COVID Stress, as Universal as the Pandemic

"[It's vital to identify environmental threats from a] fitness survival perspective."

"We only became predators much later in evolutionary history [leading us to over-interpret risks to survival because the human mind is poor at probability-estimating; a heritage of our hunter-gatherer brains]."

"[With COVID-19, there is uncertainty] because the medical news changes every day."

"...Generation Z and millennials were already very vulnerable, they were already prone to anxiety and depression and for many of them, I fear the confinement has made it much worse."

"We're still not sure what happened, where the virus came from and COVID conspiracy theories are spreading."

"Just the simple act of being able to share food and stories with your friends has become very special."

"The constant state of anxiety and uncertainty, the isolation, the lack of meaning and purpose, these are all things that are accompanied with negative affect, which make us more prone to being victims of our own emotions."

"We're constantly missing out in these tiny little micro actions, but these micro actions eventually amount to us becoming better persons for the sake of others. Doing things that people had lost track of because of the rat race of our daily lives."

Samuel Veissiere, anthropologist, assistant professor of psychiatry, McGill University

"We don't really know, especially because we don't have that comparator to say, this is how many would be experiencing lifetime anxiety prior to the pandemic."

"But it's important for people to understand that if you are experiencing those symptoms, you're not alone. This is an unprecedented time."

Tara Elton-Marshall, scientist, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

"These are stressful times and there are things to be concerned about. But a healthy level of anxiety gives people agency."

"It's when the feelings start to impair functioning in your ability to work, to parent, to be present in a healthy way in your relationships, that a  health professional needs to be involved."

Dr.Valerie Taylor, chief, department of psychiatry, University of Calgary

Experts in the field of mental health swiftly became concerned about the impact of fear, isolation and pandemic policies on the human psyche when the global pandemic was declared, the series of shut-downs in various countries in response to the invasion of the SARS-Cov-2 virus which began to spread COVID-19 in populations, altering peoples' lives in ways never before encountered, taking an unheard-of toll on society in general, on the business world, on governments and the international community.

Our vulnerabilities, once the scaffolding of civilizational norms and our habitual place in the order of things were suddenly reversed and social-isolation mandated, struck people with a sense of total helplessness and uncertainty how to respond, in a growing sense of psychic dislocation. "It's sad, but not surprising", to see that outcome, commented Dr.Veissiere, co-director of the Culture, Mind and Brain Program at McGill, of the fact that a new national survey indicates a sizeable number of people have been severely affected psychologically.

One quarter of Canadians, according to the survey results, experienced moderate to severe levels of anxiety, another quarter experiences occasional or frequent loneliness, and 20 percent reported depression. Close to a quarter of the 1,005 survey participants reported at least once-weekly binge-drinking. Women, parents with young children, 18- to 39-year-olds appear to be faring worse than others, and notable numbers report being nervous and edgy, unable to relax.

People are irritable, readily annoyed, with a problematical number of days spent concerned that "something awful might happen", over the coronavirus hanging over society, like a Damaclean Sword. This survey represents the first in a planned series by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, collaborating with Delvinia, a research tech and data collection company, offering access to the survey data "to help mental health professionals get ahead of what's coming".

Angus Reid

Within any population there are people whose minds are geared to accept or struggle against situations, so that "if you're a 'no-big-deal' kind of person, you'll find the information confirms that bias", while catastrophizers who believe something is far worse than it actually is, react otherwise. When the World Health Organization first declared the death rate of COVID-19 at 3.4 percent, that data caused a frisson of fear. 

The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention this week released their 'best estimate', placing the overall death rate at 0.4 percent, a more reasonable, less fear-inducing figure for those who show symptoms, at the same time estimating 35 percent of infected people will never develop symptoms. Because of the shut-down conditions Canada imposed in an effort to 'flatten the curve', two million jobs were forfeited in April.

Resulting in a large segment of the population left to struggle with feelings of boredom, frustration and fear. Younger adults appear to be the most anxious, with people 60 and older less so, even as it is the older population that is more susceptible to the more serious effects of COVID than the younger demographic in one of those peculiar twists of irony in human nature. Experts hazard the opinion that people given to anxiety under normal circumstances now stressed under COVID have simply become more anxious.

According to the survey, it is women more than men who have ended up struggling more over the conditions they now find themselves in. More likely to have lost employment, to be shouldering child and elder care, and for many women home isn't quite the haven it should be. "We're seeing an increase in domestic abuse", notes Dr.Valerie Taylor. A 50 percent increase in texts and calls has been reported by Kids Help Phone, a national support service for youth.

Angus Reid

Anxiety represents uncertainty about what might happen. The more one thinks about possibilities and dwells on worst-case scenarios, the likelier they are to have heightened anxiety and depression. The very fact that SARS-CoV-2 remains a universal planetary threat speaks to our susceptibility and uncertainty. And when people feel helpless to avoid disaster fear and panic can set in, and spread. The antidote to that is to find comfort, reassurance, to restore feelings of safety.

And those can be found in re-establishing contact with those who have a meaningful impact on our lives, in a relaxation of the shutdown, and opening up of opportunities to once again be together with people we know and care about. To share experiences, meals, the meaning of life as social creatures dependent for our happiness and satisfaction on our contact with others, deriving pleasure from ordinary things that under normal circumstances are taken for granted.

A woman wearing a mask talks on her phone during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on Tuesday, April 28, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Religious Services -- Non-Essential Under COVID

"Never in 1,500 years of Western history has the Church of Jesus Christ not met for Easter or missed months of worship and ministry -- even in times of war or plague far more devastating than COVID-19."
"The inhumanity of abandoning people in their deepest hour of grief or need is gut-wrenching for followers of Christ."
Christian priests and pastors -- group letter to Premier Doug Ford, Ontario ... May 11

"There is no constitutional right to buy liquor and marijuana, but there is a constitutional right to worship and to assemble to practise one's faith."
"People are permitted to 'gather' at golf courses, beaches and stores in numbers greater than five, but not in prayer. This is unacceptable."
"We are an Orthodox faith that does not permit driving on the Sabbath."
"When violating any Charter freedom, a government must prove that such violations are demonstrably justified."
Toronto Rabbis, group letter to Premier Doug Ford, Ontario ... May 22

Orthodox Jews are silhouetted against the rotunda in City Hall during the Chanukah event called 'Occupy City Hall' in Toronto .Darren Calabrese/National Post

"The Ford government has been slow to make reasonable accommodations for faith groups, even where they present little or no public health risk, and even as the province is beginning to open up."
"The more we learn about this virus, and the longer these infringements on Canadians' civil liberties go on, the less likely governments will be able to meet that test."
Lawyer Lisa Bildy, Justice Centre for constitutional Freedoms

It is strangely anomalous to see alcohol and marijuana sales outlets classified alongside pharmacies and grocery stores as 'essential services' during a time of lockdown, when all other shops, along with industry and commercial outfits, schools, exercise gyms, public parks and other venues have all been shut down, inaccessible to a public that has been instructed by law to practise social distancing, to exit their homes only for emergencies or to obtain food or pharmaceuticals, leading many to unemployment lines.

Regulations were imposed, punishable by law if they were flouted, that forbade people from gathering in clusters, at meetings, for parties or celebrations, entertainment or sport events. Included in that were of course attendance at church or any place of worship. Gatherings of over five people other than those related to one another and/or living together were forbidden in the interests of 'flattening the curve' of the epidemic, getting it under control, and avoiding hospitals being overwhelmed.

For Christians, the most sacred of holiday events, Easter, was a dismal affair, church service essentially forbidden. For Jews, Passover was similarly distanced by isolation, and for Muslims, Ramadan and Eid were solitary affairs, all religious/social/cultural events high on the calendars of the faithful, for the first time in living memory entirely disrupted, people left in a state of astonished disbelief and feelings of abandonment.

The Province of Ontario saw its government relent, making drive-in religious services possible; gatherings remaining excluded, but brief exposure to priestly blessings possible in a surreal alternative to being present and involved in familiar, comforting religious routine. For Jews to hold prayer sessions, a quorum of ten participants must assemble. For Orthodox Jews forbidden from driving during the Sabbath, the drive-in solution is unworkable, unthinkable. The limit of five in an assembly is simply unworkable for Jewish prayer.

Ontario and Quebec are the two provinces in Canada hosting the greatest proportion of Canadian Jews. Making the majority of people of Jewish faith in Canada bound by government laws in those two provinces. Each province in Confederation works autonomously in their reaction to the novel coronavirus and each government's alternative choices to normalcy for their populations.

Worshippers in Alberta are permitted to gather in groups of 50 or one-third of the building's capacity, while in British Columbia indoor events are permitted gatherings of 50 people. Fifty vehicles are permitted presence at events such as a church service. Indoor and outdoor gatherings in Saskatchewan are permitted ten people, their choice of loosening their initial strict lockdown conditions more congenial to the needs of their religious communities, as guaranteed by the Constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Church of God in Aylmer, Ont. faced the threat of fines when it held this drive-in service on April 19. But houses of worship across Ontario can now hold drive-in services starting this weekend. (Submitted by Herbert Hildebrandt)

Beijing Protecting Hong Kong From Terrorism

"Hong Kong has flourished as a bastion of freedom."
"[The security law would ] curtail the Hong Kong people's liberties, and in doing so, dramatically erode Hong Kong's autonomy and the system that made it so prosperous."
Joint statement, United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada

"This is the death knell for Hong Kong, make no mistake of it, this is the end of 'one country, two systems' ...the Hong Kong that we loved, a free Hong Kong'.
Dennis Kwok, pro-democracy lawmaker

Watching a TV news show about the new national security legislation in Hong Kong on Thursday.    Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

The National People's Congress, voting in the Great Hall of the People, just west of Beijing's Tiananmen Square, loudly approved and applauded the vote that took place on Thursday, a tally that indicated 2,878 votes supported moving forward with legislation, with one vote opposed and six abstentions. While the world has been distracted and busy attempting to ward off the worst advances of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Beijing has immersed itself in finalizing the death knell of autonomous Hong Kong, cancelling the formula that recognized its unique status since 1997.

The imposition of a new security law on Hong Kong will now criminalize any such activities like protesting and criticizing Beijing. Either of which is analogous in Beijing's opinion to secession and the detested 'splittism'. As the Communist Party elite explain it to any who might not understand, the purpose of the legislation is to cope with secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference in Hong Kong. The plan had sufficed to instill fear into Hong-Kong's pro-democracy factions, triggering large protests.

And those protests brought out the riot police in huge numbers even while its own lawmakers engaged in debating an entirely other piece of legislation with a like purpose, to criminalize disrespect of China's national anthem. Police made 360 arrests while thousands of Hong Kongers marched in protest in the streets over the anthem bill and the national security legislation. It is abundantly clear that Beijing is imposing its authority, eroding the autonomy of Hong Kong in the process.

China’s National People’s Congress  Photograph: Andrea Verdelli/Getty Images

An assurance was issued by China's Premier Li Keqiang, that the "one country, two systems" formula is meant to remain a national policy, but the new law would provide for Hong Kong's long-term stability and prosperity. Enactment of the law is anticipated prior to September, as details are being drawn up in the coming weeks. But no threat exists to the city's autonomy, Chinese authorities claim, backed by the Hong Kong, Beijing-approved government.

According to Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam, the legislative work would be completed as soon as possible as she works with Beijing: "The law will not affect the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Hong Kong residents". Somehow, the pro-democracy element finds her statement as reassuring as that emanating out of Beijing.

"We urge China to step back from the brink", stated British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.
Britain plans to change the status of British national overseas passport holders, should China not suspend the new law, enabling such BNO passport holders to come to the United Kingdom for periods in excess of six months, an effective pathway to eventual citizenship.

