Coronavirus

Friday July 10, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 10, 2020

Fauci says he hasn’t briefed Trump in two months as Covid-19 cases rise

June 3, 2020

Donald Trump says Dr Anthony Fauci is “a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes”. Fauci says he last saw Trump on 2 June and has not briefed him in two months.

The president was speaking to the Fox News host Sean Hannity. The most senior non-political member of the White House coronavirus taskforce and America’s top public health expert was having lunch with the Financial Times.

Meanwhile, nearly 3.2 million coronavirus cases have been recorded in the US and almost 133,000 people have died. More than 60,000 new cases were confirmed on Thursday, the latest in a succession of unwelcome records.

April 29, 2020

States which reopened early, Arizona, Texas and Florida prominent among them, are facing steep rises in cases and crushing pressure on testing and hospital beds. Early hotspots, such as California, New York and New Jersey, are pausing or modifying reopening, or considering re-entering lockdown.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say we have a serious ongoing problem, right now, as we speak,” Fauci said. “What worries me is the slope of the curve. It still looks like it’s exponential.”

He continued: “I think we have to realise that some states jumped ahead of themselves. Other states did it correctly. But the citizenry didn’t listen to the guidelines and they decided they were going to stay in bars and go to congregations of crowds and celebrations.”

March 26, 2020

Fauci put that down, in part, to a very American problem with authority. It is one the president seems to share.

“A lot of them said don’t wear a mask, don’t wear a mask,” Trump told Hannity about advisers including Fauci. “Now they are saying wear a mask. A lot of mistakes were made, a lot of mistakes.”

Many observers charge that Trump has made them, by refusing to wear a mask or consider a national mandate and by declining to “listen to my experts” in general. The president told Fox News he would probably wear a mask to visit Walter Reed hospital on Saturday. But he also mocked Joe Biden, his presumptive opponent in November, for wearing a “massive” mask in public.

COVID-19 Cartoons

Before bad weather intervened, Trump had been due to stage a rally in New Hampshire this weekend, although in the open air rather than in an indoor arena as in Tulsa, Oklahoma last month. Public health authorities said that event contributed to a surge in cases.

To Hannity, Trump said: “We have cases all over the place. Most of the cases immediately get better, they are people, young people, they have sniffles and two days later they are fine and they are not sick to start.”

That was an echo of his claim last week that 99% of Covid-19 cases are “totally harmless”. (The Guardian) 

 

Thursday July 9, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 9, 2020

Highlights of Bill Morneau’s 2020 fiscal ‘snapshot’

November 2, 2016

Finance Minister Bill Morneau has delivered an update on federal spending and economic projections linked to the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Morneau is calling today’s statement an “economic and fiscal snapshot” rather than the traditional economic and fiscal statement that comes between budgets.

Morneau was forced to put off his spring budget in March after the devastating economic effects of the pandemic became clearer.

October 19, 2017

The deficit for 2020-21 is expected to rise to $343.2 billion from the $34.4 billion deficit projected before the pandemic. 

A big chunk of that additional deficit can be attributed to the $212 billion in direct support measures the federal government is providing to individuals and businesses.

The snapshot says that, aside from the pandemic program spending, the economic slowdown is estimated to have added another $81.3 billion to the deficit in 2020-21.

March, 1, 2018

The Canadian economy is projected to shrink by 6.8 per cent this year before bouncing back by 5.5 per cent next year, making this crisis the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression. The economy is expected to decline in 2020-21 more than twice as much as it did in 2009-10 in response to the global financial crisis. 

Due to the the financial supports provided by the federal government, the federal debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to rise from 31 per cent in 2019-20 to 49 per cent in 2020-21.

The federal government says it’s getting a better deal on that debt through very low interest rates. “As a consequence of these developments, the government will save over $4 billion in public debt charges in 2020-21 compared to the forecast presented in the 2019 Economic and Fiscal Update in December 2019,” the snapshot said.

COVID-19 Cartoons

Between February and April, 5.5 million Canadians either lost their jobs or saw their work hours significantly reduced.  Those losses pushed the unemployment rate to 13.7 per cent in May — the highest rise on record — from a pre-crisis low of 5.5 per cent in January.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau said that without government pandemic programs, the GDP would have contracted by more than 10 per cent and unemployment would have risen by another 2 per cent. (CBC) 

 

Saturday June 27, 2020

 Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday June 27, 2020

Staycation summer

Life in a Pandemic

Believe it or not, summer has arrived, and with it, the staples of the season. This year will be one to remember—not for the excitement and many activities, but at least for quality time together. For the last three months or so, we’ve been shut-in. Shopping is by delivery or a quick trip for a few things with the occasional tremendous shopping spree in face masks with social distancing in place. Even then, we try and make it as snappy as possible.

And for kids, there’s no camp, no trips, no block or birthday parties.

