Greatcoinz Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 My condolences go out to you and your family Captain. Very sorry for your loss. All the best to you and your family. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Girardin71 Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 My condolences to you and your family Captain. sorry for your loss. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayside Observer Posted February 1, 2021 Report Share Posted February 1, 2021 On 1/30/2021 at 7:50 PM, captaintrolley said: Mom passed on at 1530hrs today. Rest In Peace Catharina Dejong Feb. 26. 1919 - Jan. 30, 2021. My condolences to you and your family, Captain. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomsbuspage Posted February 1, 2021 Report Share Posted February 1, 2021 So sorry to hear about your Mom, Captain. My condolences to you and your family at this difficult time. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
translink Posted February 1, 2021 Report Share Posted February 1, 2021 On 1/30/2021 at 4:50 PM, captaintrolley said: Mom passed on at 1530hrs today. Rest In Peace Catharina Dejong Feb. 26. 1919 - Jan. 30, 2021. Terry. My condolences. COVID has made things... even more difficult. Take care of yourself. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captaintrolley Posted February 1, 2021 Report Share Posted February 1, 2021 Just now, translink said: Terry. My condolences. COVID has made things... even more difficult. Take care of yourself. Thanks so much. ♥ 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3G Posted February 2, 2021 Report Share Posted February 2, 2021 Granddad got his first dose of the vaccine this morning. Happy to report it was a complete success. My grandmother decided not to go get hers as she wanted to be present if he should have had any adverse reaction, which is fair enough, but happily nothing of the sort happened. She turns 75 before the month is out and he will also be getting his second dose within that timeframe. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTAmissions1 Posted February 6, 2021 Report Share Posted February 6, 2021 (edited) It is hinted that the "stay at home order" will be extended for another week or two in Ontario. Noting that next week, info will be provided regarding how reopening will be staged. Especially dealing with a limited amount of vaccine supply to ensure herd immunity. Hoping that restrictions will be lifted, but I wouldn't bank on it having to deal with the different variants of COVID-19 circulating around. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-considering-extending-stay-at-home-order-for-entire-province-sources-say-1.5297482 EDIT: Here is the marketing campaign by the Government of Ontario that will be playing during the Super Bowl. Link here: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/first-look-at-ontario-government-s-gritty-covid-19-super-bowl-commercials-1.5297901 Edited February 6, 2021 by GTAmissions1 additional info 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loud-Invero Posted February 6, 2021 Report Share Posted February 6, 2021 Welp... One of co-workers tested positive for COVID-19 and it seems they've spreaded it to me... Mostly fine at the moment but I've been getting a weird feeling in the back of throat, similair to that of a sore throat which makes me believe this is the beginning of the infection... Ottawa Public Health should contact me shortly via Contact tracing from my friends postive test result but I'm already self isolating as a result of noticeable symptoms as of today. I do have asthma as pre existing condition, so hopefully C-19 doesn't start causing it to act up, otherwise I could see myself in the hospital on a ventilator :(. I'll keep you guys posted, but let me tell you, C-19 is not something you want to mess with. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bus_Medic Posted February 6, 2021 Report Share Posted February 6, 2021 2 hours ago, Loud-Invero said: Welp... One of co-workers tested positive for COVID-19 and it seems they've spreaded it to me... Mostly fine at the moment but I've been getting a weird feeling in the back of throat, similair to that of a sore throat which makes me believe this is the beginning of the infection... Ottawa Public Health should contact me shortly via Contact tracing from my friends postive test result but I'm already self isolating as a result of noticeable symptoms as of today. I do have asthma as pre existing condition, so hopefully C-19 doesn't start causing it to act up, otherwise I could see myself in the hospital on a ventilator :(. I'll keep you guys posted, but let me tell you, C-19 is not something you want to mess with. How do you know what it is without a definitive test? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loud-Invero Posted February 6, 2021 Report Share Posted February 6, 2021 39 minutes ago, Bus_Medic said: How do you know what it is without a definitive test? That I have similar symptoms to what my friend is experiencing, which I got days after hanging out with him? I'm still waiting for a call from OPH, was told that I should be advised on my next steps by the end of today. I'm gonna ask to see If I can get a test, but it's probably gonna be pointless since regardless of whether I get tested or not, I'm grounded U.F.N. Nevermind, is it really worth "just knowing" if I have to take public transit to get tested and possibly put other people at risk "just to know" when clearly something is not right about me? I'll keep you guys posted on when OPH calls me. They've called my friend and said he's basically has to stay in his house until the 13th. Edit: I ended up booking a test as anyways as advised by the same friend as I told him OPH still hasn't called me and it's already lights out here and it's Saturday. I managed to get myself a safe way to the testing centre on Monday and back to my house. I hope it isn't C-19, but I'm doubtful given it's convenient timing with my friends positive test... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benton Harper Posted February 7, 2021 Report Share Posted February 7, 2021 Interesting symptoms, could be a normal flu too. Of course, no such thing as a cold, or flu, or pink eye or anything NOT covid19 anymore.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loud-Invero Posted February 7, 2021 Report Share Posted February 7, 2021 (edited) On 2/6/2021 at 9:28 PM, Benton Harper said: Interesting symptoms, could be a normal flu too. Of course, no such thing as a cold, or flu, or pink eye or anything NOT covid19 anymore.. Possible but who knows, I'll have to wait until Monday to get the test and wait until Wednesday to probably find out. I hope it's not C-19 and it's just something else, but i'm getting more doubtful that it isn't C-19 as time goes on. I went to bed and that weird throat feeling went away but now I can't taste or smell anything. I have notified work and family that I may be a carrier so I'm grounded U.FN. and will be in isolation. I've strongly encouraged my family not to do anything or go anywhere until I'm given the all clear. It really makes me feel bad, because I got 4 siblings in school and my mother is in school as well (we all live in the same house), and one of my siblings works at the same store I work at, so my illness, whatever it is, bascailly is grounding me and my family's whole life from our usual activities. Edited February 8, 2021 by Flalex72 Moderation 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3G Posted February 8, 2021 Report Share Posted February 8, 2021 A little humour to lighten the atmosphere. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loud-Invero Posted February 9, 2021 Report Share Posted February 9, 2021 Great news, I've tested negative. I did call OPH and they said to self-monitor given that I'm still having taste and smell problems, and to continue practicing COVID-19 prevention tips. I will say though, I'm hoping that the test that was preformed wasn't simply a false negative given that I'm not experiencing any other symptoms of a cold, COVID, flu, etc. other than the weird loss of taste and smell... I'm a free man, to say the least! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3G Posted February 9, 2021 Report Share Posted February 9, 2021 Ontario will let more businesses reopen, gradually lift stay-at-home orders It should come as no surprise at this point, but none of this makes a lick of sense. Remember David Williams saying that he wants us to get below 1000 new cases a day, which we haven't? Or when he said we should get below 150 patients in the ICU, which we also haven't? Could this be any indication that society is ready to deal with the virus? No, of course not. We can kiss this coming summer goodbye, too! Everyone, too, is panicking about all the new variants. Now that they're here I guess it's cool to let those spread in society? I wish we could decide whether we're panicking or not giving a shit, because I like this half-assed approach the least of all. I'm more than a little bitter that it's considered acceptable for me to be marched off to work to return screws like I'm actually somehow contributing to society by doing so, but going abroad for leisure? Out of the question! Meanwhile, here's some other countries shitting the bed. How are all of the so-called progressives going to justify this one? Excuse me, how was this allowed to happen? I was told that the Australians were well behaved and followed the science, unlike us naughty westerners, and as a result were able to bend the virus to their will. And they managed to do all of this right on their home turf! What's next, is every neighbourhood in every city going to erect a stone wall around its perimeter, like the walled cities of old? 