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Trudeau’s health minister Patty Hajdu is looking more like an autocratic leader from China than a health minister of a free and democratic country.
Despite ample evidence that proves China is lying about the spread of coronavirus, Minister Hajdu is defending the communist regime.
Shameful.
True North’s Candice Malcolm has the latest on The Candice Malcolm Show!
In addition to frequent handwashing and social distancing, many Canadians are opting to shop online and visit the grocery store as little as possible to mitigate the spread of coronavirus.
Even when accepting deliveries and grocery shopping, there are additional ways to stop the virus in its tracks.
While the coronavirus is mainly transmitted from person to person through contact with water droplets discharged during coughing or sneezing, the coronavirus is known to be detectable on some surfaces for up to two or three days.
The risk of catching the disease from a contaminated surface is lower than if you were to come into direct contact with an infected person, but the following practices can help you limit your exposure to infection.
Handling packages and deliveries:
Joseph G. Allen, assistant professor of exposure and assessment science at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health told the Washington Post that the following steps can be taken to protect yourself from contaminated surfaces when handling packages or deliveries:
On plastic and stainless steel, the virus has a half-life of 5.6 – 5.8 hours, meaning that each time that amount of time passes the amount of the virus on the surface decreases by half.
Handling grocery items:
Canadians are being advised to practice social distancing and stay inside their homes as much as possible. But when venturing to a grocery store to get essential goods, it is important to maintain a distance of two metres between yourself and others.
According to Professor Allen, the following additional steps can help limit your exposure to surfaces that may have been contaminated by the coronavirus:
By following these steps, Canadians can keep themselves and others safe.
60% of Albertans are struggling to pay monthly expenses during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to an Ipsos poll commissioned by the MNP Consumer Debt Index, 58% of people polled were $200 or less from insolvency at the beginning of March.
The index measures attitudes across Canada towards consumer debt and estimates the confidence people have in their ability to pay back their debts.
“The global crisis surrounding COVID-19 has delivered an unprecedented financial shock to Albertans at a time when personal finances are already a source of stress for many. The latest MNP Consumer Debt Index compiled earlier this month shows Albertans are more worried about their consumer debt than ever,” claims MNP.
Another 46% of Albertans are scared that they or someone in their home could lose their jobs, while the same amount claims they could not financially deal with losing their jobs or a change in their income.
This is over 10% higher than the national averages.
At the national level, 34% of Canadians are concerned about losing employment, while another 30% say they wouldn’t be able to cope if they lost their jobs.
“Over the next few months we’ll likely see an unfolding of two crises: the global pandemic and the bursting of the Canadian consumer debt bubble,” said MNP President Grant Bazian in a news release.
According to the latest data, 2.13 million employment insurance claims were made over the past two weeks as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The federal government has been slow to process the influx but has implemented an expedited process to deal with the 1.6 million claim backlog.
There’s “no indication” China’s numbers on coronavirus infections and deaths can’t be trusted, Canadian Health Minister Patty Hajdu said Thursday.
Responding to a question at the government’s daily coronavirus briefing Thursday, Hajdu downplayed concerns that China’s numbers were inaccurate, even going so far as to accuse the reporter who asked about them of “feeding conspiracy theories.”
“There’s no indication that the data that came out of China in terms of their infection rate and their death rate was falsified any way,” said Hajdu.
“Your question is feeding into conspiracy theories that many people have been perpetuating on the internet and it’s important to remember that there is no way to beat a global pandemic if we’re not willing to work together as a globe.”
In contradiction to Hajdu’s claims, Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne suggested that the government has looked into the accuracy of the data.
“We are very concerned about this information, I just had a call with NATO allies a few hours ago,” said Champagne.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said questions about China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and whether its stats could be trusted, were “questions…for future times.”
This comes on the heels of a Bloomberg report that the U.S. intelligence community found evidence China purposefully hid and falsified their coronavirus case data.
“Their numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side, and I’m being nice when I say that,” said US President Donald Trump during a daily coronavirus briefing.
