COVID-19 Update: Colour System

Recently, Ontario moved away from their 4 phase recovery plan and has implemented a new colour-based system. The new system has 5 stages: Green (Prevent), Yellow (Protect), Orange (Restrict), Red (Control), and Grey (Lockdown).

    I could swear  that when I first saw the chart, the final stage was Black. When I first heard the term "Grey Zone" I thought it was something like when we entered phase "3-B", an attempt to add an extra stage between two previously established ones.

    But no, Grey is the new Black. I wonder if they backpeddeled on the term because it could potentially be racialized, or maybe they felt Grey was a "softer" term, and they wanted to avoid causing more of a panic than necessary. Still, who makes "Grey" the emergency colour? What comes after Grey? Code Beige? 

    I admit, we'd better be careful, because once we go Grey, it will probably be a long while before we get out. I hear there's 50 shades of it (little 50 Shades of Grey joke for ya).

    I think the reason for the change from numbers to colours is that, it feels more natural to go back and forth with colours. When it's been stated that we have a 4 phase recovery plan, and we've made it to Phase 3, but then we have to go back to Phase 2 or 1, it feels like we have to redo our work on a project that we were close to completing. But with a traffic signal, we're used to seeing the light go from red, to green, to yellow, then back to red. It feels less linear.

    Things have not been great around here. Since the colour system was implemented, Waterloo Region started at the Green Zone, which means using an education-first approach. Signs are placed, stating that wearing a mask and maintaining physical distance is important, and there is security on public transit calling you out for not following the rules and offering free masks, but there is no real substantive repurcussion for not following the rules.  We quickly moved to the Yellow Zone, which means law enforcement is authorized to issue fines. Then we turned Orange, which I'm not going to bother looking up, because we barely touched it before turning Red. 

    The Red Zone means that social gatherings are limited to five people indoors, 25 people outdoors.  Religious services are limited to 30% indoors, or 100 people outdoors. For food and beverage estabishments, only 10 patrons are allowed indoors at a time, two metres must be maintained between tables, unless an approved barrier is in place. No dancing, singing, or live performance. No buffets. PPE, including eye protection, must be worn by waitstaff. Everything has to be closed by 10, and no sale of alcohol after 9. Music must be down to a conversational level so that people don't have to shout (spraying saliva).

    Oxygen bars, saunas, steam rooms, bath houses, sensory deprivation pods, are closed. Cinemas  (except drive-ins) are closed. There are a bunch of restrictions placed on gaming, bingo halls, and performing arts.

    I gotta say, the closure of cinemas peeves me a little.  I run a group right now, and we've been to three different establishments: an arcade, a pool hall, and a theatre. Between the three, I felt safest at the theatre by far. At the arcade, there were hand sanitization stations everywhere, but they definitely weren't sanitizing machines between uses and the setup of the location made physical distancing diffiuclt, although they did encourage it. At the pool hall, every second table was closed and everyone received their own pool cue at the front instead of getting them at the rack. There were signs everywhere saying that masks were mandatory, but only my group was wearing them. At the theatre, they got rid of the guy who rips your ticket, you have to select your seat in advance, and there are strict capacity limits. The only concern I can think of, is that it's difficult to monitor people to make sure they keep their masks on during the film. But really, is sitting in a giant, nearly empty room doing nothing all that much more dangerous than other activities? 

    Toronto and Peel Region are in the Grey Zone, meaning they are back in lockdown. I must admit I'm a little surprised. I thought that the initial lockdown was because of all the unknowns. Back then, we didn't have tests available, and when we did, there weren't very many of them. We didn't know how the virus spread or how to best protect ourselves. It felt like the governments just needed us to hide until they got things figured out. But now we have things more or less figured out and we're still requiring lockdowns. Personally, I feel like regions should be dancing between Yellow and Red. Green feels too careless, and Grey feels too imposing. But I'm not a health expert.

