Today's news: Its a "Tridemic" now

I guess they're calling it a "tridemic" now -- the triple hammer of Covid, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) that is destroying our hospitals. 

This time, its the children:

No children’s Tylenol, no children’s amoxicillin, urgent care waits 8+ hours, walk-in waits 4+ hours, no pediatric hospital beds available whatsoever, family doctor is booking appointments a month out, worst “tridemic” RSV/flu/COVID wave in years… Canada is not okay right now 🫠

— Emily (@Youlookpretty) December 6, 2022

Today, Alberta shut down its children’s respite/palliative care center, sending the sickest and dying children and their families home to fend in their own

This is so the staff can be redeployed to overflowing children’s hospitals

It’s not just medically assisted suicide

— Nael (@GreenSnail_) December 4, 2022

Santa weeps.

— Stephen Tustin (@stustin) December 6, 2022

Vaccines alone are not enough to stop this Tridemic from killing children.

Even if every single eligible Ontario resident were to get a COVID and flu shot today, it would not relieve the pressure on children’s hospitals.

It’s time to #BringBackMasks. pic.twitter.com/wKHkI19yFg

— Kimiko Shibata 🇨🇦 🦄 (@ESL_fairy) December 6, 2022

But we KNOW what to do to help people avoid getting sick - we just have to DO IT!

"We have all the tools to change the trajectory of this horrible situation. The only missing ingredient is courage from our leaders to be transparent about the current situation and mandate the changes that are necessary to prevent more illness and death." @SKGandhiMD #bcpoli 6/6

— Sonia Furstenau (@SoniaFurstenau) December 5, 2022

The enduring tragedy of 2020-21 was the deaths of millions of old people due to Covid in Long Term Care facilities across Canada and throughout the world. 

And this is still happening - read this whole thread:

Did you read that? Terrified. You could not send him & it’s a heart attack and that kills him. You could send him & it not a heart attack but he brings Covid/RSV/flu back with him and it kills him and may be starts a out break at a nursing home that will cost more lives 2/

— Jon O (@Jon4u16) December 5, 2022

Today's News: Feeling so misunderstood

 

I don't understand why Alberta and Saskatchewan feel so misunderstood and persecuted and hard-done-by all the time. 

Fact of life: Canada's population is not fairly distributed across the country and it never will be. Most of our people live in Ontario and Quebec, with several million more in Vancouver. The Prairies have just 20 per cent of the country. 

Fact of life: A quarter of Canada lives here - in the Ontario Golden Horseshoe:

Fact of life: That's also where much of Canada's money is made, too - industry, banks, manufacturing, transportation, etc. -- though when it comes to the economy, this year the Prairies are actually expected to do a little better than anywhere else in the country:

Alberta and Saskatchewan, quit yer bitchin'! We're not living in the Red Wedding, no matter how much our politicians want us to trash the East.  We are, actually, great places to live (for most of the year anyway) with friendly people, beautiful scenery, a terrific economy. 

Please can't we just stop all this pissing and moaning and complaining?

Dear god.

“Smith has directed her cabinet ministers to look for federal "intrusions" into provincial jurisdiction, past and future, and create special resolutions that will be introduced and debated in the spring 2023 legislative session.”

…

— David Moscrop: Subscribe to my Substack. It’s fun! (@David_Moscrop) November 30, 2022

But tell me again about how Trudeau is a dictator... #cdnpoli #ableg https://t.co/rm7IVaIf40

— Stephen Lautens (@stephenlautens) November 30, 2022

"The bill creates choice opportunities to ramp up hostilities before the provincial election set for next May 29." Ottawa has the power to disallow this bill. That's likely what Premier Smith wants. Come May 29th, she'd rather fight Trudeau than Notley. https://t.co/8WDxk9MgxR

— Charles Adler (@charlesadler) November 30, 2022

Lunocracy: rule by loons.

The bill would "enable [the government of Alberta] to deem federal laws unconstitutional, allow it to make unilateral changes to provincial legislation, and direct provincial entities to ignore “harmful” federal policies."https://t.co/ajeANuNH6c

— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦 (@acoyne) November 29, 2022

Cold weather blues and other news

So pending Twitter's possible demise, I have now signed up at Mastodon and at Tribel -- I'm not sure either of them can work as easily as Twitter did so we'll see how it goes. 

Here are my links to these sites, if you have to find me someday soon: 

Tribel: https://www.tribel.com/cathiecanada/wall 

Mastodon: https://mstdn.ca/@CathieCanada 

I haven't made many posts on these sites yet and I'm not sure how much I will be able to use them, because they don't seem to have easy ways to save posts or to embed them here on Blogger. 

I think the thing about Twitter that's hardest for other places to reproduce is that it's one of the few places people can learn from in-group conversation from groups they're not a member of.

— Danielle Evans (@daniellevalore) November 18, 2022

Moving on to today's news, here in Saskatchewan tonight, its COLD. Damned cold.

People have already died of exposure in Saskatchewan this winter:

That choked me up. I can see the STC shelter from my window. As I write there are four people sitting on the sidewalk under piles of quilts while several others stand around. I’ve become a UBI convert. The misery and sheer waste of human talent is too much.

— Janice Braden (@JL_Braden) November 19, 2022

To humanize and publicize the problem,Yann Martel writes of his 36-hour "homeless" experience: 

Over and over, I met people who showed me the respect and dignity that poverty and homelessness so quickly strip you of. 

That’s how we begin to deal with homelessness in our city, by re-humanizing people from whom so much has been taken. Homelessness is not a cancer. It’s the suffering of fellow citizens, and if we don’t help them, we’re all brought down, the homeless and everyone around them, residents, business owners, the city, everyone. 

700 low income units are sitting empty and the best the city has is a bus?

— Fritz🔥🇨🇦 (not a parody) (@FritzWyssen) November 19, 2022

This Saskatchewan homeless man patrols streets to save others from freezing to death | CBC News https://t.co/mOvbF5q2ya

— kathy mahar (@kathymahar) November 16, 2022

“Natanis Bundschuh, executive director of the Meadow Lake Outreach Ministries, says her organization has been receiving an influx of calls from people looking to help the homeless population in the northern Saskatchewan community.” https://t.co/JZTPkrqPQ5

— Jenn Summers (@jenn_summers01) November 20, 2022