Way back in the day (March 2020) I had to take the place of one of our caregivers who was working in a client’s home. The very nice caregiver, Pam, worked during the day at St. Margaret’s – a long term care home – and then came over to our client for a few days a week of supper-time care. Pam called me and explained that they had had their first case of Covid at St. Margaret’s and that she did not want to give it accidentally to our client. “It’s ok, Pam,”said I, “I’ll just cover for you for a few weeks until this is over. We want to keep a bubble over there”. Well little did I know and little did anyone know that 17 months later I would be working up to 50 hour weeks to cover for caregivers.
In spite of the vaccines and the fantastic and quick roll out of same, herd immunity – the level of immunity in a population – has not occurred. In the early days of the pandemic the thought was that if 60 – 70 per cent of the population were vaccinated herd immunity would occur and the pandemic would peter out. The Delta and other variants have thrown a spanner in the works by evading the vaccines. It now appears that we will – at least for the immediate future – have to live with Covid and learn how to manage it. Things are stable now, but there are outbreaks here and there depending on local factors.
(Photo courtesy of the CBC)
Here in Westmount it is business as usual but masking upon entry to any public place is still required, and there are hand-sanitizing stations everywhere. This is how it is going to be for a while. Most everyone has had at least two shots, but now we are probably going to be required to get a booster. This is fine and we will take every step to make sure that our clients and our caregivers receive their shots. We are all so proud of our vaccine passports. The flu shot is also being rolled out as of November 1 so our clients are starting to receive visits from the CLSC nurse if they are unable to go the pharmacy.
As caregivers to our home care clients it is our responsibility to keep them safe. We continue to scrupulously observe the public health guidelines – frequent hand-washing, wearing of masks and gloves, distancing and frequent sanitizing of high-touch areas in the home. By following these rules we have kept everyone safe so far and we will continue until the Government tells us otherwise.