Re: Coronavirus
 

Personally I always think of that as part of their plan - to me if that's what we need to do to stop the spread (not convinced it will work myself, education settings are clearly are clearly a huge area of transmission), we start now, for me its little difference, Maybe one meal out less per month currently and a bit less socialisation (but that changed at at midnight as we move into tier 2 in our area). We don't abuse the hell out of the system till Thursday.

But suddenly when this 4 week lockdown turns into 6 weeks, 12 weeks etc. The blame can be sat not with the government, but with those that didn't follow rules, those that abused the freedom prior to lockdown etc.

I hate to say it, but they need to start enforcing it more or just forget about it, and issue advice only - people are getting weary of the rules, and flouting them. But its then creating division between the rule followers and the rule breakers.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Pandemic, no pandemic here.

Wonder how many cases will be linked to Halloween?

Vancouver downtown tonight, of course those making the videos are not helping by being there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/c...ight_now_pt_2/

https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/c...eet_right_now/

Re: Coronavirus
 

Enforcement. It's not about the division between the followers and non-followers, it's about protecting society as a whole. One segment is too stupid to protect not only themselves, but others, so enforcement is the necessary outcome.

Re: Coronavirus
 

And I'd tend to agree, enforcement would be the better option for all - however current enforcement seems to have targeted the wrong rule breakers (it should target everyone ideally) and have been handing out fines to 2 households mixing sensibly, but only issuing warnings and forcing large parties to disband.

I think the balance between enforcing the rules properly and not causing riots/civil war could be a hard line to police - especially if Trump gets back in, and mass protests/violence end up happening in the US.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Enforcement in the USA would be a different kettle of fish ! My comments were in relation to the UK, as we have fewer crazies here - as you know ! Actually, I'm not for heavy handed enforcement in the UK either, just very clear messaging and the occasional sanction to back it up.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Apologies - I was still referring to the UK, I honestly think if they have civil unrest in the US it will spill over to here pretty sharpish.

I'm completely with you on how it should look - just think currently a large portion of the country are going to flout the rules as they know they can get away with it - how you tackle that and keep the peace is awkward.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Then, of course, there was that missed opportunity for the government to set the same example everyone else was setting with sackings and resignations. But not only did they not do so, they praised the individual concerned for his actions.

That just made it so easy for people to do what they regarded as reasonable.

Re: Coronavirus
 

You have to wonder where it will all end, i mean this is the only way the UK government can see of reducing infections, deaths and hospital admissions because nothing else is working BUT what is their exit strategy? They don't have one as far as i can see. So this whole scenario will repeat itself once things open again but with a few less businesses still operating. There is no "light at the end of the tunnel" for joe public and therefore its harder to get people on side to do what's necessary because there is no game plan, its even been suggested that this lock down could go beyond beginning December! Busiest time for all retail in run up to Christmas and nobody can shop or go out and party so what's going to happen when everything opens? Mad rush, huge crowds, panic buying, pubs overflowing and so it all starts again

Re: Coronavirus
 

Hard to have an exit strategy for that very reason.
Also hard because of the covidiots who won't play by the rules, thus preventing a reasonable assessment of how effective an action is because too many people just say something didn't work when it's entirely possible that "it" didn't work because of the covidiots.

Over the next two weeks we'll be hearing reports of little change in the numbers of new cases and that will be down to those attending the Raves and other maskless events plus all those who are going to make the most of the next few days, even if they stay in from Thursday.

So we'll be halfway through the month for any behavioural change to make a difference. And then Covidiots will be whining that it hasn't worked.

That will build up a head of steam so that when the figures do start to fall, because there have been sone people behaving reasonably, the covidiots will rebel and say it's not enough.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Exactly so round we go again, it's not going to work. Chinese style enforcement and containment is never going to wash in UK so where does that leave them? As you say some will adhere and some won't but as i said without a clear and precise strategy from the powers that be its hard to get the majority on side. They need something to work towards. If you want your kids to tidy their room or do their homework you could lock them in their room but they may still not do it. Offer them an incentive and there is more chance of them towing the line. There doesn't seem to be much incentive for people, even Christmas is looking shaky and so many doom and gloom projections that some are not even sure if next year will be any different

Re: Coronavirus
 

Wouldn’t it be good if they were just incompetent...
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...661025172.jpeg

Re: Coronavirus
 

All gone a bit quiet on the £100bn Operation Moonshot to test 10 million people a day, hasn't it? It's been quietly abandoned and will just be part of the Test & Trace scheme.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Because covidiots won't play.

