Mayor Plante is asking for clearer government guidance on how soon we can begin to ignore the pandemic, so that the city remains culturally competitive. And of course the Chamber of Commerce wants to see us all back at the office, too.
Updates from February, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Snow clearance began Sunday morning and is expected to wind up on Thursday.
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Kate
Montreal’s Uyghurs and their supporters held a protest Saturday calling for an Olympic boycott. Canada has declined to send a diplomatic detachment but did nothing to stop its athletes participating, which Le Devoir’s Godin skewers in one drawing. The Uyghurs know it’s too late to change that decision but are hoping people will boycott viewing the games.
Raymond Lutz
“The Uyghurs know”? Is this US allies founded ISIS all over again, but in China?
Inside the US-Backed World Uyghur Congress “[Consortium News] Ajit Singh reports on the right-wing regime change entity that poses as a grassroots human rights network while seeking to destabilize China.”
Nota: Consortium News is the agency of late Robert Parry, “a finalist for the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting[5] and received the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984 for his work with the Associated Press on Iran-Contra, where he broke the story that the Central Intelligence Agency had provided an assassination manual to the Nicaraguan Contras”
Uatu
The IOC is really to blame by making the Olympics so expensive and bloated that the only cities interested in hosting are in countries run by dictatorships and/or governments riddled with corruption.
Blork
Bit late for an Olympic boycott innit?
Kate
blork, they can still try to persuade people not to watch. It’s about all they can do.
DeWolf
Please, Raymond, spare us the MSS-funded ‘journalism’. Saying the Uyghurs are Islamic extremists who need to be protected from themselves is simple parroting China’s propaganda line. Ajit Singh works for a publication that doxxes human rights workers, which has led them to be detained, intimidated and in some cases physically harmed – which has affected people I know personally.
Kate
I had wondered about that, DeWolf, thank you. Usually I find Raymond’s contributions (especially on environmental issues) valuable, but this one…
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Kate
Cinemas, venues and places of worship will be reopening on Monday to 50% capacity. Children are being admitted to hospital at record rates, but what does that matter, if you can go to the movies?
jeather
I saw one movie in that brief pre-omicron period where things seemed better — and it was great — but I am not seeing another now, thanks. I would, as mentioned below, go to a museum if they had vaccine mandates, but they don’t; and anyways there are student groups there often.
Tim S.
I went to the Fine Arts on a weekday in November, with tickets by reservation only, and it was awesome – pretty empty, lots of time to look at whatever you wanted, no school groups. A very rare opportunity, really.
Tim S.
But I’m also OK waiting a few weeks for these things to reopen. Schools before bars and movies.
Chris
>Children are being admitted to hospital at record rates…
And their death rate literally rounds to 0.0%.
>Schools before bars and movies
That’s exactly what we did.
Tim S.
“Schools before bars and movies” is about priorities, not chronology, Chris.
And “my kid may not die, just get really sick” is not the compelling argument you think it is.
Thanks for reminding me of the dangers of mild optimism.Bryan
>>Children are being admitted to hospital at record rates…
>And their death rate literally rounds to 0.0%.These kinds of black and white statements are absurd. “You’re not dead? Then you’re fine. A child has to spend days or weeks in the hospital? To hell with them.”
I fully support health measures aimed at minimizing the time that children spend in hospitals.
ant6n
Based on personal observation, most parents with young kids would rather that daycares are open a much as possible. Being hunkered at home with a 2-year old is not good for either kids or parents.
dhomas
If I had to choose between my 3 year old being “hunkered at home” with me and being ill to the point of being hospitalized, I’ll choose the former, thankyouverymuch. My 3 year old is back at daycare today after a 2-week closure due to staff members catching COVID, and though I’m glad he’ll be socializing and playing again, I’m also very thankful he managed to avoid the virus.
Michael
Chris is right.
Vaccinated kids rarely end up in the hospital. And many of these hospitalizations are kids entering hospitals for unrelated treatments and test positive for covid.
The death rate for kids under 20 is 0%. Our response should mimic that fact.
Faiz Imam
I did some reading on infection rates at cinemas and live concert venues, and it seems like if it’s a situation where people are actually keeping their masks on, it’s actually quite safe.
Certainly compared to bars and restaurants, it’s not nearly as big a risk.
I think allowing lower risk activities to keep people happy is very important.
Joey
So the vaccination rate for kids aged 5-11 (who have been eligible for a first dose since early December) is at 64% and has plateaued (under 1,000 first doses administered per day for the last week). Let’s assume that (a) Pfizer gets approval for kids under five in the next few months and (b) vaccine hesitancy among parents of kids that age is equal to or greater than for slightly older kids. That means we’ll be well shy of the target 75% or whatever experts agree we need for herd immunity in classrooms and daycares. Which means we’ll continue to see “record rates” of children being admitted to hospitals, no? Not because there isn’t a safe, effective vaccine available to them, but because their parents have decided to forego it.
