Covid Journal, January 25, 2021

Covid Exposes Our Mistreatment of the Elderly

I maintain that our inaction with the elderly across Canada and even other countries amounts to negligence in the most modest of ‘accusations’ and realistically, far, far worse. What we are allowing to happen is disgusting, to say the least.

The Huffington Post reports that our elderly are being fed shit on a plate. Stories of raw meat, uncooked fries and crap that you wouldn’t put on a kid’s meal seems to be a daily menu in long-term care facilities and retirement homes.

Families told HuffPost even before the pandemic their loved ones struggled with a lack of culturally appropriate food, were confused over why they were fed pureed food, and wouldn’t eat the food provided to them. They also said at short-staffed homes there aren’t enough workers to help residents eat — before the pandemic was further affecting staffing levels.

We’ve left the care and treatment of our elderly to a handful of private companies and poorly-run public operations and continue to experience spikes in Covid and variations of the disease.

Greed is fueling the pandemic and we are all suffering as a result.

Nearly 90% of ALL FATALITIES FROM COVID ARE PEOPLE AGE 70 OR OLDER.

Why are we not putting more effort into supressing the spread of Covid in these giant petri dishes of plague?

We must start focusing on a solution to how we treat our elderly, disease or otherwise.

Covid Exposes Our Mistreatment of Youth

Citizens of Sudbury are marking another pandemic that has lined the pockets of many drug suppliers.

Opioid deaths far outweigh Covid-related deaths in this small community.

Since early 2020, only FIVE people have died from Covid.

During the same time, the city has confirmed 268 overdoses and 83 deaths.

That’s SEVENTEEN TIMES the number of deaths with Covid.

What gives?

A more general report shows that opioid deaths are SKYROCKETING across the country.

Meanwhile, many Canadians have increased their use of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco during this pandemic.

By early summer, based on surveys by Statistics Canada, close to one in five Canadians (19 per cent) said their consumption of alcohol had increased, cannabis use jumped 8.3 per cent and tobacco smoking rates were up by 3.9 per cent over pre-pandemic levels.

CBC North has documented a surge in alcohol and substance abuse in Canada’s northern territories thanks in part to more bootlegging and access to cash through the Canadian emergency relief benefit (CERB) and other relief supports.

Mental health is taking a severe toll. Teens are feeling more depressed than ever.

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many teens and young Canadians feeling disconnected, hopeless and unmotivated to navigate school and daily life — and this sentiment is causing concern for parents and experts alike.

“Everyone’s normal has now changed into something completely different from what it was 10 months ago,” said Sadia Fazelyar, a post-secondary student and youth mental health advocate for Jack.org, a national charity focused on young Canadians.

“The biggest thing I hear from youth is it’s this whole new thing that nobody really knows how to navigate properly.”

Many young people aren’t comfortable speaking up about difficulties, feelings or mental health struggles they’re facing, so they look to sports, the arts, clubs or social groups as a form of support, Fazelyar says. “Now it’s all been taken away from them and it really hits them hard.”

I suppose if you want people to feel like citizens, stop calling measures ‘LOCKDOWNS’. This is a term that’s used by prison wardens to describe unruly inmates. Is that how our leadership perceives the general public?

It’s no wonder more and more people are frustrated and a growing population are failing to abide by any ‘requests’ to stay at home.

I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re sacrificing two generations of our population because we’re grossly incompetent and unable/unwilling to call out the people that should be doing something about deaths with the elderly and pandemic-related opioid issues / depression with youth.

The longer we wait, the longer we’ll have to wait.