Ye Haa!

Gotta love the Americans.

When Canadians are told to practice social distancing, we do it.  To paraphrase a joke from a few posts ago; how do you get 50 Canadians to stay inside?  You say, "You Canadians, stay inside,"

Not the Americans.  They are itching to get back outside.

And it's not just your Trump loving, redneck 'mericans either.

These are are yer Californians.

They're plumb crazy, you say.  Well, let's take a 30,000 foot look.

Here is a global view I've shown before; with Deaths (per million population) on the horizontal scale and Cases (per million population) on the vertical scale.

[As always, click on any graph to zoom in.]

Europe is in way worse shape on a per capita basis than Canada is.  Or the US.  European countries fill the entire upper right side (the bad side) of this chart.  High density population countries are the hardest hit.

So the US doesn't look that bad, lower and to the left.   It's only when you dive down to the state level that is gets bad.  Very bad.

And to me the common denominator here is these are all high density population states.  Or states with a few large, high density cities anyway.

[Note:  As much as I point fingers at Quebec, there they are, right next to the USA, in that lower left corner. Not that bad]

Here is a view at the state level.

And a lot of the US policies (and Canadian) have been designed to limit the COVID spread, especially in these high density, urban areas.

It's becoming very political in the US, but a lot of these Americans - protesting and itching to get outside and everybody calling them crazy - are tucked way into that lower left corner,- and they're chafing at having to follow policies designed for those high density, urban areas.


And maybe people in other parts of Ontario (outside the GTA - Greater Toronto Area) feel the same way, too.  Because everything, as always, is about the GTA.   Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!

And Saskatchewan has announced & Manitoba is considering (and they are both low density, largely rural provinces) plans to gradually open things back up, still with considerable restrictions in place.  I wish them well - for all of our sakes!

[I poached this chart from the Toronto Star.]


Okay, too much editorializing and not enough COVID stats!

So yesterday's COVID new cases in Canada....

Hmmm..that curve doesn't look to be flattening.  Middle of the month it was looking pretty good. Although now, Alberta is a solid contributor to that increase.

Mortality....

That doesn't look to be trending in the right way either.  With almost 100 deaths in Quebec yesterday.  And five in Alberta, which is a lot for them.

One of the issues in Alberta is outbreaks in meat packing plants. So farmers can't get their goods to grocery stores.  Same thing in the US.

A big US grocer, Publix, is now purchasing food from farmers - that they have been forced to dump recently - and donating it to local food banks.  Very good.

They have also implemented another worthwhile policy in Florida.