Wuhan

Wednesday April 1, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 1, 2020

Long-term care homes are worrisome COVID-19 hotspots

Coronavirus cartoons

Monday’s news of a deadly outbreak of COVID-19 in a long-term care home in Ontario has once again put the spotlight on how these facilities are coping with the pandemic, and what measures are being taken to protect their residents.

The Pinecrest Nursing Home in Bobcaygeon, about 150 kilometres northeast of Toronto, has lost 12 residents, and a volunteer whose husband is a resident also died.

It’s a big heartbreak for a little town, and that pain is being experienced by Canadians across the country.

On Tuesday, a care home in Calgary reported its third death, while a home in Toronto, the Rekai Centre reported one of its residents died. There have been at least 29 deaths at seniors’ residences throughout Ontario and four in Quebec. 

Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver was one of the first and hardest hit seniors homes in Canada. It’s where the country’s first death related to COVID-19 occurred on March 8. In all, 11 residents died, 40 more got the virus, and 21 staff became ill.

Nineteen long-term care homes in B.C. are currently dealing with outbreaks. Several homes across the country are in the same boat. 

These residences are the kinds of places where an illness like COVID-19 can easily take hold. Residents share living spaces — in some homes there are four people to a room — as well as eating spaces and other communal areas. 

They can be high traffic places, with staff, visitors and deliveries coming and going. The residents are elderly, and some may have compromised immune systems that can’t fend off the virus or underlying conditions, or both. The people caring for them are hands on — they can’t stay a hockey-stick length away from their patients, as other Canadians are being instructed to do.

Long-term care homes are used to dealing with outbreaks of influenza and other illnesses within their walls, but this pandemic has led them to go far beyond their usual infection control protocols.

Non-essential visitors have been shut out for weeks now at homes across the country, and governments and home operators are implementing more restrictions.

Isobel Mackenize, the B.C. government’s seniors advocate, said in an interview that lessons were learned from the Lynn Valley outbreak, and that a number of steps have been taken to prevent more residents, and staff, from getting sick. (CBC) 

 

Wednesday February 12, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday February 12, 2020

‘We don’t play games when people are sick’: China won’t release ‘two Michaels’ despite coronavirus help: experts

Ottawa shouldn’t expect Beijing to do it any favours and free the “two Michaels” in return for medical co-operation fighting the new coronavirus, experts say.

December 12, 2019

China’s ambassador to Canada hinted at that last week and Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne says he’s used every medical discussion with China to raise the plight of the two men.

Champagne told reporters in Ethiopia on Sunday that he’s had more access to his Chinese counterparts in recent weeks and he uses the occasions to push for the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who have been in Chinese prisons without charge since December 2018.

They were arrested in what is widely seen as retaliation for Canada’s decision to arrest Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on an extradition request from the United States.

David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China, says that while it is good for Champagne to keep pushing, Canada’s assistance on the coronavirus simply isn’t contingent on what China can do for Canada.

“Anything that opens up the channels of communication is a good thing, and we should use the conversation to raise all of our priorities,” he said.

January 30, 2020

“We don’t play games when people are sick, and we shouldn’t allow China to play games with us. Freeing the Michaels isn’t a favour or quid pro quo; it is what we expect of law-abiding states.”

Bessma Momani, an international-affairs expert at the University of Waterloo, says China wants only one thing — Meng released — and so-called health diplomacy will not change that.

“I hope I’m wrong,” she said.

“Why would Champagne say that? It’s kind of raising hope. So, it makes you wonder,” she said. “But at the same time, what would the Chinese get out of doing this? To them, Meng is a really important person … They don’t want to be seen as giving in.”

Meng is the daughter of Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei.

Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat who has served in Beijing, said the Canadian efforts on the coronavirus might bear fruit.

“China is a gift giving culture. Any gift accepted creates reciprocal obligation in the recipient. So, I judge that China requesting medical aid from Canada could well lead to concessions in the negotiations over the release of Kovrig and Spavor,” said Burton, of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute think-tank in Ottawa. (National Post)