Oh, they’re talking about it. But not until, say, June…
Holy hannah. Have you Ontarians seen this?
Randy Hillier is an asshat. His son was tasked and arrested for not wearing a mask at a bar a few weeks back:
He sits as an independent since getting kicked to the curb by Doug Ford, so there is no real way to force him out before the election in 2022.
Ha. I just read Sunspace’s link. Is it merely an unfortunate coincidence that the person in charge of the rollout is Rick Hillier and the rogue covid deny independent MP is Randy Hillier? Cause that could work as a sitcom or something if they’re brothers.
It looks like New Brunswick is having a surge of cases since Christmas / New Years. We went from having 20 or so active cases to 316 as of today. Half the province has been put in the red zone. Takeout and delivery only, masks indoors and out, no more than 5 people gathered outside and stay with your household inside. No gyms or salons.
A weird feeling. We’ve been relatively untouched and, up until December, had an almost normal summer/fall. It’s odd to be concerned over 20 to 30 cases a day when our neighbors have so many more but I’m happy our government is acting when numbers are low. Hopefully things calm down in the next few weeks.
The pain of shutting down is worth it. Some data here on duration of Australian outbreaks - they’ve been able to shut them down on average in three weeks. Obviously that’s by stomping on them and locking things down the minute they are identified, so numbers stay low and contact tracers can do their job properly.
Yes, the lockdowns are painful, but it does pay off - when they are lifted you are pretty much clear and can get on with life reasonably close to the New Normal and people are not dying or having to shut their businesses at the same frequency as otherwise. We’ve had a few donut days recently - zero new locally acquired cases anywhere in Australia. In fact, a good chunk of the quarantined international cases are tennis players coming for the Australian Open.
Average - 50% - incubation period is around 5 days from infection to development of symptoms.
The same here in Alberta. The problem is that the Premier, Mr. Kenney, was vague in the pre-Christmas rules regarding gatherings over the holidays.
“No gathering with people outside your household.” Well, I’m all alone, so I constitute one household. My sister and her family constitute another household. So, I won’t be going to my sister’s on Christmas. Fair enough. (We’re hoping we can have a “Christmas in July” with a backyard barbecue.)
But my buddy Larry interpreted Mr. Kenney’s remarks differently. “My wife and I have three kids, who are married, and we’ve got ten grandchildren. So we’re all one household.” No, Larry, you and your wife are one household. Son A and his family is one household. Son B and his family is one household. Daughter C and her family is one household. Total = four households, of 18 people. And Larry and his wife hosted them all, for Christmas. Because they’re one household, right?
Wrong. And that’s where the surge of cases is coming from. I cannot speak for New Brunswick, but if Mr. Kenney of Alberta had been more explicit in his instructions–for example, “‘Households’ means the people who live in your home with you. Not relatives, kids, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, neighbours, friends, and so on. You may associate with only the people who live in your home or apartment or condo”–we wouldn’t be seeing the surge.
But Mr. Kenney was vague, and so people like Larry misinterpreted his message. And we got a surge of new cases.
Cell phone data supposedly shows a lot of Canadians travelled to be with family and friends for a holiday dinner. Maybe only once. Maybe taking precautions or following the rules. But maybe 20-48% did not?
On the whole, I think Canadians have taken it seriously and acted responsibly. I’m not sure overblaming people for flouting the rules is the entire cause or best solution. But I hope the decline in numbers we’ve seen locally continue.
With due respect to your buddy, that is not a misinterpretation of Mr. Kenney’s remarks, that’s ignoring them and pretending ignorance. Everyone in the English-speaking world knows that’s not a “household.” There is no way a sane adult “misinterpreted” Kenney’s remarks that way. Larry knew damn well that’s not one household, let’s get real.
There is a lot of willful ignorance when it’s coming to these orders. The intent is crystal clear but people keep looking for that one view that allows them to do what they want to do anyway.
I’m worried that here in Ontario we’ve given up on contact tracing so even if we do wrangle this surge down there’s nothing in place to find and contain flare ups. That’s the pieces that’s driving me nut - this feeling that we’ll wind up doing this again in a month or so.
I’m glad hair stylists and barbers are open again in Alberta. I do not like walking around shaggy, lol.
Our active cases seem to be decreasing, currently at 8,500 active cases, it was 20000 or so. So I do not really see a xmas surge?
I hope these new variants of Covid don’t mess up our situation again.
“Some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest.” Coleman v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (7th Cir. 1986), 791 F.2d 68, 69.
You should be through your nursing home vaccinations and the next couple of age groups in-line for vaccination… that’s a significant group of people most likely to suffer from covid. That’s where my state is and it looks like we are on a downward trend. My Governor is looking at extending curfew by an hour soon and if the trend continues the curfew will lift in late February.
Yeah, this. I’m seeing a lot of people acting like teenagers in trying to find “excuses” as to why they shouldn’t be punished for their bullshit, which all involve re-interpreting their actions in ways that make them look better than they actually were.
There was one story in Ontario last week where a woman complained that the cops fined her for “just dropping her kids off at their grandparent’s while she went shopping”. But if you read the whole story, it was her three kids there, an uncle, and at least two cousins, and when she got back from “just shopping for groceries”, they all had a pizza dinner together.
And this all “just happened” to be on her birthday.
No, fuck you, you had an extended family birthday party that you got caught for. No sympathy at all.
We’ve never taken contact tracing very seriously.
We did during SARS. But to do it well, you need to start early when there are few cases. The fact this Coronavirus is often initially asymptomatic makes it harder too. Contact tracing worked in Taiwan very well. Technology could help a lot with this, but there need to be reforms to make it less invasive and more trustworthy.
Why? As in, what is invasive and untrustworthy about the present system?
I am surprised, because Canada and Australia are usually closer on questions like this.
People don’t trust contact tracing apps, worried that their location data and other data will be harvested. It’s true that it probably will be, but then that ship sailed long ago. Your location data is probably being tracked by a dozen different apps on your phone. Apple’s upcoming update to IOS is supposed to make apps ask you before they can share data, and the outcry from the development community tells you this is a widespread practice.
Another reason they might not trust contact tracing is that they are worried it will be used selectively, foolishly, or discriminatorily. For example, by forcing you to isolate because a single case was found in a customer in a large grocery store you visited a few hours later. Or forcing some people to isolate but not others in protected categories of people.
I think a lot of the foolishness around covid and the current distrust of authorities has a lot to do with the fact that our authorities have ahown themselves to be foolish and untrustworthy. Now we are all paying a price for their pussilanimous behaviour, because people are refusing to listen to them.
Majority of Canadians distrust government: poll suggests | CBC Radio
That comes as a surprise to me. Would I be correct in thinking that this is a bit of a social shift?