Anti-government demonstrators in Hong Kong scuffle with riot police Wednesday during a protest as the second reading of a controversial national anthem law takes place. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

Sanctimony over Sacred Duty

“As this COVID-19 outbreak unfolds in coming months, our government will aim to support Canadians and keep them protected. We’ve based our response on input from our world-class health professionals and authorities. We know what the science is telling us. The evidence is clear. The elderly are our greatest risk. We’ve seen the experience in Italy and Spain. We know what happened in China. In Washington State. The first long-term care death in British Columbia occurred March 8."
"The signals are clear. The most vulnerable Canadians are in long-term care institutions."
"Today our government is allocating $20 billion to deploy as many physical and human resources as possible to stop this pandemic from reaching our most vulnerable population. If you are in a long-term care home, or are related to someone who is, rest assured. Our top priority is to get you the help you need."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, March statement of assurance

"What’s special about COVID-19 is the asymptomatic transmission. The whole strategy of looking for fever and looking for symptoms didn’t work."

"By the time we found somebody with symptoms, and then tested everybody in the home, you would find 40 or 50 residents already positive."

Long-Term Care Home executive

Words are important. If the words are strung together well and they approach a situation while appealing to those who are or will be deleteriously affected, they give reassurance. They shine a light of approval on whoever utters those words, the promise that the problem has been analyzed and authorities are prepared to undertake a solution that will meet the challenges of an all-consuming worry over the projected plight of the most vulnerable within society.

Those words were uttered, the assurance that government is aware and fully prepared to launch a program that would create the needed solution to a viral pathogen threatening the lives of Canada's elderly and health-impaired. After all, before the SARS-CoV-2 invasion hit Canada, there were examples out of Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus first emerged before spreading to Europe and onward to radiate over the entire globe with mixed results, none of them good.

Reports being received of the desperate carnage wreaked on institutions housing the elderly and health-compromised, due warning that this disease strikes those least able to ward off its destructive impact due to immune-compromised conditions linked to old age and/or to chronic and/or dread disease onset. Nothing quite so much focuses the mind as watching a tornado of disaster wreak hell elsewhere while it steadily advances toward you, waiting with bated breath.

75 per cent of Canada’s COVID-19 deaths those over age 80. Getty Images

So the data was there, it was analyzed and the solution seemed clear enough; target the virus aiming for the elderly to defuse its impact, and refuse it the opportunity for wholesale wreckage. The funding aiming to erect a scaffolding of defense earmarked for that specific purpose, the personnel alerted and diverted to ensure that the defence was well directed and maintained to fulfill its purpose. The intention publicly stated but never carried through to fruition.

Instead the focus swivelled to society at large, mandating a general lockdown to protect the greater aggregate of the population, those at least risk for harm among the population. And the aged and the infirm were left to chance. And as it happened chance failed to favour their continued longevity. Such are the best-laid plans of mice and men, when the authors of those plans lack the conviction of their intentions and their attention wanders off target...

The result was encapsulated in the Canadian Military report on their findings in a select few long-term care homes in Ontario and Quebec as compelling evidence of a failed initiative. Outlining the case for blaming an uncaring industry whose primary interest is financial gain and whose investment in the well-being of those in their care, an afterthought. After all, of the 6,700 coronavirus deaths in Canada, 8o percent occurred in those inadequately staffed, untrained personnel LTCs.

Health Canada reports that over 6,700 Canadians died in LTC facilities -- the vast preponderance of all deaths in the country due to COVID; 97 percent of the deaths were to those over the age of 60, with 75 percent over the age of 80. By May, 3,652 elderly Canadians died in those facilities. The country was locked down to protect the entire public; those living outside such facilities, deemed to be at low risk, but encouraged to self-isolate, where the elderly were unable to, crowded into those LTCs.

The targeted risk-management so eloquently and warmly promised by Justin Trudeau simply failed to get off the ground. The casualties of that ill-timed 'forgetfulness' were the grandmothers and grandfathers of those who took shelter at home, wore face masks on rare ventures outside and obligingly heeded government orders. The LTC facilities, on the other hand, were left to attempt on their own, to make improvised changes in a desperate move to protect the vulnerable.

"Despite a well-known, evidence-based demographic surge of seniors unable to care for themselves -- and massive waiting lists to enter long-term care, we spent the last decade mired in a program to rebuild or renovate homes that simply don't work", according to the Ontario Long Term Care Association in its pre-pandemic 2018 budget submission, warning that its employees were at a "tipping point", with overwork, yet over-scrutinized by the media and government.

"Problems hiring and retaining staff across the province has resulted in a system that is under siege", they went on. Was anyone listening? The focus on hospitals and their capacity to care for an unstoppable surge of COVID patients in serious condition simply failed to materialize, leaving an extraordinarily rare situation of empty ICU beds.  

Outside Toronto's Eatonville Care Centre, a body wrapped in a white sheet is rolled out on a stretcher, pushed by a woman dressed head to toe in protective gear. (Chris Mulligan/CBC)

 

Canada's Parliamentary Democracy Revised

"There's been no justification from the very beginning for shutting down Parliament completely."

"What the Liberals have been doing with regards to essentially derailing Parliament goes against everything they promised in the 2015 election campaign about open, honest and accountable government."

"The New Democratic Party forgot the middle part of their name in rolling over and supporting the Liberals in this undemocratic move."

Duff Conacher, co-founder, Democracy Watch

"Four hours [given under the Liberals new closed Parliament to debate the massive debt incurred by the public aid package] for that amount of money [roughly estimated at $260 billion] is virtually nothing." 

"It's a bit surprising given all the measures the government has been introducing."

Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks and is projected onto large screens as he takes part in the COVID-19 Pandemic Committee in the House of Commons on May 27, 2020. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

 At a time when the entire nation is caught up in the grips of a global pandemic, where a highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 has resulted in a nationwide lockdown, huge unemployment, a devastated economy and massive borrowing, the country's prime minister, Justin Trudeau has seen fit to sequester himself for months, appearing only before reporters for a daily press conference outside the front steps of the temporary official residence to give updates mostly focusing on how his government has generously decided to sprinkle money at affected groups.

Where some demographics have been identified as in dire financial straits due to job loss and loss of opportunities for working students to pay for tuition, and temporary foreign workers awaiting the results of refugee claims, and seniors struggling with higher lockdown costs have been given relief funding. There has been no oversight, those who make application for the weekly deposits to their bank accounts need give no proof of need and even those on social assistance can apply for CERB [Canada Emergency Relief Benefit].

An estimated total of $150 billion in emergency funding, most of it representing borrowed finances that will add massively to Canada's deficit represents a government response to the emergency situation Canada finds itself in resulting from the overall lockdown of industry, business, trade and any commercial transactions in the initial effort to control the runaway viral outbreak. Because of the outbreak, Parliament's regular sittings were suspended, but for skeleton sittings. The Liberal government has been shielded from questions by the opposition.

In very fact the Liberal government of Canada, re-elected as a minority government, has been governing as though there is no opposition, in a manner that is more akin to a dictatorship than a parliamentary democracy. In effect, Justin Trudeau has succeeded in undermining parliamentary accountability by suspending Parliament until mid-September. An action supported by the NDP opposition and opposed by the official opposition party, the Conservative Party of Canada.

In a little traditional game of quid pro quo, the NDP extracted a price for its support, as part of its socialist platform the Liberals were only too happy to accede to, to gain the votes it needed to pass the suspension of Parliament but for a few special hearings on COVID-19. The prime minister who speculated once on his admiration for Beijing and the Communist Party of China to turn matters around on a dime, has finally manipulated a situation during a crisis emulating that of the CPC, bringing Canada to the status of 'your basic dictatorship'.

The motion to suspend Parliament until September 21 passed with the assent of the New Democratic Party, which obviously gave short shrift to its own namesake values. Giving the Liberal government the cover it wanted to sidestep scrutiny of the emergency spending launched by the government. Which has proven to be as much an opportunity for popularity and vote-buying for the Liberals as it has been to support Canadians facing economic difficulties during the COVID epidemic.

The vote passed 28-23, representing those elected Members of Parliament who were in the House of Commons in the much-diminished Parliament. As for Parliament not operating as it should, during this time of the pandemic, it's passing strange that elected Parliamentarians cannot do what they were elected for, while people working in hospitals, grocery stores and other employees deemed vital to the situation are managing to serve the public while observing safe distance, but high-paid MPs cannot.

With the passing of the motion, the dangers the Liberals face of a no confidence vote in their minority status cannot occur. A special COVID-19 committee is slated to continue meeting into June without the powers of Parliament, where opposition parties are able to do what they too were elected for. The four-hour limit set aside for one sitting to enable opposition questioning of the government's emergency agenda, came under criticism by Aaron Wudrick, director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, leaving the government spending programs free to continue as the government wishes without accountability.

"There's just no reason for them [the Liberals] to do it this way, except that they don't want to be bothered with basic parliamentary accountability" he noted. "These are historical changes to program spending. MPs cannot scrutinize in a proper way" -- the spending proposals within a four-hour window -- observed Kevin Page, founding president, Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy and formerly Canada's first Parliamentary Budget Officer.

The Elderly Health-Vulnerable and COVID-19

"COVID-19 has exposed deep cracks in the long-term care system and it is now up to us to fix these problems."
"This tragedy must serve as a wake-up call to our whole country."
"Until yesterday morning, we didn't know the full extent of what these homes, what these residents, were dealing with,"
"I don't feel our government failed seniors. As a matter of fact, we saved a lot of lives by doing what we did. The system was broken."
"My job is to fix a broken system that has been broken for decades. I'm going to move heaven and earth that we leave no stone unturned."
Ontario Premier Doug Ford

A bench decorated with flowers and signs is pictured outside of Orchard Villa Retirement Residence after several residents died of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Pickering, Ont., on May 26, 2020. (Carlos Osorio/Reuters)

• Eatonville Care Centre, Etobicoke: Resident Deaths: 42 -- COVID-positive residents permitted to wander about exposing everyone at risk; supplies reused despite compromised sterilization; staff burned out; residents frequently sedated with narcotics when depressed or sad.
• Hawthorne Place Care Centre, North York: Resident Deaths 39 -- Nurses and PSWs observed wearing same PPE for hours, moving between patient rooms; 'significant gross fecal contamination' noted in rooms; insect infestation, including ants and cockroaches; residents' calls for help unresponded to for significant lengths of time;
• Orchard Villa, Pickering: Deaths: 69 -- Residents left in soiled diapers, not taken to toilets; PSWs and nurses failed to help residents to seated position prior to meals and medications; 
• Altamont Care Community, Scarborough: Deaths 52 -- Residents bed-bound for several weeks, no evidence they had been moved to wheelchairs for part of the day, bed-repositioned, or properly washed; frequent arguments between staff with the use of derogatory language;
• Holland Christian Home (Grace Manor), Brampton: Deaths: 11 -- PPE problems such as moving from a COVID unit to other units without a change of PPE.

When it was first revealed that long-term care facilities were experiencing outbreaks of COVID-19 among their elderly, health-impaired residents, and deaths began mounting, public attention was turned to the treatment of the elderly in these residences, and new stories began to focus on the plight of the helpless elderly, dependent on care provided by staff which in some instances were improperly trained, exposing their charges to dangerous infectious rates, sometimes impacting on the staff as well. As time wore on, it became obvious that Canada's death rate owed much to the vulnerable elderly.

"These are the kinds of complaints we hear all the time. It took somebody from the outside to show what was going on."
"There wasn't anything in the [military report on the situation in long-term care homes] report that particularly surprised me. We hear it on a daily basis."
Jane Meadus, lawyer, Advocacy Centre for the elderly

"Nothing in that report is going to be any surprise for those of us working on the front lines. [I guess] it takes the military to get some action."
"It would be nice for front-line voices to get heard as well."
Candace Rennick, secretary treasurer, CUPE Ontario, (former PSW)

When it was first discovered, both in Ontario and Quebec, that a runaway infection and death rate was taking place in both provinces' long-term care institutions, each government appealed for help, sending in public health officials, followed by hospital workers, and finally in desperation calling for volunteers and then asking for the military to help solve the problem of inadequate help in the institutions to quell the tide of deaths among the elderly/health-compromised. A day ago, the military produced an intelligence report on the situation they discovered in the homes, while giving assistance.

Residents, they found were left in the beds, unbathed for weeks, fecal matter found in rooms, cockroaches, as well, and residents were despondently crying out for help for hours, their appeals unanswered, medical equipment that was contaminated, and improper use of personal protective equipment, were all found, along with outdated medications. A litany of oversights, inadequate care, tardy responses, and lax regulations along with a failure to comply with government-mandated quality of care.

It isn't as though the provinces had no inspectors to take inspection rounds to ensure compliance with the due care and respect owing people in the care of these institutions at a time in their lives when devastatingly ill health compounded by advanced age made them vulnerable and highly dependent on professional assistance in their daily lives. Ontario alone has 175 long-term care inspectors. And though the five care homes whose failings are listed above are considered the worse-case scenarios, there are countless other such care homes which have seen no COVID outbreaks, much less deaths.

Canadian Armed Forces personnel arrive at the Villa Val des Arbes seniors residence, Monday, April 20, 2020 in Laval, Que. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

The situation has been so dire that of the deaths from COVID-19 in Canada as a whole, the elderly have represented a staggering 82% among long-term care facilities. It is as though the elderly health-impaired are the expendable members of society. Staffing levels in the facilities have been inadequate with no minimum standard of care for residents. The facilities have always been understaffed, many of the staff inadequately trained. And poorly compensated for their invaluable work with the elderly health-impaired. Afterthoughts from beginning to end.

An independent investigation is to be called by provincial governments into the situation surrounding these homes and the convergence of the pandemic impacting on the residents. In some instances, with some homes, abuse of residents' trust and care has been detected. And rumblings of charges of criminal abuse are bandied about. Presumably a thorough investigation will reveal much. Just as the military personnel tasked to help in these long-term care facilities have observed and catalogued their own shocking findings of neglect.

Who might ever have imagined that Canada would be struck with a global pandemic, a virus that lays in wait to infect the incautious and unwary, a virus whose impact is deadly for the elderly and the health-impaired? Who could have imagined that the Canadian military would have to be called upon to restore a semblance of order and helpfulness in the care of these vulnerable old people whose families have entrusted their care to a system that has largely failed them?

Canadian Forces personnel return from their break at the Vigi Mont-Royal CHSLD in the Town of Mount Royal on Tuesday. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)

 

Foreign Labour on Canadian Farms

"[The government is] exploring additional ways to shore up our domestic labour supply."
"We continue to encourage employers to hire Canadians, and jobs are posted -- and continue to be available -- for Canadians who are interested [in working as farm labourers]."
Marielle Hossack, spokeswoman, Employment Minister

"This year is very, very different from previous because when we arrive this year, we have been told to keep safe of this COVID-19, but complying with all rules and regulations is difficult."
Foreign worker from Jamaica

"Migrant workers are not allowed to not work -- if they don't work, they get deported."
"But they're getting sick and they're not allowed access to care or any kind of income support when they are not working because they are sick."
Armine Yalnizyan, economist

Canadian farmers are saying the lack of temporary foreign workers due to COVID-19 is putting a strain on food supply.

Food availability, a critical issue during this time of COVID lockdown, when borders are closed and the agricultural sector, so vital to providing adequate food for Canadian consumers, is facing a critical lack of temporary farm workers. Usually seasonal workers are welcomed with few complications involved in their arrival and dispersal to farms where many have worked for years in a familiar seasonal routine bringing in workers from Mexico, Jamaica and Guatemala.

This year it's different, routine and expectations have been disrupted. Fewer migrant workers are willing to travel to Canada from countries for which the transmission of the novel coronavirus is less of a problem than it is in Canada. Regulations require that workers coming in to Canada must be tested and isolate for 14 days, an inconvenience to many for a period for which they will not be paid, though the welcoming farmer is responsible for accommodation and food supplied for that period.

As for the government's statement that employment is open to Canadians for farm work, there are few takers. All the more so when government has been disbursing cheques during the COVID period to the unemployed, to students, with no strings attached, and most would prefer to receive those regular deposits to their bank accounts as opposed to going out to work in the fields. Special measures were implemented to convince seasonal workers to arrive in Canada this year.

File photo of workers on a farm in B.C. in 2018. B.C. Government Photo

Exemptions from border closures, easing of visa renewals for agricultural workers, and making $50 million available for mandatory quarantine costs. The very idea of finding local labour sources within Canada is risible; Canadians simply don't rise to the challenge of hard physical labour in agriculture. And that there is a shortage of thousands of farm labourers this year when the growing season is beginning is seriously troubling.

In four months to the end of April 22,000 agricultural workers arrived in British Columbia and Niagara in Ontario for work in fruit orchards and vegetable fields and wine-grapes. For the month of April, 11,000 workers arrived when 13,000 had been expected. Public health fears and travel difficulties are cited as some of the reasons to explain the shortfall in workers. Fears stem from the fact that Canadian farms and facilities staffed by migrant workers have seen some of the largest outbreaks of the virus.

According to statements held to be confidential by some foreign workers, not all employers follow health guidelines stipulated by the government, leaving the workers concerned for their health. One worker cited a change in transportation, this year crammed charter flights as opposed to previous years on commercial planes; no separation, no quarantine. One worker who gave his statement in confidentiality described living in a  house with six others, sharing kitchen and bath in a house that fails to meet health standards.

