The COVID-19 pandemic

[danbrotherston]

Social distancing directives now posted by Kitchener city staff. This one from the IHT:

Also, the university is probably a ghost town.

Is it?  I'm wondering where the international students are?  I'd assume that many were not able to get back to China.

Maybe not, but the international students, who were not able to get back to China are only a small fraction of students, even if they were going about business as usual, it would still be a ghost town. If you consider that they are not going to classes or most of the other usual activities people normally partake in, I'd put good money on it being nearly empty.

[ijmorlan]

Maybe not, but the international students, who were not able to get back to China are only a small fraction of students, even if they were going about business as usual, it would still be a ghost town. If you consider that they are not going to classes or most of the other usual activities people normally partake in, I'd put good money on it being nearly empty.

Most of the buildings are locked and inaccessible and the remaining ones only open 40 hours a week. I believe most of the residences have also closed. So there isn't much to do on campus even for anybody who is around.

[ac3r]

The federal government projects 11'000 to 22'000 deaths provided we can guarantee extreme physical distancing measures and more over the length of the pandemic. The best case scenario - which I figure implies even stricter lockdown measures - projects 4'400 deaths.

I think it's safe to say this "lockdown" will eventually become an actual lockdown, with essentially nothing remaining open but the essentials (grocers, pharmacists, gas stations, clinics, alcohol stores etc) lest we decide as a nation that we are okay with up to 22'000 people dying. It will be hard to balance the dilemma of life versus economics. If we have strict measures for too long, more people will become unemployed and businesses will bankrupt. If we relax things too early, we risk killing the immunocompromised, elderly, health care workers, front line workers and even perfectly healthy people who for some reason get sicker than expected.

To put this in context, 22'000 is slightly less than half of all Canadian military deaths in World War 1. This will probably be the biggest loss of Canadian life since then. If that doesn't make people stay inside, then I don't know what will - aside from police having the power to really punish people.

[MidTowner]

The federal government projects 11'000 to 22'000 deaths provided we can guarantee extreme physical distancing measures and more over the length of the pandemic. The best case scenario - which I figure implies even stricter lockdown measures - projects 4'400 deaths.

I think it's safe to say this "lockdown" will eventually become an actual lockdown, with essentially nothing remaining open but the essentials (grocers, pharmacists, gas stations, clinics, alcohol stores etc) lest we decide as a nation that we are okay with up to 22'000 people dying. It will be hard to balance the dilemma of life versus economics. If we have strict measures for too long, more people will become unemployed and businesses will bankrupt. If we relax things too early, we risk killing the immunocompromised, elderly, health care workers, front line workers and even perfectly healthy people who for some reason get sicker than expected.

To put this in context, 22'000 is slightly less than half of all Canadian military deaths in World War 1. This will probably be the biggest loss of Canadian life since then. If that doesn't make people stay inside, then I don't know what will - aside from police having the power to really punish people.

Sorry to be pedantic, but you mean World War II. In the first world war, Canada saw something over 60,000 deaths, and 150,000 wounded.

I really want to play devil's advocate, though, and say that 287,000 Canadians died last year, 2019. If the 22,000 deaths all occurred in the year 2020, this virus would be the third leading cause of death this year (the second leading cause, heart diseases, kills over 50,000). It might be unknowable how many, but at least some of those deaths would have occurred in the same period in the absence of the virus.

Those are just facts, not opinions. I have to say that I'm not entirely sure what the proper context to think about these things is.

We're in uncharted waters, so there is probably no saying with any kind of confidence by anyone what the real consequences of our actions will be. We've done serious damage to our economy and society so far, but the long-term consequences to mental health and emotional and material well being can only be guessed.

My personal opinion is that shutting down large swaths of society and the economy as we have seems prudent. But it seems to me that most people are taking their responsibility to curtail the spread of the virus by isolating themselves pretty seriously, and so I think enforcing these guidelines/orders with police is unnecessary and highly risky. Ultimately, I don't think it's even productive from the perspective of slowing the spread: people will do many things when told it's their duty, but when ordered to under threat of force will focus more of their energy on just not getting caught.

We all want to do what we can to help save lives. It is inevitable that people die, and that people will unfortunately die in this pandemic, though. If we opt to live in a police state (say) to try to minimize that loss of life, we may wind up doing harm to our society that will not be easily repaired once this pandemic is passed.

[tomh009]

To put this in context, 22'000 is slightly less than half of all Canadian military deaths in World War 1. This will probably be the biggest loss of Canadian life since then. If that doesn't make people stay inside, then I don't know what will - aside from police having the power to really punish people.

