Well, it was nice of them to essentially admit during the last week of the election that they really had nothing better to offer.
Never mind- not the right forum for politics.
After having really good numbers and handling things well over the course of 18 months, New Brunswick removed all restrictions at the end of July. The initial target was 75% of the eligible population vaccinated. We were at 72% or so but it was important to open for NB Day. A month and a half later we are averaging 65 or so new cases a day, have over 30 people in hospital and 15 of those in ICU. We are back under a state of emergency, restricted to bubbles of 20 steady contacts, mandatory masks in indoor public areas, and vaccine passports for non-essentials such as gyms, restaurants, bars, etc.
I invite anyone who doesn’t believe that masks and such are helpful to take note of our failed re-opening.
If not already posted, this has a poll listing the many reasons people say they do not want to get the vaccine. Most common is “hate the government telling me what to do”, but there are many more.
Here in Alberta we’re up at around 1500 new cases a day, and the ICUs are full of unvaccinated patients. Hospitals have begun to implement the triage protocol.
I was just watching the news this morning and learned that even things like chemo are being triaged out. It’s an utterly appalling situation.
Last Wednesday Ontario opened up vaccine passport rules. There is no proper passport yet, they just want people to carry printouts or PDFs on their phones.
(When I visited the website, they said I had already visited that day. Concerning! I had the PDF in my email though, so I took care of it that way.)
I went out that day to two places that should have checked me for proof of vaccination. Neither checked me or anyone else. At least one of those places could be viewed as a COVID-spreading factory.
It’s worse in Alberta (according to news reports). There are counties with vaccination rates of about one third, and nobody checks there because it would cost them the majority of their customers.
It’s gonna suck when their customers are either dead or can’t leave the house due to suffering long covid symptoms. But then they’ll probably just blame Trudeau when their business fails.
Well hope their first target is Kenney and that they then don’t jump the rails for some Ayn Rand loving freak show of a political party.
A calendar reminder went off on my phone earlier today. Based on the initial Ontario vaccine rollout, today was supposed to be my second shot. I actually got my second shot at the end of May.4
Goddamn Trudeau, screwing up your perfectly good schedule by getting too many vaccines too early!
I have no doubt that that’s the case in some rural parts of Alberta, but if my experience over the past weekend in Alberta is any indication, they’re checking. On Saturday afternoon, I met up with some friends at our usual haunt for our weekly “Beer and BS” session, and even though we’ve been known there for quite some time, we were all checked. Then on Sunday, it was off to the local horse racing track, and again, even though I’m known there, I had to have my proof of vaccination.
I’m not understanding the hesitancy, but it exists. Two of our regulars for “Beer and BS” refuse to get vaxxed, and texted us all their regrets at being unable to attend. They weren’t very regretful though, as one said, “Our supreme leader, the Great and Powerful Jason Kenney has determined that I am a threat to public health.” He goes on about how the vaccine is useless, and only being used because it lines the pockets of Big Pharma. The other just sent a WWII photo of a Nazi soldier demanding somebody’s papers, with the tag, “This weekend, don’t forget to turn your clocks back to 1942.”
I don’t get it. These guys are normally pretty reasonable and rational. Oh well, I enjoyed getting together with the boys, and being able to wager on horses a day later. Their loss, I guess.
I am afraid you might have to resign yourself to a future where your friends go completely down the conspiracy rabbit hole into whacko land. They are unlikely to be swayed by anything at this point, and may well start gabbling about the communist mole-men living in the drains.
I think they will eventually crack. The “Nazi photo” guy has a couple of aged parents about whom he cares very much, and he won’t be able to interact with them in their care home unless he gets the shots. And he needs an audience to which to complain about everything: zoning laws, the price of gas, his employer, the weather, Daylight Savings Time, realtors, Tim Hortons, his barber–you name it, he’s got a complaint about it. And the “Beer and BS” crew is his sounding board. He will only last so long without us.
The other (who wrote the “Supreme Leader Jason Kenney” message) will hold out longer. A shame, because while he was often very quiet at our Saturday sessions, when he did speak, his remarks were amazingly astute. But I think as time goes by, with texts on Saturday mornings about when the crew will arrive at our usual haunt, he will start to miss the crew, and reconsider. But not for a month or two, at the very least.
I’ve a friend who proudly announced on Facebook, "You just can’t make this stuff up. The Alberta government announced that those home sick (they did not specify how they got those numbers) are being counted in the daily case numbers for their current outbreak…with no COVID test and never seeing a health care professional. "
They went on to repeat the canard about some official announcing that every death in hospital of a patient who was Covid positive was counted as a Covid death.
No cites or anything, just I think I saw on some video. SMH
Okay, I’m trying to parse this out…Is this guy a conservative or not? Being anti-vaxx in Alberta suggests he is, but then going off on Kenney like that suggests he isn’t. I mean, he has to know that Kenney had to be dragging kicking and screaming into taking the pandemic seriously, right? So why is he blaming Kenney so much?
Pretty standard Conspiracy Theorist response. No good “fact” ever goes away. They’ll be claiming this “death=COVID” nonsense for decades to come.
Don’t forget the Conservatives split into Conservative and Wild Rose parties. They joined back together becoming the United Conservative Party. Kenney has to balance the demands of a rural/libertarian faction and the legacy Conservative faction. He has the same problems O’Toole has really.
Add to that Kenney rightfully owns this 4th wave. Sure you can blame the public health person, but as conservatives keep telling me, we can’t have technocrats dictate policy; it has to be done by elected officials.
I’m in complete agreement but wonder why they need to tell me this
Anyway it’s bad, he’s seen as weak by the ex-Wild Rose bunch and so blood is in the water. The next Alberta election is 2023 I think and it would be interesting to see if the NDP get back in based on fractured voting.
Huh. In BC, the right-wingers are complaining that those who were hospitalized with Covid are NOT being counted in the hospitalized Covid stats after they are no longer infectious - they are then just counted as “regular” hospital patients. Because this somehow proves that Horgan and the NDP are corrupt or something. Also argle-bargle something something Trudeau. It’s hard to follow.
Basically, they bitch no matter what the government does.
Clearly it’s all about making Alberta look bad by over-counting their COVID cases while under-counting BC’s cases.
It’s conspiracies all the way down!
Really dedicated conspiracy theorists have no political party. The needs of maintaining a conspiracy theory will always end up requiring a monolithic Them. They are the ones who create the lies, and They are all in it together. That’s why you’ll find people in the wacky right AND left in the antivax camp, because they’re all convinced about the evils of Them.