Covid news items of the day
Canada is seeing 6,500 new cases of Covid daily and may hit 15,000 cumulative deaths by Christmas.
Quebec is defending its decision to close restaurants, as if it’s a big scandal that they chose to go beyond the recommendations of Horacio Arruda as numbers continued to climb.
Apparently there’s been a strong rumour that schools would be declared closed for the holidays as of today, Friday, but these have been contradicted by education minister J-F Roberge.
Hospitals outside Montreal are reaching saturation point with Covid patients.
Meanwhile, retail stores are claiming there’s been hardly any transmission in stores. I just heard a story from an American online acquaintance who manages a store in a state where they’re specifically forbidden to require masks. He caught Covid, got moderately sick, but then passed it to his wife, who had some existing condition, and she is now seriously unwell.
Daisy 12:36 on 2020-12-11 Permalink
Regarding transmission in stores… Isn’t contact tracing failing to find the source of a large number of cases? If people are in fact getting infected through shopping, there would be no way of knowing this, since stores don’t keep logs of those who enter.
Kate 12:51 on 2020-12-11 Permalink
Legitimate point, Daisy. Anyway, retail hasn’t exactly got an objective viewpoint on this. While understanding their desire to open their doors wide before Christmas, we can also see the point of doing everything to reduce transmission.
EmilyG 13:02 on 2020-12-11 Permalink
As for contact tracing, the tracing app has sometimes not been working on iPhones, and it’s easy for people to not realize that.
EmilyG 13:04 on 2020-12-11 Permalink
(source for the story about iPhones: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/covid-alert-app-bug-persists-on-iphone-1.5836604?cmp=rss )
Kevin 13:43 on 2020-12-11 Permalink
The last day for schools is Wednesday the 16th, as was declared weeks ago. High schoolers are currently scheduled to return to their buildings on Jan. 11.
Kevin 13:48 on 2020-12-11 Permalink
Nova Scotia just extended its school break – Dec. 18 to Jan. 11.
mare 16:48 on 2020-12-11 Permalink
I expect a lockdown until Jan 8 starting next week. I hope not too many businesses and professions are deemed essential, last time that list was awfully long.
A good addition to curb the virus would be more stringent measures like a nighttime curfew, and a ban on all travel more than 500 meter from your house (in cities; in rural areas to the nearest village) that’s not 100% essential with random checks by the police, and huge fines and demerit points.
Buy your toilet paper and flour when it’s still there, people!
Max 02:16 on 2020-12-12 Permalink
Sorry to hear about your friend and his wife. May they both pull though ok. The concept of “specifically forbidden to require masks”… this breaks my brain more than a bit though.
The Queen E finally shut down their lobby area today. It was the last place I knew of downtown where you could comfortably chow down some takeout from 5 Guys or M4 Burritos. For a few minutes at least. Not any more.
Hang in there kiddos. The sun will be coming up over the horizon soon enough.
JP 19:08 on 2020-12-12 Permalink
Yeah, I mostly only stuck to the outdoors this past summer, but the Queen E lobby was the only “public”/non-home indoor space I would spend a bit of time in to either grab a bite or read a book. There were hardly any people when I went there so I felt I could maintain distance while eating and reading.
dhomas 07:08 on 2020-12-13 Permalink
That’s really a shame for your friend and his wife, Kate. I hope she gets better.
I’m curious to know which state they are in that doesn’t allow store owners to require masks. Sounds like it may be Florida, but I’m not sure.
mare 11:18 on 2020-12-13 Permalink
@dhomas It might also be decreed by his corporate overlords if it’s a franchise. I know several chains forbidding masks because “it might scare away some customers”. It would certainly scare me away.