H1N1 Vaccine Shortage

What is going on with Nova Scotia's swine flu H1N1 vaccination program? One day we are told something, only to have that change the next day. Now, the officials in charge have said there are limited numbers of the shots, and therefore they have announced only special groups, those judged most at risk, are going to get vaccinated next week.

Nothing was said of who would be vaccinated the following week. I am wondering if it really is a low supply of vaccine, or if it is a method of delivering the H1N1 shots to those deemed most at risk, including young children, people with underlying medical conditions, First Nations people and some others, most of whom fall outside of the young healthy people group. This too has changed from earlier reports, that indicated young heathy people were actually most at risk.

Regardless, things on the H1N1 front are constantly changing, which may be beyond the control of the folks who are trying to see to it that we are all vaccinated. There are many players involved in this process on a provincial, federal and international level, so now is not the time for pointing fingers. The shortage of H1N1 vaccine certainly changes the water on the beans in terms of how this pandemic will progress and be handled, as well as it's impact on people.

I do think  now is the time for following the advice that we have been given to date, which is practical information, and information we need to put in practice. Frequent handwashing, coughing and sneezing into our sleeves, avoiding crowded places, and staying home when we feel sick.

Here is the link to the Nova Scotia Government Swine H1N1 information site Click Here

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Also, in the midst of what is becoming a serious situation, what do you make of the report in the Metro today, where the Doctors from the Gladstone Medical Centre in Halifax reported receiving a shipment of vaccine destined for executives of the Liquor Commission. The shipment when to the doctors instead, who were expecting their own supply to arrive. I am rather curious as to what or why there would be any vaccine being sent to sent to executives of the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission.....I don't understand that at all.

Nova Scotia Swine Flu

I dunno about you, but here it is only Day 2 of the Nova Scotia H1N1 vacination plan and already the places offering the vaccination are reporting that they are overwhelmed......HELLOOOO!!  Do you think that might be because number 1, the officials have done nothing but tell us how important it is to get it....number 2, the news reported a young person's tragic death from swine flu yesterday, and as far as I can see, the officials have underestimated the demand for the swine flu vaccination right out of the starting gate.

Let's hope these first few days are just a warm-up while Nova Scotia's health care professionals get into the groove so to speak and figure out what they need to do to speed things along. But remember....these are folks used to keeping us waiting in emergency rooms. Line-up management is not their forte' 

So...what to do? Well they need to get the young children and families vaccinated against swine flu as soon as possible, but they also need to get the rest of us vaccinated as well. Obviously they need more people to deliver the shots. Their claim that there is enough swine flu vaccination for everyone is fine but only if they have a plan to get it to everyone on time.

I hate to sound critical, and I don't mean to belittle the efforts of the health care folks out there trying their darndest to get this job done. They deserve accolades and they deserve help. They also need some creative thinkers to figure out how to get this done. Why for instance, are doctors only being provided the serum if they ask for it? Why aren't they going to schools and doing the children right in the classrooms. Why not go to businesses as well. And another thing, why are many of the clinics  scheduled through the day, when many folks are at work? Why not get pharmacists to give the shots too?

I think we are going to need to see these clinics set up in more locations, like perhaps shopping malls, large department stores, and lots of them, not just in one location with lots of providers. It seems to me that when it comes to the larger places like Halifax, it isn't going to take much to overwhelm one or two locations. We need lots of locations for swine flu vaccinations. We also need this vaccine in the hands of our doctors so they can give it to their regular patients like the elderly who may not be able to stand in long lines.

If you ask me, this is very close to becoming a fiasco.....we don't want a fiasco with something so serious.

Here is the link to the Nova Scotia Government Swine H1N1 information site Click Here You can get the latest news, information on clinics, and you can submit your questions to be answered on a webcast Thursday October 29th.

Metro Transit Heads Downtown

I try and I try not to get started writing about Halifax Regional City Council goings on....I am trying to keep this site about things going on in Halifax in terms of entertainment and other events. But occasionally, perhaps more occasionally than I want, I find myself drawn into some of the stuff that comes from the Council Meetings.

