Only two weeks ago the daily case count for Ontario was tipping upward, driven mostly by the newly introduced COVID strains that had mutated first found in the United Kingdom and South Africa. Fully 40 percent of the newly reported cases were being attributed to the variants. The strain first seen in Brazil was also being identified. And now, news that a double-mutant variant that emerged in India leading to that country's soaring case count has also now been found in Ontario.

Two weeks earlier Ontario was reporting highs of 2,000 and over. And  hope was high that persuading people to register for vaccination appointments might begin to meet the challenge of increasing case numbers, even though the country was struggling to obtain enough vaccine doses to begin to make a dent in the fast-growing numbers.

People were complaining that the opportunities to register were complicated by inefficiency and by software that was seeing too many glitches; double-booking appointments so that people who had been issued verification of their appointment were then informed of cancelled appointments so they had to re-apply. That eventually got straightened out and for a few days inoculation procedures were going smoothly.

And then people complained that there were no openings. All the appointments had been taken and they were told to re-apply a few days later. At the very same time, other people were reporting that when they showed up for their appointments they were surprised to find that very few other people were showing up, the vaccines were being delivered to the scant few arms available, and some were going to waste.

Seems that some people, in their zeal to be inoculated against COVID-19 had taken to booking appointments at a number of different sites, and once they were inoculated at one, didn't bother advising the others that they had no further need to show up at the arranged appointment. That being the case, people who could be slotted in at the last moment, were not.Yesterday's reported case count had risen past 4500 people, more than doubling the number of two weeks earlier.

How our lives have been stressed and complicated by these fears and aggravations. All the more so with the grim news that case numbers are exploding, increasing exponentially with the presence of the variants and their community spread, far more communicable than the original virus, and, it would appear, causing far more serious outcomes, with hospitals strained to their limits.

Urban hospitals that have had to move non-COVID patients to other less-stressed hospitals in a near geographic region to make way for incoming COVID patients whose numbers keep growing. Each time we think things are close to being resolved, the SARS-CoV-2 virus undergoes genetic alterations and occasionally some of the resulting mutants learn to evade forward steps science makes. It's a race between vaccinating enough of the population to finally achieve the herd effect, and a swiftly-mutating virus that has the knack of staying ahead of the plans of mice and men.

 

We're beyond fortunate, personally, Not only that at age 84 we were on a priority list for vaccination, but because we live in our own home, have ample privacy, can avoid social groups and still have the opportunity to get to the out-of-doors for relief of mind, relaxation and physical exercise in one fell swoop. As we did yesterday and the day before, again today and will continue to tomorrow, with our two little dogs.

We can take our minds away from the turmoil of the global threat that the virus represents, from concerns over other world events, many of which do touch on our lives, with many more do not. We can share with one another the sights and pleasures that come with the unfolding spring season and the inevitable response of the environment.  Where surprises pop up here and there to make us wonder and delight in nature.

 

Halfway through our ramble through the trails today on a windy, partly sunny, partly cloudy 17C afternoon we realized that trout lilies have begun to make their appearance, the speckled, fish-shaped foliage beginning to emerge from the fecund leaf mass on the forest floor. Later, when we had almost completed our circuit, tiny bright spots of blue/pink caught our roving eye, in the presence of a garden plant that isn't usually seen on the forest floor. Wind-blown seeds from someone's garden of Pulmonaria, more commonly known as lungwort, with their delicate little bell-like flower heads.

 

Ottawa health authorities and the municipal government is complaining that they're being overlooked while other parts of the province of Ontario are forging well ahead of the national capital in vaccinating their elderly residents. They point out that the average vaccination rate of those over 70 years of age in other parts of the province stands at 77 percent, while in Ottawa that number is just over 50 percent. The problem is that vaccine deliveries to Ottawa have been short-changed, they complain.

It's also the provincial health ministry that has been responsible for the software that has gone haywire to the effect that people qualified for registration appointments trying to arrange appointments online find the system disqualifying them through a glitch that won't accept their completed applications. Which is precisely what happened with us. And when Irving finally got through by telephone and made appointments for us, we discovered a week later that the software had erred in double-booking, so those who had succeeded in obtaining appointments had to go through the same process again, for new appointment dates.

Mid-week there was a report that people who showed up for their appointments should not have because of double-booking creating chaos and thousands of people had to be shuttle-bused to other locations to be inoculated. These are people in their 80s and above, who don't appreciate confusion in their lives, particularly with the stakes so high of serious complications with COVID-19, and the fact that the vast majority of deaths in the province occurred among those 80 and over.

