Re: Coronavirus
 

"For at least one of the country's leading intelligence experts, the fact that the unit was tracking the COVID-19 outbreak and reporting on it raises serious questions about information-sharing within the federal government — and its possible failure to heed early warning signs."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cor...uhan-1.5528381

Re: Coronavirus
 

People simply cannot listen it seems, not sure what part of don't travel for Easter weekend people don't understand.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6804829/c...velers-easter/

Wonder if there will be a spike in 1-2 weeks from now?

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JSmith apparently there's to be a statement update for BC today rather than a broadcast but I can't find anything so i guess not released yet. Have you seen anything?

thanks!

Re: Coronavirus
 

I haven't seen anything updated, just rehash of yesterday, but nothing new yet that I can find. I totally forgot today was a holiday, I never associate good friday with being a holiday.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I do. But I still checked for the newspaper twice before remembering it doesn't publish. :lol:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Thanks for responding. I'll keep looking.

Difficult to see this as a holiday when it's just merged in with the other days at home.
Bonnie Henry deserves a bit of down time although I doubt she's really getting it ....

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's not a holiday in California and I am not religious, so it was just a day on the calendar. Granted when in school we didn't have school but that was only because back then spring break happened to be the week before Easter, then back to school Monday.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Looks like Global has the new updated info.

40 new cases, 5 new deaths, 3 of the deaths were in long term care facility.

Hospitalizations are down a bit again to 128 now.

The temporary hospital at Vancouver Convention center is now operational should it be needed.

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Yes just spotted it thanks!
haven't read it yet.
.

Re: Coronavirus
 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b...nd-i-dvfnxdvql He has excellent taste in movies. :) One of my favourite mindless movies.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Mindless movies. Now there's a thought.
Will we ever be allowed to see a movie encompassing how government in the US managed the C19 pandemic in the US?
Will there be a 2020 election?
Will the US degenerate further into a dictatorship?
Exceptional events generate exceptional political transformations.
The Hunger Games movies, entertaining until you start to think about it, and the US is just over there.... that's right just over the border....

Re: Coronavirus
 

US election can't easily be changed for president. It's set in federal legislation that states "the electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed in each State on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November of the year in which they are to be appointed." The sitting president has no power on his own to alter that date.

Now each of the 50 states could in theory change the way in which they choose their electors from something other than popular vote, but that isn't exactly easy either, state legislature and governors would need to pass relevant legislation to approve new methods for selecting electors. Remember the elections are run by each state, so essentially there are 50 individual elections, not one federal election. Of course voters would likely not be happy with such changes and risk political suicide.

Now congress could pass new legislation to replace or modify the Presidential Election Day Act, but they would require congress to agree and pass legislation and the president to sign it, in the current congress this is not likely to happen.

Now even if any of the above is managed, the election could only be moved by a month or 2 at most. 20th amendment of the US constitution automatically end the sitting presidents term at 12 noon on January 20th, and if no president or vice president has been elected, the line of succession starts.

In order to change the constitution congress will have to submit a proposed amendment and vote, both houses would then need to pass the proposal with 2/3 vote, if it passes both houses of congress with 2/3, the proposed amendment is sent to the states, where three-fourths of the states would need to ratify it. (38 of 50 states would need to ratify it.) such an amendment is certainly not likely to get 2/3 vote in both houses of congress nor is it feasible that it could happen in 7 months.

Now the states could also attempt to change the constitution, but that would require calling a constitutional convention which would require 2/3 of the states, and any proposed amendment would still need to pass with three-fourths of the states approving it.

Note that the US President has no constitutional role in amending the constitution and amendments do not require presidential approval.

Best course of action would be congress passing legislation requiring all states to do mail ballots this year, several states already do 100% mail ballot elections so its not exactly some radical proposal.

If previous generations managed to have elections in other pandemics (1918 mid-term election) and elections during war time including the civil war, no reason it can't go as scheduled this year, no reason the election this year can't go on as scheduled, send out mail ballots end of September to early October, require the ballots to be post marked by election day and presto nobody has to leave home to vote, just put the ballot into a mail box, now the results would be delayed a couple weeks vs normal election years but that isn't a big deal.

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Did anyone watch /hear Priti Patel? On a scale of one to really sodding evil how angry will it make me? Best to just skip it?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Well presented and it reads well when the constitution remains the basis for US Law, but extreme events have a habit of pushing established laws to one side in favour of the executive. What would happen if the president simply ignores the Constitution?
And today we see that Mnuchin is reported by the Treasury's IG to have acted appropriately in refusing to hand over Trump's tax returns because the request they did not serve a legitimate “legislative purpose.” But there is nothing in law that mentions the need to have a “legislative purpose” to obtain the returns, this is a spurious excuse to appease Trump and keep his job.
"The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing"
Who would argue that the presence of a raging pandemic doesn't provide a plausible excuse to delay an election by a president with poor ratings, and if the country degenerates into a depression with widespread civil unrest who would argue that an election might not be possible?

