Canadian COVID-19 News

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I may come face-to-face with this reality. I'm heading to Vancouver Island soon, and will be driving a motorcycle with Ontario license plates. Will be interesting...

Keep that full faced hemet on and you should be good

And say hello to my boat for me...

[kmacdonald]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I may come face-to-face with this reality. I'm heading to Vancouver Island soon, and will be driving a motorcycle with Ontario license plates. Will be interesting...

Be careful. This is what one cruiser has to say:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBRyxLC9KaY&t=832s

[hpeer]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

All so sad, and so avoidable. But here we are. But it's not just Americans who are facing the wrath of locals. As the BBC piece says:


I may come face-to-face with this reality. I'm heading to Vancouver Island soon, and will be driving a motorcycle with Ontario license plates. Will be interesting...

Mike,

Well look at the Maritime bubble. NL has had, I think, 3 deaths. Or 6/million. The rest of the maritime region is not far behind.

But then how do they reopen? The same problem exists in Caribbean islands. How do they reopen?

Look, I’m dam glad I’m not in charge of anything, Im retired from which elevated position I can safely pontificate. My bet is that 2-3 years down the like there is gonna be some SERIOUS Rethinking of what the hell we were thinking during this virus.

Not at all sure about the details in this but it strikes me there is a lot of faulty thinking and poor promises being made. False hopes.

Back in March I thought this would be mostly over by now. Now I’m starting to worry we are just getting into the meat of it. The virus itself is bad enough. The financial distress is yet to come. There is a LOT being done to undermine our faith in one another, as witnessed here.

If I were prone to conspiracy theories, and I’m not, I would postulate it’s a plan to get the West to accept a system like Chinas Social Credit Score. And that may still come about, not that someone planned the virus to do this but because people/corporations will take the opportunity to leverage the virus to their own ends. Lots of fear mongering going on. Why?

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by kmacdonald

Be careful. This is what one cruiser has to say:

A) that was back in April in the San Juans
B) it was Americans that were doing the hating since they did want the "rich folk" on their islands and
C) in the previous video they docked at an island wharf, read a sign (on camera) that said no docking unless it was essential, decided that exercise was essential, and then went for a walk.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by hpeer

My bet is that 2-3 years down the like there is gonna be some SERIOUS Rethinking of what the hell we were thinking during this virus.

That's about the only thing we can absolutely guarantee about this whole mess.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Mike,

Well look at the Maritime bubble. NL has had, I think, 3 deaths. Or 6/million. The rest of the maritime region is not far behind.

But then how do they reopen? The same problem exists in Caribbean islands. How do they reopen?

How indeed. I wish I knew. No ... I wish they knew.

The theory we're still working on is that Covid-19 can be starved by reducing transmission to near-zero. We can do this, but at great cost. And like influenza and the cold virus, there's no reasonable expectation it will just disappear. So we hope for a near future of some level or herd immunity that is reinforced by a partially effective vaccine.

But life's not fair, and we may be far from this future. The fact is, no one knows at this point.

Originally Posted by hpeer

If I were prone to conspiracy theories, and I’m not, I would postulate it’s a plan to get the West to accept a system like Chinas Social Credit Score. And that may still come about, not that someone planned the virus to do this but because people/corporations will take the opportunity to leverage the virus to their own ends. Lots of fear mongering going on. Why?

As you know, I too have been concerned about the negative lessons our already authoritarian-leaning "free" countries will learn from all this. It's truly impressive how quickly our freedoms have disappeared under the pen of executive order. Powers gains by the powerful are rarely given up easily. We just have to look to other recent shocks like 9/11 or even the Great Recession to see some of the lasting losses of freedom.

The pandemic is very real, and is very serious. The mortality rates are significant -- this is not just a nasty flu. And the lasting morbidity issues are yet to be fully understood. But as is sometimes the case with the human immune system, sometimes our response to a disease is worse than the disease itself.

Time will tell where we are on this spectrum.

[kmacdonald]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

Keep that full faced hemet on and you should be good

And say hello to my boat for me...

Originally Posted by Macblaze

A) that was back in April in the San Juans
B) it was Americans that were doing the hating since they did want the "rich folk" on their islands and
C) in the previous video they docked at an island wharf, read a sign (on camera) that said no docking unless it was essential, decided that exercise was essential, and then went for a walk.

