Covid And The Rest of Us

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How far do these zones extend? Are they neighbourhoods within the city or regions of the province or what? How would authorities know what zone somebody is from if everybody (presumably) has Quebec plates? Random check-stops?

Basically all of the island of Montreal - Red. North Shore + South Shore red as we. We have no cities on the island that are not, it goes as far North as St.Jerome. That is about 20 min from St. Sauveur (if this helps, or means anything to you)

Random check stops possibly. What happened in the spring was A TON of the city people were going to their cottages up north, and then they just started patrolling, not allowing it. Stopped EVERY car, ID. Work padges. Up North has remained in the green, but I dunno we keep bringing it up there. My BFF lives in Sauveur, and she is saying we will all just go there to eat, use a hotel wtv we can’t do here. About June they stopped the checkpoints, and it was insane, 2-3 hrs to drive there, normally 45min to an hour.

I will attach a map to show you, https://www.google.ca/search?q=mont...&biw=1261&bih=1466&dpr=2#imgrc=9e4A2I3E_SqE2M
 
I have not followed this thread for weeks, as I have been travelling again almost non-stop, including to 'closed' countries. Some random thoughts:..
...- sat with a German epidemiologist at an event last week in a different country and he said the thought now is that 'the virus is insignificant'. He also felt that German restrictions were not needed and we should be more like Austria...
:wave2: Hi Bavaria! Good to see you back. Your comments have been missed. Can you tell us a little more about the bolded?
Separate post to talk about testing... Berlin reduced the testing of returning travellers as there is such a low number of positives that tests are just wasted. Frankfurt Airport still has test centres for mandatory testing if you come from a 'high risk' country, and test centres if you just want a test for reassurance. So do many other airports and train stations around the country.

We used a train station one yesterday as my partner was going to visit family and wanted peace of mind. It took longer to walk from the car than to be tested - total time from arrival at the test centre to leaving was less than 7 minutes. Create a user ID online, scan the QR code, go into the room for a deep throat swab, and leave. Results by email within 24 hours. No cost, even though he is not German.

Test kits are also available for 79 Euros on Amazon, or if one if flying to a country that requires proof of a test, one can pay at the airports for an 'official' document with test results, done just a few hours before boarding.

It does make one wonder how the US can still be struggling to test effectively when one can be tested so easily.
I had no clue this was even a thing - had not heard a word about it before last week and assumed this was some sort of wonderfully innovative new development:
https://flyeia.com/corporate/media/news/new-rapid-covid-19-test-taking-off-at-eia/
 
DH works with several sites worldwide and until recently, the Czech coworkers were very positive about how things were going, COVID-wise. Over the past few weeks, their outlook has changed and to hear them tell it, things are getting MUCH worse and their previous confidence has evaporated.

If any of you are in Eastern/Central Europe, or have friends and relatives who are there, is this the sense you are getting from them? TIA
I have family in Poland. They’re definitely in the second wave😢
I’ve stopped trip planning months ago. It’s impossible to predict the future. Countries that seem to be doing well now could spike by the time it’s your vacation.
 
ugh... I sense some uncomfortable discussions with potential for family drama coming soon by us.....

So my SIL who lives by us has houseguests.. We visit them all the time as we live 5 minutes apart.. Well these houseguests are our niece, her DH and DD. no issue sofar.. We all had dinner last night at SILs house.. of course this is "risky" as we are increasing our contact bubble but we accept those risks.

So last night after dinner our niece's DH and DD said ok we are going out.. Turns out the two of them decided to go to a Shisha bar in our neigbhoring city... This is basically a water pipe bar. I was like whaaat? well for one I had no idea they were into that. didnt see them in that scene.. and I was like "do you guys think its safe to go out like that right now AND of all places a place where people are blowing steamed water out?!


We then left.. They are here all week and I know they will stop by or want us to come back over etc.... Honestly I am a bit freaked out they are bringing covid back... Granted numbers in this town are 11/100.000 7 day . low but still. People who go to these places are young people in groups..


ugh... who in the right mind decides now of all times to go try out a shisha bar :confused3
 
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:wave2: Hi Bavaria! Good to see you back. Your comments have been missed. Can you tell us a little more about the bolded?