The case counts and hospitalizations will stay high enough to warrant public health restrictions but there’s no more forward momentum on the vaccination front. How do you make public policy in that context? Do you say, well, screw it, the unvaxxed have made their own beds and now they get to lay in them (ICU beds, in some cases)? What if that equilibrium overwhelms the hospital system? Do you make vaccination mandatory in schools and daycares, as well as workplaces, restaurants, shops, museums, movie theatres, etc? How much time, energy and lives are lost while the government dithers and hopes we don’t wind up in precisely this scenario?
Kevin
There is a lot of work that goes into separating dead from not dead in a children’s ICU.
For instance, when it comes to inserting an IV line, just finding a vein large enough for a needle can be a challenge.
But as long as you’re not inconvenienced, right?
Chris
>“Schools before bars and movies” is about priorities, not chronology, Chris.
Exactly. That’s why the chronology was in-line with the priorities.
>These kinds of black and white statements are absurd. “You’re not dead? Then you’re fine. A child has to spend days or weeks in the hospital? To hell with them.”
That is *not* the point. The point is that the sky is not falling. Sure, it’d be nice if no one ever got sick or died from anything, but that’s not how life on this planet works. Our measures need to be proportional to what’s going on. I assume we agree that our response should be different if 99% of kids were dying vs surviving, yes? Sadly, all kinds of things kill kids, but our responses are not as draconian for everything else.
If saving children’s lives is so important, our energies should be directed elsewhere.
Road traffic injuries are *the* leading cause of death for children in Canada. And your point about death being not the only measure applies here too, many are not killed, but “merely” maimed and hospitalized. Yet for some reason we don’t shut down society to save these children, nor do we ban cars. Why is that?>If I had to choose between my 3 year old being “hunkered at home” with me and being ill to the point of being hospitalized…
And you have that choice. No one has taken that choice away from you. Stay hunkered at home. But other peoples’ choices are being restricted by the government. Maybe you have a cushy “zoom job” but spare a thought for those made unemployed.
There are only bad choices here folks. It’s a question of which are less bad. Is it worth making many people unemployed, depressed, suicidal, etc. etc. vs 0.0% of children dying?
ant6n
Oh come on. My three year old just got the new Corona, it wasn’t even the worst sniffles he had this year, and it was done in less than a week. I had one of the earlier strains 1.5 years ago before vaccines and was sick for four weeks. A young kid getting Omicron today is very different from a grown up or older person catching one of the earlier strains unvaccinated. I don’t want to minimize the pandemic, but let’s not exaggerate the danger at this point to a mostly vaccinated population and to kids. Especially compared to being hunkered down and not being allowed to play with same-year-olds during endless lock downs.
Many of my friends got Omicron in the last month or two (many through daycares), because it is verrry infections. But for most it was actually relief, because the thing that most were worried about for so long turned out to be not so bad.
…I just hope after everyone caught Omicron, that Delta won’t come back.
dhomas
@ant6n that is some anecdotal evidence of I’ve ever seen it. Just because your 3-year old had a mild case, doesn’t mean all 3 year-olds will. Case in point, the hospitalization rate discussed in the article Kate linked.
It’s similar to those anti-vaxxers saying “most people only get mildly sick”, then later dying of COVID.Kevin
Covid ain’t chickenpox.
This is NOT a get it once and done disease.
ant6n
@dhomas
My anecdotes are merely a counterpoint to your anecdote. Because it appears some people struggle with numbers – in absolute numbers the current wave has something around 100x the infections, this thing is like everywhere, and of course kids will be affected more because they are vaccinated much less. Compared to that the hospitalizations seem low, in the hundreds for the whole province? And deaths are close to negligible. If the choice is between this and lockdowns – which ultimately only delay the hospitalizations, anyway, I think its not unreasonable to say that perhaps it’s better to forego more lockdowns for kids.Joey
There is a fundamental problem here – we have everything we need to achieve herd immunity, but we probably won’t get there (at least for a variant as contagious as Omicron) because not enough parents of young kids will get their children vaccinated and not enough adults will get their boosters, certainly not unless the vaccine passport is expanded dramatically and boosters are mandatory for being “adequately protected” (the fact that they still aren’t speaks volumes).
Assuming the dominant strain remains as virulent as Omicron, we’ll be stuck in this mess for Jeebus only knows how long. I guess the way forward is one of loosened restrictions that might have to tighten up on short notice if the hospital system verges on collapse again. But, otherwise, it feels like the consensus around taking drastic steps to containt the virus has basically evaporated. I’m not *advocating* for this, but I just don’t see any alternative.
Since we’re all trading in anecdotes, our family’s experience is exactly the same as ant6n’s – kiddo (double-vaxxed) tested positive with an extremely *extremely* **extremely** mild case of the sniffles, one parent tested negative and had a mild cold for a few days and the other parent tested negative and felt nothing. Attribute it to good luck and being up to date on vaccinations, but it seems like there are loads more stories like this one than the catastrophic tales of earlier in the pandemic.
Kevin
@ant6n
I know we’ve all become numb to the numbers, so:
Tuesday’s declaration from SanteQc: 56 dead and 2,380 in hospital, 178 in ICU.
1,827 people have died in Quebec since the year began.
It appears we hit peak deaths around Jan 28, and this peak – in terms of daily death counts- was the worst since the first wave of deaths in April/May 2020.
