The COVID-19 pandemic

[plam]

THIS.

Political beliefs aside, there has been no country/party/leader that has tackled this pandemic perfectly.  Everyone/where has had hurdles and struggles, some bigger than others.  

I'm not a fan of Trudeau, and yes, he (and the rest of the government... he isn't single handily controlling this) could of done better... but he also could of done worse.  Erin O'Toole, Jasmeet Singh and Annamie Paul (I had to Google that one) would of fucked this up too.

I had a huge hate-on for DoFo pre-COVID, but I respected the way he took the reins when the crisis started.  I've swayed back to being less than impressed with him again.

All these politians are human, and hindsight is 20-20.  We will look back years from now and be able to look under a microscope to judge their shortcomings... but this is something none of us have lived through, and a lot of decisions are made on informed guesses.

Not perfect, but some countries much better than others. Canada is sort of lower mid pack, but there are definitely countries that have done far worse. Greece for instance did relatively well. I think that countries which were scared of their health system not being able to cope actually went a lot harder and did better. (Greece has about two-thirds the population of Ontario and has a 7-day average of 826 vs Ontario's average of 1657; total cases for Ontario 277k, Greece 160k).

I think Kathleen Wynne would have done better but we don't really know that.

[tomh009]

Not perfect, but some countries much better than others. Canada is sort of lower mid pack, but there are definitely countries that have done far worse. Greece for instance did relatively well. I think that countries which were scared of their health system not being able to cope actually went a lot harder and did better. (Greece has about two-thirds the population of Ontario and has a 7-day average of 826 vs Ontario's average of 1657; total cases for Ontario 277k, Greece 160k).

So, let's look at not-tiny high-income countries (including EU countries), and group into rough buckets based on the number of cases per million (since last year -- looking at current data is not right as the timing of the waves has varied greatly), in decreasing order of number of cases per million:

• 80K+: Montenegro, Czech Republic, Slovenia, USA
  
• 60K-80K: Portugal, Israel, Lithuania, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland
  
• 40K-60K: Netherlands, Sweden, Croatia, UK, France, Slovakia, Austria, Italy, Poland
  
• 20K-40K: Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Estonia, Denmark, Bulgaria, Germany, Canada
  
• 10K-20K: Iceland, Greece, Norway
  
• 5K-10K: Finland
  
• -5K: Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan
  

Apart from Asia-Pacific countries, only Greece and (most of) the Nordic countries have fewer cases per million. So, personally, I would not characterize this as "lower mid-pack", as much as we love to slam our politicians. 

Data source:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[tomh009]

And while I'm surfing data, the same set of countries, but now ranked by the number of vaccine doses per 100 people:

• 60+: Israel
  
• 10-20: UK, USA
  
• 5-10: Denmark
  
• 4-5: Iceland, Ireland, Romania
  
• 3-4: Lithuania, Slovenia, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia, Greece, Germany, Finland
  
• 2-3: Sweden, Czech Republic, Belgium, Canada, France, Norway, Austria, Croatia
  
• 1-2: Netherlands, Latvia
  
• 0-1: Bulgaria
  

Canada is maybe 25% below the weighted EU average. No significant vaccination activity in Asia-Pacific yet.

Data source:
https://github.com/owid/covid-19-data/bl...ations.csv

[plam]

Not perfect, but some countries much better than others. Canada is sort of lower mid pack, but there are definitely countries that have done far worse. Greece for instance did relatively well. I think that countries which were scared of their health system not being able to cope actually went a lot harder and did better. (Greece has about two-thirds the population of Ontario and has a 7-day average of 826 vs Ontario's average of 1657; total cases for Ontario 277k, Greece 160k).

So, let's look at not-tiny high-income countries (including EU countries), and group into rough buckets based on the number of cases per million (since last year -- looking at current data is not right as the timing of the waves has varied greatly), in decreasing order of number of cases per million:

• 80K+: Montenegro, Czech Republic, Slovenia, USA
  
• 60K-80K: Portugal, Israel, Lithuania, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland
  
• 40K-60K: Netherlands, Sweden, Croatia, UK, France, Slovakia, Austria, Italy, Poland
  
• 20K-40K: Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Estonia, Denmark, Bulgaria, Germany, Canada
  
• 10K-20K: Iceland, Greece, Norway
  
• 5K-10K: Finland
  
• -5K: Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan
  

Apart from Asia-Pacific countries, only Greece and (most of) the Nordic countries have fewer cases per million. So, personally, I would not characterize this as "lower mid-pack", as much as we love to slam our politicians. 

