Covid19 Coverage
Courtesy Pixabay.com
Sept. 6, 2020
I'll start with the good news first! Our son went and got tested for that stupid virus, at the hospital where his wife works - because he had to, or she could lose her job if he didn't and it turned out he had the virus but didn't test for it. Anyhow, it came back negative, so all he has is a bad cold. Phew! That's not only good news for him and her but us too, since we saw them not long ago. Anyhow, so far, we're fine and didn't catch his cold that he has.
But I've been crazy busy trying to take care of food, because for some reason no matter what we buy in the way of fruits or vegetables the moment it comes into this house it starts a backwards 48 hour countdown to total expiration or something, because all our groceries seem to want to go bad all at the same time and that's shortly after arriving here. So I've been frantically working like crazy trying to save whatever I can. The strawberries were a total write off, they had to be thrown out altogether the day after coming home with them. The green and yellow beans were trying real hard to follow the strawberries into vegetation heaven, but I caught them in time and blanched and froze them. I worked on the lemons I mentionned in the last post and that took me an entire afternoon with all the prep work involved in this recipe: Lemon-Ginger Marmalade but it's well worth the effort.
I also made my favourite chicken wing sauce based on this recipe: Chicken Wing Sauce I say based on that recipe because I've modified the instructions after being scalded using their instructions on pureeing some of the ingredients after cooking it. Uh uh.... No more.... I'm one of the biggest clutzes on the planet and Murphy's Law works overtime on me. Meaning if anything can go wrong it will go wrong and trust me, that's basically my life story. So after trying something once and getting injured and having a colossal mess to clean up in the kitchen on account of it, no more. Now I do it my way and that is that all those ingredients they want you to cook and then puree.... I puree before it's cooked and then I add the 2 cooking times together to make 1.5 hours instead of 1/2 before pureeing and then another hour afterwards. Sometimes I don't even cook it that long - it depends on how thick the sauce is and how thick I want it to be. But I also add in a jalapeno pepper in the ground up mush of tomatoes and onions along with the recommended amount of cayenne, because I like it to be a little zestier than the recipe makes it. Also by accident (because of 1 of my measuring spoon sets that I have that differs from the others, that has only Tbsp, tsp, 1/2 tsp and 1/4tsp, this particular set also has a 1/2 Tbsp and 1/8tsp - so because of those additional spoon sizes I like it the best and use it the most but I'm used to my older sets with the 4 spoon measurements,) I accidentally used 1/2Tbsp of all the spice ingredients except the cayenne and salt, in the mixture once, and we liked it, so those are the spice amounts I use now instead of the 1tsp amount shown in the original recipe.
Then last night while watching TV we wanted a peach to munch on. So I got up to get us a peach and well as per the rest of the stuff they were wanting to join the strawberries in vegetation heaven too. Not only that, but so were the pears getting ready to join them as well. So before going to bed, we spent a couple of hours peeling and cutting the peaches and pears up, along with a cantaloupe (no it wasn't going bad, yet) and added some grapes in with it all to make a fruit salad, but that was pretty much a 2 litre container full of fruit salad, that I knew we would never be able to finish before it went bad even in the fridge. So today I canned that as well. My husband being one to never want to waste anything also wanted me to can the leftover syrup that was made with Splenda. So I did, so now we have a syrup we can use for cocktails made with Splenda instead of sugar, or for other purposes. If anyone wishes to make their own fruit salad, for every 2 litres of chopped fruit, boil 3.5 cups of water with 2.5 cups of splenda and 1.5 Tspn of lemon juice. When the water- splenda mixture comes to a boil, add chopped fruit and wait for it to boil again. Remove from heat and pack fruit into hot sterilized jars (4 x 500 ml or 2 x 1 l) using a slotted spoon, packing as tightly as possible. Then pour liquid over until 1/2 inch from top. Process in a canner for 20 minutes after the water has returned to boiling. That way you can can your own fruit to have later on in the year if what you have now insists on going bad faster than you can eat it or do anything else with it, at least you won't have to throw it out. If you have any liquid leftover you can pour that into a jar and can it as well, for later use.
Plus we had a bunch of different veggies for a salad, and some of those were looking like we'd better eat them now or forget about them too. So I spent more time making another 2 litre salad, but this time one using lettuce and other veggies, to have with dinner tonight and later on during the week.
