The COVID-19 pandemic

[ac3r]

The government has purchased 168'000 doses of the Moderna vaccine, although Health Canada has yet to approve it: https://twitter.com/i/events/1338894301200142336. An additional 200'000 doses of the BioNTech will be coming next week.

This is part of the existing order for 40M doses, but with an early delivery date.

Oh right. I accidentally wrote "purchased" instead of writing that we'll just be receiving 168'000 doses.

[tomh009]

2'275 cases in Ontario today - a very high number, but there has been some changes in how we count the numbers it would seem: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/c...-1.5841834

Changes to how Public Health Ontario collects and analyzes cases mean that today's figure includes 2.5 extra hours of data from several health units, artificially inflating the total number — but by how much is not yet clear.

Alas, not entirely due to the adjustments -- 2,139 cases today, too. Sigh.

[tomh009]

10-day averages for key regions in Ontario, plus the weekly trend as of 2020-12-16.

Region	Cases today	10-day average	per 100K	Weekly trend
Peel	528	452.9	33.3	+9%
Windsor-Essex	111	100.5	21.8	+39%
Toronto	780	568.4	19.0	+17%
York	148	172.9	16.2	-7%
Hamilton	47	83.6	13.4	+16%
Durham	92	84.8	13.0	-11%
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph	33	36.9	12.2	+9%
Halton	55	61.7	10.8	-10%
Waterloo	52	66.1	10.8	+1%
Middlesex-London	12	35.7	8.6	-55%
Eastern Ontario	10	18.5	8.6	+0%
Niagara	51	42.5	7.8	+50%
Simcoe-Muskoka	46	45.0	7.8	-27%
Leeds, Grenville & Lanark	4	8.3	5.2	-24%
Kingston Frontenac	15	11.9	5.0	+20%
Ottawa	36	36.3	4.1	-45%

[/quote]

[tomh009]

WEDNESDAY 2020-12-16
Waterloo Region reported 90 new cases for today (19.2% of the active cases).  489 new cases for the week (+30), averaging 16.1% of active cases. 486 active cases (+68 in the last seven days). (They are still having technical issues with their dashboard ... maybe they should just post in plain HTML like the province?)

Next testing report on Friday.

Ontario reported 2,139 new cases today, so I would hazard a guess that not much of yesterday's big number was actually due to the procedure/timing change. A seven-day average of 1,962 (+35). 2,043 recoveries and 43 (!) deaths translated to an increase of 53 active cases, and a current total of 17,084. +995 active cases for the week and 199 deaths. 49,189 tests resulted in a 4.35% positivity rate. The positivity rate is averaging 3.63% for the past seven days, as compared to 3.61% for the preceding seven.

256 patients in ICU (+7) with a total hospital population of 932 (+121 in the past week). In the past 30 days, the ICU population has more than doubled (from 125 to 256) and the hospital population almost so (from 502 to 932). And the weekly deaths have gone up from 126 to 199. The death and overall hospitals are now similar to what we had in May, and the ICU figures are actually higher.

• 528 cases in Peel: 38.2 per 100K
  
• 111 cases in Windsor-Essex: 28.6 per 100K
  
• 780 cases in Toronto: 26.6 per 100K
  
• 92 cases in Durham: 14.2 per 100K
  
• 148 cases in York: 13.3 per 100K
  
• 33 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 12.1 per 100K
  
• 51 cases in Niagara: 11.4 per 100K
  
• 55 cases in Halton: 10.0 per 100K
  
• 46 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 8.5 per 100K
  
• 52 cases in Waterloo: 8.4 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 47 cases in Hamilton: 8.1 per 100K
  
• 15 cases in Kingston Frontenac: 7.3 per 100K
  
• 10 cases in Eastern Ontario: 4.9 per 100K
  
• 36 cases in Ottawa: 3.6 per 100K
  
• 12 cases in Middlesex-London: 3.0 per 100K
  
• 4 cases in Leeds, Grenville & Lanark: 2.4 per 100K
  

[ac3r]