I had no clue this was even a thing - had not heard a word about it before last week and assumed this was some sort of wonderfully innovative new development:
https://flyeia.com/corporate/media/news/new-rapid-covid-19-test-taking-off-at-eia/
Re the testing, I believe that Air Canada and Westjet started testing in YYZ and a few other airports in September in an attempt to show the government that the risk is low to open borders (but I still think that we need to be concerned about Americans, especially as I am seeing several refusing to follow rules whilst outside their country, sorry to say.)

In Germany over the summer, every airport had at least one testing facility as I described, plus most major train stations, plus every Autobahn with a cross border had a testing facility at a rest stop just inside the border. In the first week, the 2 centres in Frankfurt Airport tested over 40,000 people with I believe 11 positives. ELEVEN out of 40,000..... The fear was that the tests are just being wasted as the virus is not that prevalent, even amongst returning travellers or arrivals from high risk areas. In fact, if one has symptoms, one cannot use these test centres but has to go to a medical test centre.

That is one reason why case numbers rose - people with no symptoms were getting tested for free at all these easy, quick test centres, and there were positives. There is debate if the tests are too sensitive, or find 'old' virus, and therefore case counts should not be the main measure anymore. (We never knew for example any other illness how many people were positive each day)

Edited to add: year to date, Germany, Austria and Portugal have had LESS deaths in 2020 than in previous years. 2017/2018 was an especially bad flu year in many areas, and the deaths that year are much higher than this year (but not only those years)

This article explains a bit more the general trend in western Europe - rising cases, but not rising deaths, and health care not overwhelmed.
https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...9-wave-a-dffa14d7-aab3-457c-9258-570f98b80fd6
I don't want to sound like a 'COVID denier', etc, but the reality is that the extreme measures to control the virus don't seem to have a better outcome. The DACH countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and unofficially FL ie Liechenstein) have had great outcomes, with very minimal restrictions. Germany is the most restrictive, but even then not very severe. For example, for 10 days Munich is requiring masks in the pedestrian zone and the (outdoor) food market from 0900-2300hrs but already the cases per 100,000 are dropping. Compare that to the Anglo Saxonic countries which are still having lockdowns, or extreme measures, and they aren't doing any better.

This week is especially evident as 'Koa Wiesn' which is Bavarian for 'no Oktoberfest'. Sure, we don't miss the hoardes of drunken, vomiting tourists, but the streets are empty, shops and restaurants have closed down, and the two peak weeks of sales for many shops are very quiet (it's also 'shopping weeks') The question becomes did we do too much? That is what the epidemiologist meant (and I didn't provoke him; it was a group of mostly Swiss and German and a few southern Europeans, and he was obviously very fed up with the extreme measures taken globally vs the perceived risk of the virus. Even Drosten, the most likely considered top expert of SARS as well as COVID, has mixed feelings in what he has been stating publically.

For your benefit: I was at a resort a short while ago and the next table was full of wealthy Germans (was a high end resort, which was hosting a convention, was full, and all meeting rooms were full too, albeit not in Germany) The head of the table said that their business travel had returned to full levels, and that they were travelling successfully. Except for one employee - they had managed to get him an entry exemption, but then he was told that his quarantine plan was not sufficient, and was put in government quarantine. The quarantine and the challenges meant that the company decided to cancel a contract worth 'millions'. I'll let you guess the country which lost their business....
 
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ugh... who in the right mind decides now of all times to go try out a shisha bar :confused3
It's really tough to have varying levels of comfort, isn't it? A few nights ago we were walking down a pedestrian zone in a town, and my partner got very agitated. It took me a moment to realise he was talking about the young people, without masks, crowding around a bouncer waiting to get into a night club/bar. He points out a lot of that to me when we are in more 'open' countries, whereas I am a bit oblivious. We had ice cream the other day served by someone who used his bare hands to give us the cones (the bottom of the cones are in paper, but it still annoyed him)

I try and be respectful of the differences in our comfort zone, but I know that I'm a lot more 'locker' than he is and I try and adjust as much as I can.
 
We had a trip to Eastern/Central Europe planned for May 2020, and had to reschedule for May 2021. The more days pass, the less optimistic I am about that trip actually happening.

DH works with several sites worldwide and until recently, the Czech coworkers were very positive about how things were going, COVID-wise. Over the past few weeks, their outlook has changed and to hear them tell it, things are getting MUCH worse and their previous confidence has evaporated.

If any of you are in Eastern/Central Europe, or have friends and relatives who are there, is this the sense you are getting from them? TIA
I am still holding out a sliver of hope for the end of this year (although not much). It will be a chore to cancel and rebook especially not knowing who will remain in business when this mess calms down.
 
