SvennoJ said:
EricHiggin said:
That's a pretty odd way to look at the world. Another country, or countries in this case, make terrible decisions, leading to your country suffering because of it, and all you care about is blaming your own leadership? If I were the leader of another country, especially a lousy leader, people with that type of mindset worldwide would be my best friends. No matter how bad I screw up, I can do little to no wrong. Speed past go, collect however much I want. I wonder why other countries don't go out of their way more often to trouble America?
Ok, but at least it wasn't a poor one that needed to be corrected this time.
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I don't know how you feel about it, but I've stated plenty times that I was not happy with the slow response of our country. Canada kept listing the risk to Canadians as low for the longest time, with simply the advice to watch for symptoms and then self isolate for 2 weeks.
Health Minister Patty Hajdu (Thunder Bay-Superior North, Ont.) said repeatedly in the early stages of the novel coronavirus outbreak that cautioning against travel to infected countries, or closing Canada’s border to them, wouldn’t help protect Canadians from the virus, and in fact could make things worse.
She continued to say so until at least March 9; a week later, the government started to shut the border to nearly all foreign travellers.
Noon March 18th Trudeau finally closed the borders, however not yet to the US where half of our virus imports came from. Midnight March 20th that was closed down as well. However returning Canadians simply got the advise to stay home for 2 weeks, no checks, no tests, some simply went back to work anyway with symptoms. Testing was very slow to get under way, people with symptoms were simply turned away if they didn't fit the profile, basically suppressing any signs of community spread.
All we can say is, we didn't screw up as badly as the US... Luckily it's going better already in BC, Alberta is currently finding more cases but still far below Ontario and Quebec. It's still very manageable here, the curve is flat, but still refuses to go down. Ontario's state of emergency has been extended again, schools won't reopen now until June.
To that end, Ford said his government would issue a new order Tuesday night deploying more workers to long-term care homes. There are currently 93 outbreaks in such facilities across the province.
Public Health Ontario said there have been 135 deaths in the homes, 813 cases of COVID-19 among residents and 437 cases among staff.
The order will also make it mandatory that staff only work at one facility, Ford said _ something several health-care worker unions have been requesting for weeks.
Yep I'm concerned with how our own government is screwing things up. At least we have that fast testing kit coming and research on using anti bodies from surviving blood donors. And it seems most people are taking it seriously.
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I really don't like our Gov and JT leading it, but I don't put much blame on them this time around. Some, but not much. They initially handled it about the way I assumed they would, like many other first world countries. Nobody was going to jump to conclusions and risk being wrong. From a leadership perspective, it was far more likely they would wait till it got close before clamping down. That way they had a clear legitimate excuse to do so. Taking away peoples freedoms because we might end up with a problem, for around 1% of the country, typically doesn't go over well even in oh so forgiving Canada.
We also aren't anywhere near as densely populated as America, and our overall system is better built to handle crisis. Most times when America is hurting, we're not, or barely. Mind you, when America is thriving, we're only doing slightly better, unless you're smart enough to invest in American stocks.
The things I've been hearing are ridiculous though. A father and his two kids out walking some trail close to their home, with nobody else in sight, getting a $1000 ticket for not remaining indoors. The local county saying police will be pulling over random vehicles and if you aren't traveling for what they find to be valid reasons, you'll be sent home and fined up to $1000. The media now consistently saying that 'social distancing' could last up to two years. LOL. Give me a break.
Meanwhile a somewhat local old folks home had like 50 deaths recently because the care workers have been allowed to cycle home to home due to temporary work hours, more easily potentially contracting it and spreading covid. Good thing someone paid close attention to making strict rules for those most in jeopardy. My lord.
One of the things I'm most worried about is this dragging on, and I have a hard time believing that's not going to be the case based on the illness. If everyone has to be locked down like this, then the UK had the right idea for the most part. Lock down the elderly and anyone with underlying illness, and let everyone else contract it and become immune to it. The way it spreads in lock down, should mean it spread like wildfire typically and would be gone in no time. At the very least, once medical supplies are built up, go with that approach, don't drag it out leaving everyone stuck at home.
When this is all over, Canada, and the rest of the world, better give China a swift non physical kick in the a** for letting it get this out of hand. They've been getting away with too much already, so if this isn't the final straw, then we might as well just give up and bow to them.