When they shut down all the small businesses and just left the big box stores open, they ended up concentrating all the shoppers together in a few big centralized locations, turning them into daily super-spreader events.
Now they're imposing curfews, as if that will somehow limit people's exposure to each other by keeping them at home more I guess?
Well here's the thing: Bars and restaurants are already closed. The only thing people are going out at night for is logistical activities like shopping - things they have to do every day regardless of curfews.
So all a curfew will accomplish is to shorten the available hours people have to carry out those logistical activities (like shopping), which will concentrate everyone into the stores during the remaining hours, which will increase social contact/exposure, not reduce it.
So like the small business shutdowns, this measure can only make things worse.
I don't believe for one second that there's any modeling that pointed to this being a good idea, because it defies logic on the face of it. At this point it's painfully obvious that governments are just taking drastic actions so they can be seen to be "doing something". And worse, there's no exit strategy. Nothing they're doing is working. None of these measures will bring an end to the pandemic (indeed they'll only make it worse), so where's the light at the end of the tunnel here? Is there one? Or is this the "new normal"?
Oh and they still don't know if the vaccines work on the new strains yet BTW.
Even if Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, etc. are able to get the spread under control with lockdowns, they have to wait until the Spring Equinox (March 21st) to re-open again if they are going to continue with this strategy as coronaviruses are seasonal. That means 70 more days of putting people on the unemployment rolls, 70 more days of business bankruptcies, evictions, mental health problems, suicides, drug overdoses, people going postal, etc.
I hate it when the media points to Brazil, India and the American South as proof that coronaviruses aren't seasonal. Tropical climates like the Amazon Rainforest, Southern India and Miami and to a lesser extent Subtropical climates like Houston, Texas, Southern Brazil (ie. Porto Alegre) and hot desert climates like Phoenix, Arizona have a moderate flu season year-round. While humid continental climates like Toronto have a fierce fall-winter flu season and a weak flu season in the spring-summer.
Or they are able to vaccinate the risk groups before that. It seems like the fatality rate increases sharply once the burden on ICUs reaches a critical point. If you can get that under control, speak protect the elderly from a severe case, then you won't have to worry about it. Israel already vaccinated 60% of the risk group. Hopefully we will see an effect on the fatality rate and hospital load soon.
I'm not opposed to voluntary vaccination of risk groups. The debate on vaccines is way too polarized. You have the people who want mandatory vaccination of the vast majority of the population. And you have anti-vaxxers who just want the vaccine to crash and burn and don't even want 90+ year olds with pre-existing conditions to take it. When it should be their individual choice. Our society is over-run with statists who wish to impose their will on the individual. When I suggested to my dad that Quebec's curfew might violate Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he suggested that Justin Trudeau should make a constitutional amendment to allow curfews. lmao. There are tons of Canadians like my dad who have zero concept of liberty. And think the government has the authority to micro-manage every aspect of our lives.
Liberty is basically an American and French concept (and modern day France is cucked to shit. Every once in awhile, French people riot. But their government is authoritarian as fuck). It's not a Canadian concept. We're basically subjects of the Queen. Canada is a cucked nation. Maybe Switzerland and some others have liberty enshrined in their constitutions as well.
The absolute vast majority of anti-vaxxers are 30 to 40 year old wine moms. I don't care if they get Covid or if their children get Covid. Only one out a thousand of them will get a severe case. What's important is that those old folks in care homes get the vaccine asap. And I bet those aren't as anti-vaxx as the general population. There is a care home like an hour away from me, in Wakaw, Saskatchewan. Every single member of this home, 44 to be precise, go infected with Covid. 4 of them are already dead and another dozen of them landed in an ICU. If 44 suburban moms, dads and kids got sick with Covid there would be probably just one ICU case under these. This is what we should get under control as soon as possible.
Here in Peel (Ontario) we don't even bother to put nursing home residents in the ICU for the most part. The died with COVID-19 rate in Peel for 65+ year olds is 365% higher than the ICU admission with COVID-19 rate for 65+ year olds. 432 seniors died since January 31st. We only admitted 93 seniors since January 31st into ICU while total hospitalizations for seniors is 714. So only 13% of the seniors we hospitalize ever get sent to the ICU. And our ICU capacity is still only 88%. We triage before we ever hit capacity. The median age of those who die with COVID here is 85. But the median age of those admitted to ICU with COVID is 63.
For small town Saskatchewan to put LTC residents in the ICU, community spread must be fairly minimal there.
When I found out that the median ICU patient in Peel is an obese 63 year old with Type II diabetes and heart disease, I started to feel less sympathetic when nurses whined about the hospitals being "overwhelmed". If you're an obese fat fuck and you didn't make a serious effort to lose weight the last 10 months to boost your Vitamin D absorption rate and immune system, you have no right to force other people to stay home because you're afraid.