Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 (nCoV-2019)

[Northern Light]

Trinity Bellwoods Part II, dance party at Cherry Beach yesterday:

Massive dance party at Toronto's Cherry Beach infuriates locals

Sweltering weather, the summer solstice, and what I'm certain is a strong sense of stir-craziness among Toronto's party set enticed hundreds, if no...

www.blogto.com

Putting aside the wisdom or lack thereof in the gathering........

What locals is BlogTO talking about?

There isn't a single residence within 1km of Cherry Beach.........

On a related tangent; I've said for sometime, as @Jonny5 notes above, people will not abide the endless sterilization of life; or being trapped indoors, on humidex 35 day, when many lack a/c.

I'm not advocating irresponsible behavior; but its irresponsible of government not to plan for same.

That means opening City pools; (with distancing guidelines/capacity reductions); and offsetting that lost capacity at any one time with expanded hours. 9am-Midnight daily.

Provide people fun things to do; and relief from the heat in a fun, responsible way; and most (not all) will take advantage of that.

Leave people with no good choices; they will make bad ones.

Today's worldview brought to you by Thomas Hobbes. LOL

 

[jje1000]

And.........

Summer weather brings big crowds to Woodbine Beach in Toronto

It seems as though more and more Toronto residents are throwing caution to the wind when it comes to COVID-19, abandoning pandemic protection measu...

www.blogto.com

The genie isn't going back in the bottle. Social distancing has been dying for weeks and may be already dead. These are only the higly visible events. Smaller examples are going on all over thousands of times a day everywhere in the GTA. People don't buy it anymore for whatever reason. Perhaps they think think they will get it no matter what and don't see a risk, or they think the healthcare system can't really do anything to help them even if they got it. I don't know. The "shock and disbelief" is getting annoying though.

Yup, and the cherry on top was when media and some certain medical officials condoned the previous weeks' protests, fundamentally damaging the credibility of the lockdown.

Whatever the legitimacy was for one versus the other, if one was an acceptable social event and anything else was tantamount to some act of societal betrayal (saw this a lot in the media tut-tutting), people are going to say "you're contradicting your own messaging" and ignore them.

Putting aside the wisdom or lack thereof in the gathering........

What locals is BlogTO talking about?

There isn't a single residence within 1km of Cherry Beach.........

On a related tangent; I've said for sometime, as @Jonny5 notes above, people will not abide the endless sterilization of life; or being trapped indoors, on humidex 35 day, when many lack a/c.

I'm not advocating irresponsible behavior; but its irresponsible of government not to plan for same.

That means opening City pools; (with distancing guidelines/capacity reductions); and offsetting that lost capacity at any one time with expanded hours. 9am-Midnight daily.

Provide people fun things to do; and relief from the heat in a fun, responsible way; and most (not all) will take advantage of that.

Leave people with no good choices; they will make bad ones.

Today's worldview brought to you by Thomas Hobbes. LOL

Agreed on this point- this is also a big 'L' that the city and provincial governments will have to own up to- that they weren't able to set a definitive end to the lockdown nor provide people with any outlets- and people got tired waiting for their lives to be unpaused.

In all honestly, I think the biggest failure was in properly communicating what was acceptable social distancing in a lock-down, and that the media freaked out over relatively minor incidents (including some deceptively telescopic photographs in some instances), as if they were trying to prove that people were not completely locking themselves indoors.

(And BlogTO is just a trashy tabloid which exaggerates to grab headlines, IMO.)

The researchers noted that they elected to exclude from the data the province that underwent lockdown the earliest — Hubei, which locked down on Jan. 23 — meaning that the low outdoor infection rate didn’t stem from the fact that the population was sheltering in place. The vast majority of COVID-19 patients’ suspected initial exposures came from close contact with someone inside their own houses (79.9 percent), or from someone they interacted with on indoor transportation (34 percent). In case you’re wondering why those numbers don’t add up to an even 100: many were exposed to the virus both at home and in transit around their suspected infection date, but it’s not clear which exposure resulted in the initial infection.

Chinese Study Finds Outdoor Activities Safe From COVID

Almost no one who contracted the novel coronavirus in China during the early days of the pandemic became infected in an outdoor setting, a new study finds — which is promising news for bikers and w…

usa.streetsblog.org

 

[Johnny Au]

The genie isn't going back in the bottle. Social distancing has been dying for weeks and may be already dead. These are only the higly visible events. Smaller examples are going on all over thousands of times a day everywhere in the GTA. People don't buy it anymore for whatever reason. Perhaps they think think they will get it no matter what and don't see a risk, or they think the helthcare can't system can't really do anything to help them even if they got it. I don't know. The "shock and disbelief" is getting annoying though.

