Montreal City Weblog

Kate 22:20 on 2020-03-15 Permalink Reply  

• JaneyB 00:13 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  Good. I wish they’d actually just test arrivals too, not just at YUL but also traffic over the bridges to Gatineau now that there are community cases loose in Ottawa. I know it will only slow not stop the virus but who doesn’t love slow?

• dmdiem 02:44 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  no. it’s counter intuitive, but the last thing you need to do is create a bureaucratic bottleneck. all it takes is one person in the line to infect everyone else.

  https://imgur.com/gallery/pVEnORa

• Kate 07:20 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  dmdiem, with modern devices it doesn’t take long to take a person’s temperature, and ask anyone to step out of line if they’re feverish.

• walkerp 07:45 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  But to what end? We don’t have quarantine centers set up. We don’t have a system to force self-isolation. Seems to me we should just let them through as quickly as possible with really strong communications that they all need to go home and self-quarantine for 14 days.

• Kate 07:51 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  I suppose the public health agents can hand out a sheet (French and English, I suppose, but what about other languages?) explaining everyone needs to isolate for 14 days after arrival. Maybe if you have a fever the information would be more urgent, but we don’t really have a means of enforcing anyone’s behaviour once they leave the airport.

• Joey 08:33 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  This seems more like “city is annoyed with Ottawa” than anything. Some of our friends came back from a week in Cancun the other day. They are in self-isolation for 14 days. It’s hard to believe that they are much more likely to have COVID-19 after being at a resort and on an airplane than we are after spending the same time period living our lives normally. In other words, we should all be self-isolating/quarantining – the idea that we ought to be making all kinds of distinctions based on age, recent travel, etc., seems a little too clever. My suspicion is that we will be locked down within days.

• Francesco 09:23 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  Agree with Joey and dmdiem, but you already know that. Every airport I’ve transited in Asia has had infrared temperature screening on arrival since the original SARS-CoV in 2002. It didn’t do anything for SARS-CoV-2. Once the virus is in a community and active measures aren’t taken to prevent its spread within that community, it’s too late. As Joey said, we should *all* be taking active measures now.

  Legault’s posturing is just once again to appease his base: a small minority of Quebeckers that just simply hate people who don’t look, sound, dress or worship like they do.

• Francesco 09:25 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  Ugh just re-read that. Please excuse the syntax and poor grammar.

• Kate 09:38 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  For once, Francesco, I don’t feel xenophobia in Legault’s measures. Closing schools, getting bars and gyms and all those other nonessential businesses to close, are not targeted at any ethnic or religious group.

  Maybe people are right and temperature-taking is only pandemic theatre.

• Alison Cummins 13:58 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  A friend of mine was pulled aside during routine airport check-in a few years back. « You aren’t feeling very well, are you? » asked a concerned airport officer. Well no she wasn’t, but how did they know? An infra-red monitor that discreetly screens everyone passing it.

  I don’t know that the Chinese monitoring was useless. After Wuhan they were able to keep the rest of China under pretty good control. Maybe being able to identify people with fevers and track down their contacts was part of that?

  I can see how it could be worth identifying people who might have it before they continue on their journey. Are they about to get on another crowded plane or transport vehicle? Are they going home to a large family? Does this seem to be a person who will respect quarantine measures?

  A month ago (and possibly still) African countries decided that it made most sense for their nationals to stay put in Wuhan quarantine and not come home. Africa didn’t have any cases yet and China seemed to have a handle on the situation. Stranded Africans were bored and miserable but it was better than trying to contain COVID-19 in, say, Rwanda.

  We’re taking the opposite approach. We’re being proactive about shutdowns which helps us track contacts. And we’re bringing home our nationals from countries that are making a mess of things. If someone is coming from a country that is encouraging young people to get sick (Britain) or that doesn’t have a functioning national public program (US) we can expect that they are at higher risk than people who have been self-quarantining in a country where everyone else is self-quarantining.

  IF we can identify them easily without creating lineups and crowds, and IF we’re in a position to follow up with them, I’m all for infra-red monitors and asking people if they’ve been coughing lately.

  (I’m also all for making screening available to other risk groups — teachers, cashiers, anyone who spends time with old people — not travellers specifically.)

• Kate 15:54 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  I wonder if that temperature scanning device was put in for SARS, and whether it’s still operating.

• Alison Cummins 16:55 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  Kate, possibly, or MERS. Apparently Istanbul airport is the only one to have it permanently installed, but it was broken when we went through a couple of weeks ago.

  Also RE what we do with returning snowbirds:
  nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/a-canadian-evacuee-describes-life-under-quarantine-at-cfb-trenton/amp

• Francesco 22:10 on 2020-03-16 Permalink

  Hi @kate I was specifically referencing Legault’s rhetoric about foreigners and his posturing about the feds not doing enough to stem the flow of foreigners through YUL. His comments are anything but science-based.