Mid-Week Post

Aaaahh, glorious April!

As of this writing, there are 9,477 infected and 107 deaths.




The problem with face masks is that one uses one's hands - which often come in contact with various surfaces - to adjust them.

That is why surgeons don't touch their faces while operating on patients (also while wearing masks):

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public heath officer, maintained in a press conference Monday that while face masks can cut down on the spread of the coronavirus when worn by someone already infected, it does little for healthy individuals.

Wearing a face mask, she added, can even have some adverse effects, including giving people a “false sense of confidence” and increasing opportunities to touch their faces when adjusting or taking masks off.

(Sidebar: then don't touch your face, you stupid cow.)

**

Dozens of nurses across Canada have invoked labour laws to demand the right to wear N95 masks while treating certain COVID-19 patients, their national union head says, as health-care workers gird themselves for a feared wave of new coronavirus cases.

Don't use these ones then:

The Chinese-made “N95” respiratory masks were advertised online as having been certified by U.S. safety regulators — an important claim amid the global coronavirus pandemic, as front-line workers scramble for life-saving protective equipment.

But the masks were fake. And following an investigation by Global News, the counterfeits were pulled last week from websites in India, Pakistan and a half-dozen other countries. ...

The Valpro Ranger 821 and 821V masks were promoted on Midas Safety websites in eight countries, including China, as having been certified “N95” by the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), however, they were counterfeits, falsely bearing an approval number assigned to American multinational 3M.

Why, it's like China was trying to sneak in inferior products into the North American market.


It's a good thing that Canada was right on top of this.

Oh, wait!:

MPs yesterday told the Commons health committee they can’t get straight answers on the scope of pandemic equipment shortages. Cabinet said it is spending $2 billion on masks, ventilators, test kits, medical gowns and gloves: “Canadians have a right to know.”

**

After receiving a flood of offers, Trudeau announced the government had signed deals with three Canadian companies to make ventilators, masks and other personal protective equipment, as well as testing kits for the virus. It has also signed letters of intent with several other firms, for items like hand sanitizer, gowns and other protective gear.

Because producing these things at home is bad somehow.

To remind one:

A Canadian company says it can ramp up production within days of potential life-saving ventilators, once it gets final instructions from the federal government.

Countries are scrambling to avoid the nightmarish scenario unfolding in Italy, where doctors are grappling with which patients to save because there aren't enough breathing machines to serve all the critically ill victims gasping for air.

The Toronto-based medical supplies company has a letter of intent from the federal government to purchase machines and says it can drastically scale up production once it receives one critical detail:

How many machines does the government want?

I'll just leave this right here:

Ontario Premier Doug Ford was seen personally picking up thousands of face masks from a dental office on Monday in Markham, Ont.

A tweet by Toronto-based lawyer and author Warren Kinsella shows a photo of the premier, donning an N95 mask, with two workers from Dental Brands, a company in Markham, loading boxes of face masks on to the back of his pickup truck.

Can't you force Alberta at gunpoint for some supplies?:

Quebec is warning of impending supply shortages, as the outbreak in that province surges.

There were a whopping 732 new cases reported Tuesday, bringing the total number to 4,162.

Six more deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 31 people.

There are concerns about a shortage of masks, gloves, and medical gowns ...

From "low risk" to "best case scenario", our idiots-in-charge roll the dice once more:

Canadians are far from done with dealing with COVID-19, as measures to fight the spread of the virus are expected to continue until at least July, according to a government document obtained by the National Post.

A guess which is, naturally, bullsh--, but whatever.




When Chinese slave labour simply won't do:

Ethically dubious as this sounds, we might all have already worn clothes made in North Korea. The border city of Dandong in China is a hub for Chinese clothing manufacturers who illegally send textiles across the Yalu River to clandestine factories in Sinuiju city, North Korea, and then sew "Made in China" labels into finished goods on their return.
Manufacturers can save up to 75 per cent of the production cost this way. That's because factories in North Korea are state-owned, and wages ― when they are being paid ― are less than a quarter of what they are in China.
North Korean workers are also said to be more productive, making 30 per cent more clothes each day than a Chinese worker. This is due to long hours, harsh working conditions and indentured labour.

Of course, China isn't telling the truth:

Mr Johnson has been warned by scientific advisers that China’s officially declared statistics on the number of cases of coronavirus could be ‘downplayed by a factor of 15 to 40 times’. And No 10 believes China is seeking to build its economic power during the pandemic with ‘predatory offers of help’ countries around the world.

When the Trudeau government was stopped (barely) by a handful of sharp-eyed MPs, they were publicly excoriated despite the obvious truth that the government was attempting a dictatorial overreach.

The government is not done with that:

The Department of Industry in an Access To Information report claims self-regulation of the internet is “inadequate” and warns Parliament must police content. The 2019 memo predates a January 29 proposal to create a first-ever national registry of internet news websites: “Those words scare the hell out of me.”

**

A federal biometric program to compile a fingerprint database on visa applicants has gone millions over budget, according to the Department of Immigration. Auditors found the program also identified few criminals: “Will the use of biometrics be used for mass surveillance?”

 
And now for something completely different:

Locals have posted several photos and videos online of roughly a dozen wild Kashmiri mountain goats wandering around downtown Llandudno, where they could be seen hopping on benches and capering around on the pavement over several days.