Ontario’s Covid numbers are so bad that it’s setting up checkpoints at the border with Quebec.
Update: Geneviève Guilbault announces Friday evening that she’s closing the border to Ontario. Here’s La Presse with the photo.
Updates from April, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
In what feels like an almost medieval development, megaphone trucks will be circulating in town this weekend, encouraging people 55 and over to go get the AstraZeneca vaccine. Christian Dubé says the announcement will be in several languages.
mare
Can’t they just call/text/write them? The RAMQ has everyone’s age and address (and probably telephone number too, I forgot if that was an item on those renewal forms), and also has records if people already went for their AstraZeneca.
Kate
They have to reach people who don’t have internet, or at least reliable access, people without landlines and whose phone numbers aren’t available anywhere, people whose French and English are shaky or nonexistent, asylum seekers and people whose immigration status is doubtful and are not signed up with the RAMQ.
I doubt this truck will be traversing Westmount or TMR, but it will probably do Park Ex, St‑Michel and Montreal North.
mare
According to Christian Dubé on Twitter:
1/2
Ce w-e à Mtl, plus de 20K doses d’AZ sont dispos avec et sans rdv.J’ai demandé au réseau de faire des interventions ciblées dans certains quartiers.
EX : Ouest-de-l’Île et Côte-des-Neiges ➡️ camion-crieur annoncera en plusieurs langues ouverture de cliniques mobiles.
jeather
Irritatingly the first article on this did not mention the age rules and wow did I get my hopes up for a while.
Ephraim
Not everyone who is eligible wants AZ. Some people who have pre-existing conditions want the higher protection of Pfizer or Moderna. And I’m sure that there are those under 55 who want AZ and accept the higher risk. (And the symptoms are explained, so you can get it treated.) So, I know a few people who are just waiting for them to go to the next stage. Heck, I know people that have asked the government to call them if there is a last minute shot available.
There is a handle https://twitter.com/VaxHuntersCan that posts about national availability windows.
Raymond Lutz
Has anyone some data about the adverse effect risks of AZ? All I found is this (March 30):
“these data suggest that the reported number of thromboembolic events among Europeans who have received the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine (at least those reported as deriving from the venous system) does not seem to be increased relative to the expected number estimated from incidence rates from the entire Danish population before the introduction of the vaccination programme.” [ source]
IIRC the factoids sheet distributed on site, over 55 the (alleged, uncorroborated) thrombosis risk of AZ is lesser than health risks associated with contracting covid so it’s a go, NOT that the risk in itself is lesser for older people. At so much low level, I think some health agencies freaked out over statically insignificant glitch buried in random noise.
Kevin
The risk of thrombosis/blood clots from AZ and Janssen is equivalent to the risk of blood clots/thrombosis from an overseas flight.
And it’s a heck of a lot lower than the risk of clots from medication that a lot of people take every day.
-
Kate
Actress Patricia Tulasne is taking Gilbert Rozon to court claiming he raped her in 1994. Yves Boisvert ponders the difference between criminal and civil charges in a matter like this.
-
Kate
Gérald Tremblay is breaking his silence but doesn’t have much to say. Yes, he’s right about Montreal not having enough political autonomy, but that isn’t news, and he refuses to discuss the only story that really matters, which is how his administration got so shot through with corruption yet he never noticed.
As Tremblay points out, he’s never personally been accused, neither criminally nor civilly, but that’s a pretty sad claim to have to make if he thinks he did well by the city, which apparently he does.
He’s speaking up because there’s a new book about him, written by a lawyer, which is also a bit odd. I’ll be curious to see what the commentariat will have to say about it.
Great portrait with the umbrella, though.
walkerp
He needs to go back to the dustbin of history where he has been since he quit.
Now if he would come out with some real truth on the corruption he supported (and quite probably participated in though more for political power than money), maybe we would actually listen to him.
-
Kate
Tony Accurso was to go on trial for tax fraud, but the judge has suspended proceedings. With a little more delay, the whole thing may be dropped under the Jordan ruling.
Bill Binns
Such nostalgia. As I remember, Tony Accurso and the water meter scandal were the talk of the town when I arrived here 18 years ago. Who would have bet back then that in 2021 he still wouldn’t have spent a night in jail?
Kate
I’ll always have a soft spot for him, because my mother was at his parents’ wedding. But I’ve told that story before.
Clément
And what timing too, just as Gérald Tremblay is attempting to improve his image and expunge some inconvenient history
JP
What’s the story, Kate? Or, where can we find it?
Kate
It goes way back.
When my mom was a kid, her best friend was from an Italian family, and when she was 12 she was invited to the wedding of the friend’s older sister to Vincenzo Accurso, later known as James Accurso – Tony’s father.
My grandfather was a strict teetotaler, which was probably unusual for an Irish Catholic in the Point, but his father had been a drinker and his older brother was a homeless street person from the drink, so he was motivated to swear off the stuff. There wasn’t a drop in that household, ever, even at Christmas, so my mother had never had so much as a whiff of anyone’s drink.
So Mom goes to the wedding, and as is not unusual for an Italian party, the young people were offered a little wine, maybe mixed with juice or 7-Up or something. My mother had no idea, but she liked it. A lot.
At some point she left the party and reeled home. Luckily for her, her father was out. Her mother, recognizing the symptoms, put her to bed, and told her never to mention any details about the party to her father.
I’ve found the marriage record in Drouin: Vincenzo Accurso marries Arcangela Strano, August 12, 1933, Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel.
dwgs
Great story Kate.
Kate
Much later, adding this background on the Accurso family from the ever cromulent Linda Gyulai.
-
Kate
A man posing as a “vaccine inspector” showed up at a Jean Coutu with plausible-looking credentials, but didn’t get away with any vaccine.
mare 17:10 on 2021-04-16 Permalink
Finally a use for the land reserved for building the infrastructure for the Quebec-Canada international border-crossing. Like here in Point-Fortune, where the median suddenly becomes really wide:
https://goo.gl/maps/8p6hXRmnm2N3qhdy9
dmdiem 22:44 on 2021-04-16 Permalink
If only we lived on some sort of landmass where movement could be restricted.
mare 00:23 on 2021-04-17 Permalink
We’ll be fine, we don’t have 36,000 passengers per day landing in PE Trudeau.
(We may not be fine; I really have no idea with our slow vaccinations.)
(No idea how many daily passengers we have, I noticed quite some airplanes in the landing path.
Very crude estimate: Tomorrow 40 incoming flights, 13 international. So even if they all are completely full and averaging 250 passengers (many flights are much less than that, from small Quebec airports) that’s still only 10,000 passengers.)
DeWolf 11:19 on 2021-04-17 Permalink
I’ve been surprised by just how many cars with Ontario plates there still are on the weekends, particularly in tourist hotspots like around the bagel shops or in Old Montreal.
At least with the border closed we’ll be less likely to get run over by a car turning right on red…
(I’m only half joking.)
GC 12:15 on 2021-04-17 Permalink
Those aren’t all tourists, remember. Even though you’re supposed to change your plates after three months or whatever, plenty of people move here and keep driving around with out-of-province plates for a year.
Kb 18:07 on 2021-04-17 Permalink
We rent cars often enough, and the majority of the time, they have Ontario plates. That may be one reason you see so many Ontario plates?
GC 18:59 on 2021-04-17 Permalink
Oh, I had forgotten about that, too. Good point.