Don’t expect to get a flu shot this year in Montreal.
Incidentally, does anyone know if there’s a reason why you couldn’t have flu and Covid at the same time? They’re different classes of virus.
Updates from October, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
When I read that we may soon be allowed to order liquor along with restaurant delivery, and that the SAQ is improving its delivery game, I think the Quebec government knows that a lot of people will be locked in over winter and they’re going to need a drink.
Jack
A lot
DeWolf
I guess this means the government is once again ignoring the pleas of microbreweries to be allowed to delivery their beer directly to customers, as is the case in Ontario, BC and just about every other province.
Ian
I wish the deps would bring back teens on bikes bringing you your stuff like we had as recently as the 90s. I wonder why those all disappeared?
Kate
Those black bikes, yeah. Ubiquitous when I was a kid – every dep and local grocery had at least one outside, if it wasn’t out on a delivery. Front basket the exact size for a 24.
I remember my mother pointing to those bikes and saying some families made their kids leave school early and take jobs like that, so I should be grateful she and Dad were generous and were going to let me finish high school.
Blork
I haven’t been inside an SAQ since February. The first few orders I made took 10-14 days to be delivered but it’s much quicker now; more like three business days. The main problem is so many items are not available for delivery, and that seems to be where they want to improve things, according to the article.
And I must say, there’s something special about having someone come to your door and hand you a dozen bottles of wine. Oddly, it’s been the same driver every time so now I feel like we’re drinking buddies.
Kate
The SAQ was one of the first outfits to put up plexi and hand sanitizer in March. I’ve been in the Little Italy branch and the one on Jarry near the metro since then and it’s always well controlled, with a waiting line outside at busy times. Their union is pretty good at defending its workers.
CE
Agreed with Kate. I’ve gone to the SAQ a few times since the beginning of the pandemic and if there’s one shop where you’re unlikely to catch anything, it’s there.
Mark Côté
The SQDC has also been doing same-day delivery in Montreal for a little while now.
Blork
I have no doubt that the SAQ is pretty safe. I’ve been opting for delivery because I love having this bearded elf-man deliver wine to my door. (And also I’m probably over-isolating, if that’s possible.)
Kevin
Really? I didn’t see an SAQ employee wearing a mask until mid-summer, even after it was required.
Ian
Maybe it depends on the outlet – all the ones near me were shields up, no contact, limited entry, disinfectant & bouncers at the door even before the grocery stores. There were articles in the papers at the time about how their union (CSN) was insisting that employees be protected with mandatory distancing enforcement etc. – for a while the workers at my closest SAQ on Parc were all wearing CSN face masks.
MarcG
I also feel oddly like a special little prince specifically when delivery people bring me booze.
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Kate
A young man was shot in Montreal North Wednesday afternoon, and another was arrested nearby. Doesn’t sound likely to be a homicide.
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Kate
The new PQ honcho wants Dawson taken off the list of Quebec infrastructure projects.
Ephraim
The PQ is still relevant? Seems to me that a man who went to McGill and Oxford is living in a glass house. And I can’t imagine that he did his degree at Lund in Swedish, though I may be wrong, since I did mine in a foreign language.
jeather
“Insofar as the number of places in anglophone CEGEPs will exceed those in francophone CEGEPs, we want to immediately reverse that trend.”
I don’t know the size of all the cegeps, but there are almost 10x as many French as English across the province, and just doing a brief look at public ones listed on Wikipedia there are about 25k English spots in Montreal and 47k French so luckily there is no trend to be reversed.
Ian
“The construction of the new pavilion is to better accommodate the current number of students, not to expand its enrolment”
C’mon, guys, we covered this back in June. The PQ is yelling at clouds.
Kevin
Alternate headline: “Newly-elected PQ leader wants to make sure guy who lost on first ballot loses his job.”
Jebediah Pallindrome
Post-Levesque PQ policy has always seemed to me to be based on maintaining a permanent underclass by limiting public-sector education opportunities for Francophones.