So we, knowing our second-arranged appointment would be a few days' hence, were more than a little nervous when we set out this morning to arrive ten minutes before our appointments as instructed, to find the parking lot to the temporary injection site packed with vehicles, and people streaming toward the front of the location which just happened to be a YMCA re-purposed as an area vaccination centre.

Parking assistants were helpful. There was a doorman stationed under a rainshield prepared to admit people whose appointment times were imminent. Before you even got to the front entrance there was a man with a bullhorn circulating in the parking lot, calling out the 'next' time slots at which time people were to exit their vehicles and make for the front entrance. When we arrived at the front entrance we were informed that only those whose time slot was 9:58 could enter; ours was 10:05. So we waited.

It was a dark, dismal morning, pouring rain and cool. Inside the doors waited a young woman to direct people as they entered and channel them toward a series of desks with protective plastic shields. Another woman caught those entering to direct them to numbered kiosks where you were to present your Ontario health card and printed proof of your successful appointment application which had been emailed ahead.

Once the initial questioning was completed, health cards tucked away, we were directed to follow arrows along a corridor, there a young man directed us to a short set of stairs leading to a gymnasium. Within the gymnasium young men and women directed you to one of a number of fifteen desks, each manned by a young woman with a computer and hand sanitizer, wipes, filled syringes, and she was prepared to administer the vaccine after the series of questions repeated and health card requested.

Finally, it was done. We were both vaccinated, waited a short while on chairs set up around the perimeter of the room, then approached another set of desks with young people asking questions, finding your name on their computers and instructing that a 'receipt' of vaccination would be forwarded to you by email.

Done! At least the first dose. The rest to follow in four months' time, stretching out the vaccine numbers in Canada in a bid to inoculate as many people as possible, at least with the first dose. Because there's an acute shortage of vaccines by any pharmaceutical company.

Irving decided to stop by a local supermarket to pick up a carton of 35% cream so I could make some whipped cream as a desert to fill the cream puffs I planned to bake. Jackie and Jillie, beside themselves by our brief absence (and it was brief) were given special treats; they had already had their breakfast before we left, though we hadn't. 

So, as things turned out, it has been the great technological advances in computing, software and communications that have glitched. While the human element has surpassed expectations, everyone coached and prepared to do what they could to expedite the process. The  young people we saw discharging their duties were exemplary; in manner and performance and efficiency.

And because it's been raining heavily all day, no opportunity to get out for a ravine hike today. Jackie and Jillie have been filling in time watching a procession of squirrels visiting the front porch to stuff their little faces on a miserable weather day.

Today is the day we had originally made appointments for our first anti-COVID inoculations. Until we read in the newspaper this past Monday that the automated bookings for March 23, 24 and 25 had seen a problem arise through double bookings. The article advised people to call the provincial number contact to correct the situation. In that a new appointment had to be scheduled. So the rigmarole was repeated, waiting seemingly endlessly for a response on the other end, for the purpose of re-scheduling our appointments.

First off, it was the online registrations that had gone awry. Once the questionnaire had been completed with all your applicable data proving eligibility to enable registration, people trying that route were suddenly confronted by a blank screen with the tiny message: "tampered". When I read that I thought I had done something wrong in filling in the application, but no, this occurred to just about everyone trying to register online.

So we tried telephone booking and did an internal "hurray!" when we were given today's date for our vaccinations. Now that too had been messed up. Our new appointments are for Friday. In this morning's news, however, a report that thousands of people showing up as instructed for their appointments at a number of area vaccination sites, including the one we're to report to, found the situation repeating itself. Double booking again. Such that the city put out shuttle buses to reduce the waiting crowd and drive them to other sites. 

The kind of gross ineptitude that can only leave you shaking your head with dismay and wondering can't they get anything right? The province hasn't been able to inoculate more than fifty percent of over-80s, yet it's inviting people over 75 to begin to register for appointments. Demonstrating how best not to inspire confidence in government efficiency.

Adding to the gloom, an all-day rain. So it's dark in the house and it feels damp and cooler than it really is, and Jackie and Jillie may be bored, but they harbour no interest whatever in getting outdoors on a rainy day. I actually have to order Jillie to get out there and pee. She finds it horribly distasteful to get her tiny paws wet and will do just about anything to avoid wet grass. There's some snow left in the backyard and that she's not averse to settling on to relieve herself. Go figure.

