The Quebec college of physicians is back to recommending the wearing of masks in public places.
The Journal has an infographic showing the Covid variants and their prevalence in Quebec.
Updates from November, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The STM has been handing out free tickets at Radisson metro to encourage drivers to give up their cars (on account of the partial tunnel closure) and is now going to extend the offer to mid‑December.
If they’re doing this, shouldn’t it continue till the REM goes live?
steph
Why do the “free busses” go to Radisson (through the tunnel)? Why didn’t they just send some to Longeueil metro?
Spi
Presumably because they’ve done the data gathering and concluded that having the bus go to Radisson gets most people closer to their final destination or is a better commute than routing them through Longueuil.
Blork
Yeah, getting from Boucherville to the Longueuil Metro can be a slog during rush hour, plus the yellow line is already pretty jammed. Radisson is closer, and if there’s a dedicated bus lane then it should be considerably faster.
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Kate
A car going at speed plunged into the Lachine Canal on Sunday afternoon. So far, divers have not found any bodies.
Update: The body of a 76‑year‑old woman was found later.
denpanosekai
That’s freaky I was at that intersection earlier today. It’s a little strange how the guard rail doesn’t full extend on the “east” side.
Spi
Isn’t this the second or third time in recent years that an elderly driver has landed themselves in the canal while driving at night?
Blork
Spi, this one happened at 3:00PM.
MarcG
CBC radio said this morning that it was an elderly woman and the car went through that guardrail.
bumper carz
Wasn’t the eye exam requirement for senior drivers recently rescinded?
Cyclists have to be more vigilant then ever!
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Kate
The Alouettes lost to the Toronto Argonauts on Sunday and are no longer in contention for the Grey Cup.
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Kate
I was interested to see this anti‑COP15 poster in my neighbourhood on Saturday. The website of the organization lists arguments against the meeting, notably that private enterprise is given a voice and is permitted to capitalize on genetic diversity, and that poorer countries with wide biological diversity are asked to “share their resources” with richer ones. It’s not referenced or footnoted.
In line with the current COP27 in Egypt, I’ve been expecting to see claims that this meeting as well is mostly greenwashing.
The ownership of the domain is in Quebec but everything else in the registry is redacted for privacy. It may be hosted by Koumbit.
Here’s a brief piece in Metro on the Coalition anticapitaliste et écologiste contre la COP15.
Blork
The half-baked and over-roasted protests of semi-educated so-called progressives is merging with the over-baked and half-roasted complaints of conspiracy-theory misinformed so-called populists into a singularity of deep-fried ass talk.
Blork
There. Someone had to say it.
walkerp
At least they are doing something. A lot better than smug complacency on a message board.
su
” For decades, governments and capitalists have been
aware of ecological issues and have done nothing that has had a significant
impact. The mere fact that the COP on climate change is now in its 26th
year – and getting worse – shows us what we can expect if we give a free
hand to those who are leading us down the road”Sounds like a realistic assessment of the debacle. Not sure socialists have been any more successful though.
SMD
Just read the manifesto and it makes a lot of sense to me. Didn’t see any references to socialism, though, the collective says it is “anticapitaliste, anticoloniale et anti-impérialiste.”
su
Yes, I know. They seem to imply that only capitalism destroys the biosphere . Socialist states are also industrial extractivist.
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Kate
The city’s in a race to clear streets of leaves before freezing temperatures and blocked sewers create those icy lakes we all know and love.
Spi
It’s somewhat perplexing that the city has an objective of planting hundreds of thousands of new trees when it already does such a poor job dealing with the ones we already have, whether it be picking up dead leaves or pruning dead branches (sometimes fairly large ones). In central neighbourhoods you’re practically guaranteed to see one tree with obviously dead branches looming over the head of pedestrians on each bloc, just waiting for a big enough storm to come crashing down.
Kate
Maybe they need to design better sewer grilles?
I reported last year seeing a large branch come down right in front of me, from a big tree in my neighbourhood. Every windstorm brings down a branch or two on my block.
Spi 11:02 on 2022-11-14 Permalink
If the concern is RSV amongst children and paediatric emergency numbers, wouldn’t a more logical/ effective measure and public recommendation be to mask children, their parents and kindergartens and schools?
The point being don’t ask everyone to do their part before asking those directly affected and at risk to do theirs first.
Kate 12:29 on 2022-11-14 Permalink
You’d think so, but I read somewhere recently how difficult it is to make little kids keep their masks on, and how impossible to make them keep a safe distance from each other. You have to ask adults to do their part because little kids pretty much can’t.
