Coronavirus outbreak

[Sapper]

Boris is going full on Trump hoping to empower the last of his supporter base.  At least he is giving most people 7 days notice that they now are purgable commidities for the disposible pleausre of the anti crowd.

 

He should at least give the same 7 day notie that anyone unvaxxed by choice will no longer get free healthcare if they ontract covid. That would be fair - if the vaxinated have to take on the risk from unxvaxxed by the complete re opening then why should they also ahve to pay the bills of the uncvaxxed.

 

His goverments choice of words like to stop criminilizing those that dont wear masks etc demonstrate that is no about medically based decisions rather dog whistling to people he can count on to idol worship him for these moves

 

This will backfire horribly im afraid ...... I get it that onces this variant has run its course that its time to start living with covid and finding ways forward .... but to remove all saftey measures at once is insane

 

Look for Kenney to pull this stunt as well and doug ford to be close behind. Like pre teen school fads cons dont want to be the last cool kid to wear the new styles

[Gawdzukes]

14 hours ago, kurtis said:

Make them pay for the treatment!!!!! 

Lol, I have an anti-vax friend who is extremely cheap (especially for a guy that grew up rich). It would be entertaining to see if he would crumble ... probably not but watching him lose his mind over a $700 payment would be ironic.

[Gawdzukes]

13 hours ago, Bell said:

sir they shut me down to three days a week

So how does that work exactly? Are they limiting all home business work days or just home dog grooming? Do you have any documentation on that? Just curious.

[Gurn]

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/what-hospitalization-data-really-say-about-covid-19-vaccines/ar-AASXMtC?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

In the battle over COVID vaccination, opponents of the shots have fixed on a new target, one they insist shows the vaccines are a failure and immunization mandates unjustified.

 

The claim revolves around statistics that indicate the unvaccinated are being admitted to Canadian hospitals and intensive-care units in numbers similar to, or even smaller than, the fully vaccinated.

That being the case, the argument goes, vaccine resisters are no burden to the health-care system and there’s little point getting immunized.

“It is clear that the experimental gene therapy does not work the way it was advertised,” asserted the Kingston regional association of Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada in a recent Tweet . “So why would anyone take it?”

But those same data actually do clearly illustrate the positive impact of vaccination, though seeing it requires a bit more context and number-crunching. The simpler, false analysis is what Raywat Deonandan, a University of Ottawa epidemiologist, called the “base-rate fallacy” in a recent blog post. It also underlines how the raw epidemiological facts of the pandemic have become a weapon of sorts in the vaccine wars.

Regardless, because the unvaccinated are now a much smaller pool of people, a similar absolute number of them in hospital still means that a far higher percentage are getting seriously ill.

And then there is the age factor. The risk of serious COVID disease is greater in older people, who are also more likely to be vaccinated. So when the even-smaller number of unvaccinated elderly fill up the ICUs at the same rate as the more-numerous fully immunized, it indicates they are much more apt to be made badly sick by the virus.

• More than one in four Canadians support jail time for the unvaccinated, poll finds
• Study points to cognitive differences between vaccinated and vaccine hesitant

In Ontario, for instance, unvaccinated people over 60 were 15 times more likely over the last 30 days to end up in the ICU with COVID than the fully vaccinated, according to Public Health Ontario figures.

“The vaccines have been an incredible success story,” said Dr. Prabhat Jha, an epidemiology professor at the University of Toronto. “When people are vaccinated, the rates of hospitalizations and deaths are far, far lower.”

And even among those admitted to the ICU – the destination for the sickest COVID patients — there is a key difference between the two groups, says one front-line physician.

Dr. David Jacobs, a radiologist at Toronto’s Humber River Regional Hospital, said most of the people at his centre who wind up on a breathing machine – a last-ditch treatment that can leave long-term side-effects even for patients who survive it – are unvaccinated.

The vaccinated are more likely to just need high-flow oxygen, a relatively non-invasive therapy that usually sees patients go home sooner, said Jacobs, who routinely scans COVID patients.

“From the imaging point of view, the holy-smokes pneumonias are in the unvaccinated population,” said the Ontario Association of Radiologists president. “The more mild pneumonias are in vaccinated patients…. People tend to recover faster from it and it does less damage to their lungs.”

In the ICU of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto where Dr. Michael Detsky works, it appears most of the COVID patients are unvaccinated, he says. And the fully vaccinated are often immune-compromised, people for whom the jabs may be less effective, noted the University of Toronto professor. Though it’s hard to generalize, Detsky said many of his patients voice “some degree of regret” about not getting a COVID shot.