OK. Thanks for clearing that up. He should be fine without the full face mask then.

[hpeer]

Mike,
I’ll be 70 in November, so I’m on the cusp of be an at risk person. So I feel the pinch from this bugger.

I was happy in a safe place, Dominica. Were I able to sail South to avoid storms I would still be there.

But we were forced out by the squeeze between hurricanes and tight quarantines.

So we came to the place that gave us most flexibility, but at increased Covid risk.

And Newfoundland was out.

So in a way the thing that has done the most to put me at risk is governmental policy. People can criticize the USA, but it took in a lot of people who otherwise would have been more exposed or otherwise in tough shape.

Now here we go with the flow. Hear lots of stories about how the death reports are being manipulated. Destroying the data we need to protect ourselves for political gain, at the state level. I see lots of businesses ruined, and maybe life’s and families to boot. Was their sacrifice necessary to protect my old ass? Would I have asked them to suffer that way?

What is my real risk? I have no clue. I hear that about half the deaths are from long term care facilities. Very roughly a quarter of our deaths came from the NYC cluster. I’m not obese and have no comorbidities. Figure that together and my real risk of getting the disease is pretty low, and serious complications much lower yet. How far is it reasonable to go to stay safe?

What’s my Covid risk compare to being in a bad car accident injury? Should I quit driving?

Lots and lots of ways to look at things.

[Yihang]

Well if you add up the annual car accident, late term abortion, suicide and flu death together you get covid death numbers. Thats one way to look at it.

[hpeer]

Originally Posted by Yihang

Well if you add up the annual car accident, late term abortion, suicide and flu death together you get covid death numbers. Thats one way to look at it.

That’s only true if you don’t look at any details, just take the raw numbers and apply equally.

We have about 170,000 deaths. Using the same metrics as UK.
They just adjusted their deaths down by 12%, likely same here
That’s 150,000.
40% are in LTC facilities and I’m not.
Now we are down to 90k
Over 20% of USA deaths are in the NYC cluster, I am not.
So that’s makes 72k.
But of them over 50% were older than me.
36k.
And many were obese, say 40% roughly.
So that makes the death among my cohort about
22k.

Well under car accidents at 36k.

The flip side of the coin is that a 80yo obese, diabetic hyper tensive living in a NYC LTC facility was at extreme risk.

Now these are VERY rough numbers and there is plenty of room for niggiling.

But the fact remains that the risk for a 12 yo girl in Montana is far less than for a obese 80yo in NYC.

Bottom line, each of us should look at our own personal situation and evaluate the risk accordingly. Then adjust behavior and circumstances accordingly.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Yihang

Well if you add up the annual car accident, late term abortion, suicide and flu death together you get covid death numbers. Thats one way to look at it.

In C-A-N-A-D-A???

[Yihang]

No, sorry. imma scoot out of this thread. Never been to canada. Just saw it across the river from olympia national park. Looks nice though.

[NaClyDog]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/can...d-19-1.5685469


Canadian tour boats entering U.S. waters lead to turbulence during COVID-19 border closure

[NaClyDog]

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/cana...ions-1.5064424


Canada-U.S. border closure extended again amid tension over restrictions


tl;dr - New extension goes till Sept. 21.

[Mike OReilly]

No surprise on the border closure extension. Given the current standing of our federal government, this is likely one of the most popular decisions it can make right now.

I am surprised, and disappointing, that the American tour boat operators are being banned from passing through (non-stop) Canadian waters. I can see where this is purely for recreational purposes, so over-zealous policing could lead to this outcome. But this could quickly be interpreted to ban all innocent passages. That would be bad for everyone.

Howard, none of us really knows our actual risk. I think it's clear it is much higher than influenza, but is it worse than driving across Canada on a small motorcycle -- which is what these government policy changes have forced on me -- I don't know.

We won't know or some time. As I keep saying, we are awash in data but understanding takes time. True understanding will take years of study and research. You just can't rush it.

Is it fair -- nope. But life isn't fair (or unfair for that matter). It is reality though, and we all have to cope as best we can.

I just hope Newfoundland opens up next year.