    Numbers are worse than ever but there isn't the same feeling of panic as there was at the beginning of the pandemic. I haven't seen any panic buying (except for sanitization wipes, still can't get those), although stores have started putting restrictions on toilet paper in anticipation of it. If we do the panic buying thing again, I really hope it isn't toilet paper. That was embarrassing.

    I think the reason that people aren't reacting to our current situation as strongly as we were before, is because we're just tired at this point, and we've survived the initial wave. When things started out,  deaths were going up exponentially and despite our efforts, things didn't seem to be slowing down. Now, we've seen things get better, and we have reason to believe things will get better again. 

    Since cases are going up despite increased precautions, it's tempting to say that our efforts are not yielding results. However, I watched an interview with Obama, and if I recall correctly, he said that Canada has 39% the mortality rate for people with COVID than the United States. If you look at the Worldometer, I think the last time I addressed where we compared with the world, we were at #14. At this point, we're #29. This means we're not just holding our position, we're competitive with the rest of the world.

    However, I'm not sure how much I can rely on the Worldometer. Right now, they have the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship that was infected at the beginning, as having 40 active cases. How can that be? It's been nearly nine months since exposure.

    Also, media has been stating that New Zealand and Taiwan are completely free from COVID. However, according to Worldometer, New Zealand has six new cases and 72 active cases. Taiwan has 24 new cases and 103 active cases. So what exactly am I supposed to beleve?

Moving 2020

 Not long ago, I made the big move out of my old place. It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Because of the overlap month, me and Lee-Anne managed to move most of the things that can be transported by hand, so by moving day, we mostly only had to worry about furniture and other bulky items. The most difficult things to move were my four-drawer locking filing cabinet and my deep freezer. We got the bed and our Internet set up here, so even though I still own my previous place until the end of the month, I'm set up enough that this is where I sleep and do my work.

    In my previous post, I showed images of my new place. Here are some pictures from my old place, which I took back when I was looking for a roommate. Just for comparison:

So, there are pros and cons. I mentioned that some major pros about my new place are in-house washing and drying, central air conditioning, the open-concept kitchen, two sinks in the bathroom and a double sink in the kitchen. My old place however, was about two minutes away from a Tim Horton's, as well as the best pizza and shawarma spots in Waterloo region. It was also close to a really good convenience store and thrift store.

    On the other hand, my old place was frequently experiencing crimes and gun violence. I was witness to the local convenience store being robbed, there was an incidence of open fire at the closest grocery store, in which two innocent bystanders were shot at 5:00 PM, and there was a murderer on the run from Quebec hiding in my complex. I got to see the secret service take him down. They also have the highest rate of community based transmition of COVID-19 in the region.

    I'm going to miss the community somewhat. My old place was in a spot where everything was everyone's business. Around here, I've only seen our upstairs neighbours twice, and there's no real reason to connect with anyone beyond that. Not needing to deal with neighbours is probably both a pro and a con.

    The new place is really near a well-known walking trail, and on the other side of that, a well-known shopping area. Both spots are really close to public transit.

    I'm really glad to be leaving my old place of my own volition. Most people leave my old neighbourhood because they're being evicted. My evil landlord liked to evict people frequently so he could regularly hike up the rent. When I first moved in, I was paying $940 a month. When I left, I was paying about $1000, but people moving in were paying $1500-$1600.

    Of the 48 units, as I move out, there are only two units that have been occupied longer than mine. Some things that my landlord did to make the living situation unpalletable incude:

-Trying to charge me an extra half month of rent, because even though I moved in on the 1st, he "Approved" me on the 15th

-Saying my cheques bounced for the first four months of my living there, even though they hadn't

-Consistently only having two washers and dryers working for the 48 units relying on them

-Refusing to give me a copy of the tenancy agreement

-Refusing to give my roommate rent receipts and telling his superintendants not to give them either

-Having a new superintendent every two months because he would refuse to pay them

-Refusing to fix my neighbours toilet and telling the company not to replace it (If you Google "1200 Courtland Avenue East", you should see some media coverage on this issue)

    I've heard stories of him trying to run people over with his car. He's definitely cussed out roommates and neighbours.

