Masks mandatory everywhere indoors
Masks are now mandatory in all indoor publicly accessible places in Quebec. (Journalists keep writing “public places” forgetting that stores, restaurants and bars are not public places.) Owners of these establishments can be fined if they don’t insist, which is making some of them fearful.
Michael Black 11:46 on 2020-07-18 Permalink
I think it’s more that they are trying to phrase it. “Private space” sounds more like at home and they want to make the distinction that you don’t need to wear masks at home, and the rules aren’t mandatory when walking outside.
About a month ago, CFCF tv had a story about the himeless in Cabot Square, and prefaced it with something like “For most members of Montreal’s Indigenous community…” . Surely trying to phrase it, but taken literally it means all are homeless. I will eventually email them about it.
But then everyone uses “community” to define a smaller group, rather than as a verb. It almost seems like they can’t say “people”.
Kate 12:37 on 2020-07-18 Permalink
I was going to make a comment about the decentralized nature of, for example, the Montreal Black “community” but I find that’s quite the hot topic here this week. Le Devoir’s Christian Rioux (Xavier Camus calls him that paper’s Mathieu Bock-Côté) wrote an op‑ed chiding Montreal’s Haitian community for feeling Black, for (he says) emulating Black culture from the U.S., and bracketing both Quebec and Haiti as oppressed nations together.
The best response to the column is from Fabrice Vil, who used to write for the paper, but unfortunately it’s on Facebook. (Did I say the best? This might be the best.)
Bock-Côté is already taking position as the real victim, as usual.
Chris 12:56 on 2020-07-18 Permalink
There’s practically no such thing as public spaces anymore. Parks, sidewalks, … can’t think of much else in the city.
Kate 13:55 on 2020-07-18 Permalink
In a sense there never was, Chris. I would add libraries to the list, at least in non-pandemic times, as places run as a collective benefice where anyone can spend time. Hospitals too, although few would choose to hang out in them if they didn’t have to.
Kevin 23:36 on 2020-07-18 Permalink
You’d be surprised how many people choose to hang out in hospitals.
Michael Black 00:02 on 2020-07-19 Permalink
The Royal Vic has way more attractions than the Montreal General.
Kate 11:12 on 2020-07-19 Permalink
The old one does, Michael Black, but the currently operating Vic is elsewhere.
Kevin, is that true? You mean malingerers, people with Munchausen syndrome? Or just people who come in off the street and wander around?
MarcG 11:45 on 2020-07-19 Permalink
The Royal Vic at the Glen site has a Satay Brothers sister restaurant in the basement. I wouldn’t go just to eat there but it’s provided a little bit of joy during necessary visits. They also have a lot of historical medical stuff displayed around the building.
Kate 12:25 on 2020-07-19 Permalink
Hm. I did not know that. The only time I’ve set foot in the new Vic was one day I found myself needing a bathroom when I was at Vendôme station, so I trudged through the deviously complicated tunnel into the hospital to find one.
Uatu 12:40 on 2020-07-19 Permalink
These days no one’s allowed in the new Vic unless you’re an employee or have an appointment. Pre pandemic we used to get everyone even sometimes homeless wandering into the cafeteria collecting cans or even eating scraps off trays and someone had to call security.
Kevin 17:15 on 2020-07-19 Permalink
Kate,
There are a lot of regulars who visit the ER. And loads of people who show up on a holiday because something has been bugging them for 3-4 weeks but they can’t be bothered to call their family doctor or go to a walk-in clinic, so they show up at an ER and sit around all day for stuff like renewing prescriptions.
Kate 09:56 on 2020-07-20 Permalink
Kevin, if the hospital recognizes regulars at their ER, without actual emergencies, do they try to redirect them to clinics or family medicine practices in the area?
Kevin 12:47 on 2020-07-20 Permalink
Kate,
They get the “call your family doctor” lecture, they get told they’re at the end of the list (because going to an ER is not first-come first-served), but these people just do. not. care. or they are Karl Piklington-level stupid.
Kate 13:53 on 2020-07-20 Permalink
So basically, an ER is running a real emergency department (accidents, heart attacks and so on) alongside a non-official walk-in clinic for people incapable of organizing themselves any better. It figures.
Alison Cummins 16:21 on 2020-07-20 Permalink
There are supposed to be walk-in urgent care clinics, but in practice you usually need to make an appointment the day before—if they have spots. Which they usually don’t.
My family doctor is at a CLSC which takes walk-ins in the morning, so I do that. Other people’s family doctors never take walk-ins.
The government manages health care costs by restricting the number of doctors, with the result that there are not enough doctors. If you want to see someone today (say, you think you have shingles and you want to get an antiviral before the effective window closes, or you’re disorganized and clean out of meds) you pretty much have to go to the ER.