Re: Coronavirus
 

Some unvaccinated are more likely to become infected and transmit it. Those that are unvaccinated, have had the virus and have recovered, are in a very similar position to those that have had 2 shots. So, once again, classing the two groups as different is not entirely accurate.

I'd also respectfully suggest that you are confusing two separate issues. If I toss a coin and get 6 heads in a row, the law of averages states that I am more likely to throw a tail on my next turn. However, the actual chances of me throwing a head or a tail are exactly equal.

In any event, I believe that this particular debate has run its course.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Oh look, there go those goalposts on the move again.

Re: Coronavirus
 

This is a good example. “Law of averages” is make-belief maths; a nonsensical belief some people hold because someone just as ignorant said so and they want to believe it. This belief has no basis in statistics. Very similar to claims that vaccination during Covid pandemic is not necessary and impinges on “freedoms”.

Re: Coronavirus
 

WTF ?! What law is that ???

Re: Coronavirus
 

Poor old Charlie gone and got the corona for a second time!

https://news.sky.com/story/prince-ch...-says-12538176

Re: Coronavirus
 

At his age it's probably quite a concern though.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Would be a nightmare if he croaked, especially after his bird's queens consort announcement.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Buck House neither confirming or denying that her Maj has caught Covid from Charles...

Re: Coronavirus
 

Bristol appears to want to group everyone in the unvaccinated group together. I wish to point out that everyone in that group cannot be treated equally, for the reasons outlined above. Treating them as a group, for the purposes of the discussion we were having, is irrelevant as the risk they each, individually, pose to the patients is dependent upon their individual circumstances. I was simply attempting to illustrate the point.

In any event, as such discussions are looking increasingly moot as jurisdictions across the world appear to wish to return to normal and allow everyone to take the risk they, the individuals, wish to.

Re: Coronavirus
 

LOL. His bird.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Ah, he's now realised what I meant about moving the goalposts again.

After a series of exchanges referencing "...the vaccinated healthcare worker versus the unvaccinated healthcare worker" multiple times, multiple responses refer yet again to the evidence that unvaccinated are infectious for longer, so more likely to pass it on over a longer period, and more likely to pass on a higher load.

Clearly everyone else recognises that both unvaccinated and vaccinated can pass it on but one is more likely to than the other. And we still get...
Still not getting it.
Then the goalposts move.
.Ah, so it's not vaccinated vs unvaccinated anymore, now it's suddenly vaccinated vs a group of people who might just include those unvaccinated for whatever reason; choosing not to be vaccinated for whatever reason, those who 'recovered' from covid and for whom very limited research suggested for a short period that their natural immunity might be comparable to the good work of the vaccine but nothing to suggest it was as good as a series of vaccinations.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I get it, it appears that you don't. Perhaps you missed the lesson on Venn diagrams when you were at school.

As I said above, it is becoming more and more moot as jurisdictions are moving on.

Re: Coronavirus
 

If you pay attention to what politicians have said, at least in Ontario, vaccination requirements have always meant to be a temporary exemption to the shutdowns to access certain things, and that they would eventually be lifted. So, being unvaccinated is not prohibited, but just quite inconvenient if you actually, you know, want to have a life, or travel.

The removal of the "covid passport" system does not mean that vaccination won't be required to do things like travel, or work for certain employers. So we are likely to continue to see vaccination requirements in certain areas, it just won't be as pervasive as it's been from Sept. '21 until now.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Unless you live here in BC where our so called expert firmly believes in the vax passports and vax mandates and is showing no signs of any major changes to our restrictions. They have instead continued to force a huge list of workers who are in healthcare to get vaccinated or lose their jobs as from next month. This list includes many more than just care home and hospital workers. Here in the Interior health region we have lost 900 staff due to the mandate and now massive staff shortages due to sickness as well leading them to tell us all how overwhelmed our healthcare system is and how our local hospital is at 115% with hundreds of surgeries cancelled. Unlike England where they decided losing staff due to mandated vax wasn't an option here in BC it seems we are going to continue to run the blame on the unvaccinated and continue with our divided society whereby if you don't support the vax you are lowest of the low and should be ashamed. It's possible our great leader agrees with all this but not sure which rock he is hiding under this week?

Re: Coronavirus
 

England is going to remove self-isolation requirement for those with confirmed Covid. Not sure when, a couple of weeks I think. The general reaction of the scientists is that this policy is premature. A high vaccination and immunity rate will protect most, but it's yet another gamble (on lives). Scotland & Wales are do far taking a more cautious approach on social restriction.

