Coronavirus roundup for Wednesday
A roundup of local coronavirus news: Accès Montréal offices and service counters at police stations are now closed.
Negotiations between the city and seven of its unions are on hold. The city is buying a lot of laptops to make it easier for its people to work remotely.
Shelters for the homeless are coping with a problem central to how they operate: normally they serve meals cafeteria-style and bunk people fairly close together, but now they can’t. Item says no homeless person has presented with COVID-19 yet, but doesn’t say how many have been tested.
Two men stabbed on the weekend were Korean and that community fears its members may be getting targeted because of the virus. The kind of people who would attack Koreans and vandalize Vietnamese temples may simply see them as Chinese (and thus “deserving” of punishment for the virus).
Jonathan Montpetit analyzes François Legault’s approach to the crisis. Compared to the fumbling of other leaders, Legault has rung the bell by coming off as steady and sensible. Montpetit thinks he learned this from Lucien Bouchard’s take on the 1998 ice storm.
Legault has been appealing to young people to respect the social distancing decree, but what I see on social media is that it’s oldsters who have been the most alarmingly nonchalant. Old people, they’ve seen everything, etc. etc.
Wednesday: Trudeau address at 10:30 ET, Finance Minister & Bank of Canada announcement at 11:15 ET.
CE 09:43 on 2020-03-18 Permalink
The New Yorker ran a piece about boomers not taking this seriously and this quote summed it up pretty well: “My theory is that coming of age at the height of the Cold War/nuclear panic inculcated a faith that no matter how scary things look, the Bad Thing never actually happens.”
(I’ve seen this with older people’s reaction to climate change too)
jeather 13:36 on 2020-03-18 Permalink
I don’t like Legault overall but he’s handling this crisis really well: he takes the medical advice seriously and ignores the lack of public popularity of his announcements.
JaneyB 14:34 on 2020-03-18 Permalink
Also not a Caquist but Legault has a very warm but firm grandfatherly style that I’m sure resonates with most people. The three of them are very impressive: Arruda is more emphatic and McCann more technocratic. Everyday, some response vulnerability has been improved. They ask people to contribute in different ways which reminds us of the solidarity this will take. It seems that Quebec is actually driving the federal policy at this point (eg: airports, tax). Good.
Meezly 16:09 on 2020-03-18 Permalink
It’s interesting to see Legault do a complete 180. Just a few weeks ago, he was willing to do whatever it takes to stop the railway blockades so that they don’t interfere with economic progress. Now he’s willing to halt the economy for the health of his fellow Quebecers. He has shown admirable leadership in this time of crisis, but let’s not forget who he is once society stabilizes again.
Ian 17:49 on 2020-03-18 Permalink
I suspect in a few weeks he’ll be allowing nurses regardless of what kind of head covering they wear.
Chris 19:38 on 2020-03-18 Permalink
Meezly, there isn’t necessarily a 180 there. The calculation could be as simple as: “halting” the economy now will do less overall economic damage than not doing so. The health of fellow Quebecers could be immaterial to the calculation. (I don’t think this is the case, only saying it could be.)
Meezly 21:49 on 2020-03-18 Permalink
Your right, it’s not really a 180 – his administration had definitely done the calculations (I wonder if they had read the Imperial College report) and determined that it was better economically to act now than suffer greater losses later. Too many people that require hospital care is also a drain on resources, and we would need a healthy population to reboot the economy once this crisis stabilizes, even if it’s just for a series of cycles (isolation/ reintegration) until a vaccine can be distributed.