The inbound Victoria bridge was closed abruptly midday Friday for an emergency inspection.
Opened again around 4:30.
Updates from August, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Many of the scooters banned in the recent law have vanished from our streets, leaving some owners puzzled what to do with the vehicles they can no longer legally use.
Tux
I got a couple years of use out of mine – now the batteries are dead and I have a $3400.00 unsellable motorcycle-shaped hunk of junk in my garage. Just subject them to the same laws as scooters!
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Kate
Hotel employees are holding a surprise strike Friday in Montreal, Sherbrooke and Quebec City.
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Kate
Aaron Derfel observes that this summer’s wave of Covid has been more lethal than last’s and that it has “killed 34 Quebecers in their 50s in the past 12 months, and nine in their 40s.”
Quebec has seen 117 Covid deaths this August (as of August 24) compared with 88 in all of August last year. In July, there were 109 deaths compared with 46 in July 2023.
Now where were my masks?
Joey
This anecdote from the NY Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/27/health/covid-19-tests-vaccines-masks.html) rings true:
Jason Moyer was days away from a family road trip to visit his parents when his 10-year-old son woke up with a fever and cough.
Covid?
The prospect threatened to upend the family’s plans.
“Six months ago, we would have tested for Covid,” Mr. Moyer, 41, of Ohio, said. This time they did not.
Instead, they checked to make sure the boy’s cough was improving and his fever was gone — and then set off for New Jersey, not bothering to tell the grandparents about the incident.
Chris
And if it’s flu (or whatever else) instead of covid? Should one act differently?
dhomas
I think what we (should have) learned from COVID is that if you’re sick (with COVID or anything else), stay the fuck home (and/or wear a mask). Nobody is going to care that you were being a hero and went into work despite being sick if they all get sick. Grandma and grandpa will not be able to reminisce about your visit from Ohio if they’re dead.
jeather
Yes, you should not go on a road trip to visit family when you are sick, at least not without confirming with the family that it’s ok. No, you should not go to the grocery store when you have a mystery respiratory illness but your spouse was diagnosed with covid. You should not go to a party with a bad cold EITHER. People don’t want your illnesses, and sometimes you don’t have a choice about work, but you can do grocery pickup outdoors and skip a party and confirm your parents still want you to visit with a mystery virus.
Kevin
We just need a catchy slogan like Be Kind, Rewind.
But all I can come up with is rather rude.
Chris
dhomas, jeather, agreed. So, therefore, no need for any covid test. Putting a name to it changes nothing.
Kate
Chris, people really do need to know whether they have it, because you will get considerations from your employer or appropriate treatment from your health professional only if your illness is identified and has a label.
Like, why bother diagnosing anything? Eventually an illness will kill you. Putting a name to it changes nothing.
maggie rose
Asymptomatic Covid can be transmitted to others. And it’s airbourne, can last in a room after people leave it. It’s true this isn’t 2020, and we don’t have those horrific hospital scenes any more. But…Long Covid can develop from a Covid infection that manifested mild or no symptoms. And LC is not a one-symptom illness, and if often difficult to diagnose. Easier to mask up than be housebound for years.
jeather
Covid is more dangerous than the cold or the flu so you should be more careful. The death rate is much lower, but there are a lot of long term complications that can affect any part of your body. I know the government and the media like to pretend it’s just like influenza, but it’s not.
EmilyG
I was furious when someone I know on social media said that their friend had travel plans, tested positive for Covid, and then decided to travel anyway. (It’s apparently allowed, after all.)
Earlier this month, I had (work-related) travel plans, got Covid, and cancelled my plans.
It seems to me that people deciding to just go around and do things while having Covid, is a large part of why this disease isn’t subsiding at the moment.MarcG
Some reasons to test for Covid if you’re already isolating and/or masking any time you have flu or cold symptoms: Certain groups can get Paxlovid treatment, you’ll know when to best time your next vaccine since it will have little benefit if you get it shortly after infection, if you end up disabled by Long Covid you’ll have an idea of when it happened and perhaps who is responsible.
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Kate
Weekend notes from La Presse, CityCrunch, CultMTL.
And the usual road closures.
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Kate
There’s general chitchat about how the Michelin Guide is coming to Quebec, and I find myself wondering how this has affected other places. Do restaurants split even more obviously between posh eateries for the upper crust and rough estaminets for the hoi polloi? Is Michelin good or bad for people working in the business, and for people running it? Does it make a damn bit of difference?
DeWolf
There are a lot of stories out there about how some (many?) chefs dread getting Michelin stars because it adds a lot of pressure and attracts the wrong type of clientele.
That’s especially true for some of the smaller and more local places that are recommended by the guide without necessarily earning a star. They can be easily overwhelmed by the sudden interest. It’s been a problem in Asia where there are a lot of very humble street food stalls or hole-in-the-wall restaurants that have earned a recommendation or even a star.
Montreal has a lot of great neighbourhood restaurants and buvette type places that are serving chef-driven, seasonal dishes but in a very low-key atmosphere. I can easily see some of those getting recommended, maybe even a star, and suddenly they’re tourist attractions that neighbourhood people can never go to anymore.
Ephraim
Well, now we know who paid… Quebec Tourism Industry Alliance. And if Destination Quebec City spent $100K, I wonder what Tourisme Montreal spent? The same people who collect 3.5% on every hotel room, but don’t represent hotels unless they pay them even more in fees! And who aren’t a real government body and of course once paid the retiring CEO almost 3/4 of a million dollars as a golden parachute (but they swear, they aren’t corrupt and they are non-profit.)
CE
According to an interview on CBC Daybreak this morning, Quebec City is much more keen on having their restaurants rated than Montreal.
DeWolf
@CE That makes sense. For its size Quebec City has a lot of good restaurants, but they probably wouldn’t survive without tourists.
Bert
One of my foodie podcasts has a recommendation, go to the restaurant next to the one with Michelin stars.
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Kate
Bike theft continues to be rife. I would’ve thought the record‑setting popularity of Bixi would have the effect of keeping privately‑owned bikes safer, but evidently not so much.
Chris
Why would you think that? I don’t see the connection.
Kate
If two million trips were taken on Bixi in July, it’s a fair guess that some fraction of those riders were leaving their own bikes at home where they couldn’t be stolen, or didn’t own a bike at all.
Part of the magic of Bixi is that you never have to lock your own bike outside, you simply slot the Bixi in and forget about it.
Blork
Despite the success of Bixi there are still thousands of bikes in circulation every day. Also, some bike thefts happen from home; bikes stolen out of back yards or sheds, etc.
I wonder if Bixi has affected the QUALITY of bikes being stolen; perhaps people with particularly nice (expensive) bikes are more likely to use Bixi for daily commuting while people with plebe bikes don’t bother. So the pool of available (for stealing) bikes has dropped in quality, making it necessary to steal MORE bikes to achieve the same filthy lucre.
See? Economics!
dhomas
I’ve had my bike stolen from right in front of my garage, while I was IN the garage (with the door closed), doing some work. Some thieves are brazen.
Kate
Some of us keep our bicycles indoors when not using them : )
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