    As with any move, sacrifices had to be made. Let's go over some of the stuff I needed to let go of:

This picture was taken at the Donkey Sanctuary just outside of Guelph. We went here at the end of Ways2Work, a pre-employment program I took after highschool. What I got rid of in the move is the green jacket I'm wearing here. I remember, I accidentally left it at the donkey sanctuary but the owners found it and brought it back to the agency that my group was run through. In Katimavik, I brought it to a nightclub in Summerside called The Heritage, AKA the Scare-itage, AKA the only nightclub on PEI. Lost it there too, and somehow managed to get it back. After that, it developed a reputation for always finding its way back to me. I doubt it will make it back to me now, since I put it in a garbage bag and threw it into my townhouse complex's dumpster. It didn't fit me anymore, and it was held together by safety pins, as it came apart when I was working factories after Katimavik ended.

    I also threw out a winter coat that my brother bought me for Christmas six years back. We were playing a video game, and I complimented one of the characters clothing. Since I don't talk much about that kind of thing, he took notice and got it for me as a gift. I received a number of compliments for the coat, but it wore out over time and I had to get rid of it this year.

I bought these portait images from a nearby thrift store and I placed them on the landing that divided the staircase in my old townhouse. They reminded me of the old-school video game Dungeon Master where you start in a hall filled with portrait paintings of people who have died in the dungeon. In the game, you get to choose a team based on who you want to revive. When I got into painting, I contemplated making portrait images of everyone who had lived there with me, and just put them so they stared at you as you walked up the staircase. It was always a little too creepy to follow through with. In the end, I re-donated these images to the same place I bought them from.

   

I got these Japanese prints at the same place I got the portrait paintings, and they got re-donated in much the same fashion. I got these after my first set of roommates moved out and I needed to advertise for a new one.

    So that about does it for news about the move. I'd like to point out that this is my 40th post of the year, which means I fulfilled last year's New Year's resolution. Let's see how much I can raise the bar before the end of the year. The next update should be sooner rather than later, since COVID measures have been on the increase in Canada.

United States Election 2020

I try not to get too political on this blog, and really, if I'm going to be political, I should probably focus on my own country. However, this is I think the third time I've broken my rule, and each time it's been about the United States. If I'm being honest, each time its been for a specific politician, Donald Trump.

    The first time was back in 2016 when I very mildly mentioned that I was disappointed in the outcome, that he didn't seem very professional, but I wished the US luck and hoped he would surprise me. The next time was in June of this year after he opened fire on a crowd of peaceful protesters with rubber bullets, tear gas, and flash bombs.  I compared him to a demon.

    So based on these two samples, you can kind of get an impression of my political leanings. I didn't like him in 2016 and he hasn't won any points with me since, to put it extremely mildly.

    Even though the United States is not my country, it is very difficult to ignore its politics. Something like 75%  of our exports go to the US, and we purchass more from them than any other country too. They are the current world superpower, and if they ever lost that position, we would likely remain reliant on them. It's painful to say, but a big part of Canadian identity is simply being "not American".

    My lack of fondness toward President Trump is not uncommon among Canadians, although you can't really say that this is due to his lack of awareness. His "America First" policies promote a level of inward thinking that excludes nations that have historically benefited from partnering with them. This means that our growing feelings of negativity to our brother to the South is by Trump's design. 

    Some things that have made us salty towards Trump's presidency is that he initiated a trade war with Canada, he expressed interest in sending armed troops to our border (known as the "oldest unmilitarized border in the world") to stop Canadians from fleeing to the US during the COVID-19 pandemic (any soldier would be stopping Americans from fleeing to our country after how the US bungled their Coronavirus response). He tried to stop an estabished trade agreement of N95 masks to our country before realizing that without the pulp that we manufacture, and the nurses we send across the border, they would receive a net negative amount of N95 masks for themselves. Trump has said that our success during COVID-19 is due to US influence, and he's said that we want to open our borders but he won't allow it (we are horrified to open our borders to the US considering the infection rate over there). He's also reportedly ordered people to attack our Prime Minister on TV, referring to him as a "behind your back guy" 

    So despite it being the election of a foreign nation, on November 3rd I curled up with a bottle of whisky and watched the electoral vote slowly take place. I'm sure all of my viewers know this, so I'll try not to dwell on it, but things were not looking good for Biden (Trump's opposition) at the end of the night, although everything was still very much inconclusive. While Biden was ahead in electoral votes at the time, Trump was leading in swing States that were yet to be counted.

