Canada and the Coronavirus

The Quarantine Zone
884

The NHL’s action serves no safety purpose that would not also be logically served by postponing all games. Travelling from Dallas to Vancouver carries no more risk to anyone than travelling from Dallas to San Jose. It’s a weird reaction. Just call off all games for a few weeks.

People were freaking out over the rollout the first time around, claiming the province was going to waste all the vaccines. Or something. It ended up going reasonably smoothly. So will the booster program. OF COURSE there is going to be a huge traffic jam at first when they open it up to all adults.

885

Two years into COVID and a year into vaccination, the province shouldn’t be flailing like this every time there’s a roll out.

I’m partly frustrated because they said “Monday at 8AM you can book the appointment,” then opened the site last night so that anyone who took them at their word is now waiting six or seven weeks for a jab.

I understand that as supplies increase, dates will pull closer. As well, I’m on two pharmacy waiting lists on top of my booked date through the province. I’ll cancel any excess ones once I get the shot; if many people are doing that, it’ll have a domino effect as well. But we really shouldn’t have to play these games.

886

Yep, it’s completely stupid. If it’s Omicron they’re trying to avoid, they’re probably already two weeks too late.

887

I think I’m registered at four or five different Shoppers Drug Marts currently. Getting on all the lists doesn’t cancel previous entries, I’m pretty sure.

Feeling some of the vaccine envy that was going around last Spring (“aw, jeez, I wish I was immunocompromised!”). If I see one more FB post along the lines of “Our doctor friend let us know about a no-show at his office and we all got our jabs. Merry Christmas!” I’m going to lose it.

888

Update to my own personal situation. By Tuesday night, I’d registered for the waitlists for about a dozen individual Shoppers Drug Marts (Drugs Mart?). I was monitoring the Toronto Vaccine Finder twitter feed, and also jumping on any leads my friends posted on FB. It was like whack-a-mole over at the provincial portal; appointments would be offered at a location, then be gone by the time I had my mouse over them. I managed to move my appointment back a whole two days, to February 8. Whee.

I found a link for a list of pop-up sites on the provincial site for Wednesday morning, and a couple of them (run by the Michael Garron Hospital, I think) were about a fifteen minute drive away for me. So I set my alarm for the crack of ridiculous, bundled up, and drove to a middle school in Scarborough. I was in line at 6:10AM, and was fifth or sixth; the woman at the front had been there since 4:30AM.

Apparently the school had been caught a bit off guard by the whole thing. Originally they were going to be doing a kids’ clinic (first shots for 5-11), then it got changed to the everybody walk-in, and then the kids were added back on. I may have some of that wrong but honestly who can tell. We stood shivering for over four hours (it was cold as hell, and I lost circulation in my toes and fingers) and when the 10AM start time came and went, not all the nurses had arrived, and the school principal was walking the length of the line to pull out the kids and send them to the front.

While I was waiting, I got text messages from three of the pharmacies with whom I was waitlisted. I pecked out an acceptance of one of them…even if my shot yesterday morning was only fifty feet away, I wasn’t taking any chances. I mean…(gestures vaguely at the last week’s government shenanigans) So I also lined up a booster for January 10. Which bodes well, I think. My wait time went from seven weeks to three overnight, and I was still looking to get my booster before lunchtime.

Finally the doors were opened up for over-18s, and I was in the first batch allowed inside. About twenty minutes later I had my booster; they only had Pfizer at this clinic, which means I’ve sampled some of everything approved in Canada at this point. I’m an AstroDernZer guy. As I jogged back to the car, desperate to get home and take a stupidly hot shower, I saw the line around the building stretching to the far end of the suburban block. There were supposedly 400 doses delivered; not everyone in the line was going to get one.

By the time I got home, I could already download the updated (three dose) provincial QR code certificate, proving that even if the team at the top couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery, the IT wonks have the software issues well in hand.

