COVID-19: some updates
The EMSB is being cautious about kids coming back from spring break, if they’ve travelled to COVID-19 hotspots.
CBC also looks at how major events are responding to the virus.
Sounds like the plan here is to establish clinics for testing, but get people to call 811 to make an appointment first. Here’s a look at the clinic just opened at Hôtel-Dieu.
We still have only four diagnosed cases in Quebec.
(Note how the city has benefited from those empty hospital buildings. The old Vic has been serving well as an extra winter shelter, and now that we need a COVID-19 bunker clinic, we have room for one.)
Update: There’s now a dedicated help line, 1-877-644-4545.
Other notable virus news: Ottawa says don’t go on cruises – with any luck, this thing will make the cruise industry collapse completely; the WHO is warning of a pandemic but not quite going there yet; the Olympic flame will be lit in Japan with no spectators; trading was automatically halted on the New York stock exchange for a time.
Dublin has cancelled its St Patrick’s parade, which is held on the day itself. Ours is still planned for March 22.
Meezly 11:57 on 2020-03-09 Permalink
They are being quite strict about this. On a parenting google group, a parent was saying they had just returned from Rome, and their school (I’m assuming an EMSB one) requested that her kids stay home.
Kate 12:38 on 2020-03-09 Permalink
Yep. The Gazette has some details on the EMSB policy.
JS 23:01 on 2020-03-09 Permalink
I’d rather lick doorknobs in Wuhan than go on a cruise but it doesn’t bother me that it exists if it doesn’t harm the environment.
Kate 07:59 on 2020-03-10 Permalink
It does, though. Big time. This is just one article found on a quick google – there are lots.
Blork 10:05 on 2020-03-10 Permalink
I know someone who went to California for a conference, after which she planned to go to Palm Springs for the Indian Wells tennis tournament. Both were cancelled after she got there.
It all seems overblown and panicky, but this is how you keep the thing from exploding exponentially like it has in Italy and Iran. Right now we have what, four confirmed cases in Montreal? That will likely be a dozen by this time next week and 100 the week after, and could be 1000 the week after that.
…unless measures are taken, which are primarily individual measures like washing your hands more than you usually do and staying home if you or someone in your home gets sick (whether or not it’s confirmed COVID-19).
This YouTube video does a good job of explaining exponential growth in epidemics. It’s pretty mathy, but even an innumerate like me can follow the gist of it. Watch to the end, because it concludes by showing how small measures can drastically affect the growth pattern.
https://youtu.be/Kas0tIxDvrg
dhomas 08:51 on 2020-03-11 Permalink
My brother is living in Italy right now and part of the problem is that people are NOT taking it seriously. That and they just don’t care to be careful. There’s actually a word for it in Italian: “menefreghismo”.
When they ordered the lockdown of the northern part of the country, a lot of southern Italians who work in the North (because that’s where the jobs are) decided they didn’t feel like being cooped up indoors, so they returned home to the south to vacation on the beaches and have fun while they could not work. Guess where a lot of them were staying? At their elderly parents’ houses. This not only helped the virus spread, but also contributed to the alarming mortality rate in Italy, as COVID-19 (like most respiratory illnesses) is especially deadly to the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.
I kinda agree that it seems a little overblown and panicky, as Blork said, but it’s probably better than the alternative.