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I haven't seen mention of this here.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Saskatchewan records it's fourth death. "On Saturday, the province also announced four new cases plus confirmation of the one presumptive case reported Friday, bringing Saskatchewan’s total number of cases to 289.
https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatch...-efe73cb2f2cc/

Re: Coronavirus
 

35 new cases today in BC, 3 additional deaths.

Health officer says what people do this weekend will define the next 2 weeks.

News media appears to have blown the ferry story yesterday out of proportion, BC Ferries confirmed they are running less sailings, and operating vessels at 50% capacity, the ferries were not actually full as media first reported.

Will be at least a few weeks before any date is set for a return to school.

Federal prison in Mission (about an hour East of Vancouver) has 26 cases between staff and inmates.

BC received some supplies this past week, but at this time BC isn't in a position to share supplies with other provinces.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...by-3-1.5529885

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I was in the car when she came in my ear. Level of annoyance, Trumpian.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Essential travel?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Routine travel. I went to buy groceries. That's all the car moves now, once a day to the barn to ride, once a week to fetch the dismally limited foodstuffs available at Costco. Loblaws and the LCBO. No raclet, no Camembert, we're forced to live like Canadians.

Back with Ms. Patel:

"Sorry if people feel there have been failings" is just "I'm sorry you feel that way". Not an apology but an insult.

Re: Coronavirus
 

If Trump refused to leave, I would imagine he would be removed by force if necessary.

Anyhow say there is no election, come January 20th at 12 noon both Trump and Pence lose all their power and are no longer in office and the line of succession starts, which gets a little interesting. Since there is no President or VP elect next in line of succession is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, but this is an election year for the house, so every house seat is up for election, but there was no election, so there is no speaker of the house as the current congressional terms up for grabs this year, their terms all end on January 3.

So where are we now, oh yes next in line is Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, US Senate pro tempore, but wait it wont be him either. See 35 senate seats are up for election, and those 35 terms end January 3 as well, since there was no election those 35 seats are now empty, 23 of which are republican.

So now we have no president, no VP, no speaker of the house (not house at all as there was no election) and we have 65 senators left, where does that leave us in our hypothetical world.

We have 65 senators left, of the 65 left majority are Democrat and in our hypothetical world, the next in line would be Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont.

But wait that scenario isn't likely.

Remember US President isn't directly elected by popular vote, so states could if they chose to find a way to put forward their own electors in the electoral college but this isn't an easy feat either, example 4 swing states have republican legislatures but democrat governors so these states would not easily agree on who their electors would be, and this would need to be repeated 50 times, and oh boy would piss of voters and be political suicide for state legislators and governors who went this route.

Appears the only instance of a federal election being delayed was in 2018 when Northern Mariana Islands delayed theirs due to a typhoon, Northern Mariana Islands is a US territory but not a US state so they don't get to vote for US President in the general election.

Any road except holding the election is a difficult uphill battle that at this point doesn't seem feasible. That article has the details and was my reference.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/...r-coronavirus/

Re: Coronavirus
 

Well argued, but we have in this president a man who's demonstrated a willingness to ignore rules that govern how others behave, to lie and cheat the US people and to persecute anyone who stands up to him.
He owns the Justice Department, has placed Trump men in high places, commands the Senate and as Commander in Chief of the Forces his word is law and I don't see anyone sticking their head up to have it cut off.
I recognise that what I'm arguing is extreme and highly unlikely to come to pass but this man isn't completely sane and likely to do anything to stay in power.
Your reasoning relies on constitutional arrangements governing political decision making, I'm suggesting that, like the attempted disenfrachisement by the Republicans of large swathes of the poorer class, these arrangemnts could be bent or ignored completely.
But I've always been a cynic, perhaps too cynical this time but this pandemic may be just the excuse he's been looking for.

Re: Coronavirus
 

They released Boris !!

Re: Coronavirus
 

The good news is a Canadian lab has a test kit that provides a result in an hour. They had it under development to detect infections, and were able to adapt it for covid-19. The 'lab' part is smaller than a toaster so portable enough to rapidly assess spread in small towns and rural areas. Millions are promised to be in the works soon.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...-new-1.5530669

Re: Coronavirus
 

Interesting discussion. A number of these discussions have been posted:

Re: Coronavirus
 

It’s a tough one, I have listened to a few of Peter Hitchens’s arguments on this subject, I normally agree with a lot of what he says in general, but I am not so sure on this. He is of course right in that there is no evidence that a lock down is saving considerable more infections and therefore deaths. We have not seen what is going to happen to Sweden yet, plus its hard to compare a country of 10 million to a country of 65million.

