Canada’s Covid Hot Zone Is Deadlier Than Chicago or L.A.
Montreal has struck the elderly with unusual savagery, despite its universal health care that US libs want (with much more benefits) for the US.
Read the rest of the article at the link.The city’s death rate has been staggering: higher than those of almost every U.S. state, higher than in greater Chicago, Los Angeles or Toronto.
The place is Montreal, the business and cultural center of Quebec, where the coronavirus pandemic has struck the elderly with unusual savagery. The struggle to contain the outbreak has forced the provincial government to resort to desperate measures.
Montreal’s virus toll -- the city accounts for more than half of Canada’s deaths from Covid-19 -- is a story of lack of preparation, early mistakes and a bit of bad luck. It has also exposed gaps in how Canada cares for its older citizens, despite a government-funded health care system that is sometimes praised by U.S. progressives as a model.
The city’s elder-care homes are so short of workers that Premier Francois Legault brought in Canadian troops and pleaded for volunteers to assist. That has left it up to people like Nicolas St-Onge to help quell an outbreak that has killed more than 3,900 people in greater Montreal, with dozens more still dying every day.
St-Onge, 25, usually works as a pharmacist. Lately he’s been spending his days feeding, washing and grooming residents of facilities in the suburbs. He isn’t trained for it. His first day involved changing a patient wearing seven layers of diapers.
“It’s a 100% exit out of my comfort zone,” he said in an interview. “But it’s the most gratifying thing I’ve done in my life -- we can see our impact on the ground immediately.”
Thursday was typical. The province announced 74 new Covid-19 deaths in the previous day; 70 lived in homes for seniors. Since the pandemic started, four in five fatalities have been residents of retirement and long-term care homes.
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