SpankyMcFarland

A sensible action might be to fire him and get somebody in who understands the new normal.

That one plant was producing COVID as well as pork. Mr. Sullivan should start with an apology:

We don’t really know yet. Say, for example, that it’s fairly low and that 10% of Canadians have had the virus when the shut-down ends. What do we do then? The other 90% will still be at risk of infection if they go back to work etc. Should we allow younger people, say under 35, with no older family at home back to work first?

There seems to be some evidence that C19 attacks T cells esp. in elderly or sick patients who need them most. Here’s another report of the same phenomenon:

AFAIK serological testing is not widely available at the moment but would be very useful to have. If the prevalence of exposure is low, what should one advise for those who are negative? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how long immunity lasts to C19. It doesn’t seem to have quite the same mutability as Influenza virus. Let’s also hope this report of persistent C19 material in recovered South Korean patients turns out to be a red herring. https://www.businessinsider.com/south-korea-coronavirus-reactivate-unlikely-dormancy-2020-4

If a person hasn’t been infected by the virus, there is a constant risk they could be infected and pass it on. Romer’s proposal is at one end of the spectrum. Less comprehensive models may be more realistic. Certainly, anybody who lives or works in a nursing home should be tested regularly. Let’s hope we see boxes like this all over the place soon: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/spartan-covid19-test-kit-new-1.5530669

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Romer suggests testing everybody on a fortnightly basis: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/08/998785/stop-covid-or-save-the-economy-we-can-do-both/ One could argue about who should be going back to work - people who are negative for the virus or those who have recovered from it and have IgG antibodies against it - but a massive scale-up of testing seems reasonable.

Being better than JT is kind of a low bar to set yourself here. When did we last recall our ambassador from China? If conservatives wish to be taken seriously on this topic, they would be looking critically at decades of Canadian policy. For example, Harper started with tough talk on human rights but he had some wobbles subsequently. I presume ye’d want a more vigorous course correction than that. I think we can China-proof our country a bit but we can have little or no influence on PRC policy on our own. Only as part of an inter-continental trade bloc can we move them in a more positive direction and such co-operation does not look likely at the moment, except perhaps on preventing another pandemic. The least effective tactic is to lecture them publicly without backing it up.

I know nothing of this topic so I try to avoid being too dogmatic. What I can say is that if they gave me HCQ and I ended up needing a guide dog afterwards, I’d be none too impressed to hear that it was all just an ‘orrible mistake.

I see Germany and South Korea have higher rates now, still low but well over 1%, from the NYT: So best-case scenario, a long way north of flu.

I like Ed Yong’s articles on COVID-19:

The South Koreans were recording something like that a while ago because they were doing a decent level of testing. Germany is even lower? That’s still a lot higher than regular flu though. This virus is not closely related to the viruses that cause flu and probably should not be lumped in with them.

Did any half-sensible person expect him to be frugal and cut spending in order to save for a rainy day? I preferred the policies of the inter-Trudeau years on that score but we are where we are. Indeed many developed countries have worse federal debt as a proportion of GDP than we do heading into this crisis but, of course, there’s provincial, municipal, corporate and personal debt to be considered too. Interesting times.

Let’s hope it works.

As far back as February, some brave politicians in Iran were expresssing deep scepticism about the government's COVID figures:

As a serial immigrant myself I can hardly condemn the practice entirely, but numbers do matter and the communities most affected by it should have a disproportionate say in how much is tolerable which is certainly not the case at the moment.

This being local politics we are discussing here, I would pick John Haggie at the moment, NL's Minister of Health, a brilliant surgeon by profession who is now giving excellent briefings each day.

Hydroxychloroquine has some unpleasant side effects. You’d want to be taking it for good reason. The evidence for HCQ in COVID is patchy at the moment. That French trial by Gautret which created such a stir was tiny and six patients involved were lost to follow-up, which further complicates the findings: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920300996

I was surprised the Internet didn’t trigger such a trend. Instead we’ve seen young people flock to the major cities. Perhaps working from home will get a big boost now?

A seven year old composes an isolation waltz:

From a position of almost total ignorance on the subject, I have a hard time believing that there could be enough work done on contact tracing in Canada, given how complex and important it is - one of the few weapons we have at the moment, which Singapore et al have used well so far. Better too much than just enough IMO.

An Iranian official briefly expresses scepticism of the Chinese figures:

Here’s a letter to the BMJ suggesting that Swedes of Somali origin may be more vulnerable to serious illness and death from COVID-19:

Looks like the Swedes may be in for a change of course:

He’s hardly little and he made no secret of his intention to run deficits.