June 11, 2020

The Top Doctor Who Aced the Coronavirus Test

Dr. Bonnie Henry kept the disease in check in British Columbia without harsh enforcement methods. Now, she is leading the way out of lockdown.


That Tuesday in March was the day Bonnie Henry had been preparing for her whole life.

Overnight, 83 people had tested positive for the novel coronavirus and three more had died. The pandemic had officially broken out in British Columbia.

Standing inside the provincial legislature’s press gallery, the preternaturally calm top doctor of Canada’s westernmost province declared a public health emergency. Under her orders and recommendations, schools closed, bars shuttered and social distancing measures were put in place.

“It seemed so surreal,” she said. “I felt like someone was standing on my chest.”

That day, March 17, Dr. Henry ended her presentation with a line that would become her trademark, and a mantra for many Canadians struggling to cope under a lockdown. It has since been hung in windows, painted on streets, printed on T-shirts, stitched on shoes, folded into songs and stamped on bracelets.

“This is our time to be kind,” she said in her slow and low-pitched voice that many call comforting, “to be calm and to be safe.”

More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/world/canada/bonnie-henry-british-columbia-coronavirus.html

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I can’t say enough about Dr. Henry. She was calm and cool. She never gave into hysterics. She told us to still get outside and exercise. To run, bike, walk. To get out into the fresh air and stay healthy. Avoid crowds, wash our hands, stay 2m away.

It does help that we are pretty sprawled our population. Even in Vancouver many people don’t use public transit. However I feel like her swift response tempered with reason made it work.

June 10, 2020

Undercover cop dressed as religious Jew blows his cover with cellphone on Shabbat

Police officers went undercover as Hasidic Jews to monitor protests against racism and police brutality in a majority-Jewish New Jersey town, Mishpacha reported.

The rally in Lakewood, N.J. on Saturday was one of hundreds around the country over the weekend protesting the killing of an African-American man, George Floyd, while being forcibly detained by police. A video captured by Mishpacha showed at least three men in Lakewood dressed in the black outfits typical of Orthodox men. Two of the men were wearing hats and one was wearing a kippah; one of the apparent officers had peyot, long sidelocks.

Unfortunately for the officers, one of them appeared to be holding a cell phone - which would be forbidden to Orthodox Jews on Shabbat.

https://forward.com/fast-forward/448317/undercover-cops-dress-as-hasidim-to-monitor-protests-in-majority-jewish/

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In Lakewood of all places?? Home of BMG? No one around to offer guidance on how to fit in?

It’s so stupid I can’t stop laughing.

May 7, 2020

BC re-opening plan released

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/emergency-preparedness-response-recovery/covid-19-provincial-support/bc-restart-plan

Short bullets:

Phase 1 (now)
Essential health and health services
Law enforcement, public safety, first responders and emergency response personnel
Vulnerable population service providers
Critical infrastructure
Food and agriculture service providers
Transportation
Industry and manufacturing
Sanitation
Communications and information technology
Financial institutions
Other non-health essential service providers

Phase 2 (mid May)


Under enhanced protocols:

Restoration of health services
Re-scheduling elective surgery
Medically related services:
Dentistry, physiotherapy, registered massage therapy, and chiropractors
Physical therapy, speech therapy, and similar services
Retail sector
Hair salons, barbers, and other personal service establishments
In-person counselling
Restaurants, cafes, and pubs (with sufficient distancing measures)
Museums, art galleries, and libraries
Office-based worksites
Recreation and sports
Parks, beaches, and outdoor spaces
Child care

Phase 3 (June - Sept)
If transmission rates remain low or in decline, under enhanced protocols:

Hotels and Resorts (June 2020)
Parks – broader reopening, including some overnight camping (June 2020)
Film industry – beginning with domestic productions (June/July 2020)
Select entertainment – movies and symphony, but not large concerts (July 2020)
Post-secondary education – with mix of online and in-class (September 2020)
K-12 education – with only a partial return this school year (September 2020)


A LOT MORE INFO AT LINK!

April 26, 2020

Disability advocates say B.C.'s woman's death shows need for clearer COVID-19 policy

Disability advocates say the lonely death of a non-verbal B.C. woman is far from an isolated case in Canada — and underscores the need for a clear policy on who, exactly, is an essential hospital visitor during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Ariis Knight had cerebral palsy and communicated with her family and support workers through her eyes and facial expressions. She was admitted to Peace Arch Hospital in White Rock on April 15 with symptoms of congestion, fever and vomiting, but did not have COVID-19.

Her support staff were not permitted access due to restrictions put in place during the pandemic. Not long after being admitted, Knight was put on end-of-life care, and died days later. She was 40 years old.

Link to the rest: https://globalnews.ca/news/6869079/coronavirus-bc-disability-death-reaction/

This is not ok. There are less than 100 hospitalized for COVID-19 in BC. This woman was denied her ability to communicate. If this is ok who else do we let die in our lack of planning?

April 24, 2020

Shelter in place order issued after shots fired in Halifax suburb

Reports of shots fired in two Halifax-area communities on Friday afternoon prompted an emergency alert to be issued to Nova Scotians just after 4 p.m. local time on Friday.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/rcmp-respond-to-possible-shots-fired-in-hammonds-plains-1.5544137

ETA: All clear issued

March 16, 2020

Advice please.

So I know this is the internet but you guys all seem fairly level headed.

As some of you know I’m in NYS at the moment as my father passed away. I’m staying until the end of March because my mother has endometrial cancer and kept putting off her surgery because my dad was sick. So now I’m here as the one to make her go to appointments and to her surgical appointment over the next 2 weeks.

