The COVID-19 pandemic

[tomh009]

FRIDAY 2021-09-03

Waterloo Region reported 23 new cases for today (13.3% of the active cases) and one fewer for yesterday for 20; 152 new cases for the week (-3 from yesterday and +17 from last week), averaging 13.1% of active cases. 174 active cases, +7 in the last seven days.

An average of 927 tests/day for the past 7 days for a positivity rate of 2.34%, well down from 2.97% a week ago, although higher test volumes will have helped that.

1,591 doses of vaccine administered, with a seven-day average at 1,315 (previous week was 1,449). 74.27% of total regional population vaccinated, 68.51% fully vaccinated -- this includes new adjustments so cannot determine change from yesterday or last week.

Ontario reported 807 new cases today with a seven-day average of 732 (+4), compared to 665 a week ago. 738 recoveries and four (new) deaths translated to an increase of 63 active cases and a new total of 6,094. +650 active cases and 21 deaths for the week. 28,786 tests with a positivity rate of 2.80%. The positivity rate is averaging 2.99% for the past seven days, compared to 2.76% for the preceding seven.

144 people in the ICU, +7 from yesterday and +16 over the past week. Total hospital population of 326, +20 for the week.

43,855 doses of vaccine administered yesterday, with a seven-day average at 32,886 (previous week was 36,398). 73.81% of total provincial population vaccinated (+0.14% from yesterday, +0.62% from 7 days ago), 67.98% fully vaccinated (+0.16% from yesterday, +0.94% from 7 days ago).

Cases/100K by region:

• 72 cases in Windsor-Essex: 18.5 per 100K
  
• 136 cases in Peel: 9.8 per 100K
  
• 10 cases in Chatham-Kent: 9.4 per 100K
  
• 46 cases in Hamilton: 7.9 per 100K
  
• 50 cases in Durham: 7.7 per 100K
  
• 85 cases in York: 7.7 per 100K
  
• 19 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 7.0 per 100K
  
• 28 cases in Niagara: 6.3 per 100K
  
• 6 cases in Huron Perth: 6.1 per 100K
  
• 175 cases in Toronto: 6.0 per 100K
  
• 7 cases in Brant: 5.1 per 100K
  
• 49 cases in Ottawa: 4.9 per 100K
  
• 18 cases in Middlesex-London: 4.4 per 100K
  
• 23 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 4.3 per 100K
  
• 22 cases in Halton: 4.0 per 100K
  
• 6 cases in Southwestern Ontario: 3.0 per 100K
  
• 6 cases in Eastern Ontario: 3.0 per 100K
  
• 17 cases in Waterloo: 2.8 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 4 cases in Kingston Frontenac: 2.0 per 100K
  
• 2 cases in Leeds, Grenville & Lanark: 1.2 per 100K
  
• 1 cases in Northwestern: 1.1 per 100K
  
• 4 cases in Sudbury: 1.0 per 100K
  

The new case growth rate is creeping back toward zero. Not dropping yet, but it looks to be stabilizing.

   

[danbrotherston]

At what point do you list "stupidity" as the actual cause of death?

https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1...3602277383

[danbrotherston]

[ijmorlan]

And vaxxinations are way up as a result of the vaxx passport policy. I'm going to be blunt. I don't care about your feelings, I don't care about your fears, I'm sick of COVID and we KNOW the way out. This is the right policy, we should have done this a long time ago.

Amen! Preach, brother!

As I told somebody in email just yesterday, “I respect your right not to get vaccinated … as
long as you stay the hell away from the rest of us.”

[ac3r]

Vaccine protests threaten to disrupt essential services as crowds gather outside hospitals, police headquarters: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/a...as-crowds/

I hope they arrest anyone who blocks access to hospitals, fire and police officers and who threatens any employee of any business. I'm am so sick and tired of these fucking people. It's going to take a lot of will power to not knock the fuck out of anyone I see harassing or assaulting people in public who asks to see a vaccine record, especially if people start spitting in the faces or hitting young teens trying to do their job or blocking ambulance bays. This is starting to enrage me. We're SO close to beating this pandemic and these people just want to make things worse.

[jeffster]

Current 7-day Covid-19 cases per 100k

• Windsor-Essex County Health Unit 107.3
• City of Hamilton Public Health Services 87.8
• Chatham-Kent Public Health 70.5
• Brant County Health Unit 52.2
• York Region Public Health 44.5
• Peel Public Health 39.9
• Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health 37.8
• Niagara Region Public Health 37.2
• Eastern Ontario Health Unit 34.5
• Toronto Public Health 33.9

• Region of Waterloo Public Health and Emergency Services 26.9

• Public Health Sudbury & Districts 11.6
• Lambton Public Health 7.6
• Thunder Bay District Health Unit 7.3
• Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit 6.4
• Algoma Public Health 6.1
• Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health 4.7
• Leeds, Grenville & Lanark District Health Unit 4.6
• Northwestern Health Unit 2.3
• Renfrew County and District Health Unit 0.9
• Timiskaming Health Unit 0.0

• TOTAL ONTARIO 34.5

[jeffster]

This is starting to enrage me. We're SO close to beating this pandemic and these people just want to make things worse.

