^ ottawa donated a lot of our PPE to china beginning of the year

they had stockpiles of n95 from sars that were expired but i really hope they didn't just throw them out

yes there were some shortages in the supply channels even in may but i remember costco handing out masks for people without them as early as june

IIRC, that stock pile from SARS was thrown out because they expired.

Remember, it got as bad as Donald Trumpo forcing 3M to keep all the mask in the US.

The ball was dropped by a lot of people.

Damn pretty much 2000 cases this weekend and like 85% in Fraser Health

To the other point tho. What do we do now that cerb and ceba have run out and we spent $500billion to get us to now? Federal budget update expected next Monday. Will be interesting..

Manitoba and Ontario are forcing businesses to close, literally telling businesses they are not allowed to be open. Projections are 160,000 small businesses will close at the current rate, not factoring things getting worse.

Imagine being Joe's lighting store being told to close, even tho you may see 5 customers per day. Being forced to close, meaning forced to lose your livelihood, and probably ruin your family financially, with no help from the government who closed your doors. Instead now people can still go to home depot to buy the same light bulb, in a store that has 1000 other people pass thru it in a day. Which one is more likely to contribute to an outbreak? For a government that says they're here to help the middle class, they sure are fucking the middle class and helping big corporations thru this pandemic.

I don’t know what the right answer is.

I saw a motion online like “Close big box stores and let small ones stay open” but that’s short sighted too because none of them have the supply chain or inventory to provide to the public the way big box stores do and what about the thousands of people who work at big box stores?

No matter what you do somebody gets fucked.

Yeah but think of how much money people will make on the stock market by trading shares of Home Depot and other huge corporations! Rich people have never been richer than they are now, thanks to covid SeemsGood

You mean, doing what people have been pretty much begging for?

Even Bonnie said today the vast majority of deaths have been in care homes. The graph from BCCDC has very clear data as to who is impacted most seriously.

Telling small business as in your example that they have to shut even though everyone who comes and goes follows protocol and wears masks, socially distances etc. Is completely fucked.

It’s not “buT tHe EcOnOmy!!!” It’s literally stripping any and all ability for small business owners to survive period. And then the fall-out from that. Can’t pay a mortgage, can’t provide for a family, the stress and hardships that come from that

But hey, joe at joes lighting is a healthy 40 year old so you better punish him with all the force the government can muster.

The rent subsidy program is also an absolute joke and I feel bad for anyone who thought they were gonna get a break with it. Under both the previous one and this current one the responsibility of getting a supplement on your rent is held up with the land lord, if your landlord doesn’t apply you get nothing. You think some shitty office building owner is going to take the time to do that? Not a chance in hell. My wife’s company is already victim to this as is 3 other small business owners we know who the landlord basically said take a hike :woot2:

There are tight controls on care homes, there have been for awhile now, but we're seeing outbreaks in care home, after care home, and as our numbers rise across the province, we see more outbreaks in care homes, because people are bringing it in

what people?

The employees, why? Cuz they're being careless in their everyday life, or have careless relatives/friends/acquaintances infecting these workers

It's a never ending cycle unless we either go hard in trying to put a stop to this, or receive a vaccine, but a wait and see approach until the vaccine gets out isn't fair to anyone

I’d say it’s more to do with the fact that these places do not hire true professionals. Somone getting paid $18 an hour shouldn’t be expected to execute or understand the depths of a covid control manual that is 60 pages long.

Also as I mentioned before my work used to bring me into these places, now I supervise the people going into these places. Sometimes the caretaker or “maintenance” man will simply refuse to help technicians from all walks (telecom, plumbers, electricians, etc.) so when our technicians phone these people to attempt to have them help, most of the time these people are saying “well X electrician came in? Why can’t you?”

These care homes have systemic problems that need a nuclear overhaul.

This is correct. It's also important to note that (in my hospital anyways) the re-use of n95's was short lived as we were able to secure enough supply to keep us going. Internal theft as well as the public hoarding all available masks led to hospitals and other healthcare workers being short on supply. I personally suggested we lock up our supplies in our controlled substances machine which requires username and password to get yourself a mask. There's also video cameras in there.

Even now, after so many months, the quality of our current surgical masks is not as high as before this pandemic. The new supply feels cheap and doesn't always have the foam line at the bridge of the mask. Hell, even the metal piece that clamps onto your nose is crappier now.

WutFace

GDI

This has been changed effective today:

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-age...t-subsidy.html

In other COVID news, I heard from my Montreal sales rep that our B2B customers will not be taking any deliveries in Jan 2021. They're expecting a full scale lockdown. They were at a red zone / [color] zone type of lockdown already, if you're from red zone you can't dine in blue zone.

They're expecting an even bigger lockdown cause the Gov basically said "the 4 days around Christmas you can do whatever you want, break any COVID laws you want, "fuck (sleep with) anyone if you're single, no masks necessary, party hard no fucks given" (she literally said this)

Edmonton city council meeting last week on the topic of government response to covid 19.

A family owned store with 20 employees vs one Costco with 500. Let’s decide which one to close...

even big boxes are feeling the heat

the bay coquitlam defaulted on rent

drove past the old MEC location on broadway, whoever owns that bldg is fucked

Which one employs more middle class people?

Yeah Joe can take his experience and work in the lighting department at Home Depot. He'll be thankful for his job, as he steps further into the dystopia we're being launched into Kappa

grandparents living separately are allowed to pick-up the kids from school/daycare which doesn't have masks mandated

:facepalm:

In fairness the Bay was already fucked pre covid and this is just the nail in the coffin. MEC, that's a whole different story.

Dunno how mec stayed alive to begin with tbh. Maybe if you needed snow shoes or a kayak that’s where you go, otherwise their own branded clothes were complete garbage compared to comparative priced lululwmon etc. And the in-store service was shit for a place you had to have a “membership” for..

Bought a couple bikes from MEC for the kids. Seemed to be good value.

If anything MEC should be killing it due to this pandemic. There’s more people interested in outdoor activities than any time in recent memory.

Their troubles started loooooooong before the pandemic was a thing

priced themselves too close to patagooch

but for 3rd party stuff i often find it's a fair usd to cad conversion so they're not gouging like most homegrown retailers