Seniors living in care homes in the province of Ontario, who have received their COVID vaccinations, are asking why they are still being locked up? Why are governments preventing them from going outside? Why can’t they visit their family? Why do governments feel they can violate people’s basic human rights?

Some seniors are referring to it as torture.

CBC explains:

Residents of Ontario’s long-term care homes begged on Tuesday to be allowed outside, saying anti-pandemic restrictions that have confined them indoors for more than a year make no sense given almost all have now been vaccinated.

Some compared their situations to solitary confinement, and urged the provincial government to act on what they called a gross violation of their basic human rights.

Chuck Ferkranus, a resident of a home in Newmarket, Ont., said no one in the building has COVID-19 and yet residents are stuck in their rooms. Ferkranus, who challenged those in authority to live as he does for even a week, said residents are being treated worse than criminals.

“We did nothing wrong; we’re not guilty of any crime,” he said. “If vaccinations don’t end the rules, if no one having COVID doesn’t end the restrictions, then what does it take before this comes to an end?”

Many of an estimated 150,000 nursing home residents have been confined to their rooms or floors for as long as 15 months now, cut off from most relatives as well as the outdoors. Activists blame extreme staffing shortages and operators who prioritize corporate needs ahead of the welfare of residents.

READ: Long-term care residents beg to go outside after year-long COVID-19 confinement

This turned from a health pandemic to a political one, months ago.

There was also this disturbing story out of Ontario, where an elderly woman chose suicide rather than enduring a second lockdown.

The Western Journal writes:

An elderly woman chose to end her life through doctor-assisted suicide, rather than endure another looming lockdown at her long-term care facility last month in Canada.

The prospect of such a lockdown led Nancy Russell, 90, to end her life via controversial medically-assisted suicide.

CTV News reported that during Toronto’s first lockdown of nursing homes, Russell declined physically when she was isolated from loved ones and her normal routine was disrupted.

READ: 90-Year-Old Woman Chooses Suicide Over Facing Another Lockdown