Canada's Wonderland would open sometime in the middle of next month:

 

[gabe]

Putting aside the wisdom or lack thereof in the gathering........

What locals is BlogTO talking about?

There isn't a single residence within 1km of Cherry Beach.........

They are talking about the locals who live in the city of Toronto.

 

[PinkLucy]

How far are the people who live on their boats? Are they even able to do that this year? A friend of mine in the US who usually lives on a boat in the summer is currently not able to do so.

 

[Jasmine18]

I have friends in Australia and they tell me that people keep social distancing as the govt is so strict they even banned Anti Police Protest.

My point is the govt here refused to get strict with people much in other things nd then the PM is walking in the middle of protests.

Its summer time in Canada what did you guys expect people would act ?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Yup, and the cherry on top was when media and some certain medical officials condoned the previous weeks' protests, fundamentally damaging the credibility of the lockdown.
Whatever the legitimacy was for one versus the other, if one was an acceptable social event and anything else was tantamount to some act of societal betrayal (saw this a lot in the media tut-tutting), people are going to say "you're contradicting your own messaging" and ignore them.

Let's not give to much credence to that - people who decided to break social distancing and hang out for the fun of it doesn't care one iota about the credibility of the lockdown - they'd do it one way or another. You think some health officer coming out and saying the protests are a bad idea back then - will somehow stop these individuals from partying now? They'd still do it - just like people who refuse to wear face masks, speed on highways, run the right lights, litter, etc.

The whole post-hoc justification of "they protest, therefore I can do whatever I want" argument is lazy - because it isn't some sacred societal bond had been broken that they would have otherwise kept faith in. To be frank, they just don't get a sh*t when the weather is good. Remember those pre-protest images of people swarming the parks - at the height of the lockdown? No punishment, it's fun, and I didn't know anyone getting sick = I am going to do it and get a few of my buddies to do the same. Not because of some BLM protest that gave them the idea.

AoD

 

[lenaitch]

How far are the people who live on their boats? Are they even able to do that this year? A friend of mine in the US who usually lives on a boat in the summer is currently not able to do so.

If you talking about the floating residents at Bluffers, et al. I'm not sure what the issue would be. It is their residence (there are some that live there year-round). The fact that they might be really close to a neighbouring boat is no different than an apartment or a townhouse.

 

[lenaitch]

There goes Tory's plan to transition to Phase 2.

It would have to be delayed by a week.

Why can't they party in Canada's Wonderland parking lots? There's plenty of space and is one short bus ride from the subway.

Or, you know, not gather in large crowds. Nothing says party like a parking lot with no shade. If it's a bad idea to do something in one town, how is it better to do it in another.

 

[lenaitch]

I was not referring to re-writing the constitution or centralizing healthcare; however, a pandemic (and they certainly could come in more severe forms than COVID-19) is a national security issue that demands coordinated Federal action.

Infact, even evoking constitutional issues to hide behind is a total cop out and a stunning abdication of responsibility and leadership.

If we are so rigid in our behaviour at the cost of lives and dire economic consequences than what does that say about us versus dogmatic enablers of political systems and movements around the world?

We give governments the authority to exercise their mandate in accordance with the rule of law - in this case, the Constitution. I hardly see that as a "cop out". If it becomes acceptable for them to exceed their authority in one instance, then how it is argued that they can't in another. There's a rule of thumb in governance that the things that are 'closer to home' are delivered by a closer level of government. Stray dogs and garbage collection are better delivered municipally than federally; national defence and international trade, the opposite. Sure there are unitary forms of government, but I don't know any democratic ones that cover almost 10Mn sq km. Leadership and coordination for sure, but how do you effectively manage an outbreak that has seen ~33,500 cases in Ontario, 27 in PEI and zero in Nunavut.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

We give governments the authority to exercise their mandate in accordance with the rule of law - in this case, the Constitution. I hardly see that as a "cop out". If it becomes acceptable for them to exceed their authority in one instance, then how it is argued that they can't in another. There's a rule of thumb in governance that the things that are 'closer to home' are delivered by a closer level of government. Stray dogs and garbage collection are better delivered municipally than federally; national defence and international trade, the opposite. Sure there are unitary forms of government, but I don't know any democratic ones that cover almost 10Mn sq km. Leadership and coordination for sure, but how do you effectively manage an outbreak that has seen ~33,500 cases in Ontario, 27 in PEI and zero in Nunavut.

