Cold on Crumbly Acres

What a crazy way to being the new year. Our local two hospitals have gone to an orange code. Flu is everywhere.

The map shows Ontario's respiratory virus test results.

 

More snow! I decided a snowshoe trek would be just the thing. There are lots of tracks from Labbit. We had more snow Jan. 3rd.

This is to remind me of Labbit's visitation. 

She is borrowing Fred's burrow. I could see dirt around the entrance. Fred and Fred's daughter are hibernating.

Fred has dug 6 burrows over the past few years. 

There was frost at the other opening. This is the location in the side of the hill.

At the property marker in the forest I found a piece of orange tape, meant to mark the marker. I think the coyotes have been having fun. Little twerps!

Out back I spotted vole tracks in the snow. Where the tracks stop, the rodents burrow under the snow. I checked it out.

It reminds me of that movie with the sand worm: Dune, I think. Only in miniature. And in snow.

What's Up?

We anticipated rain. A lot of rain. The storm is a Texas Low, pulling up lots of moisture and warm temperatures. It's not the way December should be. We ended up with 4 mm. And no freezing rain, which is a good thing. Our snow is all gone, again. It looks so dreary!

Thankfully, there aren't any bugs. Outside. I hauled in a load of wood, always worried about freezing rain and power outages. Along with the wood came some mosquitoes! I killed a couple with great relish.

You can see the predicted two weeks, with the hatchered gray dashes representing averages. We'll be in the freeze zone soon.

Decor

Everything is brown, so I thought we should find some colour. I sent JB into town. We have a lovely planter and a gnome evergreen.

I went down to the craft show in Rideau Ferry at CC's ($2 admission). I needed something else for Caitlin. It was well done, the show, with a map showing directional angles outdoors. They took the names and number of all participants. It just began to rain when I arrived home. I hope you appreciate this photo, A/C. I blurred the background, as it was on the workbench in the garage.

Scrabble

We love things that distract us. Caitlin and I play Scrabble online all the time! I made a graph of our scores. Several times we had exactly the same score: 317;278.

COVID–19 

We've gone into a new level of risk. A yellow. We were green with few cases. We went from 0 to 9 cases in about a week. We are in the yellow, West Lanark. The lower left quadrant had several infections in a couple of big work places, which upped their count considerably. This virus is so infectious.

Westport has some cases from a school. "It’s a younger population getting infected than we saw in the spring. In the spring, most cases could be linked to travel. Now, it’s spreading within workplaces and within households."

Dec. 11

Our MPP continues to support antimaskers, and COVID-deniers, around the province. Everyone I know is getting ticked off here, though. I'm thinking he won't get re-elected. He has ruined this for a lot of us, according to blather in Twitter. We continue to hear horror stories about irate customers. Thrown avocados were mentioned. We will get through this despite our poor leadership. 

The good news is influenza cases are way down! The red line shows tests (left) and the actual cases, right, compared to previous years.

We are continuing to stay in our bubble with the kids. This has really helped. We had them over last night, ordering in dinner for a weary crew from CC's on the Rideau, which JL fetched for us. And paid for! Bless his heart. 

We had fun watching the Elf movie last night, while Grampa read. (Not his cup of tea!) The kids have an elf. It was in quarantine for two weeks.

Then, teeth and jammies, and a couple of episodes of Border Security. 

We are having the kids this week. Meals are planned and in the freezer. Buckle up Buttercup, the adventure continues.

Influenza H1N1 is bad this winter: 2013/2014

Canadian
FluWatch web site

H1N1 dose

Hunkered down, with a freezing rain warning, a wind warning, and a flash freeze warning, it's seems to be a good day to stay home! The roads are terrible.

I've been amusing myself with research. To see where the flu is active in Canada, visit FluWatch.

FluWatch.ca produces weekly influenza surveillance reports from October to May, but they only report laboratory-confirmed test results. I'm sure you know people who have fought this virus and won. Most of the testing has shown that over 90% of flu results indicate that it is the H1N1 that is causing these illnesses.

Canadian activity

Unfortunately, it is really hard to find specific statistics by province. Flu Watch reports all of Canada. This site collects Yahoo news of H1N1 articles.

You have to go to provincial or regional health centres, and/or local newspapers, for data broken down by province or territory and they report metropolitan area healthcare systems (i.e., the large cities). No one wants to brag about how many cases of flu they have!

Ottawa Health has had two deaths from flu and 3 outbreaks in long-term care homes. There were 81 lab-confirmed cases, but there are many who do not report and do not test for the virus. There were 22 people placed in hospital.

Toronto Health has had 210 confirmed cases, with 6 deaths. It's bad in Ontario, but the provi

Red = H1N1 "A"; Blue = Type B flu

nce of Alberta is the worst so far with 965 confirmed cases, 5 deaths.

The Vancouver  Sun reports: "About half of Fraser Health's severe cases involve "significantly overweight" patients, who are more susceptible to more serious symptoms." There were 11 cases in long-term care (a high-risk population), 20 hospitalizations, and, perhaps, one death (yet to be confirmed).

Flu Watch tells us that the very young and the very old were the most at-risk in the 2009 pandemic, but this year, 24 - 64 year olds have been more susceptible, and getting ill, as well as the very young.

Our seniors have, it seems, developed antibodies, bless their souls. There is research to show that slight exposure does build up your immunities. "The things that don't quite kill you make you stronger."
August - December 2013. They track confirmed cases only, I wonder how many unconfirmed there are?
The territories report to particular labs in provinces.

FLU 2013	TYPE A	A + B
Provinces	Cases		Flu-related Deaths	Population
Ontario	1006	1033	8	12.8m
Alberta	868	1335	9	3.6m
QC	365	462
B.C.	229	239	1	4.6m
Saskatchewan	167	167	6	1m
Manitoba	28	35
Newfoundland	15	19
N.B.	12	12		0.75m
N.S.	8	8		0.9m
PEI	1	1
Canada	2699	3311	24	35m

The cities are the worst, with people who commute.

Week 52, Geographic spread of influenza

In week 50 (December) four regions had local, sporadic activity. Methinks the holiday season spread the virus aplenty ( Figure 1 )! By week 52 you can see how they increased.

I cannot find specific data for NWT. I tried!

Alberta Ontario reports: SE Ontario is bad. Alberta is worse. Alberta’s H1N1 outbreak leads to rush in flu vaccinations ... There have been 965 lab-confirmed cases of influenza in Alberta as of Jan. 1, with the H1N1strain representing 920 of those cases. There are  270 in hospital in Alberta. With 3 dead in Edmonton, 2 and dead in Calgary.

I'm amazed at the number of people who still eschew the vaccine. We hunker down in groups for winter: in schools and offices, with people who come to work quite ill. How can you NOT be exposed to the virus?! There are many who still don't cough or sneeze into their elbows. It boils down to washing your hands. There is little else to do, really. Stay home if you are ill. Get enough sleep, eat properly, exercise, and go outside to play! I find there are many personal support workers (PSW) doing home care who do not wash their hands frequently enough. I've seen them during my hospice work.

Flu shots are freely available from your Canadian physician, or from health clinics, each province/territorial health authority makes them available.

• How to separate immunization fact from fiction
• December 15 to 28, 2013 (Weeks 51 & 52)