The COVID-19 pandemic

[ac3r]

I'm sure he still has a few ideas on the table ready to go for next week!

This thing has been so painful for everyone. I hope he and his entire party lose the next election because this has been ridiculous. We now have new models showing we will likely hit 18'000 cases per day in this province by the end of May. What will we do then? Our hospitals are already about to collapse and we're only averaging something like 4500 cases per day. How do they expect to handle 18'000?

[ijmorlan]

Canada really needs to shut its borders, forbid international travel, and not allow vacationers to taxi into Canada to avoid hotel quarantine. It should have been done long ago, in fact. The hardest hit provinces are all the ones that have international travel (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal).

Specifically, it should have been done in February of 2020, to keep the infection out of Canada entirely. Remember when we evacuated a bunch of Canadians from China and quarantined them on a remote military base for 2 weeks?

I am not 100% sure that eliminating outdoor activity will help much. I haven't seen a lot of evidence that outdoor activity spreads infections. A lot of the infections in Peel are the result of large family units in Brampton and in Toronto, heavy use of the TTC, not to mention factories and warehouses not following protocol.

Eliminating outdoor activity won’t do anything, and is obviously hugely counterproductive. People shouldn’t be getting together in close groups outdoors, but I haven’t heard any suggestion that there is a feasible way for significant transmission to occur between distanced people outdoors, masked or not. The atmosphere is really big.

[tomh009]

10-day averages for key regions in Ontario, plus the weekly trend as of 2021-04-17 (posting this every two days).

Region	Cases today	per 100K	10-day average	per 100K	Weekly trend
Peel	936	67.7	716	51.8	+24%
York	430	38.7	441	39.7	+22%
Toronto	1,162	39.7	1,118	38.2	+20%
Durham	301	46.6	219	33.9	+35%
Middlesex-London	117	28.9	122	30.1	+15%
Niagara	151	33.7	126	28.2	+46%
Ottawa	251	25.2	268	27.0	+29%
Halton	144	26.3	136	24.7	+34%
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph	72	26.5	67	24.7	+12%
Brant	46	33.8	33	24.6	+42%
Hamilton	211	36.4	138	23.9	+45%
Eastern Ontario	34	16.8	40	19.9	+29%
Simcoe-Muskoka	114	21.1	96	17.7	+23%
Windsor-Essex	70	18.0	53	13.6	+32%
Waterloo	84	13.6	75	12.1	+29%
Southwestern Ontario	15	7.5	21	10.6	+35%
Lambton	6	4.6	14	10.6	-1%
Leeds, Grenville & Lanark	18	10.6	15	9.0	+12%
Northwestern	10	11.4	7	8.0	+31%
Kingston Frontenac	9	4.4	14	7.1	+12%
Huron Perth	5	5.1	6	6.3	+36%
Sudbury	13	3.3	23	6.0	-23%
Thunder Bay	7	4.7	8	5.1	-15%
Chatham-Kent	5	4.7	5	4.7	-20%
Ontario total					+18%

A new high today in Hamilton.

[danbrotherston]

The restrictions are having no effect because the government lost all credibility that they actually mean anything long before this point. That's probably why they added the whole police power bit - to try to drive home that they really mean it this time. They're like the parent who repeated warns their kid that they'll get in trouble if they continue, but never carries through with the consequences. Nevermind that the restrictions *still* are totally laughable. I can't go backcountry camping on crown land anymore, but it's totally okay for me to be working next to my sick coworker b/c protections they used to have were taken away by this government. Nevermind that this government is turning away federal assistance for political reasons while at the same time asking for assistance from political allies out west. I used to think Ford was mostly benignly incompetent, but my god do I despise him now.

This accurately reflects my current position on our government.

[ijmorlan]

Ford looked better in 2020 when we were comparing him to the (now) Mouse of Mar-a-lago down south. Now the comparison isn’t so good for Ford.