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayside Observer Posted February 10, 2021 Report Share Posted February 10, 2021 On 1/26/2021 at 12:42 AM, Wayside Observer said: It's like the Canadian government pissing a ton of money away to buy tons of rapid test kits and then piss more money away to warehouse them because they're not being used. What's the point? If you're not going to use the tests to get results to be able to get moving in a fairly safe way, what's the point of buying all this stuff only to pooh pooh it because it's less than perfect and decide to fly completely blind and not use the rapid tests at all, so they sit on the shelves gathering dust and moving towards the chemical reagant expiration dates at which point they're no good anymore. I had to quote myself from January 26th after reading this article in today's Toronto Star Make more use of COVID-19 rapid tests, Justin Trudeau urges provinces (alternate link) where I just about lost my mind when I read this passage: “There’s real need for this testing,” Trudeau told a news conference on Tuesday. “Tests must be deployed. They can’t be allowed to expire.” Someone finally clued in that all those tests they bought that have been sitting on a shelf not being used for no good reason have a shelf life before they expire and they're no good anymore? Reading between the lines on that quote it sounds like Trudeau's trying to do some preemptive damage control here after someone realized that the only rapid going on with these rapid test kits was that they were rapidly getting stale dated. Trudeau's worried that they're getting closed to their expiration dates and clearly wants them to be used before they hit it and he has to wear the fallout from them being wasted and thrown out. Then you get articles like this one on CBC A rare glimpse inside Calgary's COVID-19 isolation hotel which started to make my blood boil starting at the description of being transported from the airport to the hotel in a van with blacked out windows. That's unnecessary. There is no medical basis for blacked out windows. What is the medical basis for inadequate food? What is the medical basis for ignoring infected ingrown toenails? I speak from experience on this where an ingrown toenail got infected and the infection ran away which led to multiple antibiotics for several months to clear that up before surgery could be done on the toe to correct the underlying problems. Being forced to let this fester is extremely risky. How is this medically beneficial? What is the medical basis for inadequate toiletry supplies? What is the medical basis for no food or care package deliveries from outside? The point is to keep the quarantied people in, not care packages out so what's the medical basis for this? Hell, even prisoners of war got mail and care packages from home. I don't see a whole lot of medical basis for a lot of how the quarantine hotel is being done. And yeah, a lot of the comments on the article take a totally simplistic "it isn't supposed to be the Four Seasons" or whatever high end hotel. It doesn't need to be and it shouldn't be, but that is no excuse for this mess that appears to have little design based on medical basis but more to do with being unduly punitive for no good reason other than to maybe set an example. Luckily all those politicians who travelled over Christmas are safe and sound back home before all these additional restrictions were put in place that would've caused them to be subjected to this. Ontario permits indoor dining for NHL teams while province under stay-at-home order Because we're all in it together, right? Unless you're a politician, an important business figure, a person of wealth, or well connected and can take advantage of the fat wallet exemptions. Meanwhile, if I'm beat to hell after going to work at work, there's no crash my weary bones down in a chair at a restaurant table and saying, "feed me", at the end of a long day, eg. tomorrow which is scheduled to be about 16 hours long, before I have to go up and do it all again to keep the little corner of civilized society that I work at running. Meanwhile, Doug Ford said that the police aren't going to be pulling people over to check and see if they're out on essential travel once the province shifted from lockdown to stay at home order so I thought I might at least be able to travel to and from work in peace after the whole mess in the early hours of the lockdown on December 26 when the local police department was surrounding everyone who had to be out with cop cars and interrogating them. Well, cue the creativity: Halton police call it a seat belt check, but drivers say they were checking for more Sure it's a seatbelt check. Sure there was snow on my license plate that mysteriously vanished between when I was boxed in and when I got home a couple km later. The seatbelt check BS is really egregious because it's so binary. It's either on or it's off, and origin, destination and purpose of trip have zero to do with that. 19 hours ago, PCC Guy said: Ontario will let more businesses reopen, gradually lift stay-at-home orders It should come as no surprise at this point, but none of this makes a lick of sense. Remember David Williams saying that he wants us to get below 1000 new cases a day, which we haven't? Or when he said we should get below 150 patients in the ICU, which we also haven't? Could this be any indication that society is ready to deal with the virus? No, of course not. We can kiss this coming summer goodbye, too! Everyone, too, is panicking about all the new variants. Now that they're here I guess it's cool to let those spread in society? I wish we could decide whether we're panicking or not giving a shit, because I like this half-assed approach the least of all. I'm more than a little bitter that it's considered acceptable for me to be