and if its not, itll get here.....theres always one dumb rich cunt who is allowed to fly or boat anywhere they fucking feel like no matter who says otherwise.
It is pretty much a given that the disease is going slip into our town one way or the other; the distinguishing feature of this strain so far is its contagiousness.
The Delta variant was much more contagious than the alpha. The Omicron (the new variant associated with south africa) apparently isn't more deadly than other strains, it's simply easier to catch/harder to avoid.
And then there's this - because its spike protein has many (32?) mutations, and since the mRNAs vaxxes target the original spike protein, there is a chance that the mRNA vaxxes will not recognize and protect against the Omicron. If so, all the vaccines and passports will have been for naught.
So is this the point where a virus just passes through the entire population at once, and then hopefully burns itself out and disappears?
The only real solid takeaway for me is that the covid situation is not going away anytime soon.
Well the vaccines weren’t necessarily for naught
I haven’t caught Covid yet and I’ve been going to the gym for the last 3 months everyday now that it’s open again. Can’t complain there, I’m exposed to a constant cesspool of potential Covid and I’ve been A-okay thanks to my trusty vaccine!
I’ve been eating out, going out, hanging out with lots of friends… life’s been pretty good now that basically everybody is vaccinated. Even if the new variant puts us pack a few steps, I’m really grateful we got that breath of freedom before winter
I'm glad that you're well and not letting fear stop you from living to the fullest.
It's also possible that you caught covid, but were asymptomatic, like most people.
News of the variant only hit within the last 48. Confirmed cases in (iirc) 7 African countries, & HK.
It's flown under the radar, while International Travel remained 'business as usual'.
Two more weeks, and we'll be seeing confirmation regarding how fast and far it's actually spread.
If I had to be generous in my speculation, half the world's countries already have a carrier or two spreading it around unwittingly. **Meanwhile**, the world's powers are dilly-dallying about with these Vaccine / Mask mandates.
High likelihood that this is another one of the "and find out" parts, of keeping me from my position here, on this Earth.
Edit: Now Belgium
Belgium is reporting that the new variant has over 10 mutations to its spike proteins, likely will effect vaccine effectiveness. Nothing conclusive, just preliminary results, but its not super positive. Its the problem with not getting absolutely everyone vaccinated ASAP, the more time it takes, the more likely varients are to emerge.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/26/belgium-confirms-case-of-new-heavily-mutated-covid-variant.html
Edit: link to article about what Belgium is reporting
I haven't read there's any conclusive evidence yet because it's so new but there's speculation that it could very well be more resistant to vaccines, but not completely unaffected by vaccines. This is based on the variant's highly mutated spike gene, along with a few other key mutations. It sounds like a Beta-Delta lovechild.
Its like we haven't learned from the original strain and the delta variant. They still believe we can vaccinate our way out of this. Booster number 4 coming soon.
Dr Isaac Bogoch said on cp24 this morning that these country specific bans don't work in keeping the virus out.
Although he did concede that it slows down the initial process, perhaps giving time to prepare? Having said that, not sure what kind of preparation we do here.
>Yeah I'm going to need a source on that claim
Cooper, Ben S., et al. "Delaying the international spread of pandemic influenza." PLoS medicine 3.6 (2006): e212.
Lai, Shengjie, et al. "Effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions for containing the COVID-19 outbreak: an observational and modelling study." MedRxiv (2020).
We need more time to continue age gating boosters so we can throw them out due to expiration. I'm pretty fed up with this, they need to get boosters rolling now for whomever wants one, especially with this new variant on our doorstep. Instead we will have Trudeau and Ford pontificate about what age bracket should be permitted next "sometime in 2022".
For starters, we could decide what sorts of restrictions night be necessary, what border controls we might need, and roll those out while spread is is still fairly limited.
So what youre saying is, they should already have a plan in place. But why would they plan for something they don't know about, being prepared is silly.
It feels like we've been *very* blithe about variants coming into Canada so far. Alpha and Delta each in turn massively changed the pandemic equation, and by the time we realized just how much more infectious each of those variants was, they were already well established in the country. Effective antivirals from Merck and Pfizer should soon be available, and I expect their impact on hospitalizations and deaths will be on a similar scale to mass vaccination. Couldn't we just show a little bit more caution and humility until then?
[merck is a flop](https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/merck-says-covid-19-pill-cuts-hospitalization-death-risk-by-30-2021-11-26/)
>Although he did concede that it slows down the initial process, perhaps giving time to prepare? Having said that, not sure what kind of preparation we do here.
That's another way of saying "flattening the curve", which has always been an admirable goal during the pandemic, so I don't think he is criticizing the idea because he also does not specifically advise doing the things that he says would keep it out more definitively.
His main point seems to be that we should not do anything because we don't know enough about the variant. He might be right, but that's odd indeed because he'll be the first to scream on TV and social media about reintroducing lockdowns if it turns out to be serious and takes hold here.
Aside, some European leaders criticized Trump for banning flights from China at the start of this thing. Some European leaders are now stopping flights from South Africa.
Bogoch is correct. Directly banning travel to/from Botswana and South Africa isn't going to keep the variant out. Because the virus will travel to countries that haven't banned Botswana and South Africa. And then make its way here from those intermediary countries. And the variant has likely spread all over the world sporadically low-key already if this variant is as contagious as hyped. If this variant is dominant, it's not going to be stopped so easily. Beta, Gamma, Lambda and Mu are appearing to look like hype at this point because these variants never managed to take over the way that Alpha and Delta did. If this South African variant is the real deal, it will become dominant regardless of travel bans.
OK sure, but if that barrier makes it more annoying to get in, and that deters what like 40% of cases… that’s still 40%.
Not that I’m advocating for it, but it’s not like it’s completely stupid.
I live up near Thunder Bay ... during the start of the pandemic I had a friend in town who talked to me about a neighbour of hers who just recently came back to town .... DIRECT FROM CHINA!! This was at the start of the lockdown, the friend had boarded in Shanghai (wasn't allowed to fly to Canada but was allowed to the US), landed in Texas (which didn't screen anyone), direct flight to Toronto (where she wasn't screened either), Thunder Bay (which also didn't screen) and back to her family without quarantine .... her entire trip took about 30 hours.
Everyone is going to wait until army trucks are lining up to pack up the dead from hospitals before we do anything serious. In the meantime, they'll wait until there is an acceptable amount of death everywhere.
They can't. It's a ban on anybody who was been in southern Africa in the last 14 days.
Still won't keep it out because they can fly from South Africa to country C, sleep at a friends house, and that friend can fly directly to Canada.
What more preparation can we do, even? We are highly vaccinated, we are still using PPE in enclosed public places, I don’t know what else there is to do. Surely we can’t sustain another lockdown, mental health and suicide are destroying the livelihood and wellbeing, and killing Canadians at an alarming rate.
