COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US)
My pleasure. I think Canada is going to look back on this and realize they should have shut down international travel MUCH sooner than they did. Personal opinion, they tried so hard to look progressive it will come at the expense of either the economy, lives or both. They haven't handled this as poorly as the USA but they sure shot themselves in the foot by not closing down travel early. At least they tested early and appear to be doing most everything else right.
This is one of my primary criticisms. I don't think it was for the same reasons, honestly. People that I've talked to who work at ports of entry (including a high level security admin at Toronto's Pearson airport) explained things differently - many of the initial references led to commerce, Canadians abroad (which is still the case), and US border relations, and other factors.
Still, the net impact is the same. One professor I work with who is from Greece and sympathetic toward Toronto's diverse, global community was very critical of not closing borders earlier - because he was hearing so much from his family and relatives in Europe. He was calling for strident measures weeks earlier than they were implemented.
I would add one other - there were indications of community spread earlier. The stance of the government had been, to this point, there are certain measures that had to be satisfied before it was confirmed and they didn't want to confirm without certainty. But there was a case more than a week before they started calling for social distancing measures that should have received priority testing queue placement because it was suspected community spread. Turns out, it was. Now, another line of defense was that there were a lot of surveillance tests that were administered - to monitor for community spread - that came back negative. All of them.
But still, if there's a possible one confirmed out there - that's all it takes.
I will say that the reaction of the people has been positive. And aside from provincial and federal policy, that's really important. The governments play a role, no doubt. But the biggest impact comes from people adhering to the measures and there is more adherence here than there is back home, based on the news I am following and reports from people back home.
In the end, I think that makes a huge difference.
I also want the US border to stay closed down - I don't want cases crossing the border from the States. Nobody else here does, either.
Finally, fwiw, I noted what a Toronto hospital doctor said about the stats of hospitals in the city - quiet for now. Two weeks ago, she said that their board was nothing but suspected COVID patients and a lot of them were negative. Fewer people are coming in and they are seeing fewer people in the hospital, even though the cases are rising - a lot of people are and have been isolating from home. But they know things are going to change and could at any moment. The next few days are frightening.