marched off to work to return screws like I'm actually somehow contributing to society by doing so, but going abroad for leisure? Out of the question! What's next, is every neighbourhood in every city going to erect a stone wall around its perimeter, like the walled cities of old? There are only two things that have been consistent about the government response to COVID-19: Consistently adding onerous restrictions without an accompanying plan to unwind them with specifics such as criteria, thresholds, protocols etc. which means there's a very real possibility that things will be about as temporary as income tax was. Consistently flailing all over the map in all directions. Society is not ready to deal with COVID-19. The hystaria and fearmongering that's been whipped up by the government plus many of the media outlets like the Toronto Star has gotten a large enough segment of the population wound up to the point that they're all but hiding under their beds like scared housecats. I hope someone out there has a plan for changing gears on this but I can't see how there's going to be a transition from what we've been in for almost a year now to move forward and work around it instead of going sideways indefinitely. A year in, the whole premise of shutting everything down and going sideways is completely faulty. By now a strategy to move forward and work around COVID-19 vaccines or not should have been developed and we should be transitioned to it or well on the way to transitioning to it by now. There was an article a bit over a week ago but I can't find it now that had some juicy quotes from Tam that sounded like the early foundations were being laid for the summer being cancelled again. In the meantime, leasure is completely cancelled and mental health is completely cancelled and if you venture out of your house and it isn't for work or to buy groceries, you could end up like this couple 'My mind was blown': Ontario couple fined $880 for Pokémon GO outing amid stay-at-home order who got hit with yet another thousand dollar ticket for sitting in their own car in an empty church parking lot playing a game on a smartphone just to get out of the same four walls. If we get a clear, mild day, do you feel safe going outside with your camera to mentally shift gears and do something enjoyable and take some pictures with this sort of thing going on? Cancelling the summer again is really going to kneecap the economy but good. Let's consider just football. Now that it's mid-February, the Northern Football Conference would typically be having a general meeting at the crappy Travelodge hotel in Barrie, so virtualizing that is probably been an improvement in venue, where the summer semi-pro schedule would be set but nobody can plan anything yet. Booking fields, recruiting, getting teams practiced up and ready to go takes time so if things don't start coming together in the next two months or so, it's going to be a half season pushed to the end of the summer or cancelled again. Cancelled again means lots of players careers are over, it means a lot of the teams that have been barely hanging on for years (semipro football doesn't get any support in Ontario the way semipro hockey does) are probably going to fold. Enough teams fold and the league itself will fold. Fifth quarter sponsor bars lose business. Hotels lose business from teams travelling to away games. Suppliers lose business because nobody's going to be buying equipment. They're already feeling it; I've been getting lots of Even steeper discounts - please, please, please buy something! emails. Youth and children are getting screwed completely. I know several high school kids that were getting scouted in Grade 11, were planning around scholarships to attend university, but got completely shmucked by not playing in Grade 12 who are now thinking of taking a couple fall semester courses and doing a Grade 13 year or half year in order to play this fall to try and get the scholarships they were hoping for this past year. If sports are cancelled again, that idea's out the windows. If sports are not cancelled, they're in a double cohort of themselves plus this year's grade 12s competing for the same scholarships, and that depends on university athletics looking promising for the 2022 fall. Is Justin Trudau going to get out his chequebook and replace this scholarship money? Doug Ford? And that's just football. One summer leisure activity and it's associated economic impact and I'm probably underdescribing the economic effect and it's multiplier effect across the economy at large. Scale that up across every industry that's going to be slaughtered by cancelling the summer a second time plus all the mental health impacts associated with both halves of that, and it's looking really grim. At this point, the only new COVID-19 restriction that I would actually be in favour of is one prohibiting voting for Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford in the next set of elections. Heads need to roll. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomsbuspage Posted February 10, 2021 Report Share Posted February 10, 2021 Ottawa Citizen: Ontario education minister considering cancelling March break to curb COVID spread Quote Ontario is considering cancelling March break in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, in a move educators and some parents say could lead to mass burnout. Speaking of youth and children getting screwed completely... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayside Observer Posted February 10, 2021 Report Share Posted February 10, 2021 16 minutes ago, tomsbuspage said: Ottawa Citizen: Ontario education minister considering cancelling March break to curb COVID spread Speaking of youth and children getting screwed completely... I'm worried about the other shoe dropping over the next few years. I can see it starting in 2022 for college and university students that are going to be finishing up after the back two years of their three and four year diplomas and degrees have been completely trashed by COVID-19 with this rippling on as kids in high school now make their way through the education system and on to the job market. How many employers are going to look at resumes of brighteyed hopeful people graduating and looking for their first real job to get started making their way in the adult world and be completely dashed by, "Oh, from the dates on your resume, your high school/college/university education landed over COVID-19 and got seriously compromised. I'm going to hire someone educated before or after instead. Sorry." I asked two friends of mine who are college professors at Humber College and Niagara College back in the fall if they've seen any evidence of that happening yet. They said no and that it was too early to tell if this was going to be a problem, but they're worried about it too. I have zero confidence in the ability of the politicians in charge being able to address this mess if it comes based on their abysmal track record with every file that's been affected by COVID-19 so far that it clearly doesn't bode well for them cleaning up the aftermatth either. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3G Posted February 10, 2021 Report Share Posted February 10, 2021 5 hours ago, Wayside Observer said: And yeah, a lot of the comments on the article take a totally simplistic "it isn't supposed to be the Four Seasons" or whatever high end hotel. Ha! That would at least justify the insane pricetag on them. Going after travel is an easy and politically safe way of looking like you're doing something. People are starting to get mad that they're not allowed to socialize or go to work, but the average person doesn't have family or friends that matter to them that live overseas, so what do they care if travel goes away, forever if need be? They've gotten everything they need, be goddamned to the rest of us. With the talk of keeping out variants, that's basically a free pass to keep this going indefinitely. Not one person ever has explained to me how we are supposed to walk back travel bans that are in place to keep out new variants, considering that they're contingent on hypothetical scenarios. And as was shown in the UK, what's stopping us from growing some domestically? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
81-717 Posted February 11, 2021 Report Share Posted February 11, 2021 (edited) On 2/10/2021 at 12:55 PM, Wayside Observer said: a lot of the comments on the article take a totally simplistic "it isn't supposed to be the Four Seasons" or whatever high end hotel. I was expecting the comments to be entirely different. At this point all I'm hoping for is that widespread public outrage will force the airhead politicians () to walk back this utter idiocy. My parents are currently overseas taking care of the grandparents, and they all should've already been back by now, but because of this bullshit they won't be able to return until hell knows when. Aside from being a rip-off, the hotel stay would only put my grandparents at far greater risk than quarantining at home. On 2/10/2021 at 6:11 PM, PCC Guy said: Ha! That would at least justify the insane pricetag on them. Rather than robbing the wallets of the travelers they're forcibly confining, the government should pull that money out from the same place they pulled that stupid rule out from. On 2/10/2021 at 12:55 PM, Wayside Observer said: A rare glimpse inside Calgary's COVID-19 isolation hotel which started to make my blood boil starting at the description of being transported from the airport to the hotel in a van with blacked out windows. Jheez, they might as well use chloroform and a rope to subdue the poor unsuspecting travelers victims hostages. On 2/10/2021 at 12:55 PM, Wayside Observer said: At this point, the only new COVID-19 restriction that I would actually be in favour of is one prohibiting voting for Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford in the next set of elections. Agreed, they seriously need to go, period. On 2/10/2021 at 1:42 PM, tomsbuspage said: Ottawa Citizen: Ontario education minister considering cancelling March break to curb COVID spread Speaking of youth and children getting screwed completely... So instead of March break everyone will have to go to school that week (unless it's online)? First the strategy to prevent covid spread was by closing schools, now it's by opening schools? Makes sense, very