So you need to get a little creative to pass the time, and make it both educational and entertaining. Instead of heading to the airport, plan a road trip an hour or two away from home. Or maybe you can head to a family vacation place or rental, loading up the car with the dog and the suitcases. Some folks are choosing to pay for an RV and drive cross-state or cross-country to discover the great outdoors. (JNS) 

 

Thursday June 25, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 25, 2020

Students find new ways to celebrate graduations and prom

After months of remote learning due to COVID-19 the school year officially comes to end this week, but for many students there will be no graduation or prom to celebrate the milestone.

Life in a Pandemic

“Prom would have been tomorrow and commencement the day after, so there is really no sense of closure in a way,” said Nelson Lee, who is graduating from Marc Garneau Collegiate .

Nelson is the student council president at his Toronto high school and had been planning the end-of-year celebrations long before the pandemic.

“It doesn’t feel as fulfilling,” he said about missing out on so many school events, graduation and other extracurricular opportunities.

He has been accepted to the University of Toronto’s Engineering program. He’s excited about the next chapter, but acknowledges it won’t be normal. 

“The university has sent out a lot of information about they will proceed in September, for the larger classes they will be online and smaller seminars will be in person,” he said. “I think it’s a great combination for the best of both worlds at this time.”

In the meantime, with limited options due to the pandemic, he’s taking courses offered by UofT to prepare him for his first semester. 

“Just to keep myself engage and push myself to learn new things during this time.”

Some schools are hosting virtual graduation ceremonies to celebrate their students achievements. 

Bayview Middle School is hoisting a virtual graduation Tuesday evening, giving staff and students one last opportunity to connect.

“It means a lot to me because I will see my teachers talk one last time, just knowing I’m going to be present there with all my classmates and peers,” Grade 8 student Nadine Al-Junaidi said. 

Nadine’s classmate Pradyumn Jha is equally excited about the opportunity to see friends one last time before going their separate ways to different high schools.  (CTV) 

 

Wednesday June 17, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 17, 2020

Rosslyn residence was literally a house of horrors

The story of the Rosslyn Retirement Residence, as reported by Spectator journalist Steve Buist, is by turns sickening, heartbreaking and infuriating.

May 27, 2020

It is also, in a way, indicative of what is wrong with Ontario’s long-term-care system. But it is so egregious, so extreme, that it is in a class by itself. Buist’s series was entitled House of Horrors, and that’s not an overstatement, at least not for victims and their families.

Yes, victims is the right word. Rosslyn residents were subjected to chronic bedbug infestations. Photos showing the result of those infestations will make your stomach turn. Medication was often not administered properly. Residents wandered in unsafe conditions. There were mouse droppings and black mould in food storage areas.

Management and ownership of Rosslyn received repeated notices, from public health and the provincial oversight agency, and warnings about health and safety infractions. And these infractions were not all new and related to pandemic staffing. Between 2018 and 2020 public health inspections found bed bugs, mice and cleaning issues. According to former staff members, operators of the home portrayed it to residents’ families as having a “secure memory unit” that didn’t actually exist.

There’s more. You could fill this space three times over just with the disturbing findings and stories uncovered by Spectator reporting. Fourteen residents of the Rosslyn have died from COVID-19, 22 staff members became infected and more than 60 residents were hospitalized by the time the pandemic eventually emptied the facility last month.

Now let’s add insult to injury. The owners of this facility, and seven other retirement homes and residential care facilities in the Hamilton area, are no strangers to the business. The Martino family owned the Royal Crest Lifecare chain, which collapsed in bankruptcy in 2003. They cried poor at the time but were found to have access to four homes, five SUVs, three Mercedes, a Hummer and a 42-foot cabin cruiser. When the dust settled on the commercial and business bankruptcies, nearly $200 million in liabilities were left, and $18 million left owing to taxpayers.

April 1, 2020

And now, the questions. How was it that the Martino family was able to continue in the business of running retirement homes so easily given its terrible track record? Why would they be given a licence by the provincial oversight agency, the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority (RHRA)?

In the past 18 months, the city’s bylaw enforcement department has registered 28 violations of property standards against the Martinos’ care homes in Hamilton. There is a litany of horror stories from former staff and families of former residents RHRA. Why did it take so long to act? The RHRA revoked the Rosslyn’s licence this week, but what took so long?

Then there’s the oversight agency itself. The RHRA is essentially a self-governing industry body charged with enforcing the provincial Retirement Homes Act. Given everything we now know about LTC in general and Rosslyn specifically, why should we trust an industry body to oversee the sector?

Last but not least is the prospect of criminal charges. Provincial NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has asked Hamilton police to conduct a complete investigation. Good for Horwath, but why didn’t the government do that first?

If an investigation finds the Rosslyn horror story involves criminal behaviour, charges must be laid and those responsible must be prosecuted. The Rosslyn travesty and others like it should be rallying cries in the call for complete reform of long-term care. Rosslyn’s victims deserve nothing less. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)