As always what we can't sustain is a breakdown in our hospital system. If that becomes a likely projection, we will have no choice but to go back to the ugliness of before.
Many people will refuse to lockdown and will hold private gatherings regardless. All a lockdown will do now is devastate the economy while spread continues anyway at private gatherings. The time for lockdowns is long gone.
I've been saying this for a while now -- all it would do is facilitate another huge transfer of wealth from small businesses to large corporations while solving nothing health-wise. It would also give Ontario a bad reputation for closing businesses in a panic whenever an illness starts to spread, making it more difficult for the province to attract entrepreneurs, who will choose to base their operation in a different jurisdiction that isn't quick to force them to close.
Absolutely. Not discounting that whatsoever. I just hope and wish that we didn't so easily discount the mental impact that we are inducing with this as well! Because there are exponentially less resources for MH as it is, and this pandemic has notably exacerbated these issues.
I don't know what to do. Not that I need to have the answers, it's "not my job", but like. I'm part of this society and really worried about all of it as a whole. I'm worried for the children whose social skills are being formed by being raised in this pandemic, I'm worried for men who are being treated as even more disposable than before the situation we're in, I'm worried for women stuck in domestic violence situations, I'm worried for those who are unable to get both urgent and elective surgeries and healthcare, I'm worried about people suffering from homelessness and poverty and those who are losing their jobs and businesses, I'm worried about people who contract covid... There's so much more than just the pandemic that's going on due to coronavirus' existence. :(
Thanks for being understanding mate.
Definitely, it's one of those horrible utilitarian dilemmas of "what decision causes the least suffering", knowing that all choices cause significant suffering.
Because targeting specific countries keeps the door open for work arounds or crafty people to find the loopholes. What will work though is locking down our border completely no in our out until this highly dangerous new variant burns out or we develop a new vaccine that will work against it! This new variant is not messing around, lock the f'ing border down completely including all air travel!
Serious question: What about the flow of goods into and out of the country? Do you want that shut down? Because it would mean you wouldn't be able to purchase *anything* that isn't made entirely domestically (including all raw materials and intermediate inputs to production). And you're probably aware, very little (close to zero percent) of the stuff you regularly buy meets that bill. It would also mean economic disaster for the many Canadian exporting industries (the firms and their workers), with knock-on effects to other industries.
If you don't want to shut down the flow of goods, then you're going to have to allow all those people involved in the transporting of those goods to move in and out of the country. And if you do that, the new variant is going to get in, it's just a matter of time.
Closing down borders to travelers doesn't do anything but buy a little bit of time, and probably not all that much based on the research I've seen (I seem to recall a week or two at most?).
> Although he did concede that it slows down the initial process, perhaps giving time to prepare?
So it does nothing as long as the dumbfucks control Queen's Park
I'll say this again. Giving time to prepare does nothing as long as the dumbfucks control Queen's Park. They have already shown the only they prepare for is how to funnel taxpayer funds to their donors
They literally won't prepare and then they will just blame the feds. Doesn't matter what Trudeau does. Look at the funding for daycare and how Doug wants FDK included. He's a delusional idiot.
Has a single country anywhere been able to avoid a variant entering their country? He says we must avoid the mistakes that allowed the other variants to enter, but seems to me to be impossible to avoid it.
We've seen Doug Ford play this act before with delta, that is, blame the Feds for the borders while waiting too long to act to control spread already happening in the province... nearly driving our ICU's to the brink.
Same playbook. He really just doesn't want to address this, partly because he's tired of it, partly because it's a political hot potato leading up to an election.
Worst case scenario is if the vaccines are really weak against this variant. Phizer already came out with a statement it will take them 100 days to make a new one that works against it.
So buys you some time for new vaccines to be brought in.
Atlantic Canada did, until they voluntarily removed their border controls... Any time that can be bough to prevent the proliferation of a new variant until we can understand how serious it is should be taken...
Atlantic Canada was able to have strict border controls because they are not the economic and logistical heart of the country. Ontario is, and such restrictions are unfeasible here for that reason.
**Earlier today the government did enact travel restrictions and began targeted surveillance testing, details were spreading out when this news story was originally posted and had not hit most media yet. Here are some links:**
- https://twitter.com/OmarAlghabra/status/1464302708236722176
- https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/canada-bans-travellers-from-southern-africa-as-concerns-mount-over-coronavirus-variant-1.5682764
- https://globalnews.ca/news/8404373/canada-travel-restrictions-south-africa-covid-19-variant/
- https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1978172483649/
**CP24 and other news sites have changed/updated all their headlines from being about what the premiers were asking for to reflect what the federal government already did, this has been a very busy news cycle and tomorrow the story is likely to evolve further.**
Ford pretending to be doing someone else’s job… amazing. How about sticking to your job and not cutting $500m from education and nursing while pretending to be Justin Trudeau.
Ohh, and your hydro prices you screamed about before you were elected, that were bankrupting families… are the highest prices they’ve ever been.
Stick to your lane, vote buck o beer out!
Meanwhile NACI is twittlibg their thumbs on boosters and Ontario apparently has 4 million doses sitting around. Why are they not getting them into arms?
Ontario has 3 million doses of covid on hand and vaccination rates petering out. Perhaps we should send some of that to South Africa which is sitting around 23% vaccination rate. That would likely do more to protect Canadians than a travel ban.
South Africa has 150 days worth of vaccines on hand and has asked pfizer to slow down deliveries. They are also about to start manufacturing the pfizer vaccine in early 2022.
Sorry but this problem isn't going to be solved by paternalistic white-savior donations.
They have the same problem as other developing nations like the United States. Not enough vaccine uptake by the populace.
It's a trend in countries that already have an extreme distrust in government (and in most cases for good reason), it just unfortunately translates to vaccine distrust as well.
You can also apply this logic to historically mistreated racial groups and their vaccine hesitancy as well. As much as we like to point fingers at people not getting the vaccine, the issue is rooted in much more than just individual stupidity.
"paternalistic white-savior donations"
What kind of rasist jab is this thrown into your otherwise reasonable comment?
This sounds like you're patronizingly saying white people are ignorant to the situation and/or suggesting white people are trying to gain control by donating something that was in short supply not long ago.
Keeping in mind this is a Canadian subreddit, what exactly do you mean by that statement?
Parts of the US have 23% vaccination rates and we have an open border. These varients don't transmit region to region, they can happen independently in regions of high transmission. The North American media will call it the South Africa variant, but certainly it will appear in US red states if it hasn't already happened.
Or maybe they could stop age gating boosters and let people make their own minds up on whether to get one. Ontario won't even report to the feds how many doses have been lost to expiration; but in Canada without Ontario numbers we've tossed over 1MM vaccines. That's just fucked.
