Originally Posted by BristolUK (Post 12876079)

But there's the difference. There are things needed from shopping, just like you could be run over by a bus crossing the street if there's something needed on the other side. How vital is that trip?

Originally Posted by Shard (Post 12876076)

The shopping mall is in Canada so that's irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12876086)

I can guarantee there is absolutely nothing necessary that you need from the mall. That is all purely indulgent shopping. Essentials can be picked up from groceries/pharmacies.

To answer the question of why i'm going to the mall? Because it's open and i'm comfortable with the risk. Yes I did wear a mask while there. But the mall is full of people indoors and so is the airport. What is the increased risk vector? No one has answered that yet.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12876023)

I don't see any more of a risk taking a holiday to a country with lower COVID cases/rate of transmission then Canada. But if I were to go the government would have to pay a month of CERB since I wouldn't be able to work due to the mandatory quarantine. So there's that.

I don't like being at home for long periods though, so I won't be travelling until that requirement is lifted. It is a little upsetting though given that many places are opening to Canadians. The EU did say it expected countries to which it has opened borders to reciprocate for EU citizens.

I was hoping they would announce 'safe countries' to travel to. Maybe after 31 August.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12876059)

"easier" doesn't go together with how much of an actual risk it poses though.

Absolutely I would have no problem self isolating if I was mad enough to travel to or transit parts of US, UK, Brazil, etc. But to travel to my tiny Malta with 39 cases, 9 deaths, no community transmission? I should not have to self isolate on my return if not experiencing symptoms.

Other countries are relaxing this rule and have the same level of COVID-19 as us, why aren't we doing the same? I think you are right Jsmth, it is just 'easier' for the government...which unfortunately isn't that great of an excuse. But there isn't much you can do.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12876086)

I can guarantee there is absolutely nothing necessary that you need from the mall. That is all purely indulgent shopping. Essentials can be picked up from groceries/pharmaciest.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12876086)

To answer the question of why i'm going to the mall? Because it's open and i'm comfortable with the risk. Yes I did wear a mask while there. But the mall is full of people indoors and so is the airport. What is the increased risk vector? No one has answered that yet.

Originally Posted by Stumpylegs (Post 12876095)

Not to mention do you have faith in other countries reporting figures? todays rate of infection in Canada and the UK is remarkably similar (253 in 37million versus 519 in 68 million) yet the UK is handling the whole thing awfully - either the figures aren't right, the wild differences in strategy isn't that effective, or handling the virus has little to do with the actual figures.

Originally Posted by Shard (Post 12876092)

Increased risk vector? Imagine a confined metal tube containing several hundred fellow humans in close proximity all breathing the same air for several hours. Spot the difference.

Originally Posted by BristolUK (Post 12876099)

Don't you have grocery and pharmacy stores in the mall where you are? As well as essential stuff for communication/internet and clothing it's quite good to have them all close together to avoid multiple trips. ;)

Originally Posted by dbd33 (Post 12876101)

It wasn't a disease related question but a general one. I haven't been into a shopping mall since the 1980s and so I wondered why other people go to one.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12876106)

You can get on a plane and go across Canada and be in a metal tube for just as long as it takes to get to London and you still don't have to self isolate in all provinces. The arbitrary line in the sand is drawn at leaving the country and that is the frustrating part. If it were done purely on facts and science, you'd have to self isolate upon returning to Ontario from Quebec, but not from the Marshall Islands (no confirmed COVID but the country does have a COVID-19 response in place.)

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12876068)

I could also catch it at the shopping mall (which are now open) and I don't self isolate when I come back from there.

Originally Posted by Shard (Post 12876104)

The infection level is hard to compare, because of different testing regimes. On the other hand the death rate is a bit more, shall we say, final...and correlates to the infection level. On this basis, Canada is doing much better at virus control that the UK.

Canada 230 deaths per million
UK 650 deaths per million

Originally Posted by dave_j (Post 12876193)

I think many people are too busy to consider how this virus got going.
Once upon a time there was one C19 victim, just one, that's right, just one.
Today, the number infected bears witness to just how virulent this virus is, so take notice.
It's insanity to do anything but realise that the 2M plus currently infected in the US won't expand to become 200M plus, and that no matter how much you might try to dampen the extent of the infection it'll take anyone who lets it, and that means in all countries, even those who think they're doing well.

Originally Posted by Stumpylegs (Post 12876170)

That's total deaths not new deaths though, it doesn't give a picture of how safe a country is currently - Brazil would look only slightly higher risk than Canada using total deaths. Think to make the call on whether a country is low or high risk you've got to look at either daily, weekly or monthly totals (of infection or deaths, I think both have their merits) for the recent past to see what risk that country still presents.

