Re: Coronavirus
 

Same for us, apparently we have a limited number of licenses. I’m critical unfortunately 😉

Re: Coronavirus
 

I thought the statement from on high was clear enough but, of course, line managers have muddled it. If you're critical you can WFH. If you're not it depends on the reading comprehension of your manager; some non-critical people are laid off, some are ordered in. The latter is a brilliant move, imagine the PR resulting from ordering people to go into an office because the company didn't think them important and then having them drop dead!

For contractors an Unbilled Hour is, of course, a fate worse than SARS so the above only applies to employees.

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I'll (hopefully) be heading home to the UK tomorrow to work from home. The concern isn't the virus, it's the risk of getting stuck here due to travel restrictions.

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Almost like people having their own personal Berlin Walls. :(

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https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...853b4c277.jpeg

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This is beautiful to read. Couldn't be better, good going!

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The inevitable has happened, someone in the office where I work has tested positive.

Re: Coronavirus
 

There must be so many Business Continuity Plans being tested to the max right now. All those years of planning for a DR scenario are all slowly unfolding.

Re: Coronavirus
 

US centric but finally an article with some context

https://newcriterion.com/blogs/dispa...mpared-to-what

Re: Coronavirus
 

Another ski hill has announced they are closing, Cypress Mountain is closing until further notice, likely the rest of the season at this point.

I predict more travel restrictions are coming in the near future.

Pot stores in parts of the US are now as popular as toilet paper as people begin phase 2 of stock piling, stock up on the pot.

Looks like in Washington they may temporarily prohibit evictions due to inability to pay rent if affected by the virus.

This is exposing how fragile our society is.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I was talking with some friends and if we had an earthquake in Vancouver in the next few weeks, we are done.

Re: Coronavirus
 

so what happens now? Do you all have to isolate, or just monitor yourselves?

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i can’t be the only one sick of hearing this sort of thing. I am not particularly at risk but I don’t understand how throwing the vulnerable under the bus for the sake of the economy can be calmly described as’context’.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Maybe not but there is certainly a debate needed around the fact that we do not risk the global economy to this extent for other far more deadly diseases or social issues.

what good is saving the vulnerable now if they end of dying anyway from not having the ability to earn a living or lack retirement savings?

what we need to do is look at the long term picture and not be driven into madness and irrationality by short term emotional reactions, as tragic and sad as the personnel consequences of that are.

for instance when Trudeau says stuff like; so far the evidence hasn’t shown a need to do [travel bans and closing birder] so, but that given people's concerns and "the shift in posture from the United States" that it gives the federal government "significant things to think about."

it is clear we are moving away from a scientific based decision making process to what ever the masses feel will help and tit for tat politics.

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Yes. It's interesting that people working entirely on cloud based applications are unaffected, they can WFH or wherever. The cloud may be expensive and insecure but it's handy right now.

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There's muddle and confusion. As best I can tell, people who were known to have contact with the infected person are quarantined. People who are "mission critical" are quarantined. No one else is.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Ahem. Trump refused the WHO test kits and will instead have the government buy newly developed kits from a Kushner enterprise, there's been a delay, perhaps causing deaths, due to the grift. Trump tried to buy the rights to a vaccine so that only people within the US could benefit from it, despite the US not being isolated from the rest of the world. Johnson's approach to the pandemic is to ignore it. We never had a "scientific based decision making process". That's only the fault of the masses to the extent that they voted for conservative parties.

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and retaliation in kind from the liberal Canadian government will help?

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How is that "context" when it's more likely it just hasn't properly "got there" yet?
Here's some context. In the two days since that article was published the number of deaths from the virus in the US has risen by 50%. And if you take away the deaths from that "poorly run" home, they have doubled.

Okay, so it doesn't compare to some other deaths. How many of deaths from other causes double in two days? There's some more context.

But if a new car was developed and then it turned out that some design fault was responsible for an annual number of deaths that wouldn't be happening if that new car hadn't entered the market and people carried on driving the other available cars would anyone be saying it doesn't matter because X number of the total deaths would die anyway?

:nod:

I'm not entirely sure but I think I may have heard something similar before. :ohmy:

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The Canadian government isn't really relevant. The US has accepted widespread infection for the benefit of the Trump family economy. Once the disease is prevalent there it'll spread all across Canada, Trudeau is like a State governor - he has some power but cannot completely offset the idiocy of the Federal government.

Re: Coronavirus
 

"Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of The Diversity Delusion (St. Martin’s Press) and The War on Cops (Encounter)"

RWNJ.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Please avoid snipping my quotes in such a way as to take them out of context or misrepresent me. Thank you


full quote is ‘what good is saving the vulnerable now if they end of dying anyway from not having the ability to earn a living or lack retirement savings?’ Which is a little more nuanced, don’t you think?

