All the Small Things

Canadian/Irish author C. K. Kelly (Cara) Martin posts quotes, images, links, ideas & videos that have left an impression. Find her full length blog and website at www.ckkellymartin.com.

[ckkellymartin]

Fascism’s logic is this: It didn’t happen, and if it did, they made us do it.

Umair Haque, America Has Seven Days to Save Democracy | Read the entire article here: https://eand.co/america-has-seven-days-to-save-democracy-dca85a27612

[ckkellymartin]

Listen up, Canada, I just saw this tweeted by Tara Moriarty of Moriarty Lab (a Toronto infectious disease research laboratory which has been supplying a lot of good stats about covid infection) and thought it was important to pass on. Make sure the young people in your life are as well-protected as possible. | https://twitter.com/MoriartyLab

[ckkellymartin]

As a doctor, some days I am so tired of patching people up only for them to be torn apart again by social circumstances. Nothing I do in clinic can cure a community that allows people to go hungry and without housing.

Gaibrie Stephen, Toronto ER physician | https://twitter.com/SGaibrie/status/1557777497751781376

[ckkellymartin]

Remember when we were all trying to protect our health services?

[ckkellymartin]

My Misadventure Experience with Post Airline Travel Canadian Covid Testing

After arriving home in Ontario last Friday (June 3rd) I received an email from the federal government Monday morning saying that I'd been randomly selected for covid testing post travel (news to me!) and that if they didn't have my results within the next twenty-four hours they might contact me by phone. I promptly called the government public health number listed in the email. The first thing they asked me was how I’d gotten their number (huh? You emailed me). After asking where I was calling from they instructed me to contact SwitchHealth to arrange testing. From the email I could see SwitchHealth was the wrong lab but when I read the email message back citing LifeLabs as responsible for Ontario testing the person on the phone insisted SwitchHealth was in charge of Ontario testing.

Let me tell you, SwitchHealth is not currently in charge of Ontario airport testing and only handle testing for Alberta and Atlantic Canada. Apparently, SwitchHealth were previously involved with Ontario testing but that changed at the beginning of June. After contacting LifeLabs (who perform the Ontario testing) LifeLabs informed me it would take 3 or 4 days for the test to arrive via FedEx and that I'd get robo calls from the government in the meantime. The next day the harassing robo calls threatening $5k fines for non-compliance started with no opportunity to speak to a live person to explain what had happened. Day 6 my test kit arrived via FedEx mid-afternoon. The next available online test was for the following day. I finally had the virtual appointment yesterday (day 7) and the epic ridiculousness didn’t end there. The person who observed my online test instructed me to store it in a cold dark place away from sunlit, preferably a fridge, until FedEx could come pick it up. Supposedly they have to pick the sample up the same day or it's no longer viable.

I called FedEx directly after my appointment, and they told me (knowing what it was) to leave the package outside my apartment building with a note attached explaining that it was a covid test so no one would steal it and said they'd pick it up anytime before 5. This was at ten AM. I repeated what I'd been told about keeping the package in the fridge and away from sunlight until they arrive and the FedEx employee somewhat wryly said they don't have any fridges. Not wanting to give them an excuse not to pick the kit up, I did as close to asked as I was comfortable with, leaving the package between the inner and outer doors of my building where a FedEx driver wouldn’t have to endure contact with me to retrieve it. I checked on the package several times and it was still there at 3.30 but gone by 4.35, meaning my sample sat outside the security doors of my building for at least 5.5 hours! I don’t disagree with covid testing. In fact, I took two rapid antigen tests (on day 4 and 5) after my dodgy return WestJet flight as there were many unmasked and sniffling people sitting near me on the plane and flight attendants weren’t enforcing federal masking rules. But when the random airport PRC testing that’s supposed to happen on day 1 doesn’t occur until day 7 I fail to see how it’s useful in any way. This entire experience was nothing but aggravation and ineptitude.

[ckkellymartin]

I'm sorry but if you actually appreciate the sacrifices that Ontario's nurses made during COVID, you will NOT vote for a party that has shown time & time again, even while in power during COVID, that they don’t care about nurses. You just won't.

Naheed Dosani, palliative care physician and health justice activist | https://twitter.com/NaheedD

[ckkellymartin]

A message from Ottawa’s Centretown to  freedumb convoy #2, the white nationalist anti-vaxxer idiot brigade about to show up in the capital.

[ckkellymartin]

Evacuation train out of Ukraine

📸: Lynsey Addario (https://www.instagram.com/p/Carsb0aNaLE/)

[ckkellymartin]

"We are on our land. The truth is on our side. It will not be possible to destroy our character." - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky | Cartoon via ToonTemple (https://twitter.com/ToonTemple/status/1498095886022459395)

[ckkellymartin]

White supremacists on Parliament Hill today, waving their symbols of hate. Sickening to see. There are many reports of various goons involved in this event harassing Ottawa residents, businesses and journalists.

[ckkellymartin]

As a resident of Ottawa I'm dreading the arrival of these wing nuts for what is an essentially a MAGA rally and something NOT supported by the majority of Canadian truck drivers. Now there's an increasing threat of violence and the police are urging the public to avoid downtown during the trucker convoy protest. "Police are preparing for other groups to flood the downtown core as well who aren’t affiliated with the main convoy." | https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/police-urge-public-to-avoid-downtown-ottawa-during-trucker-convoy-protest-1.5755382

[ckkellymartin]

America’s {pandemic} outcomes are almost inexplicable given the scientific and medical firepower of the USA. With regret, I’d have to say that America’s radical under-performance in protecting its citizens from viral disease and death is a symptom of a deeper-seated political malaise in their federation.

David Naylor,  physician and former University of Toronto president who led a federal review into Canada’s response to the 2003 SARS epidemic | Read more here:  https://ottawacitizen.com/news/canada/why-canada-is-shutting-down-during-omicron-while-the-u-s-stays-open-their-health-care-systems/wcm/da87d969-c30f-4b09-a47a-b5a922d13825

[ckkellymartin]

Terrific night in Tokyo/fantastic morning in Canada. Congrats, Andre! Such a thrill to watch you in the 200 metre final.

[ckkellymartin]

President Barack Obama greets Vice President-elect Kamala Harris ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, at the US Capitol in Washington.” | https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/20/politics/obama-harris-fist-bump-inauguration/index.html“

[ckkellymartin]

Fauci yesterday. The relief and happiness.

[ckkellymartin]

Madrid, paralyzed by more than 50 cm of snow. 2021 is turning out to be just as much of a weirdo as 2020. https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/spain-shovels-out-of-snowdrifts-left-by-storm-filomena-1.5260817

[ckkellymartin]

Trudeau in 2020 was a comforting face in a time of disorienting disaster who lectured the behaving-badly when provoked and is giving us a tunnel-light glimpse of a future without facemasks.

Don Martin, CTV | Read the entire article 'Why Justin Trudeau is my (reluctant) pick for politician of the year’ : https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/don-martin-why-justin-trudeau-is-my-reluctant-pick-for-politician-of-the-year-1.5235742