I think I may have said this before but I think death totals are as skewable if not more skewable as they are subjective. trouble is I know at the start Britain was over egging its death totals and do wonder if its under egging them now.

Working pretty closely with this (maintain a fleet of private ambulances that collect the deceased from places outside of hospitals) in mid to late march when everyone was a lot more concerned, the UK didn't have enough tests going round, they wouldn't waste a test on the deceased (in my area at least). So if anyone had rang nhs direct, or a friend or family member had reported they had suffered from covid like symptoms it was a case of recording the cause of death as presumed covid. Whether they had covid or not. (this then meant quarantine of the vehicle until deep cleans had took place etcl

For those deaths of the terminally Ill who have cancer, water infections and covid - what is the cause of death recorded as now (I honestly don't know).

Covid ripping through a large hospice or nursing home - killing 15% of the population. tragic as it llmay be, could throw a countries Death toll out of whack for weeks even if outside of that setting the country is having very few positive cases.

​​​​​​

Originally Posted by Shard (Post 12876303)

That's true, the death figures are historic. Without an intensive testing regime it's hard to know the real-time level of infection. Although hospital admissions/tested and associated growth rates is a lagging indicator.

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl (Post 12876127)

I agree with Shard. You are sitting very close to someone for hours and hours on a plane. You have no idea where any of the other passengers have been. Masks will be removed when eating and drinking. Some will not wear masks for health reasons. IMO you cannot begin to compare walking around a mall to sitting in a plane for hours and hours. My daughter was sat near someone who died of COVID when she came back from the UK in March.

Originally Posted by Shard (Post 12876120)

The whole point of having a quarantine is to errect a barrier between what is deemed the outside of a defined inside. In this case, Canada is "inside". So your examples of Canadian shopping malls and Canadian flights are totally irrelevant. It may well be that the risk is low if coming from somewhere like Malta, but it's not zero, and therefore there remains a rationale to require quarantine.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12877437)

Ok, so then someone flying from Vancouver to Toronto should be required to self isolate but they aren't, the line in the sand is drawn at travelling outside the country and that's where it is arbitrary.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12877437)

Ok, so then someone flying from Vancouver to Toronto should be required to self isolate but they aren't, the line in the sand is drawn at travelling outside the country and that's where it is arbitrary.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12877440)

And that's where we disagree. I (and my MP) don't agree there is a rationale for quarantine from all countries. Government is just taking a lazy approach, no one is really going to change my mind on that. If the risk is low, then it shouldn't be required. ....

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl (Post 12877446)

Why would someone travelling internally need to self isolate ....?

Originally Posted by Pulaski (Post 12877448)

Why would someone be travelling anywhere if there isn't a need to do so? :confused: (Where "need" includes for work if you are unable to WFH, for medical treatment, and to obtain food, etc.)

Most days we don't leave our own property and the only "travelling" the three of us (incl my wife and daughter) do most weeks is me making one trip to buy groceries.

Originally Posted by Pulaski (Post 12877447)

At some point last year there were only a few hundred known cases, all of them in China, then in the following weeks almost every country around the world had one person enter carrying the disease, and that person, or another person who entered soon after and carrying the disease, spread that disease to a second person, and a third, and then the disease got passed on to hundreds of other people..

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl (Post 12877453)

well yes...there is that. :nod: We are like you...we are staying home...if we do go out we mask up. Problem is the young folk...they think they are invincible and are eager to get on with their lives.

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl (Post 12877453)

well yes...there is that. :nod: We are like you...we are staying home...if we do go out we mask up. Problem is the young folk...they think they are invincible and are eager to get on with their lives.

Originally Posted by Pulaski (Post 12877447)

At some point last year there were only a few hundred known cases, all of them in China,

Originally Posted by Jsmth321 (Post 12877459)

All it takes is 1 person, at 1 birthday party and boom 20+ infected.
All it takes is 1 person who even knew they had COVID but felt fine to attend 1 gathering, and boom, several more cases and a death.

Both of the above are real world examples.

Kind of hasn't been discussed much about how the virus appears to have mutated to become more infectious and this mutated strain is now the predominant one in the US, may explain in part why its spreading even quicker now. 3-9 times more infectious, and could very well mutate again to cause more serious illness as well, while its mutating to become more infectious, doesn't appear yet to be causing more serious illness.

This mutated strain has been linked to Europe, and now out of control in the US.

Also brings up the issue of, the longer it can spread through society the more chances it has to mutate, and it could very well mutate to become more deadly.

