Re: Coronavirus
 

The "pure numbers" argument is irrelevant and refusing to look past unanalyzed data leads to uninformed opinions. For example, say the Alberta vaccination proportion was reversed, and the vast bulk of Albertans were unvaccinated, who do you think would be placing the burden on AHS? Hint: it would be the bulk of the population (not only because they are unvaccinated, but BECAUSE they are the bulk of the population). By using relative measures (percentages) we can better understand where the problem lies.

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He is repeating post #5872.

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I believe I mentioned it first. Post 5861.
And then again 5866.

:nod:

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Well, if the accidents involving sober drivers caused more people to require the emergency services than those involving drunk drivers, yes, as it would be factually correct, if I was so inclined to care about such matters. That doesn't mean that I believe that driving while drunk is a good thing, just as I believe that I am better off being vaccinated.

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It is not irrelevant. Had any jurisdiction wished to argue for such a tax earlier in the pandemic, the numbers would have supported their argument that the unvaccinated are the ones placing a burden upon the health system. Unfortunately for their argument, that is not the case now so their argument fails, IMVHO.

In any case, our opinion really doesn't matter and any law that Quebec wishes to impose will have to be constitutional failing which it will, likely, be subject to legal challenge. I accept that, as Quebec tends to do, it will likely use the notwithstanding clause to bolster its position. However, for the reasons stated above, I can't see the justification for lumping all members of one group together. I accept that you may have a different view

Re: Coronavirus
 

Nice lawyer type answer. ;)
So you can see that something that's factually correct but in overall context suggests a different picture- that driving drunk is not actually a good idea.

So when you keep banging on about numbers when there's an identical context in the drunk driving analogy, all you're doing is blaming the wrong group.

And as I said to you before, some people will seize upon that snippet of information (just as initially they seized on that bloke in the videos you posted) and start spreading 'the real truth' that getting vaccinated doesn't protect you - in fact it means you're more of a burden on the health services - and then the "just a hoax" crowd thrives even more.

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If you say so. Put simply, the government's argument, at this time, is not factually correct. You can argue that, historically, it was and then the question becomes: Why didn't they do then, that which they intend to do now?

I accept that some wish to argue that it is morally correct

If you believe your drunk driving analogy works; I am pleased for you. However, that doesn't really deal with the arguments above, nor have I ever argued that driving drunk is a good thing.

Successful lawyers have the ability to understand the other side's argument, to make appropriate concessions and to adjust their arguments appropriately. The less successful ones refuse to accept that their position may be incorrect, refuse to accept that the other side's argument has merit and fail to adjust their arguments.

Re: Coronavirus
 

But you are arguing that vaccinated people are the burden in exactly the same way that sober drivers would be the burden until you look at other details.

In this case there are those of us who do understand your argument. We do understand those particular examples of yours. Just as you understand the context too, because you know, you actually made the point yourself.

Nevertheless you continue to over simplify it by reference to the vaccinated as being the burden.

It's called misinformation. You might have heard of it.

‘Menace to public health’: An open letter from doctors expresses concern about Covid misinformation.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I wasn't specifically referring to the Quebec case, I was explaining why it's fallacious to contend that the vaccinated are a relative burden on the healthcare system. If you discard the word 'relative' you would have a point (on numbers alone) but not a particularly useful one. Others have tried to convey this scenario through the drink driving analogy.

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There is a lack of understanding of some very basic mathematical concepts, such as probability. Like talking different languages.

It's a generic problem with the British schools system: they streamline too early and often produce mathematicians who cannot read or humanitarians who cannot count.

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I have access to a great number of actuaries, originally trained in various countries. They know about probability but not humanity, that's a running joke. Like lawyers they have to marry each other because no one else will have them. So, nothing to do with the British school system. They are, of course, all vaccinated and scathing, even compared with me, about the un-vaxxed.

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Someone do the maths please.
Ontario hospitalizations:
686 unvaccinated
167 partially
2035 fully

ICU
168 unvaccinated
19 partially
185 Fully

population
8.7% unvaxed
91.3 % partially
86 % are fully vaccinated

those unvaxed patients comprise more than 8.7% I'm sure. But one of you will enjoy doing the sums

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I wouldn't necessarily single out the British school system, but in general there is a high level of statistical illiteracy which confounds discussing simple probabilities. Nowhere has this been clearer than in responses to pandemic data.

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Omicron: not out of the woods yet. :unsure:

​​​​​​https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...crons-severity

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Indeed. Two elite level footballers at the peak of fitness have heart lesions following brief bouts of covid.

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This chap is a bit more optimistic :fingerscrossed:


Dr Mike Tildesley, from the University of Warwick and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (Spi-M), has been discussing his hopes that by the end of the year the UK would have a "flu-type" relationship with COVID-19.

"Say we get into a situation where the virus becomes very, very mild and we are living alongside it - we're not there yet, but hopefully we will be at some point this year - then we do need to talk about not just cases but also hospital admissions and the number of people who are dying with the disease," he said.

