Serious systemic issues remain in long-term living facilities

One of the most disturbing consequences of the coronavirus pandemic is that more than 80 per cent of Canadians who have died from COVID-19 were residents at long-term care facilities. Today in The Conversation Canada, Gillian Parekh of York University and Kathryn Underwood of Ryerson University note that even before the pandemic, long-term care facilities had disturbing incidences of abuse, neglect and even murder. “Yet the conditions that allow such atrocities to occur continue,” they write. And if anything is going to change in our post-pandemic world, “people with disabilities and those who have experienced life in long-term care need to be at the forefront, leading and advising on systemic change.”

Also today:

Regards,

Vicky Mochama

Culture, Society, Critical Race Editor

Coronavirus News

Staff members stand at a window as they watch a parade of well-wishers driving by Orchard Villa Care home, in Pickering, Ont., on April 25, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Coronavirus crisis shows ableism shapes Canada’s long-term care for people with disabilities

Gillian Parekh, York University, Canada; Kathryn Underwood, Ryerson University

As governments start to return to a new normal, people with disabilities in care facilities are still in serious danger of being left behind during the coronavirus pandemic.

Nurses collect samples from a patient in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at St. Paul’s hospital in Vancouver on April 21, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

Hard choices put health workers at risk of mental anguish, PTSD during coronavirus

Margaret McKinnon, McMaster University; Ruth Lanius, Western University

Moral injury happens when someone is faced with a choice that violates deep moral beliefs. Health-care workers treating COVID-19 might be forced to choose between 'wrong' and 'wronger.'

On Parliament Hill and at provincial legislatures across the country, politicians must resist pressure from industry and corporate lobbyists amid the COVID-19 pandemic. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Governments must resist coronavirus lobbying and focus on long-term transformation

Mark Winfield, York University, Canada

The COVID-19 crisis has raised major questions about the viability of the economic, business and employment models that corporate and industry lobbyists are arguing for a return to.

Students in an after-school drama club in Athens rehearse their performance about the refugee crisis, March 2017. (Kathleen Gallagher)

After coronavirus: Global youth reveal that the social value of art has never mattered more

Kathleen Gallagher, University of Toronto

Despite hardships, youth are rallying to build a new vision for the planet. The rest of us should join them.

A market area in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, crowded with people despite the coronavirus pandemic, May 12, 2020. hmed Salahuddin/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Megacity slums are incubators of disease – but coronavirus response isn’t helping the billion people who live in them

Robert Muggah, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio); Richard Florida, University of Toronto

COVID-19 is spreading fast through not only the world's richest cities but also its poorest, ravaging slum areas where risk factors like overcrowding and poverty accelerate disease transmission.

Non-Coronavirus News

Chipmunks have a superpower: hibernation. (Shutterstock)

Why do chipmunks live on the ground but squirrels live in trees?

Andrea Wishart, University of Saskatchewan

Squirrels and chipmunks are distant cousins who have grown a little more apart from each other over millions of years.

In the movie based on William Paul Young’s ‘The Shack,’ Mack (Sam Worthington), second from the left, meets the Trinity. From left to right: Jesus, the Son (Avraham Aviv Alush), Papa, God the Father (Octavia Spencer) and Sarayu, the Holy Spirit (Sumire Matsubara). (Summit Entertainment, Lionsgate)

Popular Christian novel ‘The Shack’ finds a surprising solution to the problem of evil: Polytheism

Christopher Douglas, University of Victoria

The problems of suffering and evil emerging in the coronavirus pandemic occupy popular evangelical fiction. In 'The Shack,' proliferating divine beings harken to a long-standing solution.

A mathematical discovery made in prison is about the pursuit of knowledge and redemption. (Shutterstock)

An inmate’s love for math leads to new discoveries

Marta Cerruti, McGill University

Christopher Havens came upon his love of math while in solitary confinement. A decade later, he published a paper on number theory in a top mathematics journal.

La Conversation Canada

Tour de télécommunication avec antenne de réseau cellulaire 5G. Avec la pandémie, les fausses nouvelles concernant la 5G se sont propagées à une vitesse fulgurante sur les réseaux sociaux. shutterstock

Faut-il avoir peur de la 5G ?

Tchéhouali Destiny, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

Les fausses nouvelles concernant la 5G se sont propagées à une vitesse fulgurante sur les réseaux sociaux, renforçant les craintes des citoyens qui suspectaient déjà ses effets sur la santé.