Four Covid-19 news reports
Why security guards are in demand, the issues with deferring condo fees, how long personal distancing may last & why are the Covid-19 rates in Richmond BC so low?
Security guards in high demand, face more stress on job during COVID-19 pandemic
The Canadian Press (abridged)
By Lauren Krugel 03 May 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred an enormous demand for security guards, whose job descriptions have been expanded to include temperature checks, grocery store crowd control and — in at least one case — removing bodies from a morgue.
But union secretary-treasurer Jeff Ketelaars said would-be guards can’t take licence tests because government offices are closed. He has written to Premier Doug Ford urging an alternative like Quebec’s temporary online system.
Ketelaars said security guards often earn minimum wage, making it tough for many to justify going for those jobs when there’s equivalent government aid.
And the pandemic has increased stress on guards, he added.
“Members of the public have just been absolutely brutal to them to the point where some of our members have been assaulted at work where they usually wouldn’t.”
https://bit.ly/2KU01U3
Don't cut corners to accommodate hardships
The Kingston Wig-Standard (abridged)
Tony Gioventu 30 April 2020
(Note: The Condominium Act in Ontario differs from B.C.)
Dear Tony:
Our strata council (condo Board) has decided to defer strata fees for several months during the COVID-19 restrictions. Of the seven council members, five are people who are off work for the short term, but the remainder of owners who are retired or work from home have no objection to the continuing of strata fees. Is this possible?
If council members have a direct interest in an outcome is that not a time in council meetings when they should remove themselves during the decision making?
We are very concerned we will end up in a serious deficit and drain what little reserve funds we have left for an emergency.
The council simply advised they will not contribute our allocated contingency amount in the annual budget to make up the difference.
Maria C., Kelowna
Dear Maria:
While there are no strata police, any owner may simply make an application to the Civil Resolution Tribunal ordering the strata corporation to collect the fees. If a strata corporation wishes to use contingency reserve funds for any purpose other than an emergency, or a recommended depreciation expense approved by majority vote, the strata council must hold a properly convened special general meeting to obtain a three-quarter vote to approve the expense.
An allocated and approved amount to the contingency reserve fund is a payable and budgeted item in the annual budget like every other expense, and it must be accounted for monthly.
Don’t cut corners and consider the consequences of your decisions.
Tony Gioventu is executive director of the Condominium Home Owners Association. Email tony@choa.bc.ca
https://bit.ly/3aZUcik
The secret Covid-19 rate in Richmond, Canada’s most Chinese city, isn’t what racists might expect. It’s dwarfed by the rest of the nation
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong newspaper)
Ian Young in Vancouver 30 April 2020 (abridged)
In Richmond, where 54 per cent of the population claims Chinese heritage, the rate of confirmed Covid-19 cases appears to be less than one-third the rate in the rest of Canada, and only about half that in neighbouring Vancouver.
BC health officials have tried to keep secret the Covid-19 prevalence in municipalities, citing the risk of stigmatisation in hard-hit places, or a false sense of security in others.
But in a Facebook Live appearance last Thursday, Dr Mark Lysyshyn of the Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) authority revealed a partial breakdown of cases, saying that about 10 per cent of the 755 cases in the VCH catchment at that time had occurred in Richmond.
“The greatest number of cases are in the Vancouver area,” said Lysyshyn, deputy chief medical health officer with VCH, responding to a question from a viewer. “About 60 per cent of our cases are there. We’ve also seen a high number of cases on the North Shore, about 30 per cent of our cases there. And then about 10 per cent of our cases in Richmond.”
Why?
Richmond residents were early to take Covid-19 seriously and adopted social distancing measures long before being advised by authorities to do so.
By late January, many residents were wearing face masks and many of Richmond’s Chinese shopping malls and restaurants were largely deserted, which even prompted a short-lived government campaign encouraging people to return. Some Lunar New Year events were cancelled and by February 11, Richmond’s Lingyen Mountain Buddhist Temple had closed its doors, citing coronavirus concerns.
https://bit.ly/2zVl72f
Coronavirus study: Why Canada could still be social distancing in 2022, even after it flattens the curve
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong newspaper)
Ian Young in Vancouver (abridged)
Published: 17 April 2020
A resident waves from her window at Residence Herron, a long-term care facility in Montreal, where more than 30 residents have died of Covid-19. Photo: Reuters
University of Toronto epidemiologist Dr Ashleigh Tuite says “everything” about Covid-19 worries her.
But one of her biggest fears is how Canadians are going to cope when they realise that physical distancing and other coronavirus infection controls will likely be part of their lives for much, much longer than they might expect.
How long? Such measures, repeatedly switched on and off, could be part of Canadian life until 2022 or until a vaccine is in wide use, under modelling published by Tuite and colleagues in the Canadian Medical Association Journal last week.
A strategy highlighted by the peer-reviewed research would entail on-off distancing measures being enforced for a combined 13 months out of two years.
Most modellers agree that restraining the virus will mean repeatedly applying, loosening then reapplying distancing and other measures, for many months.
“People don’t really want to hear this. Logistically, it’s hard to wrap your head around it, a future where nothing is certain … but it’s the reality, for the coming while,” Tuite said.
Modellers at Britain’s Imperial College Covid-19 Response Team have also reached much the same conclusion.
Meanwhile, modellers at Harvard University published research in Science magazine on April 9 suggesting that “prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022”.
The Ontario study is premised on that province’s critical-care capacity, with interventions being switched on when Covid-19-related ICU occupancy hits 40 per cent of available capacity, then switched off when it falls below 40 per cent.
This on-off approach to physical distancing was potentially far more effective than a single prolonged period in preventing ICU capacity being overwhelmed and keeping infections down.
For instance, even if distancing were to be enforced for a single 12-month period, at the end of the 2-year model almost 20 per cent of Ontario’s population could still be infected. Six months of distancing could still result in an infection rate of more than 50 per cent at the end of the two-year model – almost unchanged from the base level of 56 per cent infection with only limited mitigation efforts.
This chart by Britain’s Imperial College Covid-19 Response Team depicts the repeated application of social distancing measures to suppress the disease until at least the end of 2021, with the measures triggered and switched off according to ICU admissions. Graphic: Imperial College Covid-19 Response Team
But physical distancing switched on and off for a total of 13 months could slash that infection rate to 2 per cent.
“In contrast to fixed-duration physical distancing, we find that dynamic physical distancing, with interventions turned on and off as needed, based on ICU capacity crossing a given threshold, represents a more effective, and likely more palatable, control strategy,” the study said.
For the purposes of the model, physical distancing was defined as school closures, work-from-home measures and cancellation of group activities and events, to cut daily contacts by 60 per cent.
If testing capacity could be greatly increased, another approach might be a combination of less strict distancing and enhanced tracing of the disease. But to produce the same effect of reducing infections to 2 per cent of the population, such measures would have to be dynamically enforced for 16 months out of two years.
These modelling charts produced by a Harvard team depict the use of eight periods of social distancing into 2022 in order to suppress Covid-19 ICU admissions below capacity. The top chart assumes no seasonal variation in the spread of the disease; the bottom chart is premised on seasonal waning in summer months. Graphic: Harvard University
“From the general public’s perspective, the initial idea seemed to be, ‘oh we do this for three weeks or a month, and then we’re done.’ But the critical piece is that the disease [is] still going to be circulating”.
https://bit.ly/3c2NTMk