printer

The story was from Jan 4th and predicting 2000 cases in ICU in coming weeks. It's now been 4 weeks and figure is less than 10% of the prediction. There were no new regulations added since that date to justify the much lower case numbers in ICU. We have of course seen a serious shortage of hospital staff due to illness and you cannot blame the current staff off sick as being unvaccinated. So what we have is hospitals being overwhelmed due to staffing issues and nowhere near the patients being admitted that some expert predicted so i guess its a win win eh?

Mordko

If the story was from Jan 4th then assumptions would have been developed several weeks prior. Usually it takes time to do the analysis and write a report and then have it reviewed by the government and published. I am seeing a whole lot of new measures BC took just before Christmas.

Gozit

This is what i'm hearing from my friends who are healthcare workers. I also know personally a number of people who left their jobs due to the higher stress and issues of working for the hospital system during a pandemic. They've since moved on to private positions making almost double what they were making in the public system, with less stress, no vax mandates, and without having their employment contract stomped on by the emergency act. So who can blame them really.

Mordko

A lot of private companies have “vax mandates”. Justifiably so. Doing what one can to reduce stress on the hospital workers who stayed.

Gozit

There are lots of people (myself included) who are vaccinated but disagree with the mandates.

BristolUK

I imagine that the report's use of ICU, followed by the expression critical care beds suggests that they are not quite the same thing and that's why the numbers are different; Critical care beds can include other conditions and are not necessarily ICU.
Googling your quote I found the same reference to 90% of 510 critical care beds occupied, but it was last September (Vancouver Sun) and went on to refer to 156 in ICU with 156 being a third. So that 90% of 510 beds was a reference to all patients.

Curiously CBC on Feb 3rd reports that same 145 number in ICU but points out that a month earlier - beginning of January - it was 86.

That's quite an increase.
I'm not overly familiar with what happened, when in BC but in googling to find some kind of timetable I found reference to three January changes to public measures since the modelling.

It's hard for me to tell what they were but while the media focussed on the most dramatic model, most of them had something somewhat less but still high.

And in a month that saw at least three changes to public health measures not in place at the time of the modelling, the numbers occupying ICU beds still doubled.






I don't know what Vancouver is awesome is but it also uses the same detail you gave, as well as making references to multiple models based on stuff known at that time. As Mordko suggests, maybe, in prompting the taking of those public health measures, they did a good job after all

Danny B

I'm confused, I thought the pharmaceutical companies said that their vaccines did protect against Omicron?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/can...onse-1.6339609

Mordko

The text is very clear. “Vaccines protect against Omicron” - yes, against ending up in ICUs. That’s what Tam said. Two AZ vaccines don’t protect against being infected but do protect against being very sick.

Danny B

Well it aint stopping the deaths in BC.

Shard

​​​​​​A full picture would take each of those colour categories, and illustrate the condition number (eg. deaths) out of the condition population. Set to % terms it would show that unvaccinated are far more likely to die than vaccinated. As above, it would be easy for someone to draw an incorrect conclusion.

Mordko

Compare the first and the last pie charts. Very clear that vaccination is preventing deaths in BC.

The picture would be even more striking had they done it by age.

OrangeMango

I would find it a form of gross negligence and even gross incompetence if a health care worker does his / her job without having been vaccinated against Covid 19. Better salaries in the private sector don't surprise me, though. I wouldn't blame anybody for moving on to a better paid job.

Shard

80,000 such health care workers in the NHS. They were going to be mandated to be vaccinated, but it would have meant such a staff shortage that the government backed down. Perhaps you saw the consultant that argued his case against to Sajid Javid (health minister) on a news segment.

Revin Kevin

​​​​​​So presumably you would you refuse life saving treatment from an un-vaxed medic - I don't think so!

OrangeMango

I guess, they had to back down to keep the NHS from completely colapsing?

I think this statement is a bit suggestive. And it's hardly life saving, if un vaccinated medical staff are around, it may be, but it decreases the certainty.

To me, an unvaccinated health worker, is something similar as one using a dirty needle to inject something life saving.

It's only a ridiculous discussion.