Montreal sees 24-hour record in Covid cases
The city has seen a record number of cases of Covid diagnosed in 24 hours: 648 cases. Quebec’s also seeing its sixth day of 1500+ cases with 1842 over the last 24 hours and 33 deaths.
Meantime, some folks are mad that Quebec closed restaurant dining rooms in red zones, even though Horacio Arruda had apparently not found it necessary.
GC 13:50 on 2020-12-10 Permalink
I get the anger, but would it really be useful to have dine-in if you can only seat one household at a time? Especially if you could not also let people in to order takeout at the same time?
Kate 14:05 on 2020-12-10 Permalink
GC, the anger is understandable, but resto owners are not experts in contagious disease. Also let’s not forget, resto workers would be putting themselves in proximity to customers who would not be wearing masks while eating and drinking.
Eating in restaurants is not essential. There’s no reason for people to be put at risk to enable it. Yes, it stings – I have friends who spent several years developing their restaurant and building a clientele only to have to close the resto permanently – but it is logical.
GC 18:46 on 2020-12-10 Permalink
As someone who enjoys (enjoyed?) eating out, I definitely want some of the locals to survive. (Not to mention, all the side jobs it creates for wait staff, etc.) But, yeah, it’s one thing to people step in for a few moment, in a mask, to pick up takeout. It’s quite another to have people linger for a meal and obviously be unmasked while eating. I also don’t think many would bother to take the risk to dine in solo at the moment, so you also have conversation on top of that…
Honestly, the thing I find some most surprising is that the government potentially did something *more* stringent than the health recommendations.
dhomas 19:37 on 2020-12-10 Permalink
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This is a failure in communication by the government. The government is being inconsistent in their approach which leads to restauranteurs feeling unfairly targeted by these restrictions. Why are restaurants closed, but kids can still go to school? Why are hairdressers allowed to operate? Residential construction, A-OK! The list goes on. I’m not saying that restaurants should be allowed to open based on this logic, but rather that EVERYTHING should be closed, at least for the sake of consistency but also because it is more prudent to do so. We all know that schools and workplaces are the major contributors to the spread of the virus: https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-schools-now-driving-force-of-covid-19-spread-experts