Mayor Plante is losing her patience with anti-maskers and with people holding parties and gatherings, but all she can reasonably do is explain that people have to hang on a little longer. One address stays together, she says, advising us to turn down invitations to socialize.
Updates from September, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
It’s not a Montreal story, but it’s unignorable: an Atikamekw woman recorded racist insults thrown at her by nurses as she lay on her deathbed in a Joliette hospital Monday night. One of the nurses has been fired, but François Legault still won’t say the phrase “systemic racism.”
I see there’s to be a protest march at 1 pm Saturday starting at Émilie-Gamelin.
Meezly
“..but François Legault still won’t say the phrase “systemic racism.”
He really dug himself into a hole. To say it would be to admit he had been completely wrong to deny systemic racism from the start. But to keep denying it now makes him look like a provincial fool, as this story has made national, if not international, news.Jack
It’s been a year since the Viens Report came out describing how Quebec’s First Nations are systemically sh_t on by pretty much every institution that purports to protect them in Quebec. Viens’ report called it systemic racism. That report of course has already been shelved and systemic racism exists everywhere in Canada except here. Isabelle Hachey writes it better than I could.
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2020-09-30/7-minutes-12-secondes.phpMeezly
It made international news.
Kevin
Amir Khadir shredded MBC today in a panel on LCN. Even the moderator had to tell MBC’s strawmen arguments were silly.
Ian
When you pair this with Bill 21 and inconsistent covid-19 messaging, Legault’s daddy knows best act is starting to wear kind of thin. I hope that he steps up. We need a leader, not a paternalistic, dismissive chauvinist.
Tim S.
Isn’t this just straight up racism? Wouldn’t systemic racism be more like underfunding health care for First Nations, or discouraging them from entering health care professions? I bring this up because systemic racism, as I understand it, is really hard to deal with – solutions often take a long time and might be subtle and indirect. By focusing on things that should be ‘easier’ (like getting people to stop using insults) we get to pat ourselves on the back and let the harder stuff fester.
Not that this excuses Legault or anything.MarcG
For anyone interested in what Kevin is referring to https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/videos/6196173082001
Ian
Thank you, I was looking for that.
Wow, MBC the “intellectual”. Transparently fallacious.Tim S.
And now I watched the video and realize that the point of the exchange is that the terms don’t matter.
Meezly
@Tim, think of it this way. If Joyce Echaquan did not live record what happened, those nurses would have gotten away with killing her. The ‘system’ would have protected those nurses, and Echaquan would have been another statistic.
“Wouldn’t systemic racism be more like underfunding health care for First Nations, or discouraging them from entering health care professions?”
A history of government sanctioned racism (thank you JAM) against First Nations people has resulted in our current system where First Nations people are discouraged from being healthcare professionals and are afraid to enter hospitals as patients. It has also allowed white people like nurses and the police to mistreat First Nations people with impunity.
If you can’t properly identify a problem, you can’t fix it.
If you can’t properly identify a problem, you can’t fix it.
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Kate
walkerp commented below about this: Quebec is going to let us connect to the federal COVID app within a day or two.
Now I’m looking forward to the sparks that will come off the Journal de Montréal opinion pages in the next couple of days. Already Tuesday, Denise Bombardier opened her column with:
« Le gouvernement Legault nous ment, nous cache des choses. » Voilà ce que pensent et disent trop de Québécois.
No survey or poll backs this up, she’s just trying to undermine confidence in a government she doesn’t like much. Given that her own paper ran a piece earlier this month about how François Legault’s popularity remains high, she’s blowing smoke.
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Kate
The city is asking young people to follow Covid rules, since private parties seem to be a major site of contagion. Experts are worried that the surge in infections in younger people will rebound again on older folks, whom we now know are much more vulnerable to its effects.
The Santa Claus parade has been cancelled – this, plus the recent announcement of universities continuing with distance learning after Christmas, are indications that projections don’t see the virus losing its grip anytime soon.
