Happy Fathers Day to Dads out there.

• I guess I could have bought my dad a robot dog although he has to promise to not make it do evil things.
• Also announced this week was the Province’s P3 Infrastructure processes update for the Spring of 2020. The new items on the list were the Ontario Line (and other Toronto based Subway infrastructure) and Highway 3, which will go to Request for Qualifications (RFQ) in Winter 2021.
  • Given that timing, it could mean shovels in the ground for early works in 2022, before the June Provincial Election.
    • I called this 2 weeks ago when talking about the hospital vs Hwy 3.
  • This also has me thinking about municipal impacts with those elections that fall on County municipalities. Work starting on a widened Hwy 3 could be a boon for incumbent councilors/mayors out in the County as well.
• Research out of the US using real time data has shown a ton of amazing insights on the impacts of COVID-19:
  • 1 hour webinar here; slides here
  • TLDR/W – Top Income Quartile spending much less due to COVID. Some evidence that money is getting plowed into stock market. Businesses in more affluent areas being hit harder due to COVID than in lower income areas of US cities. Fear of virus drives rise in economic activity not government permission. Potential long term impacts on educational outcomes by income level.
• How much time does Police responding to violent crime in the US based on 911 calls?
• So we spent all of Spring inside and now it is Summer time.
  • Your summer forecast.
  • Think it has been hot here…. Look at Siberia

• I am currently reading Bread out of Stone – which is a series of essays from the 1990s that was updated and released a couple of years ago.
  • This was one of the books I purchases based on this Toronto Star story.
• This week marked 100 days of COVID lock down (provincially), locally we have had active cases for 94 days (on day of writing).

• We seem to be yo-yo-ing up and down in our case daily count, I suspect that this has something to do with test result times being reported out the agri-sector. Days where lots of agri-sector cases results come back you see the spike, days where there are fewer results they settle.
• Do I think we will go to Phase 2 this week?
  • Strictly by the numbers, probably not as the agri-sector outbreaks although declared haven’t burnt themselves out and been fully contained.
  • Local case Day 81 was when the outbreak “began” assuming 14 days of isolation is required Monday June 22nd will be Day 95. This means only the first cases will be in a position to potentially be resolved assuming a full 14 day period.
  • I also find it interesting that when there were outbreaks in LTC homes they were also largely contained to specific closed facilities there were no calls to open up. When it is a bunk house on a farm is in outbreak, it suddenly a “outside of Windsor issue”.
  • Really what it comes down to is if we count the cases in the migrant community as “people” in Essex County then no we should not move to Phase 2 this week. If we choose to make them a separate class of cases then, ya, our numbers justify opening up. In other words, no I personally don’t think we will be opening up this weekend, unless the region gets subdivided or political considerations come into play.
• An interesting side/conspiratorial story emerging in the past couple of weeks on Social Media and now being picked up more broadly, a spike in fireworks in the US.

• I bring up this point as last night a someone set off fire crackers at 1:43 am….
  • Izzy was not amused.
• The next Windsor Research Project piece is being worked on focusing on indigenous populations in Essex County. Hopefully up late next week.
• No one actually wished me Happy Father’s day as every day is a Fathers’ day for me! *slaps knee laughing* – Something my Grandfather used to say.