At a plant nursery in British Columbia in May, twenty-three foreign workers tested positive for COVID-19. In Alberta, migrant workers at meat plants have been confirmed with the virus. Due to a shortage of labour as a result of non-arrivals and illness among workers, a Mexican worker on a mushroom farm in Ontario described being under pressure to produce more on a farm that has reported a number of COVID-19 cases in the past few weeks.

The farm worker cited the company giving workers face masks to use for two weeks at a time. If workers become ill they must quarantine at home and they earn nothing. Making $500 weekly, the man sends his pay back home to Mexico to support his mother, wife and daughter. At the fsrm, he lives with five others in a three-bedroom house.

Leading migrant rights groups call for greater protection for workers, along with stricter physical distancing. And if they should fall ill, guaranteed pay.

Charles Keddy employs temporary foreign workers on his strawberry farm in Nova Scotia, but concerns around COVID-19 are causing labour shortages. (CBC)

Summer COVID Quarantine

"[At the medical conference with four thousand present] everybody is shaking hands."

"Please RT if you want to make this [fist bumps] a social norm. I shared the article on the North American spread of the novel coronavirus in February], and then I started fist bumping, everybody. But even people who saw the article, friends, instinctively kept reaching out for my hands."

"It's that habit we built our entire life in our culture. Shaking hands is the way you connect with somebody."

"Over time, it decreases the probability that we'll be able to comply [due to the 'profound burden of extreme physical and social distancing']."

"[People] are irritated their life is disrupted -- you have a thousand different little reasons why any individual might be experiencing fatigue with all of these things." 

"We'll learn new norms about how to socially interact, in small groups, spaced out, with masks on, in ways that allow us to get our basic human and social and mental health needs met, while reducing the infection rate."

Jay Van Bavel, professor, social neurologist, New York University

Children and teens gather around an instructor during Royal Ontario Museum's summer camp in 2019. The future of the camp this summer is uncertain, as the museum is closed. (Kiron Mukherjee)

It was still winter when the World Health Organization finally took the step of declaring the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the novel coronavirus that the WHO named COVID-19, to be a global pandemic, placing the world on notice that extraordinary precautions and bold and sometimes unpleasant steps in declaring an emergency with regulations to match, came into our lives. Social distancing was, albeit unpleasant, somewhat more doable, in the cold winter months. And we've had months of extraordinary caution, while the virus roared through one country after another.

Worldwide over five million cases of COVID have been diagnosed, causing severe enough symptoms to shock medical professionals and flood hospitals with hundreds of thousands of very ill people requiring life-saving measures that mostly aided recovery, and too frequently ended in death. The elderly and the health-impaired were particularly targeted by the predatory virus, and in one country after another, long-term care institutes and homes for the elderly were devastated.

But summer is fast approaching, with fine weather to tempt people to throw off the bonds of social separation and self-isolation, for the relaxation and happy times that not so long ago were normal in everyone's life, casual adventures in partying, in going off to crowded beaches to soak in the sun and lakes, utterly irresistible, and just too much to expect people to forego and children to be happy with the continued constraints on their summer expectations.

"Asking people to renounce social contact is not just asking them to abstain from pleasurable activities; it is asking them to diverge from a point of equilibrium, toward which they normally all gravitate."

"Yet, we still seek physical contact, with friends, family, loved ones, and there's little chance our 'social capacities and needs' will change, even in the face of an invisible threat."

"When we can be in the same physical space, or even more, when we touch and are in direct physical contact with each other, we have this immediate feeling of reciprocity: I touch your hand, you touch mine. This is very precious, and we know that joint presence, joint attention, play a crucial role in our lives. Joint presence and joint attention are not transferable to online platforms -- not now, and if you ask me, not for a long time."

Ophelia Deroy, faculty of philosophy of mind, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich 

Campgoers pose at Camp Northland-B'nai Brith in Haliburton, Ont., in pre-pandemic times. (Simon Wolle/Camp Northland)

This, in a world order that has fearfully and grudgingly accepted that it is no longer safe to touch other people, so much as to extend a friendly hand in greeting, to maintain a safe six feet distance apart from one another, to restrain oneself from the impulse to go along to a neighbourhood park, to accustom oneself to the unthinkable reality that there are no hairdressers, group sports, gyms, and other normal social institution distractions for leisure time activities open and available to begin with....

As social animals actively seeking out conversations, activities of shared interests with others, society has had to adjust to a vast difference in how we approach one another -- not at all, certainly not in a confident, close or intimate manner; grandparents maintaining a decreed distance from grandchildren, from extended family members, from previously trusted old friends; no more casual get-togethers, no neighbourly interactions, just distance, distance, distance.

Summer camps for children? That was in the past. Baseball games? Play dates? Not likely, not anymore, not until a minor miracle occurs when the disease either dissipates miraculously, or a reliable and safe vaccine is found to bring our lives back to the casual interchanges we have been accustomed to all of our lives. Meeting and hugging, whispering confidentially to one another, planning evenings out, instead of video-conferencing and no touching, either of people or hard surfaces, out in the great unknown.

We've been at this new, awkward and miserable game of separation and isolation for months, and it's psychologically wearying and beyond frustrating. Constant high-alert is a burden, one we've become fed up with. The basic activities we've taken for granted since forever: shopping, exercising, entertaining, that have been in strict abeyance for months, have been sorely missed, creating a sense of betrayal and resentment. At the same time the contemplation of returning to those old pursuits have lost their scare factor. And as society begins to loosen the strictures of denial, people will inevitably let their guards down.

Dr.Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, warned most recently that Canadians have an obligation to themselves and to others to remain vigilant; it is far too soon to relax restrictions entirely as some may contemplate. Should society in general relax to the extent that people are now feeling comfortable about inviting neighbours and friends over for drinks on the patio, think twice. Or risk the gains realized by remaining within our homes. We must, she stressed, continue to persevere, to maintain our guard, or the potential of an exponential infection rate becomes a possibility.