There are some things that can be done federally - such as setting up and enforcing national healthcare/aged care standards (transfers are usually the carrot and stick ). The other issue laid bare is how our provinces are set up as historical conveniences - their scale and reach aren't necessarily most conducive to effective policy making and service delivery (like the current regional approach within a provincial framework is somewhat ludicrous).

AoD

 

[lenaitch]

True. While the Charter was created and formal full control over our constitutional legislation was enacted, the original division of federal-provincial responsibilities were untouched, as were provincial boundaries. The concept of 'healthcare' as we know it is not mentioned in the Constitution. Changes to those would require amending the Constitution and we all know how much luck we have had with that. As an example, it might make economic sense to unify the Maritime provinces, but it will likely never happen. They would be trading three premiers and governments beating up on Ottawa, for one.

 

[jje1000]

Let's not give to much credence to that - people who decided to break social distancing and hang out for the fun of it doesn't care one iota about the credibility of the lockdown - they'd do it one way or another. You think some health officer coming out and saying the protests are a bad idea back then - will somehow stop these individuals from partying now? They'd still do it - just like people who refuse to wear face masks, speed on highways, run the right lights, litter, etc.

The whole post-hoc justification of "they protest, therefore I can do whatever I want" argument is lazy - because it isn't some sacred societal bond had been broken that they would have otherwise kept faith in. To be frank, they just don't get a sh*t when the weather is good. Remember those pre-protest images of people swarming the parks - at the height of the lockdown? No punishment, it's fun, and I didn't know anyone getting sick = I am going to do it and get a few of my buddies to do the same. Not because of some BLM protest that gave them the idea.

The issue isn't that particular selfish individuals were already breaking guidelines, it's that the medical/media messaging directed to the majority of the population following the rules was selectively contradicted for a cause, making more people more comfortable in expanding their range of activities. This is already following on the tail of various politicians breaking their own lockdown rules, undermining trust in the lockdown.

In other words, if the lockdown was a metaphorical 'social contract' dam, the 'selfish' could be considered leaks, while recent events have steadily blown holes in that dam.

IMO, to file away all the behaviour to just 'selfish individuals' is sort of reductionary and understates the failure of government and media in both messaging and enforcement. Societies will always have selfish individuals, but it's up to the government and the culture as to how to deal with them.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The issue isn't that particular selfish individuals were already breaking guidelines, it's that the medical/media messaging directed to the majority of the population following the rules was selectively contradicted for a cause, making more people more comfortable in expanding their range of activities. This is already following on the tail of various politicians breaking their own lockdown rules, undermining trust in the lockdown.

In other words, if the lockdown was a metaphorical 'social contract' dam, the 'selfish' could be considered leaks, while recent events have steadily blown holes in that dam.

IMO, to file away all the behaviour to just 'selfish individuals' understates the failure of government and media in both messaging and enforcement. Societies will always have selfish individuals, but it's up to the government and the culture as to how to deal with them.

The holes in the dam are already blown ages ago (i.e. masses in public spaces in good weather) - the government had always relied on self-policing, and it was very, very clear there will be no attempts to police it systematically. You give too much credit to the symbolism and supposed "trust" and not enough credit to individual agency - people don't decide to do x because they saw some politician went to the cottage or saw some protest on TV - they do it because everyone is talking about reopening, the weather is good outside, the number of cases are dropping and they assess the risk to self as low (however flawed and illogical that assessment maybe, and if they had cared about that risk at all, which I suspect not).

As to dealing with selfish individuals - we can't even deal with speeding, red-light running and whatnot in the best of times - you expect there will be effective enforcement of social distancing in open air environments now? Messaging can only go so far, and I think we are in the messaging fatigue stage.
As to enforcement - how willing is any government to be draconian enough for it to be effective? You can't enforce it widely enough to stop the majority of these cases - the only option left is making an example of those who violated the rules - and no government is going to do that in a country like ours. People are compliant as long as there is fear - and that fear has receded and replaced by a pull factor that is the Canadian summer.

AoD

 

[jje1000]

The holes in the damn are already blown ages ago (i.e. masses in public spaces in good weather) - the government had always relied on self-policing, and it was very, very clear there will be no attempts to police it systematically. You give too much credit to the symbolism and supposed "trust" and not enough credit to individual agency - people don't decide to do x because they saw y doing it - they do it because everyone is talking about reopening and the weather is good outside.

As to dealing with selfish individuals - we can't even deal with speeding, red-light running and whatnot in the best of times - you expect there will be effective enforcement of social distancing in open air environments now?

AoD

Seems like you're reaching for a more fundamental issue with the societal pact and its ability to deal with crisis situations that take it beyond normal operating conditions- and going by your points, the lockdown was inevitably doomed.