Well, we thought we were coming out of the worst of the pandemic at the beginning of summer. Alberta went so far as relaxing testing and quarantining requirements. Everything was to open up by the end of August and we were to have the “best summer ever.”
I had hoped
by now, after writing about the pandemic for over 16 months, that this post
would be about celebrating the end of it. Funny how Mother Nature always takes
a different course. Maybe not so funny now.
Alberta is
in the middle of the 4th wave of Covid-19, and this one looks like a
beast as it is fueled by the Delta variant, the most contagious and fastest
spreading mutation the world has seen. Our provincial government yesterday
declared the third public health emergency with sweeping restrictions on
gatherings and insistence on having people providing proof of vaccination or
recent negative tests if they want to attend events or even go to work.
The full range of restrictions can be found on the government website.
Yesterday
there were over 1,600 new cases in the province. We had 877 people in hospital
with the disease, 218 of them in intensive care. Total deaths to date have been
2,495 with 24 happening during the last day. The majority of deaths were in age
groups from the 40s to the 60s, not the oldest in the population as it was in
the beginning. Of course, it is the younger people who refuse to get
vaccinated, so we should not be surprised.
Over 90% of
those who are sick have not been vaccinated. Even though that is only about 20%
of the population, the aggressive variant has made the latest wave almost as
large as the first one, when vaccines wee just beginning.
With regard
to our family, we had hoped (still do) that we could have our daughter and her
sons visit us at Thanksgiving. We had gone so far as to book flights. Now those
plans are in disarray. It may still happen, but the timing does not look good,
and we may have to wait until Christmas. That would make it two years since we
had been able to hug our children and grandchildren.
One hates to
lay blame on the latest wave, but most cases are being seen in unvaccinated people
and a great number of them have chosen not to get vaccinated. A few even
stupidly think there is some kind of conspiracy to deprive them of their
constitutional rights. Most of us know this is a health problem, not a rights
problem.
All we can
do now is weather this latest storm and hope that the last 20% of the
population will come to their senses and get vaccinated. Restrictions on
gatherings will only work so far. The end can only come when we reach a level
where we are all immune through having had a shot or two of vaccine.
Wish us luck! And be sure to thank all those medical practitioners on the front lines.
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