Neighbours’ opinions have been queried by La Presse and by the Journal, but nobody has anything but horror to express about the two girls attacked, likely by their own mother, on the weekend. The older is dead, the younger is still in hospital.
Updates from April, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
With the human population lying low, it’s not surprising that animals are more noticeable in city streets.
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Kate
Dorval’s Académie Sainte-Anne, a private school in a building dating from 1896, was severely damaged in a five-alarm fire overnight.
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Kate
It’s so weird to see Ste-Catherine Street so empty on a Sunday afternoon in spring, at a quarter to three.
Here’s the live traffic cam link.
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Kate
The BEI is investigating after a man died in police custody overnight, but other details are scanty.
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Kate
TVA reports on how a nice Saturday brought people out, and I can attest to how there were so many people in Jarry Park that after walking down through the park (and looking at the dry crater of the sad empty pond) I thought it wiser to walk home through the streets instead, and found a lot of people out socializing, some too close if talking to people with whom they’re not cohabiting.
I suspect the lockdown will gradually give way as people simply find themselves outdoors over time, interacting. Even if the adults maintain distance, it’s impossible to enforce it on all the little kids if they see their friends around outside. And then we’ll have to take the consequences.
There was no police presence in the park, by the way, no loudspeakers reminding us of the rules.
MarcG
Same thing along the water in Verdun yesterday. Nearly impossible to keep distance from others, and a lot of people don’t seem to know what 6 feet looks like. What I particularly don’t understand is bicycling: you are necessarily going to be almost face to face, breathing moistly, with those passing in the other direction.
jeather
I was picking up some bagels, and though the store is good about distancing (though still cash only) and the line was well-spaced, the people just wandering around, jogging in groups on crowded sidewalks without masks, people walking in groups on sidewalks not going single file when someone is coming towards them . . . one nice day and no one is careful.
I did drop some bagels off for a friend and one of the kids just started to barrel towards me before the parents stopped it. It’s so hard for them.
John B
Breathing moistly hehe.
I went on a long bike ride yesterday. On the roads. There were tons of people on the bike paths I saw, but I passed maybe 10 cyclists in 50km on the streets. Most streets are mostly empty and smoother than the bike paths, that’s where cyclists should be!
DeWolf
I think it’s worth repeating that there is a very low chance of getting Covid-19 simply by passing someone in the street, even if they are “breathing moistly.”
CE
I was in Jarry Park yesterday. The police drove by in a van with loud speakers with a message in French and English. A cruiser drove by slowly a couple times. I was there for about 3 hours. Lots of people hanging out but most seemed to be in small groups of two or couples with kids. The only people I see consistently hanging out in large groups are teens. I guess they’re invincible so don’t really need to worry.
Kate
CE, we must’ve been there different times, then. I was out after about 4 p.m. and saw no cops. Lots and lots of little kids, many on those wobbly little bikes/trikes, scooting all over the place.
CE
I was there from about 1pm to 4 pm. The van playing the message passed just after I arrived.I also saw lots of kids, I guess normally they’d be at various playgrounds but since they’re all closed, everyone converged on the bigger parks.
MarcG
@DeWolf: The third paragraph of that article says “[Don’t worry] as long as you’re maintaining at least 6 feet of distance from other people and you’re not in a high-risk group, you’re engaged in a very low-risk activity, particularly if you and others are wearing masks.”
Max
I visited the Old Port on Saturday afternoon. The crowd was out pretty good along the promenade, what with the nice weather. The kids weren’t doing much of the social-distancing thing. Spotted about a dozen police out among the crowd, but no warnings nor dissuasion was observed. Smarten the fuck up, kids. Lives are at stake.
Phil M
“I saw all these other people flouting the lockdown while I was out walking in the park, and at the Old Port…”
This is the “you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic” of the pandemic.
Max
Not really. Most people were walking on the road or the sidewalk. I stuck to the grass and the piers. No way am I infecting my mom.
Michael Black
Phil has a point.
Thhere was a letter in the Gazette from a woman, she”d done her “mandatory 2 week isolation” after returning home and went to the park. And then felt obliged to complain about how crowded it was.
If it seems too crowded, likely best to go somewhere else.
The letter writer seemed dependant on rules, two weeks and she was out of isolation, and then probably carrying a tape measure to make sure everyone was 2M apart, rather than understanding it all. She felt entitled ecause she’d fulfilled her obligation, but maybe it takes 15 days, and then magically she seemed worried about others rather than seeing herself as the potential problem.