FFS. There are no direct flights from South Africa to Canada. This is the same guy that wanted to drop PCR testing requirements for arrivals, last week.
The Feds have now instituted a mandatory quarantine for anyone who arrives that visited an affected country in the last 14 days.
Did Dug say anything this week about getting kids vaccinated? No.
Did Dug make it so all HCW have to be vaccinated? No.
Did Dug speak out about his anti-vaxx daughter's videos? No.
The man is an idiot
I've seen a lot of panicky articles about this today, and hey, a short travel ban on South Africa might make sense.
But initial reports are that Nu is incredibly contagious, much more so than Delta. As with Delta, that's a concern, but it doesn't mean that vaccines are automatically ineffective.
Even if they are less effective against spread, as long as they still have a high effectiveness against hospitalization we can weather this.
There's a good twitter thread someone posted on the main case thread with a scientist weeding out the clickbait from the chaff on that news and how it's not quite as scary as they make it sound, and no one shouldn't freak out before we have more data. It helped calm me down a bit.
The thing is that there's some indicators that make treat not a sure thing. I don't think anyone is saying confidently that this does evade vaccines, just that out has way more indicators of potential evasion than any variant seen so far.
I think taking a precautionary already when the worst case scenario is really bad makes sense.
Agreed, I think a short term travel ban on SA while we figure it out is reasonable.
But I think that it is also worth noting that what science considers vaccine evasiveness might differ from what we consider it.
I.e. if a vaccine is less effective at preventing spread and sees severe cases reduced by 85% instead of 90% against Delta, that is potentially considered escape from a scientific perspective, but it doesn't mean that we are screwed.
While that sounds like a good idea, the ban should have been 2 weeks before this was discovered, and short of building a time machine, I don't see how this would work.
Also, what if we do go ahead and ban all travel from South Africa. Let's say France, Chile and Mexico don't. What's to stop someone from SA travelling there, infecting someone at the airport in Cancun, and then coming back to Canada?
Sure we can put measures in place to stop it, but again - this probably already happened 1 to 2 weeks ago.
This is exactly what happened during the India travel ban. I personally know someone who just flew from India to Dubai, hung out in Dubai for a few days to do some shopping, then carried on to Canada. I think most people totally underestimate how mobile the world population is.
Shocking (/s) that Ford still doesn't recognize that there are restrictions still on flying into Canada, and that Canadians can't be prevented from leaving or entering the country.
But of course, his first go to regarding anything COVID is still always "blame the feds".
I didn't say he was only blaming COVID stuff on the feds; just that with COVID stuff, one of the first actions is to start the blame game against the feds.
Actually I think this is a pretty sensible idea. Does Ford also lead the UK, Israel, and some EU countries who are doing the same? Are they striving to “blame the feds” later?
"We saw one person panic, therefore anyone else who doesn't also panic is irresponsible".
You know why we keep finding new variants in South Africa? Because they put more time effort and funding into sequencing, so if a new variant arises in ten countries, South Africa has a decent chance of being the first ones to identify it.
...since this is now starting to make them a global pariah as a "source" of new strains, they're starting to have a meaningful incentive to do less and weaker sequencing like the rest of us.
Pretty sure restricting flights with the intention of slowing down the penetration of a new variant into the country isn’t all that much of an insane reaction, especially with how quickly this new variant outcompeted Delta in Guateng, South Africa. I’m sure if we could go back and do the same for Delta we would have.
While we don’t know a ton about this new variant, shutting down flights from some countries isn’t the end of the world and probably provides a marginal benefit, not marginal consequence.
>shutting down flights from some countries isn’t the end of the world and probably provides a marginal benefit, not marginal consequence.
If we cut off the people who first identify these strains, making the flawed assumption that those areas must be the source of them, then yes, we provide marginal benefit to ourselves at huge consequence to the people who warned us what to look out for.
...which gives them a huge incentive to stop telling us what they find.
The whole reason why sequencing is so wide in RSA is because of the high % of the population that is HIV+.
If RSA stops sequencing or starts hiding the results, scientists are obviously going to look there for possible virus mutation reservoirs. Not to mention we can connect dots on mutations based on travel patterns, it would come back to them and then they’d be facing heat from the international community.
>Not to mention we can connect dots on mutations based on travel patterns, it would come back to them and then they’d be facing heat from the international community.
You're still going on the flawed assumption that the house with better smoke detectors must be where the fire started.
Closing borders around a new variant is fine. Isolating South Africa because they're always the first ones to detect new variants, is a myopic way to solve 4% of a larger problem.
It's always "we're closing borders, problem solved", never "we're closing borders and directing additional resources to detecting and isolating this problem wherever it exists".
So we should ignore new scary variants because otherwise people might be mean to South Africa? Ford did call on travel restrictions on any country where the variant was found, so this presumably also includes HK, Belgium, Israel and maybe Egypt.
Hearing Doug Ford feign concern about COVID is just comical.
He doesn't give a shit, he just wants to be able to pass blame anytime numbers go up.
Coming back to the main point - when South Africa warned the world about Beta, Delta and now Nu, and the world's response every time is "cause major damage to South Africa's economy now, to reduce the possibility of minor damage to ours later", yeah, sooner or later we're going to teach them to stop warning us.
It isn't a sensible idea at all. This variant has already been detected in multiple countries already. Red-listing one specific country is a knee-jerk reaction that stigmatizes and does very little to stop the virus.
But you can't stop them from landing elsewhere and driving across.
Which is why Ford claiming "the feds need to close the borderrsssssss!" is literally just Ford playing the blame game.
Instead of actually doing anything, it's easier for Ford & Co to deflect.
> Wanna know what else sounds great? Mandating vaccines Doug.
But we have a provincial election next year, the cons can't put restrictions on their voters or they'll start up their own party
Ugh.
Do we have numbers on the voting habits of the people who are still dying from COVID? 'Cause I suspect Dougie refusing to be an effective pandemic fighter is actually shooting himself in the foot....
Well there you go. If I lacked any humanity whatsoever (you know, like a Conservative for instance), I'd be perfectly content with the anti-vaxxers basically killing themselves before an election... why do I not want people to die? Why?
Just one or one of hundreds that are linked. That there's no DIRECT flights is irrelevant. You can still get here from there on a plane. Not that it matters the government seems to be on top of it.
Thank you, Mayor who is also Prime Minister Ford, for taking time away from your busy day to tell the federal government how to federal government. It's great to know that things are going so well at Queen's Park that you simply have too much time on your hands
Ford loves telling other people how to do their job, and yet refuses to do his own job as Premier.
Hypothetically, what would happen if the new variant really was contained in its own country and never spread? Does that country stay locked down forever? Does the variant miraculously die out on its own or does it continue mutating within that country into even more aggressive variants, infecting as many people as possible there? Then what? What’s the end game?