"If we can get those numbers as low as possible then hopefully we can see restrictions removed and we can live alongside the virus.



"A while ago I did say probably January is going to be a little bit rocky, if this wave starts to turn around and hopefully as we get towards the warmer weather we can start to see these restrictions removed and we can have more of a discussion about what living with COVID is going to be like and hopefully we won't see a return to restrictions as we get further through the year."

Dr Tildesley said that, generally speaking, new variants of viruses tended to be more transmissible but "also generally milder".

"So my hope is that as we get further into this year and next year, we are dealing with milder versions of COVID and hopefully we have more of a flu-type relationship with COVID where potentially we protect the vulnerable as we get into the colder weather, but we don't see a return of restrictions," he said.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes isn't it all about how the media are treating this. You have the media sources that will use the "doom and gloom" professors or modelling experts to tell us all its far from over and masks will be with us till 2030 and then other media outlets quoting some other "expert" in his/her field who is much more hopeful about the next few weeks and disputes some of the more radical modelling
Every day on our local media we have the case counts and every day they say, and i quote:Case counts have become a much less useful metric in recent months, as B.C.'s testing system is at capacity.
So why are they still blindly quoting them? The other day one of the UK news outlets was quoting Nicola Sturgeon as saying whilst restrictions will be slowly lifted masks will likely be with us for years or something to that degree. In fact she had not actually said that at all, merely pointing out they may be the last restriction to be lifted.

Re: Coronavirus
 

My guess is if they weren't reporting figures people would be suspicious and there would soon be 'reports' of them not being high and so on.

They're giving out figures here in NB much less often for the same reasons - fewer people being tested and those that are tested the reporting of their positives is left to them to do, so many won't.

One figure that continues to be given out is record numbers in hospital and record low numbers of health staff. The symptoms might be mostly milder but for those less lucky it's putting more people in hospital than the more severe versions and the daily death totals are roughly the same as those who died of covid in 2020.

Yes, as many are dying daily now as died throughout March to December 2020.

I'm not ready to embrace Omicron just yet.

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Is this NB specific? Because i highly doubt that is a general stat around the globe because if it were where is the pandemonium that occurred back then during those earlier days? I'm not hearing of mass lock downs and hospitals full of dying patients. UK had some serious death figures back then, not so now and England about to further reduce restrictions this week. BC talking about reaching the peak and as far as i can see deaths are not increasing to any concerning level.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I am not a doctor or medical expert, but from articles I have read and a range of experts I have listened to, with a dose of common sense, this is how see it too.

Recording cases is no longer of any use, recording hospitlisations and deaths is all that matters now. Covid is never going away, just like any other flu in the past has never gone away, bit there comes a point when we will need to live along side it...hopefully it will continue to mutate into an even milder variant which will allow us to do so, with the help of vaccinations, until it no longer a serious threat. I have never had the standard flu vaccine as I like to rely on and build my own immune system to be as strong as it can be.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes. But it may now include other bits of Atlantic Canada as well.
We've all had dramatic increases in figures but from very low starting points so it still doesn't look that serious compared to other places.

But from day one, the idea was to prevent hospitals and health services being overrun and as well (relatively untouched) as we've done, we are now at that point.

Re: Coronavirus
 

A good technical discussion of "endemic" and the nature of viruses here (minute 17'00 to 24'00).

Re: Coronavirus
 

We are having the mass lockdowns and pandemonium here in Ontario.

Can't even go to the barber as removing my mask to trim my beard is verboten.

But I can cross the border into the US and do all that and more, get a free 2 hour molecular test at Walgreens and drive back across and no one will be any the wiser. :rolleyes:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Well if England is lifting rules in March, Canada is normally 2-3 months behind so that will hopefully mean June/July as a return to normality when cases in Canada has peaked. :fingerscrossed:

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...ifted-12519897

Re: Coronavirus
 

It might be taking a little longer a walgreens these days. Appointments are hard to get from what I've been told. I know Rite Aid's PCR results are taking at least 2 - 5 days, they did used to state that was the norm, but they usually came back a lot sooner than that, but not any more. If you do not need to come back on a specific date then a free test might be ok. The usual option seems to be paying for a test, KSL Diagnostics is pretty reasonable for their 24 hour result test, and it's been known to come back a little quicker than 24 hours, it's US$150 at present, and I think it was more expensive previously. The 30 min test result one is US$220 if you have money to burn.

Re: Coronavirus
 

The UK got vaccines before Canada but parts of Canada wisely shut down and brought in measures in advance of the UK doing so. The UK was particularly behind in Border matters.

When you look at the way it's all been handled in the UK relative to other countries it's difficult to see it as ahead (except in death tolls and things like that) and the way the government has handled it all is really not a good example to follow.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Alberta is now offering a fourth shot. WTF?

Can't wait for annual boosters. Boosters appear to be needed far sooner than annually.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I dunno, I like the idea of the government giving the public the option to wear a mask or not. I think that would go down well over here when we have reached the peak.