Czech Republic is interesting, they did really well initially and then stuff happened. Slovenia is actually even tinier than NZ, at 2 million vs 5 million in NZ. Maybe the correct assessment, based on number of cases, is upper mid-pack, but based on deaths (especially in LTC) is worse? Although even then, looking at deaths per 1M pop for today, Canada is surprisingly not bad. I'm surprised because I had compared Switzerland to Quebec and found way more cases in Switzerland but fewer deaths. Perhaps it's a story about how Europe really stuffed this one up.

And while I'm surfing data, the same set of countries, but now ranked by the number of vaccine doses per 100 people:

• 60+: Israel
  
• 10-20: UK, USA
  
• 5-10: Denmark
  
• 4-5: Iceland, Ireland, Romania
  
• 3-4: Lithuania, Slovenia, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia, Greece, Germany, Finland
  
• 2-3: Sweden, Czech Republic, Belgium, Canada, France, Norway, Austria, Croatia
  
• 1-2: Netherlands, Latvia
  
• 0-1: Bulgaria
  

Canada is maybe 25% below the weighted EU average. No significant vaccination activity in Asia-Pacific yet.

Israel, the UK, and the US all have special situations: Israel is small and got a special deal in exchange for data. The UK and US are manufacturing vaccines. Denmark is interestingly high up there.

The Pfizer vaccine just got approved earlier this week in NZ. Australia's saying that it expects to start vaccinating by the end of February but Jacinda Ardern nicely threw some shade and said "we don't really know when it's coming", and Australia and New Zealand should have the same priority. The promise in NZ is that border staff should be vaccinated by the end of first quarter (should take 3 weeks once it arrives) and mass vaccinations in the second half of 2021. Which is slightly concerning to me in terms of things lining up with when I go back to Canada vs vaccine availability.

[tomh009]

Czech Republic is interesting, they did really well initially and then stuff happened.

I think they thought they had it licked and took their eyes off the road. And then didn't even realize it at first when the second wave hit. There are probably dozens of different stories of how countries got to where they are now.

[plam]

Czech Republic is interesting, they did really well initially and then stuff happened.

I think they thought they had it licked and took their eyes off the road. And then didn't even realize it at first when the second wave hit. There are probably dozens of different stories of how countries got to where they are now.

Sounds like it. To be fair, once you lick the first wave, then being an island like NZ helps, versus being in the middle of Europe like the Czech Republic. But the UK did not use being an island to its advantage.

[tomh009]

FRIDAY 2021-02-05

Waterloo Region reported 51 new cases today (10.9% of the active cases) and two fewer for yesterday for a total of 68; 342 new cases for the week (-38), averaging 9.3% of active cases. 464 active cases, -147 in the last seven days.

An average of 1,669 tests per day for the past week for an average positivity of 2.93%.

Ontario reported 1,540 new cases today (after adjusting for the Toronto correction of 130) with a seven-day average of 1,543 (-24). 2,233 recoveries and 45 deaths translated to a drop of 738 active cases and a new total of 15,722. -4,865 active cases for the week and 366 deaths (52 per day). 62,710 tests for a positivity rate of 2.46%. The positivity rate is averaging 3.38% for the past seven days, compared to 4.16% for the preceding seven.

325 patients in ICU (+2 today, -35 for the week). 1,043 total hospital beds in use, -248 for the week.

• 317 cases in Peel: 22.9 per 100K
  
• 537 cases in Toronto: 18.3 per 100K
  
• 100 cases in Halton: 18.2 per 100K
  
• 20 cases in Brant: 14.7 per 100K
  
• 125 cases in York: 11.3 per 100K
  
• 64 cases in Waterloo: 10.4 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 41 cases in Niagara: 9.2 per 100K
  
• 16 cases in Southwestern Ontario: 8.0 per 100K
  
• 43 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 8.0 per 100K
  
• 45 cases in Hamilton: 7.8 per 100K
  
• 8 cases in Chatham-Kent: 7.5 per 100K
  
• 28 cases in Windsor-Essex: 7.2 per 100K
  
• 46 cases in Durham: 7.1 per 100K
  
• 19 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 7.0 per 100K
  
• 26 cases in Middlesex-London: 6.4 per 100K
  
• 11 cases in Eastern Ontario: 5.4 per 100K
  
• 5 cases in Huron Perth: 5.1 per 100K
  
• 46 cases in Ottawa: 4.6 per 100K
  

[tomh009]

10-day averages for key regions in Ontario, plus the weekly trend as of 2021-02-06 (posting this every two days).

