Travel in the time of Covid: Some scofflaws get their ticket punched

The NPC Healthbiz Weekly is back to inform you through 2021. It's your weekly briefing on topics pertinent to healthcare marketers and executives published in cooperation with Peak Pharma Solutions. From Chronicle Companies, organizers of the National Pharmaceutical Congress Winter Webinar Feb. 10, 2021. More info at pharmacongress.info

⇒ Issue #157 (In numerology, 157 portends leadership, initiative, ambition, and motivation.)
⇒ Confirmed Covid cases in Canada as of 01/22: 736,441*
⇒ Confirmed Covid fatalities in Canada as of 01/22: 18,510*
⇒ Number of Canadians vaccinated as of 01/22: 738,864*
⇒ Worldwide Covid cases as of 01/22: 97,607,105*
⇒ Worldwide Covid fatalities as of 01/22: 2,093,605*

January 22, 2021—Here we are, all of you faithful CurveFlatteners, back at the end of another week in lockdown. It’s Editorial Director Allan Ryan at the controls this morning. Let’s check out the Covid-19 news. 

Covid-19 protocols have been ignored by a surprising number of public figures, and the hair-brained decisions they have made continue to write the headlines. Travel is a common transgression these days—travel by the same people who urge everyone else to stay home. Travel for most of us during Covid-19 seems risky and impractical, starting with the 14-day quarantine at your destination and another 14-day stint when you get back home. 

The first example, from late December, continues to rankle: The devious former Ontario Finance Minister Rod Phillips released strategically-timed videos in an attempt to deceive the public into believing that he was honouring his own government’s recommendations to hunker down at home during the Christmas holidays. The amateur ruse blew up when it was revealed he was vacationing on the island of St. Barts in the Caribbean.

Then there is the CEO of the Niagara (Ont.) Health System and St. Joseph’s Health System. Dr. Tom Stewart was also a member of several provincial Covid-19 panels until released from all of his duties when it was revealed—contradicting his advice to others—that he had flown to his vacation home in the Dominican Republic over Christmas. Getting bounced from a post is not a great day for anyone, but reports indicate Stewart is in line to receive a cool $1 million in severance pay, so that should ease the sting.

A final example (and there are many more) is this nurse from London, Ont. who managed to cross the U.S. border and travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in an anti-lockdown protest—on Jan. 6, the same day as the Capitol riot. Neonatal Intensive Care nurse Kristen Nagel had already been placed on unpaid leave in November for helping to organize a local protest over lock-down measures. In a video shot on Jan. 6 in Washington, she suggests the number of Covid-19 deaths compared to Canada’s overall population is evidence that the health restrictions are “crazy.” She also speaks out against the use of masks, gloves, and so-called “synthetic drugs” in the video. She has been terminated, with cause, by London Health Sciences Centre.

The NPC Podcast is back for another season. The National Pharmaceutical Congress organizers are proud to release our new weekly podcast series, hosted by Peter Brenders. Peter's guest next week will be Karen Lee, CEO of Parkinson Canada. Listen here now, or download the episode and play it at your convenience. The NPC Podcast is presented in cooperation with Impres Pharma

COVID CHRONICLE 01/22/2021

• Retracted Covid papers continue to be cited. After examining the most recent 200 academic articles published in 2020 that reference two particular papers, reporters at Science found that more than half used the retracted papers to support scientific findings and failed to note the retractions. In June, in what was called the biggest research scandal of the pandemic to that date, The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet each retracted papers purported to be based on a large database of patient records reportedly compiled from hospitals around the world by Surgisphere. The CEO of the now-defunct Surgisphere, Sapan Desai, was a vascular surgeon and co-author of each article.
  
  
• Evidence is accumulating that rogue antibodies could be responsible for severe cases of Covid-19. In contrast to the effects caused by cytokine storms, these autoantibodies can damage a person’s immune defences or specific proteins in organs such as the heart, according to new research from the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn.
  
  
• This new study in the International Journal of Clinical Practice indicates that the severity of Covid-19 infection is significantly related to D-dimer concentrations—the more severe patients tend to have a higher concentration of D-dimer than non-severe patients.

TODAY CHRONICLE IS WORKING ON

Chronicle is developing the agenda for the upcoming Indigenous Skin Spectrum Summit with co-curriculum chairs Drs. Rachel Asiniwasis and Gary Sibbald. The event will be held on March 18 and 20, 2021. More info at Skinspectrum.ca/isss2021

RIGHT NOW WE ARE LISTENING TO... 

Another casualty of Covid-19, Curtis Jonnie (aka Shingoose), considered a pioneer of indigenous music, died on Jan. 12 in Winnipeg. The 74-year-old singer/songwriter, an Ojibwa from the Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation in Manitoba, was a survivor of the Sixties Scoop, a shameful federal policy of separating First Nations children from their parents. 

According to this report, Shingoose’s first album, "Native Country," was released in 1975 and featured songwriter Bruce Cockburn. His song “Silver River,” recorded with Duke Redbird, was featured on the Grammy-nominated album "Native North America, Vol. 1: Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966–1985," released in 2014.

His daughter, Nahanni Shingoose of Toronto, said: “I didn’t have a sense of the impact he had on the world, because growing up, he was just dad. We did things like, we rented a Winnebago, I think I must have been 13, and we drove across the States and parked it in Bob Dylan’s driveway, and we were hanging out with Max Gail. Those were just dad’s friends.” Shingoose was inducted into the Manitoba Music Hall of Fame in 2012.

THAT'S IT FOR TODAY

Have a great weekend, and watch for our e-newsletters: Skin Spectrum Weekly on Monday, NPC Healthbiz Weekly on Tuesday, and the new CJMC Medicannabis Fortnightly next Wednesday. Mitch Shannon will be back at the CurevFlattener helm on Thursday.