Dealing with COVID-19 in Canada

[Lieneke]

After so many threads claiming that Canadians are the same as USA people, we see the significant difference today.

Trudeau says: go home and stay home, enough is enough, I mean it.
Dr Trump says: I have the cure in my pocket, everyone should return to work next week.

[newdixiegirl]

Originally Posted by CRAROD

What is happening in Italy is simply insane. What the hell happened there?

627 deaths just today.

Originally Posted by Zoisite

I think Italian's concepts of social isolation and social distancing from intimate friends and family members is maybe not quite the same as most other cultures' understanding of it. Maybe I'm wrong but aren't Italians typically especially close knit and all encompassing and huggy-huggy when it comes to their family relationships? Perhaps physical deprivation from loved ones is too tough a nut to crack and easy to let slide.


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I just asked my good friend, Allan, from middle school, a fellow Canadian, about this today. He's a very experienced nurse of 25+ years who's worked in multiple specialties of nursing in many different environments (and who has already treated patients with Covid-19).

Allan spent over a month in Italy a couple of years ago because his dad was hospitalized there after a skiing accident. Naturally, Allan spent most of his time at the hospital with his dad and overseeing his dad's care. Allan told me at the time that he wasn't at all impressed with this Italian hospital or its medical staff.

In our conversation today, he reminded me about this and also said that he was appalled by the lack of hygiene practiced at the Italian hospital. He said he rarely saw medical staff wash their hands, and, in fact, there were few sinks and little soap anywhere for staff or patients to do so (patients didn't have their own restrooms and there were only a couple of sinks in each ward of the hospital).

He said that, overall, medical staff at this particular hospital exhibited incredibly lax hygiene practices, if not a poor understanding of the importance of frequent hand washing to prevent the spread of microorganisms like viruses and bacteria. The strict practices taken for granted throughout most of the advanced world seemed non-existent.

It's shocking to hear this about a hospital in Europe. And it's anyone's guess whether or not infection control is similarly negligent at other Italian hospitals. But after hearing this from Allan, I guess it's possible that it is, and that this could be a factor in the rapid spread of Covid-19 in Italy.

[netwit]

On the good news front, it turns out I might be a step ahead of the game since I'm already on this drug for my arthritis. https://www.forbes.com/sites/marybet...er-or-outlier/

[Zoisite]

Originally Posted by netwit

On the good news front, it turns out I might be a step ahead of the game since I'm already on this drug for my arthritis. https://www.forbes.com/sites/marybet...er-or-outlier/

Just an important warning for you about that drug - speaking from personal experience during the past 3 years.

Hydroxychloroquine, also know by its brand name Plaquenil, is excellent for treating the symptoms of arthritis but it can also cause or exacerbate macular degeneration. It's one of the warnings on the drug profile you get from the pharmacist.

I was on Plaquenil and decided to risk it because the arthritis was very bad and my eyesight was very good. 18 months after being on the Plaquenil I got macular degeneration in both my eyes. It didn't come slowly either, it hit very suddenly within a 3 day period and ruptured the wall of the macula in my left eye causing it to hemorrhage all of the macular fluid into the rest of my eye and rendered me blind in the left eye and partially blind in the right eye.

Of course I had to stop taking the Planquenil immediately and I can't begin to express how shocking it was for me to be suddenly mostly blind and realizing how much we all take our eyes for granted. It's taken me a year and half of monthly injections in the eyeballs and more money than I can count in recommended supplements that help to heal and correct the macula and it's helped enough that I can now drive a car again but I will never regain my full eyesight again. I have four different sets of bi-focal prescription eyeglasses that I have to use for different situations and without the glasses I am still half blind, always will be now. The eye specialists anticipate it will still get worse as I get older so I live knowing now that I will one day be completely blind with no help for it.

Just be careful if you are on that stuff, monitor your eyesight extremely carefully and up your eye examinations to 3 or 4 times or more a year. 'Nuff said, just wanted to let you know about that risk if you weren't already aware of it.

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[UrbanLuis]

It is sad to see some people are still not taking this serious. Just saw on the news parks were full of people over the weekend. Quebec just saw a pretty significant rise in cases. Very disappointing. I hope the government gets more strict and takes more drastric measures.

