Montreal City Weblog

Kate 17:55 on 2021-04-08 Permalink Reply  

• Ephraim 18:02 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  Doings something about the number of people in stores would be more effective than changing the curfew time.

• Kate 19:12 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  I think the problem there, Ephraim, is that it means turning retail workers into enforcers, or having the store hire security, which (viz. see below, about the city’s security bill) isn’t cheap.

  Today in Little Italy I noticed: Rachelle-Béry, which used to station a worker inside the front door to control access, ask questions and make you wash your hands, has given up this practice, and you’re on your own for the hand-washing. Mind you, this was mid-afternoon on a weekday, so there was no crowd to control.

  The SAQ stations someone outside on weekends to limit access, but on a weekday it isn’t worried about crowding. A year ago, the SAQ – I think in response to its union – was one of the first outfits to install plexiglass and hand sanitizer. If they don’t feel they need a guy outside, they probably don’t.

  Milano has a security guy inside the front door always, watches as you sanitize and enforces taking a cart, even if you tell him you only want a couple of things. I suppose a cart means automatic distancing.

  Have we actually got any facts yet about whether the hand-washing or sanitizing is relevant to Covid?

• jeather 20:16 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  Plexiglas and hand sanitizer are mostly security theatre anyways. Surface transmission is negligible, and aerosols pass right around a plexiglas barrier. It doesn’t hurt, I guess.

• Raymond Lutz 20:36 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  Kate, for month I’ve been saying this was “hygiene theater”:

  « Quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) studies have been conducted to understand and characterize the relative risk of SARS-CoV-2 fomite transmission and evaluate the need for and effectiveness of prevention measures to reduce risk. Findings of these studies suggest that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection via the fomite transmission route is low, and generally less than 1 in 10,000, which means that each contact with a contaminated surface has less than a 1 in 10,000 chance of causing an infection» (CDC, April 5th)

  Here’s a more accessible article from the New York Times (based on the same CDC communication): Has the Era of Overzealous Cleaning Finally Come to an End?.

• Ephraim 20:42 on 2021-04-08 Permalink

  @Kate – Too many people are shopping and bringing along kids, etc. If you cut the number of people in the store and make people wait outside, they will stop shopping for entertainment. Seriously… I’ve seen it. But the point is, cut the number of people inside at the same time, create more distance inside because there are less people inside and people will go shopping less often.

  The cart thing depends on the store. Some use it as their way of counting the number of people… each person has to take a cart, there are only as many carts as people allowed in the store.

  If a store wants to have more people, let them install air circulators that scrub the air quick enough. It’s really what’s needed for cinemas, gyms, etc. There are three ways to do it, HEPA filters, UV-C and “boiling” the air.

  There are a few places where I’m not comfortable shopping anymore because they just aren’t doing what they should to make me feel safe. Dollarama is pretty close to the top of the list…

• Joey 08:30 on 2021-04-09 Permalink

  You would presume that more than a year into the pandemic our public health departments would have very accurate data about virus transmission, and would be able to build models that identify which measures are likely to work at reducing transmission. It seems the information they report is so broad as to be useless. What does it mean that X% of cases come from “milieu de travail”? That’s like reporting most cases are transmitted during the daytime. Accurate but functionally useless. Hopefully the category of “essential workers” (Arruda yesterday said it should be considered “people who are at risk of complications or significant transmission) who as of today are eligible to be vaccinated will get their jabs with gusto.

  Then again, all it takes is one asshole gym to wreck things for an entire city, apparently.