Covid stories of the morning
There’s a Covid outbreak at tony Collège Stanislas so all the classes are being held remotely.
Quebec is pondering putting in roadblocks to stop travel between regions over the spring break.
The pandemic has made the illegal guns situation worse, though this item doesn’t make a persuasive argument why there’s a link – is it really just boredom and powerlessness among restless young people? But TVA looked into how easy it is to get a gun by mail.
Covid summary from CultMTL.
Did anyone really think, if there are more contagious variants spreading throughout the world, that we wouldn’t get them? Wednesday on CBC radio at noon they had the theme of “snowbirds” wanting to be exempt from quarantine if they returned to Canada. They had no case for it, except “waah, we deserve it!” But people have been pleading exceptions since the start of this thing, and it only takes one or two people slipping through with the new bugs to set them loose here. A year later, I didn’t think I’d be writing The virus doesn’t negotiate and it doesn’t care about human arguments.
Quebec has the worst numbers in Canada, and I saw a piece this week (will link when I find it again) that a survey showed a tendency for speakers of French to be less afraid of the virus. Nonchalance can be a wonderful thing until it comes face to face with a plague.
dwgs 10:17 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
Aaron Derfel tweeted last night that it was a case of B117 at Stanislas, which is why they shut it down for 2 weeks so the could test and trace.
Mark Côté 11:15 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
“tony” I have a pretty good vocabulary but this is one place I can still learn new words!
MarcG 11:26 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
I figured it was a typo, thanks!
Kate 12:14 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
For “tiny”?
Tony: Stylish, high-toned, upscale. (Wiktionary)
MarcG 12:20 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
My mind just kind of glitched over it, I’m a bad skimmer.
Raymond Lutz 13:48 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
I think covid nonchalance is more correlated to urban/rural rather than french/english… And I guess our worst situation (vs others provinces) is indeed related to the massive return of snowbirds last year.
Nick D 14:32 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
This social psychologist Michele Gelfand has been writing about « tight » vs « loose » societies. It might well be that Quebec is « looser » than some of the other provinces (maybe).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/feb/01/loose-rule-breaking-culture-covid-deaths-societies-pandemic
Raymond Lutz 14:41 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
also, 7 weeks ago Alberta had almost the same infection rate as ours, but we distanced them again. So much data to crunch!
Kevin 15:14 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
Kate
Jack Jedwab spoke about it on CTV this week. https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2136474&jwsource=cl
ant6n 21:07 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
The “snowbirds” want to be exempt from the three-day 2000$ quarantine hotels. The three day quarantine is supposed to be for the time it takes to wait for the result of the test when entering. But really, it’s supposed to be a deterrent keeping people from traveling (i.e. leaving the country now for tourism). The snowbirds want to quarantine at home – a 14-day at home quarantine has been mandatory for months.
But the quarantine hotels don´t make a whole lot of sense. The cost is excessive (650$ per night?). It doesn´t take three days to do a test (more like a day). You´re supposed to have done a test before you arrive anyway – meaning this would only capture cases where people had an infection that became measurable between the time they did their pre-travel test and their post-travel test, but not if they got infected while travelling. If you wanted a true quarantine, it should be longer. But also, does it make sense to have this policy now, when coming from any country, as cases are actually going down in many places? (The UK hotel quarantine isn’t for every country). Also, it appears only a 1-2% of cases are due to international travel, most cases are transmission at home (unlike, China or Australia, where strong measures including 14-day hotel quarantines have kept the number of cases very low).
I think the focus on snow birds is unfortunate. It´s a group of people that can be identified as “rich” and “whiny” to drive a wedge. There are plenty of people who´ve been outside Canada for a long time, and there are some that need to travel to Canada for pretty valid reasons. Why force this punishment on them, that appears to be a deterrent against tourism? This will mostly hit immigrant families, international students, returning expats.
Ephraim 23:12 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
The $2000 covers everything, not just the hotel room, the private tests, the security system, the meals, etc.
Let’s be realistic, people have been breaking quarantine. They say they are going to stay in quarantine and then go out to the supermarket, the drug store, etc. In some countries, they require you to carry a phone with a special sim at all times. They call you up to check that you have the phone with you and they monitor where the phone is with GPS, because… people break quarantine.
Do you remember the story about the American soldiers in Newfoundland, who said they were doing quarantine when assigned to the base there… and were found sitting in restaurants. People just don’t understand and the fine isn’t big enough to scare the hell out of them. Well, set the fine high, make them make a deposit, make them carry a phone with tracking GPS. Make a program that randomly calls their phone and makes them enter a four digit code each time. And then maybe you won’t need to put them into hotels.. because otherwise, they just LIE and do what they want.
Ephraim 23:18 on 2021-02-11 Permalink
BTW, in one country, they deliver your meals, that’s when your door unlocks. They track the door opening times.
This is the list of requirements for hotels in this program. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/latest-travel-health-advice/mandatory-hotel-stay-air-travellers/apply-listed-hotel.html#a4