If the mild lockdown had been imposed two weeks before Christmas, instead of Legault saying people should have up to 20 in their homes, we probably wouldn’t have had a wave at all.
Tim S.
Slightly different question: does anyone know of a particularly kid-friendly vaccination centre? My youngest’s second dose is coming up, and the first was a bit of a disaster…
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Kate
The Centre des mémoires describes two figures of the belle époque in Montreal of whom I’d never heard: violinist Frantz Jéhin‑Prume and his wife, actress and mezzo‑soprano Rosita Del Vecchio. Wikipedia has a page on Jéhin‑Prume.
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Kate
Richard Bergeron has a brief opinion piece in La Presse about why French is in decline in Montreal, and it’s one thing: so many Quebec francophones are deserting the city for the regions.
Kevin
I want to see a Leger(or other) survey asking francophones if they want to live in Montreal, if Montreal is a French city, and if they want Montreal to be a French city.
j2
We all know the results: Hell no, no, absolutely. Unironically of course.
JP 19:56 on 2022-02-06 Permalink
I get what you mean, Kate. I think the issue with “we need to learn to live with it” is that it can be interpreted in varying ways. I agree with it insofar as, for example, I think whoever can work from home should continue to do so until at least spring, when conditions propitious to virus-spreading shift. Others, including my boss, see it as “I’m bringing you back into the office next week.” People who think learning to live with it means going back to exactly how things were before covid are kidding themselves….that’s not learning to live with it…that’s something along the lines of “denial”, “head in the sand”, unrealistically optimistic.
That tweet cited in the article is offensive..sure wfh might not be great for some people’s mental health or even the economy…but it’s disingenuous to say it would help productivity. Please don’t insult people who have been working from home to keep things going and possibly putting in more hours than they otherwise would.
I really like what one of your commenters said not too long ago…something alone the lines of accepting that there will be bad months followed by good months, etc.
Am I expecting that things will get better? Yes, spring and summer will be good or great. Caution will be warranted in the fall…next winter…personally, I’m preparing for the same exact scenario as this year.
qatzelok 20:25 on 2022-02-06 Permalink
I remember – age 15 – staying home from school for two days because I had a zit on my nose. Finally, my mother told me I had to learn to “live with the zit.”
That zit is long gone. But those were a few very difficult days.
CE 09:01 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
Cool story.
dmdiem 12:16 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
Omicron changed the calculus. There’s a reason why countries around the world are dropping all restrictions. Compare areas that had high restrictions and those that had none. They’re all having the exact same omicron spike. Nothing is even slowing it down. Nothing.
But ok. Lets keep flashing passports proving that we’ve all been vaccinated against a variant that no longer even exists anymore.
Daniel 12:45 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
No longer exists? I missed that bulletin.
Kevin 14:39 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
Please show us the comparison @dmdiem, including which restrictions those regions had in place, and how they ended up performing compared to projections.
dmdiem 15:27 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
I’m not currently accepting homework assignments. Sorry. But if you’re genuinely curious, this has pretty much all the info you need:
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
nau 16:50 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
So your argument is simply that because there are spikes everywhere, no restrictions are warranted? That’s not very convincing. Unsurprising that you don’t want to bother providing anything resembling specific evidence for that. I looked at that website and compared Canada and the US on the Government Stringency Index and Cases per million people. Canada is 20 points more stringent than the US, and Canada’s Omicron spike peaks at half as many cases per million people as the States does.This suggests that restrictions do slow it down. Since you haven’t done even that much work to support your assertions, there’s currently no reason for anyone to pay any further attention to them.
dmdiem 17:00 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
We had a lower spike because we ran out of tests. It was literally all over the news.
https://globalnews.ca/news/8466314/covid-pcr-test-shortage-canada/
MarcG 17:05 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
Covid deaths per million is almost double in the US for the current wave.
nau 17:58 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
All that tells us is that Canada’s cases are likely undercounted. It in no way proves that Canada’s and the US’s spikes were the same and restrictions had no effect. You’re making a very strong claim and providing no substantial evidence, just gesturing at a website that only allows imperfect comparisons. It’s not convincing.
Mark 18:44 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
Official case counts are completely inaccurate nowadays, and I don’t think any government has the intention of restoring them. They are moot now.
Hospitalizations are better but even then there are the differences in because of covid versus with covid (and yes I know they both strain resources in that covid cases have to be quarantined regardless, but that’s not really relevant if we’re trying to get a sense of how seriously the pandemic is affect people’s health right now). A better measure would be “excess hospitalizations” (hospitalizations above pre-pandemic levels for a given week/month) but I don’t know that we have that data, sadly.
MarcG 20:14 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
The website dmdiem linked to has Excess Mortality stats and shows that the US has been much higher than Canada (35% vs 9% in the September wave) fairly consistently.
iesse 20:45 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
nau, do you have a paper bag handy to hyperventilate into?
nau 22:01 on 2022-02-07 Permalink
Sure, I’ve got some in the cupboard under the sink I can lend you if my comments are getting to you, Qatzelok (or whoever else it might be that’s using Q’s website but not Q’s forum name).