AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
People take cues from the government - the latter never took communicating and enforcing seriously after the 1st wave.
AoD
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Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 (nCoV-2019)
- Thread starter AlvinofDiaspar
- Start date
People take cues from the government - the latter never took communicating and enforcing seriously after the 1st wave.
AoD
Northern Light
Superstar
I said from early on; and I maintain.........prudent restrictions, even sweeping ones can be necessary or at least highly useful; however, the sharper the restriction, the shorter it must be.
What you can't do is drag things along slowly, where the level of consequence is severe enough to be a substantial irritant (people losing jobs, businesses, and lives from deferred surgeries and tests), and expect people to abide that.
The mistakes made here have been multiple:
1) Restrictions that were never useful based on peer-reviewed scientific research (ie. closing playgrounds) creating an irritant without a payoff.
2) Failing to protect long-term care homes throughout the first wave, by being slow to isolate staff to one facility, never isolating them to a single unit/floor; and never moving to reduce multi-resident rooms to 2 or less.
3) Failing to lower the number of students in classes sufficiently; and failure to maximize outdoor classrooms during weather that was pleasant enough to support it.
4) Having government services and businesses alike restrict hours, with the effect of causing inconvenience, but also increasing crowding in the remaining hours, thus increasing transmission needlessly
5) Failing to ramp up testing capacity and contact tracing capacity adequately, both are under-resourced by at least a factor of 2, 8 months from the onset of all this.
6) In general, low-risk businesses have been the subject of restrictions for which there has been no epidemiological evidence, to no great value.
7) Support programs for business have been needlessly convoluted. Programs helping business cover rent, in particular, never should have been funneled through landlords, its simply overly complicated.
The appropriate manner of assistance for rent and other fixed costs; should have been cash-out to businesses; while imposing a temporary 1-year commercial rent freeze, and a 90-day eviction moratorium for non-payment of rent while the program was set up.
8) Messaging on personal contact restrictions has been hopelessly terrible. From one's social bubble; to your own household, to a 'safe six'....and on and on.
It should have been simple: Your immediate household only, unless you live alone, in which case you can see either 1 or 2 people outside your home, those people effectively count you as a member of their household. That's it.
9) All of the above addressed, large-scale 'lockdowns' should be rare, and brief. When necessary, however, they should be as complete as possible. Grocery stores should largely be shut. The way to do this, is to have the government agree to eat delivery charges; to allow orders to be phoned in for those who lack internet; etc. Again, keeping any such move, brief. 10 days and done.
Not that I have any opinion or anything....
What you can't do is drag things along slowly, where the level of consequence is severe enough to be a substantial irritant (people losing jobs, businesses, and lives from deferred surgeries and tests), and expect people to abide that.
The mistakes made here have been multiple:
1) Restrictions that were never useful based on peer-reviewed scientific research (ie. closing playgrounds) creating an irritant without a payoff.
2) Failing to protect long-term care homes throughout the first wave, by being slow to isolate staff to one facility, never isolating them to a single unit/floor; and never moving to reduce multi-resident rooms to 2 or less.
3) Failing to lower the number of students in classes sufficiently; and failure to maximize outdoor classrooms during weather that was pleasant enough to support it.
4) Having government services and businesses alike restrict hours, with the effect of causing inconvenience, but also increasing crowding in the remaining hours, thus increasing transmission needlessly
5) Failing to ramp up testing capacity and contact tracing capacity adequately, both are under-resourced by at least a factor of 2, 8 months from the onset of all this.
6) In general, low-risk businesses have been the subject of restrictions for which there has been no epidemiological evidence, to no great value.
7) Support programs for business have been needlessly convoluted. Programs helping business cover rent, in particular, never should have been funneled through landlords, its simply overly complicated.
The appropriate manner of assistance for rent and other fixed costs; should have been cash-out to businesses; while imposing a temporary 1-year commercial rent freeze, and a 90-day eviction moratorium for non-payment of rent while the program was set up.
8) Messaging on personal contact restrictions has been hopelessly terrible. From one's social bubble; to your own household, to a 'safe six'....and on and on.
It should have been simple: Your immediate household only, unless you live alone, in which case you can see either 1 or 2 people outside your home, those people effectively count you as a member of their household. That's it.
9) All of the above addressed, large-scale 'lockdowns' should be rare, and brief. When necessary, however, they should be as complete as possible. Grocery stores should largely be shut. The way to do this, is to have the government agree to eat delivery charges; to allow orders to be phoned in for those who lack internet; etc. Again, keeping any such move, brief. 10 days and done.
Not that I have any opinion or anything....
Last edited:
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Towered
Senior Member
Hundreds of vaccination centers will be created across Germany to administer the new coronavirus vaccine, according to a media report. The distribution of millions of doses is likely to present a huge challenge.
German states plan to set up hundreds of vaccination centers across the country starting in December, the newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported on Sunday.
It said the health ministers of the 16 federal states have drawn up plans to create one to two centers per administrative district — totaling hundreds of centers — as well as employing mobile vaccination teams.
The capital, Berlin, alone is allegedly planning to set up six such centers, Welt am Sonntag said.
Large exhibition halls, mostly out of use since the beginning of the pandemic, are being discussed as potential spaces to house some centers.
Germany to set up hundreds of vaccine centers: report – DW – 11/15/2020
Hundreds of vaccination centers will be created across Germany to administer the new coronavirus vaccine, according to a media report. The distribution of millions of doses is likely to present a huge challenge.m.dw.com
Germany has been on the ball with this since the beginning.
afransen
Senior Member
This isn't feasible. The capacity doesn't exist. All the delivery options buckled this spring when grocery ecommerce went from 2-3% to 10%. And if you want people to panic, tell them they can't get their own food and get in line for a delivery in error 404 weeks.
I don't think anything this draconian is necessary. One thing you could do is require stores to charge $10 per trip and give everyone $10 per week as a way of soft-rationing grocery trips. Also, limit the size of groups coming into stores.
Richard White
Senior Member
More to the point, if you want to close grocery stores you would need to have depots set up and rationing in place. You would need government officials purchasing mass quantities of food and distributing it to people.
That would only end in chaos when some Karen whines about not being able to choose her own vegetables or demanding more meat because their kid does not like that particular amount or type.
afransen
Senior Member
I think we need to be pragmatic about measures. One of the very last things that should be restricted is the ability to get food from a grocery store.
AlbertC
Superstar
Moderna Inc's experimental vaccine is 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19 based on interim data from a late-stage trial, the company said on Monday, becoming the second U.S. drugmaker to report results that far exceed expectations.
Together with Pfizer Inc's vaccine, which is also more than 90% effective, and pending more safety data and regulatory review, the United States could have two vaccines authorized for emergency use in December with as many as 60 million doses of vaccine available this year.
The vaccines, both developed with new technology known as messenger RNA (mRNA), represent powerful tools to fight a pandemic that has infected 54 million people worldwide and killed 1.3 million.
Unlike Pfizer's vaccine, Moderna's shot can be stored at normal fridge temperatures, which should make it easier to distribute, a critical factor as COVID-19 cases are soaring, hitting new records in the United States and pushing some European countries back into lockdowns.
"We are going to have a vaccine that can stop COVID-19," Moderna President Stephen Hoge said in a telephone interview.
Moderna's interim analysis was based on 95 infections among trial participants who received the vaccine or a placebo. Only five infections occurred in volunteers who received the vaccine mRNA-1273, which is administered in two shots 28 days apart.
ca.finance.yahoo.com
Together with Pfizer Inc's vaccine, which is also more than 90% effective, and pending more safety data and regulatory review, the United States could have two vaccines authorized for emergency use in December with as many as 60 million doses of vaccine available this year.
The vaccines, both developed with new technology known as messenger RNA (mRNA), represent powerful tools to fight a pandemic that has infected 54 million people worldwide and killed 1.3 million.
Unlike Pfizer's vaccine, Moderna's shot can be stored at normal fridge temperatures, which should make it easier to distribute, a critical factor as COVID-19 cases are soaring, hitting new records in the United States and pushing some European countries back into lockdowns.
"We are going to have a vaccine that can stop COVID-19," Moderna President Stephen Hoge said in a telephone interview.
Moderna's interim analysis was based on 95 infections among trial participants who received the vaccine or a placebo. Only five infections occurred in volunteers who received the vaccine mRNA-1273, which is administered in two shots 28 days apart.
We can stop COVID-19: Moderna vaccine success gives world more hope
Together with Pfizer Inc's <PFE.N> vaccine, which is also more than 90% effective, and pending more safety data and regulatory review, the United States could have two vaccines authorized for emergency use in December with as many as 60 million doses of vaccine available this year. The...
