The Winter wind has started and is blowing on average at about 70K on a good day, plenty of fresh air, the humidity is also fairly high at 70% or more which makes for bone chilling.
Well the Atlantic bubble which had been working for us for 5 months has burst, with surging cases of Covid 19 in Nova Scotia in the region of Halifax and in New Brunswick in the region of Moncton and St-John our bridge to the mainland has been closed since early this morning. The wind also played its part gusting upwards of 90Km. Long lines of trucks bringing essential goods are stopped at the foot of the bridge on the New Brunswick side until the wind dies down tonight. It would be far too dangerous to try to cross the 12Km over the Strait to the Island. So it looks like life is going to be a lot quieter now here on Charlottetown. Many people work from home so less people in town.
We still have only 2 mild cases of Covid 19 on the Island and both are at home. To keep our situation under control we need to shut off the Island and now must also wear face masks in all buildings, shops, malls etc inside. So far everyone obeys the rule which is remarkable.
Our worst case is the Province of Alberta who has more per capita cases of Covid every single day than any other provinces including Quebec and Ontario despite having only fraction of their population. The Premier of Alberta is Jason Kenney, a Trump wanna-be, his reasoning businesses and oil companies come well before peoples lives.
Despite the announcement of 3 possible vaccines in the works against Covid 19, the reality is that in Canada we are not likely to see any of it before March 2021. The reason being that in the last 40 years all our research and medical producing facilities have moved abroad. This was allowed in a series of mergers with foreign companies and a Federal Government and politicians asleep at the switch, an unfortunate situation but it is what it is.
Some Canadians are leaving for southern climes and the Foreign Minister warned them that because of the Pandemic it would far better to stay home. There will be no special flights to bring people back if they leave the country and find themselves stranded abroad. Still enough fools think it does not apply to them.
One terrible lesson from this pandemic and one I have come to understand; Governments have clearly made a decision to put efforts in saving businesses instead of people. The other lesson is that if you are over 55 your government sees you as an expensive burden, this explains why so little has been done to help save elderly in assisted care homes, why so many have been left to die. We see it all over Canada with the notable exception of PEI where no one got sick or died. Since such centres are private and run by companies for profit, it has been know for the last 40 years that they are often understaffed and provide only the most basic of services. Staff is on minimum wage and poorly trained, despite this situation and major scandals politicians look the other way.
On the other hand the news of the transition to the President Elect Joe Biden having now officially started and his presentation of his new Cabinet is very encouraging. A return to professionalism and a clean broom of the nonsense of the last 4 years. The news also of a possible vaccine to solve this crisis is encouraging, we can only hope that 2021 which will dawn in just 5 weeks will bring a new beginning.
Oh well as I write this I am having a glass of Champagne, can’t be all that bad.
