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Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday

cbc.ca

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Re: Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday

#21

Post by lhorie »

corry wrote: post #7

I'm not close enough to the data to know -- so am asking HN -- but why are schools being kept open? Is it because truly there is low risk on transmission that way (and this holds true for new variants too)? Or is this just to avoid the negative drag on worker productivity caused by kids staying home? In other words - how political is the decision to keep schools open? Should concerned parents still keep their kids ho…

FTA:

    In hotspot regions like Toronto, the new measures are very similar to restrictions that are already in place. At a news conference Thursday afternoon, Health Minister Christine Elliott said that the province did not issue a stay-at-home order like the one from the start of the year, because the last time officials saw that it had "tremendous ill effect on children and adults."
Many stores were already doing curbside pickup only, or already limiting capacity for in-store shopping, so this lockdown isn't really all that much of a difference than the current status quo. The meat of this order is to limit social gatherings, which has been a sort of Achilles heel in Ontario's policy IMHO.

At the end of day, the infection rates have started going up again, the vaccine rollout has been somewhat slow, and "something must be done, this is something, therefore it must be done".

Hopefully it's enough.

Re: Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday

#22

Post by 908B64B197 »

undefined1 wrote: post #19
olyjohn wrote: post #11

The way at which we are opening up here in Washington State, you'd think that Covid was gone. But now here we are with double the cases we had when we originally shut down, and we're opening things back up. It's like we did all the previous shutdowns for nothing... like all that we did to isolate, work from home, etc was for nothing. It makes it feel like we were wrong to shut down before, and that it wasn't even nec…

Florida vs California is telling. FL mostly stayed open and didn't do much worse than CA, despite Florida's much older population.

Per capita or overall?

Re: Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday

#23

Post by ska »

space_fountain wrote: post #18
corry wrote: post #7

I'm not close enough to the data to know -- so am asking HN -- but why are schools being kept open? Is it because truly there is low risk on transmission that way (and this holds true for new variants too)? Or is this just to avoid the negative drag on worker productivity caused by kids staying home? In other words - how political is the decision to keep schools open? Should concerned parents still keep their kids ho…

Schools are indeed quite safe. The younger the safer, but generally children get sick less and are vanishingly unlikely to end up in the hospital or die. There's also evidence that schools haven't been a big transmission sites for covid probably because while teacher to teacher transmission is as big a problem as anywhere teacher student and student student transmission isn't that likely. The other side is that closi…

If I understand correctly there is some evidence this may be changing with the variants, but it's inconclusive.

Re: Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday

#24

Post by [deleted] »

space_fountain wrote: post #20
14 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we need much more data then what is already available, there are transmissions in children and they are happening at schools. In my local news there have already been several stories about outbreaks happening in schools and having to shut them down for periods of time. Even if kids are at lower risk they are still at risk so sending them to school is foolish if avoidable. I say if avoidable because not…

Could you please provide citations? My understanding is that most of that transmission is happening outside of school and documents like: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br... seem to back up the idea that transmission inside schools is pretty rare. There's also tons of studies showing online school has been devastating to children https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle…

[deleted]

Re: Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday

#25

Post by guyzero »

lhorie wrote: post #21
corry wrote: post #7

I'm not close enough to the data to know -- so am asking HN -- but why are schools being kept open? Is it because truly there is low risk on transmission that way (and this holds true for new variants too)? Or is this just to avoid the negative drag on worker productivity caused by kids staying home? In other words - how political is the decision to keep schools open? Should concerned parents still keep their kids ho…

FTA: In hotspot regions like Toronto, the new measures are very similar to restrictions that are already in place. At a news conference Thursday afternoon, Health Minister Christine Elliott said that the province did not issue a stay-at-home order like the one from the start of the year, because the last time officials saw that it had "tremendous ill effect on children and adults." Many stores were already doing curb…

The Achilles Heel in Ontario's policies have been a lack of mandated paid sick days, so people in warehouses are going in sick and at no point closing down large store or warehouse-type workplaces where the bulk of the transmission is happening.

This is nowhere near enough and is very much a token effort without making any meaningful change. The Ford government refuses to actually spend any money to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic.

Re: Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday

#26

Post by motohagiography »

Reading this upon just arriving home from finding one of my remaining Toronto staple restaurants boarded up after 30+ years in business. (The Rooster, piri piri chicken place at bloor/ossington)

I get the sense on the street that the credibility of these orders and the authority behind them is diminishing. It's been a year of data, analysis, effects, and now even vaccines/treatments for the minority of vulnerable people, and popular tolerance for policy that destroys livelihoods of many and the culture and opportunity for most, is wearing very thin.

Re: Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday

#27

Post by chc »

frockington1 wrote: post #10
kasey_junk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The restaurant staff that enable outdoor dining work inside, in close proximity to each other & frequently can’t afford to take sick time. The real question is what the province is going to do to help the workers & business owners in those industries.

Right, if they can't afford to take sick time they probably can't afford to not work for four weeks. Any idea if the government is helping these people at all? I didn't see any mention of businesses or employees in the article

Canada has a bunch of covid impact programs (https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/economic-respons...), as well as normal unemployment insurance. I can't speak on the experience of actually using them, but they are there.

Re: Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday

#28

Post by 908B64B197 »

iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #9
frockington1 wrote: post #5

I didn't see anything the article about helping shut down businesses. Any small business that somehow survived the previous shutdowns is likely going to close their doors forever resulting in massive revenue losses for the province

I think that's part of the point. Initially I couldn't understand why ostensibly right wing premiers in Ontario and Quebec were to pro-lockdown. But when you see how much the interests of bigger businesses are being served, basically removing all their competitions, it makes more sense. There are fewer lobbying efforts on behalf of smaller business (and none on behalf of people who just want quality of life) to the b…

The curfew rules some places have is interesting.

That type of policies wouldn't fly in America.

Re: Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday

#29

Post by guyzero »

frockington1 wrote: post #10
kasey_junk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The restaurant staff that enable outdoor dining work inside, in close proximity to each other & frequently can’t afford to take sick time. The real question is what the province is going to do to help the workers & business owners in those industries.

Right, if they can't afford to take sick time they probably can't afford to not work for four weeks. Any idea if the government is helping these people at all? I didn't see any mention of businesses or employees in the article

Ontario won't do anything. The continuing case count is the direct consequence of the Ford government not spending the money they've been given by the Federal government.

Re: Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday

#30

Post by [deleted] »

space_fountain wrote: post #20
14 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we need much more data then what is already available, there are transmissions in children and they are happening at schools. In my local news there have already been several stories about outbreaks happening in schools and having to shut them down for periods of time. Even if kids are at lower risk they are still at risk so sending them to school is foolish if avoidable. I say if avoidable because not…

Could you please provide citations? My understanding is that most of that transmission is happening outside of school and documents like: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br... seem to back up the idea that transmission inside schools is pretty rare. There's also tons of studies showing online school has been devastating to children https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle…

[deleted]
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