Region	Cases today	per 100K	10-day average	per 100K	Weekly trend
Peel	288	20.8	309	22.3	-13%
Toronto	667	22.8	583	19.9	-10%
Niagara	56	12.5	69	15.5	-46%
York	131	11.8	151	13.6	-27%
Chatham-Kent	11	10.4	14	13.2	-16%
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph	11	4.0	31	11.5	-64%
Windsor-Essex	36	9.3	44	11.3	-32%
Hamilton	57	9.8	60	10.4	-28%
Halton	42	7.7	53	9.7	+8%
Waterloo	54	8.7	59	9.6	-30%
Thunder Bay	15	10.0	14	9.2	-22%
Durham	46	7.1	59	9.1	-29%
Eastern Ontario	12	5.9	17	8.5	-43%
Middlesex-London	26	6.4	32	7.9	-25%
Simcoe-Muskoka	35	6.5	42	7.8	-1%
Huron Perth	10	10.2	7	7.4	-2%
Southwestern Ontario	12	6.0	12	6.2	+9%
Brant	1	.7	7	5.5	-25%
Lambton	5	3.8	7	5.0	-42%
Ottawa	60	6.0	50	5.0	-10%
Ontario total					-26%

[tomh009]

SATURDAY 2021-02-06

Waterloo Region reported 76 new cases today (16.5% of the active cases) and four fewer for yesterday for a total of 47; 351 new cases for the week (+9), averaging 10.0% of active cases. 484 active cases, -118 in the last seven days.

Next testing report on Tuesday.

Ontario reported 1,388 new cases today with a seven-day average of 1,479 (-64). 1,826 recoveries and 45 deaths translated to a drop of 483 active cases and a new total of 15,239. -4,485 active cases for the week and 338 deaths (48 per day). 62,341 tests for a positivity rate of 2.23%. The positivity rate is averaging 3.26% for the past seven days, compared to 4.07% for the preceding seven.

325 patients in ICU (+0 today, -28 for the week). 1,021 total hospital beds in use, -252 for the week.

• 667 cases in Toronto: 22.8 per 100K
  
• 288 cases in Peel: 20.8 per 100K
  
• 56 cases in Niagara: 12.5 per 100K
  
• 131 cases in York: 11.8 per 100K
  
• 11 cases in Chatham-Kent: 10.4 per 100K
  
• 10 cases in Huron Perth: 10.2 per 100K
  
• 15 cases in Thunder Bay: 10.0 per 100K
  
• 57 cases in Hamilton: 9.8 per 100K
  
• 36 cases in Windsor-Essex: 9.3 per 100K
  
• 54 cases in Waterloo: 8.7 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 42 cases in Halton: 7.7 per 100K
  
• 46 cases in Durham: 7.1 per 100K
  
• 35 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 6.5 per 100K
  
• 26 cases in Middlesex-London: 6.4 per 100K
  
• 60 cases in Ottawa: 6.0 per 100K
  
• 12 cases in Southwestern Ontario: 6.0 per 100K
  
• 12 cases in Eastern Ontario: 5.9 per 100K
  
• 11 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 4.0 per 100K
  
• 5 cases in Lambton: 3.8 per 100K
  

[tomh009]

A few charts for today:

   

   

[tomh009]

SUNDAY 2021-02-07

Waterloo Region reported 47 new cases today (9.7% of the active cases) and two fewer for yesterday for a total of 74; 335 new cases for the week (-16), averaging 9.9% of active cases. 464 active cases, -115 in the last seven days.

Next testing report on Tuesday.

Ontario reported 1,489 new cases today with a seven-day average of 1,457 (-22). 1,907 recoveries and 22 deaths translated to a drop of 440 active cases and a new total of 14,839. -4,217 active cases for the week and 317 deaths (45 per day). 51,658 tests for a positivity rate of 2.88%. The positivity rate is averaging 3.19% for the past seven days, compared to 3.84% for the preceding seven.

335 patients in ICU (+10 today, -21 for the week).

