The COVID-19 pandemic

[plam]

So, what is it? You can't leave your home for non-essential visits, but there will still be social gatherings and non-essential retail stores? What's the real answer?

Also there is nothing wrong with going for a walk or a run. Just don’t form a crowd. Requiring short hours for retail likewise makes no sense — what is needed is to encourage long hours. In the extreme, imagine every store was open 7/24 (very expensive, of course, but just hypothetically): you could go shopping at 03:00 and have the store to yourself. One can’t reduce crowding by reducing the size in time and space of the volume in which the crowd exists.

It doesn't make sense for stores but it makes sense for social visits and emphasizing that these are extraordinary times. People are more likely to do things they shouldn't be doing at 03:00.

[danbrotherston]

Also there is nothing wrong with going for a walk or a run. Just don’t form a crowd. Requiring short hours for retail likewise makes no sense — what is needed is to encourage long hours. In the extreme, imagine every store was open 7/24 (very expensive, of course, but just hypothetically): you could go shopping at 03:00 and have the store to yourself. One can’t reduce crowding by reducing the size in time and space of the volume in which the crowd exists.

It doesn't make sense for stores but it makes sense for social visits and emphasizing that these are extraordinary times. People are more likely to do things they shouldn't be doing at 03:00.

I understand the concept, but that's the opposite of what is actually implemented.

Stores are closed, but there is no curfew...the only thing you CAN do is go visit someone.

[plam]

It doesn't make sense for stores but it makes sense for social visits and emphasizing that these are extraordinary times. People are more likely to do things they shouldn't be doing at 03:00.

I understand the concept, but that's the opposite of what is actually implemented.

Stores are closed, but there is no curfew...the only thing you CAN do is go visit someone.

You won't catch me praising the Ontario response in this part of 2021 yet... We can hope, right?

[jeffster]

So, what is it? You can't leave your home for non-essential visits, but there will still be social gatherings and non-essential retail stores? What's the real answer?

Also there is nothing wrong with going for a walk or a run. Just don’t form a crowd. Requiring short hours for retail likewise makes no sense — what is needed is to encourage long hours. In the extreme, imagine every store was open 7/24 (very expensive, of course, but just hypothetically): you could go shopping at 03:00 and have the store to yourself. One can’t reduce crowding by reducing the size in time and space of the volume in which the crowd exists.

Right. It makes no sense to reduce hours. We need extended hours, rather. Especially true of grocery stores.

Also, they should ban social gatherings. To say “5 people” is OK, guess what, you have 5 people gathers. Don’t give people a reason to get together. Just say, you have hang out with your household. If you have a 1 person household, then you can hook up with another household as long as they have less than 5 members, and as long as you and the other households aren’t hooking up with other households.

[danbrotherston]

Also there is nothing wrong with going for a walk or a run. Just don’t form a crowd. Requiring short hours for retail likewise makes no sense — what is needed is to encourage long hours. In the extreme, imagine every store was open 7/24 (very expensive, of course, but just hypothetically): you could go shopping at 03:00 and have the store to yourself. One can’t reduce crowding by reducing the size in time and space of the volume in which the crowd exists.

Right. It makes no sense to reduce hours. We need extended hours, rather. Especially true of grocery stores.

Also, they should ban social gatherings. To say “5 people” is OK, guess what, you have 5 people gathers. Don’t give people a reason to get together. Just say, you have hang out with your household. If you have a 1 person household, then you can hook up with another household as long as they have less than 5 members, and as long as you and the other households aren’t hooking up with other households.

Indeed. It is entirely unnecessary to give a limit of 5, it only serves to confuse things. It makes me wonder who is running these communication programs.

[ac3r]

Also there is nothing wrong with going for a walk or a run. Just don’t form a crowd. Requiring short hours for retail likewise makes no sense — what is needed is to encourage long hours. In the extreme, imagine every store was open 7/24 (very expensive, of course, but just hypothetically): you could go shopping at 03:00 and have the store to yourself. One can’t reduce crowding by reducing the size in time and space of the volume in which the crowd exists.

Right. It makes no sense to reduce hours. We need extended hours, rather. Especially true of grocery stores.

