Voice of the People

PRAISING CAMP HILL

At the age of 91, I live alone, while my 92-year-old husband, a Korean War veteran with dementia, has been a resident of Camp Hill for almost four years.

I wish we could be together. Thanks to caring friends, I was able to visit him frequently, reassuring me he was content.

The article in the May 4 paper, “Second World War vet among COVID19 cases at Northwood nursing home,” greatly disturbed me. My family and I would never think of removing their father, and my husband, from a place where he is looked after by a most competent and caring staff, such as Camp Hill.

They have called me to see how I am coping in these dire times.

We all should be grateful and show our appreciation and thanks how lucky we are to have such a fine facility as the Camp Hill Veterans Memorial facility.

Lorna C. Nauss, Hubbards

POOR NEIGHBOURS

I applaud those people who clean beaches, roadsides, parks, etc. The question needs to be asked, however, what kind of people are Nova Scotians?

General disregard for the environment is already obvious here in so many ways, with people running the roads at high speeds nonstop. Even people who only get income on a monthly basis seem to be on the roads, burning fossil fuels constantly. But this habit of eating everywhere, then throwing trash randomly anyplace they pass, is just as bad.

That people go out into their own communities, visit others, then treat their “neighbours” in this way is a sad comment on our citizens. This belies constant claims that we are so friendly, because I don’t believe friends treat one another in such disrespectful ways.

With having had to "stay the blazes home" for weeks now, in consideration of others/ourselves, no one should see new trash, butts or dog feces leaching into groundwater anywhere.

Kate Hannah, East River Point

TEACH THE MASSES

With the school year basically a writeoff, it’s time to assess our education system’s technological ability. The grade? A solid D-. I’ll stop short of saying it’s an F because they’ve done at least something.

This is simple: Teachers in classrooms teaching, set up a Zoom or Skype call, teach the classes online. Easily done, workplaces all over have been and are doing it. Why isn’t this being done? Why are parents, who are trying to work themselves from home, now needing to be teachers, too?

The No. 1 reason provided is that not everyone has access to the technology at home. My response? Who cares?

As a society, we have to stop teaching/managing to the lowest common denominator. The vast majority of the population does have access to the technology (what percentage of households don’t have a computer or cellphone?) and the province is handing out Chrome books already to those who don’t.

Teach and manage to the masses, not the outliers.

James Macaskill, New Glasgow

POSITIVE TREND

Roughly speaking, when the “doubling period” (the interval at which the cumulative number of confirmed cases doubles) exceeds the incubation period of a virus, this is evidence that viral transmission is decreasing and infections will, eventually, asymptotically “die off.”

As of today, May 5, the last doubling occurred on May 1 (taking 18 days to double from April 13). This is the second time that the doubling period has exceeded 14 days. The next empirical doubling will occur when the cumulative case count reaches 1,034 (double the cases of April 14). Depending on what predictive model you choose to use, this may occur within the next week, and will again exceed the 14-day threshold. This is good news. I hope we all behave and keep it trending in this positive manner.

George Ellis, Margaree Harbour

TIME TO OPEN UP

We have had the “Stay the blazes home” policy, which has been a success.

The sad number of fatalities has been largely confined to one long-term care facility — about 85 per cent of the total — and, although losing anyone is too many, statistically it’s an insignificant number In a population of over 950,000. Most illness has been in the HRM region, yet all in Nova Scotia are in partial shutdown.

Now we have to find the path forward, free of fear and isolation. We have to manage living with the cloud of a chronic communicable disease. We always have had communicable diseases, such as flu, measles or polio, and there have been scientific vaccine breakthroughs. And while there were prior threats of disease, we learned to live without economic collapse.

We need a path to living with, managing life with, the COVID-19 virus, not in fear or with continued ordered isolation, giving tickets out for being in still-closed public spaces. Time for a comprehensive opening up policy! Ross Haynes, Halifax