Oh man, she's still there. I hope her parents pull through without complications. Is she staying there on her parent's advice or is she not allowed to go back? I guess she would have to stay quarantined with them if she went back :/

Your son probably doesn't mind having his girlfriend there with him :) She must be worried sick though. What a mess. Is there a way to extend her visitor's visa? I don't know whether Canadians are exempt from that. We used to not even need a passport to cross the border before 9/11.

Those stories about getting fines were false though, the police doesn't have the power to do that. Only some local counties now have by laws to fine gatherings of 5 or more people. You can get a ticket from trespassing on closed trails, but you have to be convicted in court first, which are closed.

And true, the whole "It's just the flu" attitude which was very strong at the time made it very difficult for governments to act early. It was a no win situation, act early, prevent a problem and everyone blames the government for over reacting. However the government did drop the ball with testing, tracing contacts and tracking down community spread.

Back to letting it spread to build up immunity? I thought we were passed that as a viable option... Keeping everyone over 40 on lock down, how do you envision that? Then the 30 to 40 age bracket can still overwhelm the healthcare system.

For Ontario, if you let it spread again and get a peak of 40% infected:
20-29: 1.8 million -> 700k infected -> 8.5K hospitalizations and 420 in ICU
30-39: 1.7 million -> 680K infected -> 22K hospitalizations and 1100 in ICU
40-49: 1.8 million -> 720K infected -> 35K hospitalizations and 2200 in ICU
50-59: 2.0 million -> 820K infected -> 84K hospitalizations and 10,200 in ICU
60-69: 1.6 million -> 630K infected -> 105K hospitalizations and 28,800 in ICU
70-79: 0.9 million -> 370K infected -> 90K hospitalizations and 38,700 in ICU
80+:    0.6 million -> 240K infected -> 65K hospitalizations and 45,900 in ICU

Ontario has about 33K hospital beds, we only have 2.3 hospital beds per 1000 people, Ontario has the most overcrowded hospitals in the developed world.
Apr 3, 2020 - The province has an estimated 415 ICU beds available now, as the Ford government attempts to create the hundreds of new spaces.

If we hadn't been chipping away on healthcare for all those years we would be in a better position right now. It's not all our fault of course, brain drain has been a long term issue. Much better money to made in the US as a doctor, get your cheap education here, get a well paying much less stressful job in the states.

Suppressing it now, then improve testing and tracing to keep it down until a vaccine or better treatment options are available is the best strategy. For now half of those ending up in ICU don't make it, many don't even make it to ICU.

In fact, I have a theory that he wants to end the lockdown not because of fear for the economy (though in an election year, that will hurt him a lot, too), but mainly because his hotels are suffering - and thus his baseline.

L'état, c'est moi!

Seriously that quote was the first thing that came to my head when I read that. But he's over 2 centuries behind when it comes to Absolutism. And he more and more behaves like King Louis XVI, too. Seriously, this looks more and more like an accurate depiction of Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0iAcQVIokg

Made worse with the news just now that the relief checks that are supposed to get sent to the american families are getting delayed... because he wants his name to be printed on them.

Yeah that last part is yet another sign he doesn't give a fuck about suffering families. It's all about him. It's fucking disgusting.

This morning's kid's tv is rather dark here. Commercial for some show singing "Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posie, hush hush hush, we all fall down" Good time to bring the black plague to kids attention! Good thing they don't know the origin of the song. Will we have nursery rhymes about the coronavirus in the future?

I updated my growth graphs for Easter weekend. Averages are updated up to and including yesterday's numbers, plotting 3 day average growth and reported deaths accurate up to April 13th (Easter Monday). The Easter effect:






The UK has taken the lead both in daily reported cases and deaths.
Russia is the only country that kept testing at the same pace through Easter weekend.
Norway is still doing the best.

Overall it should all still be going down, just not as much as is currently showing. Some are already starting to catch up on missed cases and deaths, others still showed results from Easter Monday with their Tuesday numbers.


Easter had a strong effect on the whole world:



The USA and Europe are currently almost tied for daily reported cases, Europe still a bit more daily reported cases.
Thanks to the big decrease in daily reporting the USA has now fallen back to 10 days behind Europe when looking at total reported cases.
(It looks like a small decline on the logarithmic scale, went from avg 33K to 27K over the weekend for USA, Europe 37K to 28K)


My different strategies graph



Iran using an algorithm to generate test results....
Canada keeping the curve flat.
Brazil late to respond if at all?
Australia got it down quickly and definitively.
South Korea handling it very well.
China experiencing a little resurgence after re-opening Wuhan.


Breakdown for Canada:



The rest of the provinces are still well under the 1,000 cases total.
Quebec leads with 14.2K reported cases and 435 deaths.
Ontario follow with 8K reported cases and 334 deaths.
British Columbia is on a decline, 1.5K total cases and 72 deaths.
Alberta is going back up a bit, 1.9K total cases and 48 deaths.

The west coast is doing much better than the East coast. It's about time numbers start going down here as well.

It's not a theory anymore when it's proven beyond doubt.

We should have done it a long time ago.  The US has no need for the WHO, when we've got the CDC. Besides, the WHO is a puppet for China.

I wonder when USA would have heard about the danger of this virus and when USA would have reacted to fight it without the WHO.

You don't need the WHO in your country but you surely do in others.

Well, USA will still get all needed information because other leaders aren't so dumb to believe that it would be enough if  every country would have an own institution. 

There has to be something like the WHO. Pretty hard to not see that. Countries just need to improve the situation but it surely won't help with Trump and his standard "I'm out of everything if it's not what I want"

Trump will change his mind on cutting WHO funding any minute now. He is even getting backlash from Republicans.

Either that or he will just continue to self destruct and shoot his chances for reelection.

There is no need for the USA to be the WHO's largest donor when we already fund our CDC with $11b a year. All the other countries can foot the bill for the WHO.