Re: Coronavirus
 

This is one of the few things Boris has got right, if we waited for the scientific community to agree on this we'd simply never lift restrictions.

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's certainly a political rather than scientific decision. Let's hope he has got it right.

Re: Coronavirus
 

:nod:

Hopefully Ontario will follow suit, and it seems like Trudeau and Tam are considering lifting pre- and post-arrival testing at the border, so travel should return to what it was like in Jul/Aug 2021 at least.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Is it known how many people in the UK have yet to catch the virus? In light of the recent numbers of cases, combined with the numbers in the last 2 years, it can't be that many.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I haven't seen anything along those lines but Worldometer lists the UK as having had 18.3m cases.
That suggests that from a population of 67.2m, 73% have not had it.

Of course it's possible that some of that 73% may have had it and not tested for it for whatever reason but it would have to be an awful lot for not many to have been uninfected.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Possibly but as this is a virus that lots of people have without knowing that they have it, it wouldn't surprise me that the number that are not vaccinated and have not had it is very low.

As you are likely aware, lots of those that are classed as being hospitalized as a result of Covid during the Omicron wave, were there for other reasons and the fact that they had it was discovered only after a mandatory test.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Certainly I've read about hospital covid patients who were admitted to hospital for non covid reasons but the whole tenor in the reports I've seen is of people getting covid from being in hospital rather than arriving with it.

Mind you, given the source - "British Prime Minister Boris Johnson even said last week that as many as 30% of people in hospital with COVID-19 actually become infected while hospitalised" - who knows what to believe :lol:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Quite.

It does appear that we are moving into a "we have to live with it" rather than the attitude that has been put forward up until this point of time (don't need to debate the merits of what has happened previously) and I would suggest that, in most western jurisdictions now, it appears sensible for everyone to take the risks they are willing to take.

Particularly in Canada, I don't believe that there can be many left that have not been vaxxed, that are going to and I believe that there are now good arguments that continuing to impose restrictions is likely to do more harm than good to society as a whole.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I still have a few reservations, particularly for New Brunswick where the daily death rate continues to match the daily infection rate of the first 18 months. While they are mostly in their 70s and older, I look at my fit as a fiddle mother in law at 83 and think that maybe 70 is not that old - especially as I'm coming up to 65 myself. It would be nice to know if these people had other conditions but the government doesn't tell us that citing privacy. I'd still like to know how the reporting of "a person in their 70s, two in their 80s and one in their 90s" having died, no other identifying details, doesn't break privacy rules but any reference to other conditions does. It's not hard to do it in a way that's informative but still maintains privacy. Just some reference to a % of weekly deaths having underlying health conditions would do it.

One good thing that would come of ending it all, there'd be no reason for "protests" and convoys. No more emboldening otherwise silent Trumper types.
Imagine moderate Canada going the same way as the US, politically. :ohmy:

Re: Coronavirus
 

In Alberta, it is possible to obtain figures by age, condition and vax status.

I appreciate that it is not ideal but the data from the UK suggests that the average age of those that died from covid was higher than the average age of death in the last 5 years. Extrapolating that, which I appreciate is not ideal, one can conclude that most that have died are elderly and with co-morbidities and a large number of the first deaths were as a result of poor systems to deal with those in care homes.

I maintain that, whether vaxxed or not, the under 60s have little risk of dying from the virus, particularly the current variant, and those at risk should be perfectly capable of lowering their risk to what they believe is acceptable.

From my dealings with clients, I know that families have been under huge pressure from the children not being at school and not being able to socialise with their peers and my youngest daughter has not been able to attend a single lecture in person at university, notwithstanding the fact that she will soon be at the halfway point of her degree. My other daughter has not been able to finish her degree as she requires to attend in person "labs" that are not being offered.

Aside from the effects of the virus to those that have caught it, it is having a huge effect upon those under 25.

Re: Coronavirus
 

IMO if you work in healthcare and refuse to take a free, safe, effective vaccine then you should be shown the door.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Nosocomial. An infection acquired while receiving healthcare. That data and other related COVID conditions will be recorded by medical information staff, clinical coders, using ICD10 codes. So in theory he should know the real data, which is different to what he says of course

Re: Coronavirus
 

But that is NOT the consensus of opinion Canada wide nor world wide. It may have seemed like a good idea but it's becoming more debatable now on the overall effectiveness of such a mandate. The end result is loss of qualified staff at a time when we cannot afford to lose them alongside staff sickness. It's clearly not black and white otherwise we would not see other provinces ruling this out.

