Corrected that for you. Were there even widespread protests in Florida last week already?

While the protests will also increase the tally, most are still in their incubation period. What we're seeing here is the result of reopening the country way too soon and too fast, and the coronavirus will certainly get back to previous heights again due to this. Compared to the effect of the premature reopening, the protests will probably only have a negligible effect.

I have close friend that lives in Miami that I talk to frequently.  I believe he said they have been protesting in Miami for about a week now.

I feel like we would have seen this happen sooner since Florida has been opem for almost a month now. And NYC doesn't open til Monday so the protests makes the most sense. 

And yeah I saw on Twitter people protesting last Thursday in Florida.

@SvennoJ
The point of the mask is stop the range of the virus. Corona travels far even without coughing. With masks you leave the virus within your own sphere, adding distancing to it gives the virus very little room to spread. Even if it reaches another host the virus load will be a tiny fraction, leading to less severe outcomes. And add to that the high level of monitoring and the ridiculously small amount of infected people on the streets you have very few and even decreasing infections. Germany is doing extremely fine right now and there is no way it's gonna flair up even close to what the peak once was.

The only reason the infection rate got where it was was because the virus had absolute free roam for months, that's not something that will happen anytime soon. The only way for the spread to increase again is if the masks and distancing go away and that won't happen in Germany before the vaccine is widely available.

You should maybe try smoking some weed or eating some edibles.  I get so high sometimes that I forget about everything.

Not that I was aware of, but I live in rural Ontario where it's mostly white relatively wealthy (privileged) people. I know more black people around here (very few) from getting adopted as children than actual families living here.

I do notice some prejudice against the reservation, supposedly a (more) dangerous place. Canada also has a long history of displacing and stealing land from the natives, first nations, who are still struggling in many parts of Canada.

I always thought Toronto was a poster child for integration, at least that was how it was portrayed when I still lived in the Netherlands. Canada as example how to deal with integration issues in the Netherlands. However:

https://globalnews.ca/news/7029694/canada-systemic-racism/

For Canadians who have likely never experienced systemic racism, it is easy to deny its existence. That makes it easy for them to make smug remarks about our neighbours to the south, like “that would never happen here” or “we’re so much better than that,” because they are personally so far removed from oppressive situations.

They fail to recognize the parallels — including the police brutality that is happening here at home. Most Canadians know the names George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin. Why do so few know about Black Canadians like D’Andre Campbell, Nicholas Gibbs, Olando Brown, Jermaine Carby, Andrew Loku and Abdirahman Abdi who have also died at the hands of police?

Why are Black Torontonians 20 times more likely to be shot by police than the city’s white residents? Why do Black people in Toronto account for 25 per cent of police-involved shootings when they make up only slightly more than 8.8 per cent of the population?

That's opening my eyes as well

Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently stated that Canada doesn’t have the same “systemic, deep roots” of racism that the United States does — he has since retracted that statement — but his initial, unfiltered words prove a telling point that our country’s racist past, which continues to be felt by people of colour, in particular Black and Indigenous communities, is not something that white privileged people give much thought to (without a prompt) because it doesn’t directly impact their lives.



Some of our shameful past (I'm originally from the Netherlands which has its own colorful past with the slave trade, war crimes and creation of apartheid)

Between 1628 and the 1800s, 3,000 people of African ancestry who were enslaved in the United States were brought to Canada and forced to live here in slavery. The Slavery Abolition Act didn’t officially become law in Canada until 1834, just 27 years before the American Civil War.

From 1886 to 1996, 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children were taken from their families and forced to attend residential schools. The trauma of residential schools and the ’60s Scoop is still being felt today.

From 1881 to 1884, 17,000 Chinese labourers came to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Many died during the construction. Upon completion, Canada introduced a “head tax” that applied only to Chinese immigrants. After collecting $23 million through the head tax between 1885 and 1923, Canada closed the door to Chinese immigrants until 1947.

In 1939, Canada turned away the MS St. Louis, an ocean liner carrying 907 Jewish refugees. Forced back to Europe, 254 of the passengers later died in the Holocaust.

During the Second World War, the Canadian government forced 20,000 Japanese people — 75 per cent of them Canadian citizens — into internment camps.

After the war, Canada continued with a range of policies that made it difficult, if not impossible, for people of colour to immigrate from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. It wasn’t until 1976 that a point system was introduced, which allowed for a fairer immigration policy.

Even so, the last segregated school in Canada, in Guysborough County, N.S., did not close until 1983.

The author goes on with her own experiences, in Brantford where I immigrated to in 2002

In 1983, two years after I immigrated to Canada from England, my own experiences with racism here began. I was five years old at the time.

