It’s not just about the masks. Yes, proper personal protective equipment, or PPE, is the most important thing in the country right now. Every N95 respiratory mask is a shield against the worst-case scenarios that terrify health-care workers: being infected with COVID-19, infecting colleagues, infecting patients, infecting their families, sickness and death. This disease is a devil, and every mask can matter so much.

So yes, the United States holding up a shipment of masks at the U.S.-Canada border that was meant for Ontario — a shipment of three million, according to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, of which 500,000 were released as of Monday morning — was a big deal. But it was more than that, too.

Shortages in Ontario hospitals are entering a new stage. Ford claims the province is a week from exhausting its own stores of PPE. On Thursday of last week some hospitals in the GTA started asking employees to save N95 masks, and said they anticipated there would be a way to decontaminate and reuse them.

There are studies at Duke University and at the University of Winnipeg, led by Dr. Anand Kumar, that have shown heat and aerosolizing hydrogen peroxide, among other methods, seem to sanitize the mask. The studies aren’t peer-reviewed, of course. There hasn’t been time.

Health-care workers are resistant to the idea of reusing masks, because it goes against everything they have been trained to do. One Toronto nurse told the Star, “tensions are extreme among the nurses. The shortage is causing nurses and staff to question every time we need to use an N95; we’re taking shortcuts that I believe will jeopardize our health.”

Some health-care workers have also been reusing goggles by cleaning them with Virox, which is said to be running low in some places. Federal PPE shipments are important — assuming, of course, they arrive. Some hospitals were already getting partial deliveries of their PPE shipments two weeks ago.

So while about 80 per cent of N95s come from China, per reporting from the Star’s Marco Chown Oved, but the United States refusing to let medical equipment cross the border in any way is a massive development. The masks matter.

But it’s more than that, too. As one source who has had significant experience with the current American administration said, simply, “They’re starting to panic in D.C. You can feel it from here.”

Canada has dealt with America’s radioactive instability for several years now, and the plan was established during NAFTA, through steel tariffs, and around that lunatic plan last week to put U.S. troops on the border. Quiet diplomacy worked that out.

But it keeps happening. And the United States is built to fail on this, in almost every way.

It’s tragically, sadly perfect. In a for-profit medical system, the top employers of ER doctors are groups owned by private-equity companies, including Canada’s Onex. ProPublica reported they are cutting doctor hours, because the demand for non-COVID-19 health care has collapsed, and the revenue isn’t there.

Meanwhile, approximately half of U.S. workers receive health care through their employer, and 6.6-million Americans filed for unemployment in the week ending March 28. Eight states still lack stay-at-home orders, all with Republican governors. The federal economic packages thus far have ignored wage subsidies while siphoning hundreds of millions to richer recipients, and loan programs have been difficult to access for many businesses.

As of Sunday there were at least 14 states that planned to exempt religious gatherings from stay-at-home orders. There are protest church gatherings across the country, in defiance of the science.

And above it all — above the 40 years of anti-government, anti-science, anti-working-class, anti-poor, anti-public state — it is obvious to anybody who watches Donald Trump for five minutes that the man is a wicked, lying child who bluffed his way into being in charge of an aircraft carrier, and has no idea what to do now. The Associated Press reported the United States waited until mid-March to start ordering ventilators, and medical supplies.

The president is in denial, and spends every day going on television performing a grotesque improvisational opera of empty promises, disinformation and blame, while agitating to reopen the country for the sake of the stock market. Trump’s allies are already starting to target the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, because the doctor disagrees that there is evidence the drug hydroxychloroquine can be used to ward off the coronavirus. And he’s right.

RELATED STORIES Investigations Is it time to take another look at reusable protective gear in the wake of COVID-19?

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

At least Canada is not alone. Red states and blue states are getting different amounts of PPE, but it sounds as chaotic as anything. After several shipments of PPE destined for the states were essentially hijacked by the federal government, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker had to go on a stealth mission to China with the owner of the New England Patriots under the guise of a humanitarian mission to secure 1.5 million masks.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported an Illinois official had to race to a McDonald’s rest stop outside Chicago with a $3.4 million (U.S.) cheque to beat out other bidders for N95s. California is putting together a consortium of states to bid collectively. If only there were another way to say “A Consortium of States.”

So it’s not just Canada. But we don’t have a North American ally anymore, not in the same way. We have a sick gorilla in a cage, and we have to constantly worry how it might lash out.

Canada will work the same paths it worked during NAFTA, and since. The relationship does flow both ways, as deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland pointed out. Windsor hospitals are starting to force health-care workers who were crossing the border to work in Detroit to choose Canada or the U.S., and many are choosing Canada. As Dr. Wajid Ahmed, Windsor’s chief medical officer, said, “It’s not my intention to deprive them of their staffing; I think it’s more about, how do we minimize the risk to our community?” That could be a bargaining chip diminished, or gone.

Canada, too, has to minimize the risk. An exemption on medical supplies would be yet another accomplishment. But all we know is it’s going to get worse, south of us. The masks matter. But we are locked in a cage with a feverish gorilla, and it’s getting sicker by the day.

Read more about: