Danny B

This new variant is going to piss off the anti-vaxxers even more...

https://globalnews.ca/news/8582784/o...ectious-study/

Danny B

Exactly, a lot of what was said in the media as fact last year can now be classified as misinformation.

Vaccines stopping the virus spread, and cloth masks helping to prevent the spread have both been found not to be accurate anymore. If you said this on TV 12 months ago you'd be cancelled.

Shard

My understanding is that although vaccination does not perfectly contain the virus, it does lead to a lower viral load (due to increased immune response) and therfore reduces transmission. In other words, someone is more likely to get Omicron from some without vaccination than with vaccination. Not sure of the extent of this difference.

BristolUK

On the other hand, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend the WHO says Vaccines are equally effective against BA.2.

Mordko

Yep.

printer

All the above has already occurred across many continents due the the original strain and then Delta and much has been learned since those days including vaccination yet now we are at a stage where 2 years in, lock downs and other severe costly methods are being pushed to one side as it was clear that these are crippling to just about every sector of society. What's already happened has cost governments millions and of course we are all on the hook for this via taxes or loss of services. We cannot continue on this path anymore and cannot expect to just because a small percentage are not fully vaccinated.
US are now looking at the prospect together with Pfizer of vaccinating under 5's, is this age group even affected to the extent a vaccination is considered? I am sure the WHO will reiterate their stance that poorer countries need to get vaccinated before rich ones start their next rollout. What about the massive cost to our government due to their extreme measures in some areas, why aren't they looking at spending this money on our health service, you know, the one that we are all protecting by getting 3 shots.

Mordko

Yes, it already happened.

The bit you seem to be missing is that while reducing the infection rate is laudable that's a secondary priority. The top priority is easing the strain on hospitals and their personnel and allowing care facilities to run at an acceptable level. And if that isn’t achieved then there will be a lot more shutdowns and bankruptcies and debt. And that mandating vaccination is a painless way of reducing the burden on healthcare. Much better than shutting schools, killing the vulnerable and bankrupting businesses and escalating debt even further.

We’ve just opened a bit in Ontario. Numbers will start going up and the burden on hospitals will increase. The system is fragile. We have very clear findings such as the CDC's that vaccination can substantially reduce one's risk of needing hospitalization, especially intensive care. Authorities would be remiss if they didn’t mandate further measures to expand vaccination. And, frankly, they are not doing enough in this respect.

Spending more money on health services won’t do a thing in the short term. Buildings, equipment, trained nurses and doctors - it all takes time. So, the only 2 options in the short term are:

1. measures to expand vaccination
2. more shutdowns

Take your pick.

printer

You keep insisting that more shutdowns are the only way versus vaccination. Yet this is not the way to go and like i said even the WHO have come out and said as much. England pretty much stated after their last one that it would never do it again. BC never really did have any forced lockdowns and lots of stores that closed up during first wave did so voluntarily under some pressure from social media. This talk of forced 100% vax status or closing everything up is not going to happen. In your ideal Canada ALL the people must be vaccinated to save the health service from overload or else we will all be locked down and lose our livelihoods and we only have ourselves to blame, its not the governments fault of course. Cases are dropping off and hospitalizations will also fall as we have seen in other areas without increasing our vaccination numbers further.
Of interest tonight on local news after a study of over 500 patients in hospitals in BC and i quote:
The review also found that Omicron is more likely to lead to hospitalizations for vaccinated individuals than Delta, with many breakthrough cases in the elderly. The data reveals that 60 per cent of the Omicron cases in hospital tested positive after being admitted for another health concern. They did of course acknowledge that the hospital stay is much shorter with Omicron.

Mordko

Missing the point. Again. The above is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the probability of ending up in ICU is more than an order of mag less for triple vaccinated than unvaxxed.

Your view that everything will be fine without any measures is hopefully true but happens to be contrary to that of people who actually know something about the subject. Theresa Tam was on TV yesterday saying that more vaxxing is how we get back to normality. Comparison with other jurisdictions would be valid if we had the same number of ICUs, doctors and nurses. We have one of the lowest. Right now waiting times in hospitals are abdominal.

Your info on BC is false. Quote from the current rules: “Places that do not offer full meal service must close. This includes places like bars, nightclubs and lounges that do not serve meals.” Its not voluntary at all. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/c...o/restrictions

dbd33

He's right, you know. Mordko in compellingly accurate argument shocker!

Shard

There certainly needs to be more public education on vaccines. As this Coronavirus subsides (as seems to be the case) those that were adamant about not getting vaccinated will become even more convinced in the validity of their view. Essentially, they have benefited from immunization effect that the rest of the community gained through vaccination. A more virulent virus will not be quite so forgiving.

Danny B

Anyone here living in Ottawa right now? This guy hasn't slept in 5 days. Warning for swearing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreak...g_their_horns/

Shard

Impressed that they can have this heated debate with zero violence.

printer

Ok but it seems we are bombarded with figures from the media and doomsday scenarios from out so called experts and yet these are often hugely exaggerated. From todays latest here in BC 1500 new cases and 145 in ICU. Now i don't have any exact data to share right now but pretty sure the ICU capacity in BC overall is at least 3 times that. Todays numbers added 9 to the ICU count which is not ideal but here's the thing a month ago a story on "Vancouver is awesome" wrote that modelling data suggested we could see 1000 patients in ICU over coming weeks but they added and i quote:
And in what Cytrynbaum said is the most likely scenario, more than 2,000 patients would land in B.C.’s intensive care units over the coming weeks. That's approaching triple the capacity of the province's hospitals.
They then went on to say:
Roughly 90 per cent of B.C.'s 510 base critical care beds were already occupied as of Jan. 4. Yet todays figures a month down the road show 145.
Clearly someone needs to recalculate.

Mordko

I have no idea what they modelled and what assumptions were used but normally predictive tools are used to implement certain measures to mitigate problematic outcomes. One assumes the prediction was used to make such changes, eg by rolling out booster vaccination program earlier and faster and to incentivize vaccination in reluctant populations. If so, and the measures prevented hospitals from being overwhelmed, I would argue that the “so-called experts” did a good job.