I can’t leave. I can’t. She won’t get the surgery. Yes there are cousins and whatnot here but she will literally cancel and refuse to go. At the same time I’m panicking I’ll never see my husband and kids again (they are home in BC) because there’s all this talk of potential border shutdowns and lockdowns and whatnot.

I can’t leave but I’m afraid if I don’t I won’t be able to.

Can someone give me some advice, an internet face slap, maybe an internet hug, or perhaps some calming words?

March 9, 2020

How worried should I be?

Hi all. My father passed away this weekend and I have to fly home for his funeral. Normally it would take place within 24 hours but my mom explained to our rabbi that I need to fly in from BC so it’s set for Tuesday.

I’m normally a fairly level headed but I’m suddenly terrified of flying with this virus seemingly everywhere. Driving is not an option as I’m headed to NY.

Am I be panicky and it’ll be fine or no? Sorry, my brain is a little over stressed from this news about my dad and the lack of sleep I’ve experienced worrying about my mom.

Thanks for understanding.

January 3, 2020

B.C. RCMP consult with hate crime specialists after anti-Semitic graffiti found at Jewish camp

Gabriola Island RCMP say they've launched a criminal investigation after swastikas and other disturbing graffiti was discovered on a building at a Jewish summer camp earlier this month.

A caretaker found the vandalism on the side of a building at Camp Miriam on Dec. 19, and notified the police.

"RCMP take matters such as these very seriously," RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Jesse O'Donaghey said in a press release.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-rcmp-gabriola-island-jewish-camp-graffiti-1.5412139

This is at Camp Miriam. My oldest was really looking forward to finally getting to go this summer. It’s a wonderful Jewish summer camp from what I hear. Very much needed as Jews in BC are usually fairly scattered and there aren’t many Jewish communities outside of Vancouver.

December 30, 2019

Jews Under Attack Deserve Better Than Selective Outrage

By Benjamin Wittes
Contributing writer at The Atlantic and editor in chief of Lawfare

The Jewish community has turned selective outrage over anti-Semitism into a kind of norm.

There was a time—and it was not that long ago—when regardless of what separated Jews, we made a certain common cause over those who traded in the themes that had caused so many Jewish deaths. You could be religious or secular, liberal or conservative, but protecting Jews in the Soviet Union was a fight we all fought. Jews didn’t look the other way when Louis Farrakhan or David Duke spouted hatred. And an attack on a synagogue was, well, an attack on a synagogue.

Times have changed. Over the past few weeks, Orthodox Jews in the New York area have been targeted in a series of violent attacks. Yet the reaction has been muffled, including from people—especially but not exclusively Jews—who one would expect to be up in arms. The reaction is about what you’d expect for unpleasant graffiti-writing or anti-Semitic name-calling. It is certainly not what I would have expected in response to a wave of hate crimes, including attacks with guns and machetes, that have left people dead and in critical condition.

Why the comparatively mild response? For many American Jews, the answer is that these aren’t “our” kind of Jews—and the attackers aren’t motivated by the kind of anti-Semitism we most want to talk about.
Batya Unger-Sargon, the opinion editor at the Forward, put it bluntly and correctly this morning:

After the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Shabbat that killed 11 people last year, and another fatal shooting at a shul in Poway, California six months later, one often heard that the great threat to Jews—even the only threat—comes from white supremacy. Conventional wisdom said it was the political right, and the right’s avatar in the White House, that was to blame for the rising levels of hate against Jews.

But the majority of the perpetrators of the Brooklyn attacks, and the suspects in Jersey City—who were killed in a shootout with the police—and now Monsey, were not white, leaving many at a loss about how to explain it or even talk about it. There is little evidence that these attacks are ideologically motivated, at least in terms of the ideologies of hate we are most familiar with.

And therein lies the trouble with talking about the violent attacks against Orthodox Jews: At a time when ideology seems to [reign] supreme in the chattering and political classes, the return of pogroms to Jewish life on American soil transcends ideology. In the fight against anti-Semitism, you don’t get to easily blame your traditional enemies—which, in the age of Trump, is a non-starter for most people.

In our political moment, a great many people seem more outraged by the other side’s anti-Semitism than by their own side’s. Only recently, Jewish supporters of the president seemed not to notice when Rudy Giuliani—the president’s lawyer—disparaged the Judaism of a Holocaust survivor. Trump trades in anti-Semitic stereotypes on a relatively routine basis; he once suggested that Jews had to vote for him because Senator Elizabeth Warren would take away their wealth, and he ran an ad at the close of the 2016 election insinuating that a Jewish elite holds too much power and control. Trump’s Jewish supporters have looked the other way even as they have seen a menace to the Jewish future from Democratic—but not Republican—members of Congress who have advanced similar ideas.

Rest at link: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/what-monsey-attack-says-about-jewish-community/604228/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_term=2019-12-29T21%3A48%3A31&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&fbclid=IwAR2AlUkfrHHr3yUx3nggC1rBWQ7ACe41GdPGb2K0f82GNv4FS6OWRfUWqYE


This article is spot on. We need to quit pretending anti-semitism is only a feature in the right wing.

December 29, 2019

BREAKING: Several People Stabbed By Machete-Wielding Suspect During Monsey Chanukah Event

Source: NY Times

A knife attack at the home of a rabbi in a New York suburb on Saturday night left several people with stab wounds, an official said.

The home of the ultra-Orthodox rabbi was in Monsey, N.Y., an area with a large population of ultra-Orthodox Jews.

The stabbing happened during a Hanukkah party, when a man entered the home around 10 p.m., the official said. The attacker fled and was still at large as of 11 p.m.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/nyregion/monsey-synagogue-stabbing-anti-semitic.html