Pharmacies and grocers (as well as a few other things) will be able to remain open past 8, it's just non-essential stores that will have to close earlier, so there shouldn't be too much issue with congestion in buildings. Provided this information sufficiently gets spread into the public, most people won't have to change their shopping habits as the only things closing earlier will be non-essential stores. With the lockdown, businesses can only let in so many people at once (or offer pickup) anyway so it shouldn't cause any more congestion than what has already occurred.

You can find the details of what the restrictions are here: https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/59922...save-lives

[tomh009]

10-day averages for key regions in Ontario, plus the weekly trend as of 2021-01-13 (posting this every two days).

Region	Cases today	per 100K	10-day average	per 100K	Weekly trend
Windsor-Essex	245	63.0	201	51.8	-4%
Peel	536	38.8	578	41.8	-6%
Lambton	72	55.0	53	40.5	+26%
Niagara	131	29.2	153	34.2	+30%
Toronto	738	25.2	951	32.5	-7%
York	219	19.7	320	28.9	-37%
Middlesex-London	103	25.5	112	27.6	-9%
Waterloo	146	23.6	160	25.8	+8%
Southwestern Ontario	52	26.0	46	23.2	+34%
Durham	119	18.4	148	22.9	-22%
Eastern Ontario	12	5.9	44	21.7	-45%
Hamilton	171	29.5	125	21.7	-5%
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph	11	4.0	57	20.8	-50%
Huron Perth	11	11.2	19	19.3	+4%
Chatham-Kent	14	13.2	20	18.4	-46%
Brant	22	16.2	23	17.1	-40%
Halton	88	16.0	94	17.1	-26%
Ottawa	154	15.5	136	13.7	+1%
Simcoe-Muskoka	50	9.3	68	12.7	+1%
Thunder Bay	3	2.0	8	5.2	+7%
Kingston Frontenac	2	1.0	7	3.2	-92%

The trend is starting to look a little bit more green -- are we over the worst of the holiday spike?

[tomh009]

Indeed. It is entirely unnecessary to give a limit of 5, it only serves to confuse things. It makes me wonder who is running these communication programs.

Social gatherings are surely not essential. And we are supposed to stay at home unless it's essential.

Pharmacies and grocers (as well as a few other things) will be able to remain open past 8, it's just non-essential stores that will have to close earlier, so there shouldn't be too much issue with congestion in buildings. Provided this information sufficiently gets spread into the public, most people won't have to change their shopping habits as the only things closing earlier will be non-essential stores. With the lockdown, businesses can only let in so many people at once (or offer pickup) anyway so it shouldn't cause any more congestion than what has already occurred.

Same with this. If we are to stay at home except when it's essential, why are non-essential stores open at all?

[danbrotherston]

Indeed. It is entirely unnecessary to give a limit of 5, it only serves to confuse things. It makes me wonder who is running these communication programs.

Social gatherings are surely not essential. And we are supposed to stay at home unless it's essential.

I understand this.  So why are gatherings limited to 5 people. That rule makes no sense, gatherings are restricted to 0 people...because there are to be no gatherings...

[jeffster]

Indeed. It is entirely unnecessary to give a limit of 5, it only serves to confuse things. It makes me wonder who is running these communication programs.

Social gatherings are surely not essential. And we are supposed to stay at home unless it's essential.

Pharmacies and grocers (as well as a few other things) will be able to remain open past 8, it's just non-essential stores that will have to close earlier, so there shouldn't be too much issue with congestion in buildings. Provided this information sufficiently gets spread into the public, most people won't have to change their shopping habits as the only things closing earlier will be non-essential stores. With the lockdown, businesses can only let in so many people at once (or offer pickup) anyway so it shouldn't cause any more congestion than what has already occurred.

Same with this. If we are to stay at home except when it's essential, why are non-essential stores open at all?

None essential stores would include your Lowes and Home Depot. So yeah, normally you don’t NEED to go into these places — but if you have a plumbing disaster, broken faucet, toilet, or really anything to do with something breaking in your house, you need this place to have hours. Otherwise, you’re calling in the experts and paying $500+ for something you could do for $150.

[tomh009]

WEDNESDAY 2021-01-13

Waterloo Region reported 125 new cases today (11.6% of the active cases) plus six additional ones for yesterday; 1,102 new cases for the week (-9), averaging 16.0% of active cases. 1,061 active cases, +231 in the last seven days.