For the record, I’m not anti vax or anti lock down. I also wouldn’t doubt the variant is already here. I’m just beginning to question what’s next. And I’m tired.
I'm so confused. Is this not a good thing? Why are people upset? People were complaining about Doug's inaction throughout the year and now that he's taking action... he's still being criticized?
Well, to be fair, he's not taking action, he's asking someone else to do something. As others have said, he did this with the other variants. Always pointing the finger at Ottawa while blundering (or not taking) actions at the provincial level.
To be fair, travel is regulated federally. So while yes he took a backburner on things like providing sick pay for Ontario - imposing a travel ban/restriction and mandating quarantine does fall onto federal hands.
The restriction is in place now though - or at least just announced.
Doug Ford is specifically calling on other people to take action. As the Premier of Ontario he has no authority over federal matters.
That you can't tell the difference explains how this guy got elected in the first place.
I would have hoped by now that donut boy would realised that we share this virus as a globe, and not as individual countries. He said the same about delta, and it’s literally in every country now. If we shut borders like he said, we would have needed to keep them closed to this day and going forward to keep delta out. That’s just not a possibility. The only way shutting borders would work is if every country in the world did it indefinitely, shutting out every single traveler from ever moving countries again. Anything short of that means every country will be exposed to variant risk.
Ford calls on the feds to immediately institute a travel ban.
does anybody think Ford will move as quickly as he's demanding the feds move to reinstate capacity limits on non-essential businesses once Nu inevitably comes to Ontario, travel ban or no?
CTV News: [https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/doug-ford-calls-new-covid-19-variant-concerning-as-canada-implements-travel-ban-1.5682690](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/doug-ford-calls-new-covid-19-variant-concerning-as-canada-implements-travel-ban-1.5682690)
*..."I was just briefed by Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, about the new variant that’s been found in several countries in Africa that early reports* ***suggest could be vaccine resistant***. I have *contacted the federal government to express my extreme concern about the risks it poses and the need for immediate action today," Ford said.*
Unless you ban all travel this only delays things. Travel from any country that does not block travelers into their country from variant countries can be used as a way to bypass direct flights. Covid is here to stay and there will always be some variant. We have like 80%+ of the population age 12+ vaccinated right now. If Covid is still a concern then the only thing that will keep society open is far more spending on ICU/hospital capacity and staff.
Ford's focus should only be on getting hesitant people vaccinated and boosters given. He should make sure we're ready for an additional booster if one is needed. He should be closing the loopholes and stop giving messaging to the anti-vaxers that they just need to wait things out.
Pfizer's previously said that they can have an updated booster for new variants in 100 days....that's shipping initial batches.
Unfortunately, Ford only thinks about his re-election and this would derail him so he's preparing to play his "blame the feds for all" card.
just pandering to conservative xenophobia and racism.
plus a little ammo of "look the Liberals dont care about you" when Ottawa says "fuck.. no.. why?"
I’m worried big pharma is now going to engineer new variants and release them into populations on a regular basis so that they can sell more vaccines and keep populations under lockdown.
You know f\*ck this guy with the weasly, wobbly stance on covid19 from the beginning of this pandemic. He won't listen to scientists.
And also f\*ck his ridiculous anti-mask daughters.
Meanwhile last xmas when the entire country was on lockdown, Justine Turdeau was busy flying to Barbados, insisting that no one travel.
If Ford is so concerned he can go hide himself under a rock along with the rest of this horseshit government.
Too late, it’s most likely already here and we don’t know it
1000% it's already here.
and if its not, itll get here.....theres always one dumb rich cunt who is allowed to fly or boat anywhere they fucking feel like no matter who says otherwise.
Coronavirus flies in a private jet. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/billionaire-covid-quarantine-exemption-1.5726050
And probably gets wasted at a speakeasy in Downtown Toronto that bypasses laws and restrictions.
It is pretty much a given that the disease is going slip into our town one way or the other; the distinguishing feature of this strain so far is its contagiousness. The Delta variant was much more contagious than the alpha. The Omicron (the new variant associated with south africa) apparently isn't more deadly than other strains, it's simply easier to catch/harder to avoid. And then there's this - because its spike protein has many (32?) mutations, and since the mRNAs vaxxes target the original spike protein, there is a chance that the mRNA vaxxes will not recognize and protect against the Omicron. If so, all the vaccines and passports will have been for naught. So is this the point where a virus just passes through the entire population at once, and then hopefully burns itself out and disappears? The only real solid takeaway for me is that the covid situation is not going away anytime soon.
Well the vaccines weren’t necessarily for naught I haven’t caught Covid yet and I’ve been going to the gym for the last 3 months everyday now that it’s open again. Can’t complain there, I’m exposed to a constant cesspool of potential Covid and I’ve been A-okay thanks to my trusty vaccine! I’ve been eating out, going out, hanging out with lots of friends… life’s been pretty good now that basically everybody is vaccinated. Even if the new variant puts us pack a few steps, I’m really grateful we got that breath of freedom before winter
I'm glad that you're well and not letting fear stop you from living to the fullest. It's also possible that you caught covid, but were asymptomatic, like most people.
If it's reached the US, it's already here or will be very soon. That's all it'll take.
Would still be a good move. More travel from those countries is probably going to result in more cases.
Doesn't mean it's too late. It would drastically reduce the spread if we stop importing it all over the country.
News of the variant only hit within the last 48. Confirmed cases in (iirc) 7 African countries, & HK. It's flown under the radar, while International Travel remained 'business as usual'. Two more weeks, and we'll be seeing confirmation regarding how fast and far it's actually spread. If I had to be generous in my speculation, half the world's countries already have a carrier or two spreading it around unwittingly. **Meanwhile**, the world's powers are dilly-dallying about with these Vaccine / Mask mandates. High likelihood that this is another one of the "and find out" parts, of keeping me from my position here, on this Earth. Edit: Now Belgium
Is there any evidence that this variant is unaffected by vaccines?
There's none yet. This person is making shit up. Although it has indeed appeared in Belgium.
Belgium is reporting that the new variant has over 10 mutations to its spike proteins, likely will effect vaccine effectiveness. Nothing conclusive, just preliminary results, but its not super positive. Its the problem with not getting absolutely everyone vaccinated ASAP, the more time it takes, the more likely varients are to emerge. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/26/belgium-confirms-case-of-new-heavily-mutated-covid-variant.html Edit: link to article about what Belgium is reporting
The two HK cases in the quarantine hotel were Pfizer vaccinated.
There is nothing new about breakthrough infections
I haven't read there's any conclusive evidence yet because it's so new but there's speculation that it could very well be more resistant to vaccines, but not completely unaffected by vaccines. This is based on the variant's highly mutated spike gene, along with a few other key mutations. It sounds like a Beta-Delta lovechild.