There were 799 new cases over the last 24 hours.
jeather
How do we know what is a major source of contagion? The only data we have, from that one day in Quebec, almost half the cases were from work. A lot of the new rules would be far more palatable if they gave more details about transmission instead of just the numbers.
walkerp
A scientist from McGill on CBC today reiterated that indoor private parties were the biggest source of the latest spread. That being said, I agree, it would really help us all better understand and modify our behaviour if we could see actual data. It may be that 70% is from private parites, but may also be that 5% comes from something we were doing and then we would maybe stop doing that.
On the flip side, I think most people do not pay attention at the same detail level, which is why you have to make big blanket policies. They are simple to follow and so most people will follow them. This is also what the scientist on the radio said.
jeather
I’ll follow the rules, but I’m not going to agree that I agree they are the right rules, especially not based on “some scientist said X on the radio”. Yes, I would trust actual scientists with data, but not politicians, even ones who are also scientists, not anymore.
I think restricting private gatherings is almost certainly the right move, but I don’t believe that keeping some businesses open, while closing libraries and allowing kids in school to go around maskless is sensible.
walkerp
One of the arguments Legault made is that a big factor is duration of time. Since people spend an average of 10 minutes (according to him) in a retail store, but two hours in a theatre, that is why it is okay to keep the former open and shut the latter.
Oo the libraries it does sound like at least one is still allowing for reserve and pickups. I hope that gets clarified.
But yes in general, I would like to see the data they have an how it connects to the decisions they are making.
Related, they just said they are going to approve the use of the federal tracing app. Install away those who haven’t already!
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Kate
Various media tease out the impact of the red alert: The Gazette, CBC, Radio-Canada. Answers to 10 questions in Le Devoir.
jeather
So if you live alone, you can have one visitor at a time? This is nice for people who live alone but rather absurd for transmission purposes.
Spi
Actually, you shouldn’t be having anyone over, you’re allowed to have 1 person if it’s a necessity. Like an emergency plumber, health care provider etc.
jeather
No, it’s made very clear, you are allowed a visitor from another address if you live alone.
Tim S.
From what I got from yesterday’s press conference, I think Spi’s interpretation was the intention. How it’s written or enforced is another thing.
Michael Black
From the government page, “a single visitor from another address for single individuals”. I’m thinking that means the same person each time. I thought I read an interpretation that it’s about a couple that doesn’t live together, but if someone is alone, it’s clearly about having one visitor.
“Libraries are closed”, but does that mean completely, or not even pickups? I guess we’ll see when libraries update their pages, hopefully soon. Wait, the Atwater Library already changed their page, “back to phase 1” which they say means staff will collect selections and you pick up at the door. It was only two weeks ago that they started letting people in.
Joey
Seems pretty clear the intention was to not drive people who live alone (again) into total isolation. If you live alone and your human contact is going to be severely diminished, the benefit of allowing you to have a single visitor over to your home outweighs the (low) risk that you will make each other sick. While I think many of us may extrapolate that we can have plumbers, housecleaners, etc., over if we are home alone (or maybe if we are out of the house while they are working), I don’t think that was the intention of this particular exception.
Also hopeful that libraries are allowed to offer the reserve-and-pick-up service that has been the norm for the last few months…
CE
A couple of my friends who live alone are interpreting this rule as allowing them to be able to choose a friend who is allowed to come over for a visit. If I lived alone, I would do the same.
DeWolf
1+1 for people living alone is a good exception to the rules. It would be perverse to be so single-minded in the fight against Covid that you end up causing an epidemic of health issues related to social isolation, which include depression, low immune function, heart problems, dementia, alcohol abuse and suicide.
jeather
I think that the “you can have one person who you allow over, and who in turn allows you over” is the intended interpretation. We’ll see.
They also carve out exceptions for individuals providing services and labour for planned work, aka housekeepers and electricians etc, unrelated to the single visitor.
Michael Black
It’s a balance. Even in the spring, some things went on. We have to get food if nothing else. Anything can be abused, but one person visiting isn’t the same as a crowd.