Side effects: nothing at all yesterday. I’m a bit headachy currently, but I was standing in the freezing cold for four+ hours yesterday morning, so I suspect that’s part of it. My initial dose of Astra knocked me on my ass for 24 hours, and my second shot (Moderna) have me a bit of a headache for a while, so I didn’t know what to expect. Happy I got my booster before Christmas, glad I spent a morning and lost some sleep to do so.

So anyhoo…depending on your tolerance for early mornings, holding your bladder in the cold and long lines, the boosters are out there. I hear the province is opening up clinics over New Years weekend, I’d assume that means they got enough supply but, well…you pays your money…

May the odds be ever in your favor!

889

Sorry to hear of the difficulty in getting boosters for so many. I was lucky enough to get mine a while back, so one astra zennacca and two pfizers. Hopefully that is a good combination. I also managed to get a kit of 5 covid tests today, which are also pretty hard to find as they fly off the shelves. So a safe Christmas everyone!

890

I got my third shot on Saturday. I’m still fairly certain that I’ll end up with omicron anyway.

891

I didn’t have any trouble getting my booster. The Sask Health Authority has been running vaccine clinics ever since the vaccine first became available. As soon as I was eligible, I went to the clinic and was in and out in less than an hour, including the 15 minute wait period after getting it.

I’ve heard there may be more backlogs now, since they’ve dropped the eligiblity age, but don’t have any real knowledge of it.

892

I went to the pharmacy to pick up some medication, and unsolicited the pharmacist gave me a rapid covid testing kit for every member of the family. They are handing themmout to everyone,

It’s nice to see Canada performing well in this area. Or Alberta, anyway.

My wife got the booster early because she is immuno-compromised. I think I will be eligible for the booster next month.

893

I got my booster last night. My first shot was AstraZeneca, the second was Moderna, and the third was Pfizer. The “holy trinity” of COVID-19 vaccines! Now I just need to get the Jansseen to complete my collection…LOL.

894

They’ve been giving out tests here in Ontario, but not equitably. My kids were each given a box at school to use over the holidays, but otherwise there have been long lines that run out in the first 5 minutes after opening. My neighbourhood groups in Facebook are full of posts looking for RATs.

Boosters are a bit of a madhouse. I got mine two weeks ago since I’m over 50 and 6+ months since #2, but they’ve now thrown it open to anyone 18+ and 3 months since #2 which is a bit of a Gong Show. My wife was lucky enough to get an appointment last week.

895

I got a heads-up from a friend about new booster appointments locally, so I’ve got an appointment for Friday. I was worrying that I might not get it until February, so I’m happy.

I had to wait because I did another vaccine just before they opened up the booster shots, and was told I couldn’t get another vaccine for 4 weeks. By the time I was allowed to get the booster, Omicron had blown up, and all the available appointments had been taken. D’oh!

896

Ontario is going back to a modified Step 2 of last year’s re-opening plan. They’re not shutting down everything, but retail and personal services capacity will be halved again, schools won’t open up again for in-person learning for an extra two weeks, movie theatres and food courts will be shuttered (really hoping that 5cream gets a streaming release now) and the hospitals will be cutting back on non-emergency procedures. Considering my dad is supposed to have some cancer surgery in two weeks, not sure if that’s still a go or not.

It’s not in the article, but I heard elsewhere that they’ll review after three weeks. Some experts are guesstimating 6-8 weeks for Omicron to peak and taper off. Gonna be another depressing winter.

897

Public cooperation with these sorts of things will now sink, especially with the limits on private gatherings. You cannot tell people for eighteen months “get vaccinated because that will get things back to normal” and then say “lol j/k” and expect confidence in what government is saying, especially if after Wednesday cases keep climbing and ICUs still have capacity.

My booster is on Friday. And then I still can’t do anything. I get the science, but you just cannot do something like this and not expect a lot of people to say “fuck this.”

898

There is an increasingly loud (if immature) voice in my head saying “fuck this.” I get the science, too, but I’m struggling with the psychology.

