The COVID-19 pandemic

[Bjays93]

Honestly who knows. I dont want to be a pessimist but I won't think society has quite yet felt the ramifications quite yet if the economic slow down. Will be even worse if there's ANOTHER lock down.

If that's the case, You can kiss a proper DTK renaissance goodbye for at least a decade...

What happens in the next couple weeks will make or break the global economy. Back to school will either run smoothly, or we'll see massive outbreaks. Unfortunately nothing has been managed well thus far.

[plam]

Honestly who knows. I dont want to be a pessimist but I won't think society has quite yet felt the ramifications quite yet if the economic slow down. Will be even worse if there's ANOTHER lock down.

If that's the case, You can kiss a proper DTK renaissance goodbye for at least a decade...

What happens in the next couple weeks will make or break the global economy. Back to school will either run smoothly, or we'll see massive outbreaks. Unfortunately nothing has been managed well thus far.

Canada's been doing well compared to other places, even those that are not the US.

If by "nothing" you mean nothing with respect to back-to-school, then that is entirely possible, yes.

I was reading about how NZ cities (the article was about Auckland) was not being as transformational as some European countries, which really have taken huge steps (London, Paris)... The same seems true about Ontario cities.

[plam]

I crunched some numbers here... to date Canada's overall number is not bad, especially compared to, say, Spain.

https://patricklam.ca/post/20200904-intl-covid-munging/

[Bjays93]

I don't know if this is appropriate place to discuss covid lockdown measures but what I was more getting at was not that we have done nothing (we've done plenty) but that ultimately it has amounted to nothing. 

Lockdowns and closing everything are pointless without fully eradicating the disease. You are hurting local businesses, only to open up and allow spread again, ultimately re forcing businesses to close. There hasn't been much foresight in any of our covid reactions. Lockdowns also make sense when things are spiraling out of control but things were neither out of control or fully eradicated in Canada. 

If you aren't willing to take on the full pain of a lockdown to get rid of the disease, strict social distancing protocols are your next best option. Our back to school plan doesnt hae this, which is a recipe for disaster. The virus is still in circulation and we havent taken adequate preparations and precautions to prevent large outbreaks in the coming weeks. 

New Zealand took the short term pain to get completely covid free (minus their recent Auckland cluster which has been traced at this point) since they are completely covid free outside of this cluster, they aren't taking as stringent of measures. Things have been mostly normal in New Zealand for the last half of the summer thanks to their strategy.

[jeffster]

I don't know if this is appropriate place to discuss covid lockdown measures but what I was more getting at was not that we have done nothing (we've done plenty) but that ultimately it has amounted to nothing. 

Lockdowns and closing everything are pointless without fully eradicating the disease. You are hurting local businesses, only to open up and allow spread again, ultimately re forcing businesses to close. There hasn't been much foresight in any of our covid reactions. Lockdowns also make sense when things are spiraling out of control but things were neither out of control or fully eradicated in Canada. 

If you aren't willing to take on the full pain of a lockdown to get rid of the disease, strict social distancing protocols are your next best option. Our back to school plan doesnt hae this, which is a recipe for disaster. The virus is still in circulation and we havent taken adequate preparations and precautions to prevent large outbreaks in the coming weeks. 

New Zealand took the short term pain to get completely covid free (minus their recent Auckland cluster which has been traced at this point) since they are completely covid free outside of this cluster, they aren't taking as stringent of measures. Things have been mostly normal in New Zealand for the last half of the summer thanks to their strategy.

You're right, this probably isn't the right place for this discussion, but I can see it upstream from you, so no harm, no foul.

1) I don't think that our measures have amounted to nothing. Rather, if we look at the US, we can see that our more robust lockdown and measures of resulted in significantly less cases. Based on the US case count, if we were on part, we'd have about 800,000 rather than the 132,000 we have now (the US is about 8.9x our size).

2) I agree we have hurt businesses, a lot. But we didn't know how to handle things at first, hence the lockdown until we knew more. There was no way we'd eradicate thing, even with a prolonged lockdown. Many reason is that we still have major trade and travel with the US, and Canada allowed residents back into the country, the lied about being sick.