logical. Edited February 15, 2021 by 81-717 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loud-Invero Posted February 11, 2021 Report Share Posted February 11, 2021 17 hours ago, tomsbuspage said: Ottawa Citizen: Ontario education minister considering cancelling March break to curb COVID spread Speaking of youth and children getting screwed completely... You know what, as callous as this sounds, I say cancel it. We're only just getting out of the lock down now and it's almost mid-February already, it started December 26th... all that damage from just a week of holidays.... In that same time tens of thousands of driving test were cancelled and there is such a backlog that those people who had the misfortune of booking a date for when the premier of Ontario was going to place the province in lockdown because of idiots having parties, that they're being kicked off the testing schedule and being told to get back in line, meaning another 4 month wait just to be probably cancelled again because of some other BS holiday or occasion that would result in lockdown, then the cycle repeats. And that's just driving, what about elective surgeries? Theses people are being put on the back burner on a non stop loop with no end in sight... In my opinion, all holidays, extended breaks (4 day weekends), should be CANCELLED U.F.N, until we either clear theses backlogs everywhere in society or immunisation becomes accessible to everyone. I have a drive test on April 9th to get my G2 (basically I can drive on my own) after the original one for January 15th was cancelled. The only thing I have to worry about is March break and the four-day Easter weekend. Now, if March break is not cancelled, and we end up being put on lockdown, for me, unless it's only 2 weeks long vs 28 days, I and many others would be f*****... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3G Posted February 11, 2021 Report Share Posted February 11, 2021 Why? Why should students pick up the tab for the fact that, in a year, we haven't been able to develop a more sophisticated pandemic response policy besides demonization of anything that doesn't generate economic value? I haven't had a March Break in 7 years, but my brother is still in school and I see how much he's suffering from everything that's been going on in schools. A cancellation of March break would be just another brutish kick in the teeth, though I expect young people have come to expect such a thing at this point. In fact, why have any weekends at all? Or any time off? Let's shorten each day to match the 8 hour work day, march everyone off to work or school in that time frame, and then immediately send them home, where they go to sleep, and then wake up and do the same thing again. It wouldn't surprise me if we had a third lockdown anyway. We've only just started to see the numbers go down. ICUs are still full, and mass immunization is nowhere in sight. This is not the problem of students, and we shouldn't make it one. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayside Observer Posted February 11, 2021 Report Share Posted February 11, 2021 17 hours ago, PCC Guy said: Going after travel is an easy and politically safe way of looking like you're doing something. People are starting to get mad that they're not allowed to socialize or go to work, but the average person doesn't have family or friends that matter to them that live overseas, so what do they care if travel goes away, forever if need be? They've gotten everything they need, be goddamned to the rest of us. With the talk of keeping out variants, that's basically a free pass to keep this going indefinitely. Not one person ever has explained to me how we are supposed to walk back travel bans that are in place to keep out new variants, considering that they're contingent on hypothetical scenarios. And as was shown in the UK, what's stopping us from growing some domestically? Absolutely. Doug Ford's been travelling all around the province even though we're supposed to be staying home doing photo ops and press conferences with frequent stops at Pearson where he runs his mouth about the border and kicks it upstairs to Trudeau since that's a federal responsibility. Trudeau keeps piling the restrictions on now that all the misbehaving politicians are back home from their winter holidays. Meanwhile, according to the National Post, most incoming international travellers don't have to quarantine because they're essential truck drivers, flight crew, etc. or have ministerial exemptions granted by the same government that keeps piling the restrictions on. It's theatre to play to the "do something" crowd that doesn't affect anyone that matters (in either practical or political terms) and throws the little people under the wheels but that's fine because we don't matter. It's been almost a year, mid-February, 2020, since I've seen my American friends that I'm very close to. It's been since the same time since I've done any trolley museum stuff. I'm upset. They're upset. None of us matter. And I agree about the variants. Everyone knows that viruses mutate over time but that's the golden goalpost shifter that's going to let them keep it going forever. Variants were going to show up