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  #1  
Old Posted Apr 1, 2020, 12:58 PM
BLeagues BLeagues is offline
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Covid-19 & HRM economy

What are your thoughts on what this pandemic will do to the local economy?

I foresee a stall in new projects - the shovel hitting the ground. Hopefully, those that have started will continue onto completion.

With so many companies and Governments pushed into having employees working from home, I hope that they realize that office space they once thought was needed, can now be repurposed for other uses. Especially housing.

Going forward, if the green movement really takes hold - we have the right Prime Minister in place to push this agenda - building owners will hopefully renovate their brick and mortar buildings into housing for all levels of income. As well for other mixed-use purposes.

Last edited by BLeagues; Apr 1, 2020 at 1:27 PM.
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  #2  
Old Posted Apr 1, 2020, 1:09 PM
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I suppose it's largely dependent on how long Canada (and the western world in general) will need to continue in a state of semi-lockdown to control infection. I think there's a strong chance that with the right stimulus measures and social supports, and an aggressive response to test-and-trace and implementing pre-vaccine treatments, we may be able to regain some semblance of normalcy by mid-year.

Then again, maybe not, if we as a society prove incapable of coordinating that response. But I would definitely not be betting on anything that hasn't already broken ground going ahead in a timely way.
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  #3  
Old Posted Apr 1, 2020, 1:12 PM
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I wonder if there will be a large lobster population this year, assuming that nobody’s catching them.
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  #4  
Old Posted Apr 1, 2020, 2:11 PM
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I wonder if there will be a large lobster population this year, assuming that nobody’s catching them.
The landings in Yarmouth are only getting $4.00 a pound. Hardly worth leaving the dock.
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  #5  
Old Posted Apr 1, 2020, 5:00 PM
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Totally up in the air. There are many different factors nobody understands right now, each of which could have a huge impact on the outcome.

I do think however it goes it will be possible for a lot of work to adapt to lower the risk of infections. There was a lot of unsanitary stuff people were doing without thinking about it. In the long run I wonder if this will make everybody better off by increasing our awareness and control of all viruses, like influenza. Up until now most people just accepted getting sick and going to workplaces full of other sick people.

One bit of information so far though is that NS is doing extremely well in this. The number of cases isn't going up rapidly, and the province as been shut down long enough that it's unlikely to suddenly spike at this point. There probably aren't a ton of undetected cases because there are still 0 deaths.

I made these charts showing new cases by province each day for the past 14 days:



For whatever reason, the outbreaks didn't really spiral out of control in Western or Atlantic Canada. I am sure a big part of this was that the lockdowns came earlier in the curve. However, BC was one of the first places to get a case and it never got bad here (btw those 0 values for BC are just because the BC CDC doesn't report on Sundays; there's also an error in that I have AB's axis going to 1000 while the others are 800).

NL had an alarming spike in cases but seems to be OK now.
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  #6  
Old Posted Apr 6, 2020, 2:05 PM
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NL had an alarming spike in cases but seems to be OK now.
Was this the cluster from that funeral home? Somebody came back from travel and was at one point responsible for half NL's cases or something to that effect.

I have to say, overall I'm pretty pleased with NS's response. Only 4-5 hospitalized cases and keeping new case rate relatively steady. My fear is that if it isn't stomped down by summer, everyone will be going stir crazy to get outside and we'll see a huge spike.
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  #7  
Old Posted Apr 6, 2020, 4:47 PM
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Was this the cluster from that funeral home? Somebody came back from travel and was at one point responsible for half NL's cases or something to that effect.
I remember reading about the same thing so I think that's probably the cause of the spike.

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I have to say, overall I'm pretty pleased with NS's response. Only 4-5 hospitalized cases and keeping new case rate relatively steady. My fear is that if it isn't stomped down by summer, everyone will be going stir crazy to get outside and we'll see a huge spike.
One thing that has changed is that test capacity has increased. NS was doing about 200 a day 2-3 weeks ago and these days it's able to do 600-800 per day. If this scales up to a few thousand a day it will be easier to test a larger number of people who have had relatively little exposure. By the summer we may have cheap do-it-yourself 15 minute test kits or something similar, which would change the dynamic dramatically.

NS new cases per day haven't really dropped by they haven't gone up much either and the number of active cases is growing slowly as more people recover. Hopefully it can get to the point where there are days with 0 new cases. This eventually happened in parts of China.

Still 0 deaths in the Maritimes and 1 in Atlantic Canada which makes it unlikely that there are a lot of unknown cases. NY is approaching 5,000 dead.

