Forty-four students living in McGill residences have tested positive.
I’m surprised the residences are still allowed to operate. But, as I commented below, McGill is a virtual city state.
Updates from January, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Quebec’s made a hash of the rules on places of worship: one authority told the Hasids that the rule said maximum ten people per closed room, not per building, but police understood the rule to mean per building. Some quick Talmudic analysis has left the public health folks looking silly (and I’ll bet all those tickets will be cancelled, too).
Before this came out, the police were still being stern about the gatherings, and about the situation in Outremont where synagogue-goers charged the cops and called them Nazis.
Update: Public health has apologized to the Hasids over the debacle.
Chris
So dozens of people in the same building (presumably with one ventilation system) is fine, but taking a walk alone at 20h05 standing 10s of metres away from anyone in the open outdoors is not fine.
Yay science-based decisions! 🙁
Tim S.
No, it’s not fine, the article explains that Public health updated the rules. A loophole was identified, exploited, and then promptly closed. That’s how we want authorities to act, no?
Ephraim
If the police were in fact Nazis, they would be rounding them up and shooting them in the streets. It’s obvious they aren’t. Time to come up with a new trope.
Chris
Tim S., ah, seems I mistook the order of the flip flops. But my larger point stands. Even only 10 people indoors is less safe that a lone person on a walk outdoors at 20h05. But the former is allowed, and the latter not.
dhomas
Where are you going at 20h05? Bars, restaurants, gyms are closed. The only place you could be coming from or going to is someone else’s house for an illegal gathering. The curfew makes it incredibly easier to limit these types of gatherings. I suppose you COULD be going for a solitary walk, but I’m ok with limiting those if it means also limiting those private, virus-spreading gatherings. The case numbers have definitely gone down since the curfew has been put in place.
steph
Since when does “one authority told me differently” warrant an apology? Let them go fight their tickets in court like everyone else that got handed bad tickets.
OTOH with the rules changing as often as they do, it’s impossible for anyone to keep up.
jeather
As I have mentioned, I live alone, as does my mother, so I could go to her place for legal dinner and then legally watching tv, something we have been doing the entire time, but which is now illegal because of the curfew (unless I spend the night there).
Alison Cummins
jeather,
I believe that you and your mother are collateral damage, not the intended targets.
I know people who have moved in together temporarily to get around this.
jeather
I know I am collateral damage. I cannot move in with her due to cats, nor, honestly, do either of us want that. We just want to watch tv occasionally, even on a weeknight. I’ll live, and she’ll live, but when dhomas asked where people were going that this caused anyone problems without being unsafe, I answered.
dhomas
Sorry to hear about the situation with your mother, jeather. I hadn’t really considered this case, though I should have. My mother-in-law lives alone but has been living with us during the week since last March. On weekends, she goes home to tend to her stuff. But she has been sleeping at our house Sunday through Thursday for close to a year now.
Michael Black
Write a letter to the paper. The voices that do get distribution are people opposed to the curfew, and/or use others as leverage. “This hurts me” always trumps “think of the children”.
Consensus often gets misused, but it’s not a yes or no vote, but to hear from a multiplicity of angles, and forge a solution somewhere in between. The curfew shouldn’t affect many people, but oddly for those it does, the effect is probably significant.
I keep seeing talk of “normal”, but it dismisses those who aren’t. We may all be in this together, but we sure don’t all experience it the same way.
Alison Cummins
Thanks, jeather. I know I wouldn’t want to move in with my father, though I probably would in a crisis. Fortunately he does not live alone.
I’m going batty from isolation to the point of taking risks I wouldn’t have six months ago, and I live with a partner and two dogs. I can’t imagine how people who live alone must be suffering. (Yes, many people who live alone are loners by temperament, but even most loners by temperament benefit by seeing people *sometimes.* We can’t even see a smile from the clerk at the grocery store any more.)
Beautifully put, Michael Black.
jeather
It doesn’t seem likely to continue after Feb 8. I don’t really want to write a letter about this, though of course I would prefer a curfew of even 9 instead. But the people who do live alone and who have one person they see, but who work normal working hours, are now pretty much stuck all week.
GC
You really think the curfew will be lifted in Montreal after Feb 8? I’d be very surprised if that happens.
Chris
I’d put money on the curfew staying.