Mr Johnson said it was time to "trust the judgement" of the public on the use of masks in enclosed and crowded places, and they will be scrapped in classrooms from tomorrow.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Unless you’re moderately or severely immunocompromised then you or the general public are not being offered a booster.

For the immunocompromised, the fourth dose is actually the booster, three doses were considered the series.

Immunocompromised patients are often given vaccines the rest of Joe Public don’t need or receive.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Started in Ontario a few weeks ago, first those in care homes, then those with compromised immunity. I’m thinking a 4th dose will be required approx 6 months after the 3rd. Who knows about a 5th. :unsure:

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That's the thing, since this latest fast spreading variant general mask use has been brought into question and many shouting about using N95 specific masks as these are the "gold standard" among masks. The teachers here were all over this a short while back yet i don't know if many were aware just how wearing a properly fitted N95 all day was going to feel. The one thing that seemed to be talked about was the protection the wearer got from these masks and therefore those that were concerned could wear one and those that weren't as concerned could choose not to wear a mask and we would all be happy bunnies.

Re: Coronavirus
 

It might go down well but I prefer the idea of listening to experts rather than the public.

For all that Omicron is supposed to be mild, when footballers at the peak of fitness get heart lesions after suffering with it I'd sooner play safe for a while.

NB specific and further to my comments above, we just had twice as many covid deaths in 6 days as in March to December 2020.

This 'mild' variant killed twice as many people in 6 days than were killed in a 9 month period when there were no vaccines. :confused:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Well that is what has been bothering me about all these deaths, there is no data anywhere that I can find on the internet that says what percentage of the deaths in Canada were from Delta vs Omicron, vs vaccinated vs unvaccinated.
I think it would help for the media to release these figures to the public, especially when they are saying that Omicron is 91% less likely to kill you than delta.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/13/omicro...lta-cdc-study/

Re: Coronavirus
 

I don't think they know the data you speak of.

The Province of Ontario stopped publishing variant data when it was clear it was under tracked and they had no clue.

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's certainly a weird one. I've been going back over our reports and in December actual Omicron numbers seemed a minority over the overall number of cases. Though I imagine that any snapshot was just covid cases with some/many yet to be identified as Omicron.

As the month went by figures were disappearing and replaced by things like 'rapidly increasing' and then it was just called the dominant strain and that's what they're using now.

Of course it doesn't necessarily follow that the majority of deaths are Omicron but if they're not, someone would need to explain why earlier variants have suddenly become so fatal.

Re: Coronavirus
 

On the issue of covid deaths:

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's interesting that back in June UK daily deaths were in single figures on a 7 day average yet now they are hovering around 280 yet restrictions (In England anyway) are being stripped away and Bojo is running with the idea it can be managed and they can live with it. Of course even 280 a day is a world away from last January where there was almost 2000 deaths a day at one point. So what is an "acceptable death rate"? We know that prior to COVID a bad flu season could kill many but it was something we just accepted, there was never any push to mandate flu jabs or force people to wear masks even though those steps may have reduced hospital cases and deaths.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes this is it exactly, it seems certain governments have lost there way... if we had ever "locked down" because of a bad case of flu in the past there would have been riots, which really is what Omicron is.

The big question here is are all these deaths really down to omicron covid? or were there underlying health conditions and covid just tipped the balance, a lot like what pnemonia does to sick hospitalised people. My Dad died from a brain tumour, but that was the primary cause... he actually died from pneumonia in the end... of course I don't say he died from that it anyone asks. In the same way, did all these people actually die from covid?

It seems to me that covid figures are clouded now more than ever. And as I have said before case counts are totally irrelevant now, and of of no use what so ever, recording deaths and hospitatisations only of healthy vaccinated people with omicron covid would give us the data we need to see how much of an actual threat the latest variant is..

Re: Coronavirus
 

In the UK? Everyone but Johnson would be an acceptable death rate, to Johnson.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Lockdowns happen when hospitals are about to run out of capacity, particularly of ICU beds. That is the primary reason rather than the death rate. Regular flu season is something that healthcare planned for and comparisons to “flu seasons prior to Covid” are misguided.

For the other variants, patients admitted with Covid had much higher mortality, ICU usage and duration of stay, compared to flu. And flu admissions as well as other types of admissions still happened.

Right now in Ontario ICU usage is about 1300 for non-Covid patients and 600 for Covid. Spare capacity is about 500. The Covid number is still growing but slowly and stabilizing. Which is why restrictions can be eased although the trends will have to be monitored.

The above are facts. My guess: would have been no need for this latest lockdown if all eligible people were vaccinated. Over 200 ICU beds are taken by Covid patients not fully vaccinated, but also the spread would have been slower.

UK restrictions are based on the capacity of British hospitals and vaccination status of the British public. Politicians’ hands are forced in this respect. Alberta was a good illustration and so was Britain in spring 2020. Politicians have no choice whether they want to lock down or not.