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News Worldwide impact of the novel coronavirus (covid-19)

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I did an hour's mindful walking. I did a whole stack of other things, then I read this. I think it's important information.

Linsey Marr, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech who studies the transmission of viruses in the air, said the five-minute window in which the student, identified in the study as “A,” was infected was notable because the droplet was large enough to carry a viral load, but small enough to travel 20 feet through the air.

 
After weeks of hundreds of doctors signing letters to the Premier requesting a lockdown and mandatory masks, sinking popularity polls, exponential positivity % growth to over 10%, hospitals and ICUs overflowing, and Mayor's finally giving an ultimatum (if the Premier doesn't mandate a lockdown and masks, the cities will do their own)... we have a 4 week lockdown and a mandatory mask mandate. Finally! It comes into full force on Sunday.

Then our Premier does an interview and shoves both feet in his mouth before the lockdown has even come into full force. He compared himself to a wartime leader (a lá Trump), when he's shown no leadership whatsoever, and only brought in these measures because the Mayors were about to embarrass him. Then he blabbed some more and created a loophole for people who want to gather for Christmas. There's a ban on all indoor and outdoor social gatherings with anyone outside of your household, but this arse stated that if people quarantine for 14 days they could "possibly" gather with friends and family for Christmas. What a fool! And this is after our top health person said to follow the spirit of the lockdown and not look for loopholes. Our rates have grown to the point that we had the highest case numbers and highest per capita case rate in the country on multiple days, and have been a close second on many days. This is factually true. But apparently anyone who says that, hates and is bashing our province, even though a good number of those pointing out these facts are in this province. Nope, according to our Premier those numbers are only being stated by haters and they are from outside the province.

The Premier has repeatedly crowed about how this province was the first to believe in the credibility of mask wearing. But he can't answer why masks have only been "recommended" for months after that as our rates have grown exponentially since Thanksgiving, and we are the very last jurisdiction in the entire country to finally bring in a mask mandate. That's like saying we knew about the vaccine first, but we'll wait for everyone else in the country to take it, but we knew it before everyone. What good does it do to know something first, but to act on that knowledge last and only after harm has been done? We have almost 700 deaths, but are only just mandating masks.

All of our major hospitals are overcapacity, all have unit outbreaks, non-emergency procedures are cancelled, we have 124 people in ICUs that were only set up for 70, and some ICU rooms are double bunking. Judging from the outbreak list I get at work, it looks like every LTC home in my region is having an outbreak and is on diversion.

Why is this Premier channeling Trump??? Why would that seem like a good idea to this government??? I'm so embarrassed for my province, and a bit ashamed to say that I'm from here.

ETA. What happens in the hospitals is 2-4 weeks behind the trends in case numbers. We're overflowing right now, and the military just landed 3 Herc's here, in anticipation of a request for help.
 
Why is this Premier channeling Trump??? Why would that seem like a good idea to this government??? I
As a reasonably near neighbor to the south (in a state that's done better than our neighbors because our GOVERNOR is better than our neighbors') let me say I certainly don't think the current stupidity reflects on the people of your province. I AM pretty much baffled by how all this has played out. I mean, I'm not wearing a mask because the governor said so, I'm wearing a mask because I looked at the available data and decided it was a good idea. DUH?! Equally, no one had to TELL me to stay out of bars and restaurants. The available information makes it pretty clear that's the current best course of action. I don't get why people are getting hung up on "not letting anyone tell them what to do" and, therefore, they do stupid stuff. Even if our leaders are idiots (and it seems inescapable that some of them are) people STILL have the information to make good choices, if they just USE it.
 
As a reasonably near neighbor to the south (in a state that's done better than our neighbors because our GOVERNOR is better than our neighbors') let me say I certainly don't think the current stupidity reflects on the people of your province. I AM pretty much baffled by how all this has played out. I mean, I'm not wearing a mask because the governor said so, I'm wearing a mask because I looked at the available data and decided it was a good idea. DUH?! Equally, no one had to TELL me to stay out of bars and restaurants. The available information makes it pretty clear that's the current best course of action. I don't get why people are getting hung up on "not letting anyone tell them what to do" and, therefore, they do stupid stuff. Even if our leaders are idiots (and it seems inescapable that some of them are) people STILL have the information to make good choices, if they just USE it.

