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You gotta do what makes you and your family feel safe and minimizes risk to yourself and others. I am the one doing the shopping about once every ten days, although women seem to survive a COVID19 infection better than men. Online purchases have been very useful, but not for refrigerated/frozen foods, milk, etc. I bought some powdered milk but that is only as a last resort...yuk ! Only one person should do the shopping, and be purposeful about it with a list of items and alternatives. Wear gloves/mask if you got 'em and minimize time in the store/market. No chit chat or visiting with other potential zombies....assume they are all infected and keep your distance. Pay with credit card at self-checkout when possible. I wipe everything down with disinfectant while still wearing gloves and wash hands & face thoroughly (twice) after putting items away. Probably a little OCD from radiation training (time...distance...shielding). I felt very bad for the young woman who was screening at the door for customer count and obvious signs of COVID symptoms. She was suited up like an ICU nurse and scared to death. Poor thing probably needs the job and I thanked her for being there for us. Today was good...I scored three boxes of Hostess Ding-Dongs !

Betsy, you don't need to worry if you are staying home. When you do need to get groceries. stay two metres away from people, and wash your hands. Many grocery stores have set up hand washing stations at the entrance / exit to the store. Wash your hands properly when you enter and when you leave. Donning and removing a mask is a complicated procedure Nice to know my OCD is suddenly a survival advantage.

Another layer of safety cannot hurt, if I had one I would venture out, but don`t have any so stay home and order on line.

Not always possible, Besides it is a safety measure, much like a seatbelt, your safer when wearing it....

The virus will not hang in the air..it needs water droplets to move..so it has to come to rest on a surface to to thenn be touched and then spread or you have to inhale the droplet. It does not hang in the air and you walk into it and breath it in.. interestingly people said the same false things about aids, polio, leprosy, many other viruses or diseases and your own Bible tells you how Jesus dealt with the false info albeit in allegories. Microscopic fungus or bacteria is more likely to be airborne than a virus. Sneezing, coughing, touching is how you get a virus. Masks are needed for health care workers because it stops blood, mucus, other bodily fluid like pus, spit... it does notbyavexanyveffectbotgef than a placebo effect for people walking. 2 meter distancing is more than adequate. Just wear a scarf if you are that frightened. ..better still empower yourself not to be afraid by going not on political sites but medical sites or the Bill Gates Foundation, March of Dimes, any CPD site, any medical hospital site where they calmly explain what you ask. Info on the virus changes constantly. In the old days without instant news you would not see as many constant updates lending to a more stable presentation of news..no it comes in rapid fire with no time to properly digest it and its presented in poorly expressed 10 secondcspund bites..not thoughtful analysis...so you may want to read the news just once a day..not every minute..andbonly use it as a headline not a substitute for doing your own further research..sometimes too much info and of course contradicts previous info..that is the basic nature of human communication...contradictory info that comes in has to be assessed calmly and objectively which is hard to do when one is agitated or anxious...

IIRC it hit right between or straddling Chretien and Martin, and neither did diddly squat about it. By Harper's time, it was all forgotten but I can't give him a break on this one. Once the LPC came back to power, the drama queen spent all of our tax dollars signalling virtue, but delivering nothing but misery and embarrassment to the nation. After the little Tur...TRUdeau crashed the economy by allowing a tiny pair of "ancestral chiefs" simply walk all over the elected chiefs and council to shut down the entire Canadian rail system for weeks, it only seems logical that he would pay zero attention to what was obvious as the New Year started was a disease problem that WOULD spread out of China. We lost two months before his band of half-wits in cabinet even started to think about doing something to isolate Canada from the stream of Iranians, Europeans and Egyptians who simply stepped off of their planes unchallenged and unquestioned - to get the infection deeply seeded in Canada.

I give Doug Ford credit for choosing leadership over partisanship. He's doing "the people" a solid, at expense of businesses. And ... takeout delivery lcbo are solid. Thx Doug! https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/covid-19-coronavirus-ontario-monday-1.5506445

If a tiger is running at you, is your fear triggered by ignorance?

If we all stay home, it doesn't matter if it is two metres or four metres. Walls are good protection. Once a week, I venture out to buy food. I know nothing of your (Betsy) personal circumstances so I do not presume to tell you what to do. However, for myself, I rely on that old civil service question, "Is this trip neccessary?" My concern about a mask is if it were to get contaminated, you need to remove it without touching it immediately. If your mask gets contaminated by someone's infected sneeze, the virus will still infect you through your eyes unless you are wearing goggles as well. If you sneeze, chances are, you will touch your face. Each to his/her own. If a mask makes you feel better, that's good. Just be careful.

Go ahead, fearless man. Btw, I'm not a "powerless" victim. I'm using my power - my thinking power. I'm not a mindless sheep that just take the words of politicians especially so when questionable statements are being made. Some reporters are also hammering away at the inconsistencies in Dr Tam's narrative! I'm not simply imagining it.

Arrogance borne of ignorance is far worse. The doctors just don't know, and neither do you.

Yeah....many have already suspected as much, not waiting for the doctors to complete their "science". That's the only plausible way for such rapid infection, unless it was food or water borne. It's a damn shame we didn't recognize airborne transmission a lot sooner.

It's not a matter of whether you're high-risked or scared! It's a civic duty to try to help stem the spread, especially so when we don't know how it will be in hospitals without any proper equipments! You don't want the hospitals to be swamped with gasping patients without any ventilators available. I don't understand the mentality on how you guys would try to dissuade people from doing what's only practical.