[tomh009]

Shutting borders is necessary but not sufficient. Workplace outbreaks are a problem too. Paid sick days. Understanding that it's airborne would help.

Yeah, right now, I don't think foreign travel is a prime contributor any more.

Absolutely we should have paid sick days, and that would help some. But I looked at the workplace outbreak data for Waterloo Region and for Peel, and while it's hard to match up the data, it doesn't seem like the number of workplace outbreak cases is a significant percentage of the new cases we are seeing -- my gut feel says it's maybe 10-20%. (Our tracking and tracing is pretty poor, but workplace infections are one of the easiest to identify.)

Private gatherings, indoors, without masks? That's potentially a big one, but due to the lack of tracing data, it's impossible to confirm that.

How we have got to this point is a series of mistakes and poor judgements. And now many people are fed up, tired of it all or just tuned out. People are still wearing masks in public (without that it would be worse yet) but the human behaviour, combined with the aggressiveness of the variants, is overriding the mask usage and the current vaccination levels.

So, what could the government do to have a significant impact now, until the vaccination levels get significantly higher? Enforce paid sick days, yes, but I think that is not sufficient in itself.

[tomh009]

SATURDAY 2021-04-17

Waterloo Region reported 68 new cases for today (10.9% of the active cases) and zero more for yesterday for a total of 78; 590 new cases for the week (-15), averaging 14.6% of active cases. 595 active cases, +93 in the last seven days, after drops in four of the last seven days.

Next testing report on Tuesday.

Next vaccination report on Monday.

Ontario reported 4,362 new cases today with a seven-day average of 4,370 (+78). 3,611 recoveries and 34 deaths translated to an increase of 717 active cases and a new total of 40,694 -- the first time ever over 40,000. +9,695 active cases for the week and 167 deaths (24 per day). 56,852 tests for a positivity rate of 7.67%; accounting for the changes in the number of tests, the positivity has been pretty much flat for the past week. The positivity rate is averaging 7.98% for the past seven days, compared to 6.78% for the preceding seven.

726 patients in ICU (+25 today, +141 for the week) and a total of 2,065 patients hospitalized (+541 for the week).

107,278 doses of vaccine administered, with a seven-day average of 100,910. At this pace, the dose count will reach 70% of the provincial population on 2021-06-17 (-1 day). The regional completion date currently lags the provincial one by 15 days (+1 today).

• 936 cases in Peel: 67.7 per 100K
  
• 301 cases in Durham: 46.6 per 100K
  
• 1,162 cases in Toronto: 39.7 per 100K
  
• 430 cases in York: 38.7 per 100K
  
• 211 cases in Hamilton: 36.4 per 100K
  
• 46 cases in Brant: 33.8 per 100K
  
• 151 cases in Niagara: 33.7 per 100K
  
• 117 cases in Middlesex-London: 28.9 per 100K
  
• 72 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 26.5 per 100K
  
• 144 cases in Halton: 26.3 per 100K
  
• 251 cases in Ottawa: 25.2 per 100K
  
• 114 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 21.1 per 100K
  
• 70 cases in Windsor-Essex: 18.0 per 100K
  
• 34 cases in Eastern Ontario: 16.8 per 100K
  
• 84 cases in Waterloo: 13.6 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 10 cases in Northwestern: 11.4 per 100K
  
• 18 cases in Leeds, Grenville & Lanark: 10.6 per 100K
  
• 15 cases in Southwestern Ontario: 7.5 per 100K
  
• 5 cases in Huron Perth: 5.1 per 100K
  
• 5 cases in Chatham-Kent: 4.7 per 100K
  
• 7 cases in Thunder Bay: 4.7 per 100K
  
• 6 cases in Lambton: 4.6 per 100K
  
• 9 cases in Kingston Frontenac: 4.4 per 100K
  
• 13 cases in Sudbury: 3.3 per 100K
  

Only regions with at least two cases per 100,000 population

[danbrotherston]

Shutting borders is necessary but not sufficient. Workplace outbreaks are a problem too. Paid sick days. Understanding that it's airborne would help.

