Very clear guidance too. That's what's needed, simple and clear messaging. As you say, it remains to be seen how many will take notice, but this is precisely why the media and government should adopt and promote such a tool.

Good OpEd from Dr Christina Pagel at UCL.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...icron-pandemic

Three Covid myths: 1. Covid is endemic (it’s not because it can still spread out of control); 2. Covid is evolving to be milder (variants are evolving independently and a more serious variant can still emerge); 3. Vaccination program is complete (existing vaccines wane and are not necessarily effective against new variants yet to emerge).

BERLIN — A 60-year-old man allegedly had himself vaccinated against COVID-19 dozens of times in Germany in order to sell forged vaccination cards with real vaccine batch numbers to people not wanting to get vaccinated themselves.

The man from the eastern Germany city of Magdeburg, whose name was not released in line with German privacy rules, is said to have received up to 90 shots against COVID-19 at vaccination centers in the eastern state of Saxony for months until criminal police caught him this month, the German news agency dpa reported Sunday.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ts/7266815001/

With that Shanghai wide lockdown, I do wonder if it's ongoing "zero Covid policy" or some new variant ?

Hmm... having screwed the world up once, maybe they are trying to be a bit more considerate this time.

I received my FOURTH vaccine invitation this morning for BC.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8742523/c...bility-canada/

That link is a little misleading. Or at least parts of it are.
I don't know about NS and PEI and it may very well be the case that guidance is being updated but 4th doses/2nd boosters have been recommended and available in NB since early February, pretty much in line with the other provinces.

When that announcement was made, there was the suggestion that it would be extended for others from April 19.

And just confirmed literally minutes ago on CBC

I don’t know about other provinces, but here in BC this is how my jabs were spaced apart according to the gov guidance at the time.

#1 May 2021
#2 July 2021
#3 October 2021
#4 Will book for April 2022

4th shot availability has just been extended to over 60s in Ontario so I will be chatting to the local pharmacy about when i can get mine. Peterborough and area remain high risk for infection, apparently a third of schoolkids are off sick right now.

NB has record hospital numbers of covid patients and critical staffing levels with loads of non urgent surgery and appointments being delayed.

It's a good job there isn't a pandemic isn't it.

NB is still recording numbers? Ontario prefers to take a more mystical approach

Now that self-administered RATs have become a large part of the initial-detection mix in all Canadian jurisdictions (and indeed in similar countries world-wide), daily "case counts" are inherently approximate measures. 2nd-order stats like hospital presentations and intakes remain decent indicators in countries like Canada, where the financial costs of presentation are zero, even if the pragmatic costs are higher.

The province is no longer counting patients admitted for "non covid" reasons as covid admissions even if a test confirmed they arrived with covid but is still recording patients in hospital 'with' covid.

Seems like we will be forever in this viral loop if we don't try and move past the daily counts and constant media attention about bringing back masks or other restrictions. So many recent reports with different sources calling for masks to be reintroduced and saying restrictions are lifting too early but in reality when is the right time? Because we know after lifting restrictions cases will climb, we also know that other countries like UK who lifted them earlier saw an increase and then it plateaued so we cannot jump up and down and stamp our feet when cases go up because its not if but when they increase, it's a known fact they will go up. Of course we don't want to see surgeries being cancelled and elderly people being hidden away to protect them but a lot of the issues we are seeing now are severe staff shortages everywhere due to sickness and we know that it has become the thing now to stay home if sick yet not everyone who is sick has COVID and not everyone is actually sick of course. Some modelling "expert" the other day was calling for masks to be reintroduced as cases were climbing higher than they should and they suggested we needed to slow it down yet how will this work in the real world where social distancing is gone, no limits on gatherings, no limits on capacity at pubs/restaurants and a free for all at your private home? Unless you bring back multiple restrictions wearing a mask inside a grocery store or shopping mall is not going to achieve any serious reduction.
How many health care professionals are off sick having caught the virus from a shopping trip or visit to their nearest library versus how many caught it socializing with pals at home, in the pub or restaurant?
Summer is fast approaching and already they are predicting sell out hotels, camping spots and air bnb, all the previous summer events that have been cancelled last 2 years are back on this year so locally in Kelowna we can expect a population explosion this summer and with it no doubt increase in cases yet would it make any difference if we were to have kept restrictions in place a bit longer? We are not going for the "zero COVID" approach so inevitably we will see cases rise but what is the right call here?

I'm not sure how they caught it is the issue, just that they are unable to work which adds to pressure in the health care system.

There is also nothing wrong with health care workers going shopping, visiting the library, etc - or are you suggesting they should be isolating from all when not in work?