The province is now opening reservations for vaccine appointments to people 70 years of age and older. And even as the rollout of new vaccine deliveries to the provinces via the federal government is proceeding apace, enabling more senior groups considered to be the most vulnerable age-groups for contracting the novel coronavirus with serious consequences and high rates of death, there is a worrisome growing spike of new cases daily.

That third wave is being driven by the newly introduced variants, in particular the United Kingdom variant that resulted from the virus mutating, which, like its South Africa and Brazil counterparts are far more infectious and more deadly. All three focus on the spike feature of the virus that enables the pathogen to obtain a firm hold on human cells for more favourable infiltration.

It is not, now, the elderly demographic that is showing up at hospital emergency centres and being placed in ICUs, but younger age groups between age 18 and 39, attributable to their penchant for being more sociable, more likely to gather in groups, more likely to show up at social venues where numbers in attendance increase the risk of communicability.

In the past two days alone Ontario had registered an additional 6100 cases of COVID. That rapid escalation has induced the government to declare the necessity for a partial lockdown, moving all parts of the province from a red zone designation to a grey zone. Only a generalized 'stay-at-home' order tops the grey zone in its serious nature. Even as health authorities are stating their opinion that the methods being used in the hope of controlling the outbreak are insufficient to the need.

From today, there is an official four-week lockdown which represents an emergency response but doesn't reflect a more severe and complete lockdown that would come with a 'stay-at-home' order, but it is compelling and it is concerning.

It isn't difficult for us to stay at home, and nor is it for most elderly people. The young and the feckless who are restless and fed up with the trajectory and threat inherent in this new wold order and who are now driving the upward-scaling trend evidently went out partying last night to bars and other social venues as a last hurrah for the next month.

 

It turned out to be a sunny, less windy, milder day with the temperature soaring to 9C by afternoon. Before we set out for our hike through the ravine trails with Jackie and Jillie I went out briefly to begin cleaning up the incredible mass of woody detritus that had accumulated over the winter months. Much of it caused by our large mature spruce trees releasing their cones in an extraordinarily cone-productive year, and part of it by the municipal plows hacking off minor branches of our two spruces growing at the edge of our garden closest to the road.

 

Then off we went, on a lovely, bracing day for a pleasant outing. Pleasant, as long as we're discounting what lies underfoot in the forest where the milder temperature has released even more mud to slog through on the trails. Thank heavens for their rubber boots for Jackie and Jillie, otherwise on arrival back home afterward and trying to clean up their little paws with what seems to resemble indelible ink, it would take us forever to release paws and pads from the muck they'd have picked up. As it is, with the boots, a quick wash and dry and they're ready for action the following day.

 

 

There are areas of the trails that will take many weeks yet before the ice still packed densely on them will melt. But on a sunny day we look up and around us rather than down at our feet as we make our way along the trails moving from one landscape to another. Now that we're allowing Jackie and Jillie to sniff and snuffle their way along the trails they're becoming accustomed to regulating themselves, to remain within sight-distance, to behave a little more respectfully to any other dogs we may come across, which makes our hikes through the ravine even more pleasurable.