I totally get your anger. However, we're not going to beat Covid-19 -- not at least until we get an effective vaccine. It doesn't even matter if you gotten covid-19 before, your shots, you can still get it again. At best, we can control it and minimize hospital admissions.

It really is what it is. A little more honesty from PHAC from the get go, regarding vaccination numbers, would have been helpful. Even if they simply said "we don't know if reaching 70% or 80% -- or even 100% vaccination rates, will stop Covid..." Rather. they created goalposts, then moved them again and again. And that give many anti-vaxxers the ammunition that they should have never gotten.

[danbrotherston]

This is starting to enrage me. We're SO close to beating this pandemic and these people just want to make things worse.

I totally get your anger. However, we're not going to beat Covid-19 -- not at least until we get an effective vaccine. It doesn't even matter if you gotten covid-19 before, your shots, you can still get it again. At best, we can control it and minimize hospital admissions.

It really is what it is. A little more honesty from PHAC from the get go, regarding vaccination numbers, would have been helpful. Even if they simply said "we don't know if reaching 70% or 80% -- or even 100% vaccination rates, will stop Covid..." Rather. they created goalposts, then moved them again and again. And that give many anti-vaxxers the ammunition that they should have never gotten.

This is the second time you've made this unsubstantiated and broadly false claim. The vaccine is extremely effective, "getting COVID" is not created equal. If you are vaccinated you are orders of magnitude less likely to be infected, and if you are infected, you are orders of magnitude less likely to go to the hospital. I'd say something which achieves two orders of magnitude in both categories is "effective".  Even with things like the Delta variant these numbers hold. We consider the flu vaccine to be effective, and it doesn't achieve numbers near the COVID vaccine.

But we've already explained this, why do you continue to repeat this?

Given that we have not even hit the lowest number you have mentioned (we are only at 67% fully vaccinated) and I've never heard 70%...the lowest I've ever heard was 75%, I don't really agree with the second paragraph either.

[jeffster]

I totally get your anger. However, we're not going to beat Covid-19 -- not at least until we get an effective vaccine. It doesn't even matter if you gotten covid-19 before, your shots, you can still get it again. At best, we can control it and minimize hospital admissions.

It really is what it is. A little more honesty from PHAC from the get go, regarding vaccination numbers, would have been helpful. Even if they simply said "we don't know if reaching 70% or 80% -- or even 100% vaccination rates, will stop Covid..." Rather. they created goalposts, then moved them again and again. And that give many anti-vaxxers the ammunition that they should have never gotten.

This is the second time you've made this unsubstantiated and broadly false claim. The vaccine is extremely effective, "getting COVID" is not created equal. If you are vaccinated you are orders of magnitude less likely to be infected, and if you are infected, you are orders of magnitude less likely to go to the hospital. I'd say something which achieves two orders of magnitude in both categories is "effective".  Even with things like the Delta variant these numbers hold.  We consider the flu vaccine to be effective, and it doesn't achieve numbers near the COVID vaccine.

But we've already explained this, why do you continue to repeat this?

Given that we have not even hit the lowest number you have mentioned (we are only at 67% fully vaccinated) and I've never heard 70%...the lowest I've ever heard was 75%, I don't really agree with the second paragraph either.

First, it's not a false claim. People are still getting sick, even if vaccinated. They are still being hospitalized, with the vaccine. They are still dying, with the vaccine. Yes, I get it they offer you protection compared to being unvaccinated, but it's not nearly effective enough.

They are not effective as they need them to be for us to move on. The flu vaccine itself is hardly effective (something like 50%). Effective vaccines are vaccines that are made for measles, polio, tetanus, etc. Diseases that have been wiped from the face of the earth, for the most part. But even if we had 100% vaccinated, this disease is still going to carry on, UNLESS, we get a better vaccine.

I'm not OK with being happy with what we got. I am not happy that we're going to need to be vaccinated with the same shot again and again, and again. PHAC doesn't seem to want to say that this is needed, but Israel and the USA have either gone ahead with this or are about it.

