As people wait to hear what Papa Legault has in store for us, more news stories: three more hospitals here are dealing with outbreaks, a Laval restaurant at the heart of a big outbreak following a Christmas party has been closed by public health, and a Canadiens match Thursday evening at the Bell Centre will be played without spectators.
Update: Here are some items laying out Quebec’s response to the new Covid surge.
Police shot a suspect alleged to have stabbed his two roommates with an exacto knife, Thursday afternoon in Lachine. According to this account, he charged police and they shot him five or six times. His death has not been announced yet but he was in “arrêt cardiorespiratoire” in the ambulance.
Update: The suspect has died. And apparently he was white.
I’m ready to be dogpiled for this, but are you telling me that a couple of cops couldn’t get an exacto knife off a guy without killing him?
Update: another man, in a different part of town, had a “medical event” while being arrested, and was sent to hospital. Both incidents are under investigation by the BEI.
I think they talked about this on TV, it looked like there’s footage. We’ll probably hear more about this
I know they are being cautious but given the choice between an exacto knife and a police baton in a fight I know what I’d pick – and it’s not the exacto knife.
the cops must have been scared for their lives.
>are you telling me that a couple of cops couldn’t get an exacto knife off a guy without killing him?
Don’t you think that depends entirely on the details? It’s easy to say retroactively, but, like Mike Tyson says “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face”.
Quebec cops not actually trained in subduing people without just shooting them. Astounding culture of incompetence that we accept as normal.
>Quebec cops not actually trained in subduing people without just shooting them.
I find that hard to believe. Citation please?
The city has bought another piece of land to add to its Grand parc de l’Ouest.
I’m so glad this project is continuing, and didn’t get killed off in an electoral victory by the other guy.
So far as I can see, this park should be easily accessible using the REM when it opens, making it a viable day-trip for Montrealers.
21740 square meters sounds like a lot but it is only 150m x 150m. The story does not say exactly where the land is located.
Apparently it is located at 245 ch. de Senneville.
https://journalmetro.com/actualites/montreal/2745653/le-grand-parc-de-louest-sagrandit/
If there’s a direct bus from the new REM that’s about a half hour ride. I hope it runs more often than the existing Cap St Jacques buses.
I certainly wouldn’t be going there with children on a day trip, but it’s always nice to see another green space preserved for public use.
Thanks, James. I was wondering about that myself.
I couldn’t find 245 in Streetview, but it appears to be this wooded lot. Measured as a rectangle the area roughly matches the size given in the article. Hard to tell whether it’s contiguous with the rest of the rest of the Grand Parc land without a more detailed map.
I’m not 100% sure but I believe the property once included this semi-notorious West Island party spot. It was demolished a few years back for reasons unknown. I imagine the property owner’s insurance company deemed it a liability.
If there’s a direct bus from the new REM that’s about a half hour ride.
Oh no! I assumed the station would be closer. More fool me for thinking they’d plan the REM with that kind of thing in mind. Still, a short bus ride from a station would be do-able for sure.
I suppose part of the point of a park like the Grand parc de l’Ouest is that it’s more like the country, it’s an attempt either to preserve or bring back parts of the West Island to their more natural state, and as such it will always be a balance between keeping it as it is while making it more sccessible to visitors.
I wrote an article about the Grand parc de l’Ouest that has some detail about what’s planned (although the focus of the story is more on how the park came to be in the first place):
There will be active farms, conservation areas, recreation areas. It’s absolutely enormous and very diverse so the challenge will be manage everything as a cohesive whole.
The new REM station is right next to the park’s boundary, but it’s such a big space that most of it will be quite far away from the train.
Just to put the size in perspective: the Grand parc is 30 square kilometres in size, which is larger than the boroughs of Rosemont-Petite Patrie, Outremont and the Plateau combined.
That’s a interesting overview DeWolf, thanks for linking to it (and writing it).
The “faint hope clause” didn’t work for Sébastien Simon, who stabbed a young service station worker to death in 2006. Since being locked up, he has married a woman who was working as a correctional officer. He remains behind bars.
The tower meant to be built over the Bay store downtown has been scaled down after the OCPM said the original idea was too huge and dominant.