WW1: 61,000 dead (0.8% of population)
1918 flu pandemic: 55,000 dead (0.7% of population)
WW2: 45,000 dead (0.4% of population)

22,000 dead now would be 0.07% of the population, mostly older people. WW1 + 1918 flu (1.5% of population, mostly younger people) it is not.

[tomh009]

The federal government projects 11'000 to 22'000 deaths provided we can guarantee extreme physical distancing measures and more over the length of the pandemic. The best case scenario - which I figure implies even stricter lockdown measures - projects 4'400 deaths.

There are new projections every few days. All of them are highly dependent on the infection rates. If the rest of 2020 averages the same as the current infection rate (1500ish) we will see about 400,000 infections, plus whatever in 2021. Significantly less than the projected 934,000, which averages to something like 3000 new cases per day.

The key question is the trend of the infection rates. They have dropped as a percentage of total cases but are still in the 1500 range. If the current restrictions are successful in bringing them down well below 1000 I don't expect to see significant additional restrictions. But if they keep creeping up and we end up hitting 3000 per day, it may well happen.

[tomh009]

478 new cases in Ontario today for an 8% increase. 269 recovered and 22 dead for a net addition of 187 active cases.

92,673 people tested to date, for another 4000-test day. 673 cases currently hospitalized (+51) and 260 in the ICU (-4). Infections now reported at 73 long-term care homes (+4).

Quebec added 765 cases today, about 7%. 118,217 tests done to date (5000 for the past day). 733 currently hospitalized (+54) and 186 in ICU (-10).

March
2020-03-23 778 (+258%) 2020-03-24 1040 (+34%) 2020-03-25 1339 (+29%) 2020-03-26 1629 (+22%) 2020-03-27 2021 (+24%)
2020-03-28 2498 (+24%) 2020-03-29 2840 (+13%) 2020-03-30 3430 (+21%) 2020-03-31 4162 (+21%)
April
2020-04-01 4611 (+11%) 2020-04-02 5518 (+20%) 2020-04-03 6101 (+8%) 2020-04-04 6997 (+15%) 2020-04-05 7944 (+14%)
2020-04-06 8580 (+8%) 2020-04-07 9340 (+9%) 2020-04-08 10031 (+7%) 2020-04-09 10912 (+9%) 2020-04-10 11677 (+7%)

[jordan2423]

......

[jgsz]

I agree with your critique of capitalism.  Excellent points of it’s failures.

[jgsz]

Hey jordan2423, you may be interested in this opinion piece in the New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020...e=Homepage

[jeffster]

I think we need to think of two other issues about this pandemic. 1) How many have died but we don't know about it? Like loners that may have died in their homes, with no family to check on them. With neighbours practicing social distancing. I am sure there are a few. 2) Immigration -- I imagine that NO ONE is immigrating to Canada right now due to Covid-19, which will throw our numbers down significantly.

[panamaniac]

I think we need to think of two other issues about this pandemic. 1) How many have died but we don't know about it? Like loners that may have died in their homes, with no family to check on them. With neighbours practicing social distancing. I am sure there are a few. 2) Immigration -- I imagine that NO ONE is immigrating to Canada right now due to Covid-19, which will throw our numbers down significantly.

I’ve seen nothing to confirm your #2.  Most can’t actually get here at the moment, but the system is still approving new permanent residents (afaik) and they’ll come in due course.  It remains to be seen whether intake is reduced next year, but it wouldn’t be surprising, especially if the recovery is shaky.

[MidTowner]

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has a page titled How the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is affecting immigration, refugees, citizenship and passport services: immigration applicants

It seems that panamaniac is right, and processing continues.

The plan for immigration numbers was announced last month, though obviously they aren't set in stone. We may see a real uptick in certain types of immigration applications, sadly, depending on how bad the situation gets in some other parts of the world.

[Momo26]

For those so inclined, new immigrants can be tested if there is a concern.

[ijmorlan]

For those so inclined, new immigrants can be tested if there is a concern.

Never mind immigration, shouldn’t a mandatory 21 day quarantine have been put in place for all people entering the country starting in approximately mid-February? I suppose it would have seemed draconian but it would have been nothing compared to what we’ve been doing the last month or so.

What about truckers? It occurred to me that trucking might be re-organized so that trailers are handed off from one cab to another at the border — so a trucker would drive to the border, drop off a trailer, and pick up a different trailer to take back. No personal interaction on the other side of the border. Although I suppose it’s not really that different if the trucker drives the trailer to its final destination and unhooks it there without interacting with anybody, then goes right back across the border.