Yup, I agree 100% with your actions. And that's why I'm ashamed of my province.

I expected that, because we have access to media and information from countries that haven't fared well during their waves, and see just how bad it can get and how quickly, that both our government and our citizens would put in a good effort to keep numbers low. Not a herculean effort, just a good effort to behave responsibly and reduce the spread. But our Premier is channeling Trump, and has politicized the virus, lockdowns, and masks, all while resisting taking even the simplest of actions. He's an arse. He's even declared war on doctors and nurses during this pandemic, and F'd over paramedics, so I think that says everything we need to know about him and his henchmen. What I find more disturbing is that people are going along with that BS, and are gathering in close quarters, are verbally abusive and now physically assaultive when reminded to mask indoors, are protesting (even holding Trump, MAGA, and "give me liberty or give me death" signs), and are distributing pamphlets declaring that this is a global hoax by US democrats, global socialists, and governments that have plotted a monetary "Great Reset". There seems to be no common sense and no critical thinking.

My household didn't need to be told by the Premier what to do. We didn't wait for our federal government either. We knew once the virus was out of China, and into South Korea and Italy, that it was going to become global. Even while our government was still denying that our country was at risk, we got masks and sanitizer and started using them diligently, and stocked up on nonperishables (didn't know we needed to add 6+ months of TP to that list 😂). We haven't eaten in at restaurants. We haven't had visitors into our home. Our only "trip" this summer was for 1 day, was <3 hours away, 99% outdoors, and only once the place made masks mandatory for the 1% indoor space and limited the number of people. We're not geniuses, so how did we figure it out, and why are we being so responsible when so many in our province just can't be bothered?

I think this does reflect on the people of my province, and it reflects badly. Quite literally the least that we could do, collectively, would have a huge effect on the health care system and the number of people getting sick, suffering (?lifelong) effects, and dying. But the least we can do is just too inconvenient, too much effort, too hard, too [insert BS self-serving selfish excuse]. We aren't willing to do the least we can do, we want to do less. And I am disgusted.
 
Re-read the first few pages of this thread.

On February 25, 2020, the CDC was still preparing for a possible pandemic. Toilet paper was running out. That wasn't that long ago. Now here we are and it's not even that shocking of news hospitals are overrun down the street... from my home and homes all over the world. It a horrible new ordinary.

Now in the US, one can buy TP and hand sanitizer ornaments for Christmas.

What a year.
 
14 days they could "possibly" gather with friends and family for Christmas.
was wondering where this came from- makes sense now.

i think most ppl here are doing their part. there's always idiots.
i dont think most people understand why they're doing what they've been asked to do.
it doesnt make sense to people that young kids can go to school, play on playgrounds with friends but not see those friends after school.

people forgot really early on, i noticed, that it wasn't about preventing everyone from getting the virus, it was about keeping the healthcare system from being overwhelmed.

and ive heard conflicting reports about hospitals too.
Some up to 4 units of covid patients but when staff go to deliver something security says "yeah, go on in, there's all of 2 people in the entire unit"
other hospital staff wondering where all the covid patients are
calls out for urgently needed staff to volunteer for contact tracing but nobody getting call backs weeks and months later.
one entire towns hospital being set up as a purely covid hospital, zero covid patients there yet.

confusing as hell, even for healthcare workers.

i dislike our provincial govt. but im actually (mostly) impressed by the way he's handled (most) stuff.

and i still like when he told all the teens to 30 year olds to stop being idiots.

not alarmist and also not a dictator. being very careful not to overstep legal freedoms.

i dunno. wouldnt wanna be the one who has to decide between people lives and people livelihoods.

does an 86 year old man have more of a right to survive than a 7yr old who will freeze and/or starve to death when his parents lose everything because of forced shut downs?

thats a shitty choice. i think our premier's trying to find a balance.

i hope govt's after this start taking these thing more seriously though, have plans. have research to make those plans. use the people who specialize in these things seriously in the future. invest more etc.

we have a city in canada that has sea cans set up strategically across the city for major earthquake emergencies but were barely prepared for a pandemic?
is it human arrogance? wishful thinking?
*shrugs*

i think we're all just doing our best.
some people bests just look different than our own.
 
