COVID-19 fears are afflicting Chinatown
As happened during SARS – which never manifested itself in Quebec at all – businesses in Chinatown are enduring a lean period presumably from fears of COVID-19. People returning from visits to China are voluntarily staying home for two weeks, and the general public is staying away, although we’ve had no cases of the coronavirus yet here either.
Ian 09:10 on 2020-02-17 Permalink
I’ve still been going for meals a couple of times a week and it has been surprisingly empty, I even see people walking around with masks. At least I can always get a seat at my favourite dumpling places regardless of the time of day… I feel bad for them though, Chinese New Year is supposed to be the busiest time of year especially for restaurants.
jeather 11:12 on 2020-02-17 Permalink
I went for dumplings last week and it didn’t seem exceptionally empty. I have immunocompromised family members and I am sure my regular metro use is much more dangerous for them than the off chance of an employee in a Chinese restaurant having recently enough been in China that they’re still asymptomatic but also ill.
Kevin 12:08 on 2020-02-17 Permalink
People are amazingly unable to accurately calculate risk.
The CDC estimates there have been at least 26 MILLION flu cases, and 14,000 deaths this season in the United States.
Canada’s gotten off remarkably lightly: only 46 deaths, when normal estimates are 3,000 dead.
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/diseases-conditions/fluwatch/2019-2020/week-06-february-2-8-2020.html
Tee Owe 16:35 on 2020-02-17 Permalink
With Kevin on this one – the numbers are overwhelmingly that flu is a bigger killer but we are way more scared of covid-19. Time will tell I suppose.
Kate 09:03 on 2020-02-18 Permalink
Flu numbers are a known factor, but COVID-19 is so new, and is apparently so contagious, that it’s a scary unknown. People are also aware that at some point a new disease could manifest that really would cut a swath through the world population, so new diseases like SARS and COVID-19 are bound to seize the spotlight.
jeather 10:48 on 2020-02-18 Permalink
Also, there is a flu vaccine, and we’ve been mostly lucky about pandemics since 1918.
But mostly the flu seems common and familiar — it’s a bit like why people are refusing to vaccinate over common and familiar sounding diseases like measles. And of course we call lots of small illnesses a “flu”; if you’ve ever really had a flu you will know it’s nothing like a 2 day fever.
dwgs 11:01 on 2020-02-18 Permalink
The best possible thing for the planet would be a massive pandemic that significantly culls the human population. Sad but true.
Kate 11:36 on 2020-02-18 Permalink
dwgs, grim but true.
Tim S. 12:07 on 2020-02-18 Permalink
Call me specist, but I would prioritize human survival over abstract ideas like “the planet.” The literal planet is a chunk of rock that will be fine no matter what.
If you’re concerned about humans thriving on the planet, there are different solutions. Birth rates are declining as it is. The worst thing for population growth might actually be a pandemic that makes it possible for survivors to have more children, as happened in Europe after the Black Death. Keep people alive, keep urban property prices high, make suburban life more difficult, and the population will probably stabilize and start to decline quite quickly.
dwgs 16:01 on 2020-02-18 Permalink
Sorry Tim, substitute ‘biosphere’ for planet. And I didn’t advocate removing all humans, just a good number of us. Although if you did completely remove us it would probably be beneficial for most other living things.
Blork 19:13 on 2020-02-18 Permalink
Regarding depopulation, there was an excellent TV series a few years ago called “The Leftovers” (based on a novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta) in which two percent of the world’s population instantly vanishes. Over the course of the series (three seasons) we learn a lot about grief, which was the underlying theme.
SPOILER ALERT: it turns out that the two percent had just shifted to another dimension. In that other dimension, 98 percent of the world’s population had vanished, which was greatly devastating for those left behind.
This got me thinking about what a powerful win-win-win tool this would be for (a) good people, (b) awful people, (c) the planet.
Imagine if all the awful people in the world just vanished. This includes populists, fascists, MAGA hat wearers, dictators and their lackeys, Internet trolls, and people who just won’t listen. They all vanish to another dimension, where from their perspective it’s all us nice, thoughtful, Oxford comma using, and otherwise excellent people who have vanished.
Our world is free of them, and suddenly there’s no housing shortage. Something like 60% of the population has vanished and we don’t miss them one bit. Over there they barely notice that 40% of the population is gone because they never listened to us anyway and they’re too busy cleaning their guns and running each other over with their SUVs.
And the planet wins too, at least in our dimension.
Mark Côté 22:56 on 2020-02-18 Permalink
The biosphere has survived several mass-extinction events. Perhaps this one is different given that we (or at least some of us) appear to understand the consequences of our actions and *may* be alone in possessing morality and ethics, but I imagine life of some sort would survive whatever we manage to do to the planet.
In terms of culling the human population, anyone thinking that’s probably best for humanity or the planet or whatever should understand that the billions who would die in such circumstances would very likely be mainly in the poorer parts of the planet. Such “grim” thinking is a lot easier when you and yours have a statistically (much) lower chance of being on the direct receiving end of an apocalyptic event.