dialamah

I'm not against pipelines because I agree it's not posdible to abruptly change to a completely green economy. But an alternative energy source has to be a priority, either voluntarily or forced on us by circumstance - kind of like we're now forced to face the lack of preparedness for a pandemic. Eventually the "not caring" about the environment will lead to much worse economic effects. Those effects are actually starting now. Agree with that. It may be true that globalization has provided a higher standard of living (overall) for many countries, but we have to retain the ability to manage crises. Globalization of extras, not necessities should be the goal, imo. I agree that's the way things are heading over there.

Children can be a vector for this disease, even if they don't get sick - and your simplistic "grandparents are sequestered" does not cover every situation. In my neighborhood, a woman lives with her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. Another older couple who live alone require regular, hands-on assistance from their adult children, who just happen to live with their own kids. A girlfriend is due with twins any day now, and she'll have to rely on her parents to look after her 3-year-old for some period of time; her father is at particular risk if he gets infected. And yes, people have to go to work - so lowering the risk of those people getting sick by limiting the opportunity for kids to make them sick seems like a good idea to me. Watch are the chances of transfer via food? Science says - not happening: That’s because it’s a respiratory virus, passed primarily from person to person in droplets when someone who is infected coughs or sneezes. Though it’s possible to pick up the virus by touching a surface where the droplets have landed and then touching your eyes, nose, or mouth, that’s not the primary way it is thought to spread, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and the World Health Organization say that food is not known to be a route of transmission of the virus. And the information available from outbreaks of SARS and MERS, caused by coronaviruses similar to the one that causes COVID-19, is reassuring. According to the WHO, the evidence showed that those illnesses were not transmitted by food. Exactly. So, what are they doing - shutting down the likelihood of people gathering unnecessarily in groups and becoming disease vectors - such as kids in playgrounds. Not shutting down grocery stores, but taking precautions as best they can because people need to eat. This looks very much like an attempt to balance what's needed against what's not needed. Yes, kids can't go to playgrounds, but at least they get to eat. It seems the balance you expect involves either no limitation on people, or complete lockdown. That's not actually balance; that's the weird conservative attitude that we must choose one of two extremes. This situation is really hard on everyone, and we all wish things were different, leaders had done better somehow and that we weren't looking forward to months of staying home and the economic fallout that is coming. But why do so many conservatives have to be so stupid about it? Deal with it like adults, for God's sake. Blame, accusation, whining or offering "older people" as sacrifices to capitalism is just dumb.

Probably just trying to keep parents and grandparents from getting sick/dying, dumb governments. Kids can look after themselves well enough, if they should run short of adults to care for them for a while or permantly.

But they're preserving religious freedom for those weeks they'd otherwise not be able to meet, right? Isn't that much more important than considering the safety of others and paying attention to experts? Oh wait! I forgot - (some) Christians think this situation is a sign of the imminent end of everybody but them. Never mind: the welfare of the community is the least of these folks' concern.

It would be better to reach reach herd immunity sooner than later, and people meeting in large groups would help us meet that goal. It will also cull some of the more brain-challenged among us. The tragedy is that they'll take innocent bystanders with them, like retail workers, teachers, doctors and nurses. Perhaps the solution is to enforce quarantine on these people, through ankle bracelets? Or maybe simply charge them with murder if their group becomes an epicenter and others die after contact with one or several of them.

Can you imagine the crying if Canada had stockpiled masks/ventilators/scrubs/etc a few years ago? The same people currently complaining that "we should have been prepared" would have screamed about wasting tax dollars on "non-essentials."

Uh, no. Doctors, nurses, facilities could be so overwhelmed with the 3 or 4 percent of serious and critical Covid 19 patients that despite their best efforts and intentions, an injury that you'd normally recover from, you don't. No, you don't just get money. You have to prove negligence on their part, and that may hard to prove in these circumstances. Medical staff are neither superhuman, nor infallible - if they are exhausted, stressed, overworked, short-staffed, scared, they will make mistakes, people will be sicker than they need to be and some will die. Minimizing this disease because most people don't die and many barely get sick demonstrates a serious lack of understanding and compassion ... and perhaps this is why: This has nothing to do with God; our behavior directly impacts how well we come out of this and how many people die. "God" is merely a disinterested and by all evidence, a powerless observer, supposing one exists at all.

You sound like my BIL about my sister. He does everything in his power to give her what she wants and needs, always expresses his appreciation for her. They still have spats, but their mutual love is pretty apparent.

Good news ... had a vitual surprise birthday party for my sister yesterday, around 20 people showed up, mostly family, and it lasted over 4 hours. We've never held a party where so many family members showed up. And it was really fun.

That's more or less the arrangement of my Egyptian sister and her husband and has been for years. They're also happy as clams in mud, with each other and their marriage anyway.