If we have no lockdowns it seems the virus will slowly work its way through, killing the most vulnerable and affecting others to varying degrees. So then the survivors can live happily ever after.

Except that we know there's this thing called long-covid which means some of those that recovered will now have medical conditions that put them newly at risk. Plus, over what ever time this takes place we have a 'newly' elderly part of the population; a new group of people with naturally developing medical conditions that put them at risk, as well as whatever portion of the population was not able to get medical treatment for manageable conditions because the hospitals have been dealing with all those covid patients and they, too, are newly at risk people.

So once one vulnerable group has been bumped off, there's a new one to replace them. And the cycle continues.

Lockdowns or at least circuit breakers will slow it down.

Maybe there's some benevolent race on a distant planet that sees what's happening and sends us a test tube of something so powerful that once the stopper is pulled the virus the world over vanishes.

It seems sensible to slow it down as long as we can until there's a vaccine.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Maybe but the countries of the industrialized world are heading into uncharted economic territory with unprecedented levels of debt. I am not sure if it was in this thread, but someone recently pointed out on BE that the level of government debt in the UK is now already equivalent to the debt at the end of WWII, which took until, IIRC the early years of this century to pay off. We are already in a situation that will cast an economic shadow over the entire life of those who are only children today.

IMO There is not much point in "slowing" the spread of the virus if the consequence is to collapse the economy, condemning many to long term poverty, and in poor countries to starvation. I am not sure where the balance point is, but I am fairly sure that shutting down the entire economy to try to merely "slow" the infection rate, is not a good decision. :unsure: Now if we could have managed, back in the spring, what China did, i.e. a true lock-down for a month or so, which largely eliminated the virus, then it might be different, but as already discussed above, that ain't gonna happen, and the genie is already out of the bottle. :(

And what if there isn't a vaccine? The common cold is a coronavirus, and the search for a vaccine in the UK was abandoned with little progress after about 50 years of searching IIRC.

Re: Coronavirus
 

You make some excellent (and depressing) points, neither of which I have any response to.

If I was in charge of the UK, I'd open up the economy and let the virus run its course. You can only tell people so many times to wear a mask and social distance. It felt a bit weird at first for me, but now it's part of everyday life.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I was about to respond that I meant slowing down as long as we can, meaning until a reassessment is needed but balance point is the same thing.
The entire economy - some businesses have thrived. Supermarkets have increased revenues, with some having increased (covid) costs, admittedly (but many only temporary like screens), while others have increased profits. Football stadiums around the world have ordered bloody great big tarps or whatever (to cover their seats) and there is still money pouring into some industries. Spread around a bit - in a more socialist way :eek:- might help us all in the wait a bit longer. ;)

For the moment I see life as important. We can have occasional economy boosts and circuit breakers when necessary. I see that as preferable to letting the virus run its course because I don't see there's a course to finish for the reasons stated.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Oh there's an end, as there was with previous pandemics going back to the black death and bubonic plaue, and presumably back into the mists of time - a certain percentage will die, and the rest live on, suffering moderate to minimal ill effects. This is exactly what happened a century ago with the flu. The pandemic ran its course in about 2 years, and ended without a vaccine for another 20+ years. The US military developed the first flu vaccine during WWII, but it was decades later before vaccines became widely avialble and to this day they are not entirely effective and have to be readministered annually.

The current data is suggesting that the fatality rate is now about 1/250, so a very small number with 6% having significant symptoms, but in most cases surviving. The philosophical question is whether it is worth greatly reducing the quality of life for 99.6% of people to save 6% from illness and 0.4% from death - almost all of whom have significant other illnesses or conditions? :unsure:

In a paper published last December, it was reported that the WHO estimates that an average of about 400,000 people die each year from the flu (within an uncertainty range of about 300,000-500,000), so the same order of magnitude as the current covid-19 statistics of 1.2 million in 9 months, and the flu number are only an "average" - some years are much worse. ..... The 1918-1920 flu killed 50million, so the current pendemic is nowhere near as bad, especially when you consider that the population of the world is about 5 times as large as it was 100 years ago, therefore a similarly serious pandemic today would kill 250million people!

