Now, plenty of Canadians had Covid earlier in the year. In Ontario, the peak was around late February / early March. (The source of this graph is https://wwater.ca/Ontario; orange on the graph is COVID-19; pink, flu A; blue, flu B; and black, RSV.)
Still, what appears to be happening in Ontario, and Canada-wide, and in other countries, is that the infection peaks are lower year on year, which you can also see in the above graph.
This is not exactly expected, given that basically nothing is being done to stop the spread of this disease: vaccine uptake is low, mask usage isn’t prevalent in Western countries, efforts to improve ventilation and filtration are minimal, paid sick days haven’t become mandatory everywhere, and so on.
So why this is happening, exactly, is a bit of a mystery. I personally wonder if it’s related to another bit of good news about this disease: that the Covid virus is disappearing in wild animals. Because they used to say that the fact that Covid did have such a large pool of animal reservoirs meant that it would endure and continue to mutate. But now it seems to have specialized in humans. (Important to note that you can still infect your pet cats with Covid, though! But they are unlikely to infect you.)
Should I change my masking behavior as a result?
That is the question. Most people dropped masking when the government said they could, or shortly thereafter. I have stubbornly persisted with it, in most public indoor spaces. Excluded are restaurants (though friends / family all know my patio preference) and wine tastings (outdoor or private preferred there, too).
Sidenote: By “mask” I mean a respirator, which is an either N95 (headstrap) or a KN95/94 mask—not a surgical or cloth mask. If I’m going to go through the social and physical discomfort of masking in the first place, I’m going to wear a mask that gives me maximum protection. Surgicals are cheap and easily available, but they gap at the sides, which can let virus and other pollutants in.
Bonus: respirator masks don’t fog up my glasses or cling to my face getting all gross and wet. Very breathable versions are available now as well (see: BreatheTeq by Canada Strong Masks). And they come in fun colours.
These are the reasons I’ve persisted:
To avoid catching Covid
To protect myself against other airborne contaminants.
To protect other people.
To show solidarity.
To keep up the habit.
The question is, how relevant do these factors remain?
It was just a small listing in the What’s Happening Waterloo newsletter:
Agit-Pop! Musical Meditations on the Pre-Post-Apocalypse
Intriguing.
Reading further:
Superstar drag comedienne Pearle Harbour performs her doomsday cabaret. Laughs & tears through the headlines, and hits from David Bowie, to Britney Spears. A hilarious and heartbreaking cabaret for the end times. Agit-Pop! reimagines the hits of Bowie, Britney, Judy Garland, Tom Waits and more as you’ve never heard them before.
Sounded right up my alley, really. Drag. Doom. Pop.
Jean, ever the trooper, agreed to come along.
As we approached the door, I noticed that all the theatre staff were masked, which was refreshing. Then the man a bit ahead of us in line turned around to go back out, stating “I’ll just go get the mask in my car!” Huh. Then I noticed the “Please wear a mask for this performance” sign. Double huh! Hadn’t seen one of those in many a moon!
Policy was not strictly enforced, so some people remained unmasked. But, I’d say a good 90% to 95% went along with it. Peer pressure, eh. Can also be a force for good!
But. On with the show.
Though it’s not the easiest to describe, as I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Admittedly, I don’t go to a ton of drag shows regardless, but have seen a few, and I don’t think this was a typical one of those.
Pearle Harbour, accompanied by a single musician who can play multiple instruments, discusses the various challenges and problems facing our world. The need for Indigenous reconciliation. The climate crisis. The ongoing Covid epidemic. Anti-immigration sentiments.
And interspersed it with pop music, not as a distraction, but as a commentary.
5 years. That’s all we’ve got.
My loneliness is killing me.
There’s a land I dream of… Somewhere, over the rainbow
I think I just wasn’t made for these times…
But it was still drag. So it was not all po-faced. There was bawdiness, there were jokes, there was a whole lot of audience engagement and participation. A tragicomedienne, she is called, and that sounds about right.
Given all the interaction, Jean enjoyed the evening as much as I did. We did the wave—the Covid wave! We discussed the etymology of agit prop. We shared guilty pleasures. We stood en masse to do the duck and cover. To a background of Cold War era cartoons (some of which are quite something).
Bit late to tell you this now, but she also play Waterford and Fergus. Then she’s moving on to other provinces (and bigger cities—Montreal, Calgary).
On a bike ride the other day, I decided to make a point of noticing how many other riders were also wearing helmets. It was a clear majority—probably 80%? Although we were not on difficult trails or busy streets. Most roller bladers, e-scooter riders, and skateboarders were also helmeted.
Interesting.
Then I got home and looked up whether it was actually mandatory to wear a helmet when riding a bike in Ontario. And for adults, it is not.
Interesting.
Particularly given that Covid is contagious, incurable, airborne, rampant, the third leading cause of death in Canada, and a huge burden on the healthcare system… Yet hardly anyone wears a mask.
Public health messaging
You might think I’m about to say this is public health messaging failure, but I think it’s actually a huge success… In terms of their intention anyway, which was to discourage masking.