I am still holding out a sliver of hope for the end of this year (although not much). It will be a chore to cancel and rebook especially not knowing who will remain in business when this mess calms down.
Definitely a challenge, especially in touristic destinations which shut down. Then you have issues with supply; rental car companies sold off so many cars earlier this year that the prices are sky high in a lot of areas due to low supply. A lot of high end restaurants have shut down, as we learned recently whilst trying to book in various areas. Or they have cut down to 2-4 days/week. And lower end ones are out completely as they cannot afford to stay open limited hours with limited capacity.

The central part of Munich has been ripped up for awhile; they are tearing down the main station facade and rebuilding the station whilst it keeps operating, and behind Marienplatz the new S Bahn station will be finished in 2028. So a lot of shops and restaurants were already impacted before COVID, and COVID was the final nail in the coffin.

And *cough *cough, let's not talk about what the Canadians did to shopping in Germany/Belgium/the Netherlands, as this week is the final closing week for 62 of 172 department stores in Germany once (briefly, and disastrously, owned by the Hudson's Bay Company) I won't blame the Canadians on this thread though ;)

Then again, yet another Douglas is opening in Kaufingerstrasse, because we need at least five locations in the relatively small pedestrian zone!
 
Well whoever owns them left a big mess behind. There was even an HBC store in Amsterdam for awhile! Now there are just vacant buildings scattered around Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. It was a weird history, and we also have a lot of those really awful Saks Off 5th Ave inside the former HBC/Galleria stores.

TK Maxx (Winners, TJ Maxx) does booming business in Germany though, but the brands are generally much better than the North American stores.
 
Re the testing, I believe that Air Canada and Westjet started testing in YYZ and a few other airports in September in an attempt to show the government that the risk is low to open borders (but I still think that we need to be concerned about Americans, especially as I am seeing several refusing to follow rules whilst outside their country, sorry to say.)

In Germany over the summer, every airport had at least one testing facility as I described, plus most major train stations, plus every Autobahn with a cross border had a testing facility at a rest stop just inside the border. In the first week, the 2 centres in Frankfurt Airport tested over 40,000 people with I believe 11 positives. ELEVEN out of 40,000..... The fear was that the tests are just being wasted as the virus is not that prevalent, even amongst returning travellers or arrivals from high risk areas. In fact, if one has symptoms, one cannot use these test centres but has to go to a medical test centre.

That is one reason why case numbers rose - people with no symptoms were getting tested for free at all these easy, quick test centres, and there were positives. There is debate if the tests are too sensitive, or find 'old' virus, and therefore case counts should not be the main measure anymore. (We never knew for example any other illness how many people were positive each day)

Edited to add: year to date, Germany, Austria and Portugal have had LESS deaths in 2020 than in previous years. 2017/2018 was an especially bad flu year in many areas, and the deaths that year are much higher than this year (but not only those years)

This article explains a bit more the general trend in western Europe - rising cases, but not rising deaths, and health care not overwhelmed.
https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...9-wave-a-dffa14d7-aab3-457c-9258-570f98b80fd6
I don't want to sound like a 'COVID denier', etc, but the reality is that the extreme measures to control the virus don't seem to have a better outcome. The DACH countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and unofficially FL ie Liechenstein) have had great outcomes, with very minimal restrictions. Germany is the most restrictive, but even then not very severe. For example, for 10 days Munich is requiring masks in the pedestrian zone and the (outdoor) food market from 0900-2300hrs but already the cases per 100,000 are dropping. Compare that to the Anglo Saxonic countries which are still having lockdowns, or extreme measures, and they aren't doing any better.

This week is especially evident as 'Koa Wiesn' which is Bavarian for 'no Oktoberfest'. Sure, we don't miss the hoardes of drunken, vomiting tourists, but the streets are empty, shops and restaurants have closed down, and the two peak weeks of sales for many shops are very quiet (it's also 'shopping weeks') The question becomes did we do too much? That is what the epidemiologist meant (and I didn't provoke him; it was a group of mostly Swiss and German and a few southern Europeans, and he was obviously very fed up with the extreme measures taken globally vs the perceived risk of the virus. Even Drosten, the most likely considered top expert of SARS as well as COVID, has mixed feelings in what he has been stating publically.