Yeah, right now, I don't think foreign travel is a prime contributor any more.

Absolutely we should have paid sick days, and that would help some. But I looked at the workplace outbreak data for Waterloo Region and for Peel, and while it's hard to match up the data, it doesn't seem like the number of workplace outbreak cases is a significant percentage of the new cases we are seeing -- my gut feel says it's maybe 10-20%. (Our tracking and tracing is pretty poor, but workplace infections are one of the easiest to identify.)

Private gatherings, indoors, without masks? That's potentially a big one, but due to the lack of tracing data, it's impossible to confirm that.

How we have got to this point is a series of mistakes and poor judgements. And now many people are fed up, tired of it all or just tuned out. People are still wearing masks in public (without that it would be worse yet) but the human behaviour, combined with the aggressiveness of the variants, is overriding the mask usage and the current vaccination levels.

So, what could the government do to have a significant impact now, until the vaccination levels get significantly higher? Enforce paid sick days, yes, but I think that is not sufficient in itself.

What percentage of infections are even traced right now? I don't get the sense we are doing any of this tracing. We might identify an outbreak, but given asymptomatic people, large workplaces, etc. this isn't the kind of thing we'd even hear about.

Heck, how many people were sick at the Amazon warehouse before anyone heard anything about it.

My gut says workplace infections are a major driver, I'm sure it's not the ONLY driver, but if it was a third, that would still be one of three problems.

But ultimately, I don't think we have any data on it, because, one of the many MANY failures our government has had is an unwillingness to actually bother investing in these services.

Of course, they lacked imagination, maybe they prepared for full contact tracing at orange levels, without the slightest clue that we'll exceed orange levels by 10 pretty easily.

[taylortbb]

What percentage of infections are even traced right now? I don't get the sense we are doing any of this tracing. We might identify an outbreak, but given asymptomatic people, large workplaces, etc. this isn't the kind of thing we'd even hear about.

Heck, how many people were sick at the Amazon warehouse before anyone heard anything about it.

My gut says workplace infections are a major driver, I'm sure it's not the ONLY driver, but if it was a third, that would still be one of three problems.

I don't want to get too specific, but this info is from someone I know that works in this area.

Public health used to call all positive tests, but definitely don't have the staffing to do that now. However, the automated system does text them and ask a few questions. If the answers to the questions suggest there might be a school or workplace outbreak, then that's top priority for the contact tracers to call them and investigate further. So I think our data on workplace outbreaks isn't as terrible as our low rate of contact tracing would suggest.

That said, one of the biggest factors they're seeing is what employees do off the clock. Good workplaces that enforce mask rules, avoid crowding people in a small area, etc, still come up against employees saying "well, we spend all day together at work, so I figured I might as well have my coworkers over for pizza". Except of course at work they're all masked, sanitizing theirs hands, etc but that all goes out the window at pizza night. Technically it still becomes a workplace outbreak, but the risk factor isn't the workplace.

[jeffster]

Shutting borders is necessary but not sufficient. Workplace outbreaks are a problem too. Paid sick days. Understanding that it's airborne would help.

Yeah, right now, I don't think foreign travel is a prime contributor any more.

Absolutely we should have paid sick days, and that would help some.

So, what could the government do to have a significant impact now, until the vaccination levels get significantly higher? Enforce paid sick days, yes, but I think that is not sufficient in itself.

The variants is why we are where we are, great article here:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/coronavir...-1.5982323

These variants don't magically appear -- they all came from travel. And there are causing us grief. As I said, had we shut down international travel from the get go, we'd have very little covid, if any, right now. We'd be like the maritimes. Either way, international travel is behind most of the cases. No one was quarantining properly. It goes to other family members. It goes to their co-workers and family. And the cycle is endless.

Now, it's too late.

