Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 28, 2020
How to Stay Productive (and Sane) While Working from Home
If you’re reading this, you likely find yourself suddenly working from home.
Before the COVID-19 (coronavirus) changed the way we do business in a matter of days, working remotely was something many people imagined as sort of a future-work utopia. Having your home to yourself during the day while your partner or kids are out, sending work emails with your dog cuddled up beside you, having access to your specific brand of coffee — it all sounded like a dream.
That’s probably not how working from home looks for you right now. In reality, you’re likely juggling how to make space in your home for calls and video meetings, keep yourself productive, keep your children occupied and oh yeah — stay sane in the midst of it all.
So let us help you. Like you, my colleagues and I are suddenly working from home indefinitely. For many of us, it’s not our first time working remotely, so I thought I’d reach out to them so I could share their best working from home tips for you. I’ll also share photos of our work-from-home office setups throughout — some as inspiration, and others (like mine) in solidarity with my fellow clutterers.
So let’s dive right in before your spouse, child, or pet arrives with your next home office interruption! And don’t worry — we have a section of this article dedicated to tips for working from home with kids. (Continued: Business 2 Community)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 27, 2020
Doug Ford has risen to the coronavirus challenge
Coronavirus cartoons
As the spread of COVID-19 has utterly transformed life as we know it, it has also emerged as the most profound test of political leadership in a generation or more.
Of course, the pandemic is, first and foremost, a health crisis. In the global response, doctors and public health authorities have been foregrounded, and rightfully so. But it is also a crisis of public confidence and so it is appropriate to look at the crisis through the lens of the political leadership as well.
In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, having gotten Brexit done, now faces an even greater challenge. He has been forced to pivot from an initial anachronistic approach of herd immunity (i.e., letting the virus run amok) to proper suppression and mitigation efforts as in the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, in Ireland, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was voted out of office last month, but while a new government has been unable to form, the former doctor-turned-politician has, quite literally, risen to the role of caretaker government. On St. Patrick’s Day, he delivered a national address that marked the high watermark of his premiership.
The pandemic has forced Angela Merkel, long averse to televised displays of leadership, into doing precisely that. And in so doing proving why she continues to be primus inter pares among world leaders.
March 13, 2020
As for Donald Trump, there is only one word: disaster.
Here at home, Canadian leaders, at all orders of government, have acted on the advice of scientists, doctors and public health experts, as they bloody well should. And for that we can, as a people, be grateful.
From Prime Minister Trudeau to our premiers and mayors, the performances of our leaders have been commendable.
But perhaps the biggest success has been the commanding performance of Ontario Premier Doug Ford. It was not even two weeks ago that Ford was embroiled in a kerfuffle over manufacturing defects with new provincial licence plates; today, it seems hard to imagine a scandal with smaller stakes. And a protracted dispute with the teacher’s unions had dragged his government’s approval rating underwater. Now, in his daily briefings about the province’s response to COVID-19, he is modelling leadership in real time.
Series: Young Doug Ford
As the crisis has deepened, Ford is exemplifying the tenets of good crisis communication. He has been transparent and forthcoming, hosting daily briefings which may seem routine, but are in fact distinguished by attention to small details.
The premier begins promptly on time, wearing a suit and tie. He has been honest and plainspoken about the scale and severity of the challenge before us. He has delegated and empowered his bench of ministers, including Deputy Premier and Health Minister Christine Elliott and Finance Minister Rod Phillips. He has put aside partisan considerations.
He is working hand in hand with his federal counterparts. And, for a man whose political career has been defined by animosity towards the mainstream media, this week’s explicit recognition of their essential role marked a turning point. (Continued: Toronto Star)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 26, 2020
Coronavirus: Trump hopes US will shake off pandemic by Easter
The president told a White House news briefing reopening the US early next month would be “a beautiful timeline”.
Coronavirus cartoons
Hours later, the Senate agreed a $2 trillion (£1.7tn) economic rescue plan with the White House.
The deal will be passed later on Wednesday by the Senate.
“At last, we have a deal,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, citing the massive “wartime level of investment into our nation”.
The package includes tax rebates, loans, money for hospitals and rescue packages for businesses.
The House of Representatives still needs to pass the legislation before it is sent to Mr Trump for his signature.
