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The COVID-19 pandemic
Give a fake name and number 🤣
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(01-13-2022, 07:46 PM)Spokes Wrote: Give a fake name and number 🤣
That is not the point. The only contact I had with anyone in the building was the 4 people at the front door. They kept me in the building about 4 times longer than I would have if I didn't have to deal with that. Meanwhile, an infected person can walk into Walmart and walk around coughing everywhere. The rules don't make sense.
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The University of Waterloo study regarding CBD became a joke in a recent episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (though, no mention of the university itself): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJAMO_bLMw8&t=625s
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Looks like WRDSB will offer short term virtual learning. This is great news, all I want is a choice.

https://www.wrdsb.ca/blog/2022/01/12/sch...y-17-2022/
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Omg you just made my day!!! Thanks
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(01-13-2022, 07:32 PM)Acitta Wrote: So I am out doing some errands on my bike on this balmy afternoon, when I find that I must empty my bladder. Since I am passing the Kingsdale Community Centre, I decided to go in there rather than finding a tree in the park. So I park my bike and walk in where I am confronted by several people interrogating me. I told them that I was rushing in to use the washroom and would be leaving immediately after, but they insisted on asking me whether I had any of these 100 symptoms or had been out of the country, etc., while someone else squirted hand sanitizer into my hands lest I transfer any dangerous germs to my dick. After getting past that gauntlet and spending 60 seconds or so in the washroom, I had to fill out a form with my name and phone number before leaving.
Meanwhile, you can walk into any crowded grocery store in the city and nobody says anything to you. Anyhow, I hope that the urinal doesn't get covid from me.
Omg !!!   You just made my day...Thank you
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Just make sure you evaporate all that sanitizer on your hands before you touch down there...or you'll start screaming in the washroom and cause even more of a panic.
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(01-13-2022, 09:42 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: FWIW, As you all know, I think it's a smart policy, economic incentives are an effective way to encourage behaviour we want. We *DO* tax cigarettes and alcohol.

FWIW:

We don't tax extra in junk food, so we end up with obese people in the hospital for various reason: knee replacements, quadruple by-pass surgeries, etc.

We don't tax people who play extreme sports (that would include things like hockey, football, etc). These same people also wind up with knee replacements, concussions, and broken internal organs.

We don't tax people who drink and drive, who speed, who run stop signs, red lights, etc. They cause accidents, they cause injuries, they cause deaths.

We also don't tax jaywalkers, or any pedestrian, or cyclists, who disobeys signs.

As for alcohol: there are 4 types of drinkers: 1) social drinkers, who are responsible when it comes to alcohol and pose little risk to our healthcare, and contribute little in alcohol tax 2) regular drinkers -- the 1 or 2 drinks a day, 3 or 4 times a week. Likewise, they pay little tax, and post moderate risk, 3) alcoholics - they drink every day, sometimes 1 drink, sometimes 10 drinkers. Some of these folks will pose a serious risk out our healthcare. But, arguably, they have paid $1,000 - $2,000/year in SIN tax -- not enough to cover, but hey. 4) Drunks - they are occasional drinkers that can't control themselves. Example is the Ezra street party, kids drinking 40oz of whiskey and passing out almost dead. They folks quite often pay very little in SIN tax, but the risk to our healthcare is extreme. $24 taxes on a 40oz bottle doesn't cover the costs of one of these folks ending up in the hospital.

So -- if someone comes into the hospital passed out from alcohol, they need to be charged a premium as well.

Perhaps giving people economical financial incentives to to get drunk, not to eat McDonalds and Doritos, etc, extra tax on semi professional sports and professional and amateur sports. A tax on everything that could contribute to your earlier visit to the ER.