According to the Daily Mail, advisors to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson have also questioned the current case numbers coming out of China and claim that they might be 15 to 40 times worse than reported.
Reports from China of mass incineration and thousands of cremation urns outside of funeral homes have cast doubt on the Chinese communist government’s numbers, which have fed World Health Organization data.
Hospital staff who transport test specimens at a COVID-19 assessment centre in Mississauga were told that Canada is “not in a pandemic” and that only standard droplet-contact flu protocols are required when transporting potentially infectious test samples.
Video footage shared with True North shows hospital officials telling a facility transport employee, who had requested scrubs while moving test samples, that additional personal protective equipment (PPE) would not be issued because the hospital deems it unnecessary.
The employee asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution. True North has opted to share only the audio from the footage so as to not identify the employee.
Less than three weeks after the footage was taken, the very same hospital reported an outbreak after four patients in an inpatient unit tested positive for the virus and were subsequently quarantined.
In one video, allegedly taken Mar. 13, the hospital’s manager of infection prevention and control, Jackie Nugent, says there’s no need for extra PPE.
“I don’t know how you do your laundry. But the reality is that the hospital does not need to provide specific PPE for this. For example, a nurse that is actually in direct contact with all patients. That nurse is going home and washing her uniform. There’s no change in how we are actually wearing our regular clothing but again if you are in direct contact than we wear the appropriate PPE,” Nugent said.
According to Nugent, the hospital uses the same droplet contact precautions to handle the virus as they would with regular influenza strains. In one part of the video, Nugent says the coronavirus is, from an infection control standpoint, “no different than any other virus.”
“The coronavirus is not a virus by which for example we’re given any special directions. So it’s no different than any other virus you’ve actually been working with every day that you’ve been coming in since,” Nugent told the employee.
“Where we were using enhanced precautions, we’re actually using the appropriate precautions now which is simply droplet contact precautions which is the same as what we would use for influenza.”
Another video taken Mar. 13, two days after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, shows a hospital employee apparently downplaying the virus altogether.
“We’re not in a pandemic. Other countries are because they don’t have the healthcare that you do,” this employee says.
Trillium Health Partners could not identify the position or identity of the individual in question because their protocol prohibits them from discussing personnel matters.
As well as handling bags of potentially viral samples, facility transport staff are also tasked with providing fresh bed linens and handling sterilized medical equipment.
“It’s to a ridiculous point, I have to pick up the samples for the coronavirus and right after I drop those off at microbiology, I have to take clean instruments and clean linen to a mother and baby unit,” said the facility transport employee who made the request for scrubs.
Besides being advised to wash their hands and other measures in line with the advice of public health authorities, he says facility transport employees were not being required to wear scrubs or masks while working in the hospital at the time.
A spokesperson for Trillium Health Partners, which operates the Credit Valley Hospital, declined to comment on the footage but told True North the hospital has implemented enhanced procedures specific to COVID-19.
“While we are not able to comment on personnel specifics or a recording we have not heard, we would like to emphasize that infection prevention and control meetings are being held frequently throughout this pandemic, as all Canadian hospitals and health care authorities continually monitor and reassess the best guidance and information available for managing the virus,” said Keeley Rogers.
“This is the reality of COVID-19 and we are incredibly proud of the work our infection prevention and control professionals and frontline workers are doing to keep patients, health care workers and the community safe.”
According to Rogers, the hospital has established a number of precautions to prevent an outbreak, including enhanced screening for anybody entering the hospital, new visitor guidelines, postponing elective and non-emergency services, adoption of droplet contact precautions, ongoing education and demonstrations and regular donning of surgical masks by all health care providers in patient care areas.
Executive Director of Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) Canada Gerry Hansen wouldn’t comment on Credit Valley Hospital’s specific uniform policies but told True North there are specific guidelines to protect those who collect specimens.
