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We did the up-the-nose thing this morning. It's pretty unpleasant.

We can expect day-time highs of 15 C if we're lucky this time of year, more likely closer to 10. At night it's not dipping below 0 yet, but it'll get close. Not cold by any means, but after summer people aren't ready to have to dress for the cooler temps and then those cold viruses starting flying around.

Yeah, our little one started it all on Friday night with a very runny nose, then it was my wife, then me, and then our older daughter started coughing yesterday. Coincidentally, last week was our toddler's first week at childcare. Colds go around a lot at childcare centres. It's also been cooler weather lately. Lots of people get colds this time of year. But it seemed a bit irresponsible to just assume that it's only a cold. On the off chance that it is COVID, I don't want to be responsible for spreading it around

My wife, kids, and I all came down with cold- and flu-like symptoms over the weekend So I booked us an appointment at the COVID assessment centre at the local hospital and we got tested this morning. Apparently it can take anywhere from 24 hours to 6 days to get results - and public health will only call us if it was positive - so I'm going to spend the rest of the week checking for our results online It is going to be a long and boring and frustrating week.

At this point, I feel like it all comes down to individual behaviour. No amount of rules, threats of fines, etc. is going to solve the problem. People need to get more serious about wearing masks, physical distancing, and limiting non-essential activities. I'm just not sure if there's a way to educate/convince the anti-mask, COVID-is-a-hoax people to change their behaviour. The people who aren't taking this seriously are dragging us all down

This morning in the elevator I bumped into a neighbour who works at the Tim Hortons next to our building. She said they're prepping for another shutdown and everybody has had their hours cut in half. If the local Tims is preparing for the worst, that doesn't bode well

I feel for the small businesses that are getting hit hard, and I hope we can find a way to let small restaurants, cafes, shops, etc. stay open in some fashion. It's more the bars, strip clubs, and casinos that I'm surprised are allowed to continue operating. Just doesn't seem smart.

700 new cases reported in Ontario today

All I keep hearing about here is that bars and restaurants are the biggest problem. Indoor dining and bars might get shutdown again, or at least have their hours and capacities curtailed. Strip clubs will get shutdown first, I'm sure. Not sure why they even bothered re-opening some of these places

Well I guess we're officially in the second wave Ontario has been reporting 300+ new cases everyday for a while now, some days 400+ IIRC. It's mostly the GTA and Ottawa driving that, locally the case numbers haven't gone up a ton... but I don't live very far away from the GTA so it's not like it's a a world away from me. Not too much cases have been confirmed at schools in our region though. Unless something new was reported over the weekend, I don't think any schools have been closed due to outbreaks. Sure hope my 9 year old doesn't get stuck having to do remote learning again. Being at home all the time drove us all nuts. We are also supposed to start the toddler in childcare on October 5th. This week I'll be finalizing our registration, signing up for childcare subsidies, etc. Hopefully it isn't all a waste of time!

I honestly can't tell if Ma was being serious or sarcastic. If it's the former, then I want to see some specific examples of how people out east have poorer manners than westerners (Obviously it's all just silliness, like Slix said, there are all kinds of different people everywhere... you can't really generalize about whole regions / groups of people like that... or maybe you can )

Time to move east, west coasters

It's tough. They can only do so much. The government is pumping more money into education, but the isn't a limitless supply of cash. And so many schools are old and at capacity as it is. Can't make the schools bigger and more spacious overnight. My daughter is in grade 5 this year and follows instruction well, so I'm not worried about her ability to follow all the safety rules. But I am hoping that lots of other families at our school have chosen to opt out. The fewer kids in my daughter's class, the better!

It depends from province to province, and even school board to school board within the province. In our case, the school board gave families the option to opt out of in-person schooling in favour of learning online. I think the opt out was for the first semester, and then you'd get the chance to change your mind. Despite concerns, we ultimately think it's best for our daughter to be back in school. Being at home all this time hasn't been good for her. And it really isn't feasible for us to keep her at home anyhow. School is starting a week later to give teachers extra prep time, so they're back next week. One week of staggered start with the students split into two groups coming in on alternate days, and then the following week they're all back 5 days a week (if an outbreak doesn't shut it all down before that )

I'm getting pretty paranoid about COVID-19 again these days. I guess it's a combination of my daughter going back to school next week, going out to more places over the last few weeks, and the rising case numbers in the news Every little thing - an ache, a random sneeze, whatever - now tends to send my imagination running wild thinking about how I've got the virus and my impending doom Thankfully my wife is pretty good at talking me back down to Earth

Did they try anything else after that? I've read a bit about ECMO, sounds like it helps in at least some critical cases. I'm not sure how widely available that treatment is though.

That's a bummer, sorry to hear it. Was she on a ventilator for the last few days?

I like this short and sweet take on it: A mask is not a political statement; it's an IQ test.

Masks are still a tough sell for quite a few people up here too. I don't see what the big deal is, but I have also lived in Asia for several years where it is totally normal and common to see people wearing masks everywhere even if there isn't an illness going around. It's not a big deal. But apparently many North Americans don't see it the same way.

So what are you all doing to keep busy/entertained as the pandemic drags on (and on and on and on) ? I have full blown pandemic fatigue, I'm over it all. I try to continue minding the rules when I'm out at stores and stuff, but even that is proving to be a challenge these days. This morning I took my kids out to play on the play structure and swing sets at our local park, closed signs be damned; it's hot and sticky in our apartment and they're so bored. The changes I've noticed in my 9 year old's behavior and overall mental well-being over the weeks on end at home seem to be far worse than the risk of contracting the coronavirus. I sure hope school opens as planned in September Also just found out two days ago that my daughter's summer soccer is totally cancelled I got a new bicycle a few weeks ago - not an easy task right now! - and have been riding more and more. I used to be Mr. Cyclist when I lived in Toronto and then Vietnam. Haven't had a decent bike, or the time, in recent years. But I'm back in the saddle now. I've been doing 20 km rides on weekend mornings. That used to be easy, now not so much. But I'm slowly getting back into shape. I still of course play my bass a ton, watch some anime, try to keep my kids entertained. Need some new ideas though.

My company's global HQ is in Georgia (Rome) so I guess upper management is going to be happy... until half the workforce calls in sick

Turns out Bill Gates is to blame for all this: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/we-call-investigations-bill-melinda-gates-foundation-medical-malpractice-crimes-against-humanity To accomplish his goal of reducing the world's population growth he is sterilizing children with vaccines, and I guess he helped to create COVID-19 to kill off more people as well??? Or just to create a new way to get more people with his evil vaccines.

My company has determined that we need to reduce costs by 20% across the board, for the long term benefit of the company. So my branch is going down to a four day work week and everybody's salary will take a 20% hit. Hopefully this only has to be this way for a couple months, but who knows. 80% of my salary is still a bit better than the alternative, which is being laid off and collecting the Canada Emergency Response Benefit ($500 per week for up to 16 weeks) ... but the budget is definitely going to get tight. Right now I'm really happy that we paid off our credit cards recently as we got a pretty nice tax return this year. There will be very little money to cover debt / credit card payments going forward.

Not a bad idea to keep wearing the mask anyway