One aspect of this that people don't talk about is that a single ICU trip usually costs tens of thousands of dollars. So aside from the direct cost in suffering and death, there is a financial benefit to keeping people out of the hospital. Jurisdictions that minimize the number of cases may find they have a lot less debt by the time this is over.
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  #8  
Old Posted Apr 7, 2020, 10:02 AM
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Jurisdictions that minimize the number of cases may find they have a lot less debt by the time this is over.
Uh, no. By destroying the economy, all jurisdictions will be deep in the red because of the lack of economic and social activity, and hence tax revenue. It will not be pretty.
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  #9  
Old Posted Apr 7, 2020, 12:45 PM
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Uh, no. By destroying the economy, all jurisdictions will be deep in the red because of the lack of economic and social activity, and hence tax revenue. It will not be pretty.
Yeah - I don't think that reducing the number of infections (given the way in which we're trying to do it) will reduce debt. Hopefully, having more people alive to work and spend on the other end will help recover.
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  #10  
Old Posted Apr 7, 2020, 12:50 PM
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Nova Scotia records its first death related to COVID-19

CBC News · Posted: Apr 07, 2020 9:41 AM AT | Last Updated: 3 minutes ago
Nova Scotia has had its first death connected to COVID-19, according to the province's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Robert Strang.

A news release from the province is expected shortly containing more details.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...otia-1.5524447
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  #11  
Old Posted Apr 7, 2020, 3:48 PM
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Uh, no. By destroying the economy, all jurisdictions will be deep in the red because of the lack of economic and social activity, and hence tax revenue. It will not be pretty.
We don't know which approach will result in less economic impact, or how long this will last. It would take many months for herd immunity to develop and during this time a lot of people would die, get sick, or simply be scared to do things like travel, attend events, or eat out in restaurants. I think a lot of the economic harm is going to happen regardless. If shutdowns and containment prove to work in 2-3 months they could turn out to be have been a better choice than a herd immunity strategy, even without accounting for suffering and death.
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  #12  
Old Posted Apr 8, 2020, 4:36 PM
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Nova Scotia update April 8:

5 people in ICU of the 11 currently hospitalized.

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  #13  
Old Posted Apr 9, 2020, 11:45 AM
OldDartmouthMark OldDartmouthMark is offline
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Originally Posted by Keith P. View Post
Uh, no. By destroying the economy, all jurisdictions will be deep in the red because of the lack of economic and social activity, and hence tax revenue. It will not be pretty.
Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

Before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor there were many Americans who were against getting involved in the Second World War. That all changed once they were drawn into it.

We have been drawn into this pandemic and we have no choice but to do what we are doing.

Stay safe, Keith, I want to be able to continue to have discussions with you.
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  #14  
Old Posted Apr 9, 2020, 4:11 PM
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Old Posted Apr 16, 2020, 10:30 PM
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Nova Scotia has now performed the most tests per 100,000 population out of the 10 provinces.

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  #16  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2020, 12:26 AM
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Nova Scotia has now performed the most tests per 100,000 population out of the 10 provinces.

Cool - what's your image source?
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  #17  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2020, 12:27 AM
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Nova Scotia has now performed the most tests per 100,000 population out of the 10 provinces.
It's kind of hard to interpret the NS testing data because, while the new known cases each day haven't gone down much, testing has gone up. The higher or lower days tend to track how many tests were done; I don't think they should be interpreted as a consequence of period of higher or lower infection. Tests performed come back 97% negative.

The low ratio of deaths to recoveries suggests that NS is detecting a relatively high proportion of total cases. Number of hospitalizations has been small and relatively constant during the past 10 days. People sometimes spend a long time in the hospital and in ICU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_c...in_Nova_Scotia has some good data, with not just known cases and deaths but hospitalization and testing information.
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Old Posted Apr 17, 2020, 4:52 AM
OldDartmouthMark OldDartmouthMark is offline
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It's kind of hard to interpret the NS testing data because, while the new known cases each day haven't gone down much, testing has gone up. The higher or lower days tend to track how many tests were done; I don't think they should be interpreted as a consequence of period of higher or lower infection. Tests performed come back 97% negative.