Perhaps do a little research first, Dan, before spewing BS. Here are a few good links to get a start:

https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data

https://www.politico.eu/article/biontech...ime-study/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00728-2

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/s...ccine.html

https://www.statista.com/statistics/7864...in-canada/

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/s...ccine.html

https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/immuniz...index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/dtap-td...index.html

Please, show you're research that our current vaccine is good enough for us to get over Covid, just like we got over the above diseases. I'll wait.

[danbrotherston]

This is the second time you've made this unsubstantiated and broadly false claim. The vaccine is extremely effective, "getting COVID" is not created equal. If you are vaccinated you are orders of magnitude less likely to be infected, and if you are infected, you are orders of magnitude less likely to go to the hospital. I'd say something which achieves two orders of magnitude in both categories is "effective".  Even with things like the Delta variant these numbers hold.  We consider the flu vaccine to be effective, and it doesn't achieve numbers near the COVID vaccine.

But we've already explained this, why do you continue to repeat this?

Given that we have not even hit the lowest number you have mentioned (we are only at 67% fully vaccinated) and I've never heard 70%...the lowest I've ever heard was 75%, I don't really agree with the second paragraph either.

First, it's not a false claim. People are still getting sick, even if vaccinated. They are still being hospitalized, with the vaccine. They are still dying, with the vaccine. Yes, I get it they offer you protection compared to being unvaccinated, but it's not nearly effective enough.

They are not effective as they need them to be for us to move on. The flu vaccine itself is hardly effective (something like 50%). Effective vaccines are vaccines that are made for measles, polio, tetanus, etc. Diseases that have been wiped from the face of the earth, for the most part. But even if we had 100% vaccinated, this disease is still going to carry on, UNLESS, we get a better vaccine.

I'm not OK with being happy with what we got. I am not happy that we're going to need to be vaccinated with the same shot again and again, and again. PHAC doesn't seem to want to say that this is needed, but Israel and the USA have either gone ahead with this or are about it.

Perhaps do a little research first, Dan, before spewing BS. Here are a few good links to get a start:

https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data

https://www.politico.eu/article/biontech...ime-study/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00728-2

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/s...ccine.html

https://www.statista.com/statistics/7864...in-canada/

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/s...ccine.html

https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/immuniz...index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/dtap-td...index.html

Please, show you're research that our current vaccine is good enough for us to get over Covid, just like we got over the above diseases. I'll wait.

You didn't say 100% effective, and if you did, I'd point out that such a metric has never been applied to vaccines before. Even the smallpox vaccine which was used to eradicate a disease from the face of the earth was not much more effective than the COVID vaccine:

https://www.health.ny.gov/publications/7...vaccinated.

Certainly I think we have moved on from smallpox.

In fact, the COVID vaccine is effective enough for us to eradicate COVID if we wanted to, by achieving a sufficiently high vaccination rate with other measures.

And if you wish to talk about duration, the COVID vaccine has shown waning antibodies, as many vaccines do, because that's how our immune system works, antibodies are not always long lived. However the memory cells which form the long term portion of our immune system have been shown to be robust for the vaccine. It is less effective over time because with only memory cells remaining, it takes a little longer for the immune system to mount a response by producing new antibodies, but that only means that an infection is far less severe.

And given that 100% of the people hospitalized locally with COVID are not vaccinated, vaccination is absolutely effective at moving past COVID, if only the assholes would get fucking vaccinated.

In fact PHAC has explicitly stated there will probably be a yearly booster, given that it was big news that they ordered one.  But this is primarily needed because mutations (which result from the disease continuing to be widespread as a result of low vaccination rates) occurring, not because the vaccine is necessarily ineffective.

Perhaps it is you who needs to do some research.

What really confuses me about your response here, is that you think that a magically 100% effective vaccine would somehow solve COVID? Unless it vaccinates against stupidity and can be administered via horse dewormer it isn't going to do shit against the anti-vaccers who are driving this wave of COVID.

[ac3r]

good enough for us to get over Covid

The vaccines are as good as they're going to get right now. That's all we have to "get over Covid", so I think it's disingenuous to say that our current vaccines aren't enough. What more do you want? Eternal social distancing and mask wearing? I sure as hell don't. They're not perfect, but they're pretty good and they are the only thing we are going to have at our disposal to get over it. Yes, it's not 100% - vaccines are not force fields that create some barrier that prevents you from contracting a virus...anyone who graduated high school science can tell you that - but they are almost enough to move on at this point (once we get <12 approved and elderly/immunocompromised booster shots).

