No ‘normal’ before September
Dr Mylène Drouin says there’s not going to be a return to normal in Montreal before September, ruling out crowded festivals this summer.
A headline in the Journal saying that Montreal is at risk of becoming ordinary caught my eye. But then I thought, hmm, this is the Journal. Can I hazard a bet on what “ordinary” means? Yes. Ordinary means some people speaking English. By that argument, if language makes a place interesting, we should all be speaking Mohawk or Anishinaabe.
DeWolf 12:37 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
If things are back to “normal” by September I would be ecstatic. I really hope that’s the case. For the time being, if we can have a summer that resembles the last one, that wouldn’t be so bad. Especially since this year the bulk of the population will have received their first dose by the time the hot weather sets in.
Meezly 12:48 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
I guess false equivalence pieces are allowed to be published in the Journal because it’s an opinion piece?
First, I understand his concern that in a bilingual city, there is a stronger need to protect French as the trend would be to default to English due to business, tourism, etc.
But what does bilingualism have to do with citizens being priced out of city neighbourhoods and the continuing middle class urban exodus?
So our abandoned, overpriced neighbourhoods makes Montreal ordinary because every other North American neighbourhood is experiencing similar issues, so his argument is that it must be that the English language is to blame?
MarcG 12:51 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
Last summer was hellish. All of the normally peaceful outdoor places were filled with noisy people who would normally be in bars, malls, etc.
DeWolf 12:56 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
Last summer I remember kids playing in the middle of my street, people having picnics, more families on bikes than I’ve ever seen, pedestrian streets, extra-big terrasses with seating that spilled out of their little wood enclosures. I thought it was nice. But then again I’ve never expected to find peace and quiet in the middle of a big city.
MarcG 13:18 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
There’s a path down by the river near where I live that went from nice wild area where you might see some ducks, dogwalkers, a jogger… to big piles of garbage, crowds of people with boomboxes, wooded areas filled with used toilet paper…
Kate 14:21 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
I went for one walk in Jarry Park last spring on a nice afternoon and it was packed with people. After that I stuck to quieter side streets.
In the news, but outside the usual remit of the blog, is that beaches in the Gaspé were severely damaged by what CTV calls delinquent tourists who camped in non-camping areas and left a lot of mess behind. Communities there are trying to figure out how to control a similar situation this summer.
Uatu 14:43 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
Delinquent tourists aka assholes
MarcG 14:52 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
Sounds like my nature path and the Gaspé got the same treatment from the same sorts of people.
steph 15:44 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
Many people did the local Canadian vacation. We’d have gone elsewhere to be asshole tourists if we could have.
Joey 16:50 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
@Kate did you come across anything in the last year suggesting that the many, many gatherings in the city’s large parks led to any kind of COVID outbreak? Seems to me we should know whether or not that kind of socializing is safe or not, since it’s basically inevitable and probably just around the corner…
Joey 17:07 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
Keep in mind that in all of Quebec we had an average of 113 new cases per day last July and August. Let’s say half of the province’s cases happen in Montreal – with better social distancing and mask-wearing habits, you might expect the numbers to be even lower this coming summer (unless one of the more contagious variants takes over, which doesn’t seem to be the case yet, and conditions at end of winter are better for that to happen than in summer). So may 50 new cases a day in the city? Then again, maybe a lot less – by summer we’ll have fully vaccinated almost all the at-risk populations and partially vaccinated of the ‘general’ population… and the vaccine seems to reduce both infection and transmission. So, what, 20 new cases a day? All this to say, if we see fewer crowds in parks it will likely be because things are moving along so well that we can re-open restaurants, bars and venues. Lots of things could impede the progress we’re seeing, inclduing vaccine rollout hiccups, variants and aggressive deconfinement measures. But, all things considered, I am much more optimistic about enjoying the upcoming summer than I was a year ago…
Raymond Lutz 19:26 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
We know since long ago that covid is an indoor desease. From https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a-summer-of-covid-19-taught-scientists-about-indoor-vs-outdoor-transmission/ :
“if there is one thing we can definitively state, it’s that this virus is much, less likely to spread outdoors than in. For example, in a study of 7,324 Chinese case reports, only two could be linked to outdoor settings. A database of more than 20,000 cases found 461 that were associated with transmission in completely outdoor environments — predominantly crowded events like markets and rallies.”
Also: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/outdoor-schools-coronavirus/614680/
MarcG 12:55 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
461 out of 20,000 is 2.3%, which as of this moment is around 2,737,000 cases globally, 20,746 in Canada, 6785 in Quebec, and 2536 in Montreal.
Raymond Lutz 16:30 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
“predominantly crowded events”: sure, if you’re shoulder to shoulder, that doesn’t help…
Outdoor + 2m + turbulent airflow = OK;
Indoor + 2m + laminar airflow = not OK;
eg: Evidence of Long-Distance Transmission (6.5 m!) Direct Air Flow in a Restaurant in Korea