ZOOMER SQUAD: TOP OFFICIALS TO APPEAR BEFORE LTC COMMISSION

Jane Brown is filling in for Libby Znaimer today. She is joined by the Zoomer Squad’s David Cravit, Vice President of Zoomer Media and Chief Marketing Officer at CARP, Bill VanGorder, Interim Chief Policy Officer at CARP and Peter Muggeridge, Senior Editor of Zoomer Magazine.

Top provincial officials including Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, and LTC minister Merrilee Fullerton will go before the province’s independent long-term care commission this week. It is part of the commission’s investigation into COVID-19 outbreaks across Ontario nursing homes. And, this morning, the province made an announcement about additional support for PSWs. But is it enough? As part of the announcement, Minister Fullerton announced that a support program will be in place to train fewer than 400 new PSWs and retrain current ones. And, our Zoomer Squad details their concerns and expectations for a successful vaccination of Ontarians over the age of 80 now that this age group is being prioritized as part of phase one in the rollout.

SEGMENT 2: STAY-AT-HOME ORDER EXTENDED & VACCINE ROLLOUT

A follow up to last week’s announcement by the Ford government that the stay-at-home order will remain in place for an additional two weeks for COVID-19 hotspots Toronto and Peel region. And, we turn our attention to a study out of the GTA that shows that the very infectious B.1.1.7 variant of the virus accelerated its spread in January and will be the dominant strain by the time February comes to an end.

Jane Brown is joined by Dr. Ray Deonandan, Epidemiologist and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at University of Ottawa and Dr. Timothy Sly, An epidemiologist and professor at the school of Occupational and Public Health at Ryerson University.