A record breaking 2'432 cases in Ontario today. The Ontario Hospital Association is urging some regions lockdown as hospitals get overwhelmed (there are 919 in hospital, 263 in ICU and 172 on some form of ventilator): https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/a...ns-in-hard

[tomh009]

A record breaking 2'432 cases in Ontario today. The Ontario Hospital Association is urging some regions lockdown as hospitals get overwhelmed (there are 919 in hospital, 263 in ICU and 172 on some form of ventilator): https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/a...ns-in-hard

It's not just GTA now. Top six public units based on cases per 100K:

1. Windsor-Essex
   
2. Peel
   
3. Toronto
   
4. Hamilton
   
5. Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph
   
6. Brant County
   

Will post the full update this afternoon once Waterloo Region releases their data.

[ac3r]

In addition to earlier warnings about organized crime groups trying to steal vaccine doses, CSIS has issued warnings about foreign interference targeting our vaccination program and supply line: https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5842035

[taylortbb]

The Ontario Hospital Association is urging some regions lockdown as hospitals get overwhelmed (there are 919 in hospital, 263 in ICU and 172 on some form of ventilator): https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/a...ns-in-hard

Given the current lockdowns aren't really lockdowns (so many people going in to office jobs just because management doesn't like work from home) that seems overdue, especially the part about reviewing the rules.

From what I hear the public health calls with people that test positive are not good. Lots of "No, I'm not staying home, Covid is just a cold" and "I'd lose too much income using EI, I'm still going to work". So I'm not surprised the current lockdowns are ineffective. There's too many people uninterested in following the rules in any way, so the only way to get compliance is to force shutdowns. Even then, the frequency with people that are supposed to be self isolation say things like "I haven't left home, just as you asked, but I had several friends over for pizza night" means there's lots of people that the rules are not getting through to.

[tomh009]

Given the current lockdowns aren't really lockdowns (so many people going in to office jobs just because management doesn't like work from home) that seems overdue, especially the part about reviewing the rules.

From what I hear the public health calls with people that test positive are not good. Lots of "No, I'm not staying home, Covid is just a cold" and "I'd lose too much income using EI, I'm still going to work". So I'm not surprised the current lockdowns are ineffective. There's too many people uninterested in following the rules in any way, so the only way to get compliance is to force shutdowns. Even then, the frequency with people that are supposed to be self isolation say things like "I haven't left home, just as you asked, but I had several friends over for pizza night" means there's lots of people that the rules are not getting through to.

I really think the #1 problem is the social interactions at home, especially with larger groups.

There have not been all that many workplace outbreaks in recent months.

[panamaniac]

The rules have, by now, certainly “gotten through”. That people are disinclined/not intelligent enough to adhere to them is a different order of problem.

[danbrotherston]

Given the current lockdowns aren't really lockdowns (so many people going in to office jobs just because management doesn't like work from home) that seems overdue, especially the part about reviewing the rules.

From what I hear the public health calls with people that test positive are not good. Lots of "No, I'm not staying home, Covid is just a cold" and "I'd lose too much income using EI, I'm still going to work". So I'm not surprised the current lockdowns are ineffective. There's too many people uninterested in following the rules in any way, so the only way to get compliance is to force shutdowns. Even then, the frequency with people that are supposed to be self isolation say things like "I haven't left home, just as you asked, but I had several friends over for pizza night" means there's lots of people that the rules are not getting through to.

I really think the #1 problem is the social interactions at home, especially with larger groups.

There have not been all that many workplace outbreaks in recent months.

There are currently 29 outbreaks in Waterloo region. I think that’s more than a few.

[ac3r]

Unless something has changed, I believe an outbreak is declared even if it's only 1 single person who has tested positive. They can't be certain whether or not it has spread, so they declare an outbreak either way. I know for sure this is how LTC homes have been handling it because they can't tell if that 1 person spread it to others.

