Pandemic: Quebec still counting up old cases
Quebec’s Covid numbers are looking less dire, but some death numbers from back in springtime are still being added from cases not fessed up at the time.
Officially, 5,709 people have died from Covid in Quebec, to date, but Quebec is only starting to debate whether it should adopt the Canada tracking app. I’m prepared to bet a large poutine that Quebec will decide to go it alone and develop its own app, which will not be ready till 2021, but let’s wait and see.
jeather 12:37 on 2020-08-12 Permalink
Apparently neither Apple nor Google will allow more than one app per country for contact tracing so there isn’t much of an option for Quebec to make its own, it is either use the Canadian one or nothing.
Blork 14:28 on 2020-08-12 Permalink
Here’s how it’ll go down:
Quebec lobbies for, and eventually gets, an exemption from the “only one app per country” rule.
An app is developed. It’s released in March 2021.
The media is ablaze with comments on how bad the French is in the app. Investigation reveals the app company is two former real estate agents working out of a garage in Kirkland, and all of the actual development was outsourced to India. Total development cost: $200,000. Fee charged to the government: $8.5 million.
App is recalled because it doesn’t work very well and nobody’s using it.
Local app developer, properly vetted, is finally contracted to develop the app. Six months later the app is released, and it’s essentially the same app as the feds use, pulled in using an API and re-skinned in French. Fee charged to government: $4.5 million.
By April 2022 Quebec is the only place in North America and Europe where COVID-19 is still a problem, primarily because of a lack of contact-tracing. At that point, approximately .002% of the Quebec population is using the app.
June 2022: CAQ is re-elected.
jeather 14:53 on 2020-08-12 Permalink
That is funny, but I don’t think Google or Apple care nearly enough about Quebec to be willing to give them a second app, given that the first one is already bilingual.
PatrickC 15:38 on 2020-08-12 Permalink
@Blork, If you saw how unsuccessful contract tracing is in the US, you would change your prediction.
Dhomas 17:00 on 2020-08-12 Permalink
Jeez! The Canada app is available RIGHT NOW! If Quebec wants to develop their own app, at least let us start using the Canada app to begin with. Btw, you can already install the Canadian app here:
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/covid-alert.html
It is only really useful in Ontario where they already started using the “one-time key” when someone is diagnosed with COVID-19.
It’s really quite ingenious how they implemented the solution without resorting to location data.
DeWolf 17:18 on 2020-08-12 Permalink
Quebec isn’t “blocking” the app as many have suggested. It’s only available in Ontario where it is being piloted. And the pilot isn’t going very well – few people have bothered downloading it.
John B 20:04 on 2020-08-12 Permalink
The app is available in all of Canada. My understanding is that if you download it, as I have, it’ll do it’s bluetooth spraying & listening thing no matter where you are, but the only place people can enter a positive diagnosis is Ontario.
I believe this means that if some Ontarian comes to Montreal, hangs out near me, then returns to Ontario, tests positive, and enters that in the app that I’ll get a notification.
There’s nothing really to “debate” or “study” here. Quebec should be jumping on the platform ASAP. Canada has done the work of developing the app, it’s secure & private, and they’re not going to get anything that’ll give them more detail, (like the location of every exposure), because that would require phones to be running, unlocked, with the app in the foreground, all the time, (that’s what the UK tried & failed to do).
The app & platform are done. I’m pretty sure all Quebec has to do is start issuing 1-time codes to people who test positive. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s even free to do so, or very close to it.
jeather 22:18 on 2020-08-12 Permalink
I also installed the app whenever it was made available, though as the only people I am near for 15 minutes or longer are family, I am not terribly concerned about this. I do wonder what happens if my neighbours get sick — surely our phones are sometimes close enough for 15 minutes at a time that there would be a false positive as we are never physically close to each other without a wall between?
JaneyB 11:52 on 2020-08-13 Permalink
Why can’t they hire some market mavens to push this thing? The Feds could market this as a free subsidy to Quebeckers. They could encourage its use by entering everyone who downloads it into a lottery of some kind. Sometimes Canada needs to think less earnest, more flash especially with Quebec.