The Councillors have just been given a report on public transit that is recommending raising the bridge tolls and using the money to pay for more buses. Unfortunately the report writers didn't do all their homework or they would have known that bridge tolls are outside the authority of the Council. The Bridge Commission, to their credit, said any toll increase is going to pay for bridge repairs and upkeep....good thinking, especially with all those heavy buses on the bridges.

Before I go to far off on a tangeant let me say that I am impressed with much of our Transit Service. The Park and Go places with free parking, like Woodside Ferry are great. The express buses, that load up and head straight for their destination. The service to a lot of outlying areas. All impressive. I haven't a bone to pick with transit really, just a bone to pick with the kind of ideas that are coming forth.

Increased bridge tolls, which by the way are kind of discrimnatory to commuters who live in Dartmouth, are not the only idea Council is considering, they want to get the rest of the transit money from...you guessed it, car drivers. They will do this by raising parking meter fees, who can find a meter anyway? Also they want to do away with any free parking, which I didn't think there was much of downtown anyway,

The theory is, people won't take the bus if they can park for free...uh-huh...cause taking your car is way more convenient than taking a bus....I get that....

The report also suggests adding a fee to vehicle registrations, which by the way are under the perview of Provincial legislation, not HRM, and some new taxes, like gas and property tax. Tell that one to somebody living outside the city, but still part of HRM...tell someone in Ship Harbour, or even Dartmouth, who never drives to Halifax to work, that their property taxes just went up to pay for more buses to downtown Halifax....tell them...I dare ya...

The report also suggests shutting down car traffic completely in some areas of the downtown to make room for buses. The suggested Barrington Street and Spring Garden Road could be only for buses, lots and lots of buses.

So...there is little or no parking left in downtown Halifax anyway, and revitalizing it is more of a pipe dream than a possibility, so why not make it even less attractive as a place to start a business by making getting there a little more difficult than it already is, under the auspices of making it better by sending more buses downtown. If you are a lawyer working downtown, your clients will have to come by bus...if you are trying to sell furniture in a retail store downtown, your customers will have to lug their new sofa home on the roof of the bus...if you are...well you get the picture...

Instead, how about considering more ferries from Dartmouth and Bedford, maybe reinstating a train line or even better a monorail from Dartmouth through Bedford and into Halifax? Free parking at the Dartmouth and Bedford stations. How about some decent roads in and out of the downtown core, maybe some reversing one way roads? How about some affordable parking in the downtown that doesn't require the tourists to walk uphill from the Harbour to get to places like Spring Garden Road? How about realizing that a good deal of Barrington Street is empty shops anyway, tear them down and put up a parking lot or two or three. That way the surviving shops might have a chance of survival and business might be able to locate in the downtown.

Or...we can all take the bus to Dartmouth Crossing and Bayers Lake and forget about the downtown.

Tom Selleck In Halifax

Tom Selleck is in Halifax filming another movie from his Jessie Stone series. He was filming at the church on Barrington Street this week. This must be his 6th or 7th movie in Halifax.

You remember Tom Selleck, he was Magnum PI, and then appeared in lots of movies including Lassiter, Ike: Countdown to D-Day. And a bunch of other movies, including High Road to China, and Louis L'Amor westerns like The Sacketts. He also starred as a cowboy who moved to Australia in Quigley Down Under. Selleck, or 'Tom" as I like to call him, also won a "Western Heritage Award" for his 1997 role in Last Stand at Sabre River.

Glad to have you back in Halifax Mr. Selleck.

No Smoking Policy For Halifax

The Mayor, His Worship, Peter Kelly, wants to create his own courts for the Halifax Regional Municipality....yup...he says having their own courts would free up the provincial courts for more important matters. Good thinking Mr Mayor, with the endless stupid bylaws that you and your merry band of councillors like to pass, the latest being the smoking in public places bylaw, or if not passed, at least debated for endless hours and hours....remember the cat bylaw discussions? You will need your own courts to round up all the bylaw breaker outlaws that you will have created by the time your tenure as a municipal government is over, which by the way, could be sooner than later if stuff like this is all you can come up with....