3) As for NZ, very different country than Canada. They did take a stronger approach, and they also have the advantage of being isolated. No matter what Canada did, we're not isolated, at all. We just look at the what is happening in BC with travel from Washington to Alaska. We also allow back and forth travel for various reason. We also have strong trade with the US, so thousands of transports driving into Canada every day.

[plam]

I don't know if this is appropriate place to discuss covid lockdown measures but what I was more getting at was not that we have done nothing (we've done plenty) but that ultimately it has amounted to nothing. 

Lockdowns and closing everything are pointless without fully eradicating the disease. You are hurting local businesses, only to open up and allow spread again, ultimately re forcing businesses to close. There hasn't been much foresight in any of our covid reactions. Lockdowns also make sense when things are spiraling out of control but things were neither out of control or fully eradicated in Canada. 

If you aren't willing to take on the full pain of a lockdown to get rid of the disease, strict social distancing protocols are your next best option. Our back to school plan doesnt hae this, which is a recipe for disaster. The virus is still in circulation and we havent taken adequate preparations and precautions to prevent large outbreaks in the coming weeks. 

New Zealand took the short term pain to get completely covid free (minus their recent Auckland cluster which has been traced at this point) since they are completely covid free outside of this cluster, they aren't taking as stringent of measures. Things have been mostly normal in New Zealand for the last half of the summer thanks to their strategy.

You're right, this probably isn't the right place for this discussion, but I can see it upstream from you, so no harm, no foul.

1) I don't think that our measures have amounted to nothing. Rather, if we look at the US, we can see that our more robust lockdown and measures of resulted in significantly less cases. Based on the US case count, if we were on part, we'd have about 800,000 rather than the 132,000 we have now (the US is about 8.9x our size).

2) I agree we have hurt businesses, a lot. But we didn't know how to handle things at first, hence the lockdown until we knew more. There was no way we'd eradicate thing, even with a prolonged lockdown. Many reason is that we still have major trade and travel with the US, and Canada allowed residents back into the country, the lied about being sick.

3) As for NZ, very different country than Canada. They did take a stronger approach, and they also have the advantage of being isolated. No matter what Canada did, we're not isolated, at all. We just look at the what is happening in BC with travel from Washington to Alaska. We also allow back and forth travel for various reason. We also have strong trade with the US, so thousands of transports driving into Canada every day.

I'm literally in NZ at the moment. Been here since January, but also following the news back home.

I do think it's worth it to talk about the 150km of extra cycle lanes in Paris vs the couple of extra kms in Waterloo Region and the 0 extra kms in Wellington.

The people who didn't die in Canada and NZ and all the non-US countries would appreciate the lockdown vs less-effective distancing, except that it's impossible to identify them. The motto here has been that a strong public health response is also a strong economic response. Fewer deaths is actually better for business.

If you're saying that it was pointless because the school plan is not quite where it should be, sure. The answer is not to have not had the lockdown, but rather to fix the school plan.

It is certainly easier for NZ to isolate than Canada. But Taiwan isn't that isolated either and has done even better than NZ. They also probably had a stronger public health response (I believe without lockdowns as we'd understand them in NZ or Canada).

And of course there is Atlantic Canada, which doesn't have NZ's advantages but much of its success.

[Momo26]

Good discussion - mods feel free to move it to the covid thread and let us know - for the betterment of that thread and so we can keep it going.

Here's the big question that many have no properly yet discussed anywhere really - will folks be looking to alternative living arrangements that provide more personal space and private entrance really a la a townhouse (even condo sized stacked townhouses) or even mid-rise stair welled (option) condos?

Do the, generally, younger generation of first time buyers picking up these condos (or those renting their first or second place) care for that distance? I can tell you in hanging around Uptown or downtown Toronto, it doesn't appear to be as much of an on-going concern (They are wearing their masks and giving space where they need to in lines) but other than that I dont see a mass exodus away from condos life. So that being said, since DTK is targeting those folks and looking for rapid expansion of population density, does anything change? You ask any realtor and they say no, mass shortage, market strong, here's some listings...but of course they have a job to do...

[jeffster]

You're right, this probably isn't the right place for this discussion, but I can see it upstream from you, so no harm, no foul.

