In the photo, if you squint, you can see just a faint hint of white in the crevices in the shingles (inside the red box), but nowhere else. We are not disappointed, and I don't see any snow at all predicted in the next 14 days.
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Onto the COVID sections, which I am afraid are not as joyous (for Canadians) although there is some good news.
With rising total numbers and also many variant cases, the province of Ontario is going back into a 28-day lockdown. Said lockdown is not as severely restrictive as the name implies, and I can't even be bothered to figure out the exact implications because the lockdown won't change my current life one iota.
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A few months back, when we compared how Canadian provinces were faring compared to American states with regard to COVID cases, nearly all provinces were happily (from my point of view) below nearly all American states.
The picture is no longer as favourable. Both Saskatchewan and British Columbia currently place right after the 25th ranked state, which is Virginia.
Ontario slots in next after #27, Idaho and Alberta after 28th, Ohio.
That leaves almost half of the American states in better shape than four Canadian provinces. Add Quebec which comes shortly after, and we have almost 78% of Canada's total population worse off than almost half of the American states.
On the other hand, both Canada's Eastern provinces and northerly territories still come in at the very bottom under #51 Arkansas.
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Vaccinations continue to be problematic at present. Canada's supply (federally sourced) is still too limited but so is the delivery which is a provincial matter. On Wednesday, our province vaccinated 84,060 people. This is not good enough in a province of 14.5 million.
In total there have been only 2.8m injections or less than 20% of the province's population and mostly just single doses. (Canada Vaccination Tracker Link)
Although the supply in Canada is inadequate, the province must also do a better job at delivering the vaccines to people. Last I checked, Ontario still had >600 000 vaccines on hand but not yet delivered.
The good news, is that there are scads coming. The less than good news is that the biggest bulk will not arrive until June or afterward.
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There is, however, good news on the world front.
Differently than previously thought, vaccines may actually be delivering close to 100% immunity. This article quotes CDC sources.
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Latest data reveals that, at least for Pfizer, immunity might be good for 6 months after the second dose. (We did not always know this, and we hope it will even get better.) It also protects against the South African variant. USA Today
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Finally, for your amusement or amazement or both, here is a Tucker Carlson gem. After explaining to FOX News viewers, that Canada is the country to the north, he reveals that Canada has an internment policy [sic] for returning air travellers who have a negative COVID test. In actual fact, the internment which so vexes the man is for three days in a hotel. I have set the starting point of the clip to his Canada diatribe if you feel the need to watch his idiocy. The internment portions lasts for about 2 minutes.
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Late Addition
When I wrote above that I didn't really know what the present lockdown (or grey zone) entailed, well somebody made this image with our premier front and centre and certain cabinet members behind.
Have a good day and weekend.
16 comments:
We had a snow cover on the morning of April 1st. Good time for it as it melted by afternoon.
Thankfully, we also did not receive any snow, just a day of rain and chilly tmps for early spring, but like yourself we will take that as well. As to the COVID stats, it is still rather unsettling to see that despite the vaccination rollout, there is still far to go both here in the states, Canada, and the world. It's problematic now when we will be able to see family and friends in our home state of NJ as the governor there has issued dire predictions for a possible surge in reported virus cases.
Thanks for the Covid roundup. I had missed a few, and now I feel very well informed. I am proud of my state following through with mask mandates and people actually following them! :-)
You really NEED to click the link on my post from yesterday!!! :)
PipeTobacco
My working theory is that you Canadians were just so good at locking down and preventing the spread for the last year, that you are now paying for it. Where I live, our state was one of the few states that never issues a full mask mandate, never shut down any businesses or issued any lockdowns. As a result, we had over 13% of our total state population already test positive for Covid and as experts say, that is probably anywhere from 3 to 5 times higher in reality since most never get tested so between that and the 20% that have been vaccinated so far, we are probably well into herd immunity territory already. Of course, by expediating the process to herd immunity, we forfeited nearly 5750+ lives and counting. That works out to 0.18% of our population paid the price for the rest of us. I'm guessing your province's numbers are a lot lower than ours.
This theory seems to pan out as many of the states with the strictest lockdown measures are the ones with large spikes right now.
I don’t know what the Ontario premier is doing. It must be difficult for residents and business owners to discern.
Doug Ford is utterly incompetent and should resign but of course never will.
I'd call Tucker Carlson a jackass, but that would be kind.
I don't think they know all there is to know about covid or the vaccines. In lots of ways we're flying blind.
BC evidently has a variant running amok. We are so close to them that it concerns me, although I am completely Pfizered. (and thankful for that) Tucker Carlson is an idiot and an a-hole, putting it nicely. If that's the same chart you sent me, I check it sometimes and the situations among the states and provinces have changed dramatically. We used to be 46 and now we're 36 which I can't quite figure out. Most people here want to get vaccinated, but the eastern part of our state (more conservative) might be driving the spike.
yep, the late addition really does clarify things doesn't it?
We had a return to winter temperatures and snow flurries off and on. Nothing that sticks though.
One troubling quote you listed was that Pfizer vaccine keeps immunity for 6 months. What happens after that?
I'm not even going to give Carlson the time of day.
We've had a lot harder time getting vaccination apts. than I had hoped.
It's too bad there isn't an IQ test for politicians, they don't even listen the the health peeps.
I wonder where the numbers will be when kids return from spring break.
I wonder when we will never again worry about numbers.
@Marcia. I don't think we should take it as ONLY lasting 6 months, but so far they have discovered that it does last for 6 months. I think we can hope that it will last longer.
@Ed. I think a large part of the reason for locking things down more during the various waves is to keep hospitals functioning as well as possible. Space can get tight in a not-for-profit situation. For whatever reason, people seem too dense to practice proper restraint without being regimented. Too bad.
Late getting back but you are absolutely right about the reasons we are/should be doing these lockdowns.
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