I have no argument with not smoking around children and places where children are, like playgrounds and sports fields, but it's outside, and beaches...what about beaches...smokers are you paying attention here? I was at a local beach this summer and because of my interest in the subject I took note that the majority of the people on the beach where I was...were smoking....I don't think smoking rates have gone down to the degree that some would like us to believe. What has happened is smokers have gone underground in the face of endless persecution and distain from non-smokers....

Smokers are certainly becoming much less of a citizen in this Province than anyone else, despite they pay taxes like everyone else, and more, for that matter, and our city council have really embarked on a social reform platform more than anything. Even you non-smokers, regardless of this law, think about the other laws and where things like this lead...this is not about smoking, this is about that band of councillors telling you how to live...how to live your life....not about smoking or cats or chickens...it's about telling you what you can and cannot do...no mention of what they cannot do, which is pass anything useful.

I hate to keep saying it, but please, remember how the Halifax Harbour still stinks, much worse than any cigarette, and if you don't believe me, go down to the waterfront on a clear mild morning at low tide....take a big deep breath.....suck on it....and remember your hapless Mayor splashing around in the waves at Black Rock Beach...

I still think you should have resigned over the Halifax Harbour Cleanup debacle, which, it seems no one is responsible for...let me rephrase that, no one has taken responsibility for....

So now after you had all the cat owners on edge for seemingly endless days and nights, you've turned to the few hapless smokers left alive, creating a bylaw that gives you the opportunity to pretty much ban smoking outside, somewhat of a coup for the non-smoking fraternity, or at least the zealots among them. Seems like the Mayor of Halifax Regional Municipality and his council would like to make lawbreakers of all of the HRM residents one way or another in order to raise the municipal coffers through the collection of fines...fines which of course can be levied in the new municipal courts that the city fathers and mothers want to create....

Would someone with half a clue please step up and run against this guy in the next election so we can get to the important matters in the municipality!!

As for the non-smokers who will be full of argument over this post....anyone got a light?

Oh yeah..by the way, it's only a policy not a bylaw...whatever that means...

Prepare For Hurricane Bill

Speaking of Halifax Nights and Sights, it sounds like we might be in for quite a sight Sunday August 23, 2009. All indications as of this writing, (August 21)are that Nova Scotia is in for a weather pounding from Hurricane Bill, which is currently catagorized as a Category 3 Hurricane....not a good thing at all...

Those of us who were around for Hurricane Juan know what I am talking about, as it was a devastating storm, causing millions in damage, and even loss of at least one life. So as they say on the ship, "batten down the hatches!"

It's time to prepare, get yourself ready. You can almost count on a power outage if nothing else. Here is a link to Nova Scotia's Emergency Management Office website, where you can find information about how to prepare. Emergency Management Office

If you want to watch the Hurricane's track, this is the best site I can find, Hurricane Tracking Centre You can also find current weather conditions and forecasts on the same sight Weather Office

Apparently it is too soon to say with certainty what Hurricane Bill is going to do, it could vear off at the last minute and stay out to the ocean, it could shift and go inland somewhere along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, it could be downgraded to a tropical storm, (still not good) before it reaches Nova Scotia, but it is unlikely. For-warned is for-armed....good luck and hope for the best! If it does hit, stay low and inside, look after your family and any neighbors, especially the elderly....and oh yes, stay away from the coast, yes the waves are spectacular, but you don't want to end up swimming in them!

Car Show At The Woodside A&W

As the dutiful blogger that I am, I attended the car show tonight at the ferry terminal parking lot in Woodside. Actually I think the event is sponsored by the A&W Restaurant in Woodside, which is a great restaurant to enjoy a Papa Burger and an ice cold Root Beer.

The car show is really worth seeing, lots of cars and trucks, antiques, hot-rods, beautifully restored vehicles on display and you can walk among them, look to your hearts content, just don't touch!

There's a get together every Thursday night at the A&W and lots of old cars are on display, but tonight's show was one of the bigger ones, a real car show. The other Thursday night events are usually smaller, more intimate gathering of antique car buffs and their friends, which of course is me and anyone else interested in nice old cars lovingly restored to their original beauty.

One or two of the cars at the show tonight really stood out, for example, what do you think of this one, I believe it's a Ford Model T.

What about this one? Hot red!