I still have more tomatoes and cucumbers to work on though. So maybe salsa or chili sauce coming up and dill pickles. Assuming I have enough jars to accommodate all that stuff. Hopefully I do, otherwise I'll have to wind up going to buy some. I know I will have to buy some if I want to make the mint jelly and watermelon rind pickles later on. That's a big IF though, because the way I feel now, I'm not sure I want to. But if I don't we don't have any until next year as no one sells those things in the area. Definitely not the pickled watermelon rind, that's for sure.
It's good I like to cook, otherwise we'd be in trouble. We'd have had to throw out most of the fresh produce we bought if I didn't like to cook, as it is now, we threw out the strawberries yes, but only 1 peach, a few beans and that's about it. I managed to save the rest.
Then..... After all of that, I still have the garden to contend with and whatever I find in there that's edible and worth saving. So maybe more canning if there's more cucumbers and tomatoes, but even if there isn't there's still going to be a ton of blanching to do, that's for sure. So I'm no where near finished yet.
In the meantime, I'll still try to get through the headlines and post as much here as possible whenever I have the time. So since I have some time tonight, I'd better get started with that, instead of wasting all my time blabbing about stuff that has no relevance to the subject at hand and probably doesn't interest you either (but this was started mainly as a kind of COVID19 diary for me - I wanted it to be of use to Cdn seniors as well - but if it wasn't at least it was a diary for me reminding me of how I passed the quarantine lockdown and where we were in the pandemic - by posting the story headlines). So that explains all the yammering at the start of each post in case you were wondering.
So onwards and away with the headlines:
It's crucial for older people to respond well in COVID-19 drug trials, infectious disease specialist says I should hope so!
South Korea doctors' strike escalates even as Seoul races to tackle COVID surge Sounds like they need to enact an "essential services" law like we have here in Canada.
WestJet to remove unmasked passengers from flights and ban them for a year As far as I'm concerned they could ban me for life. Westjet trips I've taken rank among the lousiest travel experiences I've ever had in my life. I can't believe they can get away with such lousy service, for the prices they charge.
Focused on pandemic, Merkel has no time for retirement plans This one is always focused on something and never has any time for retirement plans. First it was the refugees, and then it was trying to prevent the UK from leaving the EU (and that's still in the works and not finished with yet) and now she has a new excuse, the pandemic. She's starting to sound a lot like Putin, except we haven't seen her riding topless and hunting tigers yet. I imagine in due time, when she gets to be senile enough, we might.
Coronavirus: Quebec will not shut down daycare network if second wave hits Yup, so they say. 'Cept ever since the lockdown began, they would say "we won't do..... (fill in the blanks)" or "we have no intention of doing ..... (fill in the blanks again)" but yet before the end of the week is out they've done a 180 and drastically changed their minds, doing or mandating precisely what they said earlier in the week they wouldn't do. Like now Legault is saying he won't lockdown the province again that it may be sector (as in business sector like say restaurants) by sector or region by region but not the whole province. So I looked at my husband and said a lockdown's coming - you've got to get whatever you need done to the car done now before it happens, because you won't be able to then. So tomorrow he's supposed to make an appointment with the mechanic to get it done.
What it's like to go to the theatre during the pandemic In case you absolutely needed to know....
Tough choices as rent cheques due again during pandemic Rents due, eviction bans lifted, landlords needing to sell their properties.... What's going to happen to all those people? There should be laws preventing landlords from evicting people at this time of year given that fall is fast approaching along with a drop in temperatures - not exactly a great time to be homeless.
For a Few Destinations, Tourism Is Doing Better Than Ever This is in the US.
The more you know: Knowledge is power in the fight against pandemic stress Knowledge is power in regards to any subject you wish to name.