Right now, I’m telling myself “just focus on the booster.” Mine should be scheduled this week for sometime in the near future. Then I’m going to try to focus on the end of January, because it looks like Omicron will have peaked by then; then waiting for the wave to fully pass. But the temptation to count on only a mild hit from Omicron and just go back to normal is enormous.

899

One recurring problem for Ford (and for Boris Johnson…Tories the world over keep doing this) is the overpromising. If you say to the province/country/world “No, whatever may come, I can guarantee we won’t be shutting down again no matter what, cross my heart.” it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’re going to be walking it back at some point. I know that nobody wants to hear worst case scenarios all the time, but if Ford would issue a few more realistic dire warnings earlier on, he’d have more credibility.

Instead, he continues to send his lackeys out to spin elaborate lies (“All the teachers have N95 masks and every school’s been fixed up with HEPA filters!”), refers to people being off sick with the 'rona as “absenteeism” and just hopes things turn around before the election this year, and that nobody brings up all his cutbacks to nurses in 2019 and the pay freeze for them during the pandemic while he’s on the trail.

900

The message from the Liberal governments at the federal and provincial levels has been the same. As it happens I live in Ontario, but you’ll see similar anger elsewhere.

901

Here in Alberta, more and more people are saying, “Fuck this.” Since March 2020, we’ve gone from closed, to open, to closed again, then partially open, then wide-open, then closed, then partially open, then something-or-other. I can’t keep up. Lather, rinse and repeat; who knows what next week will bring? Even enthusiastic early advocates for closing down everything are now saying, “Fuck this. We’ve done everything the government has told us to; we’ve gotten double-vaccinated, we’re booking and receiving third-shot boosters, we’ve isolated ourselves, we’ve foregone family gatherings and weddings and funerals, and now we have to go back to square one again? Fuck this.” Note that Alberta went back to all kinds of restrictions in September, so we’ve had plenty of time to nurse grievances.

It’s interesting that you mention psychology. I had to speak with my ex-wife recently, involving a matter with one of our cats. What we decided regarding the cat is irrelevant to this discussion, but as often happens, we digressed into other topics. She’s a medical professional with a number of degrees, one of which is in psychology; and that was her concern: the mental health of Canadians in all provinces, given the back-and-forth of openings, closings; re-openings only to be cut short by re-closings; remote working, then not, then remote again; school openings and closings and online learning, before going back to in-person school, then not; and the realization that our politicians are making empty promises that we’ll get back to normal “if we only do _____.” And then we do _____ , at which point, the politicians and the scientists don’t keep their promises; they delay before delivering more restrictions.

As my ex-wife said, this is playing hell with peoples’ mental health. She didn’t have a lot of good to say about the medical officers of health in each province (“they were biology with bacteria in petri dishes all the way; not a one ever studied human psychology, and they don’t understand the human mind and that humans need to to be with one another, or else they go batshit crazy”).

It’s no wonder that people are saying (or are going to say) “Fuck this.” Yes, the biological science is important, but so is the psychological science. And the latter is what is causing people to say “Fuck this.” A little more care and concern for peoples’ mental health would go a long way towards helping. Follow the biological science, yes; but also realize that mental health is also a science that must be dealt with.

902

I understand the temptation, but the problem is, just getting it once won’t let you “go back to normal” any more than getting vaccinated has. There’s nothing stopping you from getting it two or more times, and no indication that the second time won’t be worse than the first.

It may come that this will be the de facto plan, but if so, there’s going to be consequences. If we do this, we have to spend the money to expand our healthcare system, we’ll have no choice. If the hospitals get overwhelmed, we’re all screwed, not just the COVID patients.

So that’s what people should be demanding. It’s pretty clear we’ve maxed out on getting people vaccinated.

903

Oh, I know. That’s why it’s a temptation rather than a shift in behaviour. But I’m finding it harder to talk myself into decisions that came easily a year ago, when the disease wasn’t nearly as prevalent.