The CultMTL “Best of Montreal” poll (inherited from the Mirror’s longtime tradition) has two days till deadline. You know what the best website is.
Updates from April, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
You must watch this video.
david1000
He should stop dying his hair, or start dying his beard.
qatzelok
Covid does feel very 80s.
J
@David: my beard went gray 10 years before my hair did.
david210
Hm. Like, my sense is that there’s nobody in the history of the world who has a grey beard like that, but a perfectly black head of hair, short of dye.
Was that your experience?
John B
I have barely any grey/white hair on my head, but Trudeau-level portions of my beard are white, (if I let it grow). Beard & head changing colour out of sync seems to be pretty common.
EmilyG
I’ve seen numerous memes about it.
JP
That was…cringey but catchy! 😀
dwgs
Me too, grey on the chin before the head.
Dhomas
My beard used to be a mix of reddish and brown. All the red went white. The hair on my head is still all brown. Maybe one white hair here and there. I don’t think it’s all too uncommon, but I have had people ask me if I dye my hair.
Ian
I have been wondering what I would remember most from this experience.
Now I know, it will be this video. Even if we have full-on revolution, it will be this video.
FWIW My hair went gray at the temples in little stripes on my beard like a comic book middle aged guy. Everyone goes gray their own way. Now all my beard is grey except for a bit that makes me look like I have a trucker mustache.
John S
my beard is almost totally white and not a grey hair on my head – people have accused me of dying my hair – for reference I’m mid-40s
Kevin
As I lost hair on my head what remained went darker, while the hair on my face went white. There is now a nice demarkation exactly in line with the arms of my glasses.
JaneyB
That video. My god. It will be the the Song of Summer 2020.
MarcG
Thanks for breaking your rule for this, I really need a laugh
Tim F
Ah the arrogance of youth! 😛
I turn 40 this year and my childhood friend calls me “Mr Fantastic” now because of my greying temples.
“Speaking moistly” will be a defining moment in English Canadian experience of this pandemic.
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Kate
Is this mixed messages or what? Quebec has just ordained the cancellation of festivals and cultural events till the end of August, while François Legault is mulling reopening schools before May 4.
mare
Festivals require a lot of organizing in advance, work that has to be done now, and can’t be all done from home. Also if you book artists there will hefty cancelation fees in standard contracts.
A late decision to cancel schools for another week or month doesn’t involve as many people and money. Teachers are being paid anyway. Festival staff works on contract so they just get IE or CERB. Or nothing.
EmilyG
And for the artists, planning to play in a festival and then it’s cancelled, can mean lost revenue.
Tim S.
I assume the government has access to more detailed information than we have, but I find it weird that there were 750 new cases yesterday and the government has decided to start being optimistic. I keep thinking about the first weekend of social distancing and there were what, 17 confirmed cases? That have now grown to 12,000ish. I guess May is still 3 weeks away, but there is a huge difference between “not as catastrophic as we feared” and “everything’s OK.”
DeWolf
2021 is going to be a hell of a summer.
Raymond Lutz
I guess they’re projecting the peak will occur April 17 (see this linear fit of daily growth values, horizontal axis is the month date). But reading the latest research about observed reinfection cases and reevalutations of R0, 3 weeks from now is too soon.
PS: yes, the fit is glichy… I think there was a backlog of tests cleared around April 4th.
dwgs
Merci Raymond
Raymond Lutz
Tout le plaisir est pour moi, dwgs. Maybe you’ll like this post too: https://mamot.fr/@lutzray/103980331537144081
Tim S.
nice chart Raymond. Ontario doesn’t look good.
I guess I’m concerned that too much focus on graphs and “the peak” makes it easy to overlook that even on the downslope, significant numbers of new people are being infected.JaneyB
I think the school opening plan is because the data shows that little kids can develop immunity with fewer symptoms. They’ll pass it on to adult caregivers in manageable numbers. Then the immune but not contagious kids will be able to visit their grandparents in a couple of months. Festivals, on the other hand, are just completely unpredictable, especially now since everyone is stir-crazy with spring fever and moving day on the horizon.