1) I don't think that our measures have amounted to nothing. Rather, if we look at the US, we can see that our more robust lockdown and measures of resulted in significantly less cases. Based on the US case count, if we were on part, we'd have about 800,000 rather than the 132,000 we have now (the US is about 8.9x our size).

2) I agree we have hurt businesses, a lot. But we didn't know how to handle things at first, hence the lockdown until we knew more. There was no way we'd eradicate thing, even with a prolonged lockdown. Many reason is that we still have major trade and travel with the US, and Canada allowed residents back into the country, the lied about being sick.

3) As for NZ, very different country than Canada. They did take a stronger approach, and they also have the advantage of being isolated. No matter what Canada did, we're not isolated, at all. We just look at the what is happening in BC with travel from Washington to Alaska. We also allow back and forth travel for various reason. We also have strong trade with the US, so thousands of transports driving into Canada every day.

I'm literally in NZ at the moment. Been here since January, but also following the news back home.

I do think it's worth it to talk about the 150km of extra cycle lanes in Paris vs the couple of extra kms in Waterloo Region and the 0 extra kms in Wellington.

The people who didn't die in Canada and NZ and all the non-US countries would appreciate the lockdown vs less-effective distancing, except that it's impossible to identify them. The motto here has been that a strong public health response is also a strong economic response. Fewer deaths is actually better for business.

If you're saying that it was pointless because the school plan is not quite where it should be, sure. The answer is not to have not had the lockdown, but rather to fix the school plan.

It is certainly easier for NZ to isolate than Canada. But Taiwan isn't that isolated either and has done even better than NZ. They also probably had a stronger public health response (I believe without lockdowns as we'd understand them in NZ or Canada).

And of course there is Atlantic Canada, which doesn't have NZ's advantages but much of its success.

A lot of areas have had a stronger response, and they have had people follow it to a T. That can be said of Atlantic Canada, as well as places like The Republic of China. Though as far as I know, the ROC is an island, and can still more easily mitigate spread with travel restrictions.

As for extra bike lanes, WR did 30 extra KM, compared to Paris, depending on what on whether that 150KM extra was for Paris proper, we're right in line based on population, or if it's for metro Paris, then we did significantly better.

I think with NZ, apart from some of their other advantages (like being isolated), good leadership, good citizens, and quick action, lead to their success. And by the end of March, I started to think that this should have been the approach in Canada too.

If I recall correctly, NZ started protocols either late January or February 1st or 2nd. Then they locked down the entire country, and had plans to keep their residents safe and healthy, including economically. Like, they had their shit together. They knew what needed to be done. And they did it. Whether we could have done this in Canada, I don't know. As I mentioned upstream, a part of the problem is essential workers crossing the border, as well as the quagmire of Alaska.

[Momo26]

Overall now, economically and death toll, how has Stockholm done? If providing the death toll - a break down in ages would also be welcomed...

[plam]

I think with NZ, apart from some of their other advantages (like being isolated), good leadership, good citizens, and quick action, lead to their success. And by the end of March, I started to think that this should have been the approach in Canada too.

If I recall correctly, NZ started protocols either late January or February 1st or 2nd. Then they locked down the entire country, and had plans to keep their residents safe and healthy, including economically. Like, they had their shit together. They knew what needed to be done. And they did it. Whether we could have done this in Canada, I don't know. As I mentioned upstream, a part of the problem is essential workers crossing the border, as well as the quagmire of Alaska.

NZ started early with respect to number of cases but the cases arrived late, which I think is a combination of luck and people not coming to NZ for the weekend (it's far from everything). There were earlier evacuations from Wuhan, but really, it was mid-March when things started happening. This was about contemporaneous with Canada, but there were far fewer cases in NZ at the same time. It would have been harder for Canada to be as effective at the early lockdown, because the pandemic was not as much in general consciousness, say in late Feb/early March. Could have been tried but would have required a lot of political leadership and speculatively burning political capital.

The opposition party tried all sorts of rhetorical approaches but none of them really stuck and they changed opposition leader twice in the last six months (!). There's no party ballot here; the leader is chosen by the caucus. The general election is in about a month.

There are isolated anti-mask protests in NZ with maybe hundreds of protestors? There is a small fragment of conspiracy theorists but generally 80% support of the measures according to the polls.