Edit: Waterloo Region may be moving to Grey as soon as Monday. Dr. Wang is asking the public to prepare for an announcement tomorrow: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.5845422

[danbrotherston]

Unless something has changed, I believe an outbreak is declared even if it's only 1 single person who has tested positive. They can't be certain whether or not it has spread, so they declare an outbreak either way. I know for sure this is how LTC homes have been handling it because they can't tell if that 1 person spread it to others.

Edit: Waterloo Region may be moving to Grey as soon as Monday. Dr. Wang is asking the public to prepare for an announcement tomorrow: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.5845422

I don't believe that is true outside of LTC homes....schools at least required more than one person to test positive and for those cases to be spread within the school.

[jeffster]

The Ontario Hospital Association is urging some regions lockdown as hospitals get overwhelmed (there are 919 in hospital, 263 in ICU and 172 on some form of ventilator): https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/a...ns-in-hard

Given the current lockdowns aren't really lockdowns (so many people going in to office jobs just because management doesn't like work from home) that seems overdue, especially the part about reviewing the rules.

From what I hear the public health calls with people that test positive are not good. Lots of "No, I'm not staying home, Covid is just a cold" and "I'd lose too much income using EI, I'm still going to work". So I'm not surprised the current lockdowns are ineffective. There's too many people uninterested in following the rules in any way, so the only way to get compliance is to force shutdowns. Even then, the frequency with people that are supposed to be self isolation say things like "I haven't left home, just as you asked, but I had several friends over for pizza night" means there's lots of people that the rules are not getting through to.

I think this brings up a good point. For those w/o sick time, and really, for those that don’t want to waste all their sick time on something COVID related, need extra help. While we have the Federal that has been very generous to people with very low paying jobs, for example, someone earning $100/week can take sick time off for COVID and get $500/week. While someone earning $1,500/week will only get $573/week. This needs to change.

As for people having friends over when sick, perhaps the government really needs to figure out how to start charging people are a careless like this.

[danbrotherston]

Given the current lockdowns aren't really lockdowns (so many people going in to office jobs just because management doesn't like work from home) that seems overdue, especially the part about reviewing the rules.

From what I hear the public health calls with people that test positive are not good. Lots of "No, I'm not staying home, Covid is just a cold" and "I'd lose too much income using EI, I'm still going to work". So I'm not surprised the current lockdowns are ineffective. There's too many people uninterested in following the rules in any way, so the only way to get compliance is to force shutdowns. Even then, the frequency with people that are supposed to be self isolation say things like "I haven't left home, just as you asked, but I had several friends over for pizza night" means there's lots of people that the rules are not getting through to.

I think this brings up a good point. For those w/o sick time, and really, for those that don’t want to waste all their sick time on something COVID related, need extra help. While we have the Federal that has been very generous to people with very low paying jobs, for example, someone earning $100/week can take sick time off for COVID and get $500/week. While someone earning $1,500/week will only get $573/week. This needs to change.

As for people having friends over when sick, perhaps the government really needs to figure out how to start charging people are a careless like this.

There are a lot of problems with the fact that someone may be earning only 100 dollars a week--barely pays for groceries, and I know that they may be a second income.

But the framing that the government is "very generous" to low income people, who will get less money when on sick leave, and less generous to high income individuals who will get more money is ... well...I don't think you'll get a whole lot of sympathy.

I agree there should be some scaling (and there is) as a result of variable expenses during a short term temporary loss of income.

But I also think that it is reasonable to expect higher earning folks to be putting away their own rainy day fund. When my parental leave began, I knew I'd have to live on ~570/week, so I accounted for that in my spending. I also have chosen not to max out my spending on my inflexible expenses.

That being said, I think we'll all agree that people breaking quarantine can really just go...shove something....somewhere.