MarcG 13:51 on 2022-11-14 Permalink
I picked up either Covid or Influenza at the hospital last week where masks are still required. Hour-long doctor’s appointment at the General (old building), in a small stale room, me wearing an N95, doctor and pretty much everyone else wearing near-useless surgical masks. We need a lot more than “please wear a mask” to manage this.
walkerp 14:33 on 2022-11-14 Permalink
Does seem like we should be masking everybody in school. And in my experience, children are way better at masking than adults, both in actually doing it when they are supposed to and doing it correctly.
Tim 21:03 on 2022-11-14 Permalink
@spi: you realize that those suffering most from RSV are around 3 years old? The theories that I have read say that they have not encountered enough bugs during their lifetime to help build up their immune system.
How would masking school kids help out kids in daycares? Seems like a pointless, knee jerk reaction to me.
Spi 21:11 on 2022-11-14 Permalink
Most kids have siblings, said siblings are in contact with at a minimum in 25-30 other kids in just their classrooms. Children bring home illnesses from school all the time.
How does asking me to mask in public when I’m literally not in contact with any children help?
Tim 22:32 on 2022-11-14 Permalink
I don’t understand where your question is coming from @Spi. Nowhere in my original post did I ever suggest that you masking is going to help children with RSV.
Children do bring home illnesses from school all the time. I believe this will continue to happen even if they are masked.
I am over putting the blame on kids for covid. Articles such as https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/im-a-public-school-teacher-the-kids?utm_source=url or Robyn Urback’s latest (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-since-the-start-of-the-pandemic-canada-has-not-stopped-short-changing/) show how much kids have suffered due to covid policies that have prioritized the needs of adults over children.
Again: the kids who are sick now are probably sick because they did not develop their immune system. The horse has left the barn. We cannot put the genie back in the bottle. The only definite accomplishment in requiring school kids to mask is that it will again put the burden of covid back squarely on the shoulders of school children. I don’t think that’s right.
But that’s just my opinion, as a parent.
MarcG 22:55 on 2022-11-14 Permalink
“How does asking me to mask in public when I’m literally not in contact with any children help?” Thinking only of yourself and your immediate contacts is evidence of not understanding how viruses spread. The person next to you at the grocery store has kids, or they are a teacher, or will see a doctor the next day and give the virus to the doctor who will then give it to parents who give it to children. Part of the reason we’re failing so hard at this is because no matter how much we like to think we’re different from Americans, we’re devoutly individualistic at heart and refuse to accept that the only way out of this is through collective action.
Kate 00:03 on 2022-11-15 Permalink
MarcG, you are totally right about this. It’s not a matter of individual choice and responsibility but too many people can’t see that.
MarcG 09:52 on 2022-11-15 Permalink
We grasped the concept at first but then it was beaten out of us by the business elite and their minions (“back to normal”, “lockdown”, “mental health”, “mild”, “meet people where they are”, “covid exhaustion”, etc). A huge stink was made about “think of the children!” when they had to do remote learning or wear masks… where are those people now?!
Spi 09:56 on 2022-11-15 Permalink
@Marc & Tim you’re purposely misinterpreting my comments.. My initial point was very clear, asking everyone to do their part before asking those most directly impacted and also most likely to spread RSV to the aforementioned is illogical.
We’ve been through two years of how viruses spread, everyone knows. My response to Tim about personal masking vs masking the children was a sarcastic reproach to his “How would masking school kids help out kids in daycares?” If you’re not going to require children in a schools/daycare (which are a massive vector of transmission) to mask up or at a minimum tell me parents to reduce their children’s social contacts, then asking the general population to mask up isn’t the most effective public health recommendation nor the most practical. You don’t wear a mask at home, kids don’t wear masks at school or daycare that’s a much more direct line of transmission than any interaction an adult is likely to have with a stranger in a public setting, or do we need to revisit the pandemic concepts of duration and intensity of contacts in closed indoor settings?
I’ll agree with Tim that kids are likely to have a weaker immune system and that many more will require hospitalisation than normally would but that doesn’t mean the “horse has left the barn” have we forgotten the lessons of flattening the curve? Who’s putting the individual above the collective now?
Ultimately I’m not the one that potentially has to bring my kid to the ER or watch them suffer because I thought society would shoulder that responsibility instead of me and my family.
Chris 11:10 on 2022-11-15 Permalink
>…it was beaten out of us by the business elite and their minions…
LOL. Have you considered that most people just legitimately disagree with you, and that your ‘business elite’ conspiracy is just not the case?