We do that. We're onto something then.
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Current 7-day Covid-19 cases per 100k

• Lambton Public Health 671.9
• City of Hamilton Public Health Services 658.8

• Region of Waterloo Public Health and Emergency Services 649.8


• Durham Region Health Department 638.4
• Chatham-Kent Public Health 632.1
• Peel Public Health 620.4
• Halton Region Public Health 619.8
• Eastern Ontario Health Unit 616.6
• Windsor-Essex County Health Unit 602.6
• York Region Public Health 566.6
• Niagara Region Public Health 524.7
• Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit 514.5
• Middlesex-London Health Unit 507.4
• Brant County Health Unit 485.8
• Thunder Bay District Health Unit 481.5
• Public Health Sudbury & Districts 463.3
• Toronto Public Health 452.6
• Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit 452.1
• Northwestern Health Unit 422.0
• Southwestern Public Health 408.5
• Ottawa Public Health 395.6
• Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health 387.9
• Hastings Prince Edward Public Health 362.0
• Porcupine Health Unit 355.9
• Peterborough Public Health 346.0
• Algoma Public Health 314.6
• Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit 306.5
• Renfrew County and District Health Unit 293.7
• Grey Bruce Health Unit 267.2
• Huron Perth Public Health 246.9
• Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health 239.8
• Leeds, Grenville & Lanark District Health Unit 216.6
• North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit 215.8

• Timiskaming Health Unit 149.9

• TOTAL ONTARIO 501.7
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(01-14-2022, 12:18 AM)jeffster Wrote: […]

Perhaps giving people economical financial incentives to to get drunk, not to eat McDonalds and Doritos, etc, extra tax on semi professional sports and professional and amateur sports. A tax on everything that could contribute to your earlier visit to the ER.

We do that. We're onto something then.

Covid is quite different in that the action proposed to be encouraged through taxation is the economical medical treatment that is available.

What I mean is, we don’t hand out chemotherapy or amputations on request, but only upon the recommendation of a doctor. If a less expensive treatment will be sufficiently effective, then that is what the doctor recommends and that is what is available to the patient.

For Covid, the economical and appropriate medical treatment is a vaccination, followed by additional medical care in the event the patient is one of those whom the vaccine does not fully protect. Why should we be forced to provide expensive nursing care, etc., for somebody who didn’t take the vaccine? Try ignoring your doctor’s health recommendations and see where you end up on the kidney transplant list. We can afford to vaccinate everybody; we cannot afford to provide expensive nursing care for everybody who needs it because they didn’t get themselves vaccinated and get Covid.

Another note: who are these people who refuse medical advice to get vaccinated, but then show up at the regular hospital ready to follow medical advice when their respiratory system starts seizing up? It’s just not sensible. If they mistrust the simple advice to get a needle, they have no business coming to the hospital: they should be going to wherever the people they get their advice from dispense medical care.

Note: to be clear, I’m talking about Covid care only. If somebody comes in for any other condition, they should be treated regardless of vaccination status, except that they might be shuffled to a non-vaccinated ward or be required to be vaccinated upon entry to the hospital (wouldn’t help immediately, but if they end up in the hospital for a long time they would start to benefit from vaccination after a few days).
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(01-13-2022, 08:10 PM)Acitta Wrote:
(01-13-2022, 07:46 PM)Spokes Wrote: Give a fake name and number 🤣
That is not the point. The only contact I had with anyone in the building was the 4 people at the front door. They kept me in the building about 4 times longer than I would have if I didn't have to deal with that. Meanwhile, an infected person can walk into Walmart and walk around coughing everywhere. The rules don't make sense.

I know it's not.  I was just making a joke

I agree, the rules are ridiculous
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Yeah, don't tell me things are alright:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/o...-1.6314122

This is ALREADY killing people.

I'm so fucking done with shit, I know people are tired, I'm tired too. But I don't care if you're tired, or that I'm tired, we're not literally dying of cancer because of anti-vaxxers.

A tax is the nicest thing I can think of right now.
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Some people are already suggesting the tax isn't very logical (although it is, seemingly, legal):

Quote:McGill University biomedical ethicist Phoebe Friesen was concerned the logic of taxing unvaccinated people could be extrapolated to other behaviors seen as driving health spending – obesity, for example – but that are tied to marginalization.

"If you want to be consistent and logical, you should charge all sorts of people for their hospitalization if it's based on behavior that they're 'responsible' for," she said "... And it's incredibly tricky to figure out what that looks like."