For your benefit: I was at a resort a short while ago and the next table was full of wealthy Germans (was a high end resort, which was hosting a convention, was full, and all meeting rooms were full too, albeit not in Germany) The head of the table said that their business travel had returned to full levels, and that they were travelling successfully. Except for one employee - they had managed to get him an entry exemption, but then he was told that his quarantine plan was not sufficient, and was put in government quarantine. The quarantine and the challenges meant that the company decided to cancel a contract worth 'millions'. I'll let you guess the country which lost their business....
The entire problem on our end is that no form of rapid-test has been approved by Health Canada for use in any setting. We are just in the process of doing that now and I wasn't previously aware of how shockingly behind we were in this regard.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/news...-pending-approval/ar-BB19xxa0?ocid=spartanntp
 
Definitely a challenge, especially in touristic destinations which shut down. Then you have issues with supply; rental car companies sold off so many cars earlier this year that the prices are sky high in a lot of areas due to low supply. A lot of high end restaurants have shut down, as we learned recently whilst trying to book in various areas. Or they have cut down to 2-4 days/week. And lower end ones are out completely as they cannot afford to stay open limited hours with limited capacity.

The central part of Munich has been ripped up for awhile; they are tearing down the main station facade and rebuilding the station whilst it keeps operating, and behind Marienplatz the new S Bahn station will be finished in 2028. So a lot of shops and restaurants were already impacted before COVID, and COVID was the final nail in the coffin.

And *cough *cough, let's not talk about what the Canadians did to shopping in Germany/Belgium/the Netherlands, as this week is the final closing week for 62 of 172 department stores in Germany once (briefly, and disastrously, owned by the Hudson's Bay Company) I won't blame the Canadians on this thread though ;)

Then again, yet another Douglas is opening in Kaufingerstrasse, because we need at least five locations in the relatively small pedestrian zone!
Sorry, no sympathy here...retailing in Canada was completely destroyed by Target. :rotfl2: Seriously though, not sure exactly who owns what as I didn't have time to read the entire page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson's_Bay_Company
 
Definitely a challenge, especially in touristic destinations which shut down. Then you have issues with supply; rental car companies sold off so many cars earlier this year that the prices are sky high in a lot of areas due to low supply. A lot of high end restaurants have shut down, as we learned recently whilst trying to book in various areas. Or they have cut down to 2-4 days/week. And lower end ones are out completely as they cannot afford to stay open limited hours with limited capacity.

The central part of Munich has been ripped up for awhile; they are tearing down the main station facade and rebuilding the station whilst it keeps operating, and behind Marienplatz the new S Bahn station will be finished in 2028. So a lot of shops and restaurants were already impacted before COVID, and COVID was the final nail in the coffin.

And *cough *cough, let's not talk about what the Canadians did to shopping in Germany/Belgium/the Netherlands, as this week is the final closing week for 62 of 172 department stores in Germany once (briefly, and disastrously, owned by the Hudson's Bay Company) I won't blame the Canadians on this thread though ;)

Then again, yet another Douglas is opening in Kaufingerstrasse, because we need at least five locations in the relatively small pedestrian zone!
Wow. Didn’t know about the train station in Munich. Happy we decided to rent a vehicle in Wien last year and finished our holiday by car. I have reserved a car for this year too. Made our plans in January. Things have changed a bit...
 
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- sat with a German epidemiologist at an event last week in a different country and he said the thought now is that 'the virus is insignificant'. He also felt that German restrictions were not needed and we should be more like Austria

Bavaria, can you elaborate on this please?

EDIT: Well someone must have missed an entire page of comments. Sigh. Will read.

(@ronandannette - this suddenly being in sync is overwhelming my psyche! :laughing: )
 
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southern Europe generally seems to be more mask wearing (perhaps because some areas were harder hit) but in many areas there isn't really much restrictions. I had a friend in Canada (who reminds me of the poster from Winnipeg on this thread) who was so confused by a photo I sent her. It was of me in a crowded Saturday night in a town square in southern Europe, and she was confused and concerned re the lack of masks

I am easily open to every form of outside activity. Time, and common sense, has easily taken me there. I do not wear a mask outside, unless on the ferry where it is mandated. Or once on a narrow construction walk.

I have seen an upswing of people wearing masks outside here. But the percentage is still probably way under 10%, wearing them. Most are out and about without them. Can I ask where your friend lives? Is is possible she lives in a driving culture/environment? Because that would indeed skew anyone's perception of mask usage.

_______

Indoors (public including friends and family), I am still very cautious.
 
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