“There is infection prevention and control guidance to protect all involved from exposure, especially during collection of specimens and their handling in the laboratory,” Hansen said. “All clinical specimens should be handled with care and placed in secure sealed biohazardous bags upon collection, to protect anyone transporting the specimen to the laboratory,” said Hansen.
“We do not know what the ordinary uniform is in this health system. We cannot speak to the recommended guidelines for ordinary uniforms in every province or health care system.”
By March 13, there were a total of 157 confirmed cases of the virus in Canada, since then the number of cases has exploded to over 9,000 confirmed cases.
Mass surveillance is no longer something only communist regimes do or something you’d see in a sci-fi film. It’s starting to happen right here and right now.
Canadian politicians are open to the idea of tracking your smartphone to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
True North’s Anthony Furey discusses.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is trying to absolve himself of responsibility for his government’s handling of COVID-19, deferring whenever he can to faceless, unnamed “experts” who have been behind the curve since the crisis started.
This may be why Canadians can’t get a straight answer from the government on whether face masks reduce your risk of contracting coronavirus.
True North’s Andrew Lawton tackles these and other stories from around the world as the coronapocalypse continues.
4,000 members of Boisbriand’s Hasidic Jewish community have been put under quarantine by Quebec health officials.
“This is a community that lives close together and we want to protect them. We don’t want it to be transferred to their seniors. We don’t want to create a hotspot that could spread the contagion to neighbouring communities,” said Quebec’s public health director Horacio Arruda.
The religious community is required to undergo a 14-day isolation period which began on Sunday, according to the Montreal Gazette.
A total of 19 members of the Tosh community have tested positive for coronavirus after some members returned from the United States. Many had returned from New York, where there is currently a COVID-19 outbreak.
“The 14-day quarantine will cover the most important days of Passover, which means there will be no multi-family seders,” said Outremont Hasidic Jewish leader Abraham Ekstein.
“It’s hard for everyone because we are used to having big celebrations,” he said. “But we are in the same boat as everyone.”
Police will be present at the community’s entrance to enforce the order for the entirety of the quarantine period, while another entrance has been closed.
According to Tosh community leader Isaac Weiss, most of those infected with the virus have already recovered and nobody has had to go to the hospital.
“We don’t want people to think that 40% of the community has tested positive when it’s 19 people out of 4,000. We told the elderly and vulnerable people over 60 to stay in for two weeks, even before the mandatory [confinement]. The rabbis put an order — you must stay home,” said Weiss.
As of April 1, Quebec has reported the largest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases out of all of Canada. A total of 4,162 people have been infected with the virus in Quebec.
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Justin Trudeau punishes Canadians with a carbon tax increase today, and politicians across the country refuse to tell us how long coronavirus measures will be in place.
Plus, CPC Leader Andrew Scheer calls for China to be held accountable for its response to the coronavirus.
This is the True North Update with Candice Malcolm and Andrew Lawton.
Coronavirus prevention measures in Canada could continue all the way until July, according to government documents obtained by the National Post.
According to an Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) document, government models project the date in a “best case scenario.”
“Current GoC [Government Operations Centre] modelling suggests as a best case scenario that current measures continue until at least July,” claimed the IRCC Daily Sitrep Highlights document.
The federal government has been hardpressed to provide an exact timeline for how long measures such as social distancing, 14-day self-isolation orders for travellers and other measures will remain in effect.
On Friday, Trudeau told reporters that he is taking “many different projections” into account but could not tell Canadians an exact time frame.
“There are obviously many, many different projections of how long this could last, how serious this could be, how many cases we could be facing,” said Trudeau.
“We will be able to say more about how many weeks or months this lasts for as we see the impacts of the behaviours people have engaged in over these days.”
On the other hand, US President Donald Trump gave Americans a clear deadline for how long they can expect to practice social distancing.
On Sunday, Trump extended social distancing for another month. Americans can expect to social distance until April 30 for the time being.
Trump extended the period after reaching the end of a prior 15-day time frame.
“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks,” said Trump.