covid-19

Wednesday April 13, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 13, 2022

Just how bad is COVID-19’s sixth wave?

Hamilton’s public school board is writing a letter to the provincial government asking for the now-lifted mask mandate to be restored. Halton is back to having outbreaks at long-term-care facilities and at least one Haldimand-Norfolk LTC facility is back to restricting visitors, again due to COVID.

July 25, 2020

Further afield, some schools in the London area are reverting to online learning because their staff and student ranks are so hard hit. And one hospital in Waterloo Region is closing its emergency room overnight because it no longer has staff to keep it open.

Anecdotally, more and more of us are saying we now see more COVID among our families, friends and networks than at any other time during the pandemic. And, most ominously, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths are climbing — again.

Saturday April 2, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday April 2, 2022

Ontario’s sixth COVID-19 wave being driven by eased restrictions, science table head says

April 24, 2020

The head of Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table says it is “very clear” that Ontario is now in the middle of a sixth wave of the pandemic driven by a relaxing of restrictions in the province.

“Oh, we’re in the middle of it,” Dr. Peter Juni told CP24 Tuesday night when asked whether he thinks the province is in the midst of a new wave. “When you look at our wastewater, it’s very clear. You can call it whatever you want, you know; whether it’s a resurgence of the Omicron wave we had or a sixth wave, the point is really to understand this is not a BA.2 wave.”

He said the highly infectious Omicron subvariant cannot be blamed for Ontario’s rising case count and said it has much more to do with “throwing caution to the wind.”

“The point here really is it’s entirely our responsibility what we’re seeing and we just got a little bit too much ahead of ourselves and here we are,” Juni said. “And we just have our task at hand to keep the slope of the wave upwards relatively flat so that we are not challenged again in our hospitals.”

Saturday March 26, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 26, 2022

Neo-colonialism and the Covid response

February 4, 2022

Approximately 35 per cent of the world’s population has not received at least one dose, while more than 42 per cent of the world’s population has not been fully vaccinated. One can easily observe the inequitable distribution of vaccines between the Global North and the Global South.

In a globalised world, the Covid19 pandemic tested human immunity and the relevance of global international health regulations to fight it at the individual and global levels, respectively. The pandemic has demonstrated how unprepared we were, as warned by public health experts, and it should be a wake-up call to not let it happen again.

The pandemic has also exposed that control and power do not necessitate invasion or military control over poor and less developed countries. In the modern world, power and control exist in different forms, unlike in the old history of colonialism.

One can observe significant distinctions regarding the emergence of global health in the 1990s and early 2000s, which has become a tool for influencing country-led decisions (primarily rich countries) in favour of aid-giving countries – a sort of soft power political control. These relationships built on reliance, subjection and Shylock-like indebtedness are problematic in their intent and consequence.

Thursday March 10, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 10, 2022

Ontario to drop most mask mandates on March 21, remaining pandemic rules to lift by end of April

August 25, 2021

Ontario will scrap most mask mandates — including in schools, restaurants, gyms and stores — across the province on March 21, with remaining COVID-19 regulations also set to drop by the end of April. 

The province says improving health indicators, such as a stable COVID-19 test positivity rate and declining hospitalizations, as well as Ontario’s high vaccination rate and the availability of antiviral treatments, allow for these steps.

The province’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, announced the new changes Wednesday. 

“We are now learning to live with and manage COVID-19 for the long term,” Moore said. “This necessitates a shift to a more balanced response to the pandemic.”

However, Moore said removing the mask mandate “does not mean the risk is gone” or the pandemic is over.

Thursday February 17, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday February 17, 2022

Putin’s Long Tables Explained

January 22, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s every move is dissected as fears escalate that he’ll soon order an invasion of Ukraine, but attention has recently turned to why Putin sits across from a comically large table during meetings with other world leaders, the most recent instance of which came Tuesday during a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. 

The issue took global spotlight last week after Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron sat at opposite ends of a table pegged by Reuters to be 20 feet long during their meeting in Moscow.

The extreme social distance came after Macron refused to take a Russian-administered Covid-19 PCR test, and Reuters reported Thursday it was because France didn’t want Russia to have access to Macron’s DNA, citing two anonymous sources close to Macron.

Another French official told Reuters the protocols were due to Putin living a “strict health bubble,” and the Kremlin confirmed the extreme distance is to protect Putin.

Scholz met the same distanced fate as Macron during his Tuesday meeting in Moscow, sparking memes and providing comic relief during otherwise tense negotiations.