“People do ask ‘Now that I’m here, when can I get the vaccine?’ ”

A new webpage of data launched recently by the Ontario Health Ministry, though, suggests how some skeptics have gotten a different impression.

The version available Wednesday showed 2,044 fully vaccinated, 770 unvaccinated and 174 partially vaccinated in the province’s hospitals but not intensive care. In the ICUs, 224 were fully vaccinated, 18 partially vaccinated and 185 unvaccinated.

“They’re kind of unhelpful,” Dr. Jeff Kwong, a University of Toronto epidemiologist, said about those figures. “You really have to take into account the proportion of the population that is vaccinated and unvaccinated.”

In fact, 83 per cent of eligible Ontarians five and older and 89 per cent over 12 are fully vaccinated, while the unvaccinated make up eight-to-11 per cent of those populations. Just on that basis, the unvaccinated are about four times more likely to need intensive care when infected by COVID. But the ratio of vaccinated people versus unvaccinated climbs even higher with age, as does the percentage of individuals who get severely ill.

So the rate of unvaccinated people in ICUs in Ontario adjusted or “standardized” for age is 254 per million, compared to 22 fully vaccinated, according to the province’s science advisory table .

A similar picture emerges in Alberta, where provincial government statistics indicate that 598 per 100,000 unvaccinated were hospitalized over the last 120 days, versus 81 per 100,000 fully vaccinated and 39 per 100,000 who have had three doses.

“The majority of people experiencing severe outcomes are still unvaccinated,” added Alberta government spokeswoman Chastity Anderson.

In B.C., the age-standardized rate of ICU admissions for the unvaccinated is 26 per 100,000, about seven times the 3.8-per-100,000 rate for the fully vaccinated, says the B.C. Centre for Disease Control .

Based on the data and his front-line experience, Jacobs sees no reason to doubt the benefits of immunization.

“If I could go out and have a heart-to-heart talk with every single person who is unvaccinated and explain to them what the potential negative consequences to being unvaccinated are,” said the radiologist, “a significant number of people would be saved a lot of suffering.”

( 9:15 a.m. Jan. 20, fixes reference to David Jacobs professional association role. )

[thedestroyerofworlds]

Thanks @gurn for posting that article further explaining why the immunized and non-immuninized hospitalizations are not the same.  A few times I saw breakdowns age wise and it clearly demonstrated that hospitalizations tended to skew older in the vaccinated when compared to the unvaccinated.  This was with delta though.

[stawns]

2 hours ago, JM_ said:

what now?

 if you've been directly exposed you no longer have to isolate, at all, as long as you're asymptomatic

[Chicken.]

3 minutes ago, stawns said:

 if you've been directly exposed you no longer have to isolate, at all, as long as you're asymptomatic

sounds similar to the NHL not testing asymptomatic players 

[HKSR]

13 hours ago, drummer4now said:

Looks like this anchor has had enough... 

 

 

Never laughed so hard lol.. 

I don't get it... what is he trying to say? 

[stawns]

22 minutes ago, stawns said:

 if you've been directly exposed you no longer have to isolate, at all, as long as you're asymptomatic

That's awesome for those of is on the school system.  Now we can really fight a losing battle to keep schools open.

[JM_]

29 minutes ago, stawns said:

 if you've been directly exposed you no longer have to isolate, at all, as long as you're asymptomatic

I guess with the vaccination rates so high they have the data to back that up?

[FaninMex]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/19/czech-folk-singer-hana-horka-dies-after-deliberately-contracting-covid

 

 

A Czech folk singer died after she deliberately contracted Covid to obtain a health pass that would have allowed her to visit venues blocked to those without proof of vaccination or recent recovery from an infection, her family has said.

 

 

[FaninMex]

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/mild-covid-cases-still-lead-attention-memory-issues-study-2022-01-19/

 

 

People with mild COVID-19 who do not suffer any other traditional "long COVID" symptoms can still exhibit deteriorated attention and memory six to nine months after infection, a study by Britain's Oxford University has found.

Cognitive issues impacting concentration levels, along with forgetfulness and fatigue, are features of long COVID - a condition that afflicts some after an initial bout of infection - but it has not been established how widespread issues with attention span might be following COVID-19 infection.

 

 

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by FaninMex

[Bell]

4 hours ago, JM_ said:

was that at the start or over the entire pandemic? or something specific to home based businesses?  I'm confused because our regular place In Vancouver that does both boarding and grooming has been open the entire time. 

