Wow, People Totally Have A Handle On This Coronavirus

It's like no one wants this crisis to end:

The federal government has quietly issued a tender for 13.5 million non-medical cloth masks, coming almost full circle on the thorny issue of face coverings for the public to combat the spread of COVID-19.

The order would produce enough masks to equip one in every three Canadians, plus some, though it’s unclear exactly who would receive them or how they’d be distributed.

**

Last week, the federal government introduced Bill C-17, a draft federal bill to include additional COVID-19 measures, including amendments to the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), CERB, and the Income Tax Act. One of the amendments proposes to disqualify workers from CERB if they have refused a ‘reasonable’ job offer or don’t return to their job “when it is reasonable to do so.” Armine Yalnizyan, Canadian economist and Atkinson Fellow on the future of workers, says that this new legislation is punitive for low-income workers. The piece of legislation received first reading last week and failed to secure opposition support to fast-track it. The bill has been stalled as unanimous consent was needed from the opposition parties in a single day.

**

Pandemic relief for commercial tenants is so under-subscribed it will cost sixteen percent of what was budgeted, federal data show. MPs and tenants alike complained the program was badly designed: “It’s absurd.”

This must be embarrassing:

Our independent peer reviewers informed us that Surgisphere would not transfer the full dataset, client contracts, and the full ISO audit report to their servers for analysis as such transfer would violate client agreements and confidentiality requirements. As such, our reviewers were not able to conduct an independent and private peer review and therefore notified us of their withdrawal from the peer-review process…

Based on this development, we can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources. Due to this unfortunate development, the authors request that the paper be retracted.

Was it something we said?:

Mexico won’t send any more temporary foreign workers to Canada until it has more clarity on why two died due to COVID-19, the country’s ambassador to Canada said Monday.

Imagine if medical workers went on strike over these things:

A pandemic pay premium promised to approximately 375,000 frontline health-care workers has not yet been paid out, the Ontario government said Monday, stressing that the cash is coming soon.

A spokeswoman for Health Minister Christine Elliott said the initiative is the largest of its kind in Canada and the funding will flow in “very short order” but did not provide a specific date.

**

The latest spike in new coronavirus cases is not the only cause for concern for medical workers fighting the pandemic at outdoor screening stations nationwide.

The recent spike in summer temperatures is more dreaded by front-line medical workers, who are obliged to put on heavy personal protective equipment (PPE), head to toe, against respiratory viruses.

Working for several hours in bulky PPE, complete with 6-kilogram protective clothing, an N95 respirator, safety goggles and overshoes, is physically consuming even during cool spring weather.

With the mercury soaring above 30 C in the country lately, medical workers are drenched with sweat in less than five minutes after donning PPE and struggle to endure exhaustion and other unbearable physical ordeals.

Maybe they can testify as to where our packages have gone then?:

Amazon Canada executives will not take questions on confidential terms of a multi-million dollar contract to distribute pandemic supplies, the Commons government operations committee was told. Cabinet awarded Amazon the $5 million contract on a claim the company was working without profit: “We’re trying to figure out what is the scope and scale of this arrangement.”

F--- you, Canada. Northern British Columbia Alaska can do whatever it wants:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the government is looking into reports of American tourists getting around the coronavirus border shutdown by saying they are going to Alaska — then sticking around.

Not worried about China's pervasive influence or Roxham Road?