Skarpi, that's very sad. Fingers crossed ...

Ontario is deep in a third wave, with case counts spiking in large urban areas. The worst hit are the sectors of metropolitan Toronto where warehouses, factories and food-processing plants are concentrated, and the neighbourhoods where essential workers live. For the first time, some Canadian regional per-capita infection rates exceed rates in comparable regions in the United States.

The vaccination campaign is too slow and awkward for plenty of reasons, but I think the main one is inconsistent supply. When case counts spike in dense urban areas, especially among essential workers, vaccine doses allocated to thinly populated regions (like Huron-Perth, where I live) are redirected to crisis areas. Consequently, Toronto residents in their 40s are being vaccinated now, while in Huron-Perth the campaign is only now reaching healthy folks in the 65+ cohort.

For the record, I'm fine, and scheduled for my first vaccine dose on Friday.

The news media are full of stories about anger and resistance to the latest lockdown orders -- in Ontario, it's a stay-home directive with travel restrictions until mid-May -- but I note general compliance with mask and distancing rules here in Stratford. It used to be rude to cross the street on spotting another person (the "cut direct"), but now it's as routine as looking both ways before crossing. On heavily travelled arterial roads, the person facing traffic steps off the sidewalk into the curb lane.

When it's tolerably warm in the late afternoon, I sit on my porch with a book and a beverage, and wave at passers-by. When I'm out stretching my own legs, I see that many other people do the same thing. Everyone says hi, even the teenagers.