Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 (nCoV-2019)

[lenaitch]

There were lots of 24-hour stores pre-pandemic; I have 2 within walking distance of my front door.

Lets not oversell this as a novel challenge.

A friend of mine actually spent a large part of his working life starting back in the '70s working overnight at a large grocery store and made a decent living given the differentials, premiums, etc. It actually grew out of overnight stocking. Apparently they figured out they have to have the lights, HVAC, etc. on staff, supervisors, etc. they figured it was a small leap to add a couple of cashiers. I guess it caught on. We even have one or two up here in the summer. Not my cup-o-tea but maybe attractive to shift workers, folks heading to the cottage really late/early, et al.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Meanwhile in Peel, hug-an-antimasker is hot:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1383116307172884480

AoD

That was quick:

Peel police officer suspended after maskless officer hugs people in antimask group

Global TV journalist reports from outside Mississauga boxing gym staying open despite lockdown.

www.thestar.com

Paid suspension, no doubt.

AoD

 

[Northern Light]

On the tangential subject of WFH:

This article from just over 2 weeks ago suggested Amazon would be back to office-centric work by fall.

Incoming Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on why remote work hurts innovation: ‘You don’t riff the same way’

As GeekWire reported earlier Wednesday, Amazon is headed back to the office after letting people work from home for the past year. “Our plan is to return to an office-centric… Read More

www.geekwire.com

Its possible.........it might be happening a bit sooner than that.

As in I understand it was very busy at the office this week.

I wonder if they have a vaccination policy............hmmmm.

 

[thaivic]

WSIB Claims =/= Positive COVID cases

Edit: WSIB claims are a terrible correlate to actual workplace injuries, particularly in construction. Out of several dozen workplace injuries that I've personally sustained I've had exactly one claim made, and it was submitted largely against my will. And it's not just me. The WSIB is viewed with extreme suspicion and hostility by a large segment of the building trades. It's just a lousy metric to try to use to prove a point.

I was not using it to prove a point, my point was that working in a factory or in a food processing plant should not be grouped together with construction industry, i have an employee that got a call from his wife that her test came back positive, we sent everyone home and had everyone do the test, nobody came back to work until everyone came back with a negative test, the employee who's wife tested positive stayed home for 16 days and had a second test done before coming back, i highly doubt that any factory or food processing plant would do the same.
We do residential so i guess we are considered essential, i would not have a problem if we shut down but i am sure our clients would.

 

[Northern Light]

Hahaha, you didn't really think he was serious, did you?
https://twitter.com/Justin_Ling
Justin Ling
@Justin_Ling

Replying to
@Justin_Ling
Just confirmed: Housing construction can continue. These people. Unbelievable.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1383155702588395522

AoD

Justin Ling has a few things to say............

All from:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1383155702588395522

 

[Rascacielo]

Here's an excerpt from a Globe & Mail article:

In Toronto, the most cases among outbreaks from mid-March to mid-April were at Array Marketing, a marketing firm, which had 53 cases, according to City of Toronto data compiled by The Globe. Among others with the highest case counts in the past month are Athletic Knit, a sports uniform maker (26 cases), an Amazon warehouse (25 cases) and 159SW Condominium, a construction project developed by the Alterra Group (21 cases). It’s not just the workers testing positive; increasingly, each case holds the risk of spreading to family members as well.

Alterra Group said nearly all of the cases were among contractors. It had paused work at the site, and is now resuming with limited access. “We need vaccines,” David Wineberg, vice president of construction, said in an e-mail. “The workers have been deemed essential.”

 

[condovo]

I agree with David Weinberg. We do need vaccines. That's the only thing that's going to get us out of this mess. We've been in some sort of lockdown since November 22, 2020. It's not working.

We've seen the variants and the third wave coming since January. The province is responsible for the vaccine rollout and the feds are responsible for the supply. Where's the supply?

 

[Jonny5]

CTV Toronto News tonight; the new police powers were covered in a 60 second story which was the seventh in the broadcast. It was immediately followed by a three minute consumer story on electric lawn mowers.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I agree with David Weinberg. We do need vaccines. That's the only thing that's going to get us out of this mess. We've been in some sort of lockdown since November 22, 2020. It's not working.