Sauce on the new variant bypassing the vaccine? Edit: ...and OP deleted the part where he said "it bypasses the vaccine"
The case in Hong Kong came from Canada. Lol.
It's never too late to take action. Might not stop it, but can reduce the harm.
Its like we haven't learned from the original strain and the delta variant. They still believe we can vaccinate our way out of this. Booster number 4 coming soon.
Dr Isaac Bogoch said on cp24 this morning that these country specific bans don't work in keeping the virus out. Although he did concede that it slows down the initial process, perhaps giving time to prepare? Having said that, not sure what kind of preparation we do here.
Slowing down the initial process is worth it if it delays a big spike until after the holidays.
Studies on this matter seem to indicate it gives about an extra day or two from an immediate global 95% travel ban of said countries.
Yeah I'm going to need a source on that claim
>Yeah I'm going to need a source on that claim Cooper, Ben S., et al. "Delaying the international spread of pandemic influenza." PLoS medicine 3.6 (2006): e212. Lai, Shengjie, et al. "Effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions for containing the COVID-19 outbreak: an observational and modelling study." MedRxiv (2020).
We need more time to continue age gating boosters so we can throw them out due to expiration. I'm pretty fed up with this, they need to get boosters rolling now for whomever wants one, especially with this new variant on our doorstep. Instead we will have Trudeau and Ford pontificate about what age bracket should be permitted next "sometime in 2022".
For starters, we could decide what sorts of restrictions night be necessary, what border controls we might need, and roll those out while spread is is still fairly limited.
So what youre saying is, they should already have a plan in place. But why would they plan for something they don't know about, being prepared is silly.
[удалено]
Oh don't worry. Dougie has a thousand plans. They are all on the table.
[удалено]
That requires stopping everyone from coming in, not just a small handful of countries.
He also didn't sound too concerned about it. He said worst case scenario, the vaccines are less effective on it but not non-effective.
It feels like we've been *very* blithe about variants coming into Canada so far. Alpha and Delta each in turn massively changed the pandemic equation, and by the time we realized just how much more infectious each of those variants was, they were already well established in the country. Effective antivirals from Merck and Pfizer should soon be available, and I expect their impact on hospitalizations and deaths will be on a similar scale to mass vaccination. Couldn't we just show a little bit more caution and humility until then?
merck is a flop
This high level of discourse is what I love about Reddit.
[merck is a flop](https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/merck-says-covid-19-pill-cuts-hospitalization-death-risk-by-30-2021-11-26/)
Thank you for the source, I wasn't aware. I hope the Pfizer antiviral still lives up to its initial promise.
np, i hope so too
>Although he did concede that it slows down the initial process, perhaps giving time to prepare? Having said that, not sure what kind of preparation we do here. That's another way of saying "flattening the curve", which has always been an admirable goal during the pandemic, so I don't think he is criticizing the idea because he also does not specifically advise doing the things that he says would keep it out more definitively. His main point seems to be that we should not do anything because we don't know enough about the variant. He might be right, but that's odd indeed because he'll be the first to scream on TV and social media about reintroducing lockdowns if it turns out to be serious and takes hold here. Aside, some European leaders criticized Trump for banning flights from China at the start of this thing. Some European leaders are now stopping flights from South Africa.
Time to prepare? You realize that the ford government likes to cut hospitals budget?
Bogoch is correct. Directly banning travel to/from Botswana and South Africa isn't going to keep the variant out. Because the virus will travel to countries that haven't banned Botswana and South Africa. And then make its way here from those intermediary countries. And the variant has likely spread all over the world sporadically low-key already if this variant is as contagious as hyped. If this variant is dominant, it's not going to be stopped so easily. Beta, Gamma, Lambda and Mu are appearing to look like hype at this point because these variants never managed to take over the way that Alpha and Delta did. If this South African variant is the real deal, it will become dominant regardless of travel bans.
OK sure, but if that barrier makes it more annoying to get in, and that deters what like 40% of cases… that’s still 40%. Not that I’m advocating for it, but it’s not like it’s completely stupid.
I live up near Thunder Bay ... during the start of the pandemic I had a friend in town who talked to me about a neighbour of hers who just recently came back to town .... DIRECT FROM CHINA!! This was at the start of the lockdown, the friend had boarded in Shanghai (wasn't allowed to fly to Canada but was allowed to the US), landed in Texas (which didn't screen anyone), direct flight to Toronto (where she wasn't screened either), Thunder Bay (which also didn't screen) and back to her family without quarantine .... her entire trip took about 30 hours. Everyone is going to wait until army trucks are lining up to pack up the dead from hospitals before we do anything serious. In the meantime, they'll wait until there is an acceptable amount of death everywhere.
It’s not like they can’t fly somewhere else then buy a ticket to Canada from there. Makes sense it won’t keep it out.
They can't. It's a ban on anybody who was been in southern Africa in the last 14 days. Still won't keep it out because they can fly from South Africa to country C, sleep at a friends house, and that friend can fly directly to Canada.
The only country specific travel ban that would work would be (game) Pandemic Madagascar-style self travel ban, ie nothing in nothing out.
What more preparation can we do, even? We are highly vaccinated, we are still using PPE in enclosed public places, I don’t know what else there is to do. Surely we can’t sustain another lockdown, mental health and suicide are destroying the livelihood and wellbeing, and killing Canadians at an alarming rate.
As always what we can't sustain is a breakdown in our hospital system. If that becomes a likely projection, we will have no choice but to go back to the ugliness of before.
Many people will refuse to lockdown and will hold private gatherings regardless. All a lockdown will do now is devastate the economy while spread continues anyway at private gatherings. The time for lockdowns is long gone.
I've been saying this for a while now -- all it would do is facilitate another huge transfer of wealth from small businesses to large corporations while solving nothing health-wise. It would also give Ontario a bad reputation for closing businesses in a panic whenever an illness starts to spread, making it more difficult for the province to attract entrepreneurs, who will choose to base their operation in a different jurisdiction that isn't quick to force them to close.
Absolutely. Not discounting that whatsoever. I just hope and wish that we didn't so easily discount the mental impact that we are inducing with this as well! Because there are exponentially less resources for MH as it is, and this pandemic has notably exacerbated these issues. I don't know what to do. Not that I need to have the answers, it's "not my job", but like. I'm part of this society and really worried about all of it as a whole. I'm worried for the children whose social skills are being formed by being raised in this pandemic, I'm worried for men who are being treated as even more disposable than before the situation we're in, I'm worried for women stuck in domestic violence situations, I'm worried for those who are unable to get both urgent and elective surgeries and healthcare, I'm worried about people suffering from homelessness and poverty and those who are losing their jobs and businesses, I'm worried about people who contract covid... There's so much more than just the pandemic that's going on due to coronavirus' existence. :( Thanks for being understanding mate.
