Well, yeah good for them but this is kind of the game plan. That’s what annoyed me about one of Scheer’s interviews, where he complained about Canada sending PPE to China early in the year.
So far the numbers here in BC seem promising, but I guess that has been the case in most places right before the shit hits the fan. If any of you are slackers like me you can take this opportunity to do your will. I did mine here. Probably nowhere near as good as one done by an attorney in person, but a hell of a lot better than nothing!!
We dragged out our will for review, but at least we have one, lol.
I watched the Alberta update today, pretty long, but direct and to the point. New cases where at 115 or something close, a bump up because testing had been delayed because of a lack of chemicals. Now they are running at full testing capacity. They also said they felt hospital supplies and beds are believed to be capable of handling the surge.
They are working on a rapid response kit for testing, and a new antibody kit. So good on them.
It is nice to see politicians answer press questions directly and in full detail, even if they are questioned as to why things were done in a certain way. I guess they don’t have to cover up not being prepared, because for the most part they were prepared.
The numbers have been going up and the distancing is starting to make some people antsy (more aggressive driving). It seems more nursing homes are affected in Ontario than once thought. The next week will be pretty important as to the future curve. Many of the stores are closed here, but now the province has mandated other closures, like off-leash parks and picnic areas. If it could help, I guess it’s worth it.
The nation-wide number of new cases has held steady for three days, as reported by Wikipedia: 1128 on March 30, 1143 yesterday, and 1140 today.
On a local level, the new cases in Saskatchewan have been on a downward trend. There were two spikes, from the doctors’ bonspiel in Edmonton, and a snowmobile rally at Christopher Lake, but the trend is clearly down.
In other news, my EI application was approved, less than two weeks after I applied. I honestly wasn’t expecting it do soon, given the crush of applicants.
If it can be held here, we’ll be okay. COVID-19, on average, lasts about fourteen days. A daily case increase of 1140 will stabilize at roughly 16,000 active cases nationwide, which won’t be easy to deal with but it’s manageable if provinces work together to move resources and personnel from places with less pressure to hotspots.
The caseload has to go DOWN, though, to allow for any relaxation of social distancing (or we need way, way better testing to allow for more specific control.)
Why am I having problems finding out the number of new cases in Canada? What are the new number of cases for, say, the last week? If I look at the Long Description for table 2 on the government site, I see this:
Starting with a peak on March 18:
Date ----------±New Cases
2020-03-25 - 257
2020-03-26 - 236
2020-03-27 - 185
2020-03-28 - 135
2020-03-29 - 101
2020-03-30 - 87
2020-03-31 - 47
That doesn’t look right. What am I missing?
ETA: Elsewhere I’m seeing up to 1,100 new cases yesterday.
Today doesn’t look to be a good day:
From his study, it looks like.
Thanks for the Rick Mercer rant, he’s a gem. Another promising update for BC with only 55 new cases. Dr Bonnie Henry has been great at disseminating information and calmly impressing on us the seriousness of buying into social distancing and staying at home. Sadly Nigel Howard the sign language interpreter is no longer featured, he was amazing and I’m not sure why he is no longer on the daily updates.
At least, and only for those with mild symptoms. Fourteen days is considered the maximum incubation period, so if you have reason to think you may have been exposed, this is the amount of time specified for self-isolation. If you’re not sick after that time then you either don’t have it or might by an asymptomatic carrier. However, according to a Q&A I saw recently on CNN, those who do get it and experience more severe symptoms may have symptoms for “up to” 6 weeks.
Again, I’m going with an estimate. You’re right in that some people - especially, of course, those with other medical problems - can suffer for longer.
The really relevant numbers of course aren’t those with “Symptoms.” It’s not even “people who need medical attention.” **It is people who need to be in an ICU or equivalent. ** That is where the system can truly break.
Canada does not have a lot of ICU beds - from such resources as I can find the number is only about 5,000, quite a bit less per capita than the USA. Those beds are not all sitting empty and that number is not easily increased. We would be lucky indeed if half of them were available, and if COVID-19 gets out of hand they will swiftly be swamped.
Premier Ford has said thst he will release, or at least talk about, the Ontario models and projections tomorrow (Friday).
I appreciate what the media is doing, but if I had one wish, it would be this: stop cutting to press conferences by provincial health ministers or provincial health officers, who do nothing but report new numbers and repeat the same advice about social distancing.
I was watching CTV Newschannel today, and they were interviewing an epidemiologist, who had a lot of interesting and educational things to say. But the news anchor had to stop him, because the BC Health Officer was speaking at a press conference. And she did nothing more than list new numbers and repeat the same advice.
The epidemiologist had information that we Canadians could all use, but CTV determined that it was more important that we hear new numbers from BC and the same advice we’ve been hearing for the last two weeks. This isn’t the first time this has happened, and I’m getting tired of it.
Reporters should cover provincial governments’ press conferences, but their findings can be summarized and reported by the anchor later. When an expert is speaking, informing, and educating; don’t cut to yet another provincial press conference that is nothing more than numbers and the same advice.
Boy, that’s one way to put it.
I would guess that probably half of all independent restaurants are doomed. Canada wasn’t ready for this. We liked to slap ourselves on the back and talk about how much better we are than the Americans, but are we really? The rate of growth right now is the same.
We’ve got a street that is a strip of bars and restaurants, Elgin street in Ottawa, that just finished a full year closure for infrastructure projects. Pretty grim for them.
Ontario is holding a briefing at noon where they plan on releasing their projections, and are already warning it’s going to look bad, and that stricter measures are on the way. My guess is the school year will be called off / done remotely (what they will do for kids without technology at home I don’t know) there will be an actual legal ban on public gatherings you can get ticketed/arrested for, and they might limit movement to other provinces. The definition of what constitutes an “Essential business” will be tightened. They’d probably make masks mandatory in public but there aren’t any for people to buy.
And the supply of masks is likely to dry up even worse with the news that the US, our supposed ally, is putting significant pressure on companies to stop the export of masks to Canada and Latin America.
You’d think the feds could find a manufacturer willing to make at least surgical masks. It’s not rocket science and there are manufacturers out there.