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Kate
A water main that’s been under Notre-Dame Street for 150 years collapsed on Friday night in Old Montreal.
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Kate
Maurice Benisti, best known as the owner of the Point Zero clothing line, is planning to build a 25‑storey condo tower at 980 St‑Antoine West.
Max
I imagine the name Peter Nygard has been erased off that building for some time now?
Kate
Was it on there? I admit I haven’t followed the saga of Peter Nygard, since it wasn’t a Montreal story. There’s a Wikipedia article about him.
…I thought the address sounded familiar. I worked in that building for a couple of years, long ago. The business would be long gone now.
Max
Yup, that’s the one. Streetview shows the name has indeed been removed. Mostly.
qatzelok
Peter Nygard, the philanthropist who gave all that money to Cancer foundations?
dwgs
You need to keep up on the news qatzelok. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/peter-nygard-custody-1.5841839
DeWolf
This has been in the works for years already but I’ll bet you that at some point in the future it will be held up as an example of office towers being converted to residential for the post-Covid world.
Incidentally, it’s interesting to see how some projects get splashy media coverage while others fly under the radar. There is a 62-storey apartment tower currently under construction from Point Zero on St-Antoine and I haven’t heard a peep about it in the media.
denpanosekai
@DeWolf, I think you’re confused. It’s a 62-storey building on St-Jacques from Canvar. Nothing to do with Point Zero, whose last project is a so-so conversion of 400 RLO.
CE
Is Point Zero more of a real estate company now? I’ve always felt like there was something sketchy about them for some reason.
denpanosekai
@CE (as far I know) they only have one significant recent project and it’s the recladding/conversion of 400 RLO.
Kate
RLO = René-Lévesque Ouest?
Kate
DeWolf
denpanosekai, I wasn’t saying that 900 St-Jacques has anything to do with Point Zero, I was just remarking on the fact that it has gotten virtually no media attention. Same for 90% of the towers going up around town.
And yes, I did mix up St-Antoine and St-Jacques (as I often do in real life), thanks for pointing that out!
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Kate
Things are not going well in the ICU at Notre-Dame hospital, and the Jewish General is trying to track down how Covid infected its palliative care unit. Canadian scientists fear an even fiercer general outbreak is coming in March.
There’s big talk about colchicine, a very old drug that the Montreal Heart Institute says looks promising against Covid, but it’s got a ton of side effects and is incompatible with many common Rx drugs: I’ve a friend in Europe, a professor of pharmacology, who says “Colchicine is a tricky drug that is very toxic in only a slight overdose, plus it is easy to increase its blood levels because of use of other drugs.”
dmdiem
Todays update from Dr John Campbell goes into some more detail about the march projections.
H. John
An interesting article about colchicine and the problem with doing “science by press release”, or prime ministerial tweet:
https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/23/colchicine-gout-drug-shows-promise-for-covid-19/
david1000 00:33 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
I mean, I get what you’re saying, but evicting people for speculative reasons (they live in a student residence and therefore must be put into the street, or they’ll get covid) is pretty iffy, no?
walkerp 07:13 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
I’m surprised they were let in in the first place. Don’t they all have to vacate at the end of the year?
jeather 09:58 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
I think the ones who were evicted were evicted for having/attending illegal parties.
dwgs 10:21 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
The only reason residences were opened was to bring in revenue. Only 1st years can stay in residence and there are no in person undergrad classes so why the hell would you spend tens of thousands of dollars to send your kid to live in rez this year? A friend who works in rez tells me that the kids who were supposed to self isolate at the beginning of the year, after holidays etc largely did not do so (shockingly, 18 year olds show poor judgement). I am assuming that at least some of the kids banished until Feb. 1 must be positive so why are they being sent out into the community instead of being locked in their rooms? The street outside of RVC is packed with media trucks this morning and McGill hates hates hates negative publicity. Wouldn’t be surprised if one or two heads roll over this.
Kate 11:06 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
Thanks for the report from the ground, dwgs.
Alison Cummins 13:00 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
For many people, an important part of the university experience is leaving home and learning to function independently. Or leaving home and giving your parents some peace. I know that I only survived being sixteen by knowing that after graduation I would never have to sleep under the same roof as my father again. He himself experienced something similar, spending his college summers hitchhiking across the US because he couldn’t go home.
