[Richard White]

So, whatever the IOC does, Canada is out of the Olympics, if held at the originally scheduled time.

We're pulling out.

Olympics-Team Canada says it won't participate in Games in summer 2020

The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and Paralympic Committee (CPC) said on Sunday that Team Canada would not be participating in the Olympic and Paralympic…

business.financialpost.com

It is not a BIG loss. The Summer Olympics are not really our thing. It would be a bigger deal if the US or China pulled out.

 

[Richard White]

Kindly... stop asking me to calm down. I am not a child and it is getting tiresome.

 

[AlbertC]

Quebec have announced that all elementary and high schools will remain closed until at least May 1st.

Hydro-Quebec to suspend actions against unpaid bills during this time.

All malls, stores, restaurant dining rooms, hair salons and beauty businesses are also asked to close.

Coronavirus: Quebec cases climb to 219, schools to remain closed until May | Globalnews.ca

Sunday's coronavirus Quebec updates: new cases, new drive-thru testing clinic, school and business closures, Hydro-Quebec bill payments and more.

globalnews.ca

 

[DSC]

Kindly... stop asking me to calm down. I am not a child and it is getting tiresome.

Richard, you may not be a child and these are dangerous and difficult times but you are getting hysterical and for your own good health you need to get some rest, go for a walk. Turn your computer off, stop searching the web, what you see is clearly affecting you and it is not healthy and, to be frank, what is becoming tiresome are your too frequent posts..

 

[lenaitch]

Coronavirus: Ontario stockpiled 55 million N95 masks after SARS, officials checking usability | Globalnews.ca

Officials would only confirm the expiration of those masks but did not reveal how many are left in the stockpile that could potentially be deployed.

globalnews.ca

Interesting.

I have seen this before. Equipment is stockpiled in the aftermath of a major event but no maintenance structure or funding is embedded in the ministries or facilities that house them to keep them current.

A family member is in network IT for an organization. The organization was scrambling to enable business continuity with key people working from home. Their main saving grace was a roomful of old laptops that they hadn't gotten around to disposing yet. A frantic week of refurbishing and software updating.

 

[salsa]

Corporate America is lining up to grab more cash handouts from the government, and hoping that no one is looking. Take a look at this bonkers twitter thread by Matt Stoller, which I copied below:

1. Here's a list of what's been floated, either publicly or privately, for the #CoronavirusCoup. I am told that Pelosi will take whatever McConnell negotiates in the Senate on the corporate side. $50 billion for airlines. $150 billion for anyone Mnuchin wants, likely Boeing.
2. Speeding up of payments to defense contractors. Lifting of Other Transaction Authority caps for the Pentagon to shovel money to defense contractors without restrictions.
3. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezo want "$5 billion in grants or loans to keep commercial space company employees on the job and launch facilities open." They also want the IRS to give them cash for R&D tax credits.
4. "The hotel industry wants $150 billion. The restaurant industry wants $145 billion. The National Association of Manufacturers wants $1.4 trillion. The International Council of Shopping Centers wants a guarantee of up to $1 trillion."
5. "Adidas is seeking support for a long-sought provision allowing people to use pretax money to pay for gym memberships and fitness equipment."
6. Big meatpackers want expedited visas for seasonal workers.
7. Here's one GOP lobbyist. “Any time there is a crisis and Washington is in the middle of it is an opportunity for guys like me.”
8. Importers are rushing to get rid of duties paid by those found guilty of dumping.
9. Beer industry wants $5B. Candy industry wants $500M. And on. And on. And on. There will be more.
10. McConnell wants big business to rule. So he is refusing aid to normal people, and the Dems are negotiating with him to try to get unemployment assistance and social welfare. He knows Dems won't pay attention to corporate bailouts if he takes the public hostage.
11. Pelosi will cave on all of this, because the moderate Democrats want her to govern this way. "We have to do something!" they will say. The only hope is a bipartisan coalition of skeptics, people like AOC and Mike Gallagher coming together to say NO #corporatecoup.
12. We have to support industry in a moment of crisis. But the key here is the conditions, and what is likely to happen by allowing Mnuchin to set the terms of all aid is a consolidation of power in the hands of a few. No more small business. America will be unrecognizable.

 

[AlbertC]

Hajdu looking at criminal penalties for travellers who disobey quarantine advice

Self-isolate when you return from a trip with 'no exceptions,' warns health minister

Catharine Tunney · CBC News · Posted: Mar 22, 2020 10:50 AM ET

Health Minister Patty Hajdu says she's looking at the option of criminal penalties for Canadian travellers who don't follow the government's advice to self-isolate when they return home.

"Let me be perfectly clear. We will use every measure in our tool box at the federal level to ensure compliance ... we have measures that could include monetary penalties up to and including criminal penalties," she said during her daily briefing on Parliament Hill.

"When we say that you must stay at home for 14 days, that means you stay at home for 14 days. You do not stop for groceries, that you do not go visit your neighbours or your friends, that you rest in your house for 14 days. No exceptions."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-house-returns-1.5506049

 

[AlbertC]

A man in his 80s from Lindsay is Ontario's 6th Covid 19 related death. He had no recent travel history is believed to be from community transmission.

