Another COVID Benchmark

28/5/2020

Benches Outside Rideaucrest Nursing Home: Photo by YYC

Another COVID Benchmark

Wow, talk about progress!

Addendum: May 29

The Kingston Whig Standard today carries an article that I never expected to see!

(Whig-Standard File Photo) Michael Lea /The Whig-Standard/QM

Contracting COVID-19 isn’t as easy as previously thought, Kingston’s top epidemiologist said recent studies suggest.

“We are learning a lot more about transmission, which will enable us to really look at what are the most effective strategies,” Dr. Gerald Evans, the medical director of infection control at Kingston Health Sciences Centre, said on Thursday morning. “Although this virus can be transmitted person-to-person, it is not quite as easy as people believe it to be.”

Evans admitted that the science shows that wearing a cloth face mask does little to stop transmitting the virus in close proximity. The mask, which has recently become a political tool, is mostly for the psychological well-being of the community, Evans said. (end quote)

Dr. Evans was urging calm as early as the end of January this year: YouTube. Here's his latest video. Here's his BIO.

Wow! Dr. Evans is my kind of guy!

Finally, on our own home ground, common sense is emerging!

Here's what I wrote yesterday, full of exasperation at insane rules, and then seeing them flouted by Nursing Home Staff:

May 28/20

Freedom for health care workers! Yay!

They tore off the tapes and sat their fannies down on a forbidden bench and talked and laughed and hugged and had a good old time ... until Yours Truly came along and ruined everything.

Yes, several days ago, I came upon a group of Nursing Home Staff who were clearly announcing their liberation from the "distancing" requirements laid out by Ontario's Premier Doug Ford.

They were even braver than the folks who had swarmed into Toronto's Trinity Bellwoods beach last weekend: CBC: Ontario premier makes public plea to 'go get tested' ...

Braver because they were in their scrubs, easily seen as nursing home workers, and they were not distancing. Brave enough to risk hastening the deaths of their elderly patients when they straggled back inside the building. Now that's freedom!

It's way more freedom than the elderly residents of the apartment building next door are allowed.

The Managing CEO has an evil fondness for issuing dicta, complete with exclamation marks.

One that I omitted from an earlier post on that topic was this:

"YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO ENTER THE LONG TERM CARE FACILITY; it is on lockdown!!"

Apparently some of my aged compatriots had been accustomed to using the ATM and a mailbox located just inside the entrance door to the nursing home, and that had to be stopped!

They are also not allowed to sit on the benches in our lobby or outside our entrance door, nor on the comfy couches in the now-locked common rooms, for fear they might get too close to one another.

And only one of them at a time is allowed to ride the elevators.

I wasn't going to talk publicly about the criminal bench sitters until I heard back from my local City Councillor who lives a couple of blocks from me -- though he may be "working from cottage", so replies to constituent emails might take longer or maybe even forever.

I reminded him of an earlier post of mine titled: "Every Bench Has A Story" and expressed my concerns about what I saw at the nursing home next door. He did seem happy earlier to hear my thoughts on the City's insane contemplation of adding fluoride to the water supply.

I guess the difference might be that both he and the Mayor had asked for input from residents on the fluoride topic, but are not keen to deal with "distancing" infractions by workers at the local City-owned nursing home.

So I decided to post it here (abridged for brevity):

Today ... as I returned from all of the rules I had to obey during shopping, I saw 4 employees of the Old People's Home next door having torn off the tapes from an outside bench, sitting close together, talking, laughing, and then hugging another of them as he approached them.

How can this be given the rules laid out for us all? I asked them that, and they looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. Huh? one of them said, literally playing dumb. I asked, do you look after the old people in there? And they said, "Yeah." I asked who I could talk to about this, and they ... looked at me, as if I were being mean to them. "I don't know." drawled one of them in a childish, sing-songy voice.

Meanwhile, relatives of the nursing home residents have to peer in at their loved ones from outside the windows!

Considering where most of the deaths have occurred recently, should I be concerned about this or not?"