Are you high risk, or scared or both? I'm in higher risk demographic (as I'm sure many of us here are) but not as bad as some people, even people I work with. I did try to order online, but they're so busy in my area that I wasn't going to get my order for at least a week. But I still am ok grocery shopping in person - I take safety precautions like hand washing and distance keeping, go during the 7 to 8 am old folks special shopping time. I carry wipes around with me in case I have to touch things like door handles, cart handles, card machines etc., and I keep my hands in my pockets otherwise. I work at home as much as possible (glad I can), although I don't really consider my office as a high-risk area as it's practically deserted on a daily basis. I probably won't get it as long as I continue those habits; if I do, the infection will probably not be severe and if it is - well, I'll probably survive. If I don't survive, I'll be dead and everything will be irrelevant to me. I can't worry about what might happen after I'm dead since I've taken what steps I can to make sure those I love are taken care of to the best of my ability. I spent a week being anxious and scared - but I can't live like that for long, its too exhausting and doesn't help at all. I've had pneumonia before, and I had the H1N1 when it went around; could have died both times. The only difference between those events and this event is that the possibility of dying never even occurred to me. So, I'll take recommended precautions with this to protect myself and others, but intend to continue on as normally as possible otherwise.

The whole mask debate will be a sticky one. If you're staying 6 feet away from everyone, you probably shouldn't need a mask.

Indeed, it's like a spray bottle, whether you set it to stream or mist, neither floats like smoke, it all falls like tiny rain

1. I'm not sure how the platform itself would do this, but that does seem to be the result yes. 2. Well, many of us - present company included - have not had to use the reflection and thoughtfulness muscles until about 20 years ago when we joined online forums. The character of our 'public' life in N. America has been increasingly defined by commercial mainstream sources since the 1930s. These institutions are chiefly driven by advertising revenue and revenue-generating engines like Hollywood. Unsurprisingly, they have found that flattering the consumer helps achieve their goals. Nothing has replaced the old social necessities of patriotism and religious service in our public lives. For all of their flaws, those forces elevated selflessness in terms of challenging us to cooperate, to reflect and to improve ourselves... to the point of even sacrificing ourselves. I would say that we lost some good when we supplanted those facets of public life. Now we are Narcissus, looking at the beautiful image of ourselves as reflected in media streams. If liberal then they reinforce us as sensitive, caring souls who are rich in spirit. If conservative then they reinforce us as pragmatic and hard-working souls who drive our prosperity and the good life. What needs to happen is that those of us who recognize that those tropes are empty and false should reboot the idea of the public, of the commoner who can consider ideas on their own merits without having to ape a bunch of suited conservative and liberal proxies who argue, as on CNN's Crossfire.

Boris and..evil..you think trying to troll here in Frostbite Falls is gonna get Trump re-elected...give it a rest Boris...your innuendos are only that..your accusations apply to any politician anywhere at anytime...

Michael H the term globalist I think means people who believe in free trade agreements and do not favour using tariffs to protect domestic producers and their prices from foreign producers selling the same product cheaper in Canada.

So the UN wants AT LEAST 10% of every countries GDP....to start with. If any number of countries did happen to agree to this that 10% will most certainly keep climbing. I imagine a leader like Justin Trudeau is one who would be open to an idea like this. I hope this notion dies a quick death.

It also seems to be in human beings nature to apologize for their governments failings. Looks like it's an even bigger act of will to say we screwed up. It's also our nature to change our own nature and not just be pawns to our baser selves. It's up to us to demand more robust institutions of accountability. They're not just going to happen on their own.

It's not just our governments that are sneaky. It is human nature to try and avoid blame and punishment. It takes an act of will to stand up and say "I screwed up."

I should explain that we have a child who is rather expert in matters of cellular biology. She explains that the reason you can test positive is that you ARE symptomatic, just that for many people, those symptoms are not recognized or even recognizable. But, if you test positive, you ARE technically symptomatic. Sunday dinner around here is like Big Bang...think of me as Sheldon's Dad but Sheldon is two sisters, not fraternal twins.

The reason there was an immediate lack of action in China is two fold. First, they had no way of knowing what they were dealing with. Second, a major shortcoming in their system is the response by senior officals to bad news from junior officals. When you are a local official and a plague breaks out, you know clearly that if you report it, you will be punished. If you shut down the wet market that provides your boss with a money-making side-line, you will be punished. This is true, not only in China but in Russia, the US, Canada (SNC), and Boeing. The first rule of management is to shoot the messenger. It is a rare and extraordinary leader to receive bad news gracefully. As for China being fascist, there are a lot of nasty governments that we deal with. The most successful Prime Minister in the history of the British Empire / Commonwealth sat down for a conversation with Hitler in 1937. He later wrote in his diary that Hitler was the "Joan of Arc of Germany." (William Lyon "Rex" MacKenzie King. Prime Minister of Canada)

He knows too much... shut this thread down immediately.

This is about the poor response in the US but for the most part Canada had the same lack of foresight and delayed response. As the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment. A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers. By that time, hospitals in several states were treating thousands of infected patients without adequate equipment and were pleading for shipments from the Strategic National Stockpile. That federal cache of supplies was created more than 20 years ago to help bridge gaps in the medical and pharmaceutical supply chains during a national emergency. Now, three months into the crisis, that stockpile is nearly drained just as the numbers of patients needing critical care is surging. Some state and local officials report receiving broken ventilators and decade-old dry-rotted masks. Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/article241781571.html#storylink=cpy https://www.miamiherald.com/article241781571.html

Ford seems to be doing a decent job in the COVID era, keeping the partisan rhetoric down and bringing people together. Praise where it is due.