
I doubt that I have any readers left and indeed my intention had been to fade into the sunset and be done with this blog but two things happened that changed my mind. The first was that I mentioned to a good friend of mine yesterday that I wasn’t going to continue and she urged me to rethink my decision. Her feeling was that it might be interesting in these times for people to have some diversion if only based on my opinions about this seemingly never ending pandemic. The second was that my credit card got automatically debited today for the fee for this website. I figured that if I was paying to keep this site anyway, I may as well post something.

Anybody in Ontario who reads this knows that our Premier announced new measures today for slowing down the spread of the Omicron variant which is spreading like wildfire. So we are back to schools, indoor dining, gyms and so on being closed and reduced capacity in shops, malls etc. Those who can work remotely have been told to do so. As far as I can determine, many double vaccinated people are coming down with symptoms though in general these tend to be mild and don’t require a hospital visit. In fact our testing centres are unable to cope so people with symptoms or possible exposure have been told to do a rapid test at home if possible, and quarantine for 5 days. The problem is that there aren’t enough workers to keep services running including hospital staff. Furthermore, people who go into hospital for interventions other than Covid are catching Covid in hospital which not only makes them more ill but they then have to be isolated creating more complicated management. I gather that the idea in closing various venues is to get as many people as possible to receive a booster shot which should increase their immunity and slow down the spread of the virus.
I really did not expect this Omicron variant to appear and strike us with such a vengeance. Here I was, a month ago, thinking that we would likely have another small wave in early January following Christmas festivities. I had even thoughts of returning to Rome for February and March but here we are. According to the Director of Ontario’s Covid Science Advisory Committee, Dr. Peter Juni, things should be better by early spring. So until then, we will just have to find things to divert ourselves with.