The Bellechasse bus garage, not yet in service, was flooded Saturday morning when a water main broke nearby on another construction site.
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Kate
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Kate
Mid construction holiday, the river brigade of the SPVM are being kept busy with careless boaters colliding and other incidents on a river that isn’t fooling around. Boucherville is using drones to keep an eye on the waters around the Îles de Boucherville, popular with boaters.
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Kate
CultMTL lists some Montrealers to watch at the Olympics.
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Kate
As reports on social media and the return of masks in public places have probably already told you, Covid is on the rise again. An updated vaccine is expected this fall, but meantime, we know the drill.
MarcG
Is the drill get repeatedly infected with a virus known to cause a high rate of long-term damage to every organ in your body while public health tells you not to worry about it?
Kate
Pretty much, yes. We proles have to keep the wheels of the economy turning.
Chris
What ‘return of masks in public places’? I’ve seen no such change.
Kate
I certainly have. It still surprises me that some people walk in the street in masks, but there are those who do, and not old people as a rule either.
It’s not a lot of people, Chris – just enough that I’ve noticed it over the last month or two.
Uatu
People in Asia have been wearing masks in public way before COVID showed up so I don’t know why it’s such a big deal
MarcG
As with the climate crisis, there’s no escaping it even for the powerful and wealthy. Biden had brain melted and career ended by Covid, even with the best treatment in the world. Not to discount the fact that both harm the poor and vulnerable more.
I’ve been to MGH and CHUM in the past couple of weeks and noticed a lot more masks than earlier in the year. More-so on patients, sadly; most doctors are still stubbornly pro-virus.
MarcG
Some explanations for why you might see people wearing masks outdoors:
You can get Covid outdoors (because it’s airborne like smoke)
If you’re going in and out of stores it’s easier to just leave it on
Every time you doff and donn a mask the elastics that create a good seal on your face are weakenedUatu
I know some that say it helps reduce symptoms of hay fever. I’ve no idea whether it’s effective, but there’s always the placebo effect that helps I guess.
MarcG
Pollen particles are 10 microns or more and N95 respirators filter 0.3 microns.
Kate
They don’t help if your main hay fever symptom is occasionally itchy eyes!
Chris
>It’s not a lot of people, Chris – just enough that I’ve noticed it over the last month or two.
So what are you saying? You’ve noticed a barely perceptible increase in mask wearing? from what? 1% to 2% of people? (Honest question.) Maybe you’re right. Even if so, I wouldn’t summarize that as “the return of masks in public places”. First, they never totally went away. There are people like MarcG out there after all. Second, a return to when? Certainly not to when the majority of people were wearing them.
It’s just a strange statement is all I’m saying. (I have no problem with people wearing masks or not, that up to them.)
Kate
Chris, I don’t tick numbers off on a counter. I walk around the neighbourhood and so do other people. And in the last while (4-6 weeks? I haven’t taken notes) I’ve seen more face masks than I’d seen over the previous couple of seasons. That is all.
walkerp
Masks make a lot of sense in this phase of covid. There aren’t really any more restrictions and since the symptoms for most people are not as severe, you can still be out and about. I suspect that some of the people I’ve seen with masks recently actually have some kind of cold or cough and are trying not to pass it on.
And yes anecdotally, I feel I’ve seen a few more people wearing masks in the last few weeks or so.Rick
If someone wears a face mask by themselves, outside, they are mentally ill. There is no other way to say it. Airborne or not, your brain has been fried by media if you wear it outside.
Kate
Rick, you’re wrong. As MarcG writes above:
You can get Covid outdoors (because it’s airborne like smoke)
If you’re going in and out of stores it’s easier to just leave it on
Every time you doff and donn a mask the elastics that create a good seal on your face are weakenedDaniel
Rick, my brain is not airborne.
MarcG
Bonus reason: Bad air quality. It’s amazing the number of precautionary devices we employ to maintain good health and comfort, but because masks represent the ongoing threat we’ve been told to ignore, they’re politicized. Bike helmets, sunglasses, sunscreen, parasols, umbrellas, seatbelts, airbags, speed limits, shoes, air conditioning, water filtration, etc, etc.
walkerp
That’s a great point, MarcG. One of my major pet peeves is that people seem no longer to be able to walk or jog in the semi-dark without a headlamp or their phone as a flashlight anymore, when their eyes would be quite capable of seeing if they would allow them to adjust.
But somehow masks are this big source of controversy when they do not really impact anybody else (the way bright headlamps do) and as people have pointed out, have several practical reasons to be used.
MarcG
Asking the next person I see putting bugspray on why they’re living in fear.
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Kate
Le Devoir’s Aurélie Lanctôt describes and discusses a recent investigative Journal piece – inaccessible even to archive.ph – about how the SPVM has been blocking investigations into racial profiling by members of the force. It’s key to understanding why that never changes.
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Kate
Media have been swamped with reports of Céline Dion’s performance as the closing feature of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
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