The legality isn't even the thing, it's a question of medical ethics. But as the article points out, it has already demonstrated that there are still hold-outs that are now suddenly booking appointments, which is a good thing. We saw that happen in Ontario when the government announced plans for a vaccine passport system and when employers began to mandate vaccines in workplaces.
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Current 7-day Covid-19 cases per 100k

• Durham Region Health Department 726.7
• City of Hamilton Public Health Services 689.0
• Lambton Public Health 664.3

• Region of Waterloo Public Health and Emergency Services 658.2

• Peel Public Health 608.9
• Halton Region Public Health 602.2
• Windsor-Essex County Health Unit 586.6
• Chatham-Kent Public Health 585.0
• Eastern Ontario Health Unit 584.5
• York Region Public Health 562.7
• Niagara Region Public Health 516.4
• Brant County Health Unit 509.7
• Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit 476.9
• Middlesex-London Health Unit 474.7
• Public Health Sudbury & Districts 462.3
• Thunder Bay District Health Unit 460.8
• Toronto Public Health 438.4
• Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit 422.3
• Northwestern Health Unit 410.6
• Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health 381.8
• Southwestern Public Health 381.6
• Ottawa Public Health 376.3
• Renfrew County and District Health Unit 348.0
• Hastings Prince Edward Public Health 326.4
• Porcupine Health Unit 324.8
• Algoma Public Health 319.8
• Peterborough Public Health 314.2
• Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit 310.2
• Huron Perth Public Health 244.7
• Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health 240.2
• Grey Bruce Health Unit 237.2
• North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit 226.6
• Timiskaming Health Unit 217.2
• Leeds, Grenville & Lanark District Health Unit 203.3

• TOTAL ONTARIO 495.4
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(01-14-2022, 10:49 AM)ac3r Wrote: Some people are already suggesting the tax isn't very logical (although it is, seemingly, legal):

Quote:McGill University biomedical ethicist Phoebe Friesen was concerned the logic of taxing unvaccinated people could be extrapolated to other behaviors seen as driving health spending – obesity, for example – but that are tied to marginalization.

"If you want to be consistent and logical, you should charge all sorts of people for their hospitalization if it's based on behavior that they're 'responsible' for," she said "... And it's incredibly tricky to figure out what that looks like."

The legality isn't even the thing, it's a question of medical ethics. But as the article points out, it has already demonstrated that there are still hold-outs that are now suddenly booking appointments, which is a good thing. We saw that happen in Ontario when the government announced plans for a vaccine passport system and when employers began to mandate vaccines in workplaces.

But you're still going to have a large chunk not vaccinated because they still haven't clued in. I've mentioned it a few times before, but many immigrants who have poor language skills still have no idea what's going on, and if they do, they have no idea what they need to do. My 'aunt in-law' was kicked out of a McDonalds because she had no vaccine documentation. It's not like she's stupid, but she has zero clue how bad covid is, other than travel restrictions and she can't go to church. She has zero clue how to get a vaccine. And it doesn't help that she's Italian and has a serious mistrust of governments because of all the shit that happened in Italy years ago. Her kids, who were born in Canada, aren't exactly vaccine proponents.

And you're still going to have indigenous who won't get vaccinated no matter what. They have been treat like shit by current and past governments, I personally don't blame them.

Media and government have done a poor job at messaging when it comes to who is getting sick, and what their background is. It's either 'vaccinated or not vaccinated'. But I guess if they said 'the who' it would be politically incorrect, unless they show a video of a white, obese, male anti-vaxxer dying in the hospital, who, upon reflection says, while grasping for air, "Covid is real".

As for weak-minded anti-vaxxers who get their information from FaceBook and radio talk shows -- that blame goes directly to the government and (social)media for allowing that shit in the first place.

But I do agree with what Friesen says, we go down this road to tax someone who refuses a medical procedure, it opens a pandoras box of other things.

The reality is this: if people took care of their health, our hospital capacity would be a fraction of what it is today. And, if people took care of themselves, this virus would have affected very few people. But we built hospital capacity around people who take risks, around people who abuse their bodies, and around poor government policy that make people get sick.
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