Ontario to enter four-week, province-wide Covid-19 shutdown on Saturday • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by 908B64B197 » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

undefined1 wrote: post #40

chc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per capita. Florida did anomalously well given its seemingly poor handling of the situation. It's likely related to the fact that California has 3 of the 10 biggest cities in the US while Florida has 0, but that doesn't seem like enough to fully explain it.

maybe, but in terms of density overall; CA: 253.9 residents per square mile FL: 397.2 residents per square mile

Large chunks of land in CA are completely deserted and uninhabitable.

What's more interesting is the local density; what does the distributions of residents per square miles looks like.

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

#42

Post by guyzero » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #36

guyzero wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ef…

I mean, I'm always all for better worker rights, but are you saying they had better sick leave policies mid last year? Because my understanding is that that's roughly when social gatherings restarted and coincidentally when infection rates started to rise again. I'd argue that social distancing protocols at places of business are more strict now than they were then, and I'm not sure better sick leave policies necessa…

No, but Ontario has no mandatory paid sick days and you would think that the pandemic might be a good opportunity to fix that situation, but no. The government continues to blame social gatherings when the incoming ICU patients are primarily essential workers. Also the government has abandoned contact tracing, so they're not event attempting to enact evidence-based policies. Just yo-yo lockdowns.

And yes, covid's delayed symptom onset does mean that sick days don't help a lot, but they'd help a little. For all we know people are going into warehouses to work while fully symptomatic.

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

#43

Post by xxxxxyyg1 » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 8:19 PM UTC

Scramblejams wrote: post #32

space_fountain wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm very skeptical that schools are quite safe. See https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1346362159446577154 Some key quotes: Here is a study carried out across >200 countries that showed that among all interventions studied, closing educational institutions was the 2nd most effective. Importantly, the impact on R was similar for pre-school, primary & secondary school settings. https://www.nature.com/articles/s4156…

If we're going to be super sensitive about the almost non-existent threat of children wrt sars-cov-2 why aren't we also super sensitive about destroying any semblance of normality in children's lives?

Surely this damages children in their crucial developmental stages when they're deprived of social signalling, and effective teaching methods (sorry, Zoom doesn't cut it).

As science would inform us - humans have millions of years of evolution searing social interaction into our biology. Cutting this out will have profound effects.

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

#44

Post by Scramblejams » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

xxxxxyyg1 wrote: post #43

Scramblejams wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very skeptical that schools are quite safe. See https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1346362159446577154 Some key quotes: Here is a study carried out across >200 countries that showed that among all interventions studied, closing educational institutions was the 2nd most effective. Importantly, the impact on R was similar for pre-school, primary & secondary school settings. https://www.nature.com/articles/s4156…

If we're going to be super sensitive about the almost non-existent threat of children wrt sars-cov-2 why aren't we also super sensitive about destroying any semblance of normality in children's lives? Surely this damages children in their crucial developmental stages when they're deprived of social signalling, and effective teaching methods (sorry, Zoom doesn't cut it). As science would inform us - humans have millio…

If we're going to be super sensitive about the almost non-existent threat of children wrt sars-cov-2

According to the studies I linked above, closing schools during outbreaks saved many, many thousands of (mostly adult) lives. If those studies are correct, the threat is absolutely not "almost non-existent." If you have particular issues with those studies, please share them.

I think it's good to remember that the following can both be simultaneously true:

1. There can be significant mental (and maybe physical!) health risks to keeping your kids home from school.

2. There can be significant physical (and maybe mental!) health risks to sending your kids to school.[0]

Neither point makes the other any less valid.

Every family is different, so everyone's going to weigh those two risks differently, and we need to be generous, patient, and understanding in figuring out how to accommodate each other.

[0] I'm seeing more studies saying mental illness rates are ticking up in Covid survivors relative to other cohorts, so there seems to be a mental health risk that rides the coattails of risk of infection.

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

#45

Post by space_fountain » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

Scramblejams wrote: post #32

space_fountain wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm very skeptical that schools are quite safe. See https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1346362159446577154 Some key quotes: Here is a study carried out across >200 countries that showed that among all interventions studied, closing educational institutions was the 2nd most effective. Importantly, the impact on R was similar for pre-school, primary & secondary school settings. https://www.nature.com/articles/s4156…

Thanks for the links. I think an interesting and hard thing to communicate with this sort of thing, is that it will always be possible to pull out evidence from both sides and it is difficult for me to weigh where the center of gravity is. Both Trump's and Biden's CDC has recommended school reopening in a lot of cases. I agree that it can't be exactly like normal. Capacity will need reduced especial in highschool, but they obviously believe that the balance of evidence is for reopening. Studying this sort of thing is also really darn hard and I fully believe that numbers based on school reopening times between countries can easily be used to support either side depending on what you control for. I've for example totally heard studies saying that reopening schools was associated with no change in transmission. The author of the twitter thread also remarks on cases dropping during what I think is the summer break. Given the patterns we've seen in covid there might be you know some other explanations for that.