Being born an Untouchable in the Hindu caste system, my family has been deeply affected by caste, classism and racism. My grandparents were not permitted to attend school. In the era of segregation, my father had to sit at the back of the classroom and was not called by his name, but simply “BC” for “backward class.” He was not permitted into upper-caste homes, stores, places of worship or public gatherings.

Coming to Canada would mean a better life, but that trauma has been passed down generation to generation. It’s a legacy that is still being felt today. While we don’t experience it in the same overt ways, those ideologies of power and privilege persist right here in Canada.

All that said, I recognize my own privilege in the insidious racial hierarchy of white supremacy, which has treated my Black friends and family far worse in this country — even leaving some dead.

When we think of the Amy Coopers of the world, make no mistake that those women are very much a Canadian problem — Cooper herself is a Canadian woman. From her since-deleted social media accounts, Cooper grew up in Canada, graduating from the University of Waterloo in 2003. Racism is a learned behaviour and her “education” began in this country.

Besides the overt microaggressions that scar so many of us, what affects me so deeply is the vehement denial of racism by these very same perpetrators.

Every time I write a cultural piece, I am flooded with messages telling me to leave Canada, go back home. I am slut-shamed and defiled. When we call out racist behaviour, we are dismissed with racial stereotypes and seen as trouble-makers, angry or ungrateful immigrants.

But enough. If we truly aren’t a racist country, we should have no issue saying no lives matter until Black lives matter. Yet many Canadians they can’t bring themselves to do that.

Let’s stop patting ourselves on the back while we shake our judgmental heads at the U.S. Let’s admit our own truths and do something about it.

Meera Estrada is a cultural commentator and co-host of kultur’D! on Global News Radio 640 Toronto.

I miss giving fist bumps but I guess elbow bumps will have to suffice for now.  I used to do elbow bumps back in day even before all this shit went down when I would go to friends apartment that were sick or if I thought I was coming down with something.  I'm not the most social human but even I miss interacting with humans these days.  I'm not going to a pool hall or bar anytime soon though.  I'll wait a year or so for that I suppose.  Maybe I'll start going to park more.

You sound overly confident in the average human's attention span to keep up this level of social distancing and mask use for another 18 months... That while the decline in Germany is already slowing considerably.

But true, as long as Rt is kept under 1.0, it will be fine. With 400 new cases detected each day, it's still very much active. Even though my local county was stable for a while, we're now back to a few new cases per week. Very few, yet where do they come from... How many are still flying under the radar, or does it get brought back in from hot spots.

A little round of applause for the US as they passed the 2M cases mark for Coronavirus. America is first, indeed.

An anecdotal report of my bike ride today. I headed North today along the Grand River to Kitchener. Never before in my 18 years here, have I seen so many people on the trail to Cambridge and further. I actually abandoned the trail for a bit and went to cycle on highway 24 parallel to the trail to have some breathing room and not have to worry about people staring into their phone drunkenly walking in the middle lol.

Parking lots along the river were packed beyond capacity. They're not very big so it remains in the hundreds of people that were out along that stretch, but compared to the normal couple dozen for a beautiful day like today, mad increase. Even on the washed out, non maintained section of trail in Kitchener, normally 1 or 2 people, today over 30.

I guess it's still the safest thing to do and at least people are getting more healthy! (Unless the ones out usually all hang out in the gym lol)

Such a big contrast to when I arrived in Canada in 2002. Back then I still regularly got shouted at while cycling "get off the road" etc. I was afraid to cycle on busy roads (stayed on the gravel shoulder instead), had a couple near misses from cars passing too close, actually got hit once by someones arm sticking out of the window... Over the years more cyclists appeared, more bike lanes followed, better awareness, "share the road" signs popped up everywhere. Now with the pandemic the popularity of cycling seems to have increased a lot further.

Sadly the 23rd Tour the Grand that has been gaining popularity has been cancelled this year https://www.cambridgetourdegrand.com/
We regret to inform you that the 2020 Cambridge Tour de Grand has been cancelled due to the CoVid – 19 (Coronavirus) pandemic. The safety and health of our riders and volunteers is our most important priority. Based on public health directives to avoid gatherings of more than 50 persons, and with the uncertainty as to the end of the pandemic, the decision was made to cancel the Tour for this year.
It was scheduled for next Sunday. I rather ride alone but often cross / share the route when the tour is on.

So, where did all these people come from all of a sudden. On the way back through Kitchener, very quiet on the big roads. There were still a few people queuing up to get into Bestbuy, yet most of the parking lots were empty. About 20% of the normal traffic in that area. Also pretty quiet along the main road back to Paris.

Perhaps one positive coming from this pandemic will be more attention to green spaces, more bike lanes, more pedestrian zones etc. A healthier population will also be better able to fight of viruses :)