They (the ubiquitous they) are providing our remote community with C-19 shots next week. That’s good. Half the folks out here are 70+ and none of them are living in luxury with comforts and elevators, take-out food and handy amenities – but neither are they hob-nobbing with the hoi polloi, either. We are, at once, more vulnerable and less. We/they are more ‘removed’ than most from the danger of the disease but we are also missing the comforts and securities of modern urban living. We are a slightly different category of old people out here.
Still, old is old and with age comes vulnerability and some fragility. Our tough old guys are just as vulnerable to a virus, if not more so. Muscles and true grit do not help against a virus. If some of our guys get C-19, some may not make it…just the way it is.
This vaxxing process is an interesting logistical exercise, too. Since so many people travel by boat around here (no other option) then the community dock will have to accommodate the already-scheduled-by-appointments 200 plus people who have already registered. The community dock can comfortably hold a dozen boats and, jumbled together, maybe as much as another dozen. Thirty small boats will be chaos. So, boat pooling is encouraged but pooling dumps bunches of folks at the dock at once.
Imagine that: a dozen little boats jammed to the gunwales with old people bobbing down the channels. Then the folks cluster on the dock awaiting their turn to hike up the hill to get a shot so they do not contract a contagious social disease. Cluster, disperse then cluster again. I dunno….logistics and logic don’t always work out.
The solution, of course, is the schedule and the efficiencies of the medical team. I am scheduled within five minutes of four others. That’s good. I get there with my boat ‘pool’ and we all get jabbed and then get the hell out so that another small boat can tie up after we leave. Basically a good plan altho…….a jab takes five minutes but coming and going takes 30 minutes in total at the very least. We are going to have a vessel traffic jam out here. We are going to be rubbing a lot of shoulders on the way in and out. This could be a super spreader event.
Am I worried? No. I am not. As readers know, I think Sal and I got C-19 back in March, 2020. That means little, they say, regarding immunity but the virus has mutated so much that, even if having had it last year was a resistance builder, there are way too many mutations/variants for us to have any kind of immunity at this point in time. And therein lies the point of this blog: this is all taking too long.
In effect, we Canadians (with regards to our leaders) are almost passively reacting rather than being proactive and worse, we are reacting too slowly in a battle with an enemy that can change seemingly overnight. Canada has not ever really shut down and isolated for the required time. We have tried to keep the economy going instead of the lives of the people.
Apologies to the believers-in-the-system: I do not think we are winning.
I am, however, thankful (if not still a bit hesitant) to get the jab. But, if we are soon to be facing Covid 20, will it help? No one knows. Variations on the C-19 are likely to be still addressed with the current vaccine but will the soon-to-arrive-all-out, brand new mutants be stopped by it? Will the mutants of next year even look like their recent ancestors?
C-19 is a game changer and it may have changed for the worse. And we are not winning at this one.
Our Off the Grid Home 
Because of past political decisions concerning pharmaceutical we have no production capabilities within Canada, thus we are at the mercy of the other’s whomever THEY maybe. Interesting that we have possible a dozen labs working on vaccine solutions. We need to be more self reliant drugs, ppe, and food.
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Easy decision really. If it’s available, take it. You’re gonna die anyway, It’s just a matter of time and means. I’m either going to get a cauliflower crop, or not. I don’t think you care one way or another. I would be sorry to miss a trip to Mendoza, but if I’ve already passed for one reason or another I might not really care. That’s the good thing about being old – you don’t have your whole life ahead of you. What I find a bit disconcerting is that after I’ve waited this long for my favored position (80+) to find out the whole general population qualifies the day following. Such is life! I’m glad to be on this side of the grass!
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Hey! Enuff already with that NO Mendoza talk. If we die, we go anyway! Probably cheaper to fly on our own wings anyway. Hmmm…you may have to burrow…but, that’s OK. We’ll wait. No scheduled appointments or commitments after you are dead!
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The incompetent idiots in govt have had a YEAR to figure out the logistics of this.
So, instead of treating this as a flu shot and having a public health nurse travel TO the patients in Long Term Care facilities they have LTC residents travel TO the nurses in large public gatherings and all the shuttling back and forth that implies.
