It all gotta do with the timing and everything.

We are literally 10days before xmas and people who have made plans, at least those that I know, made them after Summer after getting fully vaccinated and all.

And the reason was simple... we were basically convinced that as long as we cooperate, get vaccines, use masks... etc, we should be moving toward an environment where Covid is no longer that big of an issue. And the Trudeau gov't basically acted as so... lifting travel bans/advisories here and there. And now this shit?

Yes, the gov't could argue that they never saw Omicron coming... but so was the public when they booked their trips in the Summer/Fall. And if that is indeed the case, and we don't know how many more mutations the Covid going to have, as a responsible gov't... shouldn't you tell the public that only make travel plans if you absolutely have to and just ban everything outright?

I'm not pissed that I can't travel. I'm pissed that our shitty gov't is always a step behind. They are always "reacting" to what's happening instead of actually having a proactive plan. Don't fucking sweet-talk that we'll get over Covid if everyone does this and that, only to say... "oh, that wasn't enough."

As I have said in the thread before... layout a fucking plan that everyone can follow. Yes, it's not going to be how things used to... but at least people can plan around it. Uncertainty brings nothing but chaos in people's life, with or without the virus. Thus, just give it to us... layout all the restrictions that has to be in place in the foreseeable future, and the steps/parameters that we are going to ease off, or move back when new mutation hits again. When you are changing the rules on a weekly basis... it's fucked up. It's not people playing with fire... it's just our gov't is fucking incompetent.

I’m not defending the government, but remember back in May, the BC govt laid out that four-step restart plan including a return to normal by September… and now Omicron seems to be undoing all of that, which the government could not have predicted at the time.

How many times have things suddenly changed in the last 2 years though? Omicron is not the first time something has upturned things, so why would anyone assume the situation is now static? We just finished waving goodbye to the late summer/fall plans Delta fucked us out of so it's pretty dumb to assume that couldn't happen again and make your plans flexible enough to handle another upset.

The news reporting this morning this typical half-assed “recommendation” against travel fucks over a lot of people who booked well before omicron because a lot of travel agencies and airline will only provide a refund if there is an outright travel ban. So now you weigh going and having trouble coming back with everything in this grey area as usual, or you just eat the cost.

Both air Canada and WJ coming out saying none of this makes sense as almost no transmission happens on airlines and the current policies of testing prior to departing for Canada and again on arrival has caught the vast majority of cases.

But hey, turd up there saying “it sucks” again. What a leader

Maybe the plan was that if things get worst, case counts go high, potential of strain on our healthcare, then there would be a travel advisory.

If the real issue is clogging the health care system, has the government really made any massive strides towards bolstering the system in these 2 years?

I feel like there's a shit ton more they could do in this respect.

And I feel like a minority of hypochondriacs are getting the largest voice right now. The vast majority of people I know are all vaccinated and really not all that freaked out about this thing anymore.
I feel like if you're that scared than YOU make your own personal responsibility to reduce exposure for yourself.

What would you like them to do? Nurses, doctors are burning out ... offer more pay? Build more hospitals? Offer more spots in nursing school and medical school? Fast track internationals who have nursing degrees to enable them to work here in Canada?

Yes, everything. Whatever it takes.

Foreigners have been nearly completely banned from Japan since the very start of this whole thing with no lifts the entire time, they're not a particularly good example to use.

I should have clarified, I care nothing about the risk to unvaccinated people. I don't care if they get sick anymore, they've had ample opportunity. Me caring about them isn't going to make them change their mind and get vaccinated. If countries in Africa (example) don't have enough money for vaccines, the western world should help them out. That's a totally different problem. If those countries feel at risk in the meantime, they should isolate.

If you go back through our own government's media releases this fall... both federal and provincial... you would see that everyone was led to believe it was no longer risky. Fluid situation? Yes... but full steam ahead.

Heck, just yesterday I got an email from the City of Victoria promoting me to go over there and enjoy their Christmas rides and festivities.

Honestly, I think our health care was already at near capacity or strained before Covid. How many of you know of someone who had to wait months or years for surgery. How many of you know of folks who want to get a family Dr but can't find one or none are taking new patients.

If i, a simple non health care person can think of those ideas to relieve the pressure on the healthcare system, I'm sure someone way beyond my pay scale can come up with those and better ideas. But it doesn't happen with a snap of the finger ... the other major way to relieve the pressure is not to get it clogged up with Covid patients.

2 years into this and we’re still asking “what to be done?!?”

That isn’t a problem in itself? Lol

If you think things are bad now wait until all the boomers are aged 80 to 90. We're gonna be fucked over so many times in the next 10-15 years.

I think you underestimate the complexity of the systemic challenges and issues ... 2 years operating under high stress and you think the government can make progress and not just tread water or get behind the ball? While I wish they could ... I have seen enough of the healthcare system to know that there are bandage solutions at every level even before Covid.

Just being a realist.

Easy to type out a one or two sentence solution to some very complicated problems and challenges. But this is a forum and that's what it is for, I suppose. Place to vent and rant.