Well, what should I have done? Those dimwit City employees were wearing scrubs, and were clearly care-givers on a break ... that is, breaking all the distancing rules ... and then they went back inside to "care for" the inmates.

But here's what the City says about its pride and joy nursing home:

Rideaucrest provides a welcoming and supportive environment that respects and cares for the residents, family and staff that live, work and visit our home.

Good lord, it's not even proper grammar!

See also this post at Pennyforyourthoughts:
'Disturbing' Ont. long-term care home report doesn't come as surprise to families

ADDENDUM:
Yay! I may have to eat my caustic words about my City Councillor. I've just now received an email from him saying he is "looking into it".

Images from Cartoon Stock

15 Comments

Penny link

28/5/2020 05:44:37 pm

Hey Yaya:
I've had it with this lionizing of the 'front line' caregivers
They plain don't deserve it. There doing a job and far too many of them aren't even doing it properly.

"Braver because they were in their scrubs, easily seen as nursing home workers, and they were not distancing. Brave enough to risk hastening the deaths of their elderly patients when they straggled back inside the building. Now that's freedom!"

While the elderly inside remain in lockdown at the mercy of these idiots.
shakes head, spits nails and swears!!

yayacanada

28/5/2020 05:56:13 pm

That's been my response all along. They're getting paid for what they do, and if they're having to work harder you can bet they'll be compensated.

To me, there's nothing sadder than seeing little kids peering in the windows to wave at their granny. Let alone not being able to play with their school chums!

M. Rocknest

29/5/2020 11:06:53 am

https://m.facebook.com/groups/950402458376037?view=permalink&id=3003080216441574

Hi Penny and Yaya:

Here's some sensible talk from an ER doc in Wisconsin (David Lang). He doesn't think healthcare workers should be lionized either. He writes, in part (it's a long letter):

"And lastly every time I go to the gas station or go through a drive through I see a sign that I can get a free coffee or free hamburger because I am a health care worker. While this is nice, I don’t deserve this. First of all, I have been less busy in the last 2 months than I have been in the 28 years I have been I practice. Even if I were busier, which I wish I were, this is my job that I love to do. I don’t need free coffee or fast food to validate that. Secondly, I still have a job and a pay check and could send my kids to camp (if they were open.) I can still pay my mortgage and feed my family. Why don’t we offer free coffee to the hairstylist who hasn’t worked in 2 months? How about we give a free hamburger to the small business owner who had to close the store and lay off his employees. These people are the real heroes and victims in this situation. At the end of the day, I and my family will be fine. Many of these other people however, will not be fine. Let’s think of them for a change."

29/5/2020 11:30:59 am

Hey guys - thanks so much for your input!

I feel really vindicated today. Please see the addendum at the top of this post. THERE'S LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!

I want to kiss that guy!

30/5/2020 10:51:43 am

Yaya:
I'm going to send this link to my sister
she wants a copy of the Kingston article for herself.
To print up
I'm going to print it up as well as keep it on file and include it in the series of posts I'm working on present time

Our one chance is to try these pathetic leaders in the court of public opinion- and hope the masses will get up in arms enough to get off their apathetic asses.

thanks for all you do Yaya

30/5/2020 11:19:51 am

Excellent idea, Penny. Why didn't I think of that?

I was just over at your place reading about the nursing home situation. It keeps echoing in my ears that Gates equated vaccines with population reduction. I wonder how many of the residents got vaccinated during the winter.

Shopped earlier this morning at Metro. Amazingly, I followed the arrows okay but a youngish girl, wearing a mask, entered the isle from the wrong end. Didn't bother me at all, so I joked, "Haha, I do that all the time".

She did not laugh. She did not even get it. She glared at me as if I was the one who shouldn't be there (maskless and all), and continued in that aisle. Does she think wearing a mask means she doesn't have to follow the arrows?

Can you tell the IQ of a person by whether or not they wear a mask? LOL

30/5/2020 03:45:07 pm

“People who care about other people, people who aren’t driven by ideological thinking, they’ll wear a cloth mask,” Evans said. “It’s an important thing to do for ourselves and for the people around us.”

