Social distancing US vs Canada

Healthcare
1

The Maid of the Mist tour boats at Niagara Falls tell quite the story on the difference between US and Canada COVID-19 handling.

The photo on this CBC article is very telling and shocking all at the same time. Per American rules, their Maid of the Mist tour boats are able to run at 50% capacity (or 350 people). This looks shocking next to the Canada ferry, where they have limited each tour to just 10 people, 6 guests and 4 crew, per trip. Both boats in the photo have a 700 person capacity.

It’s a good visual for the differences in how each country has handled the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing percentages of positive cases in the US versus in Canada.

Here is a great link to Canada’s positive cases. In the second chart there is a color coding that displays the percent of positive cases. They are currently sitting at about 1%.

Here is the same website referenced for the US statistics. The same graphic shows that the US is currently sitting somewhere on the high end of the 3-10% range. You can see other countries if you move your mouse over the map.

Are you happy with how the US is handling social distancing, mask enforcement, reopening, etc? Do you think we should mirror other countries, or do you think we have taken appropriate steps thus far? Did you previously have an idea of where we fell in relation to Canada’s positive cases, or even that of other countries? Has that knowledge fostered any new thoughts on the current state of the US and our handling of the panedemic?

2

Looks like our neighbors to the south are having a tough go of the Virus as well. Mexico just hit a single day record. I wonder if climate has something to do with it since the U.S. sunbelt states have all been hit hard recently.

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/new-covid-19-cases-hit-a-record-after-breaking-8000/

3

So interesting! But I think there are many factors outside of the temperature that are contributing to the spikes we’re seeing. Fauci recently participated in an interview and the link is below. In this he references the spike in cases in the South, as that statistic is unavoidable. He credits the loosening of restrictions too soon. Most of the Southern states - Texas and Florida are the ones we all hear about - loosened early May before the rest of the country and saw massive spikes due to lack of distancing and opening too soon. Additionally, back in February and March, many assumed the Coronavirus would follow flu trends. As in it would disappear in the summer and resume in the colder months when it is a good environment for such a virus to flourish. According to the link below, it takes at least a couple years and some level of herd immunity to establish these seasonal trends so we won’t see something like that happen for a while.

Links referenced are below: