Seventh wave spoiled office return
The rise of the seventh wave of Covid spoiled the mass return to the office – what a pity, I don’t think.
Update: The Santé Québec numbers were late on Wednesday but now 25 more deaths are on the board over the last day. The total for Montreal has not been updated in some time.
Blork 10:47 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
And of course the main reason we have a seventh wave is because people are idiots. As I’ve mentioned before, many people can’t seem to differentiate between “it is no longer required by law to wear a mask” and “there is no reason to wear a mask.”
There’s also the “freedom” contingent. (I hate that we live in a time when “freedom” is so strongly linked to irresponsibility and ignorance.)
And finally there’s the third lot: apparently many people don’t wear masks even though they wish the government would bring back the mask mandates. They say they feel “self conscious” wearing a mask when it isn’t legally required, to which I say “FFS where’s your sense of personal agency?”
So that’s three cohorts of non-maskers against the tiny holdouts of people like me who still wear a mask on the Metro and in non-ventilated public places.
Waves waves waves, never ending.
Daniel D 10:52 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
When I went through Montreal airport recently, they were insisting people wear masks when going through security. I saw multiple passengers complain at the security agents, even though they were providing free masks. The standard response from the agents seemed to be along the lines of “Blame the federal government” clearly implying they weren’t any happier about it than the passengers.
Take from this story what you will.
H. John 12:07 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
From Rima Elkouri’s column yesterday in La Presse:
Qu’en a pensé la Santé publique ? Pas grand-chose.
« Il semble y avoir une mauvaise compréhension qui suggérerait que la Santé publique ne recommande plus le port du masque. C’est faux », m’a répondu par courriel une porte-parole du ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux.
« La Santé publique n’a jamais cessé de recommander le port du masque, plus particulièrement lorsque la distance avec les autres ne peut être observée et pour les personnes vulnérables. […] Nous croyons que les gens sensibilisés et informés sont en mesure de faire les bons choix pour leur santé et celle des autres. »
Je le crois aussi. Mais c’est bien là le problème, souligne la Dre Amélie Boisclair, intensiviste à l’hôpital Pierre-Le Gardeur, qui a applaudi la proposition du Dr Vadeboncœur. « Le message de la Santé publique ne passe pas. »
MarcG 12:34 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
To give an idea of the simplicity of some people’s thinking, I spoke to my neighbour yesterday and she asked why my hobby rock band no longer plays music together in the garage. I told her because of Covid and her response was “Isn’t it better now? I’m back at the office and nobody is wearing masks”.
MarcG 12:40 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
Totally normal
SMD 13:06 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
No one could have foreseen this.
Blork 15:25 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
Regarding the Rima Elkouri article:
“Nous croyons que les gens sensibilisés et informés sont en mesure de faire les bons choix…”
That’s the problem right there. “Les gens sensibilisés et informés.” Educated and informed people. That creates a matrix of four cohorts:
Educated/Informed | Educated/Uninformed
Uneducated/Informed | Uneducated/Uninformed
Half of those cohorts are uninformed. Of course we have no idea how large each cohort is, so this isn’t a useful exercise. I would even remove “educated” since I’m not sure it has the same meaning in English as in the original French, and anyone who lacks the interest or the intellectual ability to understand what they are being informed of are essentially uninformed.
So really, we have three cohorts:
The informed.
The uninformed.
The misinformed.
That third one is tricky, because it’s really a subset of the uninformed, but since the misinformed THINK they are informed, they deserve their own cohort.
So now the question is “what is the distribution of the population across these three cohorts?”
I would say by far the largest is the MISINFORMED. They’re misinformed because they’re getting their info from idiot relatives, cab drivers, social media, and shitty mainstream media (which is not just the extreme right-wing media; most mainstream media does a really poor job of getting out accurate messaging about mask wearing).
They’re also misinformed because many of them lack the intellectual rigour and clear-mindedness to think the issue through. This can be out of laziness, or lack of education in analytical methods and critical thinking, or because of deep set biases, or because they are just plain stupid.
The next largest cohort is the uninformed. To us folks who read and listen to the news and whatnot, it is shocking when we discovered the percentage of the population who never read, and never pay attention to any credible news source. Hint: it is not a small percentage.
And that brings us to the smallest cohort: the informed. And given the lack of clear messaging from the sources we turn to, it is no surprise that this is a small cohort given how difficult it is to get straight and consistent information.
So if the government says, as Elkouri reports, that “Nous croyons que les gens sensibilisés et informés sont en mesure de faire les bons choix pour leur santé et celle des autres.” Then the government should also admit that their policies and practices are geared towards a small minority. And maybe they should reconsider that.
qatzelok 22:19 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
@Blork: “And that brings us to the smallest cohort: the informed.”
To claim to know that the informed are but a small cohort, one must know all of the information yourself. Every last bit of it. Only then can one be in a position to know **who knows what.**
Without perfect knowledge, one can’t really make the claim that you did in the above quote.
(logic)
Michael 09:11 on 2022-07-28 Permalink
Blork
Most people are informed. 85% vaccinated. People just don’t care anymore.
7th wave, 8th wave, they move on with their lives as if it doesn’t exist. I don’t blame them.
Joey 09:47 on 2022-07-28 Permalink
The current dominant variants are estimated to be, what, twice as transmissible as the previous Omicron variants? Which were exponentially more transmissible than the original variant, and are right up there with Measles as the most transmissible viruses ever. But please go on again about how all the people catching COVID this summer are sTuPiDeR than you.
Kate 10:02 on 2022-07-28 Permalink
I do blame them because we still have to consider those at more risk than ourselves.
Blork 12:15 on 2022-07-28 Permalink
Joey, there’s a certain level of stupid when you collectively agree to remove your masks and remove other defenses AS THE VIRUS EVOLVES TO BECOME MORE CONTAGIOUS. Look at all those people on the Metro not wearing a mask. Hey, it’s more contagious than it was a year ago, so what should we do? TAKE OFF OUR MASKS! How is that not stupid?
Tim S. 13:15 on 2022-07-28 Permalink
I see it as more of a collective action problem than of individual intelligence or informed-ness. If I walk into a store and I’m the only one wearing a mask, nothing much is being accomplished except I’m slightly inconvenienced. My personal level of protection, outside of a N95 (which seem to be more expensive now than they were a few months ago), is pretty minimal as far as I understand it. For them to be effective, we need most people on board, which is why we have governments, who should be held responsible for this current mess.
Also, the people shouting/typing about their right to infect others. I blame them too. Not ordinary people trying to go with the flow.
Blork 18:08 on 2022-07-28 Permalink
Tim S. consider yourself misinformed. Mask wearing still works, even if you’re the only one wearing a mask.
One source: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/01/does-it-help-wear-mask-if-no-one-else/621177/
Another: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/there-still-benefit-masking-when-youre-only-one
There are plenty of others.
Blork 18:12 on 2022-07-28 Permalink
And I wish everyone would read this article from September 2021. It’s about how to deal with peer pressure to remove your mask when you really don’t want to:
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/still-wearing-a-mask/