somewhere, sometime inevitably. It happened to be UK. It happened to be South Africa. It happened to be Brazil. It's going to happen other places. One of them might be here. The only bright light I can see is that the FDA's come out and said that respinning existing vaccines to target the variants shouldn't be technically difficult or require the whole full blown trials either and take the approach that they've been taking with retuning the regular flu vaccine every year. I also agree completely about nobody being able to explain how to unwind the travel bans or any number of other restrictions. None of them have been put in place with a firm unwind plan and specifications for determining when and how the unwind plan or parts of it are to be invoked. This omission is either because what's being done is half baked due to incompetence or it's malicious and being made deliberately opaque as those blacked out windows in the van transporting the detainees to the extrajudicial confinement facility returning travellers to the quarantine hotel. Excuse me, but I never voted to be held hostage like I'm living in North Korea. 3 hours ago, PCC Guy said: Why? Why should students pick up the tab for the fact that, in a year, we haven't been able to develop a more sophisticated pandemic response policy besides demonization of anything that doesn't generate economic value? I haven't had a March Break in 7 years, but my brother is still in school and I see how much he's suffering from everything that's been going on in schools. A cancellation of March break would be just another brutish kick in the teeth, though I expect young people have come to expect such a thing at this point. In fact, why have any weekends at all? Or any time off? Let's shorten each day to match the 8 hour work day, march everyone off to work or school in that time frame, and then immediately send them home, where they go to sleep, and then wake up and do the same thing again. It wouldn't surprise me if we had a third lockdown anyway. We've only just started to see the numbers go down. ICUs are still full, and mass immunization is nowhere in sight. This is not the problem of students, and we shouldn't make it one. The young are being thrown under the wheels. I've said this several times before but I've really been left with the impression that nobody over the age of 70 or maybe 65 cares about anyone under the age of 60. We're all being thrown under the wheels. Someone finally broke down and wrote an article in the Op/Ed in the Toronto Star Youth are being saddled with lifelong problems due to prolonged lockdowns (alternate link). It isn't just youth, it's everyone up to retirement age that goes to work, does their job, goes back home, stares at the ceiling until they fall asleep and then do it again day in, day out with no end in sight. It's people who live alone that having their mental health completely decimated. At some point, the politicians are going to decide the pandemic's effectively over whether it's because they've flat out run out of money to blow on it or there's an election coming up and they need it over for the sake of their political fortunes, and it'll be great news because it's over. So it's all good right? And there'll be every political reason for them to ignore the devastating, long lasting problems they've caused. I already sketched out my thoughts on what's going to happen to a whole generation of people whose educations are being trashed. We have all the problems that have already been created over the last 11 months with no plans to address any of them But here's what I think about all of us in the future: We're completely screwed. We have been completely and totally shafted for the rest of our lives and our children have been too. Here's why: The economic crowding out effect is going to be savage. The shit hasn't even hit this fan yet and nobody's talking about it. But from where I sit looking at the facts, I think the economic crowding out to be beyond brutal. Trudeau's blown the bank so hard, we're going to be hit with a double whammy of increased taxes combined with government services cuts to pay the mountain of debt off the rest of our lives and then some. This means the standard of living that's been falling since 1980 is going to decline even more severely as your paycheques get siphoned to pay this off. It means that services your elders got to enjoy are going to either be reduced or discontinued; it won't be available to you or I the same way, if at all. Universal health care is phenomenally expensive so that might get looked at eventually. Funding announcements for public transportation, or any other public infrastructure or good for that matter, will be fewer, further apart, and smaller. Trudeau's already took the upper limit off the carbon tax a couple of months ago. It's theoretically revenue neutral so based on your energy bills, you get some or all of it back at tax refund time, or come out ahead if you're a light customer of fossil fuels. Expect that to be changed to non-revenue neutral and become non-refundable to help pay this off. If you think frivolous fines for BS infractions are nothing more than revenue generation, expect the thousand dollar tickets