>The Quebec college of physicians is back to recommending the wearing of masks in public places.
They’re also recommending we eat healthier, exercise more, drink less alcohol, etc. They may be right, but we just don’t want to, and won’t. You can whinge about it until you are blue in the face, but it won’t change.
Kevin 11:52 on 2022-11-15 Permalink
Tim and Spi:
This concept of immunity debt is hogwash promoted by anti-vaxxers. https://globalnews.ca/news/9272293/immunity-debt-covid-19-misinformation/amp/
Kids have awesome immune systems specifically because they are young.
The problems right now are a) decades of provincial govts scaling back healthcare has reduced capability and b) healthcare workers are burnt out.
MarcG 11:58 on 2022-11-15 Permalink
Sure, I could be wrong that mass media isn’t owned by business elites and it has no influence on public opinion.
Tim 14:02 on 2022-11-15 Permalink
Kevin, while the reduced capacity and burn out are two problems, you ignore the other major problem: there is a massive upswing in serious RSV infections.
This was predicted a year ago. From another Globe article: “As a neonatologist at BC Children’s Hospital and co-chair of a provincial program dealing with respiratory syncytial virus, Pascal Lavoie knows exactly how many cases of RSV are reported in the province.
In an average year, B.C. sees 1,450 cases of the common virus, which usually infects all children by the time they reach the age of two. But during the first full winter of COVID-19 in 2020-2021, with extensive public-health restrictions in place, there were only five.
Dr. Lavoie saw similar trends in Australia and the United States. However, in the summer of 2021, a major resurgence of RSV infections in those countries sent many children to hospital well before the usual fall onset of the virus.
In an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in July, 2021, Dr. Lavoie and two colleagues warned that an upswing of RSV infections “could stretch resources in pediatric intensive care units across Canada.”
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-kids-hospitals-rsv-infections/
Chris 17:59 on 2022-11-15 Permalink
MarcG, you’re moving the goalpost. Sure media influences public opinion, I think most everyone agrees on that, though to what degree of course if up for debate. You said “We grasped the concept at first but then it was beaten out of us by the business elite and their minions (“back to normal”, “lockdown”, “mental health”, “mild”, “meet people where they are”, “covid exhaustion”, etc).” Perhaps I’ve misunderstood you, but you seem to be saying that the listed opinions were not commonly and genuinely held by many people until they were beaten into us. I’m saying those opinions *were* widely held, and the media covered them more than it created them. Perhaps in your bubble they were uncommon opinions, and you clearly wish others didn’t hold them and agreed with you instead, but alas it’s not the case.
MarcG 19:26 on 2022-11-15 Permalink
Perhaps I got it backwards then and it was concern for collective health that was beaten out of us rather than short-sighted selfishness beaten in.
Tim S. 21:21 on 2022-11-15 Permalink
69% of Canadians support or somewhat support the return of mask mandates if necessary.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/majority-of-canadians-support-return-of-face-masks-in-indoor-public-spaces-if-deemed-necessary-survey-1.6144419
MarcG 23:11 on 2022-11-15 Permalink
And 90% of Québecers wear seat belts when in cars. I’m learning that the majority of people need to be coerced into behaving intelligently.
Kevin 09:21 on 2022-11-16 Permalink
Tim
As that article points out, the real problem is surge capacity.
Blame the politicians for making stupid choices without thinking of consequences
Tim 10:01 on 2022-11-16 Permalink
I’ll blame the politicians, universities for not graduating enough doctors/nurses and the many layered forms of hospital administration that are incapable of making any type of substantial improvements that could lead to better patient outcomes. Just last week the premiers rejected money from the feds because it required the provinces to supply data so that the feds could actually measure the progress.
I’ll also blame the general public who are also highly resistant to any type of change in healthcare. The boogie man of American healthcare looms large in any discussion.
Did I miss anyone? 🙂
Chris 10:57 on 2022-11-16 Permalink
Tim, that CTV poll is dubious. What does it mean to support a mask mandate “*if necessary*”? Everyone has a different line for where ‘necessary’ is. So sure, if *I* think it’s necessary, then *I* support a mandate. Surprising the number isn’t higher than 70% really.
Tim S. 11:24 on 2022-11-16 Permalink
Actual question from the poll: “Would you support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or oppose a return to mandatory wearing of face masks in indoor public places this fall if authorities deem it necessary due to rising COVID case numbers?”
So not relying on personal position but trusting government.