Let's see if these kids listen to their teachers Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Recess is over. In a fascinating social study of whether kids will actually listen to adults, Quebec is reopening its elementary schools today. Quebec is the first province to take this step, and will implement social distancing and handwashing rules to ensure the safety of all children. Tape will mark two-metre distances on the floors, school buses won't take more than 12 kids at a time and common areas such as gyms and cafeterias will remain closed. Schools in Montreal will remain closed until at least May 25. The school bells will ring just hours after it was revealed, on Sunday evening, that 64 workers at a Cargill meat-processing plant south of Montreal tested positive for COVID-19. This marks the second Cargill plant to close due to COVID-19, after a beef-packing plant in Alberta closed for two weeks when more than 900 of its 2,000 employees tested positive, raising questions about the hygenic and safety conditions of employees there. Clear skies ahead. After a weirdly snowy week for most of Canada, provinces are planning their reopening strategies, which include provincial parks. (Thankfully, this coincides with what weather networks assure us will be a steady stream of double-digit temps—for real this time.) Ontario will open more than 500 parks and conservation areas starting today, with the other 115 opening May 15. Ontario's Parks Minister Jeff Yurek still somehow requested Ontarians avoid unnecessary travel (when is visiting a park strictly necessary?), and said he hopes people only visit parks that are closest to them. Picture? Perfect. If you were upset about being banned from even taking photographs of pretty flowers at the Canadian Tulip Festival at Commissioner's Park in Ottawa, know that the government has once again backtracked its own advice, and is now saying that photos are OK. The National Capital Commission on Friday tweeted out an apology for the erected signs that discouraged photogs. "Dear all: our bad!" On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the federal government is extending the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) until June. (Read the full transcript from his press conference here.) But the Liberals are also taking heat for not doling out the CEWS as quickly as it handed out the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). On CTV's Question Period, Evan Solomon grilled Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough on the subject, though she seemed nonplussed. "It's a more complex data set," she explained . Because it's dealing with multiple names, incomes and verifications, she says the system just takes longer. After his Saturday press conference, Trudeau confirmed that the federal government has no intention of paying for the 11 million defective masks they received, which were made in China and distributed by a company in Montreal. "We will not be paying for masks that do not hit the standards that we expect to give our frontline workers," he told reporters. Herd immunity: not coming soon. A second wave of the coronavirus is all but inevitable, writes epidemiologist Timothy Sly in Maclean's. And because a vaccine is also not coming any time soon, herd immunity will take a while. It’s essential to understand that a second wave of infections and deaths, however small, is unavoidable because the vast majority of the population are still susceptible, and the virus is still circulating undetectable in apparently healthy citizens. Numerous reports confirm more than half of virus-positive people are asymptomatic at the time of testing. Combine that with the realization that for this disease, the serial time—the time from your infection until the the time you infect someone else—is less than the incubation period. Fundraising falters. All three federal parties are feeling the fundraising crunch from COVID-19. CBC News dug into the details of who gave donations of at least $200, and found the parties collectively raised $1.6 million in January, $1.4 million in February and $1.1 million in March—the latter month usually being a banner period that nets the parties around $900,000 apiece. Indeed, the financial graphs historically point upward from January to March; 2020 is the first time in years that the numbers have trended downward, and marks the worst March since 2006, which happened to be two months after a January election. In a televised press conference on Friday, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains announced he will head up a team of business leaders to analyze the effects COVID-19 has had on the economy. The group will focus on workforce disruption, supply chains re-establishment and consumer confidence. The news follows the revelation that 2 million Canadians lost their jobs in April, bringing the total unemployment tally to around 3 million since the beginning of the economic shutdown. What's lockdown like for Generation Z? According to Jenniffer Meng, a high school student in Toronto, it began with euphoria—a get-out-of-school-free card to add onto March Break. But then summer plans, trips and jobs got cancelled; family members lost their jobs; and everyone started missing their friends. As she writes in Maclean's: Being on the cusp of legal and literal freedom, we are missing out on a lot of the things that define the transition into young adulthood. Eighteen is known as the time of moving out, going to college, starting a romantic relationship, hanging out with friends, and getting a job. But instead, I’m stuck at home. I can’t go out and explore the city (I can barely explore the park down the street). Even with our complaints about being “trapped” at school, there were still feelings of liberty that came with taking the bus, going out to eat and working a part-time job after school. It’s the feeling of being able to take care of yourself and provide for yourself; it’s knowing that you aren’t burdening anyone with your needs or wants. —Michael Fraiman | 