The province is responsible for the rollout and the feds are responsible for the supply. Where's the supply?

People need to grow up a bit and realize a) everyone in the world wants vaccine, b) there is production limit - and we don't make any and c) you need to control spread until vaccination is mostly complete. Refusal to follow pandemic restrictions and unwise premature reopening lead directly to the current situation. You are salivating looking at US or the UK? They make their own (and US isn't exporting anyone any), and UK went mostly AZ, which we don't really want. Other countries (particularly non-OECD ones) with higher vaccination rates? They are using Sputink or Sinovac, which we do not want. No amount of complaining and wishful thinking will change this reality.

AoD

 

[Northern Light]

Refusal to follow pandemic restrictions

I don't think that's a fair take.

The refusal to implement intelligent restrictions, early-on, when they would have had the greatest effect, certainly made matters much worse.

I think compliance has been reasonably high with the orders as-issued.

and unwise premature reopening lead directly to the current situation.

That contributed to be sure.

But is partly a product of being late, and ineffectual as mandated;

****

But perhaps we could keep the Covid stuff in the Covid thread?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I don't think that's a fair take.

The refusal to implement intelligent restrictions, early-on, when they would have had the greatest effect, certainly made matters much worse.

I think compliance has been reasonably high with the orders as-issued.



That contributed to be sure.

But is partly a product of being late, and ineffectual as mandated;

****

But perhaps we could keep the Covid stuff in the Covid thread?

I don't mean your average joe (though there are enough of those as well) - I mean those in power/positions of influence with a vested interest that stonewall policy changes needed.

AoD

 

[condovo]

We've been in this since Feb/March last year. Our lack of vaccine supply, as well as our inability to really ramp things up, both at the federal and provincial level--testing, sequencing, ICU capacity, staffing, vaccine rollout--is inexcusable. Other countries have done better in each of these areas, including countries with no homegrown vaccine-manufacturing capacity getting an adequate supply of doses.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

We've been in this since Feb/March last year. Our lack of vaccine supply, as well as our inability to really ramp things up, both at the federal and provincial level--testing, sequencing, ICU capacity, staffing, etc.--is inexcusable. Other countries have done better, including those with no homegrown vaccine-manufacturing capacity.

Read what I have said about non-OECD countries:

1	Israel	10,300,501	57.32	119
2	United Arab Emirates	9,387,344	0	94.91
3	Chile	12,726,959	26.82	66.58
4	Bahrain	1,028,323	26.2	60.43
5	United Kingdom	40,958,303	12.54	60.33
6	United States	198,317,040	23.47	59.3
7	Hungary	4,416,581	13.72	45.72
8	Serbia	3,020,401	17.83	44.39
9	Qatar	1,183,191	0	41.07
10	Uruguay	1,249,784	7.29	35.98

Other than Israel (and excluding UK, US, which we have already talked about), all these other countries with high rates of doses/100 are using Sputnik-V and Sinovac as well.

Anyways, there is a COVID thread.

AoD

 

[Northern Light]

We've been in this since Feb/March last year. Our lack of vaccine supply, as well as our inability to really ramp things up, both at the federal and provincial level--testing, sequencing, ICU capacity, staffing, etc.--is inexcusable. Other countries have done better in all these areas, including those with no homegrown vaccine-manufacturing capacity.

BC and the Martimes deserve some credit for their handling of things.

Ontario, Quebec and Alberta have all been degrees of stupefyingly bad.

The Federal government under achieved as well, particularly early on.

They've done a mostly reasonable job on 'supports'; but did a poor job on pandemic management within their areas of jurisdiction ( travel restrictions, border checks, quarantines etc.)

 

[Northern Light]

CTV Toronto News tonight; the new police powers were covered in a 60 second story which was the seventh in the broadcast. It was immediately followed by a three minute consumer story on electric lawn mowers.

Those sorts of editorial choices diminish journalism.