Mystery solved, someone in BC has taken responsibility for it. This person has explained that he created and set loose the virus to 'get rid of the bad people'; good people will be fine. Of course, you won't find this information on the MSM, and probably not on Youtube or Twitter, as it seems to be spreading via phone calls to the "good" people, to assure them they'll be fine. (Source: a phone call receiver). And if that's not enough good news, there's a galactic force who'll be saving us shortly. The internet will go dark for two weeks, then there'll be an announcement that we'll all be very happy about and life as we know it will change forever, and we'll all be very very happy. Some people believe that it's Trump who'll be making this wonderful announcement; I think Trudeau would be a much more likely spokesperson. Again, this will not be found on MSM, but you can find it on alternate news sources by searching for NESARA ACT. This info came to me via a relative I have not spoken to in several years, and I don't have a full understanding of it all, but I'm sure I'll be fully informed once I have time to study up on it. I'm sharing it here now because this seems the perfect place for this kind of information.

For known infections. I think a lot of people get a mild enough case that they never go anywhere to get counted. The death rate probably isn't as high as they think. Or maybe I'm wishful thinking

My sister and her partner (live in Vancouver) were very ill in January with the symptoms cv-19 but they were never tested for it; they just figured it was the worst flu of their lives till info about covid came out. Probably never know for sure if it was covid, but I've no doubt it was here well before the first cases on the news.

So you think the 8000+ people in Italy and the 4000+ in Spain who've died in the last few weeks might have died anyway? I don't blame you for being a bit concerned, I know I am, being in the population cohort most likely to get it "worse", but no need to deny reality. In about 90 days, this virus has swept around the world and killed more than 23,000 people, and many countries haven't even peeked yet. Pretending it's kinda like a bad flu and everybody (aka Gov) is overreacting is weird, to say the least. I'm ok fighting to the death if government can be shown to be arbitrarily and without justification removing freedoms or imposing martial law or whatever it is that concerns you. Right now, it looks like government is trying to slow the spread of this disease, begging people to stay home and wash their hands. But there seem to be too many people vying for the Darwin awards of 2020 to pay attention -including one on this forum, boasting about his intention to socialize cause gov/medical experts are manufacturing a fake crisis. Throw them folks in jail, lock them at home, I don't care - I don't want to get sick/die and I don't want any of my family or friends to either. I want Canada to lose as few people as possible to this virus.

Why, what will happen? People will be poor? Yeah, being poor sucks. Shortages everywhere? Yeah, that would suck too. Still, being poor is preferable to being dead. I don't have money in the stock market, so I'm not losing anything there. I expect the value of my townhouse will drop dramatically, by $100,000.00, maybe more. Oh well. I expect to have to pay higher taxes under a Conservative Gov't within a couple of years when we need to reduce the deficit. So what? Being poor(er) and alive is a better alternative to dying or losing someone I love because some people put a higher value on "the economy" than the health and life of other people.

What kind of employee are you that your boss can't trust you to do your job being watched all day?

Locally, the taxis are voluntarily shutting down, and the buses/skytrain are virtually deserted, because so many people are choosing not to use them. Buses are having people board from the back door to protect drivers, and not collecting fares, and they are still very empty. I'm working from home today, deal with many corporate clients through my job and every one of them that I've spoken with this week are also working from home along with their staff. Maybe most of us are smart enough to do what we must without government forcing it.

Spanish military are finding seniors in care homes abandoned; some are dead in their beds. Over 39,000 cases, 2,700 dead. 12% of their health care workers test positive for Covid-19. Perhaps Duterte hopes to avoid that. Seems part of these sweeping powers includes compensating health care workers who get sick with the virus, and helping poor people. This strikes me as more humane than the "old people wanna die to save the economy" message offered by a certain American politician.

Perhaps those who think staying mostly home for a few weeks is too damaging to the economy or freedom should be permitted to work and socialize at will, as long as they also agree not to take up any medical resources should they contract covid-19. After all, about 98% of them will be fine, eventually. These folks can keep our economy/freedoms intact while the rest of the world waits at home for a vaccine and/or some kind of treatment.

It's your lack of willingness to support your stance with your own personal action. I think Mr. Patrick is an idiot, but at least he understands enough to know he's wiiling to put lives at risk, including his own. You are not even that knowledgeable or maybe just not that honest. Hard to say. Of course, both Mr Patrick and yourself might regret "keeping the economy going" if you or a loved one are lying in a hospital hoping there'll be a ventilator for you, all because you or someone you know had to go to work "so the economy could go on". It doesn"t matter what Korea, China, UK, Italy, US or any other country did or didn't do in the past. In the present in Canada, its keeping the numbers of serious covid-19 infections below the level at which our health system can manage them. That means social-distancing and hand-washing, so that millions of us don't become sick and thousands of us die. Yes, the economy will suffer; oh well. I'd rather be poor, unemployed and alive than dead with a job and healthy bank account. You may feel differently, but if you do, stand by it. Don't weasel out with "My death is irrelevant".

So, it's not worth the risk to your life, only the lives of other people. Got it.

You didn't answer the question: do you agree with Mr Patrick that its worth your life to "save" the economy.

@Yzermandius19 - do you stand with Mr. Patrick, willing to give your life to lessen the impact to the economy? Are you, personally, willing to pledge the lives of your parents, grandparents, siblings, children to the economy? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/us/coronavirus-texas-patrick-abbott.html