Je ne pensais pas qu’il y avait quelque chose de mal dans la proposition originale, sauf qu’il y avait trop de mur-rideau en verre, et pas assez de grès rouge dans la façade de l’annexe. Mais je suis content que l’OPCM a donne l’aval a ce projet. Dix-huit mètres c’est pas grand chose à perdre et compte tenu du marché immobilier commercial actuel, il serait probablement meilleur pour la rentabilité de cette façon. Cela démontre la bonne foi entre HBC et l’OPCM, et que les deux entités étaient conscientes de l’importance de ce projet pour la ville. Sans ce projet, il est probable qu’après des décennies de négligence, HBC fermerait le magasin. Nous ne voulons pas qu’il y ait à Montréal la même situation qu’à Winnipeg, où la Baie a fermé son magasin et où un magnifique édifice patrimonial est en train de pourrir.
The Salon de l’auto has been cancelled as Covid strikes again.
Quebec education minister Jean-François Roberge has tested positive and has gone into isolation.
François Legault is doing a presser at 6 pm. La Presse is predicting longer Christmas holidays for school kids and a return to limited occupation numbers inside businesses.
Patrick Lagacé says we’re all waiting for Legault.
Recent public health advice to limit our social contacts again means a wave of cancellations is hitting restaurants right in the Christmas party season.
The mayor is encouraging local shopping but with these health warnings I suspect many will choose do to their Christmas shopping from home.
The tourism industry as well… 🙁
My office was supposed to have a holiday lunch today. They cancelled it yesterday but arranged with the restaurant to donate the meals to the Old Brewery Mission.
Nice gesture, Blork.
jeather 22:27 on 2021-12-16 Permalink
That was a load of self-congratulatory crap. Could not, even once, have said they made a mistake.
steph 10:35 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
Can someone explain the Omnicron fearmongering? 95 new Omnicron cases… of 3700. Why is the new focus on Omnicron?
Blork 10:58 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
Because Omicron is something like seven times more contagious than Delta. Stories about of one person infecting 80% of people at a single gathering, even though everyone was double vaxxed. The fact that three weeks ago we had never heard of it and now it’s the majority of new cases in Ontario, UK, etc.
Supposedly it’s less sever than Delta. But what if the next variant is a mutation of Omicron, and has Omicron’s insane level of transmissability AND is more lethal? That’s something to worry about.
Kevin 11:04 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
steph
Omicron was announced 24 days ago. It wasn’t found in Quebec last week. It’s since jumped to 95 cases in Montreal Wednesday, undoubtedly many more today.
That’s a really fast spread.
Now we take into account what we’ve learned about Covid, and that for most variants there’s a 6-8 week lag between the initial spread and landing in hospital.
(This is where the “Omicron is mild” thought process comes from — there just hasn’t been enough time for Omicron-infected people to be hospitalized, so some people think it’s less severe. That’s making a determination without evidence. Wait two months and see.)
So this variant which spreads much faster, doubling every 2-3 days, is coming as Delta is pushing new cases of Covid in Quebec far beyond the peak we had around New Year’s.
Chris 11:20 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
>so some people think it’s less severe. That’s making a determination without evidence
No, it’s making a determination with the evidence at hand. The best evidence from southern Africa is that it *is* less severe. New information in the future may change that, of course.
Blork 12:29 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
The takeaway from Omicron is a clear demonstration of just how crazily infectious airborne viruses can be. We’re lucky that this one seems to cause less severe illness. But what if the next variant mutates from Omicron and is just as contagious but the illness it causes is MORE severe?
That’s way we need to pay attention and to slow this thing as much as we can.
jeather 12:50 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
There is zero chance that we’re only at 95 cases of omicron. Our sequencing is not as fast as our case counts.
The best indication is that omicron is not more severe, but because it has hit a lot of people who have had covid before, or are partially or fully vaccinated, it’s hard to be sure if it’s less severe — and of course deaths lag quite a long time, and long-term post-viral consequences take even longer to see.
Kevin 13:05 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
Chris
Thank you for illustrating how the absence of evidence should not be regarded as evidence of absence.