to continue. Expect lots of thousand dollar tickets to be handed out for a long time to come. Expect other taxes to be increased. Expect user fees to be increased and to be levied on more and more things. Bottom line, we're going to be slammed hard financially on both sides the rest of our lives and there's going to be nothing left for any of us. Saving for retirement is going to be even more difficult. If there's another crisis within the next 100 years, the federal and provincial treasuries are not going to be able to handle it. There's going to be nothing left for us once this settles down to some kind of a manageable state other than one hell of a stack of bills. And that stack of bills is going to dominate government fiscal policy for many decades to come and that's the economic crowding out that's going to shove every other consideration right off the table for the rest of our lives. There's going to be no help for any of us and our needs won't be met once the payments on the national and provincial debt burdens that have been racked up over the last year start, and it could get seriously ugly 10, 15, 20 years down the road in ways we can't even imagine yet because of this. Honestly, can you imagine sitting down 20 years from now and explaining to teenagers who haven't even been born yet that their entire life's been boxed in economically because of the costs incurred shutting down the world to do a mediocre job of protecting grey haired seniors that were already rapidly approaching the end of the line anyways even without COVID-19 that kicked the bucket before they were even born? I honestly don't know what the Wikipedia page for "Baby Boomer" is going to look like in 2030 but I sure hope it's the brutally, honestly, factually correctly unkind assessment that it needs to be to reflect how everyone after's been sold down the river without a paddle. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayside Observer Posted February 14, 2021 Report Share Posted February 14, 2021 This is a bit off the beaten path. Anyways, i'm enjoying some quality after dinner downtime on my first day off after finishing up the brutal shift rotation at work. There's a ton of snow on the ground and I'm ignoring having to get out the shovel until tomorrow in favour of staying inside where it's warm and relaxing with The Manhattan Transfer's greatest hits spinning on the turntable. Honestly, I bought the record because of the cover (look it up, see why) but the music's good and I'm catching up on some reading. Some of the reading I've been catching up on is one of the electronics forums I follow. A few days ago, there was a discussion about whether it's ok to jump in the car and drive to go pick up something for sale on the regional Kijiji/Craig's List/Facebook Marketplace/Gumtree etc. buy and sell site or if it isn't. The discussion also moved into if it is and if you are, are you inviting trouble from the police for being out in your car for doing so? The discussion settled into two camps. One was no, there's a pandemic, there's a lockdown, you shouldn't be out of your house for any reason at all, and some people even went as far as to suggest that governments shut down the various swap meet websites to discourage this sort of thing. The other was yes, and the reasons and logic given were interesting. One was, for people who are still working and need tools and supplies, it's a viable way of conducting commerce. Especially for self employed people or small businesses who buy used equipment to avoid the costs of buying new. Shutting down or prohibiting travel for pickups immediately rules that out and shifts everyone to buying new for everything or doing without. One person raised arguments on the seller side that I thought were extremely compelling: Kijiji etc. are also the places of last resort for people who aren't working, don't have an income, are in dire straits and have no choice but to start selling things off to put food on the table and keep the heat on and the rent or mortgage paid right now. The government panics or bans buyers from coming or shuts down the buy and sell venues outright, where does that leave them? That's a truly grim thought. The guy I buy my firewood from called up his regular customers a bit over week ago, before the arctic vortex arrived and the temperatures plunged and the snow came trying to drum up business because he got laid off again from his regular job. I'm sure he's advertising firewood on Kijiji still trying to drum up business. I was starting to run low so I said sure, and he came by with two facecords worth of wood the next day. He'd be worse off for sure if Kijiji got shut down on him right now. Honestly, if you can go into a Wal-Mart or a Costco, if you can to into any grocery store if you can to into your own work, really, how dangerous is a "here's your cash, here's your item" transaction on a front porch or in a driveway or in a parking lot that's done in less than 60 seconds remotely dangerous? Especially if it turns out that $ is paying for someone's family to have dinner the next three nights vs. going hungry? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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