We have the highest infection rate in the country...

 Winnipeg is only a city of around 750K folks. Not huge by any standard... piddly-ass nothing by New York and LA standards, but in Canada, we have the highest covid-19 infection rate per 100,000 people in the fucking COUNTRY!!! Because people have gotten stoopid and lax and just keep going out and partying, socializing, having big weddings, funerals and whatever kind of gatherings they want. It makes me so fucking mad!!

I go to work. I shop for most of my groceries online. We cancelled our family Thanksgiving dinner. We cancelled my greatniece's 14th birthday. I haven't seen some family members since January, FFS. And there are people here who insist on eating in restaurants, going to bars, doing shit that spreads that nasty everywhere. (But not anymore, because things have been locked down again starting this past Monday and masks are mandatory everywhere.)

Now, I have to admit that when I do go to to the store, I now see everyone is wearing a mask. So that is a good thing. But the majority of positive cases have been people in the 20 - 40 age group. People have gone to work with symptoms. People have gone to weddings with symptoms. Because of assholes like those, old folks are dying in care homes. There are outbreaks in many of the care homes here. There are outbreaks in northern remote communities. There are outbreaks on three wards in the hospital where I work. The strain on healthcare workers is huge. We are short staffed on any given day and overtime is soaring through the roof. One day last week, we have 15 people doing overtime, most of those doing double shifts, some 4 hours extra. We have covid positive and suspect patients we have to bring into the dialysis unit for their treatments because there is nowhere else in the hospital we can give them their treatments. We are strapped for spots for new patients. (And there are always new patients, because dialysis is a growth industry, unfortunately.) We are finding some supplies running short at times, and just today, we have a nightmare plumbing issue in one of the satellite dialysis rooms.

There is a lot of water used in dialysis. And that has to go down the drain. Today, the drain pipe in one of the satellite dialysis units became plugged. The plumbers spent a couple of hours using the snake to clean the drain. There was black sludge all over the floor, and a flood of filthy water running out into the hallway. The housekeepers had a team of 3 mini zambonis to clean up the water and try to contain the deluge. (Yeah, I know they are not zambonis [those machines used to clean the ice in hockey rinks] but they operate on the same basis, only on a much smaller push-from-behind basis, so that's what I call them.) I think they threw every flannel blanket we had on the linen cart onto the floor to soak up water before those guys arrived with their machines. I was working in the office across the hall for the day and we had to endure a lovely aroma of sewer for a good part of the afternoon. I couldn't wait to get outside and breathe some fresh air! The patients who were supposed to be dialyzed in that room obviously weren't. I am not sure what was done with them, and if the evening patients were able to come in for their treatments, but I am sure I will hear on Monday when I am back at work.

But on a much more positive note, as I drove home from work, I snapped this photo of the big prairie sky. Yes, I pulled over (it is illegal to use your phone while driving here and I sure don't need a big fine and my license suspended (which is the first offense punishment). I like taking photos of the sky. I might just print this one out one day and hang it on my wall.