Tee Owe
JaneyB has it right – we need to get immunity out into the community and this is a manageable way – kids are relatively resistant and their parents are generally younger so this is a balanced way to do it – we can’t hide from this, we also need to manage how quickly it spreads. Tough choices buit we are not unaware.
Raymond Lutz
You need to stay current about covid-19 publications. My main source is Paul Beckwith and I collect its links in my published bookmarks, here’s even an RSS feed for those interested.
Tee Owe and JaneyB: numerous reinfection cases AND low antibody levels observed in recovered patients doesn’t bode well for herd immunity.
Couple that with a NEW estimation of Ro of 5.7 rather than the previous 2.2… And more asymptotical cases, and damaged lungs in recovered patients… Oh and the discovery that SARS-COV-2 binds to another receptor (called CD147 en plus de ACE2) via “prion-like” properties of its spike proteins. This is bad shit. For sources, see the aforementioned feed.
Tim S.
I suspect that, if schools are opened before September, and maybe even after, within three weeks enough teachers and staff will be sick that nothing of educational value will be accomplished. And many of these workers are over 50. All this without the points raised by Raymond. Let some other jurisdiction go first, I say.
Raymond Lutz
OK, here’s what I’ve read we’ll need to do, for covid-19 AND (more worrisomely) for novel pathogens Homo Sapiens has never been exposed to and melting permafrost will inevitably release.
We’ll have to implement NPIs: non-pharmaceutical interventions, ie social distancing, mandatory masks wearing, soft lockdowns, hard lockdowns. All this but at a finer level: municipalities should decide actions rather than provincial governments. At a finer time scale, too. And periodically (like sirens warnings before WWII bombings) everything most stop or slow down LOCALLY. How to know when and how hard? Constant sewage monitoring for viral detection in each community. Pervasive and rapid individual testing using antibody presence with results in minutes, faster than current genetic PCR lab analysis. Implementation du salaire à vie de Bernard Friot so workers without sick leave can stay home. Finally cell phone tracing of individuals to stop asymptomatic transmission. Yes! This can be done with privacy-friendly contact tracing apps and protocols, using strong cryptography. The open source software community must develop this before GAFAM and Palantir does (without privacy protection).
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Kate
I’m seeing on Facebook that some part of the Mont-Royal “corridor sanitaire” has already been installed. The photos show borough mayor Luc Rabouin outside the Provigo at St-Urbain, and other views in the stretch between Park Avenue and the Main. It’s just rows of those standard low metal barriers extending the width of the sidewalk into the street, and Rabouin saying if it works well they may do the same on some of the borough’s other busy streets.
Sorry about the Facebook link, which I see isn’t very useful unless you’re already logged into FB.
I do wish public figures would not put valuable information up behind a Facebook login. There is no reason anyone should need Facebook to find out what their elected officials are doing.
Piétons Québec wants more “corridors sanitaires” throughout Montreal.
dmdiem
As harmless as a sidewalk extension is, I fear we may be drifting dangerously close to stupid here. Exhalations dissipate quickly outside. With a slight breeze even coughs and sneezes dissipate quickly too. Compared to inside and areas of low ventilation where the virus can hang in the air for hours. (This is why the Canada post decision to shift delivery of certain packages pissed me off so much. They went from a relatively low risk environment of outside your front door, to a relative high risk environment of a post office.)
I understand the need to do something, anything, in the face of a situation where you feel powerless. If there were more cars on the road, and the sidewalks were exceptionally packed, this extension might make sense. But as it is, this feels like doing something because “something must be done”. And that is where stupid mistakes start to get made.
Meezly
This Belgian-Dutch study may beg to differ: https://medium.com/@jurgenthoelen/belgian-dutch-study-why-in-times-of-covid-19-you-can-not-walk-run-bike-close-to-each-other-a5df19c77d08
Da doo ron ron
Our office was one of the first ones I know of to get hit with a positive test. Our receptionist tested positive in early March.
I’m pretty sure that I had it – symptoms were crazy fatigue, three days of soreness when I breathed deeply, and a small cough that also hurt like hell because my lungs hurt – I didn’t skip work, because didn’t have sniffles or anything or connect to coronavirus. This was first week of March. My assistant was out for three days around the same time, with extreme fatigue and a sore throat. Nobody else in our office reported symptoms, and nobody but the receptionist tested positive, or even tested, as far as I know, but I’m certain that most of use were infected, as it’s a smaller office (30 people), we work in close-ish proximity, meet a lot, lunch together, eat out of collective snack bowls, etc.
