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Covid-19

New measures in brief (based on listening, a press release will come soon):
  • two-week stop to all group fitness, team sport activities in urban centres where cases are rising.(Edmonton, Calgary, GP, Fort McMurray, Red Deer, Lethbridge)
    • gyms stay open for individual activities
  • two-week stop to group choir and performance activities
  • Restaurants and bars: liquor sales done by 10 pm, closed by 11 pm.
  • expanding social gather advisory limits to more communities
    • a warning that this may become mandatory
  • 50 person limits for wedding and funeral ceremonies in all 'enhanced' areas
  • Asking faith communities to limit attendance to 1/3rd of fire capacity
    • targetted to those faith communities that aren't following limits already as most are already following that limit
  • Asking businesses to limit the number of staff
    • advising work from home
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With an increasing number of cases and more restrictions coming, how are we going to get this under control? We can't control it entirely, and even if a vaccine appears it'll be quite a while until it is eradicated. I don't want to see businesses have to close or long sweeping lock-downs, but something needs to be done. Anyone have ideas on how to control this without resorting to lock-downs? Here are some of my thoughts.

More aggressive stance on fining people who refuse to wear masks People not wearing masks aren't the main cause of the sharp rise, but they're part of it Start by actually enforcing the bylaw.

More aggressive stance on fining people who have large gatherings This really needs to happen. People continue to have large gatherings in their homes, and is a large part of the problem.

The province could put pressure on companies to allow people to work from home? I know a few people who were working from home for long periods, but their companies made them come back to work.
 
Yesterday 144K, and 161K today. When Trump said they were turning the corner I guess he meant the corner towards hell.
It’s unbelievable how bad it’s been down south.
JonnyCanuck said:
The seven day moving average for cases in the U.S is at 127,000 per day. That is 30 times higher than in Canada!
To my knowledge, 'fearless leader' Trump has not mentioned COVID in public once since the election. He will never admit that his mishandling of the pandemic was a key reason for his defeat.
Click to expand...
 
182,000 new cases on Friday :oops: I hope Alberta doesn't follow their footsteps. We have our fair share of redneck idiots also.
 
Cowtown said:
With an increasing number of cases and more restrictions coming, how are we going to get this under control? We can't control it entirely, and even if a vaccine appears it'll be quite a while until it is eradicated. I don't want to see businesses have to close or long sweeping lock-downs, but something needs to be done. Anyone have ideas on how to control this without resorting to lock-downs? Here are some of my thoughts.

More aggressive stance on fining people who refuse to wear masks People not wearing masks aren't the main cause of the sharp rise, but they're part of it Start by actually enforcing the bylaw.

More aggressive stance on fining people who have large gatherings This really needs to happen. People continue to have large gatherings in their homes, and is a large part of the problem.

The province could put pressure on companies to allow people to work from home? I know a few people who were working from home for long periods, but their companies made them come back to work.
Click to expand...

That might have been enough, combined with the new weak restrictions -- had they been implemented a month ago when we had 250 new cases a day instead of 1000. The medical community says we need much stronger measures:
  • Directives to work from home for anyone who is able.
  • Limiting contacts to those within the household or support bubble.
  • Restrictions on group recreation/sports activities.
  • Suspension of group indoor activities (including indoor dining, bars, casinos, religious services, and theatres).
Which is still a long way short of a lockdown.

The problem with exponential growth from a disease is that it's not as much what you do as how quickly you do it. Something minor a month ago is more effective than something major next month. Unfortunately, Kenney spent a month with the same ineffective lecture asking everyone but himself to 'take responsibility'. The particular problem with this coronavirus is the delay between transmission and symptoms; everyone who's going to the ICU before December already has covid. The next two weeks are our last chance to get the virus under control before Christmas, and I'm afraid the half-measures we've taken just aren't enough.

I get that the business community doesn't want retail, hospitality and service businesses to be shut down, but I bet if they had the choice of being shut down for a couple of weeks in mid-November, or for Christmas, they would have picked the former -- even without considering that we've gone from 1-2 deaths per day to 5-6.
 
It's going to have to come at some point or the health system will be overwhelmed, and that's when the deaths really start racking up.
 
The US health system is being overwhelmed. Coming up on 45,000 hospitalized and over 22,000 in serious/critical condition. Thank god we're nowhere near that point, but we need to make sure we don't get there.
 
Judging on Ontario's restrictions on bars, restaurants etc, these did not have a material effect on cases. After several weeks, they are still too high. Could they be higher if those restrictions were not put in place? Possibly.
I think all that restrictions have done is force people to gather inside buildings (i.e private homes) that have no safety measures. At least bars/restaurants & retailers in Alberta, for the most part, are following the guidelines and taking the precautions. The spike in infections are not coming from these places.
People have to adjust to the fact that they should not gather in groups in private or public, particularly with people outside their bubble. That is the message that is not resonating.
 
Maybe someone here has good stats in the cusses of the spreading. I don’t have any but have heard indoor gatherings are still the main cause of the spread. Bars/Reston and workplace are the other main causes.

At the end of the day it’s caused by people gathering in form.

I still see private gatherings happening. Some people down the street have had a couple of good sized gatherings in the past month.
 
JonnyCanuck said:
Judging on Ontario's restrictions on bars, restaurants etc, these did not have a material effect on cases. After several weeks, they are still too high. Could they be higher if those restrictions were not put in place? Possibly.
I think all that restrictions have done is force people to gather inside buildings (i.e private homes) that have no safety measures. At least bars/restaurants & retailers in Alberta, for the most part, are following the guidelines and taking the precautions. The spike in infections are not coming from these places.
People have to adjust to the fact that they should not gather in groups in private or public, particularly with people outside their bubble. That is the message that is not resonating.
Click to expand...
Perhaps we need to accept that the message isn't resonating because we still have bars and restaurants open. Also that our understanding of what is the source of outbreaks is still missing 40%
 
JonnyCanuck said:
.
I think all that restrictions have done is force people to gather inside buildings (i.e private homes) that have no safety measures. At least bars/restaurants & retailers in Alberta, for the most part, are following the guidelines and taking the precautions. The spike in infections are not coming from these places.
People have to adjust to the fact that they should not gather in groups in private or public, particularly with people outside their bubble. That is the message that is not resonating.
Click to expand...

As of today, 89% of new cases are listed in the official statistics as unknown source. It's ridiculous to assert flatly that the spike in infections is not coming from restaurants; we have no idea where the spike is coming from. There's solid evidence that restaurants are a common source of infections, including from the CDC. If only 5% of cases were from unknown origin, I'd agree that cases probably aren't coming from restaurants. But today, we have no idea. It could be three out of every five cases is from a restaurant; there's more evidence for that than for none.

I've certainly walked past restaurants and seen half a dozen people, all at a single table, no masks, chatting. I would bet money they aren't all from a single household; they were more likely to be from six different households. And that's entirely within the restaurant guidelines. The current guidelines are very weak sauce -- "recommend" this, "suggest" that, "consider" the other, "when possible". There is actually very little that restaurants have to do. That they are meeting this bare minimum does not constitute proof they are safe; unfortunately.
 
However the virus is spread, one thing is certain. It spreads from people to other people when they are in contact or close proximity. I have a feeling the percentages for the sources of the spread is probably changing as it goes, but the one constant remains, it's people in close proximity to other people.

Saw this blurb on CNN. Not sure how accurate it is, as it doesn't mention private gatherings or Trump rallies, but the gist is that people gathering in numbers is the main cause.

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