Today is Easter Monday, a holiday celebrated in Canada as opposed to the United States. This is a good day to contemplate where we are just over a month in this realm of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Chris Hadfield, astronaut and fine Canadian human being, weighs in on what self-isolation means to him and what that can mean to us. Hadfield's perspective is golden in that human beings are not used to self-isolation.
Hadfield runs down some basic advice to give us focus in a time where minds wander easily.
The Current host Matt Galloway talked with Hadfield, Olympian Clara Hughes, and writer Madeleine Thien on the need for positivity in these times. The Current runs weekday mornings on CBC Radio One.
Canada's COVID-19 death toll rises to 569, with 25 more fatalities in Quebec. In addition, the CBC tracking desk is adding 10 more in Ontario. Number of cases rises to 22,046 with 765 more in Quebec, 32 in Nova Scotia, 3 in Newfoundland and Labrador and 1 in New Brunswick.
— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) April 10, 2020
The numbers from Friday midday show Canada with a reported 22,046 cases with a death toll of 569 for a death rate of 2.58%. The death rate is below the world average. The U.S. death rate had been lower than Canada but has been steadily rising. Both countries are underreporting cases due to a lack of testing.
The worldometers.info Web site shows Canada is 13th in the world in announced cases. As of yesterday, Canada had 23,318 cases with 653 deaths and 6,428 total recoveries.
Canada has about 11% of the population size compared to the United States.
Canada has been quite late on models for how COVID-19 might turn out, but that shifted a bit last week.
Politically, Canada has most of its balls in a row compared to the United States. Premiers of all stripes and the prime minister have been as much in sync as people can be in a pandemic. There have been missteps here and there but the general effort has been mostly united. Watching Jason Kenney and Doug Ford go after the angry toddler over N95 masks was quite refreshing.
Canada has also been doing much better to its citizens than the United States, though there are still issues, problems, and the potential for people to fall through the cracks.
Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver — the 3 largest cities in Canada — are the primary focus across the country. Those in indigenous areas are greatly concerned about even a few cases given the difficulty of health care even in normal times. The coronavirus in nursing homes is a huge concern throughout Canada.
Canada secretly passes heavily flawed CUSMA during the COVID-19 corornavirus pandemic
As we noted last week, the approximately 1,600 Windsor-area doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel cross the border to work in Detroit-area hospitals. Those people were a noted exception to the closing of the Canada-U.S. border.
Some of them also work in Ontario hospitals. The Ontario hospitals stepped up last week and required those medical personnel to either work for them exclusively or not to come back until the pandemic subsides.
NHL, MLB, MLS latest sports leagues to suspend their regular season
How COVID-19 is impacting Canadian sports
When the NHL didn't have playoffs or delayed playoffs thanks to severely misguided lockouts, Canadian hockey fans had minor league hockey, including the chase for the Memorial Cup. Even the World Championships were a hockey watching option.
There were no Canadian teams in the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs, but Canadians still had NHL hockey to watch.
Right now, Canadians don't have the NHL or any organised hockey this spring.
CBC News needs to bring back local news in wake of the COVID-19 coronavirus
CanadianCrossing.com CBC coverage
CanadianCrossing.com journalism coverage
CBC is broadcasting a 2-hour special COVID in Canada: A Virtual Town Hall on Wednesday from 7 pm-9 pm local time (8 pm-10 pm in Atlantic Canada). Ian Hanomansing and Heather Hiscox host a live town hall with special guests and reports. The town hall will have the audio on CBC Radio One. The video might be on YouTube.
video and photo credit: YouTube/Chris Hadfield
Twitter capture: @CBCAlerts
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