Re: Coronavirus
 

But this is why the numbers themselves are so important. Using relative comparisons like doubled, 100% more etc. is non helpful and alarmist.

When the numbers double from 11 to 21, like they did in the UK the other day, the numbers are still small.

If it doubles from 10,000 to 20,000 that is more significant.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Absolutely, it's not the value of the number but the rate of increase of fatalities that provides evidence of the future potential expansion of this threat.
It's what a doubling overnight actually conveys in real terms.
The maths aren't difficult. Left unchecked, and with a potential exposure to the virus of say only 50% of the population of Canada (38M) say 20M and a conservative rate of death of 1% we arrive at a total number of fatalities of 200,000 and ten times that in the US. This is why there's a worldwide effort to stamp the virus out everywhere, because today's potential availability of extensive travel will ensure that if it isn't stamped out everywhere then it'll recurr again and again.
Governments are buying time until a suitable vaccine becomes avaiable.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Damn virus is going to cause me to lose a job I bet. My luck is never on the good side....lol

Anyhow I suspect Canada will up the border closings this coming week, I wouldn't expect international flights to continue at this rate, they may hold off on the land border but at this point I am not confident that will even stay open in the coming weeks.

Makes me think, should I stay in Canada or go home and be closer to family in the event something happens to my parents, tough decision to make.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6680382/c...QYAOR7jSGDpZCg

313 confirmed cases in Canada, with 25,000 tested.

BC has done around 6,000 tests as of Friday.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Quebec is ordering gathering places like bars, movies, gyms and suck to close. Restaurants can stay open but must reduce capacity 50%.

Quebec premier only wants people to "“We should go out only to work, buy bread, go to the pharmacy, get health care, take a walk or go help people age 70 and up.”

Re: Coronavirus
 

Westjet is going to cut 40% of its domestic seat capacity and 60% of its international capacity. They did not confirm how many people would be laid off but flight attendant union seems to think 50% of flight attendants will be laid off.

people are dumb

Re: Coronavirus
 

My project which is based in Germany has instructed all non-German people (c.75%) to return and work from home. We're coming toward the end of our project so we're down from 100+ people to <10 people but still need to keep these few key people on board. I literally will be paid for doing nothing but I realise that I am one of the lucky ones. My wife has a part-time job which she does as a hobby (women's fashion shop) and she says she has had literally zero customers in the past few days.

2020 is going to be a year of chaos and heartache.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Not in the least.

Not to mention that huge assumption regarding lack of resources.

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Give it another couple of days and see it at least double again until it gets to something more "significant"

Re: Coronavirus
 

Not looking good.

"Dr. Vera Etches told reporters Sunday that 10 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Ottawa — and some of those people have been walking around undiagnosed in the city for weeks. It means, she said, that hundreds of people could be infected in Ottawa."

"“One case is typically resulting in two cases, and the doubling time is about four or five days, so we’re estimating that right now in Ottawa, there could be from a couple of hundred to even a thousand cases of COVID-19 in the community,” she said."

Re: Coronavirus
 

City of Surrey here in BC is closing all rec centers, ice rinks, pools, libraries until further notice.

With colleges moving to online, wonder what students who don't have home internet are going to do if public access points like libraries end up closed. I do know most people have home internet but not everyone does.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Sigh. I suppose it depends on your point of view and your 'at risk' status. Every time the numbers double that's double the amount of people who have passed it on to how many others - ad infinitum, the domino effect. It's of concern whether it's 20 or 20,000... it also depends on where you live - if you live in a village of 200 people and 20 people have it.. the chances of being in contact with someone is pretty high.
:(

Re: Coronavirus
 

Here's an illustration using an example of a place with 200 people: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...ona-simulator/

Re: Coronavirus
 

NB's first case was confirmed last Wednesday. A woman returned from France. The authorities said they had traced contacts.

A day or so later they confirmed number two who was a close contact of the first. From the information given one would conclude it was her husband.

A couple of days later and four more 'presumptive' cases have been added. Again, close contacts, and from the details given most likely two siblings or one and a spouse in-law and two adult children of either couple.

The time scale would suggest some sort of get together after returning from France and at least one other household, perhaps as many as four other households. There could be others in those households plus, of course anyone else the close contacting people have since had close contacts with; work or socially.

It's not hard to see how it spreads.