H. John 18:24 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
Steph
I wouldn’t use the term “fearmongering”. I would probably opt for justifiable heightened concern.
Omicron is far more contagious.
The Ontario covid table explained the reproductive rate (R value) for Delta was 1.09, and for Omicron 4.01.
CBC reported: “Ontario is reporting 3,124 new COVID-19 cases. That figure has tripled in 10 days and doubled in 4. The 7-day average has risen by just under 800 in the past week, from 1,115 to 1,914.”
We know for sure it spreads more easily; we still don’t know if it less or more severe. It will be another week before we have the data from Denmark and the UK to answer that with certainty.
The UK Financial Times reported earlier today:
“There is at present “no evidence” that the Omicron coronavirus variant is any less severe than the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London, which also highlighted the elevated risk of reinfection posed by Omicron and the need for booster shots to combat it.”
“The study finds no evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta, judged by either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection,” said the research team, led by Professor Neil Ferguson, an infectious disease modeller and UK government science adviser. However, hospitalisation data “remains very limited at this time”, researchers cautioned.”
Science Magazine reporter Kai Kupferschmidt (@Kakape), based in Berlin tweeted:
“WHAT WE DON’T KNOW (YET):
Whether #omicron causes less severe disease in the unprotected.
And if it does, by how much.
WHAT WE DO KNOW:
#Omicron spreads fast, it causes severe disease in some and it kills some.
So cases will rise.
Hospitalisations will rise.
Deaths will rise.”
A later tweet from him was a bit more depressing:
“But the truth is:
Whatever we do now in terms of vaccinating the unvaccinated, it won’t do anything for this rapidly building wave.
We are stuck with our collective (political, societal) failures and we will have to deal with it.
So expect significant restrictions again.”
H. John 18:36 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
Here’s a good overview of the current science from the Science Table Covid-19 Advisory for Ontario:
https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Update-on-COVID-19-Projections_English_2021.12.16.pdf
Kate 19:39 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
H. John, those graphs are disturbing. But thanks for showing us that document.
Quebec’s got to get its ass in gear and start offering 3rd doses to everyone.
Chris 19:55 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
Kevin, what “absence of evidence”?! There exists good evidence that omicron is less severe. Organizations like the CDC say that evidence up to now points that way. What are you arguing? That there exists no such evidence? That you are just not personally convinced by it? Or are you just arguing that the evidence so far is preliminary and that new evidence could change things? If the latter, then I agree.
H. John 20:06 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
Chris
Could you tell me why you disagree with today’s study from Imperial College London which states “There is at present “no evidence” that the Omicron coronavirus variant is any less severe than the Delta strain…” as posted above.
And could you point me to the CDC info you’re relying on? Because when I look at the CDC web site it says:
“More data are needed to know if Omicron infections, and especially reinfections and breakthrough infections in people who are fully vaccinated, cause more severe illness or death than infection with other variants.”
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/omicron-variant.html
Kevin 22:35 on 2021-12-17 Permalink
Chris
The timeline from initial infection wave to death is often about 6 to 8 weeks. Omicron has been around half that time.
Omicron was discovered in a population that is healthier, younger, then ours.
The WHO conference on Wednesday had reseacher after researcher saying that Onicron is not less severe, and that anyone thinking it is mild is overextending tendencies from very few data points (which many scientists initially do with research, but that is why time and peer review is a key part of scientific study).
Chris 13:20 on 2021-12-18 Permalink
H. John, sure, here for example.
I’ve tried asking Kevin directly what’s he’s arguing, but he didn’t answer directly. I have a feeling we are talking past each other. If you go back and look at my first comment on this thread, my beef was with Kevin’s statement “That’s making a determination without evidence”. All I’m trying to say is that there is evidence. Sure, it’s preliminary. Sure, there are demographic differences. Sure, there is counter-evidence too. Sure, there is more to learn. You both seem to think I’m making some other argument. I’m saying there exists evidence that omicron is less severe. I’m not saying the evidence is strong enough for any resounding conclusions. Kevin (seemed to me) to be saying there was no evidence at all.