Hasidic gatherings remain hot potato
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 17:39 on 2021-01-25 Permalink
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. 18:02 on 2021-01-25 Permalink
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 18:10 on 2021-01-25 Permalink
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 20:39 on 2021-01-25 Permalink
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 20:46 on 2021-01-25 Permalink
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 22:09 on 2021-01-25 Permalink
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 11:40 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
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 13:17 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
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 14:51 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
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 15:22 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
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 15:36 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
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 15:58 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
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 16:01 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
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 21:47 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
You really think the curfew will be lifted in Montreal after Feb 8? I’d be very surprised if that happens.
Chris 00:01 on 2021-01-27 Permalink
I’d put money on the curfew staying.