Re: Coronavirus
 

On one of my occasional visits to this forum given what is going on, for what is is worth, here is an opinion from someone who will be on the front line of the situation rather than working from home. As usual, there are the usual armchair experts, everyone of course is entitled to their opinion and nobody really knows how this is going to truly pan out but here are my thoughts.

Working in BC, my main input has been provided by BC Public Health fronted by Dr. Bonnie Henry and supported by Adrian Dix. The thing I greatly admire is that the government has been able to stand back and let the experts get on with it seemingly without interference, something that I have definitely not seen South of the border nor indeed in the UK.
The only thing that we can achieve is to flatten the curve so that our medical services can cope, people will get the disease but we need to hopefully retain at least some control. Looking at the current numbers, whilst they are increasing, and that is inevitable there is still a degree of control. The key to this is, as the WHO have continued to reiterate to go back to basics and contact trace and locate all the contacts as best they can. Countries like Singapore have kept the numbers down by doing just this. These are the principles that are being stuck to by the letter in BC and I am sure in other provinces and I feel that is the only way that we have any hope of success.

I cannot comprehend what the hell the UK are doing, I do not understand in any way what they are trying to achieve, words about herd immunity are banded around but this is only in my understanding appropriate for immunization. I have very elderly parents in the UK and I worry dearly. I see large crowds gathered at sports events,concerts in the UK even this weekend, people just do not seem to be taking it seriously.
Nothing ever surprises me about the United States nowadays, given its leadership, I have no doubt that they are heading for the same position that Italy are sadly in now which both saddens me and worries me. I feel that I our Southern border should be closed immediately.

Siouxie, you have every right to feel anxious I am afraid, thankfully you are in a country which is taking this very seriously. You are in a position I hope to take yourself away from things for a prolonged period to keep yourself safe and you should do so. You need not panic, just be your usual sensible self. I would agree that too many people have been very blasé about Covid 19, even on this forum playing down the risks. People in their 30s and 40s and 50s are dying in Italy and that will happen around the world if some degree of control is not achieved I saw the Washington post article that dbd33 linked to and I think it demonstrates things extremely well.

We are in our office gearing up to the presumption that we will be dealing with cases in the near future, trying to ensure that our patients who are currently unaffected, our staff and indeed ourselves are kept safe as possible . This takes significant planning but I feel working alongside all other agencies within the country who are taking this seriously, we can flatten the curve. Now, it is up to the general public to do everything that they have been asked to do social distancing, isolation of those at risk and obviously complete hand hygiene etc.
South Korea have now exceeded cases by recoveries and they are an example of a country which have flattened the curve, that is what we need to do here as well. Unfortunately, I feel that that boat has been missed in several countries in Europe although other countries with a small number of cases have now woken up and taken appropriate action.

Given Engineer_abroad presumable academic and hopefully scientific background, I was stunned by his post concerning the doubling numbers yesterday. Are you that naive? You do realise that if you keep on doubling a number you will end up with a very big number..right??? Also never just discard the old and the vulnerable-if you have this attitude then there is no prospect of us getting through this.

Just my thoughts... carry on- I will get back to work trying to help the likes of you lot!

Re: Coronavirus
 

I heard on the 6 pm TV news that a grocery store in Edmonton is going to open an hour earlier in the morning for seniors only ........ so they can shop before everything has been mauled over. I think it is probably a Sobeys ......... gives hope they might do it elsewhere.

A friend in Australia told me earlier today that Woolworth's there is opening an hour earlier at 7am for seniors.

The little local coffee shop that we go to refused to give OH a latte for me in my travel mug yesterday. They insisted it had to be put into a disposable plastic cup and then HE could pour into the mug.

I gather Starbucks and Timmys are doing the same thing ........... but they are also refusing to use real cups for instore customers. They're insisting on only disposable cups.

Fortunately our little shop is still using real cups as they have a very efficient commercial dish washer

We were in there today, and they were wiping down counters and all metal surfaces, door handles, taps etc with Clorox wipes ...... the girl said they have to do it every hour. Owner's orders.

Re: Coronavirus
 

10 BC casinos shutting down.

https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/03...e-to-covid-19/

I have seen a few places online that there will be a big press conference tomorrow morning in BC.

CBSA officer in Toronto has tested positive.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6681665/c...arson-airport/

Re: Coronavirus
 

re the re usable cup thing, we started refusing to refill cups on Thursday. Some places like Second Cup in Red Deer are refusing to take cash, card payment only. Only a matter of time before restaurants a d shops close I think. Goodlife has closed. All city recreational facitlies have closed in Rex Deer too.

Re: Coronavirus
 

:thumbs_up: Good to hear from you and thanks for doing what you do.