The low ratio of deaths to recoveries suggests that NS is detecting a relatively high proportion of total cases. Number of hospitalizations has been small and relatively constant during the past 10 days. People sometimes spend a long time in the hospital and in ICU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_c...in_Nova_Scotia has some good data, with not just known cases and deaths but hospitalization and testing information.
I don't have much detailed knowledge of the other provinces as I have not paid as close attention to them, but a few interesting points I've picked up through the NS news conferences:

1) That NS has employed the use of mobile testing clinics to travel to areas where clusters of infections have been detected (examples: Elmsdale and Preston/East Dartmouth). This has helped them dig deep into areas where mulitiple transmissions have occurred to implement isolations where needed. This would also result in higher positive test result numbers overall that may have otherwise gone undetected.

2) That every case of a positive result is investigated by the department of health to determine all possible contacts, and those contacts are notified and tested as well. In cases where they can't find all contacts they will announce specific events where individuals were infected or could have come in contact with an infected person in order to root out as many potential cases as possible.

3) There was a mass infection in the Halifax Northwood continuing care facility. As I understand it, every single resident and staff member were tested and positive test subjects were isolated in a separate part of the building. Dr. Strang said that there were several cases of elderly residents who tested positive that exhibited mild or no symptoms. This goes against the popular idea that all elderly people who are exposed to the virus will be seriously affected. (have also heard cases of many young people who have been seriously affected, so IMHO whomever made the announcement early on that it only affects old people was very wrong for making that announcement)

This may not be new or interesting information to some, but it gives me great confidence in Nova Scotia's efforts to curb this virus.
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Old Posted Apr 17, 2020, 6:20 AM
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Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark View Post
This may not be new or interesting information to some, but it gives me great confidence in Nova Scotia's efforts to curb this virus.
It really has not caught on in NS like in the hot spots. NS hit 100 cases 18 days ago and is at 549 known with 3 deaths. 18 days after hitting 100 cases, NY was at 37,258 and had around 300 deaths.

It will be interesting to see what the eventual data is from antibody testing, and if there are any differences in the strains that have affected different areas. Viruses constantly mutate and these differences may become epidemiologically significant. If we are lucky a milder strain will proliferate more. It is even possible it will be worth inoculating people with a milder strain, just the live virus or some attenuated version. That's how early smallpox prevention worked.

There will always be anecdotes about people of different ages but so far it looks like it really hits elderly and those with comorbidities harder (and it may just be that elderly tend to have more pre-existing conditions, or maybe there's more to it than not; not sure). The median death in most places is around 80 and NS is like this so far if not higher. There have been a few high-profile younger deaths but they are a small percentage of the total and they may have comorbidities (e.g. severely weakened by cancer). It's pretty striking on a statistical level.

Italy deaths by age: https://www.statista.com/statistics/...gion-in-italy/

80-89 year olds: 7,890
20-29: 7 (in a country with over 160,000 known to be infected!)
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  #20  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2020, 11:38 AM
OldDartmouthMark OldDartmouthMark is offline
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It really has not caught on in NS like in the hot spots. NS hit 100 cases 18 days ago and is at 549 known with 3 deaths. 18 days after hitting 100 cases, NY was at 37,258 and had around 300 deaths.

It will be interesting to see what the eventual data is from antibody testing, and if there are any differences in the strains that have affected different areas. Viruses constantly mutate and these differences may become epidemiologically significant. If we are lucky a milder strain will proliferate more. It is even possible it will be worth inoculating people with a milder strain, just the live virus or some attenuated version. That's how early smallpox prevention worked.

There will always be anecdotes about people of different ages but so far it looks like it really hits elderly and those with comorbidities harder (and it may just be that elderly tend to have more pre-existing conditions, or maybe there's more to it than not; not sure). The median death in most places is around 80 and NS is like this so far if not higher. There have been a few high-profile younger deaths but they are a small percentage of the total and they may have comorbidities (e.g. severely weakened by cancer). It's pretty striking on a statistical level.

Italy deaths by age: https://www.statista.com/statistics/...gion-in-italy/

80-89 year olds: 7,890
20-29: 7 (in a country with over 160,000 known to be infected!)
Yes, you can't argue with the data regarding deaths. My point about young vs old is that on average people with weaker bodies will always suffer more severe outcomes from illness. So that in itself isn't unique with coronavirus.

However, I thought it irresponsible for the organizations involved to create a narrative that young people would essentially not be affected and old people would almost certainly die from the illness. IMHO it supported an idea among many young people, who already by nature think they are virtually immortal (we all did when we were young), that they don't need to worry about the consequences of catching the virus because it wouldn't affect them, and that old people were going to die anyway, so no need to be concerned.

Interesting points about the strains. It will be fascinating to see the results of all the research happening at the moment.
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