Real hospitals, not field hospitals, take years to plan and then even more years to build. Doctors take a minimum of 4+4 years to train, at which point they still wouldn't be qualified enough to tackle specialties like immunology and epidemiology. Nurses -- at least the ones that hospitals hire nowadays -- require a 4 year post secondary degree. So that means staff-wise, the most "viable" option is to attract foreign doctors and nurses to come to Canada instead, or allow Canadians with foreign medical certifications to practice / work in Canada. With a pandemic going on around the world, there is no way we'd be able to attract any qualified foreign doctors and nurses now. People with foreign medical certifications have always found it exceedingly difficult to resume / start practicing / working here in Canada, and as a layperson, I feel like we could make improvements here, such as making it easier for US or Commonwealth-trained medical personnel to start practicing in Canada.

To Turdeau's credit, we have at least started building up Canada's vaccine manufacturing capacities. You may also recall that there is a Quebec-based vaccine company (Medicago) who has received federal money to develop COVID vaccine, and is already seeking Health Canada approval for it.

The thing with healthcare that people need to realize is -- no amount of money being thrown into healthcare is going to improve it enough to the point where it can withstand the onslaught of a pandemic sending people into ICUs. The most effective measure is prevention, but then you have political "leaders" like Jason Kenney who is basically defying (yet again) measures to reduce social contacts, not to mention the anti-vax idiots. FailFish

What they are doing isn't working... heck I had a girlfriend back in 1999/2000 who was at nursing school at Langara and I was helping edit her essays... that was a new "fast track" program to becoming a nurse 20 years ago as they already knew it was a problem... but here we over 20 years later with the same issues and shortages.

The real answer is that the government doesn't care about healthcare. Nobody does..................... until they need it. Then they care like crazy.

You tell the average numpty out there that his taxes are going up 2% to find new hospitals in the region, promote and streamline healthcare as an occupation and open up to foreign training programs... that numpty is going to say "Fuck that I never go to the hospital I pay enough taxes already."

And he/she isn't half wrong... on the fed side maybe less, cough, Bombardier and more investment nationally in street level services?

Keep in mind the barriers of a for profit post secondary education not operating in a way that gives a shit about people coming out the other side into a valuable career.
Case and point being the drastic shortage of nurses in NB, and the girl with the 90% high school average not being able to get into any nursing program in NB because their aren’t enough spots. Hundreds of vacancies in the jobs with only 30 vacancies in a program. How many graduating classes/years would it take to train people if schools aren’t on board?
Keep those fuckin English lit degrees coming though.

I have an english literature degree :okay:

^^ yah, that's an issue as well but then you look into the nursing education degree system and realize ... where are they going to get all the additional professors and trainers from? And to have good nursing program, you need mentors or proctors to watch over the student nurses while they learn. I have a relative that just graduated from nursing 2 years ago, right when the pandemic started. It's a helluva way to begin your career, thrown into the deep end .. high stress ... burn out, idiots protesting outside hospitals ... !!

Again, I whole heartedly agree with opening up more spots for nursing, it is an honourable profession, but me thinks it will take years to increase capacity for students to have spaces in nursing. A few years ago, local colleges like Douglas, Kwantlen, etc. have like a year or two wait.

That's what I was alluding to in my post earlier though... they said the exact same things in 2000... "It's going to take 4-5 years to get all these people out in the field and experienced"

20 years later we are still saying "It's going to take years to train these people"............

Something didn't go right?

So 5 years from now when nothing has changed, we then can say it’s an issue lol

Money solves those training/hiring problems for sure. You bring in people from out of country, build facilities, poach people from the private system etc. and then pay nurses a wage that becomes attractive long term.

I agree short term things are tough but the govt. never seems to lay out any long term plan on how this is going to be addressed other than making it a line in the budget

^ This is where a benevolent dictator would be preferred over a democracy that changes government and priorities every 2-4 years.

Because the people in charge are all about how to help themselves and their career RIGHT NOW.

Nobody wants to be the executive that says "I'm going to make unpopular decisions right now that undercut my bonuses and don't look good on my resume to put the wheels in motion on programs that, although you all say they suck right now and are eating up too much money, will come to fruition 5+ years from now and at that time I will get to say A-HA, see, I was right all along......... long after you've forgotten I was the one who started the process and other people have taken credit for it"

This all falls back to the diplomatic governments that we have. They literally are in power for like 4 years then the opposition comes in and cancels everything the previous guy tried to do. Just look at how fucking long it took to plan a bridge into ladner and still nothing has been built. We know these issues are gonna come up, but due to bureaucracy nothing is being done about it. Just look at any road construction site, there's 8 guys standing around chatting while 2 is operating machines.

But yea banning fights is discriminating, I guess having massive outbreaks are a better solution.:pokerface::lawl:

And to the ppl traveling, what if you catch the Rona's on your trip? Can you afford to extend the trip or stay in a foreign country hospital indefinitely? Also what if the rules change and you can't come back? That was what they were discussing on the news this morning

If you can’t get on board across parties to fix this shit long term than time to say bye bye to Canada.

Move somewhere where they at least don’t put up this facade of bullshit

If you’re triple vaccinated the odds of ending up in some foreign hospital because you caught Covid on a vacation at incredibly minuscule. I would hope anyone travelling anywhere would at least be able to afford an airbnb for a week on credit etc. if you did travel.

Hopefully didn’t blow your net worth on that 5 days in the maldives with maxed out credit cards :lol