How well is Nova Scotia’s health system serving the Black community during the pandemic? Not well at all, says Dr. OmiSoore Dryden, who is the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies in the Faculty of Medicine and an associate professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology. We spoke about the province’s refusal to collect disaggregated race-based data, the impressive mobilization against COVID by members of the North and East Preston communities, and the challenges of vaccination. More than anything we spoke about racism.

Alexander Bridge on the covid-vaccine: ” It is time to understand the science-based evidence of this pandemic and trade fear driven by social media for good common sense.”

When journalists recently asked whether the Nova Scotia government is willing to institute paid sick days in Nova Scotia, premier Stephen McNeil flat out refused. There’s a federal program that takes care of it, he said. That’s not quite how it works, NDP labour critic Kendra Coombes tells the Nova Scotia Advocate.

Paul Wozney: “Today, just like they have done every day for the past three months, almost 150,000 Nova Scotian children and adults (up to 35 at a time) crowd into small poorly ventilated classrooms where masks are not universally required, which also lack proper handwashing stations. Nowhere else is this tolerated. If you hosted a gathering like this in your home, you’d be fined.”

Judy Haiven suggests that we postpone this year’s Christmas holidays. That way we we can meet around a picnic table, outdoors. Dr Strang tells us that during Covid, outdoors is the safest place to socialize. In July, there could be visits, outside activities, trips to the beach or the playground, all relatively safe gatherings. Remember how Covid cases across the country dropped precipitously over the summer of 2020?