Coronavirus

[Nik]

Have to say it's pretty frustrating to be reading about people in other countries being able to make appointments to get their parents the vaccine while our government is basically shrugging their shoulders at news of delays and saying "Eh, maybe sometime in April?"

 

[Highlander]

Up to a million a day being vaccinated in the U.K.  That means their entire population will be done by the end of April.
What about the 80 million doses we preordered?

 

[Peter D.]

https://twitter.com/jkwan_md/status/1356258824823435265
This is a pretty clear indictment of the clearly dangerous and immediately panned back-to-school 'plan' Ontario trotted out in August

Find it interesting that people point to schools re-opening as the basis for the rise in cases, yet all the talk now is that schools should be the first thing to open up, whenever the heck things open up again.

I predicted in-class learning wasn't going to commence until after March Break.  I'm starting to believe the rest of this school year is a write-off and is going to be scrapped.

 

[bustaheims]

Find it interesting that people point to schools re-opening as the basis for the rise in cases, yet all the talk now is that schools should be the first thing to open up, whenever the heck things open up again.

I predicted in-class learning wasn't going to commence until after March Break.  I'm starting to believe the rest of this school year is a write-off and is going to be scrapped.

I'm also not sure schools coming back are really the cause of the spike. I think it's a case of correlation without causation. Cases from students represent about ~10% of the daily new cases. It's more that back to school lines up pretty close to people spending more time indoors, more places opening up, etc. It's easy to blame the schools, but the overwhelming majority of cases comes from outside of school.

 

[Hobbes]

Find it interesting that people point to schools re-opening as the basis for the rise in cases, yet all the talk now is that schools should be the first thing to open up, whenever the heck things open up again.

I predicted in-class learning wasn't going to commence until after March Break.  I'm starting to believe the rest of this school year is a write-off and is going to be scrapped.

I'm also not sure schools coming back are really the cause of the spike. I think it's a case of correlation without causation. Cases from students represent about ~10% of the daily new cases. It's more that back to school lines up pretty close to people spending more time indoors, more places opening up, etc. It's easy to blame the schools, but the overwhelming majority of cases comes from outside of school.

x1000

It would be just as valid (ie not at all) to say that the leaves changing colour is the cause of a Covid spike.

 

[Nik]

Cases from students represent about ~10% of the daily new cases. It's more that back to school lines up pretty close to people spending more time indoors, more places opening up, etc. It's easy to blame the schools, but the overwhelming majority of cases comes from outside of school.

Admittedly I don't know a ton about how they count where cases came from but isn't the concern about schools less about students getting it and more kids spreading it to older relatives they live with who then are A) at greater risk at serious illness and B) spread it onward.

But if that's factored into the 10% forget I said anything.

 

[herman]

They don?t know where cases come from about half the time.
https://twitter.com/jkwan_md/status/1356263322967035907

Schools opening also meant people going back to the office.

I do think schools need to be running for the good of the students and their families, but they wasted a 4-6 month window for making it safe and elected to shrug.

 

[L K]

The biggest problem with school reopening is that we messed around with the strategies to maximize safety.

Class sizes should have been reduced to increase distancing.  That obviously is a challenge based on space and teachers but whether it became an every other day scenario or 1 week on 1 week off rotation, something that should have been looked at.

There should not have been policy put in place to make masks optional for kids in grade 3 and under.  It set a horrible precedent.  Kids are perfectly capable of wearing a mask.  Are they going to lapse, absolutely.  But suboptimal execution of a policy isn't a reason to forgo it entirely.  It looks shockingly stupid when you realize how many 3/4 split classrooms there are where one half of the room is masked while the other isn't. 

There is no question that putting a bunch of kids from all over town (or different communities in more rural settings) is going to increase the risk of spread but the province has just been ham fisted in terms of their all or none approach to so much of the pandemic.

 

[herman]

https://twitter.com/sarahdrasmussen/status/1356302411414052864

 

[OldTimeHockey]

The biggest problem with school reopening is that we messed around with the strategies to maximize safety.

Class sizes should have been reduced to increase distancing.  That obviously is a challenge based on space and teachers but whether it became an every other day scenario or 1 week on 1 week off rotation, something that should have been looked at.

There should not have been policy put in place to make masks optional for kids in grade 3 and under.  It set a horrible precedent.  Kids are perfectly capable of wearing a mask.  Are they going to lapse, absolutely.  But suboptimal execution of a policy isn't a reason to forgo it entirely.  It looks shockingly stupid when you realize how many 3/4 split classrooms there are where one half of the room is masked while the other isn't. 