But Spring has arrived and April is just around the corner. It's when, beyond my best intentions to ignore the inevitable, thoughts of spring cleaning come to mind. So I thought I'd start off with taking down and washing the window sheers. It's a drag, hauling them all down, removing the countless hooks, washing and drying the sheers, returning the hooks and re-hanging the sheers. Although our windows are covered with stained glass, in the summer months the heat of the sun is conveyed to the house interior by the stained glass and the sheers are drawn to prevent that. What works beautifully in winter, sees the reverse in summer.

Yesterday we had an especially long ravine hike, and it's just as well we did, since there was no opportunity today. Jackie and Jillie are mollified by the presentation of their usual after-hike bowl of fresh vegetables, but we acutely feel that something is missing from the day. 

 Yesterday we had a macaroni-and-cheese casserole for a change, with a fresh vegetable salad. It felt kind of springlike. I used whole-wheat pasta, and when I was preparing the choux, added marble cheddar, and lots of pepper and dry mustard. When it was done, I added sliced green onions and mixed it all into the cooked macaroni. Then I layered the pasta with frozen green peas atop which I spread canned pink salmon and the final top layer of pasta. Breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese over the top, it was popped into the oven, and dinner was done.

 

So, it's official; Ontario is into its third wave of COVID, much of it propelled by the UK variant. What is also official is that Canada is far, far behind other countries in its vaccination efforts. All too few people have been inoculated in this country against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. On the one  hand, a more virulent and contagious pathogen is on the hunt in Canada, and there's an acute vaccine shortage.

The result of the prime minister of this country deciding in his juvenile wisdom that cozying up to Beijing would result in Canada being awash with anti-COVID vaccines. Canada officially partnered with Cansino, signing on with the National Research Council giving the Chinese pharmaceutical company access to a Canadian-made biological platform on which to build their vaccine.

Trouble was Beijing  held up shipments of the resulting vaccine from China to Canada and nothing availed us but to finally look elsewhere to source reliable, efficient and safe vaccines. Which meant, as the mad rabbit in Alice chanted "We're late, we're late, for a very important date!". Here is the difference between Canada and Israel, for example, from the mouth of Pfizer CEO Albert Bouris: "We wanted to select one country to demonstrate the benefits and I spoke to several heads of state and Israel convinced me it had the right conditions."

"It had an extraordinary healthcare system, a relatively small population, and data-gathering capacity. He [the prime minister] would call me at three o'clock in the morning and ask me about variants and what data we had? Then he'd call me about the effect on children and pregnant women. This convinced me he was on top of it and Israel has executed beyond imagination."

 

To the extent, the world now knows, of being recognized as the globe's most successful inoculating state. And while Israel stands as Number One, Canada is somewhat down on the ladder, at Number Forty-three. Just when we're being stalked with a more contagious variant that is more lethal, and with insufficient vaccine doses to ensure that the country's most vulnerable citizens are duly vaccinated.

 

 

We, unlike others concerned over their health and the welfare of their communities, do have some relief. We have a home where we live comfortably. We can look out our front door to watch our neighbourhood squirrels pop up one after another on our porch for a visit. We can take our two little dogs out to a wooded ravine in  easy walking distance to spend an hour or two tramping through forest trails. 

It's spring, at long last, and the spring sun sends its molten sunlight through our landscape to melt away the accumulated snow and ice acquired over the winter months. That snowpack is melting on our lawns and in our backyards and we know that dreams of working in the garden and seeing trees fully leafed and flowers beginning to emerge from the soil is not too distant.

 

In the forest, we can now see the occasional bit of forest floor relieved of its snow burden, as the leafless forest canopy allows the sun to fully infiltrate through bare boughs to the snow-packed floor below. The creek winding its way through the bottom of the ravine is running high and wide with snowmelt, carrying along with its spuming fierceness detritus that accumulated over the winter months. 

 

Another sunny day and a wide blue sky, with soaring temperatures in the double-digits, absolutely glorious. Crows are mobbing, and there are hints in their collective caws that they might be harassing an owl, likely the very owl we heard loud and sonorous two days ago from the heights of one of the upper forest trails. 

Today, we even saw the beginning of catkins on hazelnut bushes in the ravine. In another month we'll see the foliage of trout lilies beginning to emerge, and eventually the shy little heads-down yellow lilies will make their appearance. By then, we can hope that Canada will have gained a good head-start on inoculating its people. And with that, hope for a better outcome for 2021 than what was experienced in 2020.