Carleton University researchers in a survey of 2,000 Canadians saw 79 percent of respondents agree that it is more important "to minimize available illness and death" rather than restart the economy prematurely. A preference for "getting the economy going again" was supported by 21 percent, even it it could result in more illness and death. Expect no carnivals or festivals this summer; no proms, no Calgary stampede, no Canada Day mass celebrations on Parliament Hill. Celebrate virtually.

Shelter-in-place and physical distancing are here to stay. "I think people have established, as unpleasant as it is, a routine in their lives. I think there is a sense of collective responsibility that everybody is still in this, and doing it", commented Josh Greenberg, professor of communication and media studies at Carleton University

"I do hear people saying that they're tired of this narrow routine, the expectation that they abide by these new safety guidelines.'

"[Caution fatigue  results with being desensitized  to a risk; over time] we adjust, psychologically, to reduce the fear and then we desensitize the pandemic information."

"People start to regain an interest in resuming a routine, trying to maintain their mental, emotional and spiritual health. We want to resume our prior habits."

"There are harsh consequences to the community if caution fatigue drives some of your choices. People feel fatigued from this highly taxing experience."

"Do what you can, when you can, to reduce your risk to yourself and others. So, if you're still going to socialize, put on the mask and stand six feet away."

Jacqueline Gollan, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

People take photographs of a fenced off cherry blossoms at High Park during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on Friday, May 1, 2020. Health officials and the government have asked that people stay inside to help curb the spread of COVID-19. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Notes On A Second COVID Wave

"No one in Canada still alive is used to these types of sacrifices or public policy moral quandaries. Things will not be normal until we get a vaccine."
"There's an overwhelming sense internally that people won't take to a second lockdown. One thing is for certain, we need to give the public some freedom or they won't accept even basic limits."
Name-protected Ontario government official

"An issue of concern is, the longer this drags out, the more restrictions are applied, then lifted, then applied, the more people are going to get social distancing fatigue, and we can probably expect to see an increase of non-compliance with social distancing."
"People are resilient and will eventually adapt to new restrictions, but it's important that they have a realistic idea of how long it's going to last. That requires good data to forecast the trajectory of the pandemic and governments willing to level with their citizens."
"That's going to scramble the system. It's going to confuse people [different messages from the federal government and the provinces]. People are going to downplay or dismiss the messages they don't want to hear." 
"So people might say, well, we're locked down but people in the other province are out partying. That's going to diminish the credibility of the last message."
Steven Taylor, psychologist, expert, psychology of pandemics, University of British Columbia

Medical staff in protective gear work at a 'drive-thru' testing centre for COVID-19 in Yeungnam University Medical Centre in Daegu, South Korea, on March 3. Because Asian nations experienced the outbreak much earlier, Canada can take lessons from them about preventing a second wave of infections. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

"People say that's a very distinct possibility [tackling hotspots as they arise, as opposed to closing down the entire country], it's standard, and we're gonna put out the fires."
"We're not going to close the country, we're going to put out the fires."
"There could be, whether it's an ember or a flame, we're gonna put it out. But we're not closing our country."
U.S.President Donald Trump, Washington

"We know particularly in those areas that are still working to get the spread of the virus under control it is going to be important to increase testing now ... but also make sure that as we move forward through the summer and into the fall, we are ready to act extremely quickly, so that the population at large won't be in situations of having to go back into confinement."
"But that depends on citizens doing their part, and also depends on having that testing capacity."
"We need to continue to do everything we can to prevent the need for any further lockdowns the way we've had up till now."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ottawa

A woman is tested at a temporary COVID-19 test clinic in Montreal, on Friday, May 15, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Paul Chiasson)

There certainly are differences in attitudes and outcomes respecting the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 between the two countries. Where Donald Trump hasn't self-isolated, continues to make public appearances, balks at wearing a face mask, and goes out of his way to encourage States of the Union to begin to open their economies and their societies to bring both back to normal in hopes of rescuing their financial situation, along with those of the U.S. He defies both public opinion and scientific recommendations by making use of a malarial drug whose usefulness against COVID is unproven.

And then there is Justin Trudeau, who wears a mask, daily addresses the Canadian public from the steps of his 'cottage', urging caution, and who has shut down Parliament but for virtual sittings, and who has self-isolated for the past two months, preferring to run his minority government like a majority government, issuing new news of new sectors of society and business becoming eligible for public-supported financial assists. Justin Trudeau is operating the country like a private fiefdom, throwing loaned money at every problem due to COVID-19 as a solution. In isolating himself he makes no public appearances in pursuit of his position as prime minister.

The United States has been hit particularly hard in the number of COVID cases being racked up, including a huge death toll, particularly in New York State and City both acutely impacted by COVID. In Canada, with about one-tenth the population of its southern neighbour, both case load and deaths have been much lower per capita population base, but both countries have suffered devastating losses to their economies, suffering high unemployment and have been borrowing heavily to shore up industries in trouble, and people whose livelihoods have vanished.

And though both countries now appear to feel that they've succeeded in 'flattening the curve' of infection, they also acknowledge the possibility that what has thus far occurred may be but an initial flush of the disease -- which until a reliably efficacious and safe vaccine is discovered, produced and mass inoculation taken place -- rebounds of additional waves can be expected with equally devastating effect. Both countries know that to effectively protect their vulnerable populations, testing must be increased to contain their outbreaks.

In Canada and in the United States, each federal government enacts pandemic-reactive legislation, but both the provinces and the states have taken their own separate interpretations of how they will proceed. Since some provinces and states have been impacted more seriously than others, it makes sense that coming out of total lockdown the lesser-impacted will be more aggressive about opening up. Yet there is also the knowledge among authorities that populations are likely to react with resistance against schools, daycares and businesses opening, then closing again with a second viral wave.

Canadian cases

CONFIRMED

83,608

(Today: +1,139)

DEATHS

6,355

(Today: +105)

RECOVERED

43,084

(Today: +477)

1,493,327 tests administered  (Today: +19,572)

Retaining physical distancing will continue to present as a problem in opening workplaces, whether offices or production centres where the option of working-from-home is not viable. A diminished number of work stations will have to be addressed on its impact on the workforce and on the economy. And should the situation continue to fester, by next winter it is anticipated that the wearing of face masks may become mandatory everywhere. Aside from which the danger of mental breakdowns with a continuation of uncertainty and isolation measures represents a real danger.