[danbrotherston]

I think the conversation here has covered things well, and I generally approve of the measures that have been taken (with some reservations about the back to school plan). I think the real test will come during the second wave, and if we are willing to shut down again.

I do feel we have opened back up too soon, the intial lockdown was strong enough to tamp out community transmission (based on estimates of R values). But re-opening bars when doing so threatens the opportunity to return to school, or other things like access to hospitals etc. was foolish in my opinion.

That being said, the idea that we could have stayed open and not suffered economically is also disproven. The US is a great example of why I am glad we have different policies from them. But everyone has suffered economically, no matter how much they lived in denial of the virus, or even how little they were affected by it. We are a world wide economy now, it is impossible for us to not be affected by it. So the choice wasn't "fight the desease or continue economic properity" it was "fight the disease or suffer economic calamity anyway". And even in isolation, the effect of hundreds of thousands or millions sick, and everyone terrified would also have been substantial. Consumer confidence affects the economy...if people aren't confident in their safety, guess what, it's going to hurt the economy...and it's also going to cause shifts which the conservative economic analysis will be consider economic weakness (change is "bad").

That being said, there are interesting economic effects here, many of them, extremely negative in my opinion, even if not reflected in the stock exchange. I fear this pandemic will vastly accelerate the centralization and monopolization of businesses, small businesses have suffered far far more than large conglomerates. Amazon is making more money than ever....these are not good things, even though they push stocks (which mostly represent medium and large businesses) up. Ultimately, this will make more critical the social and economic problems (instability) that the pre-existing trend towards centralization has had on our community/country/world.

[tomh009]

Overall now, economically and death toll, how has Stockholm done? If providing the death toll - a break down in ages would also be welcomed...

Stockholm has 2196 deaths to date, in total there have been 5808 in Sweden. That's 5.8 per million, equivalent to about 9000 deaths in Ontario. (I don't know what area they include in the Stockholm number so can't really compare.) I have not seen a breakdown by age, but, like Canada, long-term care homes were hit very badly in Sweden.

This chart is for cases, not deaths, shown by week number:



They are testing at about 2/3 of the level of Ontario, with 1.6% positivity for the last week -- about 3x that of Ontario, with a lower level of testing. Even so, the percentage of population with antibodies is only in the single digits based on the tests that have been done.

Swedish GDP was estimated to have dropped 8.6% in Q2, while the estimate for the Canadian GDP was a drop of 11.5%

[tomh009]

SUNDAY 2020-09-06

Waterloo Region reported one new case today (0.1% of the total and 4.2% of the active cases). New cases are now averaging 5.1% of active cases over the past seven days. 12 new cases over that week.

Ontario reported 158 new cases today with a seven-day average of 138, still trending up. 111 recoveries and two deaths translated to an increase of 45 active cases and a current total of 1,390. A weekly total change of +209. 28,955 tests for a 0.55% positivity rate . The positivity rate is averaging 0.52% for the past seven days.

The new cases are 0.4% of the total and 11.4% of the number of active cases. New cases averaging 10.7% of actives over the past seven days.

ICU patient count is at 15 (+1).

No Ontario or Waterloo Region reports on Labour Day.

• 44 cases in Peel: 4.4 per 100K
  
• 49 cases in Toronto: 1.6 per 100K population
  
• 21 cases in Ottawa: 2.1 per 100K
  
• 16 cases in York: 1.6 per 100K population
  
• 1 case in Waterloo: 0.3 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  

The top four regions account for 130 of the total 158 new cases.

[danbrotherston]

Overall now, economically and death toll, how has Stockholm done? If providing the death toll - a break down in ages would also be welcomed...

....

Swedish GDP was estimated to have dropped 8.6% in Q2, while the estimate for the Canadian GDP was a drop of 11.5%

Great to put some numbers on it. FWIW, the US GDP (the posterchild country for failing to combat the disease) dropped by 32-35%.

[panamaniac]

....

Swedish GDP was estimated to have dropped 8.6% in Q2, while the estimate for the Canadian GDP was a drop of 11.5%

Great to put some numbers on it. FWIW, the US GDP (the posterchild country for failing to combat the disease) dropped by 32-35%.

I believe that would be on an annualized basis, rather than on the quarter.