I agree that paid sick days are needed. While Canada does have EI sick leave for covid-related, it's only 2 weeks. If it's not covid related, you're cut off. So don't get covid the next time round. I am guessing Ford is against paid sick days because small businesses are already bleeding money. Not sure how else we get paid sick days. Can it be done through OW/ODSP on a temp basis?

[ac3r]

What people do in their private time seems to be one of the main causes of what's going on right now. So how do we combat this pandemic apathy? Recently in Grey Bruce, there has been a massive community outbreak due to illegal high school bush parties and they announced that every single person living in Grey Bruce should assume they have Covid-19 because close to 100 kids are now positive and spreading it even more. You have to be a complete nihilist to go attend a massive bush party in the middle of a pandemic, so the issue is..how do we deal with people that just don't care? I don't know whether it's possible. It feels like we've been beaten by this in a way, and now we're just trying to tolerate it while we wait for enough people to get vaccinated and hope that will pull of us out of this quicksand we're sinking in.

[danbrotherston]

What people do in their private time seems to be one of the main causes of what's going on right now. So how do we combat this pandemic apathy? Recently in Grey Bruce, there has been a massive community outbreak due to illegal high school bush parties and they announced that every single person living in Grey Bruce should assume they have Covid-19 because close to 100 kids are now positive and spreading it even more. You have to be a complete nihilist to go attend a massive bush party in the middle of a pandemic, so the issue is..how do we deal with people that just don't care? I don't know whether it's possible. It feels like we've been beaten by this in a way, and now we're just trying to tolerate it while we wait for enough people to get vaccinated and hope that will pull of us out of this quicksand we're sinking in.

I still do not see evidence for this.

As for kids having a bush party...well, they're kids, they're stupid, and they've been told that the pandemic doesn't impact them. So that's hardly surprising.

That being said, not sure why 100 kids in a region of 100,000 people means everyone has it.

I agree, it feels like we are just waiting for vaccines, I feel like that's what Ford is doing. That being said, it's going to get really really bad if we continue on this track. I don't know what will happen, I'm privileged that it won't affect me super seriously (unless I need the healthcare system) but this is an unforced disaster.

How to fix the current situation, I don't know, but I know if our government was utterly inadequate for the job, there is a pretty straight forward strategy which would have led to a far better outcome. I mean, I'm not an expert in anything relevant to this, but even I can see a better path forward than our current buffoon.

[panamaniac]

Ford looked better in 2020 when we were comparing him to the (now) Mouse of Mar-a-lago down south. Now the comparison isn’t so good for Ford.

Last year, people were pleasantly surprised at how well Ford was playing with others (i.e. PM Trudeau).  This year, the underlying incompetence and incoherent messaging have been much more apparent.

[Bjays93]

Ford looked better in 2020 when we were comparing him to the (now) Mouse of Mar-a-lago down south. Now the comparison isn’t so good for Ford.

Last year, people were pleasantly surprised at how well Ford was playing with others (i.e. PM Trudeau).  This year, the underlying incompetence and incoherent messaging have been much more apparent.

Ford won me over in 2020 and turned me against him in 2021. Unfortunately many people are privileged enough to not see the true effects of all this (myself included) but the situation is really bad right now. We just happen to live in a flight path, and every day medical helicopters go flying over our house presumably moving critically ill patients from wherever they were to where there might be enough hospital beds. It's a somber reminder of what's happening right now.

[danbrotherston]

Last year, people were pleasantly surprised at how well Ford was playing with others (i.e. PM Trudeau).  This year, the underlying incompetence and incoherent messaging have been much more apparent.

Ford won me over in 2020 and turned me against him in 2021. Unfortunately many people are privileged enough to not see the true effects of all this (myself included) but the situation is really bad right now. We just happen to live in a flight path, and every day medical helicopters go flying over our house presumably moving critically ill patients from wherever they were to where there might be enough hospital beds. It's a somber reminder of what's happening right now.

Edit: my mistake, 2020, not 2018.