We cannot just keep waiting and waiting and waiting, shutting things down, forcing people out of work, forcing children out of school, making people starve for food or go homeless because people still get the virus. It's endemic at this point - there is never going to be a "hashtag CovidZero". It's going to be around for a long time. We can't keep locking things down, laying off workers and keeping kids out of school. The vaccines - for those who are willing to take them - are almost certainly going to keep them out of the hospital (3.1+ billion doses administered - contrast that with how many vaccinated still ended up in hospital...it's an insignificant number). What more can we do, really? If the unvaccinated want to scream into the void about microchips, magnets, glow in the dark arteries and Communist-Neo Nazi-Socialist boogeymen, let them. Let Covid-19 sort them out, to be honest. It can't continue to be our problem for too much longer. Once the <12 population is approved, hopefully every child who can get it gets it and then at that point. After that, it's like the memes say...let Darwin sort the rest out. I don't give a shit anymore.

We've lost 2 years of our lives to this bullshit, I'm not going to sit around losing even more of it because anti-vaxxers want to lick doorknobs and end up in the hospital. Fuck em. I'll wear my mask until the local bylaw says I have to do otherwise, but I'm not waiting around anymore, hiding inside my apartment because anti-vaxxers want to be morons. I've already been vacationing around the world, enjoying nightclubs and cafés and bars in other countries because it's allowed there and not here. Why the hell do you want to keep living without the freedom to do that here, because some ignorant fools are too stupid to get vaccinated? I'm not on their side, but jeez...we've been kept in bondage for far too long. I'm seriously done with it. I was 33 years old when this started, I'm not going to turn 35 years old and still be living like this. If you want to point to statistics and stuff, point to the fact that almost all of the people in the hospital who are seriously sick are idiots who have chosen to not be vaccinated (with the exceptions of those who cannot be...but they are doing their part to be safe).

[plam]

First, it's not a false claim. People are still getting sick, even if vaccinated. They are still being hospitalized, with the vaccine. They are still dying, with the vaccine. Yes, I get it they offer you protection compared to being unvaccinated, but it's not nearly effective enough.

Reading the numbers of people who are infected while vaccinated is misleading. Most people who are infected, and almost every single person who has severe disease, is unvaccinated. But in a population where you have more vaccinated than unvaccinated people, it's going to be normal to see some number of vaccinated people get the disease.

It is true that the measles and polio vaccines are more effective than the COVID vaccines. I'm not sure that we will get a more effective COVID vaccine and I see few signs of there being a vaccine that is going to be orders of magnitude better. I think that non-pharmaceutical interventions in combination with this vaccine can absolutely beat COVID, but that requires political leadership.

I absolutely don't think that the science currently supports boosters for the general population yet. Israel and the US are getting in front of the science. See for instance this from The Atlantic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...ow/619965/

[ac3r]

It is true that the measles and polio vaccines are more effective than the COVID vaccines.

It's worth pointing out that polio and measles never caused pandemics either (well, the cause of the Antonine Plague is disputed, it may have been measles but that was in 165-180 AD...we don't really know). SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 has been the 8th deadliest pandemic in all of recorded human history. The fact that we got out literally dozens of vaccines in <24 months and got billions of people to take them - whilst proving how effective they were before any long term studies have been conducted - is an incredible feat of science.

To complain that "they aren't good enough" is either naïve or ignorant. They are the best thing we could have ever hoped for given our situation. They are keeping 90 to 99% of vaccinated people out of hospital, regardless of what vaccine it is. That's an amazing scientific accomplishment. This will be something they point back to in history for the next few centuries.

[tomh009]

First, it's not a false claim. People are still getting sick, even if vaccinated. They are still being hospitalized, with the vaccine. They are still dying, with the vaccine. Yes, I get it they offer you protection compared to being unvaccinated, but it's not nearly effective enough.

They are not effective as they need them to be for us to move on. The flu vaccine itself is hardly effective (something like 50%). Effective vaccines are vaccines that are made for measles, polio, tetanus, etc. Diseases that have been wiped from the face of the earth, for the most part. But even if we had 100% vaccinated, this disease is still going to carry on, UNLESS, we get a better vaccine.

OK, jeffster, suppose that I do buy this argument. Then what? What do you propose the governments (not only ours, but others, too) should do, instead of vaccinations? Ignore COVID, a la Alberta and Florida? Keep doing lockdowns, like Australia? Pretend it's all fake news, like Brazil and North Korea? Is there another solution that we are unaware of?

I can guarantee that pharma research into COVID vaccines is ongoing, but there is no absolutely no guarantee that they will be able to come up with something with significantly higher efficacy.

[ijmorlan]

Reading the numbers of people who are infected while vaccinated is misleading. Most people who are infected, and almost every single person who has severe disease, is unvaccinated. But in a population where you have more vaccinated than unvaccinated people, it's going to be normal to see some number of vaccinated people get the disease.

Indeed, if everybody were vaccinated, then 100% of Covid cases would be in vaccinated individuals.

But the total number would be very small and would probably shrink reasonably quickly to zero.