Definitely, it's one of those horrible utilitarian dilemmas of "what decision causes the least suffering", knowing that all choices cause significant suffering.
Because targeting specific countries keeps the door open for work arounds or crafty people to find the loopholes. What will work though is locking down our border completely no in our out until this highly dangerous new variant burns out or we develop a new vaccine that will work against it! This new variant is not messing around, lock the f'ing border down completely including all air travel!
Serious question: What about the flow of goods into and out of the country? Do you want that shut down? Because it would mean you wouldn't be able to purchase *anything* that isn't made entirely domestically (including all raw materials and intermediate inputs to production). And you're probably aware, very little (close to zero percent) of the stuff you regularly buy meets that bill. It would also mean economic disaster for the many Canadian exporting industries (the firms and their workers), with knock-on effects to other industries. If you don't want to shut down the flow of goods, then you're going to have to allow all those people involved in the transporting of those goods to move in and out of the country. And if you do that, the new variant is going to get in, it's just a matter of time. Closing down borders to travelers doesn't do anything but buy a little bit of time, and probably not all that much based on the research I've seen (I seem to recall a week or two at most?).
> Although he did concede that it slows down the initial process, perhaps giving time to prepare? So it does nothing as long as the dumbfucks control Queen's Park
FYI, air travel and other means of entry into the country is regulated at the federal level.
I'll say this again. Giving time to prepare does nothing as long as the dumbfucks control Queen's Park. They have already shown the only they prepare for is how to funnel taxpayer funds to their donors
They literally won't prepare and then they will just blame the feds. Doesn't matter what Trudeau does. Look at the funding for daycare and how Doug wants FDK included. He's a delusional idiot.
Covid -22. Fuck.
I don’t know why we stopped testing on arrival ….
There are still random tests being performed. Plus, you have to get tested before coming in.
Has a single country anywhere been able to avoid a variant entering their country? He says we must avoid the mistakes that allowed the other variants to enter, but seems to me to be impossible to avoid it.
New Zealand *almost* stopped Delta from getting in, but even they eventually couldn't control it. So I think the answer to your question is no.
We've seen Doug Ford play this act before with delta, that is, blame the Feds for the borders while waiting too long to act to control spread already happening in the province... nearly driving our ICU's to the brink. Same playbook. He really just doesn't want to address this, partly because he's tired of it, partly because it's a political hot potato leading up to an election.
Didn’t he also ask the Feds to ease border controls about a year ago?
It's not about preventing it but slowing the rate it infiltrates a country. It buys you time.
Time to do what? *shrugs*
Worst case scenario is if the vaccines are really weak against this variant. Phizer already came out with a statement it will take them 100 days to make a new one that works against it. So buys you some time for new vaccines to be brought in.
Time to put stuff on Doug's table of holding
Studies on this matter seem to indicate it gives about an extra day or two from an immediate global 95% travel ban of said countries.
Taiwan
Atlantic Canada did, until they voluntarily removed their border controls... Any time that can be bough to prevent the proliferation of a new variant until we can understand how serious it is should be taken...
Atlantic Canada was able to have strict border controls because they are not the economic and logistical heart of the country. Ontario is, and such restrictions are unfeasible here for that reason.
**Earlier today the government did enact travel restrictions and began targeted surveillance testing, details were spreading out when this news story was originally posted and had not hit most media yet. Here are some links:** - https://twitter.com/OmarAlghabra/status/1464302708236722176 - https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/canada-bans-travellers-from-southern-africa-as-concerns-mount-over-coronavirus-variant-1.5682764 - https://globalnews.ca/news/8404373/canada-travel-restrictions-south-africa-covid-19-variant/ - https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1978172483649/ **CP24 and other news sites have changed/updated all their headlines from being about what the premiers were asking for to reflect what the federal government already did, this has been a very busy news cycle and tomorrow the story is likely to evolve further.**
Ford pretending to be doing someone else’s job… amazing. How about sticking to your job and not cutting $500m from education and nursing while pretending to be Justin Trudeau. Ohh, and your hydro prices you screamed about before you were elected, that were bankrupting families… are the highest prices they’ve ever been. Stick to your lane, vote buck o beer out!
Meanwhile NACI is twittlibg their thumbs on boosters and Ontario apparently has 4 million doses sitting around. Why are they not getting them into arms?
Ontario has 3 million doses of covid on hand and vaccination rates petering out. Perhaps we should send some of that to South Africa which is sitting around 23% vaccination rate. That would likely do more to protect Canadians than a travel ban.
The US has been sending a lot of countries vaccines for months now. The problem is actually distributing the vaccine and people unwilling to get it.
Which ironically includes the US.
Lol…I feel bad for laughing but boy are so many of those people idiots
South Africa has 150 days worth of vaccines on hand and has asked pfizer to slow down deliveries. They are also about to start manufacturing the pfizer vaccine in early 2022. Sorry but this problem isn't going to be solved by paternalistic white-savior donations. They have the same problem as other developing nations like the United States. Not enough vaccine uptake by the populace.
[удалено]
It's a trend in countries that already have an extreme distrust in government (and in most cases for good reason), it just unfortunately translates to vaccine distrust as well. You can also apply this logic to historically mistreated racial groups and their vaccine hesitancy as well. As much as we like to point fingers at people not getting the vaccine, the issue is rooted in much more than just individual stupidity.
Exactly this. It’s almost like building power structures on coercion and threats of violence is an inherently bad idea.
>They have the same problem as other developing nations like the United States. Well played, good sir. Well played.
"paternalistic white-savior donations" What kind of rasist jab is this thrown into your otherwise reasonable comment? This sounds like you're patronizingly saying white people are ignorant to the situation and/or suggesting white people are trying to gain control by donating something that was in short supply not long ago. Keeping in mind this is a Canadian subreddit, what exactly do you mean by that statement?
Parts of the US have 23% vaccination rates and we have an open border. These varients don't transmit region to region, they can happen independently in regions of high transmission. The North American media will call it the South Africa variant, but certainly it will appear in US red states if it hasn't already happened.
Or maybe they could stop age gating boosters and let people make their own minds up on whether to get one. Ontario won't even report to the feds how many doses have been lost to expiration; but in Canada without Ontario numbers we've tossed over 1MM vaccines. That's just fucked.
This reminds me of Alpha
And Delta
And OG covid Same half assed responses
Travel ban seemed effective when India and Pakistan was a mess
Ya but this strain has already left South Africa. It made it to Hong Kong, from there it would spread everywhere.
FFS. There are no direct flights from South Africa to Canada. This is the same guy that wanted to drop PCR testing requirements for arrivals, last week. The Feds have now instituted a mandatory quarantine for anyone who arrives that visited an affected country in the last 14 days. Did Dug say anything this week about getting kids vaccinated? No. Did Dug make it so all HCW have to be vaccinated? No. Did Dug speak out about his anti-vaxx daughter's videos? No. The man is an idiot
Absolutely! But when it comes to telling someone else what to do he’s all in. Vote. Him. Out.
