Christmas 2021

As we prepare to celebrate another COVID Christmas and close the door on another year, I wish to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to our loyal advertisers and readers for their ongoing support of the Leader.

We keep hearing print media is dead or dying and has been replaced with digital platforms. Well, if that’s the case, then the Leader is bucking the trend. Our readership continues to grow across Renfrew County and while advertising has declined, it is not due to advertisers choosing another medium to sell their products, but rather a dire shortage of just about everything that is manufactured – both at home and abroad. Automobiles, furniture, recreational vehicles, building materials and accessories … you name it. The list goes on and on and it grows. You can’t sell what you can’t get.

The latest, believe it or not, is a predicted newsprint shortage. We were recently notified newspapers may have to downsize in the new year and possibly use a lower quality paper because of the looming shortage. And the problem lies not only with newsprint, but a wide range of all paper products.

Now that is hard to believe when you look at the forests and trees in this country, but the fact of the matter is several paper mills closed in the second quarter of 2020 when newspapers, feeling the effects of a reduction in advertising, began producing much smaller papers. The result was that a few of the older paper mills, some of them environmental nightmares, ended production for good while those still operating shifted their production line from newsprint and fine paper to the manufacture of corrugated boxes to fill the overwhelming demand for packaging from online shipping companies. A major daily newspaper in a large Canadian city allegedly was unable to print a Monday edition because the plant ran out of paper. The explanation to readers was quite different, but through inside circles a newsprint shortage was cited as the reason.

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. So just how bad this will impact newspapers in the next few years is anyone’s guess. Several printing plants have already closed their doors simply because of the paper situation, sending publishers of magazines, periodicals and even some newspapers to the plants still operating, literally begging for help. But the plants still operating are committed to their existing customers. As the Christmas story is told, there was no room in the inn. Well, there is no paper in stock neither.

All of this, of course, is due to COVID-19 which has taken control of our lives, the world economy and hijacked health care in every country.

At the same time there continues to be strong opposition and agitations from about 15 percent of the population (in Canada) that have different thoughts on COVID which I don’t intend to write about, other than to say, I don’t really give a hoot if you don’t want to be vaccinated, but for God’s sake, please respect the lives of people who are vaccinated.

I don’t appreciate it when people go into churches, stores, or any other venues where crowds gather without following the guidelines, one of which is wearing a mask. Most of them are looking for a confrontation and it’s not worth the time or the risk of where that confrontation could lead to.

The law is the law. The law says we must wear seatbelts or face a fine. The law says we can’t drive with more than 0.8 percent alcohol in our blood. The law says we need a building permit to erect a home.

So why, then, when the wearing of masks is mandated do some people believe they are above the law and have the right to break the law?

We know there was a time when our hospitals and front-line workers were overwhelmed with the number of COVID cases. We know that an estimated 4,000 people died in Canada in 2021 because they could not get the life-saving surgery they needed because our hospitals were overwhelmed with COVID patients.

We know that more than 750,000 surgeries in this country alone had to be cancelled in 2021 because our hospitals and front-line workers were overwhelmed with COVID cases.

We know the Omicron variant has the potential to cripple the healthcare system again if those who contract it end up ill because of its ability to spread easier and faster than the Delta variant.

Perhaps more people in their 30s and 40s with cancer died in 2021 than all the people who died from COVID. But cancer patients didn’t overwhelm our hospitals and require the vast amount of our health resources that COVID demands.

So whether or not you believe COVID is real or fake or whatever, hundreds of thousands of people are suffering and dying because they are being denied surgeries, hospitalization or visits to their doctor … all because people are going to hospitals with COVID symptoms. And that doesn’t take into account the mental health crisis and socioeconomic problems that have ballooned during COVID.

Let’s stop being selfish.

Suddenly there has been a huge surge in “experts”, most of them gaining their new-found knowledge from various internet sites.

I don’t know about you, but I have trusted my doctor(s) for 68 years.

I have had three near death experiences and each time I survived because of the skills and knowledge of medically-trained people. I’m not sure I would be here today had I gone to some rogue or rebel site to find a cure.

Christmas 2021 will be much the same as last year – smaller celebrations, smaller family and friends gatherings, or perhaps for some, no celebrations of any kind.

I don’t know if things will get worse before they get better, or if life as we knew it pre-COVID will ever return. No one can predict if we will overcome the virus or find ways to control it because the virus itself is still unfolding, changing, presenting new challenges to the medical and science community.

But I do know one thing: like it or not, I will rely on information from reliable sources and legitimate experts and will adhere to the law whether I like it or not. If not for myself, then for your safety.

Merry Christmas to all.