Children can have coronavirus and antibodies at the same time, study shows You know what!?! I'd hazard an educated guess and say that's probably true of 99% of the population out there, considering that while your body is fighting a virus off, it's also building up it's immunity against it. That's how that works. You don't have a virus, get better and then whoops all of a sudden your immunity just appears out of thin air. No, while you are fighting it off, your immunity against it builds up, until it's finally strong enough to rid your body of it. Think of it as building muscles to fight off the bullies. The bullies pick on you and you get clobbered, so you decide you'd better work out a bit to try to fight them, so you start doing work outs, the bullies come after you again and you still get clobbered but you show a bit of resistance to them at least this time. Next time after more work outs, you're able to at least hold your own against them for a while before tiring out and getting beaten yet again. Next time though after more workouts you beat the bullies hands down so they leave you alone after that. That's what your immune system is trying to do to whatever virus that you may have that's attacking your system, it's trying to build up it's strength against it - called building immunity. Once you have it, you're free and clear of that virus probably for life. So it's not just kids. It's probably only kids that they've tested for and thus observed this in though. But guaranteed it's everyone who has the virus and is able to eventually beat it.
Coronavirus: Canada’s top doctor pursuing new vaccine options after deal with China fails She'd better since it's her fault Canadians have been exposed to, contracted and in some cases died from that virus she let into the country.
As pandemic relief winds down, Canadian banks brace for a new reality Oh boo hoo, the banks are crying about the "real test" as the relief winds down. What about the people who are actually facing the "real tests" of being thrown out of their apartments or having their houses foreclosed upon? They're the real victims here. Not the banks, the banks can withstand it and if they can all they have to do is go crying to the gov't hat in hand and they'll be doled out at the taxpayer's expense as usual. While the guy or family now living on the streets because they got kicked out of their apartment or had their home foreclosed upon won't see anymore help. What they got is it and all they'll ever see until they visit a homeless shelter and soup kitchen.
Chart shows Ontario faring better than Quebec and many U.S. states Wait until you've been open at least as long as the ones you're comparing yourselves to, like QC for instance. They've been open a lot longer than you have already. So hang in there, you're apt to see an increase in numbers too.
Ste. Anne’s councillor votes against city’s donation to the Lakeshore Hospital Foundation for COVID-19 PPE Wow... Just wow.... Juneau is one mean spirited SOB isn't he? It's $500 not $500,000 or 5 million! Gawd, talk about so cheap they squeak.... Betcha though if the city wanted to give him a $500 an hour raise he wouldn't have any objections to that, he'd be johnny on the spot for that expense. Even though he's probably one of those useless eaters that's taking up space and fouling up the planet with his exhalations and excrement.
Canada-China COVID-19 vaccine trials abandoned: National Research Council I figured that much, when they hijacked the vaccine and refused to send any to Canada.
Mount Pearl-born researcher says a COVID-19 vaccine could be close At least he's showing some optimism and enthusiasm for the vaccine he's working on. So we might have some hope.
Canada’s economy sees record quarterly slump; June gains suggest early COVID-19 efforts ‘paying off’
Canada’s GDP dropped at annualized rate of 38.7% between April and June: StatCan Wow.... I'm no economist but even to me that seems pretty sad.
Rate of positive flu tests plummets to nine-year low That's interesting to note.
Coronavirus: Canada extending international travel restrictions, mandatory quarantine until Sept. 30 Good, but I think it'll need to be extended for longer than that!
Economists agree Canada is in a recession, but there's little consensus on why Ummm lessee now if I can figure it out even though I'm not an economist..... Could it have something to do with the pandemic maybe? Possibly the gov'ts giving orders to shut everything down and stay home? While doling out every frigging cent found in the taxpayer's coffers to anyone and everyone except those who needed it the most? Could any of that have any remote impact on the recession do ya think?
More than 16,500 refused entry at Canada-U.S. border since March Does that include those trying to cross illegally at Roxham Rd in QC? Or are they special and somehow excluded from being refused entry and are allowed in anyhow?
Up to $22 billion in COVID aid may have gone to high-income Canadians: Fraser Institute study Well I know it sure as hell didn't go to low income seniors, nor the disabled and probably not the working poor either. In other words the people that actually needed the money. But the airhead in Ottawa thinks that the lower upper class are actually middle class, so he's busy helping them out all he can while completely ignoring the middle classes and below altogether. Forget the "protected group" aka seniors, they basically got next to nothing in the way of money but in the way of being screwed over the most - they got that hands down.
COVID-19 vaccine to be tested in Hamilton It would be nice if other areas of Canada could be designated as test areas too.
That's it for now. Take care and stay well.
