Open and closed during COVID-19
Usually lists of what’s open and closed are made for holiday weekends, so it’s a shift of gears to have a listing for a pandemic. The Grande bibliothèque has packed it in and closed, but the SAQ remains open.
Another shift of gears: people who have not been keen on François Legault are praising him for his decisiveness in facing this crisis. This pandemic will make some political careers and break others.
This is going to be a really hard time for restaurateurs and an additional blow to retail, unless you’re selling basics like groceries and domestic supplies. CTV talked to some merchants in Old Montreal, which is empty of tourists.
More to come, obv.
dominic 09:37 on 2020-03-15 Permalink
Can confirm, walked through Old Montreal yesterday. The usually PACKED rue St Amable had literally zero people on it. A few random people on St Paul and de la Commune, but just from listening in on conversations, they seemed to be mostly Americans and Russians. Maybe people who were already on vacation and figured theyd still make the best of it. It will probably thin out in the coming days even more.
walkerp 10:19 on 2020-03-15 Permalink
No lineup and many empty seats spotted while going past Schwartz’s Saturday at 7 PM on a beautiful spring day. Unprecedented.
Seems like fear and social responsibility are working hand in hand for what I hope will be a positive outcome.
Kate 11:04 on 2020-03-15 Permalink
Some people may realize that scaling down their lifestyles is not only possible, but in some ways is a welcome change. But there may be a reaction when the crisis is declared over, with some folks making up for the time of privation with a period of excess. We’ll see.
JaneyB 14:17 on 2020-03-15 Permalink
The beautiful sunny day reminds me of a satisfying, non-crowd activity. If you’re tired of Netflix in the coming days or need to involve your kids in something, you can start your garden. More info here: https://104homestead.com/winter-sow/ and http://wintersown.org/Milk_Jug.html
Ephraim 15:23 on 2020-03-15 Permalink
Legault is earning a lot of respect… but I still think there is more than can be done to keep us ahead of the curve. The malls, even if empty, should go. They should negotiate with places like Provigo, Metro, IGA to wave order and pick up fees and tell the stores to switch to get most people to that, so they can limit the number of people in stores. Italy is down to 6 people in the supermarket at a time to ensure social distancing. I’ll be in shock if they don’t order work-from-home in the next few days… it should have been ordered already.
vasi 19:24 on 2020-03-15 Permalink
If groceries setup online payment, that’d be even better.
Kate 09:39 on 2020-03-16 Permalink
vasi, Lufa does. Can’t you pay on other grocery sites by card?