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Kate
New Covid numbers show another uptick over 1000 cases.
Teachers in Montreal want a Covid bonus to offset the extra efforts they’re now putting in.
Ian
I guess that’s just the CSSDM (formerly CSDM) union. I haven’t heard about this from any other teacher’s unions.
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Kate
The Hôtel-Dieu has been rounded up to serve specifically as a Covid hospital a second time. The health system is also moving seniors around in response to a growing second wave among that population.
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Kate
The STM has been coping with a ransomware attack: the stm.info site is still down as I post, and paratransit is limited.
Michael Black
The story I read yesterday didn’t seem clear. Initially I thought it was the website, but it see.s something more (and I find it odd that the two can be affected together).
Adaptive transit can be reserved by phone, I kind of thought that was the most common way, but this is affecting everything.
dmdiem 20:00 on 2020-10-21 Permalink
You can totally get both at the same time. It’s one of the x factors of the upcoming flu season.
On the bright side, there is some evidence that if you catch one of the other corona viruses, also known as the common cold, it might offer some protection against covid19.
Extra bonus bright side: social distancing and mask wearing also protect agains the influenza viruses.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018767843/near-extinction-of-influenza-in-nz-as-numbers-drop-due-to-lockdown
Kevin 20:38 on 2020-10-21 Permalink
Getting a shot in November will be difficult, but I’m certain it will be possible in December or January.
Normally one strain hits early, with another strain coming in February/March.
J 09:52 on 2020-10-22 Permalink
Is this one of those ‘nobody goes anymore because it’s too crowded’ things? If there are no more flu vaccines or space left, then it means many people are expecting to get the shot, no?
I made an appointment a few weeks ago via the Jean Coutu website. There seems to be more availabilities, but in January.
MarcG 10:21 on 2020-10-22 Permalink
This website says that you can only start signing up on October 26th https://www.ciussswestcentral.ca/programs-and-services/lifestyle-habits-and-prevention/vaccination/ so I made a note in my calendar… then my wife told me last week that she read a CBC article saying that spots were filling up fast, so I followed up and made us an appointment. Good times.
Kate 11:23 on 2020-10-22 Permalink
I had called the local CLSC, where I’ve had my flu shot every year for at least five years, at the end of September. “Call back on October 14” I was told. I assumed the specific date meant something, but when I called that day I was told by a slightly weary voice to try again in a few weeks.
Michael Black 11:34 on 2020-10-22 Permalink
My sister was phoning, and at two places was told they’d filled up already.
I suppose it’s not just demand, but a shift to appointment only. Everyone suddenly has to book an appointment, so they rushed to do it.
If I don’t get it by a certain date, and I couldn’t get anything specific when I saw the doctor a few weeks ago, apparently it won’t do anything, countered by the IV I have to get in December. And the doctor didn’t issue a note.
It’s not that important, I’m not likely to get the flu this year.
Kate 11:42 on 2020-10-22 Permalink
I’m counting on Covid isolation to protect me from flu this year too.
My CLSC has always given out appointments. They clearly wanted to space out arrivals through the day rather than have everyone pile in right after typical work hours.
Now that I think of it, I had a short sharp cold (?) at the beginning of February, nasty enough to take a couple of days off work – and nothing since.
CE 11:54 on 2020-10-22 Permalink
I’ve never gotten the flu shot before but would like to get it this year since I don’t have the luxury of being able to isolate. As a young and healthy person, I doubt I’ll be prioritized but it seems to me that people who have to be out in the public (and are more likely to get Covid) should be first in line.
Michael Black 13:01 on 2020-10-22 Permalink
It turns out (since I posted) that my sister got us both appointments for Tuesday morning. A pretty small pharmacy (less of a general store). They are setting up a tent in the parking lot.
She said they were fully booked, so either they changed their process to make things faster, or they bumped us up.
PatrickC 13:44 on 2020-10-22 Permalink
My sister was able to get a flu shot recently, but she told me the higher dose shot for seniors is not available at all in Quebec. Is this true? And who decided that?