Because ongoing masking would make it seem that Covid was still a problem, and then there might be some pressure to do something about it. And their political masters, the politicians, didn’t want particularly want to do anything more about it. Two years, man. Enough!
But no, you might say, public health still tells people to mask. People just don’t because it’s not mandatory anymore, and because masks are uncomfortable.
So how do you explain bike helmets? Condom use? Sunscreen (sticky!)? None of these products are mandatory, and none are more comfortable to wear than to go without, yet somehow the mature majority manages to routinely use all of these for protection anyway.
No, I think the messaging achieved just what it intended to. They said:
You can wear a mask to protect yourself.
Masking is recommended for people at risk of severe outcomes from Covid, such as those over 65 and the immunocompromised.
Everyone’s choices on masking need to be respected.
Though the provincial medical advisory panel advised against it (literally predicting that will be a “disaster”), most of Ontario has been allowed to reopen to some extent, including Waterloo region. As we near a year of this “hiding in our basement” thing, and vaccines are finally rolling out in higher numbers, it would just be annoying to get infected now. So I’m trying to stay cautious. I’m finding the lure of haircut harder to resist with each day of increasingly shaggy hair. But I’m good with sticking with takeout over indoor dining (now allowed, with up to 10 patrons).
This Friday’s takeout target was Public Kitchen & Bar, where they do a very nice pot de foie and delicious fruit crepes, among other things. A difference in reopening is that we waited just inside their doors for our order to be assembled, instead of for them to deliver it to our car. They have an open view of the kitchen, and peering in to that, I couldn’t help but notice that none of the four or five cooks in there were wearing a mask.
And that seemed… odd. But I’ll get back to that later.
Loloan Lobby Bar was not one of those restaurants that offered takeout during the shutdown, so we did prick up our ears when we heard that it would reopen once patios were allowed. In this, they were aided by City of Waterloo deciding to block off Princess Street for pedestrian use.
Our experience with Loloan in the past has been a bit of mixed bag. We’ve never had a bad meal there, but have had a number where the food didn’t seem quite outstanding enough for the price. On the other hand, we were fairly blown away by their New Year’s Eve dinner. As that was a fixed menu, Jean suggested that maybe we weren’t good at picking the right things at Loloan.
Their online patio menu had a fairly minimal number of items, but they looked good. They were not taking reservations, so we decided to just head there right after work on a not-rainy Wednesday.
The first surprise was their notice that they weren’t taking any credit cards, just debit or cash. Interesting choice.
The second was that the cutlery we received, once seated, was distinctly… plastic (and wooden, for the chopsticks). The glasses, however, were glass.
And the menus were literally hot off the presses: we had to wait for them to be printed (not excessively long, or anything). We didn’t have trouble choosing items of interest from the short array. We went with pork satay and pork / vegetable dumpling appetizers, lemongrass cod with rice and cucumber salad as the main, and the only dessert, which combined a variety of tropical ingredients. We shared everything.
The list of wines by the glass was modest, and Jean asked which one might work best with the variety of food we’d selected. The waiter returned with a Chenin Blanc that wasn’t even on the menu, but was fantastic. Later, when I’d finished a kir, they returned with an off-dry Semillon/Sauvignon blend that we also really enjoyed, and that was also not on the list. Nice touch.
The two appetizers were very delicious, though also served in more “disposable” containers. The waiter at one point commented that a lot of their dishes were still in storage… The mains and dessert came on actual plates, though, which we were very excited about. Even better, they were also delicious! This time, we did feel we got value for the money.
The side dish part of the main course (with my main dish, Jean)Dessert included coconut sorbet, mango gel, and lychee gelee
I’d had the impression that Princess Street was supposed to shared by several restaurants, but Loloan seemed to be the only one operating this day, and they had quite a few tables available. I noticed they did some of the cooking outside the restaurant, on a barbecue, and that all the staff were wearing masks.
Speaking of masks, I had recently tweeted this tidbit:
Waterloo mask bylaw passed July 9. Stage 3 reopening July 17. And now… https://t.co/DZjBcfgCaE
— Catherine McNair 🇺🇦 🏳️🌈 (@cathylenair) July 31, 2020
I know it could just be correlation, and not causation, but it was still great to have three days of 0 new cases locally this past week.
I haven’t done a ton of shopping, but for what I have, I am finding that almost all customers are respecting the mask bylaw. What confounds me a bit are places where the salespeople are not. For me that’s only been two places, but others report…
It is so disappointing to see so many of the small retail businesses I've been looking forward to visiting have staff without masks in small spaces…
What do you do about that? Because I feel like something should be done. I’m good with not confronting another customer who’s not wearing a mask. But the staff? I realize they could claim the same “medical exemptions” that customers do, but hey, how about wearing a face shield then (as I saw one grocery worker do, and I’m cool with that).
And, I also appreciate that it’s a lot harder to for them to wear a mask for a whole work shift than it is for me on my short shopping trip. Some masks are more comfortable than others, and would be nice if employers (or the government?) supplied those.
But before we can come up with solutions, we have to draw attention to the fact that there’s a problem. And I don’t know how to do that.
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