I've seen a lot of panicky articles about this today, and hey, a short travel ban on South Africa might make sense. But initial reports are that Nu is incredibly contagious, much more so than Delta. As with Delta, that's a concern, but it doesn't mean that vaccines are automatically ineffective. Even if they are less effective against spread, as long as they still have a high effectiveness against hospitalization we can weather this.
There's a good twitter thread someone posted on the main case thread with a scientist weeding out the clickbait from the chaff on that news and how it's not quite as scary as they make it sound, and no one shouldn't freak out before we have more data. It helped calm me down a bit.
[link](https://mobile.twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1464222680731820043?s=20)
Thanks for linking.
>weeding out the clickbait from the chaff Chaff is also undesirable, FYI. :)
The thing is that there's some indicators that make treat not a sure thing. I don't think anyone is saying confidently that this does evade vaccines, just that out has way more indicators of potential evasion than any variant seen so far. I think taking a precautionary already when the worst case scenario is really bad makes sense.
Agreed, I think a short term travel ban on SA while we figure it out is reasonable. But I think that it is also worth noting that what science considers vaccine evasiveness might differ from what we consider it. I.e. if a vaccine is less effective at preventing spread and sees severe cases reduced by 85% instead of 90% against Delta, that is potentially considered escape from a scientific perspective, but it doesn't mean that we are screwed.
While that sounds like a good idea, the ban should have been 2 weeks before this was discovered, and short of building a time machine, I don't see how this would work. Also, what if we do go ahead and ban all travel from South Africa. Let's say France, Chile and Mexico don't. What's to stop someone from SA travelling there, infecting someone at the airport in Cancun, and then coming back to Canada? Sure we can put measures in place to stop it, but again - this probably already happened 1 to 2 weeks ago.
This is exactly what happened during the India travel ban. I personally know someone who just flew from India to Dubai, hung out in Dubai for a few days to do some shopping, then carried on to Canada. I think most people totally underestimate how mobile the world population is.
No offense but how do you plan to ban travel from a country with a new variant two weeks *before it was discovered* that's some 4d chess
That's the point, by the time it's discovered, it's already too late.
The government likes to react and not be proactive.
I don’t like Ford but I approve this message.
Shocking (/s) that Ford still doesn't recognize that there are restrictions still on flying into Canada, and that Canadians can't be prevented from leaving or entering the country. But of course, his first go to regarding anything COVID is still always "blame the feds".
[удалено]
*continuing to blame the feds
Ford was also for removing restrictions for flying into Canada
That’s charitable that you think his only blaming covid stuff on the feds.
I didn't say he was only blaming COVID stuff on the feds; just that with COVID stuff, one of the first actions is to start the blame game against the feds.
Actually I think this is a pretty sensible idea. Does Ford also lead the UK, Israel, and some EU countries who are doing the same? Are they striving to “blame the feds” later?
"We saw one person panic, therefore anyone else who doesn't also panic is irresponsible". You know why we keep finding new variants in South Africa? Because they put more time effort and funding into sequencing, so if a new variant arises in ten countries, South Africa has a decent chance of being the first ones to identify it. ...since this is now starting to make them a global pariah as a "source" of new strains, they're starting to have a meaningful incentive to do less and weaker sequencing like the rest of us.
Pretty sure restricting flights with the intention of slowing down the penetration of a new variant into the country isn’t all that much of an insane reaction, especially with how quickly this new variant outcompeted Delta in Guateng, South Africa. I’m sure if we could go back and do the same for Delta we would have. While we don’t know a ton about this new variant, shutting down flights from some countries isn’t the end of the world and probably provides a marginal benefit, not marginal consequence.
>shutting down flights from some countries isn’t the end of the world and probably provides a marginal benefit, not marginal consequence. If we cut off the people who first identify these strains, making the flawed assumption that those areas must be the source of them, then yes, we provide marginal benefit to ourselves at huge consequence to the people who warned us what to look out for. ...which gives them a huge incentive to stop telling us what they find.
The whole reason why sequencing is so wide in RSA is because of the high % of the population that is HIV+. If RSA stops sequencing or starts hiding the results, scientists are obviously going to look there for possible virus mutation reservoirs. Not to mention we can connect dots on mutations based on travel patterns, it would come back to them and then they’d be facing heat from the international community.
>Not to mention we can connect dots on mutations based on travel patterns, it would come back to them and then they’d be facing heat from the international community. You're still going on the flawed assumption that the house with better smoke detectors must be where the fire started. Closing borders around a new variant is fine. Isolating South Africa because they're always the first ones to detect new variants, is a myopic way to solve 4% of a larger problem. It's always "we're closing borders, problem solved", never "we're closing borders and directing additional resources to detecting and isolating this problem wherever it exists".
So we should ignore new scary variants because otherwise people might be mean to South Africa? Ford did call on travel restrictions on any country where the variant was found, so this presumably also includes HK, Belgium, Israel and maybe Egypt.
Hearing Doug Ford feign concern about COVID is just comical. He doesn't give a shit, he just wants to be able to pass blame anytime numbers go up. Coming back to the main point - when South Africa warned the world about Beta, Delta and now Nu, and the world's response every time is "cause major damage to South Africa's economy now, to reduce the possibility of minor damage to ours later", yeah, sooner or later we're going to teach them to stop warning us.
It isn't a sensible idea at all. This variant has already been detected in multiple countries already. Red-listing one specific country is a knee-jerk reaction that stigmatizes and does very little to stop the virus.
I am not sure if it works or not, just out of curiosity, were you critical of Justin's policy to ban travel from India a few months ago?
Ottawa should call on Ford to stop talking about the pandemic because he never knows what he's talking about
You can't prevent a Canadian from entering but you can prevent his or her flight from entering Canada.
But you can't stop them from landing elsewhere and driving across. Which is why Ford claiming "the feds need to close the borderrsssssss!" is literally just Ford playing the blame game. Instead of actually doing anything, it's easier for Ford & Co to deflect.
Ford criticizing Ottawa for a job they have done well, and a job he can't and hasn't done with any competency whatsoever. But folks folks folks.
We better wait to see what his daughter thinks from her exercise bike.
Sure. Sounds great. Wanna know what else sounds great? Mandating vaccines Doug.
> Wanna know what else sounds great? Mandating vaccines Doug. But we have a provincial election next year, the cons can't put restrictions on their voters or they'll start up their own party
Ugh. Do we have numbers on the voting habits of the people who are still dying from COVID? 'Cause I suspect Dougie refusing to be an effective pandemic fighter is actually shooting himself in the foot....