@Innordinate yeah, I think this disjointed and inconsistent messaging is a problem. This far into the pandemic we know so much more about this virus than we did in the early months, so the messaging should be clear and consistent. If people are going to sacrifice, they need to know what they're doing it for. And this applies to the vaccine now too.

I'm not sure where the hospital confusion is coming from, that definitely hasn't been my personal experience where I'm working. The bigger issue has been where to put them once we arrive at the hospital, and where to marinate away from everyone else when we have to wait for an isolation bed. Sitting in a cordoned off area for most of a shift, while wearing full PPE, is not so much fun. I also saw the overflowing ICU during the first wave, and the non-ICU isolations, it was awful. It's worse now, and there's a lot of hospitals with outbreaks on their units, so that's chaos making. I do know of 1 hospital though that refused to accept any patients that are potentially or confirmed covid, but the hospital we had to divert to (an hour away) had to close the maternity ward to create overflow capacity.

I think we did really well over the summer, but that's because of weather not leadership. Once our numbers went up this fall (as we were warned all summer that they would), and the hospitals were getting over 40-50% of their covid capacity, that was the time to start taking some action. The hospital numbers trend 2-4 weeks behind the case numbers, so at that point we already knew the system would be seriously stressed in less than a month, and action was urgently needed. I understand why the Premier doesn't want to take actions that will damage our already damaged economy, I was here for the 80's and I remember how bad it was, we lost everything, but our economy doesn't operate in a vacuum. Delaying the restrictions is making the damage worse than it otherwise would have been. If we'd started sooner, those businesses would be open and doing christmas business now (a large portion of their annual income). And we could have gotten away with fewer restrictions, keeping the necessary ones more targeted <-- but we crapped all over our ability to do contact tracing and see trends, so that went out the window about 6 weeks ago.

I'm pissed off at my province. I have a nephew (ish) that just had a birthday. I can't be with him or his family to celebrate. When his new brother or sister is born soon, I won't be able to meet that baby or celebrate with the family. I also have a friend whose facility is on outbreak (again!). He doesn't always have access to PPE, so at home he's sleeping in a tent on his balcony so he doesn't infect his young family. This is the second time he's had to do this. It's cold out there now, it was -18 last night and all he has is a little heater. He's cold, and his little daughter stands at the door and cries for him. 💔
 
NSW Health is treating 69 COVID-19 cases. So Australia has new Covid19 cases in NSW - my friends who have been in lock down since February, decided it was safe enough and traveled down to Sydney to see friends and family for Xmas. They arrived to 28 new cases. So they headed back this morning. I feel for them. They will lose a lot of money on accomadation. It's now not just Avalon area - it includes a long list of areas - Turrmurra, Peakhurst, Cronulla and Penrith. One of the infected people flew up to Queensland and went to 13 locations. That was on the Sunshine Coast.

We were going to drive down to NSW today and don masks, and check out some Permaculture Farms and look at buying me a fruit tree for my birthday - but we have decided to give that a miss today. It's unlikely the border will get closed but it's happened to people mid flight to Adelaide when they went into a quick lock down. The less folks move around the quicker they can get this sorted.

They haven't mandated masks in NSW so we need to shut the borders again, there's been a soft closure so far, it needs to go harder, if they can't wearing f*cking masks, then they don't deserve to put the rest of us at risk. Taiwan had flights direct from Wuhan, they did testing in planes as they arrived, paid quarantine with food and medicines delivered, the government provided 2 masks per week to adults and 3 to children, 757 infections and 7 deaths, never had to lock down, and their economy has grown 1.6%. I don't know why basic common sense is so difficult but it's annoying. Each day they delay a lock down it's another week at the other end. Victoria was slow to lock down and they had a very painful experience with being in lock down for so long when, if they had locked down immediately they could have avoided that pain.

I can't wait until we get the vaccines.
 
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