[netwit]

@ Zoiste - yes, I have special eye exams with my optometrist who then sends a report to my arthritis doctor.

Speaking of "cures" for this virus, so far my local Russian friends insist that garlic and lots of it is the cure, another person told me she had a friend who knew someone who had survived the bubonic plague (I'm sure she meant the Spanish flu ) by drinking half a teaspoon of baking soda in a cup of warm water. Still another fad that seems to be going around a certain type of church is that if you send Psalm 91 to 91 people you won't get this virus.

And there's the person I mentioned before who thinks this virus is not catching in temperatures of 26C or higher.

I wish people realised the more they go out and about, the longer we'll have to do this physical distancing thing.

[Zoisite]

Originally Posted by netwit

@ Zoiste - yes, I have special eye exams with my optometrist who then sends a report to my arthritis doctor.

Okay. Be vigilant. I am on Leflunomide now, the lowest dose at 10 mg daily (with methotrexate) and the Leflunomide is working much better for my arthritis than the Plaquenil ever did.

Originally Posted by netwit

Still another fad that seems to be going around a certain type of church is that if you send Psalm 91 to 91 people you won't get this virus.

Well, as most here know, I am not a religious person and don't adhere to any religion but I believe in the magic of prayers (and crystal energy and shamanic drumming and smoke from sage smudging and butterflies and rainbows) as good things to send out into the universe and that they are helpful no matter what people's belief systems are. It's the energy and intent of them that can give power to prayers to work wonders.**

** I've been particularly fond of the traditional form of The Lord's Prayer ever since insisting on saying it the "wrong" way (the traditional way) in Catholic kindergarten and then arguing about it with the teachers got me permanently kicked out of kindergarten (which I didn't like attending) so I know that saying prayers can work to one's benefit in unintended and mysterious way.

Anyway, not being familiar with Psalm 91 I had to just look it up now and though it's rather dramatic I think it's relevant and I like it. So under the circumstances, nothing ventured nothing gained and I don't see how it can do any harm (maybe it will even help my eyes), here I am now sending out Psalm 91 to everyone who reads this post in the hope that everyone who reads it will be either protected from getting the virus or protected from getting really sick if they already have it. I am betting this will get read by 91 people or more. It will be up to them to decide whether or not they each want to send it out to another 91 people.

Psalm 91

1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”

3 Surely he will save you
from the fowler’s snare
and from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

5 You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,

6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.

7 A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.

8 You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked.

9 If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
and you make the Most High your dwelling,

10 no harm will overtake you,
no disaster will come near your tent.

11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;

12 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

14 "Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

15 He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.

16 With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”


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[startingfromscratchagain]

Originally Posted by Torontobase

I don’t understand why our PM doesn’t feel the need to federally have state of emergency?

1) people still going to work would likely have to anyway under a state of emergency.

2) Evocating a state of emergency would accomplocsh nothing but increasing panic.

3) It isn't necessary, despote the rise in cases.

The cutrent response is more than enough, unless you're suggesting everything and everyone be locked down for months

I was at the park yesterday myself, but I was jogging alone.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by UrbanLuis

It is sad to see some people are still not taking this serious. Just saw on the news parks were full of people over the weekend. Quebec just saw a pretty significant rise in cases. Very disappointing. I hope the government gets more strict and takes more drastric measures.

Though it's worth pointing out that it's due to all of our presumptive cases being added into the total in one shot yesterday. They were not in there before.

Obviously these are all "real" cases and we are clearly seeing an increase, but normally they would been added progressively on a day-to-day basis.

I would not expect cases in Quebec to triple again today, and tomorrow and the next day.

At least I hope not.

[netwit]

@Zoiste I don't have a problem with people praying. However the Psalm 91 people are believing they can go out and about as if everything is normal and that's not okay. I read in a history of a particular Mennonite town here where it was stated that people there died at a rate twice that of their French, English and Ukrainian neighbours because they would not stop going to church during the Spanish flu.

Some of the Psalm 91 people believe the psalm makes them invincible. They forget that in the temptation of Christ when Satan quotes that same psalm ("for he will give his angels charge over you lest you strike your foot against a stone") in his challenge to Christ to throw himself off the mountain and Christ responds, "It is also written, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

I'm sure you didn't mean the psalm makes one impervious to the virus but there are people around here who think it does.