Re: Coronavirus
 

You are forgetting the world is a smaller place with a far greater life expectancy.
If a plague is killing people off when life expectancy is 24-33 there's not much of the population left to spread it. With life expectancy now over 80 and a European population ten times what it was in the 14th century, together with travel everywhere there's a never ending source of transmission.

Re: Coronavirus
 

BC will announce the weekend cases at 3pm, will include Friday, Sat, Sun.

Health Minister has warned the numbers are significantly higher than we have seen, especially in metro Vancouver which includes both Vancouver Coastal Health and Fraser Health.

Seems private parties and gatherings are still the primary source of spread, really would a lock down do much to prevent the spread in our case? Can realistically police private homes, and requires neighbors reporting neighbors, not enough police and by-law officers to possible check every street in every city.

Dix said a bigger problem is house parties and private gatherings, which are not visible on social media but are fuelling the province's rising case numbers.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...-dix-1.5786155


And like this weekend showed on Halloween, how do you even realistically police a large crowd like downtown Vancouver saw when police have to deal with regular police stuff and responding to 800+ calls on one day.

They seem to have a very good idea through contact tracing as to where and how it's spreading and they keep saying its parties and gatherings at private homes.

I guess for places without effective contact tracing they have no real idea where the spread they have to go more extreme.

If we even had an Ontario style lock down in BC, I know we probably couldn't survive it financially if my wife lost her employment or even couldn't work for a few weeks.

Re: Coronavirus
 

You seem to be off by an order of magnitude, considering the most recent overall UK figures from Johns Hopkins' website:
- 1,038,054 confirmed cases
- 46,807 deaths

That's roughly 1/22.

And yes, I get that the confirmed case and deaths figures are both likely undercounted, and that improvements in case management have improved survival outcomes since the pandemic first took hold in the UK.

But I haven't seen a figure anywhere like your 1/250 anywhere else. What was its source?

Re: Coronavirus
 

So if you asked the average Briton whether or not they'd cop a 10 -15% drop in income for a year or two, in order to preserve their elderly relatives from a huge, often fatal health risk, what do you think the response would be?

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's not "10%-15% drop for a year or two". .... As per my post above above, we are on the edge of a precipice that will last a life time, not a career-length 35-40 years, actually 60-80 years, and the longer we try to lock-down the economy, the worse the damage and the longer it will take to "recover". And we are talking a "great depression" style economic implosion, acute unemployment and proverty that could last a decade or more, or potentially indefinitely.

And so far as asking "the average Briton", I think you should ask the businessman who has had his business shuttered by the government, the restaurant worker who has been thrown out of work despite taking all the SD, masking and screening requiements, because of idiots throwing house parties, and the homeowner who had a good job 8 months ago but is now hanging on by a thread, on the whim of the government and the end of the mortgage holiday.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Do you know what "current" means? You are citing cumulative figures.

The liklihood of death has fallen by a massive amount in the second wave compared to the first. If my maths is correct, per the chart below (5 folder increase in infections with simultaneous 75% fall in the death numbers), to 1/20th of of what it was in the spring (aggregate from the "first wave") when it was about 10%, so 1/20 x 10% = about ½% or 1/200, which is pretty much what I cited above.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...d9674d31d2.jpg

Re: Coronavirus
 

I haven't found the post of yours that you reference, though I confess it wasn't an exhaustive search.

But I must say, it seems you've seriously overcooked the egg--unless you're assuming there will never be an effective, widely available vaccine. A pandemic restricts workforce participation, and consumer demand, while the health risk persists, perhaps 9 - 18 months from here. And at that point there will be a huge upside in economic growth potential: untapped labour, uncorked demand, and low interest rates to fund the expansion.

I can't think of *any* recent modern event, since the advent of industrialisation, that has created a negative economic outcome "that will last a life time", "actually 60-80 years". Even the blight of communism on Soviet Russia (and bearing the brunt of WWII on top of that), still produced significant growth from start to finish of a "lifetime".

But I'm probably inadvertently misrepresenting an argument of yours that I didn't find.

What was it?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Nice theory, but the death count ramp up follows the case count ramp up by 4 - 5 weeks. Nobody dies on Day 1 of catching Covid-19.

No doubt there will be somewhat better case management in this second wave.

Unless the NHS gets overwhelmed, which is still not off the table yet.

