| >inhibit parties and gatherings [citation needed] - anecdotally all of the people I heard of that partied before still party after, either on the weekends eariler or they stay over. >another major cause of spread. [citation needed] - The "activities and events", which includes legal events, is 285 out of 11 158 in the sum of outbreaks collected by Quebec public health. "Other environments", which is where they put clusters that they can't identify is even lower at 46 out of 11 158. All other categories are verified using hard data, and one couldn't lie to classify the cluster somewhere else. So no, this isn't a data issue : https://www.quebec.ca/en/health/health-issues/a-z/2019-coron... By far the dominating sources of infection are work and school, and it's not even close. Followed then are places of commerce. What curfews actually do though, is force much higher concentrations of people indoors and in public transit, which strongly contributes to the infections in work, "other establishments", and legal "activities and events". Which has a big impact on infection, unlike the other factors. Politicians had many other tools they chose to relax or not to use right as they enforced the curfew. For example, restrictions on schools were relaxed, a major driver of infection - places like gyms and so on were opened, which already infected hundreds of people, rapid tests were not used in outbreak environments, schools were not outfited with basic ventilation (even just an air purifier would help!), contact tracing is in a horrible state, etc... Most of all, the politicians could actually release the data behind their decisions, going a long way to increase goodwill and compliance, but chose not to. They chose the curfew because it would placate those who asked for stricter restrictions and get people to disagree with them, because it would be flashy and hard to ignore, because once restricted to Montreal it wouldn't cause issues to their voterbase, and because it's very easy to implement and doesn't hurt businesses with which the current government is incredibly cozy. |
You’re looking only at the extreme case. Hardcore parties will still party. But regular people who just want to have a dinner party of ten, won’t. There is no data on overall gathering changes (no one tracks that), but you have to assume casual gatherings drop off. And anecdotally I know people are cancelling plans.
As it gets brighter late at night I think the argument against curfew will be stronger. People do go outside on late summer nights and that is safe.
I agree with you on ventilation, and rapid tests etc. If I were in charge I’d do that and not a curfew. But Arruda doesn’t believe in aerosols or rapid tests. So I understand why the politicians reach for the tool they can actually use.
As for data: there’s an easy way to settle this. Find infection per capita in quebec vs ontario vs bc before the first curfew, and after. It’s the only major difference. I think Quebec’s relative numbers improved post curfew, but I don’t have good time series on hand. Know of any?
I know the curfew is psychologically brutal! I’m merely arguing it probably works, too.
Also I’m from New Brunswick originally and there in the Edmundston region they have the same policies as the rest of New Brunswick, except that people disobey the rules and have private parties. They’ve had constant outbreaks, but it doesn’t show in the stats because those people don’t go for tests and they don’t share full info with contact tracers. Public Health officials have described the rule breaking in their briefings. We know it is the case as New Brunswick doesn’t normally have local cases so the virus only enters by rule breaking.