Ontario records sixth death related to COVID-19, a Lindsay man in his 80s

A man in his 80s has died at a hospital in Lindsay after testing positive for COVID-19, making him Ontario’s sixth death related to the virus.

toronto.ctvnews.ca

 

[PinkLucy]

Hajdu looking at criminal penalties for travellers who disobey quarantine advice

Self-isolate when you return from a trip with 'no exceptions,' warns health minister

Catharine Tunney · CBC News · Posted: Mar 22, 2020 10:50 AM ET

Health Minister Patty Hajdu says she's looking at the option of criminal penalties for Canadian travellers who don't follow the government's advice to self-isolate when they return home.

"Let me be perfectly clear. We will use every measure in our tool box at the federal level to ensure compliance ... we have measures that could include monetary penalties up to and including criminal penalties," she said during her daily briefing on Parliament Hill.

"When we say that you must stay at home for 14 days, that means you stay at home for 14 days. You do not stop for groceries, that you do not go visit your neighbours or your friends, that you rest in your house for 14 days. No exceptions."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-house-returns-1.5506049

By the time they sort this out, everyone will already have been home for two weeks.

But rather than it being "advice", it should have been mandatory from the get-go.

 

[Admiral Beez]

So Labatt is now making hand santizer instead of beer.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1241801862405410823

There's now talk of a big shortage of plastic bottles, needed for sanitizer. So much for reducing plastic pollution.

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/n...-sanitizer-the-catch-it-needs-bottles-425464/

We bought the big 1L bottles from Costco and refill our little plastic ones. Though the compact Bodyworks ones are nearly impossible to open.

 

[PinkLucy]

If only people would heed the scientific evidence that soap and water is far more effective against this virus than hand sanitizer or bleach. (I carry a bar of soap with me)

 

[AlbertC]

I believe there were earlier reports of a man in Japan who was similarly trying to spread the virus deliberately.

German man licks ticket machine 'to spread coronavirus’

Police have arrested a man in Munich after he shared videos online where he licked a subway ticket machine. He said he wanted to spread the coronavirus.

Man licks ticket machine to spread virus – DW – 03/23/2020

Police have arrested a man in Munich after he shared videos online where he licked a subway ticket machine. He said he wanted to spread the coronavirus.

www.dw.com

 

[DSC]

There's now talk of a big shortage of plastic bottles, needed for sanitizer. So much for reducing plastic pollution.

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/n...-sanitizer-the-catch-it-needs-bottles-425464/

We bought the big 1L bottles from Costco and refill our little plastic ones. Though the compact Bodyworks ones are nearly impossible to open.

I saw on TV last night that Labatt are 'bottling' their new product in cans (aka beer cans) and suggest people simply pour the sanitizer into bottles they already have.. Perhaps this will become the 'new normal"?

 

[Northern Light]

If only people would heed the scientific evidence that soap and water is far more effective against this virus than hand sanitizer or bleach. (I carry a bar of soap with me)

Very practical advice w/respect to the home.

But if you're out, be that touching the door/shelf/cart at the grocery store or the doors to enter/exit an apartment/condo building, a bar of soap requires water to work as well as to rinse and probably something to dry your hands after (where hand sanitizer basically evaporates).

We would have more around though if people would stick to soap and water at home.

For commercial locations, I can't imagine putting in that many hand-washing stations, vs hand sanitizer dispensers for the public.

Of course issues abound here in terms of access to public washrooms while one is out, even normally, let alone when many are now closed, the absence of public drinking fountains/water-bottle filling stations which could provide water sources also; and the general state of cleanliness in those areas.

I think in more normal circumstances, one does not want to promote germophobia as natural, modest exposures to any number of things are part of building healthy immunities and limiting allergies.

Which should not discourage sanitizer dispensers being more widely available currently; but should lead to some thoughtful discussion about exactly how much of that should stay around once things have passed.

Surely more than what was; but less than what is needed currently. I got the feeling post-SARS that as hand sanitizer stations retreated, it was a bit more haphazard/cost-cutting than thoughtful retrenchment.

 

[PinkLucy]

Very practical advice w/respect to the home.

But if you're out, be that touching the door/shelf/cart at the grocery store or the doors to enter/exit an apartment/condo building, a bar of soap requires water to work as well as to rinse and probably something to dry your hands after (where hand sanitizer basically evaporates).

We would have more around though if people would stick to soap and water at home.

For commercial locations, I can't imagine putting in that many hand-washing stations, vs hand sanitizer dispensers for the public.

Of course issues abound here in terms of access to public washrooms while one is out, even normally, let alone when many are now closed, the absence of public drinking fountains/water-bottle filling stations which could provide water sources also; and the general state of cleanliness in those areas.

I think in more normal circumstances, one does not want to promote germophobia as natural, modest exposures to any number of things are part of building healthy immunities and limiting allergies.

Which should not discourage sanitizer dispensers more widely available currently; but should lead to some thoughtful discussion about exactly how much of that should stay around once things have passed.

Surely more than what was; but less than what is needed currently. I got the feeling post-SARS that as hand sanitizer stations retreated, it was a bit more haphazard/cost-cutting than thoughtful retrenchment.

I made a little kit with soap and a cloth for drying, and I've always got water with me. Sometimes it doesn't work well, but nine times out of ten it does. So yes, hand sanitizer as a last resort. That was really my point, because too many people are using it as a first resort. So yes, let's keep the supply available for institutional use or when it's really needed rather than us all stocking up with gallon drums of the stuff that will end up in the back of our cupboards, expired and unused.