Schools now spreading Covid
Aaron Derfel has a full story here (not a twitter thread) about how it’s schools now spreading Covid though the population. Many classrooms are poorly ventilated and that’s bad news.
Police busted a clandestine party in the planning in a parking garage in Côte-des-Neiges this week.
Update: 1133 new cases and 25 Covid deaths over the last 24 hours.
JaneyB 12:07 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
Oh, that party. Man, I hope they fine their asses off. A 200-person super-spreader event in the making…and all us other Montrealers would have to spend another month or two socially super-restricted to fix the mess. Unbelievable!
JaneyB 12:13 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
I don’t understand Montreal doesn’t install air purifiers in every classroom. It’s worth a shot, my goodness.
Meezly 12:26 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
Because they’re expensive?
ant6n 14:13 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
The crisis has been going on for months and the possibility of a second wave has also been talked about for months, as well as the problems with forcing kids to learn from home alone.
Joey 14:57 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
The official in the article says they’re unncessary since most schools have classrooms with windows that open. Not sure how that’s going to play out in winter (though who among us has not lived in an old Mtl building that had a radiator so hot the windows were open all winter long?)…
jeather 16:00 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
The radiator thing was deliberate because of the last giant pandemic (flu 1918-19), they wanted everyone to have fresh air with windows open, so radiators were made for that use case.
MarcG 16:27 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
I can’t tell if that’s a joke or not
mare 16:30 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
Those air purifiers are very hard to obtain right now, even if you’re willing to pay a large premium. The whole world wants them right now, and China can’t make them fast enough.
jeather 16:51 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
If you’re responding to me, MarcG, it is not a joke. See, eg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-05/the-curious-history-of-steam-heat-and-pandemics but there are a number of articles.
MarcG 17:14 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
I was responding to you and that is really wild. I always assumed they were broken since everything else in the building was.
jeather 17:35 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
Well they were also made for less efficient fuels and not changed since and also probably not well-maintained but “I need to have my windows open” was deliberate.
Tim S. 18:46 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
Thanks Jeather. That explains so much. And gives me some hope for the schools, at least the older ones.
GC 20:03 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
Thanks, jeather. That is interesting. When I first moved to Montreal, I lived one of those and the only way I could sleep during the winter was to have a window open. It seemed wasteful to me. I asked the super if it was possible to turn it down but she said the people in the basement were always complaining they were too cold. I can only image what it must have been like on the top floor.
Kevin 22:01 on 2020-11-06 Permalink
My kids’ schools sent out reminder letters that windows will be open 20 cms.
And yeah, steam heat
Ephraim 09:39 on 2020-11-07 Permalink
Modern water heating no longer easily overheats. An external thermostat is added to the system to measure the outside temperature and adjust the temperature of the water, to keep an even temperature. The old systems had to boil the water and you had this constant up and down. Modern systems keep an even heat. So if the system has been updated, you don’t get those “swings” as you used to.