5,853 positive cases (+26.2%) with 672k tests (+17.1%).

On average there were 836 positive cases a day (or 976 if you discard Sunday).

224 in ICU (-6.3%)

Cases are still rising, thankfully part of it is offset by a whopping 100k increase in testing capacity. Positivity rate stays at 1%.

I started taking a closer look at testing in Ontario, just for the past 2 days so far.

We're currently at 2,948,266 total tests. (population 14.6 million)

Past two days 24,672 tests taken and 29,626 tests taken.
Pending tests went up by 7,288 and 6,995 (currently 29,049 pending)
Thus tests resolved 17,384 and 22,631
Positives 95 (0.55%) and 78 (0.34%)

Looking good!

The mystery of the missing local case is solved, one of the staff members that tested positive lives in another county. 2 more cases were identified locally yesterday. We're heading in the right direction, lot of testing, low positivity rate, -24% week over week. Starting to look better for back to school.

Well, to be fair. They are not actually able to send you anything without your government requesting (and buying) it first. That's why I don't worry too much about this particular vaccine. If it doesn't work as intended, then Russia (and any other country that approves it) will be the ones affected; and I really don't think any side effects it may have could be any worse than the virus itself anyways.

As for this fueling the anti-vaxxers, well, I'm seriously starting to think that we're better off if those people don't get vaccinated. The world kinda needs a cleansing of those, and while I won't go out to kill them myself, if they decide to die from their own stupidity I won't try to stop them.

China started giveing some of their military a vaccine before it was finished with all the trials either.
If it had worked as promised, and/or didnt have bad side effects, they would be shouting over the moon, that they had the solution (and started mass vaccination programs in china).  They havn't, thus its likely their "test" of this vaccine on some military personale, didnt work out as they planned.

The same could happend with this russian one, because they skipped some of these steps.
Maybe they find out that a certain amount get a bad reaction or something, and they only find out after they have given millions and millions of shots.

That said soon as we get a vaccine thats proven to work, and tested for sideeffects, everyone should be takeing it.
Anti-vaxxers, shouldn't bring the rest of society down with it (which they could if theres enough of them, and the keep the virus in circulation) because they refuse to take a shot.

"better off not giveing them the shot"
Nah, that will bite us in the end. They will keep the spread alive, and the vaccine might not give us lasting (for years and years) of immunity.
If theres enough that refuse, it means the rest of us, will have to keep going to get the shot, for fear of being infected again (if the virus is still around say 10years from now, because of anti-vaxxers).

"China started giveing some of their military a vaccine before it was finished with all the trials either.
If it had worked as promised, and/or didnt have bad side effects, they would be shouting over the moon, that they had the solution (and started mass vaccination programs in china).  They havn't, thus its likely their "test" of this vaccine on some military personale, didnt work out as they planned.

The same could happend with this russian one, because they skipped some of these steps.
Maybe they find out that a certain amount get a bad reaction or something, and they only find out after they have given millions and millions of shots."

This is exactly my point actually. China tried something and didn't work, the world kept moving to the next thing. Now Russia is trying something and if it doesn't work, the world will keep moving to the next thing.

"That said soon as we get a vaccine thats proven to work, and tested for sideeffects, everyone should be takeing it.
Anti-vaxxers, shouldn't bring the rest of society down with it (which they could if theres enough of them, and the keep the virus in circulation) because they refuse to take a shot.

"better off not giveing them the shot"
Nah, that will bite us in the end. They will keep the spread alive, and the vaccine might not give us lasting (for years and years) of immunity.
If theres enough that refuse, it means the rest of us, will have to keep going to get the shot, for fear of being infected again (if the virus is still around say 10years from now, because of anti-vaxxers)."

The thing is that you won't be able to force an anti-vaxxer to get vaccinated, the same way he will not be able to force you not to.

And I don't think anti-vaxxers account for 30% of the world population, which means we could reach herd immunity without them; and even if we don't, I really don't mind taking a shot every year.

Besides, it's not like we can actually stop Russia from massively testing the vaccine on their own people. All we can do is watch, and if it works, then we can buy it from them.

Oh no, by no means stop them.
Their "phase 3 trials" will just be..... bigger than others :)

It will be usefull to have large scale results, and the bigger the better and more accurate.
The question then becomes,...

Do you trust the russians to use a vaccination if they sold you one?
Im danish I think we could.
However I suspect alot of american's wouldn't feel great about useing a russian vaccine.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/massive-outbreaks-in-israeli-schools-a-cautionary-tale-for-canada-1.5062834

When Israel opened its schools May 17 after just two months in pandemic lockdown, it seemed the novel coronavirus had been brought under control. But the confidence was temporary and the results were disastrous. The experience of the tiny Middle Eastern nation is serving as a “cautionary tale” for Canadian provinces and school boards ramping up plans for a return to school in September. New cases among Israel’s nine million people had dropped from more than 750 a day in the early spring to low double digits in May.

After a couple of weeks of small groups of students returning to school, the day everyone was invited back without any class size restrictions, there were just 10 confirmed cases in the country. Leaders had shifted from talking about staying home to getting people back to work. In just 10 days, an outbreak was underway at a Jerusalem high school and soon it was joined by dozens of others. Eventually, hundreds of schools were closed and tens of thousands of students and teachers were in mandatory quarantine.


This is the worst part, we're going to do the exact same for school re-openings:

It’s not like Israeli leaders didn’t impose some restrictions on schools. It required masks for students in Grade 4 and above, said windows had to be kept open, handwashing should be frequent, and students kept two metres apart wherever possible. All of that sounds much like what Canadian provinces are mandating or recommending. Provincial plans are being finalized, but at this point, no province has committed to cutting the size of classes to accommodate physical distancing, but are recommending students be spaced out as much as possible.

Back in Israel, while guidelines were put in place, execution was not universal. And when a heat wave hit an already very hot nation, the government nullified the mask rule for four days and many schools shut the windows to let air conditioning do its work.

Which is what will happen here when fall comes around and temperatures quickly drop. Minus no masks, yet those won't be on during the two lunch breaks anyway. Full classes, closed windows and central air are the problem.

School reopenings seem to be hit or miss. Some countries are doing great while others not so great.

Which countries do well? Maybe we can take notes to learn.

Germany is currently in the process of reopening (the different provinces have different times for school breaks, so not the whole country is reopening schools at the same time) and currently the new infections are strongly on the rise.

I'm a university instructor and a highschool teacher in the United Arab Emirates and they are planning on reopening the schools on August 30th. Let's just say I've always wanted to use Israel's case as a discussion point to why we should not rush students back to school, but unfortunately my opinion would quickly be spun and misunderstood since Israel is a taboo subject here.

I find it quite ironic that just yesterday, UAE and Israel reached peace agreements for the first time in history. So maybe now I can talk about it!

Back to the subject, while the UAE government seems hellbent on reopening schools, a survey sent out to parents here last week shows majority want to continue distance learning. I hope distance teaching does continue and I believe the government will most likely postpone reopening. UAE has had a choke hold on corona since March. And our daily case numbers are incredibly low, especially deaths. It all has to do with how strict they were with measurements. I remember i got pulled over for not wearing a facemask mid March. We had 8 PM curfew, heavy fines, etc. They eased lately with more realistic restrictions (you can drive without a mask if alone or with family) but honestly, because the people here followed the rules, we didn't suffer as bad as other countries. I'd honestly argue that UAE is one of the top countries in handling the pandemic.

As an American, I'm actually glad I'm not in America during this pandemic.