i saw this in a different paper and couldn't figure out what the hell they were talking about, what is a "low german speaking" population?

it turns out that the term is used to refer to people from the low countries that speak germanic languages. but, like....is there some dutch community out there that got hit? did it spare the walloons, specifically?

it turns out that by "low german speaking", what they mean is mennonite/hutterite, and this actually appears to be a case of political correctness that has gone full retard. that is, as far as i can tell, they're trying to avoid mentioning the religious character of the community so as to not create some kind of stigma.

but, if you see this term come up, that's what it means - the isolated mennonite communities that do indeed exist throughout canada, and apparently in essex county, and that have been experiencing heightened rates, indeed as a consequence of their religious practices.

and, i'm actually sort of uncomfortable with this. when i talk about muslims or christians or whatever else, i ensure that it's the religion i'm mentioning, because i know there are plenty of arabs that have abandoned islam and plenty of italians that have abandoned christianity (and whole swaths of hebrews that have abandoned judaism). like, there is a difference between a religion and a language.

i would actually consider it racist to use arab and muslim interchangeably - these are different concepts, and i'm very careful to separate them.

i would really like to see this use of language discontinued, and denounced as the racism that it really is - there's not an outbreak in the dutch-speaking community, whatever that might even mean. rather, there is a developing problem with outbreaks in religious mennonite communities.

https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/health-unit-reports-covid-19-cases-among-low-german-speaking-community