That was was within the range of normal age-appropriate needing to leave home. I know someone who was literally sent to live at boarding school so that his father wouldn’t murder him. I know several women who were subjected to ongoing sexual assault by their fathers. I know other people who were sent away so they wouldn’t have to watch a parent die of cancer. So just staying in the parental home is not an option for all young adults. If they had budgeted for moving out as part of the university transition anyway it’s a way of doing it that looks and feels normal.
Plus, young adults are not at high personal risk from covid. My-sister-the-doctor states that in her province, nobody under 30 has ever been hospitalized for covid. In her opinion, leaving home and partying in a hot zone could even be a good way to develop immunity from covid away from older people at higher risk.
While there is still direct risk to young people the greatest risk is of young people acting as vectors. As a person in her fifties I assume all young people exhale covid all the time. I know young people whose parents require them to get tested before visiting the family home, for instance at winter break.
It’s not insane. It’s just really tedious. Students don’t get to meet their classmates unless they happen to be in residence together and discover it by accident. McGill seems to be handling remote learning exceptionally badly. I have been told that intro classes with 200 students have message groups set up for interaction which are essentially a giant text message where you attempt to chat with 199 other participants identified only by phone number.
I understand why McGill hasn’t set up Facebook groups for them, and I understand why an intro to physics student wouldn’t feel empowered to create one or want to moderate one. But there is good forum software out there and I don’t understand why they don’t deploy it and train TAs to act as monitors.
Kate 16:55 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
Alison, I take your point about some students needing to get away from their families, but I was simply surprised that McGill would be operating residences when no in-person classes were being held.
Alison Cummins 20:15 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
Kate,
Agreed! I was responding to dwgs.
Apparently they’re open but at half-capacity and strictly policed. (? I’m very short on details.) A young person of my acquaintance was dying of solitude in a McGill dorm and found freedom with a roomie and an Airbnb.
dwgs 12:01 on 2021-01-27 Permalink
Alison, you make excellent points about reasons kids would want to escape, I can definitely relate to a few of those. However, the vast majority of these kids don’t fall into those circumstances and my point was simply that if you don’t absolutely have to then this particular time is a terrible one to send the kid away. Unless you look at it like the chicken pox parties that people used to have for their kids. Covid camp if you will. Residences are only half full but they’re not being strictly policed. At least they weren’t before this.
Alison Cummins 13:13 on 2021-01-27 Permalink
dwgs, the vast majority of young adults aren’t being sent away to protect them from being murdered by a parent, correct.
But leaving home is something that happens pretty consistently around this age. I don’t think this is random. I think most young adults need to, and I think many families will be miserable if the young adults are prevented from leaving.
If your family is one where all generations can live harmoniously in the same house indefinitely while being their best selves, great. I know those families exist.
I think *not* being one of those families is also normal. It’s *not* insane for a young adult to need to try their wings. People make the best decisions they can with the choices available to them. If someone is making an effort to help a young person develop independence under difficult circumstances, I don’t see why we need to assume they are insane.
dwgs 15:46 on 2021-01-27 Permalink
Yes but Covid. Why send the kid this year when they can’t even experience frosh, actual classes, meeting profs in person etc etc etc? Why not keep them at home for first year since they’ll be doing all their coursework online anyway? It’s not like they’re getting the real Mtl experience spending all their time in their room. That way they can come for second year and get the real deal.
I was pushed out of the nest at 17 and am in the process of pushing an 18 year old out but we’re holding off until late summer when hopefully things are more stable.
Alison Cummins 03:53 on 2021-01-28 Permalink
I left at 16 and it wasn’t a minute too soon.
You’re right, they won’t have the benefits of meeting professors and fellow students in person. It’s a HUGE loss.
Still, they get the benefits of making their own decisions, unsupervised, for months at a time. If they’re not in a dorm with a meal plan they get to learn all about running a household, budgeting for groceries and what happens when you don’t do the dishes.
This is also HUGE. It’s too bad they can’t get both, but if the family can afford it and the young adult would benefit, it’s not insane.
Each family will weigh costs and benefits individually. A reasonably happy and responsible young adult spending another year in the family home is not insane. Putting off university entirely until it can be experienced in the flesh is not insane. And neither is hustling a young adult out ASAP to start figuring out the whole adulting thing with support. Everyone’s a little different.