Oh and the part of the virus that mutated to become more infectious, apparently is the part of the virus vaccine programs are targeting with their vaccine, and the vaccine programs are working with the older, less infectious virus, and they do not know if any of the current vaccines in progress will work against the mutated strain.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12877462)

Yes, and China shit the bed on dealing with it, as their government does with everything. Why should I have to be part of cleaning up their mess?

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl (Post 12877453)

well yes...there is that. :nod: We are like you...we are staying home...if we do go out we mask up. Problem is the young folk...they think they are invincible and are eager to get on with their lives.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12877457)

The government isn't giving off messaging that they want everyone to stay home, what with restaurant patios etc open, so i've been doing what I want where it's open. This is where it should come down to everyone's personal comfort level. If you are not comfortable going out / returning to work in the office, etc no one should force you to do so.

Likewise, no one should force me to do something because it makes them more comfortable.

You can turn the "selfish young people" argument around and say that it is selfish for the more vulnerable to ask us to give up some of our youngest, healthiest years (which do go by quickly) to protect them, when they already had the chance to be a 20-something year old. If this goes on for much longer we will miss out on a significant portion of that and we won't get it back.

To turn the argument back to travel, I suppose I can go where I want, and either agree to self isolate upon return, or stay in my destination until the requirement is lifted. (Or go elsewhere.)

The irony of it is, as a self employed person the government would pay me CERB for that 14 day isolation period due to not being able to work due to COVID.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12877462)

Yes, and China shit the bed on dealing with it, as their government does with everything. Why should I have to be part of cleaning up their mess?

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12877464)

I predicted it would start to mutate...normally viruses mutate to become more infectious, but less deadly. You'll notice across Canada hospitalizations and total deaths are decreasing day by day. We need to do an evaluation and find out if it really is as deadly as it was 6 months ago, because we could be dealing with a totally different strain.

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12877457)

The government isn't giving off messaging that they want everyone to stay home, what with restaurant patios etc open, so i've been doing what I want where it's open. This is where it should come down to everyone's personal comfort level. If you are not comfortable going out / returning to work in the office, etc no one should force you to do so.

Likewise, no one should force me to do something because it makes them more comfortable.

You can turn the "selfish young people" argument around and say that it is selfish for the more vulnerable to ask us to give up some of our youngest, healthiest years (which do go by quickly) to protect them, when they already had the chance to be a 20-something year old. If this goes on for much longer we will miss out on a significant portion of that and we won't get it back.

To turn the argument back to travel, I suppose I can go where I want, and either agree to self isolate upon return, or stay in my destination until the requirement is lifted. (Or go elsewhere.)

The irony of it is, as a self employed person the government would pay me CERB for that 14 day isolation period due to not being able to work due to COVID.

Originally Posted by Paul_Shepherd (Post 12877472)

I agree to extent with this, as I have heard this report too, that in some areas that the virus has mutated and became a lot less potent/deadly, is all that matters, doesn't matter if its more infectious in that case... we just need to know of that is consistent mutation everywhere. ......

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12877457)

The government isn't giving off messaging that they want everyone to stay home, what with restaurant patios etc open, so i've been doing what I want where it's open. This is where it should come down to everyone's personal comfort level. If you are not comfortable going out / returning to work in the office, etc no one should force you to do so.

Likewise, no one should force me to do something because it makes them more comfortable.

You can turn the "selfish young people" argument around and say that it is selfish for the more vulnerable to ask us to give up some of our youngest, healthiest years (which do go by quickly) to protect them, when they already had the chance to be a 20-something year old. If this goes on for much longer we will miss out on a significant portion of that and we won't get it back.

To turn the argument back to travel, I suppose I can go where I want, and either agree to self isolate upon return, or stay in my destination until the requirement is lifted. (Or go elsewhere.)

The irony of it is, as a self employed person the government would pay me CERB for that 14 day isolation period due to not being able to work due to COVID.

Originally Posted by Siouxie (Post 12877473)

SIGH. You've been asked to give up a few weeks or months at most......... BIG DEAL........... are "young people" that self centred that they can't be inconvenienced for one spring and part of a summer ?
There are many YOUNG people becoming ill or carrying the virus and passing it on to others (who may have 'vulnerable relatives' - like me), because they aren't using their common sense - they are so fixated on having 'a good time' they don't want to be sensible and social distance.

:thumbdown:

Originally Posted by Gozit (Post 12877440)

At some point we have to go back to living our lives and leave it to personal choice whether people accept the risk of being infected or give them the supports and choice to stay isolated if that is what they feel is best for them.