They were literally going to shut us down completely but we had and elderly dog with a serious skin condition who needed a bath once a week with special soap.  The gov't is always calling to make sure we are following their rules.  It is a nightmare

[johngould21]

For all the time and money it's going to cost to drive across the Country to protest mandates for truckers/vaccines. Why not spend half an hour at a clinic and get vaccinated? The ignorance of these morons is beyond belief.

[JM_]

14 minutes ago, Bell said:

They were literally going to shut us down completely but we had and elderly dog with a serious skin condition who needed a bath once a week with special soap.  The gov't is always calling to make sure we are following their rules.  It is a nightmare

I hope you're able to rebuild the business this summer when things should get better

[King Heffy]

12 minutes ago, johngould21 said:

For all the time and money it's going to cost to drive across the Country to protest mandates for truckers/vaccines. Why not spend half an hour at a clinic and get vaccinated? The ignorance of these morons is beyond belief.

I hope some of the logging protestors block them.

[stawns]

1 hour ago, JM_ said:

I guess with the vaccination rates so high they have the data to back that up?

Not sure how that applies to omicron and trying to keep schools open though.  We barely avoided a closure today, for the second time in 4 days

[thedestroyerofworlds]

I have hope that after the Omicron wave, this will be the end.  I have hope.

 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00100-3/fulltext

COVID-19 will continue but the end of the pandemic is near

 

The world is experiencing a huge wave of infection with the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Estimates based on Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) models

¹

 suggest that on around Jan 17, 2022 there were 125 million omicron infections a day in the world, which is more than ten times the peak of the delta wave in April, 2021.

¹

 The omicron wave is inexorably reaching every continent with only a few countries in eastern Europe, North Africa, southeast Asia, and Oceania yet to start their wave of this SARS-CoV-2 variant.

¹

^,  

²

 The unprecedented level of infection suggests that more than 50% of the world will have been infected with omicron between the end of November, 2021 and the end of March, 2022.

¹

 Although IHME models suggest that global daily SARS-CoV-2 infections have increased by more than 30 times from the end of November, 2021 to Jan 17, 2022, reported COVID-19 cases in this period have only increased by six times.

¹

^,  

²

 Because the proportion of cases that are asymptomatic or mild has increased compared with previous SARS-CoV-2 variants,

³

^,  

⁴

 the global infection-detection rate has declined globally from 20% to 5%.

¹

Understanding the burden of omicron depends crucially on the proportion of asymptomatic infections. A systematic review based on previous SARS-CoV-2 variants suggested that 40% of infections were asymptomatic.

³

 Evidence suggests that the proportion of asymptomatic infections is much higher for omicron, perhaps as high as 80–90%. Garrett and colleagues found that among 230 individuals in South Africa enrolling in a clinical trial, 71 (31%) were PCR positive for SARS-CoV-2 and had the omicron variant and no symptoms.

⁴

 Assuming this prevalence of infection was representative of the population, the implied incidence compared to detected cases suggests that more than 90% of infections were asymptomatic in South Africa. The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) infection survey estimated a point prevalence of PCR positive SARS-CoV-2 infection of 6·85% for England on Jan 6, 2022.

⁵

 Hospital admission prescreening of individuals without COVID-19 symptoms in the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, WA, USA, did not exceed 2% throughout the COVID-19 pandemic but exceeded 10% in the week of Jan 10, 2022 (Murray CJL, unpublished). In addition to the much larger proportion of asymptomatic infections, in the USA the ratio of COVID-19 hospitalisations to detected cases hospitalised has declined by about 50% in most states compared with previous peaks.

²

 The proportion of COVID-19 patients in hospital who require intubation or are dying has declined by as much as 80–90% in Canada and South Africa.

⁶

^,  

⁷

Despite the reduced disease severity per infection, the massive wave of omicron infections means that hospital admissions are increasing in many countries and will rise to twice or more the number of COVID-19 hospital admissions of past surges in some countries according to the IHME models.

¹

 In countries where all hospital admissions are screened for COVID-19, a substantial proportion of these admissions will be among individuals coming to hospital for non-COVID-19 reasons who have asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nevertheless, infection control requirements put increased demands on hospitals. Given population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection of more than 10%, such as reported by the ONS infection survey in London, England,

⁵

 large numbers of health workers are testing positive and are required to quarantine, which puts a double pressure on hospitals. Countries will need to prioritise support for health systems in the next 4–6 weeks. Data from Greece, however, hold out hope that severe COVID-19 outcomes from the omicron wave will be limited; from Dec 21, 2021 to Jan 17, 2022 COVID-19 cases increased nearly 10 times but hospital intubations among COVID-19 hospital patients have remained the same as in December.

