Alberta is the first province to cave, closing schools again. All indoor social gatherings are banned, limited to max 10 people outdoors. Weddings and funerals will be limited to 10 people. Receptions are prohibited. Those who live alone are allowed to have two non-household close contacts.
Alberta took the lead in Canada (in daily reported cases) with only a third of the population of Ontario. Ontario is still rising as well, but slower. Schools remain open yet businesses have to close in designated red zones. The result, for example Canadian Tire in zones that are still open (a big home hardware chain) noticed that 30% of their customers are now from red zones.... (rewards cards have postal code info) These zone closures only help move the virus outside the problem area.
Meanwhile people are queuing up at airports across the USA for thanksgiving.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/21/coronavirus-thanksgiving-travel/
A Toronto doctor who lost three patients to the coronavirus in 36 hours says he’s dismayed by holiday shoppers lining up at malls for discounts while hospitals surpass capacity thresholds amid the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The COVID ward is a place of desolation. It’s a place of quiet -- an eerie sense of quiet -- where there’s very little in the way of human contact and connection that patients would ordinarily have from their family and their loved ones. Because patients are in individual rooms, they’re isolated in the truest sense,” he said Monday.
He’s seen patients die “very suddenly” after spending a few days forming bonds with them. It has been “absolutely heartbreaking” for him and members of his team at Toronto General Hospital, he said.
“And then I see parking lots that are full outside of malls because people are trying to beat the Christmas holiday rush before a lockdown to get a good deal on an item. It’s really hard for me to reconcile that and understand that there are these two very incongruent realities,” he said, adding that the virus isn’t an “abstract phenomenon.”
“This is somebody’s family member that I’m seeing and I’m pronouncing as dead after I talked to them and spent some quality time with them a few days ago,” he said, suggesting that that reality doesn’t appear to have sunk in for many Canadians. Sharkawy isn’t sure how else to make it click -- he and his colleagues have “run out of dramatic phrases and alarm bells to ring,” he said.