My point here is that I think that we have one confirmed case and no deaths out of what’s probably 25 or more infected. I think that’s probably a pretty good account of the level of underreporting on this.
If I’m right, this virus is already super widespread, and it’s a lot less deadly to most people than the official numbers would indicate. The youngest person in our office is 25, the oldest is 70. But out of 25-30 infected that cross all demographic groups, you have one positive test and nothing more than fairly minor symptoms.
I’m glad people are taking measures to save lives, but let’s not exaggerate.
dmdiem
A good way visualize this is to think of someone who vapes. Think about how quickly the cloud dissipates outside versus how it fogs up a room inside.
Im really hoping this virus is less fatal than it appears. We won’t really know for sure until we start mass testing for anti-bodies and learn the scope of asymptomatic and mild symptom people.
Kate
Da doo: back in February I also had some sort of sudden bug, a bit like a cold, but more like sudden fatigue than anything. It hit me hard for a couple of days then was gone. I have no idea whether it was the Thing. There are other viruses, including coronaviruses, that cause upper respiratory illnesses. And it was too early for there to be testing.
But one thing that does worry me is the assumption that, once you’ve had it, you’re not going to get it again. I don’t think this thing has been around long enough for anyone to know whether one-shot immunity is a safe assumption at all.
dmdiem
Reports of reinfection are most likely due to bad testing and not actual reinfection. The chance of losing immunity that quickly is extremely low. But you are right, covid could join the ranks of the yearly flu season. A terrifying thought.
Kevin
@Meezly
I’m sorry to say that does not qualify as a scientific study.
Not peer-reviewed, no research printed—it’s a simulation based on one guy’s thoughts.Meezly
@Kevin, it’s not just “one guy’s thoughts”. If you look at the references at the bottom of the article, there is an actual research paper with 4 authors (http://www.urbanphysics.net/Social%20Distancing%20v20_White_Paper.pdf). Not sure if it’s gone through the entire peer review process but it looks legitimate.
GC
This is also worth a read, Meezly: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74az9/the-viral-study-about-runners-spreading-coronavirus-is-not-actually-a-study
Also, it is still just four guys’ thoughts because it clearly says “Preprint” at the top of the link you included. If you go to the root site of urbanphysics.net, they list many journal articles where they cite the actual place those were published. This one has not been published and might never pass through peer review.
Meezly
Thanks for the clarification then, GC and Kevin. There is too much info to parse out lately so it’s nice to have other eyes. They may still be some truth to this ‘research’ but even so, I’ve been getting out on my bike and it is near impossible to not pass or not be passed by other cyclists. No one is maintaining any distance whatsoever, esp not one proposed by that study! Just hope to god I never enter the stream of a snot rocket.
GC
As someone who has done research–though not in aerodynamics OR epidemiology–it actually frustrates me that they rushed it to the media knowing the possible panic it could spark.
I hear you on the information overload AND the lack of distance. I’d love to just be able to keep the 2 m distance when I’m walking/running, but a lot of people out there seem to think it’s solely someone else’s responsibility to cross the street and/or jump into traffic as they continue their merry way down the sidewalk. I was running on the Rosemont-Van Horne overpass one day and a guy coming the other way decided to consciously spit into the wind, which was blowing towards me. I don’t know that he actually put me in danger, but it was a damn inconsiderate thing for him to do; even before the pandemic.
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Kate
Two workers at Info-Santé have been diagnosed with the virus, and coworkers are hoping for better protection. At this stage, a line like “those with symptoms come to work wearing masks” is unsettling.
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Kate
Transit in the Montreal area has taken an estimated $75 million hit in April, with ridership down by as much as 90%.
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Kate
Le Devoir has a nasty list of incidents against several Asian-Montrealers perceived as “Chinois”.
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Kate
Some healthcare workers say they have been banned from stores or banks as potentially risky to other customers.
Tee Owe
Should ask whoever banned them how they would feel being banned from hospitals (for being jerks) – this is unbelievable – healthcare workers are saving our lives FFS
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