The US has recorded almost 55,000 cases and nearly 800 deaths from coronavirus.
Globally there have been more than 420,000 cases confirmed and approaching 19,000 deaths.
On Tuesday, he told Fox News he hoped the country could get back to normal by Easter, which is on the weekend of 12 April.
Mr Trump, a Republican, said: “We’re going to be opening relatively soon… I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.”
He added in a subsequent interview: “Easter is a very special day for me… and you’ll have packed churches all over our country.”
Mr Trump also warned that unless the country reopened for business it could suffer “a massive recession or depression”.
The president said: “You’re going to lose people. You’re going to have suicides by the thousands. You’re going to have all sorts of things happen. You’re going to have instability.”
Speaking at a White House briefing later, Mr Trump said he was beginning “to see the light at the end of the tunnel”, though he said “our decision will be based on hard facts and data”.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases and a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, told the same press briefing: “No-one is going to want to tone down anything when you see what is going on in a place like New York City.” (BBC)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 24, 2020
Tokyo Olympics officially postponed to 2021
Coronavirus cartoons
The International Olympic Committee announced a first-of-its-kind postponement of the Summer Olympics on Tuesday, bowing to the realities of a coronavirus pandemic that is shutting down daily life around the globe and making planning for a massive worldwide gathering in July a virtual impossibility.
The IOC said the Tokyo Games “must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020, but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community.”
It was an announcement seen as all but a certainty as pressure mounted from nervous athletes, sports organizations and national Olympic committees — all confronting the reality that training and qualifying schedules, to say nothing of international anti-doping protocols, had been ruptured beyond repair.
The IOC also said the Games will still be called the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee announced a first-of-its-kind postponement of the Summer Olympics on Tuesday, bowing to the realities of a coronavirus pandemic that is shutting down daily life around the globe and making planning for a massive worldwide gathering in July a virtual impossibility.
The IOC said the Tokyo Games “must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020, but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community.”
It was an announcement seen as all but a certainty as pressure mounted from nervous athletes, sports organizations and national Olympic committees — all confronting the reality that training and qualifying schedules, to say nothing of international anti-doping protocols, had been ruptured beyond repair.
The IOC also said the Games will still be called the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. (CBC)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 1, 2020
Breaking down the COVID-19 numbers
Coronavirus cartoons
In a little more than two months, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, raced around the world and turned a handful of known cases to more than three quarters of a million, with at least 36,000 lives lost – reported figures that the scientific and health communities widely agree are too low.
The spreading virus has pushed numerous countries to scramble to lock down cities, shutter non-essential businesses, and close their borders to all but their own citizens, adopting some of the extraordinary measures executed in China that might have previously been unthinkable elsewhere.
Researchers and armchair epidemiologists alike are analyzing the trove of data to create models, find patterns and clues on whether curves are being flattened, which country is on a faster or slower trajectory, why death rates and ages vary, what measures seemed to work, and when the pandemic might end.
The flood of numbers and questions they raise can be overwhelming for the average person trying to make sense of the data.
Epidemiologists and an infectious disease expert who spoke with CTVNews.ca said it was too early to make predictions or draw conclusions from the data, but stressed the importance of understanding the context surrounding the numbers.
While most of the focus has been on the daily tally of new cases, epidemiologists say that other data points are more useful.
Cynthia Carr, a Winnipeg-based epidemiologist with two decades of experience interpreting and developing protocols for gathering and analyzing health data, said the daily focus on new cases can be a distraction and spark unnecessary panic.
“[The public was] not listening to the information. They were in a store with 1,000 people at Costco buying toilet paper” when that was the last place they should be, said Carr.
The total number of tests administered, infections, hospitalizations, intensive care patients, and deaths are all key indicators for different reasons, explained Erin Strumpf, an epidemiologist and associate professor at McGill University.
“It’s more about the rate of change in those numbers than it is about the actual numbers on a given day,” she said.
The mortality and hospitalization rates – and whether they are increasing or decreasing over time – gives more context and balance to the data, Carr noted.
“You should never just look at one piece of information,” Carr said.
“I have said from the beginning, when we increase our testing capacity, you would quickly see an increase in cases… we’re getting more of an accurate denominator, an accurate representation of the number of people with the illness.” (CTV)
