Month-long lockdown to begin – with exceptions
What a strange news day, flipping from insurrection in the United States to pandemic measures for Quebec.
Starting this weekend, more things will be closed for a month, and we will have a curfew from 8 p.m. till 5 a.m., till February 8.
Legault makes quite a thing of education being so important that kids will still be going back to school as of next week. I’m cynical enough to suspect that it’s not so much the education that concerns him as the function of kids being looked after so parents can work.
Edited to add: CBC has a guide to the new rules, which go into effect Saturday, and Metro explains how this lockdown is different from the one last spring. TVA also has a guide to the new rules.
dmdiem 18:52 on 2021-01-06 Permalink
Why does the school thing have to be all or nothing? Can’t the kids whose parents need to work send them in person, while the rest can attend from home via webcam? That would at least limit any outbreaks. I don’t know. Maybe the logistics of it all are just too unreasonable.
jeather 19:14 on 2021-01-06 Permalink
The only change is the curfew as far as I can tell? More WFH, but manufacturing and construction are allowed, and curbside pickup is now ok. Also kids can now study in public libraries. Not clear about visits re people living alone, and apparently we are not allowed to be outside with people who aren’t in our bubble.
Movies and films? Still allowed. NHL? No prob. Manufacturing and construction? Mostly younger people so sure. Schools and daycares? Go ahead. After all, the cases are all from home visits.
Tim S. 19:27 on 2021-01-06 Permalink
Yeah, my takeaway is that they aren’t seriously trying to stop community transmission, just buying time until they vaccinate enough old people to take some pressure off the hospitals. At which point who knows what the numbers will be among the under-65s. But who cares about chronic heart damage?
What’s frustrating is that they got everybody anticipating tougher measures and then backed off. When they have go through the whole process again in a few weeks there might be less buy-in and a lot more discontent. I wasn’t looking forward to a few weeks of home-schooling, but I had my canned soup, multi-packs of KD and reams of printer paper all ready!
Sprocket 19:32 on 2021-01-06 Permalink
With restos closing at cutoff time, I think that will impact business a lot. Also Deps.
vasi 19:43 on 2021-01-06 Permalink
There are some other new restrictions, though not the biggest ones:
Houses of worship closed
Non-essential manufacturing and construction suspended
More masks in schools
Mandatory work-from-home for office jobs, it’s no longer up to the business
We’ll see if it’s enough!
jeather 21:05 on 2021-01-06 Permalink
They request that manufacturers only do essential work, but I’m not sure it’s defined. I think they’re just hoping to keep numbers vaguely acceptable until vaccines are here in larger numbers, without actually doing anything useful.
ant6n 05:56 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
I`ve got a 2 year old at home and would rather send him off to daycare, pandemic risk be damned. I´m currently shut down where I am, daycares closed, and I don´t feel there there´s the idea that “kids should be sent to school so that parents can work”. Quite the opposite: there seems to be the assumption that you can easily work in the home office while watching a small kid. It does not work and creates a lot of stress, which ppl without kids don´t seem to understand.
What is really annoying is seeing people go on vacations, party, live life normally going to the big office with everybody while schools and daycares are shut down.
mare 09:10 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Still no travel restrictions. Look what New Brunswick did, many months ago, and how low their Covid cases and fatalities per million are.
https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/corporate/promo/travel-registration.html#register
Ephraim 09:55 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
I don’t think a curfew will work. Is there any scientific basis for them? Did they work elsewhere?
We need to cut the number of visits to places like supermarkets, the only way to do this is to cut the number of people allowed inside at one time and enforce sanitary rules. Does anyone see them wiping the screens for self check-out after each use? Is anyone putting in better ventilation? HEPA filters and/or air heating to kill the virus in the air? (You can superheat the air to kill viruses.)
If you cut the number of people going in, the supermarkets will push people towards curbside pickup, which will curb possible transmission. Anything to keep people out of shared spaces. Heck, even the SAQ can offer quick pick up, even if they can’t do curbside… order online, walk in, pick up and pay… no need to line up, walk around, etc.