Re: Coronavirus
 

What about the other outbreaks? and i quote from another news source:
There have been three new healthcare outbreaks declared, at the Good Samaritan Delta View Care Centre, Hamilton Village Care Centre, and Rotary Manor retirement home in Dawson Creek.
Why oh why are we still seeing outbreaks at care homes, did we not learn anything first time round?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Repost those charts as of December 1st, and try making your argument again...

:(

Re: Coronavirus
 

The weekend was bad, mostly in Fraser Health region as expected.

1,120 new cases confirmed over the weekend in total.

2,945 patients with active cases, 90 in hospital with 19 in ICU.

830 in the Fraser Health

234 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...-dix-1.5786155

Re: Coronavirus
 

I'd be happy to - there are multiple reasons why the analysis isn't going to change much. :nod:

Re: Coronavirus
 

The death rate curve, as a following indicator, will unfortunately have started spiking up rather nastily by then. The only way for your numerical analysis to remain unchanged ("1/250", or "1/200", or whatever you're holding to now) would be an absolutely catastrophic explosion in new case counts by December.

Fortunately, we have BoJo on the job. Oh wait ... oh, dear.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes, it is a trailing indicator, and as is well documented different countries are counting deaths very differently, but let's take a look at Spain which entered its second wave about two months before the UK, to see what the relative numbers of deaths to infections looks like with more data to look at.

The Spanish second wave plateaued through August and September at around the peak level of the Spanish first wave, and yet even today, allowing for 4-5 weeks of lag, the fatalities in Spain are barely 1/6th of those in the first wave, and I could make an argument (visual analysis of the charts) that it might be as little as 1/8th, depending on how you average out the daily bars on the deaths chart.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...9075b07d52.jpg

Re: Coronavirus
 

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...3796624d20.png

Re: Coronavirus
 

Highest number of cases yet...Yesterday 1050 new cases and 14 deaths. Only 25K people tested yesterday vs 40K+ in recent weeks when the number of new cases were lower.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Did you see this fancy new dashboard for Ontario?

https://t.co/KrsU3fhuUW?amp=1

It's got everything:

-Cases
-Hospitalizations
-Deaths
-Regions
-Gender
-Age
-Source of infection
-etc.

Re: Coronavirus
 

335 cases today, outbreak declared at La Casa resort in West Kelowna. Seven people who attended a multi-household rental event between Oct. 23-26 have tested positive for the virus.

I wish they would let my wife work from home, it's a small office but people coming and going all day, and you never know what co-workers do on their time off.

https://www.kelownacapnews.com/news/...-west-kelowna/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...sday-1.5789808

Re: Coronavirus
 

Went over 400 today. 425 to be exact.

Mostly in Fraser Health but Vancouver Coastal Health is rising too.

" 268 or about 63 per cent are located in the Fraser Health region, which has become the epicentre of the second wave of B.C.'s COVID-19 pandemic. Another 126 are in the Vancouver Coastal Health region."

18 new cases in Interior Health, 104 active cases.

Healthcare system still doing okay, and not needing to cancel elective procedures yet.

There is concern about healthcare workers becoming ill and have to isolate.

580 contact tracers been hired with a goal of 800.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...ov-5-1.5777641

Re: Coronavirus
 

New dashboard here where you can compare COVID stats of BC to other parts of Canada and around the world. Very interesting to compare.

https://bccdc.shinyapps.io/covid19_global_epi_app/

Re: Coronavirus
 

Always nice to have comparisons.

We hit a big record today. 589 new cases. Slowly growing in Interior Health luckily not as quickly, 24 new cases today.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Ontario seems to be hovering around 1K cases. Some days a little more,,.some a little less. Ontario’s population is 3 times that of BC...approx 15M vs 5M.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Interesting that Alberta is struggling with contact tracing and is limiting who it contacts leaving the rest up to individuals and i quote:Beginning Nov. 6, AHS will temporarily change their method of notifying close contacts of positive cases.

Under the new process, health-care workers will call the close contacts of cases in the following three priority groups:

• health-care workers
• minors (parents will be notified if their child has been exposed in the school setting)
• individuals who live or work within congregate or communal facilities

Anyone who is outside one of these groups and tests positive for coronavirus is asked to contact all individuals they believe they came into close contact with on their own.

"Event organizers will also still be directed to notify event attendees of an exposure and workplaces will be informed by AHS of a case and directed to send out the notification to employees."