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[porterdavis]

[porterdavis]

In October, 1943, 440 German prisoners of war, captured in North Africa, arrived at the newly built Whitewater camp in the heart of Manitoba’s Riding Mountain National Park. The men were there to cut wood for the domestic fuel market. There was no enclosed compound or guard towers; the boundaries were marked by red blazes on a ring of outlying trees. Authorities believed that the isolated location of the camp would discourage the men from trying to escape. And they were right. Only one prisoner repeatedly tried to escape. 

But some of the men grew tired of their forest prison and would wander outside the southern park boundary at night, usually to visit small immigrant communities, before returning to camp in time for morning roll call. The Veterans Guard decided to put an end to these nocturnal visits and carried out a raid one February evening in 1944. Five men were found at a community dance, while another two were caught doing a jigsaw puzzle with a school teacher. The “escapees” had ordered watches from the Eaton’s catalogue and converted them to compasses to find their way about in the dark. Bill Waiser

[porterdavis]

Whatever will they do...

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Brian Gable, Globe&Mail

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Don't look now, but...

In Ontario...Health Minister Christine Elliott announced the province’s stay-at-home order may be extended past May 20, as hospitalizations and case counts remain too high to lift the restrictions.

Nova Scotia closed its boundaries to non-essential travel today, as the province reported 121 new cases of COVID-19.

New restrictions came into effect in the Estrie region of Quebec today amid rising infections. The rules mean restaurants and gyms must close, and places of worship will limit capacity to 25 people.

So you think the pandemic is behind us? Not so fast...

[porterdavis]

It could get worse...

At the peak of the outbreak in Moscow, the bubonic plague was killing hundreds of people each day, with a death toll of 21,000 in September of 1771 alone. Corpses littered the streets, and citizens were starving because workplaces were shuttered and supplies weren’t delivered. The chief public-health doctor died, the governor deserted and nobles fled to the country. Compounding the fear and misery were poorly understood emergency measures that forbade large gatherings, restricted movement and destroyed contaminated property without compensation. The atmosphere was ripe for a riot. The trigger was Archbishop Ambrosius’s decision to remove an icon of the Virgin Mary from Varvarsky Gate to prevent further infections among the crowds at her feet. Muscovites didn’t take well to losing a source of comfort in hard times. On Sept. 15, a mob stormed the Kremlin and destroyed the archbishop’s residence. The military suppressed the uprising within three days, but 100 people died, 300 were arrested and Ambrosius was violently slaughtered. New leadership arrived in the city on Sept. 26 and established strict quarantine measures, along with better communication about their importance, and financial relief for survivors. Cases started to drop, and by mid-November the epidemic was declared over. Joy Yokoyama

A 1930s watercolor illustration by E. Lissner. FLHC 2 / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

[porterdavis]

Dave Perkins - Globe&Mail

[porterdavis]

Thanks for nothing Pfizer

In Ottawa, the federal government said it will not receive any shipments of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine next week and can’t tell the provinces how many doses to expect over the next month.

“Our entire shipment is deferred,” said Major-General Dany Fortin, who is in charge of co-ordinating vaccine rollout for Canada. He said shipments will “pick back up again” in the first week of February, but did not offer specific figures on doses.

Canada was to get more than 417,000 doses Pfizer’s vaccine this week and next, but will now get just 171,093 doses this week and nothing the next week.

As a result of the delay, provinces are rationing their stock of vaccines.