I don't think anyone is pretending the virus is gone. It will likely never be, no more than Swine influenza strains vanished when that pandemic subsided. But with hospitalization rates and death rates so low all over the world, we're likely entering the endemic phase of this virus seeing as how most first world nations are removing restrictions at this point. Computer models can only show us so much, so many countries are now trying to remove restrictions. The mitigation tactics have been largely successful depending on where one lives, but they've also caused harm to things like political issues, economic disaster, mental and physical health problems (depression, obesity etc) not to mention suicide and self-harm from isolation, problems with social development in children, problems with drug addiction and overdoses, businesses failing, people being thrown into poverty and homelessness not to mention the breakdown of our social order and political cohesion that this has all had on people.
There's a very, very, very fine balance between balancing public health responses and balancing all of that stuff (and more), which is also impacting or even taking the lives of people around the world. Our response to this pandemic had been nearly as novel to the virus itself has been on our health. We've been trying things that have rarely or if ever been utilized during a pandemic and it's very apparent that they've had serious impacts on people.
If the test centre needs to reopen to test higher volumes than what can be done at the hospital, it will likely reopen, but the directors of the hospital as well as regional public health have come to the conclusion that it isn't needed any longer. Test positivity isn't too high at this point and the amount of people needing to be hospitalized or dying is very small. Of course, people will still suffer from that, but it's getting no worse than seasonal influenza. I suppose we can thank the fact 90%+ of us have been vaccinated.
But I don't wish to detail this thread and make it about the pandemic. It's shutting down and so we'll see what happens with that as well as what happens with this site. It's a prime location of land and I hope the Region of Waterloo doesn't blow this opportunity to potentially create an amazing public space that can benefit the community. It's time to use this. And there is limited space downtown so they ought to capitalize on this. We'll probably have a million people living in this region by 2050 if not sooner, so now is the time to put this location to good use for everyone. The building itself is garbage given its age. The roof leaks, there's taps that have been running water since the day it closed down (and I mean really leak...when I was there, enough water was pouring out of two taps they could fill a swimming pool each week but the region apparently didn't want to fix that since the entire building was not being used) and the basement levels are flooded. There's so much potential here once we knock down this ugly postmodern structure and build something new.
There's a very, very, very fine balance between balancing public health responses and balancing all of that stuff (and more), which is also impacting or even taking the lives of people around the world. Our response to this pandemic had been nearly as novel to the virus itself has been on our health. We've been trying things that have rarely or if ever been utilized during a pandemic and it's very apparent that they've had serious impacts on people.
If the test centre needs to reopen to test higher volumes than what can be done at the hospital, it will likely reopen, but the directors of the hospital as well as regional public health have come to the conclusion that it isn't needed any longer. Test positivity isn't too high at this point and the amount of people needing to be hospitalized or dying is very small. Of course, people will still suffer from that, but it's getting no worse than seasonal influenza. I suppose we can thank the fact 90%+ of us have been vaccinated.
But I don't wish to detail this thread and make it about the pandemic. It's shutting down and so we'll see what happens with that as well as what happens with this site. It's a prime location of land and I hope the Region of Waterloo doesn't blow this opportunity to potentially create an amazing public space that can benefit the community. It's time to use this. And there is limited space downtown so they ought to capitalize on this. We'll probably have a million people living in this region by 2050 if not sooner, so now is the time to put this location to good use for everyone. The building itself is garbage given its age. The roof leaks, there's taps that have been running water since the day it closed down (and I mean really leak...when I was there, enough water was pouring out of two taps they could fill a swimming pool each week but the region apparently didn't want to fix that since the entire building was not being used) and the basement levels are flooded. There's so much potential here once we knock down this ugly postmodern structure and build something new.