The COVID-19 pandemic

[danbrotherston]

Colour Coded System:

Green: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.
Blue: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.
Yellow: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.
Orange: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.
Red: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.
Grey??!: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.

N.B. Obviously "restaurants" does not mean literally just restaurants, but is a metaphor for all government restrictions.

I don't think there was a lot of proof that these places were a major contributing factor to covid-19. While places like Costco and Wal*Mart were. Let these small retailers open before they go out of business entirely (though it might be too late for many). Seems that Toronto and Peel at the very least will have to wait a bit more.

Onto the vaccine rollout, Canada has fallen to 38th place in the world.

https://financialpost.com/investing/cana...e-outraged

I'll put this out there. The US has no desire to help Canada until every one of their citizens, including those on the far right, and the covid-19 deniers, get their vaccine first. Now the US committing to vaccinating their vulnerable population first, before helping other countries, is one thing. This shouldn't be seen as a negative. Especially when you keep in mind that Canada was dealing with China for a vaccine before the US companies.

However, not helping an ally at a time of need until well after that, is a problem. I don't view the US as a friendly country anymore. So what I would like to see: Since Canada is dangerously entangled in this feud between the United States and China, they need to release Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei. Just do it. We have no issue with her. We did the US a favour by holder her hostage (although beautiful house arrest, not so bad when you have a lot of money). The US, on the other hand, does us no favours. Either way, we need to exit out of the feud, and there is no reason for us to be in it. Biden America First approach isn't a positive for us. So, we need a Canada First approach as well.

While I hate that we may have to deal with a country that many consider an enemy, China, I think we'd be better off. It'll make it easier for us to get vaccines outside of US based companies. And hopefully get us back into business before too long.

Emphasis added for clarity.

Ultimately, I don't think there's any more local data that Costco/Walmart were bigger contributors than other places. Frankly, I think our data is pretty garbage, and not without good reason, we've made little effort to gather this data. That being said, we can make reasonable assumptions that the spread in other similar places would apply here, so I think its reasonable to use data from there to inform our policy. I am not certain what that data has said about different types of retail outlets.  I do think that closing restaurants will have an outsized impact on private gatherings...closing restaurants makes clear that we are not to gather and socialize, while opening restaurants strongly suggests doing so is fine.

I do agree that the US is no longer the same aly they used to be, but this has been a decades long process that has only crescendoed (well hopefully) with Trump. But this is hardly unique to us, the rest of the world is feeling it, albeit not as acutely as we are.