SEE: Coronavirus, Handle, People

Yep:

Ontario health officials say the province has reached its peak in the COVID-19 pandemic, with community spread coming under control but the situation in long-term care and group homes worsening.

The new projections, released Monday, say Ontario is now expected to have fewer than 20,000 cases of the novel coronavirus, substantially lower than the 80,000 projected by previous models.

(Sidebar: then what good are models?)

“While earlier models predicted a peak in cases in May, public health interventions, including widespread adherence to physical distancing, have accelerated the peak to now,” says a presentation from health officials.

“The sacrifices people are making to stay home and wash their hands are making a difference.” The presentation was delivered Monday by CEO of Ontario Health Matt Anderson; Adalsteinn Brown, Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto; and Dr. Barbara Yaffe, associate chief medical officer of health.

If current restrictions stay in place, officials say Ontario appears to be tracking toward the South Korea model, which is considered a “best case” scenario. Ontario’s emergency declaration – shuttering essential businesses and limiting group gathering to five people – remain in place until at least May 12.

The province’s previous projections, released April 4, showed the COVID-19 epidemic was expected to kill 3,000 to 15,000 people.

The numbers in long-term care homes, however, continue to grow.

Ontario currently has 11,561 cases of COVID-19, and 591 deaths. There are now 127 outbreaks at the province’s 626 long-term care homes, according to official numbers, but some epidemiologists put the number much higher.

There are 1,533 cases in long-term care homes, including 847 staff and 367 residents, the data show.

**

High River has become a hot spot for COVID-19 in Alberta, with hundreds of infections, including staff at a long-term care home, tied to one of Canada’s largest slaughterhouses.

Health officials said that as of Friday, 358 cases in High River and elsewhere in the region were linked to the Cargill facility. Many of the workers at the Cargill Ltd. plant are new immigrants or temporary foreign workers, whose jobs and shared living spaces make them especially vulnerable to infection. At least one worker is on a ventilator, the union for the plant says, and others are struggling with serious illnesses.

Cargill is a major employer in High River, a bedroom community of roughly 13,000 people located a half-hour drive south of the Calgary city limits. About 2,000 people work there and the facility supplies about 40 per cent of the beef processed in Western Canada.

Accountability is a word that Canadians do not like:

We need COVID-19 accountability – now. Why? Because the very people and institutions whose actions may now be costing lives and collapsing finances, could still be influencing Canada’s disaster management.

Oh, that has been going on since January.




When people from other countries are resuming normal lives, we will still be stuck in out homes:

Regardless of region, gender or political party, the overwhelming majority of the Canadian public say it is not time to relax restrictions. A poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that 77% across the country said that it is “too soon to start lifting public restrictions imposed since the COVID-19 outbreak in my province.”

That ranged from a low of 67% in Quebec to a high of 84% in Ontario.

Among political party supporters, 89% of Liberal supporters and 88% of NDP supporters said it was too early, but so too did 64% of Conservative supporters and 61% of Bloc supporters.

If only we could blame this on mismanagement but that would be wrong for some reason.


Also - South Korea is starting to relax its lockdown. Kim Jong-Un, however, has taken a page from Justin's hiding book:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s absence from an important anniversary event this week rekindled speculation over his potential health problems, analysts said on Friday.

While no one was looking:

Ontario’s high school teachers’ union has reached a tentative deal with the provincial government, the last education union to do so and ending months of job action.

Job action that actually ended with a lockdown forcing parents to home-school their children.

I wonder if the students are more knowledgeable now.






How interesting:

Jackals in Tel Aviv.