Covid rules are changing
Covid rules are changing Monday: here are some details in French and details in English in various formats. The main differences in the city are that non-essential stores and hairdressers can reopen.
The Journal says that optimistic restaurant owners are already hiring toward the reopening of resto dining rooms in Montreal.
mare 11:42 on 2021-02-08 Permalink
Way too soon, in my armchair opinion, and people and businesses will get really annoyed, depressed and non-compliant when we have to lock down again after the numbers will rise in March, as is predicted by many models and data from other countries that involve the new, more infectious variants.
Of course the next lockdown will only happen when the numbers have reached the three thousand per day range, further normalizing those higher numbers. In the spring we started lockdown when there were around 1000 new Quebec case per day, this time it was around 2000 cases.
There seems to be a large “not invented/researched/made in Quebec” factor in the decision making process; the massive and deadly spread in nursing homes happened weeks before in Italy and Belgium and we still took no precautions to prevent it from happening here.
My income has dwindled because of the lockdown(s) but I still think it’s too soon.
mare 11:44 on 2021-02-08 Permalink
Also, do teachers and professors have a choice here, and can they decide *not* to teach in-person classes and/or labs? They’re probably more at risk, not only because of being older, but especially if they have to teach their class to smaller groups, repeated multiple times.
steph 12:17 on 2021-02-08 Permalink
I expect the teachers will strike. Their unions are in the process of organizing for strike mandate.
Kate 12:18 on 2021-02-08 Permalink
I tend to agree with mare. But François Legault and his alter ego Doug Ford are, I think, both afraid that in the future, they will be accused of damaging profits and business by being too cautious, so they’re both forging ahead with reopening even though anyone could tell them it’s not wise at this point.
steph, nurses are not happy either.
Bert 12:23 on 2021-02-08 Permalink
I have a friend that works in the union side of Montreal schools. He represents teachers that have complaints lodged against them, either by students, co-workers, schools So basically handling union griefs. He has been doing this sort of thing for well over 20 years. I talked to him about this and generally, in Quebec it is the employers right to dictate the location of work, regardless how easy or hard it is to tele-work. Fearing catching something is not an excuse to go on to unemployment as a firing vs voluntary departure.
Now, of course, in the after-times, thinking and judgement about this.
j2 14:45 on 2021-02-08 Permalink
It would have been nice to think that restaurants would re-hire former staff; makes me wonder how much is change being done opportunistically.
Mark Côté 15:07 on 2021-02-08 Permalink
Of course the next lockdown will only happen when the numbers have reached the three thousand per day range, further normalizing those higher numbers. In the spring we started lockdown when there were around 1000 new Quebec case per day, this time it was around 2000 cases.
I think the trigger the government is using these days is hospitalization rates, not case rates. The former have dropped relative to case load over the last year, as far as I know, although I’m having trouble finding the data.
I mean this is the trigger in theory, anyway. But understanding it that way makes it very, very clear that eliminating or even really controlling the virus is absolutely not the goal that the government is pursuing outside of vaccination efforts.
maggie rose 15:33 on 2021-02-08 Permalink
I, and others, wonder if hospitalization rates going down because people are dying from Covid.
Mark Côté 16:22 on 2021-02-08 Permalink
Well, death rates have gone down too, as hospital have learned better ways to deal with covid infections.
Ah I found all the data again. Restrictions in October started when hospitalizations were a bit under 300. Curfew and other stronger measures started when hospitalizations started exceeding 1000. They peaked at 1500 and have come down but only to 1000 right now.
Deaths peaked in the second wave at 66 per day which is still less than half what it got to last spring.
Kevin 23:41 on 2021-02-08 Permalink
I suspect that Legault et al have not even begun to comprehend the long term effects of their actions. I don’t think they are capable of thinking anything other than “it will all work out and everything will go back to the way it was”.