Story of father who saved daughters inspires admiration
Re: Memory of old TV show helped dad stay calm, save his two daughters from drowning
Dennis Saulnier, you could not have acted any better to save your family, and yourself — you did the very best anyone could have done. Know that our collective hearts took a real beating while reading of your harrowing ordeal. So many empathetic feelings went your way as we all tried to comprehend what actions you needed to take during your horrifying ordeal.
None of us truly knows how we will ultimately perform in situations such as this until they actually occur.
Mary Lem, Chilliwack
What would Bonnie Henry say?
On Saturday, I made the mistake of going shopping, but some necessities were needed in our household. I went to three big-box stores in Chilliwack and all were extremely busy. Superstore was jam-packed but customers were respectful, orderly and following most virus avoidance recommendations. My second stop was Canadian Tire, but a very long lineup of masked customers waiting patiently to get in quickly thwarted that plan. So I went to Walmart, where I don’t normally shop.
No lineups were apparent, so in I went with mask on. I was focused on a specific purchase and didn’t pay attention to my surroundings.
When I finally realized what was going on, I was stunned. Dr. Bonnie Henry would have been disappointed. No one in the store was wearing a mask ... not customers, not staff. Nobody. There was no social distancing and little evidence of the health authority guidelines and safety measures recommended by the experts to minimize risk.
Makes me wonder if there is an inspection agency in place to check, monitor and report on retail adherence to the guidelines to protect consumers and the public.
Roger Bjaanes, Harrison Hot Springs
Protect our front-line workers
Re: WorkSafeBC proposes adding presumptive claims for COVID-19 illness
Essential workers who have to work outside of the public-health emergency measures that protect the general public should have the presumption that if they are infected by COVID-19, it was because of their work. The front-line workers are facing risks that are greater than the public from COVID-19.
WorkSafeBC provides the figures of 514 claims made for COVID-19 by workers and 186 of the claims accepted. This indicates there are significant barriers for workers who claim, when less than 28 per cent of the claims that have been made have been accepted. A presumption that protects frontline workers is badly needed.
The employers’ forum is quoted as being concerned about the costs of accepting these claims. There are only about 300 additional claims that would be accepted if all of those claims were accepted.
This is a small drop in the bucket compared to the over 100,000 claims accepted annually.
In 2018, WorkSafeBC accepted 109,960 claims. It would be a grave injustice to deny compensation claims to essential front-line workers because of cost when this would be less than 0.3 per cent of accepted claims. A COVID-19 presumption for essential frontline workers is the right thing to do.