And help the mom and pop shops. Everyone should be able to be open with curbside or delivery of anything. And let them have 1 customer at a time inside. Maybe it’s also time to require GS1 to collect and keep a database of barcodes centralized for everyone to use with descriptions, so that websites can be created much easier. Stop everyone from having to keep their own databases… I mean, what’s the point in the duplicated effort for UPC codes?
Kate 10:09 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Ephraim, I can’t find any links about the curfew in France that get into whether it was considered effective. Since it was brought in with other measures meant to reduce contagion, it would be hard to tell what impact the curfew alone was having on the numbers.
Ephraim 10:49 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Kate, let’s look at it the other way around…. who is really out after 8PM and what are they doing? What is the curfew trying to curb? And will this just people to modify their behaviour? The articles that I read online suggest that they think this will curb people participating in “nonessential gatherings” but I find little in real scientific research behind it. Sure, it makes sense if restaurants and bars were open, but they aren’t. So I can only guess that the idea is to curb private parties and/or Tinder/Grindr hookups.
I can be wrong. Maybe very wrong. But humans tend to adapt… look at the Window Tax in England, France and Ireland. So you end up with PJ parties and after work sex hookups to get around the curfew? Everyone come over, we’ll have pizza, sit around and watch Netflix and pull out the mattresses and have a sleep over.
walkerp 11:01 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Ephraim, supermarkets are not places of transmission. The government is installing the curfew to make it easy for the police to bust social gatherings, which other than schools seems to have been a major source of transmission in the last weeks. I think the curfew is basically a major reinforcer to the message to not socialize and not see anybody.
Does this also mean you are not supposed to be out driving at night as well?
Ephraim 11:12 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Walkerp… is the government actually reporting sources of transmission anymore? Cases are going up and yet reports related to WHERE they are happening and tracing doesn’t seem to be. It’s starting to remind me of the dirty restaurant problem… they don’t really tell the public until a LONG time later.
If supermarkets aren’t the sources of transmission, then what are they doing that has stopped it… and let’s just open up all the stores…. what’s the point of closing them if they aren’t the source of transmission and a few changes at the supermarket has stopped all transmission.
jeather 11:30 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
I don’t trust for one second their contention that everyone is getting cases from seeing people at parties at home. Sure, over the holidays, that was probably the source of contagion — but it wasn’t going to be the major source in January, curfew or no curfew. I guess in 2 weeks from Saturday we will start to see who is right.
GC 12:24 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Yeah, I’d also like some indication that curfews work. It won’t be a big impact on me, since I can’t remember the last time I went out past eight, with nowhere to go…
I’m with Ephraim, though. Those who want to break the rules will just adapt. Granted, not every hookup is welcome to spend the night. But, if it’s a gathering of family/friends then they can just spend the night. Which actually might lead to _extending_ the illegal gathering–not exactly the desired outcome.
Michael Black 12:38 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
But what hardship is a curfew for most people? Once there’s nothing to do, there’s little reason to be out.
jeather 13:40 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
A curfew is a pain for me, a person living alone who visits one other person who lives alone.
Michael Black 13:56 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
“For most people”. My comment was based on people arguing an abstract, “does it really work?”
Valid reasons make way more sense to oppose this than “I have my rights”
There hasn’t been much reason for me to go out other than the dog insists. He’s the real reason I get up every day. It’s not fear, though I’m vulnerable. I don’t want to burden the nurses, and the existing rules don’t make it all that appealing, and next month it’s two years of mostly being inside, just a few trips to the grocery store early last year. I feel less and less connection to that outside world.
So I can’t think of a reason to be out late, not in winter. There are reasons, but in pandemic times way less than in good times.
jeather 14:09 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
I am sure it is not a pain for everyone, but I was explaining why it will be annoying for me. I know of people who say that they like to take walks late because it is the only time they can feel safe from walking near piles of unmasked people (though I do not know where in the city they live).