    It wasn't looking hopeless for Biden though, as there had been an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots this year, and they were estimated to lean in favour of the Democrats. This is because Biden had been pressing the importance of safety measures concerning COVID-19 which included avoiding crowds, whereas Trump had been downplaying the virus and telling people that mail-in voting would cause widespread voter fraud.

    So, pretty predictably, the day-of ballots were counted first and made Trump look as if he were winning, and then in subsequent days, the mail-in ballot was counted and favoured Biden well enough to earn him victory.

    Trump has since refused to concede his position and has demanded recounts and has attempted to sue key States for voter fraud, despite having no evidence of this ocurring.  He has neglected to provide briefings for Biden's adimistration or to support a peaceful transition of power, which is potentially dangerous to the US. Even though Trump lost, he still has power for another couple of months. 

    Oh well, even if he goes crazy and drops a bomb on someone and it gets returned, I just moved into a basement apartment, and if I stay underground for a few days, I've got a shot of surviving Canada's Nuclear Winter should the US ever wind up in a fight like that.

    Speaking of which, I just made the big move into mine and Lee-Anne's place today. I'll update you guys on that soon.

New Place

     This past Sunday, me and Lee-Anne got the keys to our new place. However, because I still have the lease at my old apartment, and because my Internet hookup is still here, I still have to work at my old place for a bit. That means it hasn't caused too much change to our living conditions yet.

I brought over a queen-sized air mattress, a blanket and a pillow, just so I could pretend I could sleep over. It turned out to be useful for planning where to put the bed though, because it's so easy to move an air mattress. My entire life, I've always put my bed in the corner of the room furthest from the door. I assumed this was some kind of ancient human instinct, as it would give a small amount of time to defend yoursef in the instance of an intruder. I'm being asked to question that logic and design choice, because it's harder to change bedsheets in a corner, and it blocks one person from getting out of bed without disturbing the other.

In a social psychology course I took, we were taught that people are more likely to be interested in cooking in places that have open concept kitchens. This is because you're still in a shared space with other people in your household, which turns it into a social activity. I got really fixated with this idea, because while I think most modern kitchens are open-concept, the one at my old place isn't.

And we have a double sink! My old place only has one sink, so this is an upgrade.

Here is the living space.

Two sinks in the bathroom, so each of us gets one. The shower is a little low for me, but I've lived in basement apartments before, so I should be able to get used to it.

We have a second bedroom!

And we have an on-site washer and dryer. This is big for me, because the laundromat at my old complex has four washers and dryers for 48 units, and usually two of them are broken because someone smashed them open to collect change. I've got to hike half an hour with a bundle of laundry to another laundromat and with my schedule and their hours, I often only have one day per week to get it done, with my ability to access it being weather-dependant. We share with the upstairs neighbours, but it's still a massive improvement.

We have central air conditioning here too, although the upstairs neighbours have control of it, and I can already guess our temperature preferances aren't going to be the same as theirs

 This year, Halloween was on a Blue Moon (when a full moon happens twice in one month), and it was also the time of year when it's bright orange. Despite Halloween being really minimal, it was the perfect Halloween moon. Lee-Anne's parents made some candy packs that I handed out to neighbourhood children. In the COVID hot spots, trick-or-treating was canceled. In Waterloo Region it wasn't, but lots of people chose not to, anyway. In my complex, lots of people were exchanging loot bags while staying distanced, like I did. Some households left out bags of candy for kids to pick up without having to come close to anybody.