Re: Coronavirus
 

True enough.
But over here we do have suspensions for doctors refusing the vax - currently 11 I think I read in CBC news.
And there was a survey recently with a majority in favour of fewer (or lifting?) restrictions but the result was reversed here. Maybe that's what a high death rate does. :unsure:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Agreed but when does it become acceptable to belittle and segregate a group of people in 2022? Clearly it is not acceptable if you are gay/lesbian, black, Asian, short, fat and any number of other reasons that often lead to being bullied or ostracized. We are getting to the stage where addressing someone as Mr or Mrs is seen as wrong by those that want to be seen as gender neutral. We are however ok to call out anyone who is unvaccinated and remove them from parts of society and even their job so long as we do it because of the virus and not because of their race or gender!

Re: Coronavirus
 

From day one I've said how lucky our household is - nobody in education - two on OAS so no threat to income, one never had any income so no income to lose and one other in work whose initial loss of income was more than made up by the government support payments.

Nevertheless, despite that luck my 83 year old MIL plus diabetic and chronic kidney disease me are at risk from a household member working in a public facing job where throughout the pandemic she has come home with tales of (Homesense) customers hugging each other, talking about their trips away and parties in defiance of advice, coming out shopping when they should be self isolating, not wearing masks properly/lack of social distancing and so on.
Aside from the initial 5 or 6 week lockdown her store - household goods, kitchen items, luxury knick-knacks - her store has been open throughout. That's an indication that for the most part, most people here have been able to get on with their lives most of the time but with some adjustments or measures to the way they did it.

There have been periods of school/uni closures but also periods where they've been open just as other measures have applied to select areas as and when special attention needed.

I can do what I can to minimise my risks and those of my MIL but my SD can't control her risk and that puts two of us at risk.

Re: Coronavirus
 

This nightmare that we have all been living through will be over soon, people just need to take a chill pill and relax for a few more weeks and all these mandates will be lifted

we will all be able to see each other’s smile soon :lol:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Theres doesnt seem to be much logic about reopening and what you can and cant do. The local sports place reopened so i went down today to use the machines. Heck, masks aren't obligatory, so you can huff and puff your way round breathing your festering microbes over everyone. I didn't stay long because of this and next time I'll wear an N95.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Why are you worrying about a mask? I thought you already had COVID?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Having one variant of COVID doesn't stop you catching another - there was a report early on of someone who died who had both Alpha and Beta at the same time.

Plenty of people have caught COVID more than once. Anecdotally I know a couple, but everyone must have read that Prince Charles has COVID again.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Wearing a mask protects others more than oneself anyway, for me it's just polite and considerate to do so. If I see somebody wandering around a busy shop not wearing a mask, I'd view them the same way I'd view somebody walking around picking their nose or pushing past people without saying excuse me. I'd think they were just bloody rude.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Plus the mask does nothing to protect the wearer, its there more so to protect other people.

I think we should do a UK drop the all restrictions now. High time we moved on a start living with it. The restrictions are causing more of a problem than covid now.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Or dying with it as the case may be.

You may recall I posted that in January the UK had a daily death total on one day higher than any other single day since February 2021. It wasn't a freakishly high day, just the usual up and down. I'm fairly sure there were fewer and less strict measures this year than a year ago.

Boris "let the bodies pile high" has handled matters very poorly compared to many others and seems the last person to be making decisions.

But it's different from place to place. For most of the last two years people over here have been able to do what they normally do outside of small periodswhere they might not get to a gym for localised reasons but they could in a different are of the province. Or they might only be able to mix with "only" 20 people. Or eat out at 50% capacity (what a hardship for them) or restricted to take-out/delivery only for a bout 2 months over almost two years.

So that's where I live and where I used to live both with high current death rates for a supposedly non threatening variant and both with few, if any, restrictions or blasé attitudes, like not wearing masks in packed out football stadiums.

So no or few restrictions or measures seems to equate to dying with the virus (for some) rather than living with it.

What currently can you not do where you are?

Re: Coronavirus
 

So it's perfectly fair then. No actual unfair discrimination, just a consistent approach and a consequence for someone's individual action. Like punishing someone for law breaking. ;)

Re: Coronavirus
 

My doctor has not been vaccinated. He has had, and recovered from, the virus and, as a result of that, believes that there is no benefit to him having the vaccine. He has a document to this effect posted on the entrance to his surgery and it indicates that he will refer anyone that doesn't want to risk seeing him to another doctor.

The science backs his position so why should he be shown the door?