⁸

Surprisingly, IHME models

¹

 suggest that the transmission intensity of omicron is so high that policy actions—eg, increasing mask use, expanding vaccination coverage in people who have not been vaccinated, or delivering third doses of COVID-19 vaccines—taken in the next weeks will have limited impact on the course of the omicron wave. IHME estimates suggest that increasing use of masks to 80% of the population, for example, will only reduce cumulative infections over the next 4 months by 10%. Increasing COVID-19 vaccine boosters or vaccinating people who have not yet been vaccinated is unlikely to have any substantial impact on the omicron wave because by the time these interventions are scaled up the omicron wave will be largely over. Only in countries where the omicron wave has not yet started can expanding mask use in advance of the wave have a more substantial effect. These interventions still work to protect individuals from COVID-19, but the speed of the omicron wave is so fast that policy actions will have little effect on its course globally in the next 4–6 weeks. The omicron wave appears to crest in 3–5 weeks after the exponential increase in reported cases begins.

¹

^,  

²

 As of Jan 17, 2022, omicron waves were peaking in 25 countries in five WHO regions and in 19 states in the USA.

²

 It is expected that the omicron peak will occur in most countries between now and the second week of February, 2022.

¹

 The latest omicron peaks are expected to come in the countries where the omicron wave has not yet started, such as in eastern Europe and southeast Asia. Actions to increase SARS-CoV-2 testing, for example, are likely to increase disruption by having more individuals excluded from work or school, but are unlikely to impact the course of the omicron wave. In the era of omicron, I believe that COVID-19 control strategies need to be reset. Given the speed and intensity of the omicron wave, in my view efforts to contact trace seem to be futile.

A question remains in relation to the countries pursuing zero COVID-19 strategies, such as China and New Zealand. China has local omicron transmission in January, 2022.

⁹

^,  

¹⁰

 Given the high transmissibility of omicron, it seems unlikely that China or New Zealand will be able to permanently exclude the omicron wave. For zero COVID-19 countries, the question will be one of timing. Later omicron surges will allow further progress on increasing vaccination coverage and better understanding of the impact of the omicron variant in a fairly immunologically naive population.

By March, 2022 a large proportion of the world will have been infected with the omicron variant. With continued increases in COVID-19 vaccination, the use in many countries of a third vaccine dose, and high levels of infection-acquired immunity, for some time global levels of SARS-CoV-2 immunity should be at an all time high. For some weeks or months, the world should expect low levels of virus transmission.

 

I use the term pandemic to refer to the extraordinary societal efforts over the past 2 years to respond to a new pathogen that have changed how individuals live their lives and how policy responses have developed in governments around the world. These efforts have saved countless lives globally. New SARS-CoV-2 variants will surely emerge and some may be more severe than omicron. Immunity, whether infection or vaccination derived, will wane, creating opportunities for continued SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Given seasonality, countries should expect increased potential transmission in winter months.

The impacts of future SARS-CoV-2 transmission on health, however, will be less because of broad previous exposure to the virus, regularly adapted vaccines to new antigens or variants, the advent of antivirals, and the knowledge that the vulnerable can protect themselves during future waves when needed by using high-quality masks and physical distancing. COVID-19 will become another recurrent disease that health systems and societies will have to manage. For example, the death toll from omicron seems to be similar in most countries to the level of a bad influenza season in northern hemisphere countries. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the worse influenza season during the past decade in 2017–18 caused about 52 000 influenza deaths with a likely peak of more than 1500 deaths per day.

¹¹

 The era of extraordinary measures by government and societies to control SARS-CoV-2 transmission will be over. After the omicron wave, COVID-19 will return but the pandemic will not.

[thedestroyerofworlds]

Also, I'm one of the boosterfied.

[Cerridwen]

5 minutes ago, thedestroyerofworlds said:

I have hope that after the Omicron wave, this will be the end.  I have hope.

 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00100-3/fulltext

COVID-19 will continue but the end of the pandemic is near

 

The world is experiencing a huge wave of infection with the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Estimates based on Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) models

¹

 suggest that on around Jan 17, 2022 there were 125 million omicron infections a day in the world, which is more than ten times the peak of the delta wave in April, 2021.

¹

 The omicron wave is inexorably reaching every continent with only a few countries in eastern Europe, North Africa, southeast Asia, and Oceania yet to start their wave of this SARS-CoV-2 variant.