There is no question that putting a bunch of kids from all over town (or different communities in more rural settings) is going to increase the risk of spread but the province has just been ham fisted in terms of their all or none approach to so much of the pandemic.

The biggest issues with schools that they have never addressed is bussing. My wife is an administrator at a local high school. The bubbles/cohorts that they set in schools mean very little when they all load on the same bus together.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2021/02/02/covid-19-vaccine-will-be-manufactured-in-canada-once-it-is-approved-justin-trudeau-says.html

Way too late.

 

[Nik]

I'm sure these facilities are highly technical and everything but considering the importance here is our government really incapable of getting something built for 6 months?

 

[Bender]

Find it interesting that people point to schools re-opening as the basis for the rise in cases, yet all the talk now is that schools should be the first thing to open up, whenever the heck things open up again.

I predicted in-class learning wasn't going to commence until after March Break.  I'm starting to believe the rest of this school year is a write-off and is going to be scrapped.

I'm also not sure schools coming back are really the cause of the spike. I think it's a case of correlation without causation. Cases from students represent about ~10% of the daily new cases. It's more that back to school lines up pretty close to people spending more time indoors, more places opening up, etc. It's easy to blame the schools, but the overwhelming majority of cases comes from outside of school.

If half of all cases have no known epidemiological link then how can we make that claim? It's not like we've been air tight with tests and screening in multigroup settings.

 

[Bender]

Find it interesting that people point to schools re-opening as the basis for the rise in cases, yet all the talk now is that schools should be the first thing to open up, whenever the heck things open up again.

I predicted in-class learning wasn't going to commence until after March Break.  I'm starting to believe the rest of this school year is a write-off and is going to be scrapped.

I'm also not sure schools coming back are really the cause of the spike. I think it's a case of correlation without causation. Cases from students represent about ~10% of the daily new cases. It's more that back to school lines up pretty close to people spending more time indoors, more places opening up, etc. It's easy to blame the schools, but the overwhelming majority of cases comes from outside of school.

If half of all cases have no known epidemiological link then how can we make that claim? It's not like we've been air tight with tests and screening in multigroup settings.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/02/03/how-risky-are-ontario-schools-for-covid-19-transmission-we-looked-south-of-the-border-to-find-out.html

 

[Peter D.]

My wife was reluctant/worried about the kids going back to school in September, whereas I was adamant they needed to go back for their own mental well being, as well as not being really concerned about the virus (not just for them, but for me/us as well).  So for peace of mind, she got me to call the kids' paediatricians for their opinions. 

The one said that the concern isn't transmitting the virus within generations, but moreso across generations.  So yeah, passing it along not necessarily to mom and dad, but to grandma and grandpa (and I live in an area where there are lots of grandparent(s) living with their kids and grandkids).  The other one said send them back with no fear as the virus doesn't really affect the kids, and if it does, the instances will be rare at best.  And that was even for our one daughter who's somewhat immunocompromised, albeit nothing at all serious. 

At this point, I honestly don't know anymore.  I've gone from the early parts of the pandemic where I was all for shutting things down as it was an unknown.  Had late 30/early 40 people like me been dropping like flies, then yeah, I'd be crapping my pants.  Now, nearly 11 months in, my mindset has completely shifted where I think these lockdowns are a detriment and doing more damage than good.  I'm not advocating opening things up completely where stadiums and movie theatres and concerts can be packed, but I don't think shuttering kids and adults activities (especially the kids) or not allowing reduced capacity at restaurants is the way to go either.  Don't even get me started that it's taken 10+ months for the dimwit in Ottawa to finally impose reasonable travel restrictions...

I've mentioned it before...are they waiting for the number of cases to come down to the triple digits?  And hopefully a reduction in ICU cases.  Great.  But then what?  Open up, cases spike, concern ensues, lockdown #3, rinse and repeat.  Add in the variants that are swirling and likely more variants to come about, I'm not at all convinced vaccinations will be the end of this all once one or more of these variants eludes the current formulations.  Quite possible we are going to live with this in perpetuity, so we either let things be with restrictions in place, or we're going to be living our lives like this for a long long time. 

 

[Nik]

I've mentioned it before...are they waiting for the number of cases to come down to the triple digits?  And hopefully a reduction in ICU cases.  Great.  But then what?  Open up, cases spike, concern ensues, lockdown #3, rinse and repeat.