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Closing grocery stores isn't necessary - even Melbourne didn't have to do it (nor did Wuhan at the height of their epidemic).
www.theguardian.com
And guess what, so much for that Swedish exception:
www.bnnbloomberg.ca
AoD
Victoria's roadmap for easing coronavirus lockdown restrictions: what you need to know
Daniel Andrews has outlined plans to relax stage 4 and stage 3 restrictions across Melbourne and the state
www.theguardian.com
And guess what, so much for that Swedish exception:
Sweden Uses ‘Unprecedented’ Covid Restrictions as Cases Soar - BNN Bloomberg
Sweden resorted to its toughest restrictions yet to fight the coronavirus pandemic, after a spike in new cases led to a steady influx of infected people filling intensive care beds.
www.bnnbloomberg.ca
AoD
Northern Light
Superstar
Fair enough.
Though.....I might have some insight into the grocery sector; and I might suggest that capacity is scalable (though not to the point of 100% of trips, to be sure.); its a matter of adequate notice and planning.
However, I would add, my concern isn't actually with any customer getting Covid in a supermarket.
There's actually no epidemiological evidence in support of this being an issue.
My concern is with the staff being a vector with each other.
There are ways to mitigate this.
Closing service counters in bakery, meat etc. would help.
But there are issues that remain with truck off-loading and stock management in the back.
There are all sorts of creative ways to get at these; but certainly closing the stores for a few days would be immensely helpful.
You avoid panic with lots of notice and ample time to stock up.
Surprises cause panic.
Richard White
Senior Member
Moderna Inc's experimental vaccine is 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19 based on interim data from a late-stage trial, the company said on Monday, becoming the second U.S. drugmaker to report results that far exceed expectations.
Together with Pfizer Inc's vaccine, which is also more than 90% effective, and pending more safety data and regulatory review, the United States could have two vaccines authorized for emergency use in December with as many as 60 million doses of vaccine available this year.
The vaccines, both developed with new technology known as messenger RNA (mRNA), represent powerful tools to fight a pandemic that has infected 54 million people worldwide and killed 1.3 million.
Unlike Pfizer's vaccine, Moderna's shot can be stored at normal fridge temperatures, which should make it easier to distribute, a critical factor as COVID-19 cases are soaring, hitting new records in the United States and pushing some European countries back into lockdowns.
"We are going to have a vaccine that can stop COVID-19," Moderna President Stephen Hoge said in a telephone interview.
Moderna's interim analysis was based on 95 infections among trial participants who received the vaccine or a placebo. Only five infections occurred in volunteers who received the vaccine mRNA-1273, which is administered in two shots 28 days apart.
We can stop COVID-19: Moderna vaccine success gives world more hope
Together with Pfizer Inc's <PFE.N> vaccine, which is also more than 90% effective, and pending more safety data and regulatory review, the United States could have two vaccines authorized for emergency use in December with as many as 60 million doses of vaccine available this year. The...
The media needs to stop making this out to be a miracle cure. Even at 1 billion projected doses in 2021 that still means only 500 million people can be vaccinated due to the 2 dose nature of the vaccine.
500 Million people is around a 10th of earth's population and at that rate it will take at least a decade to vaccinate everyone.
afransen
Senior Member
The grocery retail industry is somewhat helpfully thought of as a pipeline. If the idea is to promote distancing by reducing number of staff and customers in the store at any time, it is better to operate more hours rather than fewer. If we were to shut stores for a week it is akin to shutting off the pipeline and flow of food to consumers. The same amount of food needs to flow in total, so rate of flow will have to increase outside the shutdown period, largely before. So that is going to drive busy shopping days before a shutdown (like lead in to Christmas) with lots of customers and lots of staff to serve those customers. Stores will also need to prep for such a shut-down by clearing out perishable products (and all the added labour associated). Never mind the supply chain disruption upstream with a huge surge in demand and then grind to a halt.
Shutting down grocery retail is a bad idea.
Shutting down grocery retail is a bad idea.
gabe
Senior Member
No surprise here. Next month we will have even bigger super spreader events to deal with. Christmas and NYE
Brampton bylaw officers, police break up several illegal Diwali gatherings as COVID-19 surges across city
A massive surge in COVID-19 cases in recent days wasn’t enough to deter some revelers in Brampton from gathering in large groups to celebrate Diwali on Saturday night.
www.guelphmercury.com
gabe
Senior Member
And going to shopping malls. The parking lots are packed! It's looks like normal times. The malls aren't monitoring the capacity either, the stores are. but you still have 100s of people walking around in close proximity indoors.
Towered
Senior Member
Not to mention tons of traffic on the roads as if nothing was wrong. I was stuck in jams on Bloor and Dupont on Saturday and wondered just how much of this travel by all these people was "essential"...