shahab said Thursday.

"In this case my understanding is there's an attempt to understand why some of those considerations were not thought of when the event was planned."

This is the same country that needs the government's permission to be proactive:

The federal government has ordered the manufacture of 10,000 additional ventilators to bolster the national supply in case a resurgence of COVID-19 sends thousands of critically ill patients into intensive care later this year. But the real need may be in the Southern Hemisphere, where new cases of the disease are on the rise and strategies for cheaply making or adapting the critical-care devices could come into play in a way that has so far not been required in Canada.

Like Venezuela?:

The Trudeau government committed $27 million in taxpayer funds to be put towards South American countries dealing with the Venezuelan refugee crisis. 

According to the Canadian Press, the Liberals made the announcement during a conference hosted by the EU and Spain. 

The new pledge ups Canada’s commitment to refugees in the Americas to the tune of $80 million.

Cash like that can buy many UN seats!




Oh, burn!:

Canadians hoping to summer in Greece may have to wait longer after Greece exempted Canada from a recently released list of low COVID-19 countries from which holidaymakers can come to visit.

Last week, the country’s ministry of tourism released a ‘white list’ of 20 countries where its scientists judge the coronavirus infection rates to have fallen enough for tourists to be allowed into the Aegean holiday favourite, starting June 15.

The list, according to the Greek Reporter,  includes China, Japan, Australia, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Germany, Cyprus, Israel, Denmark, Austria, Bulgaria,Romania, Albania, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia.

Britain, Italy, Spain, Canada and the United States are not on the list, according to the Greek newspaper.

However, despite leaks, Greek tourism minister Haris Theoharis has not made any comments and said that the final list, which will be drawn up by Greece’s public health officials will be released by the end of May.

Blaming Premier Doug Ford for everything is just easier and avoids shining a light and true incompetence and corruption:

In the parliamentary system, ministers resign or are fired. But if Ford gave the NDP the firing of Fullerton they want, what would that change?

We have the permanent government, the bureaucracy that never changes, and the same people would brief the next minister, even the next government.

**

As Ontario struggles with its up-and-down testing numbers, people are demanding to know why Premier Doug Ford and his government can’t do better. Ford seems a bit more ineffectual every time he urges public health units to “pull up their socks” and then they don’t follow through. It’s almost like there’s no one in charge.

Well, here’s the bad news. There are 34 people in charge but Ford isn’t one of them. When the premier blames public health units for low test numbers, it sounds like he’s passing the buck, but he’s not. Testing is the responsibility of the province’s public health units, many of them remarkably small. And it’s not just testing that these little health fiefdoms control. They also decide what gets to open and which businesses and services have to stay closed.

These 34 local public health czars don’t answer to Ford, or even to Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. David Williams, although the provincial government pays 75 per cent of public health costs. Municipalities pay the rest.

Mr. Murphy, you act as though we the people are pulling the strings of the government and not the other way around:

Mr. Trudeau has been indoors in a cottage for 50 plus days. His morning standups under the Tent of Commons have passed the tedious stage, passed dreary, passed repetitive, clichéd and annoying. They are as useless as they are arrogant. And that’s a high bar on both. One person, even a PM, is not a government.

Trudeau is either scared of the House of Commons, or he has no regard for it. Perhaps it’s both.

The prime minister is not acting as a prime minister should, or should be allowed to. He has not the right to end the deliberative and accountability functions of Parliament.

So it has come to pass that this most pathetic scandal will not be debated on Thursday or Friday or next week, just as over the past 50 plus days Canada has not had a real government during the biggest health and financial crisis in modern times. That’s scandal on top of scandal. Utterly reprehensible and contemptible.

Jagmeet Singh, who deserves some sort of medal for inconspicuousness, being a no-show during most of this time, should be fully ashamed of himself, that for a paltry political boost for his party (the sick-leave handouts) he gave Trudeau immunity from Parliament, from question period, from due democratic process. It would be a real service were someone to explain to him what the phrase “opposition party” implies. It surely does not mean “subdivision of the minority administration.”

The NDP, long long ago, used to wear the brand of “the conscience of Parliament.” Singh should put a “stop order” on any T-shirts daring to wear that slogan again. In the old days, half the NDP would be right now talking to relatives of those caught in the LTC outrage, and the other half would be nailing whoever was prime minister for being “out of service.”

As of this writing, there have been 6,918 coronavirus deaths in this country.