That would imply that wearing a mask makes them the good ones while I and others who do not wear a muzzle are the bad ones. Gosh darn it must be my own "ideological thinking" that freedom has great value which appears to have led me to being assigned a black hat to wear (never a muzzle though). I also value individual privacy and national sovereignty so I guess that's two more black hats for me. (I'm aiming at black hat for every day of the week.)

I disagree with Dr. Evans's statement that the "good ones" are not being driven by ideological thinking. They are. It's just not their own ideological thinking. It's the ideological thinking of those who have manipulated them into total, unthinking obeisance to the "new normal".

Freedom is NOT just another word for something else to lose. It's essential to life.

30/5/2020 05:15:56 pm

I'm so glad you raised that, M.R. because it bothered me as well, but in view of his statements prior to that, I rationalized it thusly:

He was very clear that masks are useless and that they are a political tool, so it's possible he was putting himself in the place of what a TV-motivated mask-wearer might think and say - somebody not very politically astute.

The reporter may not have considered his gestures or his possible meaning.

Personally, I would never trust a news reporter to represent my views to the public. Dr. Evans would be better off writing his own communications. Or sticking with video talks.

It's certainly no big deal if some people want to wear masks, anymore than it's criminal not to wear them.

But, from my experience, it doesnt appear that people are doing it because they care about other people; or they wouldn't so often give the evil eye to people who aren't wearing masks -- as happened to me this morning in Metro. I think they're ignorant on several counts.

You know what; the more I ponder it the more I think I should email him and ask why he said that. He's probably off work for the weekend, so I'll have to wait a bit.

You're absolutely right that not everything he said rang true, almost as if he was trying to please everybody. But, as Knut Wittkowski said, "I'm not paid by the government, so I can say what I want to."

yaycanada

30/5/2020 07:16:43 pm

OK, M.R. I've written to Dr. Evans quoting you verbatim, and also querying his advice on where to get one's news (namely newspapers, tv, etc) in light of the corporate news having been the biggest purveyors of fear and panic.

If he answers within a reasonable time, I'll post that along with my email to him. And if he doesn't answer at all, I'll post the contents of my email.

30/5/2020 07:45:23 pm

I'm happy to say we seldom see masked people in our town. Yesterday, over in a larger town at the Walmart I saw 4 masked people (1 mask below the chin, 1 mask below the nose, 1 homemade mask that looked dirty -- never use grey fabric, 1 mask that was gaping at sides & top) but at least they didn't glare at the majority of unmasked people around them.

The "THEY" have been telegraphing a sinister September for weeks now. I'm hoping it doesn't happen but with the push for test, track and trace I have to say I'm worried.

30/5/2020 09:53:26 pm

Answer or no answer, Yaya, that was "good on ya" move to e-mail Dr. Evans. He got so much right so maybe he was misquoted or misinterpreted.

30/5/2020 07:55:45 pm

Just want to let you know Part 3 is up.
And there will be a part 4.
What a godawful situation in the LTC homes and every bit of it intentional- that's my opinion! Based on all my reading and it's been a whole lot of reading!

30/5/2020 08:51:42 pm

M.R. I've seen cartoons on the net of people wearing masks the way you described them. It's good for a laugh, if absolutely nothing else.

I wonder if the older kids will go back to school in September, what with the online learning that was made available. It's certainly a weird world for them.

But that testing, eh? "Whatcha gonna do when they come fo you."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1cBK3kF2bs

30/5/2020 08:57:58 pm

Thanks, Penny. I'll be over there to collect the rest of the links to the series when it's complete, so I can refer back to it when needed. But you shouldn't wear yourself out!

30/5/2020 09:43:03 pm

I'm reading your series, too, Penny. You're doing a great job with a topic that absolutely is about a "godawful situation". It's heartbreaking to see fellow seniors literally the targets of both an age-sensitive virus and agenda-driven officials making deadly decisions. Many times I've thought how sad it is for these poor souls to die without feeling the warm hand of someone who knows them and loves them.

Another COVID Benchmark

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