Science, one of the world's top academic journals, published a paper evaluating the outcome of a possible second wave, and governments' possible reactions. The paper recommends thresholds for enacting strict physical distancing measures to be reinstated, should infection numbers reach 35 cases per 10,000 people, a threshold determined by local factors, including area hospital capacity. A study by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at University of Minnesota looks at the variety of forms by which a second wave can manifest.

Where a "fall peak" scenario was examined, of the possibility of a massive, single wave of infections, greater in impact than the initial wave the world has and continues to be occupied with. Where a "slow burn" might still be manageable to contend with -- if difficult to comprehend how that might be possible -- with a series of "peaks and valleys" bringing along three or four additional waves each approximating the size and impact of the first one the world is trying to recover from.

At Novavax labs in Rockville, Maryland, Dr. Nita Patel lifts a vial with a potential COVID-19 vaccine. (AFP)

Power Play

"You will be the first Indigenous Nation in Canada to have recognition of your Aboriginal title over your territory by agreement."

British Columbia Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs

Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs from left, Rob Alfred, John Ridsdale and Antoinette Austin, who oppose the Coastal GasLink pipeline, take part in a rally in Smithers, B.C., on Jan. 10. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)

"Canada and B.C. recognize the Wet'suwet'en rights and title are held by the Wet'suwet'en houses under their system of government."

"Areas of jurisdiction that will need to be addressed include ... child and family wellness; water; Wet'swet'en national reunification strategy; wildlife; fish; land use planning; lands and resources; revenue sharing, fair and just compensation, economic component of Aboriginal title; informed decision-making; and such other areas as the Wet'swet'en propose."

"In some cases the jurisdiction that is transferred ... will be exclusive, and in some cases it will be shared with Canada or B.C."

"[None of the jurisdiction will be transferred until] specifics on how Aboriginal and Crown titles interface have been addressed [or until] clarity [is achieved on the] Wet'sewet'en governance structures, systems, and laws."

Memorandum of Understanding

"If [the  negotiation] goes ahead you'll see more separation within the nation and they're [the group of six hereditary chiefs claiming to speak for the Wet'sewet'en nation, although opposed by the greater majority of Wet'sewet'en Aboriginals in B.C.] already separating clans and clan members and houses."

"We're not understanding what is the rush here. We sat here for 30 years already, waiting and talking about it."
"We can wait another year or two. It's not going to hurt anything."
Gary Naziel, hereditary Wet'suwet'en subchief

"I don't see why the government gave them this, because this has got nothing to do with what the protests across Canada started from."
"Those issues are not resolved. They can set up roadblocks again and do it again, and that's what I'm worried about."
Chief Dan George, Ts'il Kaz Koh First Nation

Protesters gather at the rail blockade on the 11th day of demonstrations on Sunday, near Belleville, Ont. (Lars Hagberg/Canadian Press)

Coastal GasLink pipeline project was poised to proceed with the building of a 416-mile-long pipeline that would deliver natural gas across northern British Columbia to a facility where LNG Canada would convert the gas to a liquified state (LNG) and transport it for export globally. The line was approved after years of consulting with Aboriginal groups, of undertaking environmental studies, and with the approval of those Indigenouss groups signing on to share in employment and gasline profits with band councils.

Wet'sewet'en elected chiefs were satisfied on behalf of the nations and clans and houses they represented that the project was environmentally sustainable, respected their heritage lands, their culture and their need for inclusion on their heritage lands, and signed their approval of the project. What happened next surprised many, when a group of men claiming to be 'heritage' chiefs, non-elected but culturally important, removed heritage chief status from others and in a group of six presented as a unified group of dissenters speaking on behalf of the Wet'sewet'en.

A court injunction was obtained to stop the group from protesting at the work site. And it was ignored by the heritage chiefs. The Wet'sewet'en themselves who had approved the project were furious. But the heritage chiefs attracted the sympathy and support of many non-Indigenous groups across Canada, along with that of the influential Ontario Mohawk community whose 'warriors' set up roadblocks and blocked railways, essentially bringing traffic and portage to a halt. The chiefs demanded to speak to the heads of government, and an 'agreement' was negotiated.

The heritage chiefs had succeeded in temporarily halting pipeline construction, in placing a lock on the economy however temporarily, and in being recognized by government as qualified to speak on behalf of the Wet'sewet'en over the legitimacy of the elected chiefs. They did this because the Ontario Provincial Police hesitated initially until matters became dangerously out-of-hand, to step in to enforce court orders that the protest blockages and camps be cleared away. And because the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau usually folds to Aboriginal demands.

Police officers make an arrest during a raid on a Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory camp next to a railway crossing in Tyendinaga, Ont., on Feb. 24, (Chris Helgren/Reuters)

When the hereditary chiefs came away with the draft of the memoradum of undrstanding which it was understood they would share with the Wet'sewet'en and hold discussions that everyone would be involved in, their promise to respect that detail was given short shrift; the memorandum kept to themselves as they undemocratically made all the decisions, and claimed to have won a great distinction for the Wet'sewet'en nation. At last the memorandum was finalized and released.

As for the Coastal GasLink pipeline project, despite the controversy manipulated by the hereditary chiefs in claiming that the project ignored Aboriginal heritage rights, irrespective of the Wet'sewet'en through their elected chiefs having happily agreed to sign the necessary contracts for it to proceed, it did just that. The project is well underway. The governments of B.C. and Canada knelt to the empty demands of the hereditary chiefs who had succeeded in producing an even wider schism between tribes and clans than already existed, and the elected band councils and their supporters have been left steaming.
 

A Mohawk demonstrator gazes up at a Mohawk flag affixed to a railroad crossing arm. ALEX FILIPE jpg, BI