Asinine doesnt even begin to describe the politically correct spewing, milk sop, empowerment monkeys that run every level of govt these days.
They couldnt organize a roll of toilet paper for an outhouse.
I wonder if Trudeau could make it through one public speaking event without gulping air and wheezing every 4 syllable.
The man was trained to teach Drama and he is one of the worst public speakers I have the misfortune to have to listen to when ever there is an announcement on anything of importance.
Cringeworthy.
Oh, and speaking of flu’s.
Any of you anti-maskers out there notice there has been almost zero flu’s this winter?
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Incompetence of government? Agreed. Annoying verbal delivery by Trudeau? Agreed. Annoying everything about Trudeau? Agreed. But there is a chance that you are simply developing early-onset Old Man Grouchiness (OMG!). It’s incurable but the symptoms can be treated with alcohol. The older the alcohol, the better.
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HAH!
I’m working 12 hour days this week.
Its LACK of alcohol that has me grumpy…..
I saw that Space X rocket burn up on re-entry last night at 9pm.
Quite a sight.
Took about 10 seconds to burn across the Lower Mainland heading east….
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you desperately need that BBQ, drenched in beer and scotch! Should cure this OMG!
Also agreed with JD…we’re not winning this one! We could all take an example on Israel…60% of all people vaccinated, and we just entered today our 3rd lockdown with only 3% of the population vaccinated after 3 months
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I am more than disappointed in our ‘institutions’ and ‘professionalism’ and the collective political resolve of our representatives (the ones who have been so glaringly absent at the front of this problem), not to mention their regular spates and lapses in idiocy and incompetence. I am angry at them. But, it’s complicated.
I do not know who, actually, to be angry at. Lazy, bureaucratic, overpaid nurses and the spoiled elite of the profession that couldn’t shoot straight? Talking heads that don’t say anything? Stupid statements that seem aimed at the kindergarten-level intelligence of the public? Or are they all just as handcuffed in their work as we are?
Or should we skip blaming the middle management and just blame our political leaders? Or are they so far down the real-world power ladder, that even Trudeau cannot order vaccines on time?
I do not know.
But one thing is clear: our leaders (at all levels) have NOT been leading. Not only are they barely even following, they are trailing the-is virus so far back, they are being lapped by it. And we are being run over.
Honestly? There has not been a step in this pandemic that I (and many others) didn’t predict out loud long before our leaders made ‘announcements’ too late in the game. How could we know more than they did? Logic. Common sense, awareness of how viruses mutate, awareness of real human behaviour. You know…thinking? We critics had something else on our side, too. We put the people first. The experts put the economy if not first, then vying for first. Our leaders did not know what their main job was – keep the people safe!
I guess the real culprit is not any one institution but, rather, institutionalization – the replacement of thinking with (the three P’s) policies, procedures and protocols (as if whoever devised them was a genius with precise visions of all future possibilities).
The reality is that the three Ps should not be the ‘go-to’ first response. NOT EVER! Thinking should be first. And, if you are not smart enough to think on the spot, THEN and only then should you rely on the 3P manual.
If I was the head of any institution, my first major change would be to tell all staff: “We are here to help our customers/patients/clients. So, when faced with a vexing problem, first DO THE RIGHT THING! If the right thing eludes you in the moment, then ask someone smarter and, if there is no one, then and only then refer to the manual. The manual is there ONLY as back-up. It does not replace your brain. Use your brain first, use the manual second and know that ‘doing the right thing’ is always right.”
Turning off our brains doing routine work is kinda normal. I turn off alla time (and it shows!). We rely on muscle memory, habit, established procedure, routine and peer group acceptance to guide us. That usually saves time and still gets the job done. But NEW problems require awareness, creativity, flexibility and gobs of information, sanity, logic and morality. New problems make for complication. Our leaders, professions and experts, steeped in education, precedent, law, rules, policy manuals, protocols and hierarchies are, I am afraid, a bit too slow-off-the-mark to think right for a brand new problem. And this time, people died by the thousands nationally and millions globally.
Now that I have ranted, I think I am not so angry as I am disappointed. I really thought we had more smart, real-time thinking, creative people with the power and the resources to do the right thing. I no longer think we do. Israel, New Zealand and Vietnam seem to, but we don’t.
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