They also seem to be disputing the idea that children spread covid less. I'm not any sort of export, but I think this is a fact that's been pretty well established. It's a bit counter intuitive because yeah as you say children are usually a vector for diseases to get into households, but different diseases work differently and for covid it seems like young children especially are better at fighting it off. One epidemiologist who disagrees doesn't change the larger picture

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

#46

Post by alphabettsy » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 9:01 PM UTC

undefined1 wrote: post #40

chc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per capita. Florida did anomalously well given its seemingly poor handling of the situation. It's likely related to the fact that California has 3 of the 10 biggest cities in the US while Florida has 0, but that doesn't seem like enough to fully explain it.

maybe, but in terms of density overall; CA: 253.9 residents per square mile FL: 397.2 residents per square mile

Should probably compare places where people live. Including the vast parts of CA that are empty desert skews this stat.

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

#47

Post by undefined1 » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

alphabettsy wrote: post #46

undefined1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe, but in terms of density overall; CA: 253.9 residents per square mile FL: 397.2 residents per square mile

Should probably compare places where people live. Including the vast parts of CA that are empty desert skews this stat.

that would be helpful. is there a stat that does that? removing empty CA desert and empty FL swamp?

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

#48

Post by iujjkfjdkkdkf » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 10:47 PM UTC

xxxxxyyg1 wrote: post #43

Scramblejams wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very skeptical that schools are quite safe. See https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1346362159446577154 Some key quotes: Here is a study carried out across >200 countries that showed that among all interventions studied, closing educational institutions was the 2nd most effective. Importantly, the impact on R was similar for pre-school, primary & secondary school settings. https://www.nature.com/articles/s4156…

If we're going to be super sensitive about the almost non-existent threat of children wrt sars-cov-2 why aren't we also super sensitive about destroying any semblance of normality in children's lives? Surely this damages children in their crucial developmental stages when they're deprived of social signalling, and effective teaching methods (sorry, Zoom doesn't cut it). As science would inform us - humans have millio…

This whole thing has transcended any kind of logic, and there does not seem to be a rational way to discuss the tradeoffs with people. I think this is just the first "crisis" - actually the mildest thing that could happen and still be considered a global pandemic - to land in the milieu of social media and polarization that the world had become already, and this is the result. The pandemic is really just a fashion accessory for a lot of people, a way to talk about how they're doing their part, look down on others they perceive to be the cause, and add as a hashtag to their posts.

In an earlier, less connected world, there would be other more sensible jurisdictions to go to, and people to speak out and debate rationally about why the ridiculous overreaction we've seen is in nobody's interest. But these days, I think we're all fucked. I think we lost a war a long time ago without noticing, and this is what we're stuck with.

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

#49

Post by gremlinsinc » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 12:31 AM UTC

So, does this mean America is ... doing better than Europe and Canada w/ covid? I mean I know we have aggressively rolled out vaccines, but we've never really been a "leader" since the pandemic started, except in cases and number of dead..

I'm not a Biden fan, but at least it feels like we've been more pro-active lately. If we could just mask-up and stay home as much as possible, and get vaccinated we could stay out of the news and go back to "new normal" by end of summer.

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

#50

Post by xxxxxyyg1 » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 3:45 AM UTC

Scramblejams wrote: post #44

xxxxxyyg1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to be super sensitive about the almost non-existent threat of children wrt sars-cov-2 why aren't we also super sensitive about destroying any semblance of normality in children's lives? Surely this damages children in their crucial developmental stages when they're deprived of social signalling, and effective teaching methods (sorry, Zoom doesn't cut it). As science would inform us - humans have millio…

If we're going to be super sensitive about the almost non-existent threat of children wrt sars-cov-2 According to the studies I linked above, closing schools during outbreaks saved many, many thousands of (mostly adult) lives. If those studies are correct, the threat is absolutely not "almost non-existent." If you have particular issues with those studies, please share them. I think it's good to remember that the fol…

> According to the studies I linked above, closing schools during outbreaks saved many, many thousands of (mostly adult) lives.

How many millions of children have had a profound impact on their lives, essentially sacrificing crucial years that determine the rest of their lives?

Some people seem ok with sacrificing children to save (primarily) the elderly.