I think the one argument for the lock down, is looking at the mess the US is in now…. Maybe if they had introduced social distancing measures or a lockdown earlier, they wouldn’t be in the mess they are now in……its hard to say, but the UK is a very densely populated country, to me, not locking it down could have been resulted in huge numbers of deaths….I know there is no evidence, but its just a logical observation for me. I don’t think anyone really knows......

Re: Coronavirus
 

World leaders are in an awful situation right now. Damned if they lockdown, and damned if they don't. Peoples health vs their countries economy. It's a tough one.

I bet Trump didn't expect to make this choice when he signed up for the job in 2016.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Peter sounds so much like his brother it is uncanny.

Re: Coronavirus
 

This article describes an approach to herd immunity which seems reasonable. Maintaining lockdown to availability of vaccine doesn't seem to be workable.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...-end-lockdown/

Re: Coronavirus
 

Well that was the UK governments original plan wasn't it, but I don't think they knew enough about the virus then...still don't really, but they will.

I think lockdown can only work in the short term to prevent the initial wave from spiraling out of control, its not feasible in the long term, I agree it will do more damage than the virus. We need a plan to get us through to the vaccine and herd immumity could be the solution, for all we know some countries could be well on their way to it, I think many people (younger people) have had this virus and didn't know it. Unfortunately older people will have to remain isolated, but herd could be our semi normaility on way to the vaccine. Id assume the only way to confirm this though is to test everyone, is that even feasible?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Unprecedented times, I think its easy for people to critisize any government, but no one really know what they are doing at this point, any action is a shot in the dark.

Re: Coronavirus
 

There's simply not enough testing going on in most places.
That's the key in my opinion: agressive testing, contact tracing and isolation. But now it's too late.

Re: Coronavirus
 

BC update today includes 2 twenty four hour periods.

25 cases between Saturday and Sunday, and 20 new cases between Sunday and Monday.

11 more deaths.

137 in hospital with 58 of those in ICU.

905 people have recovered so far.

federal correctional facility in Mission outbreak has risen to 35 with 8 in hospital.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...l-13-1.5530942

5.4 million people have received emergency funds from the government so far.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6811658/c...medium=Twitter

Re: Coronavirus
 

I don't think that's true. The best thing to do is to seal the borders, test everyone, contract trace everyone positive and isolate them. That, of course, is more practical for New Zealand and Hawaii than it is for Canada. Canada could however, "seal" the borders (as much as is possible, people will always be able to walk in), develop new tests so as to be able to test more people, test everyone in the circle of anyone found to be positive, aggressively promote social distancing and sheltering in place, provide financial assistance to minimize the number of people who break isolation for need of funds. Pretty much what the various levels of, usually warring, government are doing.

Canada is eventually going to have to deal with the probability of recurring waves of infection in the US but it's too soon for that.

It's no wonder to me that the governments of the US, the UK and Brazil should be making a bollocks of this but Sweden? There's no cartoonish but brutal dictator in Sweden.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Ontario as at 12th April
There are 7,470 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ontario reported to date in iPHIS. This represents an increase of 421 confirmed cases from the previous report.
44.4% of cases are male, 55.0% are female. 39.5% of cases are 60 years of age and older.
Greater Toronto Area public health units account for 53.9% of cases.
291 deaths have been reported - This is an increase of 17 deaths from the previous report
Eighty-nine outbreaks have been reported in long-term care homes
(opens in new tab, no download -- https://files.ontario.ca/moh-covid-1...2020-04-12.pdf

Re: Coronavirus
 

It shows how falable everybody can be in a crisis.

We all do stupid things.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I can't help thinking that Boris Johnson has played a blinder here. For all I loathe him, I don't for one second believe that he is a far-right politician, unlike many of those he surrounds himself with. He is an opportunist, and simply saw the far-right of the Tory Party/ERG as a means to achieve his dream of being in No.10.

By dint of catching Coronavirus, whether actual or pretended, he now has the ammunition to take a Damascene lurch away from the far right. His majority means he has the political position to risk that. It's interesting that no-one has seen Dominic Cummings for a few weeks... I wonder if he and Johnson have fallen out, perhaps Johnson has decided that he no longer needs Cummings?

I think Johnson is a natural One Nation Tory, pretty liberal in his views, and will be only too glad to ditch the far right elements of his trajectory. I wonder even if he will try to row back on Brexit now that he has been "saved" by immigrant nurses?

Re: Coronavirus
 

I see that Cummings has shown up for work today, so that answers that part of my post.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I notice that Dulux paint stores are open for trade customers but not to DIY customers now. Trade customers have to order by phone with kerbside pickup. The claim they have to do this to comply with government instruction seems odd when Benjamin Moore next door are open as usual?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Looks like borders do matter...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...iftigniter-rhr