Ontario reported 2,961 new cases today -- a second consecutive day under 3,000 -- with a seven-day average of 3,453 (-70). 3,462 recoveries and 74 (!) deaths translated to a drop of 505 active cases and a new total of 29,636. +3,347 active cases for the week and 360 deaths (51 per day). 50,931 tests for a positivity rate of 5.81%. The positivity rate is averaging 5.94% for the past seven days -- back below 6% -- compared to 6.32% for the preceding seven.

385 patients in ICU (+0), and a total of 1,674 hospital beds in use (+211 for the week).

• 245 cases in Windsor-Essex: 63.0 per 100K
  
• 72 cases in Lambton: 55.0 per 100K
  
• 536 cases in Peel: 38.8 per 100K
  
• 171 cases in Hamilton: 29.5 per 100K
  
• 131 cases in Niagara: 29.2 per 100K
  
• 52 cases in Southwestern Ontario: 26.0 per 100K
  
• 103 cases in Middlesex-London: 25.5 per 100K
  
• 738 cases in Toronto: 25.2 per 100K
  
• 146 cases in Waterloo: 23.6 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 219 cases in York: 19.7 per 100K
  
• 119 cases in Durham: 18.4 per 100K
  
• 22 cases in Brant: 16.2 per 100K
  
• 88 cases in Halton: 16.0 per 100K
  
• 154 cases in Ottawa: 15.5 per 100K
  
• 14 cases in Chatham-Kent: 13.2 per 100K
  
• 11 cases in Huron Perth: 11.2 per 100K
  
• 50 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 9.3 per 100K
  
• 12 cases in Eastern Ontario: 5.9 per 100K
  
• 11 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 4.0 per 100K
  

[tomh009]

Social gatherings are surely not essential. And we are supposed to stay at home unless it's essential.

Same with this. If we are to stay at home except when it's essential, why are non-essential stores open at all?

None essential stores would include your Lowes and Home Depot. So yeah, normally you don’t NEED to go into these places — but if you have a plumbing disaster, broken faucet, toilet, or really anything to do with something breaking in your house, you need this place to have hours. Otherwise, you’re calling in the experts and paying $500+ for something you could do for $150.

Sure. So, classify those as semi-essential or whatever. But sporting goods, home furnishings and bookstores, for example, do these need to be open if people are supposed to be staying home except for essential travel?

My issue is that the government's messaging on this should be super clear, crisp and brief so everyone understands it exactly. Instead we get a multi-page press release with conflicting statements.

[ac3r]

Four words: Doug Ford, Progressive Conservative. Their response has been quite the shit show.

[danbrotherston]

Social gatherings are surely not essential. And we are supposed to stay at home unless it's essential.


Same with this. If we are to stay at home except when it's essential, why are non-essential stores open at all?

None essential stores would include your Lowes and Home Depot. So yeah, normally you don’t NEED to go into these places — but if you have a plumbing disaster, broken faucet, toilet, or really anything to do with something breaking in your house, you need this place to have hours. Otherwise, you’re calling in the experts and paying $500+ for something you could do for $150.

The plumbing section could be essential, but the sporting goods section is not. The store should be closing non-essential sections.

This is getting into the weeds, but these are the types of distinctions that should be made in order to both protect small businesses and also communicate the severity of the pandemic to people.

[plam]

None essential stores would include your Lowes and Home Depot. So yeah, normally you don’t NEED to go into these places — but if you have a plumbing disaster, broken faucet, toilet, or really anything to do with something breaking in your house, you need this place to have hours. Otherwise, you’re calling in the experts and paying $500+ for something you could do for $150.

The plumbing section could be essential, but the sporting goods section is not. The store should be closing non-essential sections.

This is getting into the weeds, but these are the types of distinctions that should be made in order to both protect small businesses and also communicate the severity of the pandemic to people.

Hardware stores were not open under max level 4 lockdown in NZ. Under level 3 you could do click-and-collect or delivery.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/...g-lockdown

The Warehouse is sort of close to Wal-Mart in some ways and they said they were going to open. Then the government said "nah" and they didn't open.