Friday January 14, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 14, 2022

Ontario students to receive 2 rapid tests as school begins, top doctor’s comments draw fire

January 8, 2022

Ontario students are slated to get two rapid antigen tests when they return to school on Monday, but apart from that, the province is relying mostly on previously announced measures to keep schools safe amid the Omicron wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The province also revealed Wednesday that school officials will monitor absenteeism in classrooms as opposed to reporting individual positive tests.

Officials said parents would be notified when combined student and staff absences hit around 30 per cent, prompting concerns that parents would be left in the dark about their child’s school’s status until it reached that threshold.

By Wednesday evening, the province appeared to say it would provide parents with more specific data about absenteeism.

Thursday January 13, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 13, 2022

Quebec to impose a tax on people who are unvaccinated from COVID-19

June 17, 2021

Quebec is announcing it will impose a health tax on Quebecers who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Quebec Premier François Legault made the announcement in Montreal on Tuesday afternoon, as the number of pandemic-related hospitalizations continues to climb.

“A health contribution will be charged to all adults that don’t want to get vaccinated. We are there now,” he said.

Legault said he felt the ire of the vaccinated towards the unvaccinated, whom he blamed for clogging up the province’s hospitals.

Only 10 per cent of the population is unvaccinated but they make up 50 per cent of patients in intensive care beds, according to the premier.

On Tuesday the province reported an increase of 188 patients with COVID-19 for a total of 2,742. Of those, 255 are in intensive care.

Wednesday January 12, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 12, 2022

Canada offers to support U.S. measures to deter Russia in confrontation with Ukraine

June 13, 2017

Canada has told the U.S. that it’s willing to help with possible deterrence measures against Russia — which could include sanctions — to head off a crisis in Ukraine, CBC News has learned.

Canada made the offer during a meeting between Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Dec. 31, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The source said the message was received well by Blinken. 

Bilateral talks between Russia and the U.S. over the nearly eight-year-long war in Ukraine took place in Geneva Monday. Nearly 100,000 Russian troops are stationed near Ukraine’s eastern border, prompting concerns from other countries that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin intends to invade Ukraine.

Tuesday January 11, 2022

January 11, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 11, 2022

Novak Djokovic and trying to understand the divisive tennis-Jesus

Why try to explain the anti-vaccine creed of the world’s most-reviled refusenik? I guess because the most radical thing you can currently do is try to see both sides.

December 29, 2021

“A global shift will occur when each individual finds the courage to awaken from the mass amnesia.” Yes, I read the personal manifesto of Novak Djokovic’s wellness guru so you don’t have to.

It is no secret that the world’s No 1 celebrity Covid outlaw, currently awaiting his fate in an agreeably everyday Melbourne hotel, is a long-term student of somebody called Chervin Jafarieh, described, on his own website, as “one of the most respected and influential health experts in the world”. Jafarieh is a familiar type, the magnetic personality, the handsome and piercing spirit guide who accepts all major credit cards and looks like he might smell of musk and whale-song and concentrated human-power while he stands slightly too close to you in the lift.

The manifesto is lush and persuasive and, frankly, bang on about lots of stuff. Novak’s guy is worried about pollution and climate change, also “militarism, urbanization, carbon combustion, mining of metals and toxic materials, manufacturing of chemicals and biological poisons”. Mainly he’s obsessed with intake and the body, and this seems to be the thing about Djokovic’s vaccine hesitancy, at least in public. Djokovic has staged his own super-spreader event, has provided an anti-science role model, but he has also bought ventilators for hospitals, set up a Covid fund and done generous, charitable, believer-type things.

Saturday January 8, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 8, 2022

Ontario schools reopen (maybe) in two weeks. What can be done to make them safer from COVID-19?

August 31, 2021

Ontario has delayed reopening elementary and secondary schools for at least two weeks in response to a meteoric rise in COVID-19 cases.

What are the chances that in-person classes can resume as tentatively scheduled on Jan. 17?

The provincial government says it’s adding new layers of protection from N95 masks for teachers to extra HEPA air filters. At the same time, key elements of the infection-control trio of “test, trace and isolate” have been dismantled in the face of the skyrocketing case counts.

The government is under pressure from all sides: pandemic-weary parents scrambling to work themselves while dealing with another round of online classes at home; pediatricians warning of the harm to children caused by school closures; teachers, principals and school staff and some scientists and doctors calling for additional safety measures.

Everyone agrees students need to resume in-person classes as soon as possible. The debate is over what is required to make schools safe enough to send students back and keep them there.