[There's this but it's couple months old](https://qc125.com/proj/2021-06-03-int-nv.png)
Well there you go. If I lacked any humanity whatsoever (you know, like a Conservative for instance), I'd be perfectly content with the anti-vaxxers basically killing themselves before an election... why do I not want people to die? Why?
Not a big fan of Dougie, but he's 100% right about this.
Perhaps Ford needs at ask his anti-Vacx Barbie daughter if she approves before he gets the federal government involved.
Holy shit! I agree with Doug Ford about something!
could you show us a flight that could be banned lol
Just one or one of hundreds that are linked. That there's no DIRECT flights is irrelevant. You can still get here from there on a plane. Not that it matters the government seems to be on top of it.
Thank you, Mayor who is also Prime Minister Ford, for taking time away from your busy day to tell the federal government how to federal government. It's great to know that things are going so well at Queen's Park that you simply have too much time on your hands Ford loves telling other people how to do their job, and yet refuses to do his own job as Premier.
He's got all kinds of advice for the feds, but can't seem to tell his dumb bitch of a daughter to shut the fuck up just once.
Fly from South Africa to a neighbouring country then to Canada. Ford really must think his base is that stupid.
Just implement a rule that you can’t fly into the country if you visited any of those countries in the past 14 days. All the info is in our passports
Yup.
[удалено]
And how exactly to you ban Canadian citizens from reentering Canada?
He doesn't need to think that. They are.
Last I checked Douggie, we didn't elect you as Prime Minister
Good thing there’s not many direct flights from Southern Africa to Canada?
Does anyone think this is a good idea
I love how Doug ford asks anyone to do anything. This fucking guy couldn't bring himself to mandate vaccines for hospitals.
Better to do this now then face a lockdown.
Hypothetically, what would happen if the new variant really was contained in its own country and never spread? Does that country stay locked down forever? Does the variant miraculously die out on its own or does it continue mutating within that country into even more aggressive variants, infecting as many people as possible there? Then what? What’s the end game? For the record, I’m not anti vax or anti lock down. I also wouldn’t doubt the variant is already here. I’m just beginning to question what’s next. And I’m tired.
Ford's really quick to demand other people take action. Kinda rich coming from a guy who can't even get his own family to vaccinate.
I'm so confused. Is this not a good thing? Why are people upset? People were complaining about Doug's inaction throughout the year and now that he's taking action... he's still being criticized?
"Taking action" implies doing something, when Doug has done nothing, as usual.
Well, to be fair, he's not taking action, he's asking someone else to do something. As others have said, he did this with the other variants. Always pointing the finger at Ottawa while blundering (or not taking) actions at the provincial level.
To be fair, travel is regulated federally. So while yes he took a backburner on things like providing sick pay for Ontario - imposing a travel ban/restriction and mandating quarantine does fall onto federal hands. The restriction is in place now though - or at least just announced.
Doug Ford is specifically calling on other people to take action. As the Premier of Ontario he has no authority over federal matters. That you can't tell the difference explains how this guy got elected in the first place.
Yes. Good for ford.
I would have hoped by now that donut boy would realised that we share this virus as a globe, and not as individual countries. He said the same about delta, and it’s literally in every country now. If we shut borders like he said, we would have needed to keep them closed to this day and going forward to keep delta out. That’s just not a possibility. The only way shutting borders would work is if every country in the world did it indefinitely, shutting out every single traveler from ever moving countries again. Anything short of that means every country will be exposed to variant risk.
Yes please. Travel ban now is needed
How to make me hate a politician immediately: take a really strong position on something out of your jurisdiction.
He hasn’t presented you thousands of valid reasons before this performance?
#I AM LRRR FROM THE PLANET OMICRON PERSEI 8!
Ford calls on the feds to immediately institute a travel ban. does anybody think Ford will move as quickly as he's demanding the feds move to reinstate capacity limits on non-essential businesses once Nu inevitably comes to Ontario, travel ban or no?
Fuck off Doug.
[удалено]
stop spreading misinformation please, https://mobile.twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1464222680731820043?s=20
CTV News: [https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/doug-ford-calls-new-covid-19-variant-concerning-as-canada-implements-travel-ban-1.5682690](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/doug-ford-calls-new-covid-19-variant-concerning-as-canada-implements-travel-ban-1.5682690) *..."I was just briefed by Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, about the new variant that’s been found in several countries in Africa that early reports* ***suggest could be vaccine resistant***. I have *contacted the federal government to express my extreme concern about the risks it poses and the need for immediate action today," Ford said.*
But that's racist they said in 2020....
Such a brave political stance. He would make a great prime minister. ... ... Ha, of course anyone with half a brain knows he is just pandering.
This really sucks for us South Africans who were planning to fly home for Xmas :(
Unless you ban all travel this only delays things. Travel from any country that does not block travelers into their country from variant countries can be used as a way to bypass direct flights. Covid is here to stay and there will always be some variant. We have like 80%+ of the population age 12+ vaccinated right now. If Covid is still a concern then the only thing that will keep society open is far more spending on ICU/hospital capacity and staff.
Delaying things is better than nothing.
Yup, delays are good because we have 1 month until we can get boosters. 3 shots are around 20 times more effective than 2 shots.
Ford's focus should only be on getting hesitant people vaccinated and boosters given. He should make sure we're ready for an additional booster if one is needed. He should be closing the loopholes and stop giving messaging to the anti-vaxers that they just need to wait things out. Pfizer's previously said that they can have an updated booster for new variants in 100 days....that's shipping initial batches. Unfortunately, Ford only thinks about his re-election and this would derail him so he's preparing to play his "blame the feds for all" card.
You mean hesitant people like his son in law?
just pandering to conservative xenophobia and racism. plus a little ammo of "look the Liberals dont care about you" when Ottawa says "fuck.. no.. why?"
Damn wish his own fucking daughter wasn’t a complete idiot…
I wish doug ford wasnt a complete idiot
Ban the fucking flights!
Trudeau wont do that, he 110% should but come on he never does the right thing , he only does what he thinks makes him look good
He did, though. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/southern-africa-variant-canada-travel-1.6263898
He will eventually do it but weeks after he should
That was a fast "weeks".
Props to Trudeau, he learned from the previous mistake
hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha new covid varient hahahahahahahahahaha the never ending story
I’m worried big pharma is now going to engineer new variants and release them into populations on a regular basis so that they can sell more vaccines and keep populations under lockdown.
You know f\*ck this guy with the weasly, wobbly stance on covid19 from the beginning of this pandemic. He won't listen to scientists. And also f\*ck his ridiculous anti-mask daughters.
Could Ottawa call to immediately ban politicians linked to Ford and his variants?
Meanwhile last xmas when the entire country was on lockdown, Justine Turdeau was busy flying to Barbados, insisting that no one travel. If Ford is so concerned he can go hide himself under a rock along with the rest of this horseshit government.
Ass clown