Kate
Phil M: fair enough. Jarry Park is a block from me and is the only green space of any size nearby, but I won’t be visiting it again anytime soon.
dwgs
I have two dogs and I need to lose 20 lbs so we go out on a very long walk every day. Early on I walked up to the mountain one day and down to the canal another. I won’t do that again unless the weather is inclement enough to keep normal people away. I now choose routes where there are unlikely to be people or if it looks like it’s going to be a nice spring day I make sure to go early before others are up and about. Not because I’m a model citizen, just because it’s way less complicated and I’m free to get lost in my thoughts rather than constantly mentally mapping out a route between other people, traffic, etc.
Tim S.
“I’m free to get lost in my thoughts rather than constantly mentally mapping out a route between other people, traffic, etc.”
Yeah, I miss this. I go out for a walk most days, but sometimes I really have to on alert and constantly zig-zagging from one side of the street to the other. Rainy/cold days are my friend.
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Kate
Food banks are facing a growing barrage of calls as the lockdown proceeds.
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Kate
Two more arson attacks happened overnight as a restaurant in Little Italy and a resto-bar in St-Michel were hit with Molotov cocktails. Closed businesses with no revenue are reported having trouble paying rent, so it’s no surprise if they can’t make other payments either.
qatzelok
The casualness with which the various mafias operate… seems to suggest that the laws only apply to nobodies like you and me.
Kate
I’m sure police are well aware who’s doing this, but the trick is not to arrest one or two foot soldiers, but to dismantle the entire operation, something that’s not done instantly, and – the mobsters know this – would be much harder to do during a pandemic lockdown.
DavidH
That ‘restaurant’ is a well-known afterhours bar. I don’t think it’s ever been operated as a daytime restaurant for real.
Kate
You mean Gigi’s? I’d wondered about it vaguely. You never see a restaurant review even though it’s on one of Little Italy’s major resto streets.
DavidH
@Kate, yes. It’s usually bustling from 3AM onward. Doubt there’s any food to review.
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Kate
A woman attacked two kids with a sharp object in an apartment on Rousselot Street in Villeray, Saturday evening. They were seriously hurt, but further details aren’t yet available. La Presse spoke to a witness of part of the scene.
Update Sunday: the older of the kids, a girl of 11, has died. It seems the alleged attacker is her own mother, a woman of 34; her father, who was also present, is twenty years older. TVA spoke to a witness.
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Kate
Another closed bar, this one in St-Michel, has been the target of arsonists – do you suppose even the crooks are feeling the pinch of lowered revenues?
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Kate
Physiotherapists, social workers, occupational therapists and speech language pathologists are being threatened with firing if they refuse to go work in CHSLDs, with two hours’ training – way outside their specialties. It’s a ministerial decree.
I also note that doctors and nurses are currently excused the notoriously picky and difficult French-language test which should tell us that test is more a political requirement than a functional one.
SMD
Along the same lines, the order of nurses is also finally allowing nurses trained abroad to work in CHSLDs. But not as nurses, only as nurses’ aides.
JaneyB
@SMD – Oh, that’s a positive step at least. I was wondering when all the foreign-trained med folks would be allowed into the crisis. There are thousands of them in this country and they are far more appropriate than social workers and speech pathologists (!) for the CHSLDs. Hats off to Ontario for leading on this.
jeather
I suspect that just about anyone could work as a patient attendant assistant at an adequate level (and better than no one), but no protective gear and sudden overnight shifts? I know they say far from their home but it seems like it’s within the same CIUSSS they work for, so I’m not sure how far that really is compared to their regular job. I think the real problem is the lack of protective gear — though also I’m curious how actual assistants will respond when suddenly physiotherapists who get paid much more are doing the same work.
Flip
An exceptional pause to the french language test during a global emergency means the test doesn’t have a functional purpose? I don’t see the correlation. I think its quite natural to ensure that doctors and nurses can speak the local language. The comment section on that CBC article would make you think expecting anyone to know french is equivalent to a war crime. But i’m sure they’d naturally expect their nurse to be able to communicate with them in English without realising the other side of the situation.
Kate
Flip, ask anyone who’s taken the French test. Picky, picky, picky grammatical questions, way outside what a medical professional needs to know. Nobody charts using the passé simple.
I’d stake you good odds if birth francophones had to pass this test, half the nurses in Quebec would lose their licences.
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Kate
Montreal public health may have to open temporary morgues if death rates continue to rise. The Journal points out that 400 people have died of covid in Montreal this week and the rate risks overwhelming existing facilities in hospitals and funeral homes.
david000
Here’s an update, so that we can continue to feel more optimistic.
According to antibody testing in Brevard County, Florida, only 1% of the popuation has been found to have antibodies, which is approximately 6020 of their 602,000 population. Covid-19 death stand at 8 in Brevard, which means a mortality rate of ~0.13%, or approximately 1/8 of 1%. For every 1000 people who contract the virus, a little over 1 person on average will die.