Well, the hope is that at some point governments will be able to institute the sort of contact tracing/enforced isolation policies that we've seen in other nations that have effectively dealt with the virus. That, combined with vaccines, are our best hope to get back to some semblance of normalcy the way we've seen in Australia and New Zealand.

Because if you're right and the virus is just going to be a fact of life for some time, we are going to sporadically need harsh lockdowns to bring case numbers down so that our health care system doesn't collapse under the weight of continued and sustained spread.

 

[herman]

a) I think you need to change the second pediatrician to someone that has a brain and heart.

b) the main issue (aside from this being a highly transmissible and somewhat fatal virus) is that people can be contagious asymptomatically. So any talk of this virus doesn't affect young people or healthy adults is only true if the individual is already in isolation. Even if you don't become symptomatic, I don't think it feels great to be the one that accidentally brings home the thing that wipes out your grandparents or your friends' grandparents.

Anyone who has ever encountered a computer virus or fought a fire knows you have to make every effort to isolate transmission sources, and make every effort to trace and extinguish the whole thing before anything else can return to normal.

https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1356973735786520580

 

[Bender]

a) I think you need to change the second pediatrician to someone that has a brain and heart.

b) the main issue (aside from this being a highly transmissible and somewhat fatal virus) is that people can be contagious asymptomatically. So any talk of this virus doesn't affect young people or healthy adults is only true if the individual is already in isolation. Even if you don't become symptomatic, I don't think it feels great to be the one that accidentally brings home the thing that wipes out your grandparents or your friends' grandparents.

Anyone who has ever encountered a computer virus or fought a fire knows you have to make every effort to isolate transmission sources, and make every effort to trace and extinguish the whole thing before anything else can return to normal.

https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1356973735786520580

At what point do we go yeah maybe allowing the virus to continually mutate to become better suited for transmission and potentially virulence isn't a good idea? We are giving it more and more chances to get to a point where it could get more lethal to all age groups.

Beyond more and more evidence for long covid and large groups of people potentially permanently disabled, it is a very high cause of mortality in younger (25-50) people because younger people, in general don't normally die from illnesses in the first place.

Let alone the fact that my girlfriend literally can't get surgery to remove a cyst that is growing more and more and causes her more and more pain because hospitals are overwhelmed. This wouldn't be happening if we did things right the first time, so now we don't know when she can get it out or what risk this poses by waiting on the surgery. This is very angering to me. 

 

[herman]

At what point do we go yeah maybe allowing the virus to continually mutate to become better suited for transmission and potentially virulence isn't a good idea? We are giving it more and more chances to get to a point where it could get more lethal to all age groups.

Beyond more and more evidence for long covid and large groups of people potentially permanently disabled, it is a very high cause of mortality in younger (25-50) people because younger people, in general don't normally die from illnesses in the first place.

Oh yeah, the virus gets more and more effective at its job the more opportunities it has to replicate.

 

[rjd]

a) I think you need to change the second pediatrician to someone that has a brain and heart.

b) the main issue (aside from this being a highly transmissible and somewhat fatal virus) is that people can be contagious asymptomatically. So any talk of this virus doesn't affect young people or healthy adults is only true if the individual is already in isolation. Even if you don't become symptomatic, I don't think it feels great to be the one that accidentally brings home the thing that wipes out your grandparents or your friends' grandparents.

Anyone who has ever encountered a computer virus or fought a fire knows you have to make every effort to isolate transmission sources, and make every effort to trace and extinguish the whole thing before anything else can return to normal.

https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1356973735786520580

At what point do we go yeah maybe allowing the virus to continually mutate to become better suited for transmission and potentially virulence isn't a good idea? We are giving it more and more chances to get to a point where it could get more lethal to all age groups.

Beyond more and more evidence for long covid and large groups of people potentially permanently disabled, it is a very high cause of mortality in younger (25-50) people because younger people, in general don't normally die from illnesses in the first place.

Let alone the fact that my girlfriend literally can't get surgery to remove a cyst that is growing more and more and causes her more and more pain because hospitals are overwhelmed. This wouldn't be happening if we did things right the first time, so now we don't know when she can get it out or what risk this poses by waiting on the surgery. This is very angering to me.

Mistakes were made, and the fact that we aren't learning from our mistakes is cause for concern.

However, the freedom that individuals have comes at a cost that others have the same freedom.  Where I become increasingly concerned is that leaders seem to have less and less ability to get everyone on the same page without restricting freedoms.