• First you may notice on the side bar and at the bottom of the blog a new “Follow by Email” widget. One of my goals for 2021 (I am planning for next year) is to post less on social media. Although I will still share this blog on social media after looking at this past years traffic source of readers who I hope have enjoyed my ramblings and ranting, I want to keep you connected. So feel free to sign up by email and after each post goes live a notification will be sent to you letting you know there is something local and interesting (in my opinion) to read. Don’t fear that I will spam your inbox, I don’t plan to post much more that I currently do in the near future (weekly plus a few special posts) so I hope you follow along.
• Speaking of special posts – #Chartapalooza 2021 will be out Monday in Maclean’s Magazine, last years can be found here. This is one of the most interesting media articles of the year in my opinion…
  • There might be a bonus post breaking down important charts for our region mid-week – check back or sign-up your email! See what I did there…
• On Friday afternoon Statistics Canada launched a national survey on Non-profit and Charity’s Board Diversity. If you sit on a board of a registered non-profit or charity, you should complete this survey!
• Some very interesting research out of Simon Fraser University looking at the decoupling of incomes and housing prices in Vancouver and Toronto.
  • The divergence housing prices and income is something we are seeing locally although driven second tier impact. Although there is some evidence of international purchasing around the university and college you could argue the domestic direct investment people from Toronto buying into the Windsor market could be driving the same wage/housing price decoupling in our region.
• The assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist was supposed carried out by satellite controlled machine gun.
• We didn’t move to lockdown (Grey) but when you read the body of the ministry statements you can see why:

Trends in public health data will continue to be reviewed weekly to determine if public health units should stay where they are or be moved into a higher level. Public health units will stay in their level for a minimum of 28 days, or two COVID-19 incubation periods, at which time, the government will assess the impact of public health measures to determine if the public health unit should stay where they are or be moved to a different level.

Ontario Government – underlining added

• There are a couple of ways to view this as the language isn’t the clearest. It implies that a community could move up to a level on a weekly basis. But it also states that once a move has occurred it stays at that level for at least 28 days. Based on this language it seems to make it difficult for a community to rapidly move into high levels as the government seems to want them to stay at a particularly level for at least 28 days to see if the new restrictions have any impact. Although the statement does not preclude rapid escalation the prefer of the government is clear and only sustained local call with data showing a surge would likely overrule this value.
  • Based on this the earliest Windsor-Essex would move to Gray (or down to Orange) would be December 25 – December 28th as loosing regulations come into immediate effect while tightening regulations wait until Monday.

• What is there to say?
  • The hospitals have pleaded, we will see if it helps.
  • I will have to say that Sunday’s headline in the Star, although factual accurate is a single day drop in cases largely means nothing. Also given that 2-3 days are needed to get a test, the likelihood of a larger unconfirmed population in our community is real and makes daily numbers less reliable. Despite the drop in cases today, the 7 day average continued to climb.