Miami/Dade’s antibody testing found that approximately 6% of the population was estimated to have been infected, which puts their mortality range around ~0.17%, or 1/6 of 1% of those infected. For every thousand people who contract the virus, a little under 2 people will die.
https://www.miamidade.gov/releases/2020-04-24-sample-testing-results.asp
This is in addition to the continuing studies in New York (conducted by the state), and Los Angeles (conducted by USC), a study that’s currently in the field in two Bay Area communities (conducted by UCSF), and a study underway in Indiana (conducted by an association of governments). There are also ongoing studies among health workers in Massachusetts and Washington State.
david000
Of course, notwithstanding the great news described above in terms of just how much less deadly this thing is that we had feared, and what it means for our debate about the merits of a total lockdown, the low exposure rate found in the Florida studies show the need for continued vigilance and protection of the vulnerable.
On a very sad personal note, a former colleague of mine recently died of complications from Covid-19. He was 44, and unfortunately suffered from several health problems, among them obesity and asthma. A very kind and intelligent guy, it’s a real shame.
david000
(above, as in, the comment I posted that is currently awaiting moderation linking the latest data.)
david000
So that while pretty much all the data on mortality is coming in under that critical 1/10-1/5 of 1%, some populations shoulder pretty much all of that:
Kate
david000, I see you want to minimize the risk, but at the same time, you’ve lost a friend who was only 44 – my condolences.
I think I’ll let these facts stand for themselves.
David
We need to protect the vulnerable, but – if these data continue to be confirmed – make sure the public realizes that vanishingly few of us are likely to die, and that we have data sufficient (or close) to justify planning for getting back to work. The biggest threat isn’t governments stopping us from going out – they could lift the orders tomorrow and businesses would still be falling like flies. The purpose of my posts on this is to make sure, in my very small way, that we’re aware of what the emerging data are saying about the true risk, now that we’re testing. Public awareness is what I’m hustling about here.
David
If these data are true – and despite what Mr. Received Wisdom will pull off Twitter to convince himself that I don’t know what I’m talking about, when all I’m doing is linking to and/or describing scientists’ actual reporting and asking the most important policy question, possibly of our generation, when that’s literally just job, and mine it to inform everyone about the economic and social consequences of our various laws on housing – then we need a lot more reporting on it in Quebec and in Canada, as the Canadians have such a huge impact on our economy.
David
Autocorrect bungled my last point, which is that spending a couple hours per day on this and telling people of the result of that: not my job.
I look forward to returning to my regularly rescheduled programming of explaining how it’s a sort of slow harikiri we’re performing out ourselves to legislate high housing prices.
David
And as a final one (I promise): Kevin, obviously you grok this already, but as you’re evaluating the discrepancies between how death rates in some areas may be inconsistent with others and you’re looking to explain that by looking at date/reporting on just who the patients are demographically or whatever, and as your further breaking that down by the emerging spread research, two other things to consider:
1) hygiene levels, for which you might consider income, education, food service work, etc. as proxies; and
2) far far more importantly: variations in spread and morbidity that have been convincingly/definitively established in past pandemics.When you’re writing your series on this, you could sift through the lit and probably get some pretty interesting correlation data – even if there’s none, that’s worth reporting. I know you’re an expert, but this level of reporting doesn’t require regression analyses or whatever – you can simply report, or even just ask our government or some professor who’s not already working on it, and that’ll probably be enough to get them digging/modeling.
Kate
Kate
Alison Cummins
David,
“a former colleague of mine recently died of complications from Covid-19. He was 44, and unfortunately suffered from several health problems, among them obesity and asthma.”
“vanishingly few of us are likely to die, and that we have data sufficient (or close) to justify planning for getting back to work.”If I understand correctly, you believe that the reason you are on lockdown is to prevent you, personally, from dying of covid-19?
That when you say “vanishingly few of us are likely to die,” “us” refers to nice clean young people without any health problems?
That anyone not in the “us” category is “them” and not interesting ?
That you think you should be able to do what you want, where you want, because you are a nice clean young person without obesity or asthma?
Basically, that all those health care workers who say they need PPE to care for patients are just whiners and probably obese?
If this is your understanding of infectious disease, you’re making it very clear indeed that this is not your job.
If this is not what you mean, you might want to think carefully because it’s what you’re saying.
david
Hey Alison, I’m not trying to come off like an expert, believe me, I’m not. But I’m the guy who – under a different handle – wrote that post a couple weeks ago about our office being infected, and I’m fairly certain that, given how we worked together, given how infectious this disease appears to be, and given our symptoms during that time period, I and several of my coworkers were infected. And I totally would have been on board with whatever is being published, aside from the fact that the documented infection rates to death rates at the time were like 2-5%. And my office was zero. And nobody any of us knew at that time had died. So, anecdotally, it was clear to me that this was not a 2-5% death rate type virus.
So I started asking myself: okay, then what are we missing on this? And this questioning had me looking at everything I could about this. Not obsessively, but close. Why is this seemingly far far more deadly than it was for my office?
The info is suggesting that there may be a lot of reasons. First, and mostly importantly, it’s just not as deadly as people first suspected.
When you start here: https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-spreads-one-study-predicts-101552222.html
and end up with the Florida studies linked above, it’s clear that we may have jumped the guy. And that’s fair, because it was the modern western world’s first pandemic.
I’m going to post a whole bunch more on this over the next while, as Kevin will – him being the statistical and medical expert, who, for instance, is intimately familiar with German studies underway asking why children seem not only to be totally immune, even from they pretty much never contract covid 19.
And Kate has asked in those twitter links questions that I’m not qualified to answer. But with my next response, I’ll – like Kevin – have a lot more info to share with you, whether it goes against what I hope to be true (fast return to life) or not.
I’m also going to be the guinea pig, and I’m doing the absolute best antibody test I’ve been able to get to on May 11 – at my own expense, which definitely isn’t negligible – and should have the results a 2-4 days later, and you can bet that either way, I’ll be posting them here, with photos to prove. So that people know what it’s all about, with details on everything they tell me about their sensitivity, etc.
walkerp
Onion headline: “Dude Struggles with Denial about Reality of Coronavirus Pandemic”
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Kate
Pediatric infectious disease specialist Christos Karatzios, who works at the Children’s, has written an open letter to François Legault and Dr. Horacio Arruda, explaining why sending kids back to school won’t be the magic that creates herd immunity in Quebec.
(I’m sorry, but that’s a Facebook link and I don’t have any other source for it. The link is via reddit.)
I have another general link on herd immunity from the Guardian.
François Legault will soon be giving orders for reopening things and sending kids back to school, because it would be a tragedy not to send them back in for the last few weeks of the term, right.
Kevin
If you recall, Dr.Karatzios’ newborn was exposed to measles last year at Carrefour Laval https://beta.ctvnews.ca/local/montreal/2019/6/30/1_4488899.html
dmdiem
This might be catastrophically stupid. We don’t know two things:
A) How long after exposure you remain immune.
B) How long will it take to reach herd immunity.If A is less than B then herd immunity is impossible.
And that’s assuming exposure confers immunity at all.
Dominic
Except that maybe getting and recovering from COVID doesnt give you immunity at all 🙁
Raymond Lutz
À qui la chance? In China, one child out of 20 suffered from the SEVERE FORM of covid-19 (though one was asymptotical and 10 were struck mildly). Severe form = “early respiratory symptoms, such as fever and cough, may be accompanied by gastrointestinal symptoms, such as diarrhea. The disease usually progresses at ∼1 week, and dyspnea occurs with central cyanosis. Oxygen saturation is <92% with other hypoxia manifestations." Source: "Epidemiology of COVID-19 Among Children in China" (based on 2135 cases)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-doctor-son-battling-virus-in-the-hospital/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=87287385 (Content warning: child coughing and insufferable musical soundtrack, parents beware) 😎
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Kate
Quebec City has cut the permit cost for a restaurant terrasse down to $50, but Montreal has not yet made any decision whether it will change permit costs, or indeed allow terrasses at all this summer.
DeWolf
Terrasses seem an easy way to keep restaurants, cafés and bars afloat this summer, because they normally represent a significant expansion of their capacity. And it seems likely that whenever they’re allowed to reopen, it will be at 50% capacity for an indefinite period of time. Plus there is mounting evidence that the virus struggles to survive in sunlight and fresh air (source below) which suggests that, aside from staying in your own home, it’s safest to be outdoors.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/health/coronavirus-summer-ultraviolet-light.html
Chris
And with less automobiles polluting the air and making lots of noise, terrasses will be way more pleasant!
Spi
Terraces will inevitably go into conflict with the need to maintain the “cordon sanitaire” that has been implemented on some major commercial streets. They both need to occupy the space usually reserved for metered parking.
Which one do we give up? Social distancing rules or some streetside terraces?
Raymond Lutz
It seems outdoor transmission is rarissime: “looking at coronavirus virus transmission in over 7000 cases. There was only ONE case in which a person outdoors transmitted the virus to another person outdoors.”
https://paulbeckwith.net/2020/04/23/everyone-outside-for-weeks-suppressing-pandemic/
Chris
>They both need to occupy the space usually reserved for metered parking.
No they don’t. Car traffic lanes could be closed to automobiles and used for walking. The space formerly used for parking could be used for terasses. There’s lots of room on our streets if we take away the cars.
DeWolf
The corridors sanitaires only occupy one side of the street at a time so I don’t see why that would be a conflict. If it comes down to it, everyone would benefit from having a whole bunch of pedestrian-only streets this summer.
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Kate
Radio-Canada has an excellent photo essay by Ivanoh Demers showing the nearly empty metro.
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