I wrote a longer reply last night and edited it to “Nevermind.” So here’s the short version. I think the economy is going to recover quite quickly. I don’t think that it will be very long before businesses return to normal-ish operations (with safeguards to prevent additional COVID waves from forming). Even small business will probably find that they can reopen in large part because I don’t think most landlords are going to play hardball (they may even be legislated not to play hardball) with their former or new tenants. There’s simply no advantage in it for them, and I’m counting on our “Canadianness” to kick in. Canadians have a sense of collective community, and I think with all of us pulling together we’ll make something work. That’s my prediction anyway. I really do think we’re going to be ok because of who we are as a people.
I agree. It’s not a supply restriction like '70s stagflation. Governments seem to understand the importance of helicopter money to keep aggregate demand above aggregate supply and avoiding a liquidity trap. Once businesses resume operations, it’ll be back to mostly normal with occasional restrictions/shorter lockdowns.
What are landlords going to do, exactly? Kick out the tenants who can’t pay because of the pandemic/lockdown and replace them with other tenants who will somehow be able to pay despite the pandemic/lockdown?
Banks and other creditors might use this to sweep up assets though although I understand they generally prefer not to do that.
Interesting that the 60-79YO age groupd has a 1.56% case fatality ratio while the 80+ has 25%. I’d be curious to see a year-by-year breakdown because I thought 70YOs were in worse shape than that.
I would rely more on hospitalization, ICU and deaths to determine the severity of the pandemic in a province since those are less subject to vagaries like more extensive testing.
BC’s numbers are looking really good, the curve looks to have been flattened. The weather is amazing right now, so hopefully people keep up the good work for the long weekend and don’t do anything stupid.
Quebec is still being hit really hard. Montreal is the New York City of Canada right now; a quarter of Canada’s cases are there.
How about speaking “moistly”? Ugh!
Everyone’s laughing about the term but it’s an important concept.
When you talk, spit flies out of your mouth and hits things in front of you. Everyone does it. With most people, neither speaker nor listener notices because the droplets being expelled are too small to see or feel, but they’re there, and they can either hit someone directly or be suspended in the air for a little while. Those microscopic droplets are, however, absolute jumbo jets for viruses.
This is why surgical or fabric masks help; they can’t stop a virus floating around on its own, but viruses don’t generally float around alone in the air. Masks like that absolutely will stop those microscopic droplets, or most of them, that the viruses use to get around.
Absolutely true and correct, but the terminology was so… unexpected. I rolled with laughter.
Good news from Saskatchewan: curve is definitely bending, as shown in the graph in the wiki article.
There are now more recovered cases (blue line) than there are active cases (green line).
Only four deaths so far (the black line).
(The orange line looks scary, but it’s the cumulative of all cases: active, recovered and deaths, so not so significant).
Meh, not much point of talking about “the curve” in Saskatchewan with 4 deaths total. Since I doubt they have kept the exact same testing protocols for the whole time, number of cases doesn’t mean much.
Deaths is not how you know if the curve is flattening. They will flatten out weeks after the pandemic has.
You’re right though that it’s hard to tell if infections are going up or down. We aren’t testing enough, and the standards change so it’s hard to know any stats are accurate.
It has been noted in a number of sources now that here in Ontario, the crush of demand in ICUs is just not happening. Beds are available, ventilators unused, staff have capacity to help more patients. It’s a good sign. Well, more precisely, it’s not a BAD sign. There around 250 people in the province in ICU with COVID-19, which is 250 more than you’d want, but way under the province’s capacity.
This despite the fact that COVID-19-attributed deaths are still more or less climbing; Doug Ford’s prediction that we would reach two deaths an hour in April is still sadly possible, as there have recently been days it went over one death an hour. What is happening, though, perhaps predictably, is the disease is sweeping through the elderly population and killing people so quickly they never get to the hospital and might have been beyond help even if they had. The disaster at the seniors home in Bobcaygeon is the most awful example, of course, but on a lesser scale it’s happening everywhere.
When we relax social distancing - and we have to, we cannot keep doing this all year - the LAST thing we can relax is seniors’ facilities, and the province needs to start taking action right now. Rules have to be set and resources deployed to make them safe, to allow employees to go in and out without threatening anyone’s health, to find ways to keep these people connected with loved ones in a safe manner.
I follow the death/ICU rate because it’s the only reliable metric to compare jurisdictions or even the same region over time. Every stat we get reflects past efforts, so why single out the death rate?
No they don’t. The same technology that brought you home pregnancy tests and home blood-sugar tests (which requires a drop of blood) can bring you home antibody testing for covid-19.
I guess we might want some certification and not just self-reported test results. But for answering questions like “is it safe to visit my mom?” she and I would probably trust my own results. Heck, even for “can I watch TV with some friends?” I am really hoping for a rollout of massive quantities of home test kits.
Yup, both virus and antibody testing are the key to getting things running again. There’s no chance we will have a vaccine that’s ready for prime time in less than a year, but we could have massive testing in a month or two if it’s prioritized and funded.
I would say that effective treatment, an effective vaccine, and reliable home testing (if such a thing is possible) should be the priorities, in that order. All that a negative test result means is that you don’t have it NOW. It’s no guarantee you won’t get it tomorrow.
Fine. I’ll shut up talking about the hinterlands. Obviously, only Central Canada is of importance.
A little touchy, aren’t we? It has nothing to do with my disdain for the “hinterlands” that both my parents were born and raised in and I visited for Christmas for the first ten years of my life
I’m rooting for Saskatchewan. Lots of family there, they are doing a lot of testing which is great, and they seem to have started with less initial infections.
It’s not that Saskatchewan doesn’t matter, but more that the numbers are so small that it’s hard to separate trends from normal variance. One infected nursing home would make Saskatchewan’s numbers skyrocket, yet would tell us almost nothing about whether the curve is being bent or not in the general population.
40th anniversary of the start of the Marathon of Hope today. We could all use hope right now.
Are you talking about Terry Fox? That was quite a story, with a very tragic ending.
I have a Facebook friend who is an ICU nurse in Winnipeg, and not much is happening COVID-wise in that part of the world. She sure hopes it stays that way.
Major airlifts from Chinese manufacturers of PPE ongoing in Canada:
In addition to traditional air cargo jets being deployed, if you scroll down a bit, there’s a remarkable picture of the interior of a passenger Air Canada 777 with all the seats removed so it can function as a 100% cargo plane. I used to do that with my Dodge Caravan, but I’ve never seen it done with a jumbo jet! Quite a lot of room in there!