Another demonstration against sanitary measures trailed through our streets Saturday. I especially like the “Effets secondaires graves ou mortels” sign given that 90% of Quebec adults have had the vaccine, and we’re not collapsing en masse in the streets. The only people having deadly side effects are the ones catching Covid and ending up in the ICU.
Updates from September, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Valérie Plante is promising $110 million in new money for public security if she is re‑elected.
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Kate
La Presse has one piece with interviews with all four mayoral candidates, excellent profiles of Plante and Coderre plus looks at Balarama Holness and Marc-Antoine Desjardins, two men with very little chance at the job, but whose ideas may feed into the future of the city.
These latter two are both nettled at being excluded from debates.
Radio-Canada also has a preview of the new Daniel Sanger book, Sauver la ville (aka Saving the City), discussed here yesterday, which it depicts as largely a character assassination of Plante.
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Kate
Sidney Altman, whose work on RNA won him a Nobel Prize in 1989 and, 40 years later, was fundamental to the research that led to the creation of vaccines against Covid, is now teaching at the Université de Montréal. Altman was born in Montreal in 1939. TVA says it’s the first time a Nobel laureate has been recruited to teach in a Quebec university.
I had to look it up. Ernest Rutherford taught at McGill from 1898 to 1907, or thereabouts. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908 for atomic research he did at McGill, but only after he’d left to take up a new post in England.
Update: La Presse interviewed Altman for a piece published Monday. He’ll be coming to town to lecture a few weeks out of the year. He also contradicts the TVA assertion that his work on RNA eventually led to the creation of vaccines against Covid.
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Kate
Shots were heard early Saturday in Côte St‑Paul – within hours, as Radio‑Canada says, of the creation of the new police squad Centaure, meant to fight firearm trafficking. No victim was found, but around the same time a man turned up at a hospital with bullet wounds, from which he has died.
Radio-Canada’s account says it’s not known whether these two incidents are linked. The way TVA tells it, only a few minutes separated the sound of gunshots and the arrival of the victim at the unnamed hospital.
Update: CBC has a bit more about how the shooting victim got to hospital and that there were indications shots had been fired inside the car.
MarcG 21:05 on 2021-09-25 Permalink
I remember during the 2012 protests there was a dude who would show up early to the marches in my neighbourhood and direct the marches along the routes set up by the police. After a while some of the regulars started to wonder who this guy was and why he was the one choosing where we were going – it turned out that he was working with the police. Someone should do the same thing with these marches except in this case lead them to a vaccination clinic. It’s not the tactics that are good or bad, but the outcomes.
ant6n 07:28 on 2021-09-26 Permalink
You want a protest March against vaccination going to a vaccination clinic?
Ephraim 07:45 on 2021-09-26 Permalink
Maybe it’s time to introduce a co-pay for those who aren’t vaccinated. You know, maybe $100 a day. So it costs you too? And they certainly shouldn’t be getting the federal help for those with COVID. Once we have the closest thing to a cure, and you decide not to take it, maybe it’s time that you took responsibility as well.
Blork 08:30 on 2021-09-26 Permalink
…whereas I would prefer such a pied piper lead them somewhere like this:
https://goo.gl/maps/UJztbiJGfpWXZ77QA
…and not be held back by that fence.
dhomas 11:44 on 2021-09-26 Permalink
As much as I dislike the anti-vaxx gang, I don’t think co-pay for healthcare is the right path. The same logic could be applied to smokers, the obese, etc. It’s not a tenable solution, IMO.
Ephraim 13:41 on 2021-09-26 Permalink
@dhomas – We don’t have a vaccine for smokers, the obese, etc. This would only apply to those who are able to get vaccinated but refuse it. It’s a choice and a consequence. But one thing for sure, they should not be entitled to the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB) if you aren’t vaccinated.
dhomas 14:16 on 2021-09-26 Permalink
Smokers can stop smoking and people who lead unhealthy lifestyles can also choose to eat better and exercise more. Everything’s a choice.
About the CRSB, I hadn’t really given it any thought until now. There is a limit of 2 weeks for this aid. A vaccinated person who gets COVID will isolate for 2 weeks and then be fine. An unvaccinated person may be unable to work for longer than 2 weeks. So, they wouldn’t get any more financial assistance than a vaccinated person would, even though they would be out longer. Regardless of your vaccination status, you still need to stay home without getting paid. So I dunno, but it seems pretty equitable to me.
If I were in charge, I’d just keep making it more and more difficult for the unvaccinated to live “normally” or at least be inconvenienced. Already, they can’t go to the restaurant/gym/concerts. Add all in-store shopping (outdoor pickup only), libraries and museums, weddings, etc. Most importantly, add places of worship to the list and some of these holdouts will make a giant fuss but then eventually get vaccinated. Not to sound too biased, but the majority of folk I’ve met that are anti-vaxx are also super religious.
Chris 15:46 on 2021-09-26 Permalink
>Smokers can stop smoking and people who lead unhealthy lifestyles can also choose to eat better and exercise more. Everything’s a choice.
Exactly. The whole idea of a universal health care system as a human right is that you get treatment no matter what. Including idiots that refuse vaccines, idiots that smoke, idiots that eat crap, and idiots that don’t exercise. Who here isn’t guilty of one?
>Not to sound too biased, but the majority of folk I’ve met that are anti-vaxx are also super religious.
I wonder if there’s good research on that. Seems like there may be a root personality trait (or something) that makes people inclined towards fanciful tales.
Ephraim 18:05 on 2021-09-26 Permalink
Not denying them treatment at all. Everyone gets full treatment.But getting vaccinated is part of the healthcare system. Just like seeing your doctor. It’s a prevention system. And not just COVID, measles, mumps, rubella, HPV, Hepatitis, etc.
Here’s a question, anyone know what the actual costs to the medical system are for someone who has not vaccinated at all? Seen the stats? And I’m not talking about those who are unvaccinated from COVID. I’m talking about those who decide not to vaccinate at all? Those people who decide not to vaccinate, what do they cost the system? Are they double? Quadruple? Are they 100x more expensive to provide healthcare? Are they 1000x more expensive to provide healthcare?
dhomas 20:41 on 2021-09-26 Permalink
@Chris: to be clear, the majority of COVID anti-vaxxers I’ve met have been part of the ultra-religious. However, not all the very religious people I know are anti-vaxx. So I don’t think it’s only about being religious. Some of the religious people I know think that God has made a vaccine available, so they should take it (for now, I’ll just overlook the fact that they are not acknowledging the hard work done by the scientists who actually brought us the vaccine).
@Ephraim: I’d love to see those numbers, too. I’m sure it would be very interesting data.
Jack 23:58 on 2022-01-09 Permalink
Perhaps anti Vaxers since they don’t believe in science or doctors, if the become infected with covid refrain from going to hospitals instead they can see their witch doctor, drink bleach, perhaps visit their local vet for horse dewormer.