Entry tags:
Licence to Re-open?
There was a political cartoon in today's paper about Ontario being kind of, sort of, partly (etc.) open for business. Not sure if the cartoonist was also alluding to licence plate fiasco (since reversed) where we were to have those spiffy new blue licence plates with spiffy new slogans on them - the only problem being that in certain lights they were totally illegible. At any rate, the premier himself can be pretty hard to read at times too!
After initially being opposed to doing the re-opening thing on a regional basis, he has now reconsidered and most of Ontario outside the GTA will move to "Stage 2" on Friday. Overall, that's good news for the Ottawa area. Still, the devil's in the details and there are a few glaring inconsistencies coming to light. We'll see how it goes.
I'm pleased that gatherings of up to ten people will be allowed, though I'm not sure I agree with the insistence on distancing within that group or the prohibition on indoor gatherings of that size (that's a difference from Quebec's ruling). I mean, the first nine other people you decide to get together with would presumably be people you know pretty well and given the 3-household limit on these gatherings, any contact tracing that became necessary should be pretty simple, no?
They definitely should start allowing family back into long-term care and retirement homes, subject to whatever safety measures they deem necessary, and particularly when the resident is critically ill.
I also think we should re-open playground equipment in parks, even if there still have to be a few restrictions. Maybe there should only be kids from one household on the structure at any one time, and kids under a particular age should be supervised by an adult at all times - that kind of thing.
I'm not even sure what phase 2 means in terms of non-urgent medical procedures. For example, I got a call this week from my dentist's office to tell me that they weren't allowed yet to schedule hygienist appointments so my appointment for June 17 would not happen. Now, I wasn't really in a hurry for that one and if they had just said they were prioritizing other patients with more urgent (and due to the lockdown, thus far unmet) needs, THAT I would have understood.
It's a little different with my rheumatologist. I'm not due to see HER until September and at present, I think that should be OK. But still, I do seem to have a little swelling around my knees now and at night, I tend to get a bit of numbness and pins-and-needles sensation in my feet and ankles. I also haven't been getting my regular blood tests during lockdown because the labs have been closed. So if there were any warning signs of anything serious, neither the rheumatologist nor my GP would be aware of them. Maybe if the situation persists, I'll phone the rheumatologist's office and see what they say. But I did get a bit of good news the other day - apparently by July, it should be possible to once again get a full 3-month supply of my meds whenever I renew a prescription.
Even a lot of the "experts" are now saying that the lockdown may at this point be doing more harm than good - I'll close with a link to this Toronto Star article published during this past week:
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/06/04/ontarios-covid-19-lockdown-is-now-harming-health-more-than-its-helping-some-experts-say.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=star_web_ymbii
After initially being opposed to doing the re-opening thing on a regional basis, he has now reconsidered and most of Ontario outside the GTA will move to "Stage 2" on Friday. Overall, that's good news for the Ottawa area. Still, the devil's in the details and there are a few glaring inconsistencies coming to light. We'll see how it goes.
I'm pleased that gatherings of up to ten people will be allowed, though I'm not sure I agree with the insistence on distancing within that group or the prohibition on indoor gatherings of that size (that's a difference from Quebec's ruling). I mean, the first nine other people you decide to get together with would presumably be people you know pretty well and given the 3-household limit on these gatherings, any contact tracing that became necessary should be pretty simple, no?
They definitely should start allowing family back into long-term care and retirement homes, subject to whatever safety measures they deem necessary, and particularly when the resident is critically ill.
I also think we should re-open playground equipment in parks, even if there still have to be a few restrictions. Maybe there should only be kids from one household on the structure at any one time, and kids under a particular age should be supervised by an adult at all times - that kind of thing.
I'm not even sure what phase 2 means in terms of non-urgent medical procedures. For example, I got a call this week from my dentist's office to tell me that they weren't allowed yet to schedule hygienist appointments so my appointment for June 17 would not happen. Now, I wasn't really in a hurry for that one and if they had just said they were prioritizing other patients with more urgent (and due to the lockdown, thus far unmet) needs, THAT I would have understood.
It's a little different with my rheumatologist. I'm not due to see HER until September and at present, I think that should be OK. But still, I do seem to have a little swelling around my knees now and at night, I tend to get a bit of numbness and pins-and-needles sensation in my feet and ankles. I also haven't been getting my regular blood tests during lockdown because the labs have been closed. So if there were any warning signs of anything serious, neither the rheumatologist nor my GP would be aware of them. Maybe if the situation persists, I'll phone the rheumatologist's office and see what they say. But I did get a bit of good news the other day - apparently by July, it should be possible to once again get a full 3-month supply of my meds whenever I renew a prescription.
Even a lot of the "experts" are now saying that the lockdown may at this point be doing more harm than good - I'll close with a link to this Toronto Star article published during this past week:
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/06/04/ontarios-covid-19-lockdown-is-now-harming-health-more-than-its-helping-some-experts-say.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=star_web_ymbii