One problem is that I don’t think the resurgence is just from “we don’t care”. Things get shut down, and then people want “normal”. So a month will stop the virus, hopefully, but then I figure the same thing will happen again. And the cooler it gets, the harder it may be, since things will have to be indoors. At least during the summer much if the crowding was outdoors.
jeather
It isn’t that I think the rules are bad, necessarily, but I no longer have faith in the government — they are obviously interested in keeping businesses etc running, and does that mean they are allowing gyms and hair stylists and bookstores and office buildings because they are safe, or because they want the economy to keep going? I have been very careful, and I will continue to be very careful, and I will follow the rules, but that doesn’t mean I believe that the rules are well justified on public health grounds.
dwgs
jeather, I had the same response when it comes to schools. What reason is there to leave them open other than to allow parents to keep working? Close them for 28 days as well, see if transmission drops, then open one thing at a time staggered by 3 week intervals.
Joey
@dwgs The reason is that in-person learning is, by and large, better than distance learning (especially since most public schools are unlikely to be able to offer excellent distance learning, or to handle the transitions). Keeping kids home has a real, largely negative impact on kids – not just their pedagogical development, but their need for socializing, for maintaining a “normal” routine, for keeping close with their friends, etc.
Given this, and given that public health authorities have concluded that, to date, the cases that have been observed in schools have not led to significant outbreaks and are not a major factor in the recent spike, it makes sense to try and keep them open and see if the situation improves, rather than close them when the evidence suggests doing so is unlikely to bring the number of new cases down.
dwgs
I’m largely in agreement Joey, I have a very active 14 year old and this has not been easy on him, I’m worried about his mental state but… Restaurants and bars open in late June and things stay relatively stable. Schools go back the first week of September and three weeks later we’re spiking. I’m not saying that’s the sole reason but it’s enough to ask questions. See also, https://twitter.com/Aaron_Derfel/status/1311134498491371521
Ian
One thing nobody seems to talk about much is co-parenting families.
The vast majority of kids in my daughters’ classes have divorced parents with co-parenting plans. So if those families are allowed one “visitor” in each household and the kids travel between each household, that basically exposes them to not only their parents but also their parents’ new partners, and one visitor per household. Now, if those partners also have kids from previous relationship and are also co-parenting, suddenly we are talking about exponential exposure.
This is no made up for argument scenario, I literally know a few people who in exactly this situation, only seeing their own kids, their ex, their partner and their partner’s kids… basically being exposed to upwards of 6 households all the time, just by simply having their kids over every other night and alternate weekends. Add one allowed outsider into the mix and now it’s 12 households automatically plus whatever exposure those individuals might have through their parenting arrangements, easily another 6 each – so we go from 6 to 36 easily.
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Kate
A man who worked in Montreal North as a high school counsellor is on trial for having used a child as a sex slave over a period of years, starting when she was eight. I hope her mother faces charges as well.
Meezly
May Sylvain Villemaire be punished to the fullest extent of the law and get his comeuppance in prison. What circumstances did the mother have to compel her to do this unimaginable thing?
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Kate
There was an unusual attack Monday night in a park in St-Michel, where some kind of irritant gas was used on two victims, one of whom also got stabbed, non-fatally.
dwgs
My kids tell me that it isn’t unusual for certain kids to carry pepper spray these days. Those collapsible batons also.
Kate
Except we don’t have such a violent society – or do we, under the radar? Are girls carrying pepper spray to counter sexual harassment?
Blork
We have (at least to some) the PERCEPTION of a violent society. What do kids see on the web, TV, movies, etc? To a 15-year-old, what they see on screen isn’t very much separate from what they feel is their real life. The media is boiling over with displays of violence and strife, and it’s very easy to see that as representative of reality. Bearing in mind that the media still largely follows the “if it bleeds it leads” doctrine.
Of course not just teenagers are susceptible to this, but I think in general they are so more than the population at large.
…there’s also the issue that such weapons are easier to obtain now than they were a generation or three ago.
Ian
Violent crime is down decade over decade since the 1950s.
In the 80s I knew a lot of girls that carried knives and mace and even then most of them never had to use them – but those that did were glad to have them.
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