• 261 cases in Peel: 18.9 per 100K
  
• 517 cases in Toronto: 17.6 per 100K
  
• 25 cases in Thunder Bay: 16.7 per 100K
  
• 17 cases in Chatham-Kent: 16.0 per 100K
  
• 21 cases in Brant: 15.4 per 100K
  
• 88 cases in Hamilton: 15.2 per 100K
  
• 61 cases in Halton: 11.1 per 100K
  
• 121 cases in York: 10.9 per 100K
  
• 14 cases in Lambton: 10.7 per 100K
  
• 54 cases in Waterloo: 8.7 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 43 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 8.0 per 100K
  
• 35 cases in Niagara: 7.8 per 100K
  
• 50 cases in Durham: 7.7 per 100K
  
• 27 cases in Middlesex-London: 6.7 per 100K
  
• 18 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 6.6 per 100K
  
• 12 cases in Southwestern Ontario: 6.0 per 100K
  
• 57 cases in Ottawa: 5.7 per 100K
  
• 20 cases in Windsor-Essex: 5.1 per 100K
  
• 5 cases in Huron Perth: 5.1 per 100K
  

[tomh009]

10-day averages for key regions in Ontario, plus the weekly trend as of 2021-02-08 (posting this every two days).

Region	Cases today	per 100K	10-day average	per 100K	Weekly trend
Peel	256	18.5	302	21.8	-14%
Toronto	421	14.4	551	18.8	-20%
Niagara	28	6.3	64	14.3	-55%
York	130	11.7	147	13.3	-24%
Chatham-Kent	9	8.5	14	13.1	-14%
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph	22	8.1	30	10.9	-60%
Windsor-Essex	40	10.3	42	10.8	-34%
Hamilton	33	5.7	60	10.4	-20%
Halton	33	6.0	52	9.6	-0%
Thunder Bay	8	5.3	14	9.5	-9%
Waterloo	39	6.3	58	9.3	-29%
Durham	61	9.4	58	9.0	-21%
Middlesex-London	36	8.9	32	7.9	-17%
Simcoe-Muskoka	43	8.0	42	7.8	+0%
Eastern Ontario	4	2.0	15	7.5	-65%
Huron Perth	3	3.1	7	6.9	-19%
Brant	11	8.1	9	6.4	+21%
Southwestern Ontario	8	4.0	12	6.0	-2%
Lambton	5	3.8	7	5.3	-14%
Ottawa	50	5.0	50	5.1	-4%
Ontario total					-17%

[ac3r]

Province wide shutdown to end with gradual return to colour coded system; stay-at-home orders to continue until at least Februrary 16th (with the exception of the GTA): https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/60261...save-lives

[tomh009]

MONDAY 2021-02-08

Waterloo Region reported 38 new cases today (8.2% of the active cases) and one fewer for yesterday for a total of 46; 328 new cases for the week (-7), averaging 9.9% of active cases. 438 active cases, -108 in the last seven days.

Next testing report on Tuesday.

Ontario reported 1,265 new cases today with a seven-day average of 1,413 (-44). 1,700 recoveries and 33 deaths translated to a drop of 468 active cases and a new total of 14,331. -4,086 active cases for the week and 314 deaths (45 per day). 28,303 tests for a positivity rate of 4.47%. The positivity rate is averaging 3.09% for the past seven days, compared to 3.80% for the preceding seven.

335 patients in ICU (+0 today, -19 for the week).

• 256 cases in Peel: 18.5 per 100K
  
• 421 cases in Toronto: 14.4 per 100K
  
• 130 cases in York: 11.7 per 100K
  
• 40 cases in Windsor-Essex: 10.3 per 100K
  
• 61 cases in Durham: 9.4 per 100K
  
• 36 cases in Middlesex-London: 8.9 per 100K
  
• 9 cases in Chatham-Kent: 8.5 per 100K
  
• 22 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 8.1 per 100K
  
• 11 cases in Brant: 8.1 per 100K
  
• 43 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 8.0 per 100K
  
• 39 cases in Waterloo: 6.3 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 28 cases in Niagara: 6.3 per 100K
  
• 33 cases in Halton: 6.0 per 100K
  
• 33 cases in Hamilton: 5.7 per 100K
  
• 8 cases in Thunder Bay: 5.3 per 100K
  
• 50 cases in Ottawa: 5.0 per 100K
  
• 8 cases in Southwestern Ontario: 4.0 per 100K
  
• 5 cases in Lambton: 3.8 per 100K
  
• 3 cases in Huron Perth: 3.1 per 100K
  

[danbrotherston]

Province wide shutdown to end with gradual return to colour coded system; stay-at-home orders to continue until at least Februrary 16th (with the exception of the GTA): https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/60261...save-lives

Colour Coded System:

Green: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.
Blue: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.
Yellow: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.
Orange: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.
Red: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.
Grey??!: Stay home! Oh, but totally go to restaurants they're all open.

N.B. Obviously "restaurants" does not mean literally just restaurants, but is a metaphor for all government restrictions.