¹

^,  

²

 The unprecedented level of infection suggests that more than 50% of the world will have been infected with omicron between the end of November, 2021 and the end of March, 2022.

¹

 Although IHME models suggest that global daily SARS-CoV-2 infections have increased by more than 30 times from the end of November, 2021 to Jan 17, 2022, reported COVID-19 cases in this period have only increased by six times.

¹

^,  

²

 Because the proportion of cases that are asymptomatic or mild has increased compared with previous SARS-CoV-2 variants,

³

^,  

⁴

 the global infection-detection rate has declined globally from 20% to 5%.

¹

Understanding the burden of omicron depends crucially on the proportion of asymptomatic infections. A systematic review based on previous SARS-CoV-2 variants suggested that 40% of infections were asymptomatic.

³

 Evidence suggests that the proportion of asymptomatic infections is much higher for omicron, perhaps as high as 80–90%. Garrett and colleagues found that among 230 individuals in South Africa enrolling in a clinical trial, 71 (31%) were PCR positive for SARS-CoV-2 and had the omicron variant and no symptoms.

⁴

 Assuming this prevalence of infection was representative of the population, the implied incidence compared to detected cases suggests that more than 90% of infections were asymptomatic in South Africa. The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) infection survey estimated a point prevalence of PCR positive SARS-CoV-2 infection of 6·85% for England on Jan 6, 2022.

⁵

 Hospital admission prescreening of individuals without COVID-19 symptoms in the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, WA, USA, did not exceed 2% throughout the COVID-19 pandemic but exceeded 10% in the week of Jan 10, 2022 (Murray CJL, unpublished). In addition to the much larger proportion of asymptomatic infections, in the USA the ratio of COVID-19 hospitalisations to detected cases hospitalised has declined by about 50% in most states compared with previous peaks.

²

 The proportion of COVID-19 patients in hospital who require intubation or are dying has declined by as much as 80–90% in Canada and South Africa.

⁶

^,  

⁷

Despite the reduced disease severity per infection, the massive wave of omicron infections means that hospital admissions are increasing in many countries and will rise to twice or more the number of COVID-19 hospital admissions of past surges in some countries according to the IHME models.

¹

 In countries where all hospital admissions are screened for COVID-19, a substantial proportion of these admissions will be among individuals coming to hospital for non-COVID-19 reasons who have asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nevertheless, infection control requirements put increased demands on hospitals. Given population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection of more than 10%, such as reported by the ONS infection survey in London, England,

⁵

 large numbers of health workers are testing positive and are required to quarantine, which puts a double pressure on hospitals. Countries will need to prioritise support for health systems in the next 4–6 weeks. Data from Greece, however, hold out hope that severe COVID-19 outcomes from the omicron wave will be limited; from Dec 21, 2021 to Jan 17, 2022 COVID-19 cases increased nearly 10 times but hospital intubations among COVID-19 hospital patients have remained the same as in December.

⁸

Surprisingly, IHME models

¹

 suggest that the transmission intensity of omicron is so high that policy actions—eg, increasing mask use, expanding vaccination coverage in people who have not been vaccinated, or delivering third doses of COVID-19 vaccines—taken in the next weeks will have limited impact on the course of the omicron wave. IHME estimates suggest that increasing use of masks to 80% of the population, for example, will only reduce cumulative infections over the next 4 months by 10%. Increasing COVID-19 vaccine boosters or vaccinating people who have not yet been vaccinated is unlikely to have any substantial impact on the omicron wave because by the time these interventions are scaled up the omicron wave will be largely over. Only in countries where the omicron wave has not yet started can expanding mask use in advance of the wave have a more substantial effect. These interventions still work to protect individuals from COVID-19, but the speed of the omicron wave is so fast that policy actions will have little effect on its course globally in the next 4–6 weeks. The omicron wave appears to crest in 3–5 weeks after the exponential increase in reported cases begins.

¹

^,  

²

 As of Jan 17, 2022, omicron waves were peaking in 25 countries in five WHO regions and in 19 states in the USA.

²

 It is expected that the omicron peak will occur in most countries between now and the second week of February, 2022.

¹

 The latest omicron peaks are expected to come in the countries where the omicron wave has not yet started, such as in eastern Europe and southeast Asia. Actions to increase SARS-CoV-2 testing, for example, are likely to increase disruption by having more individuals excluded from work or school, but are unlikely to impact the course of the omicron wave. In the era of omicron, I believe that COVID-19 control strategies need to be reset. Given the speed and intensity of the omicron wave, in my view efforts to contact trace seem to be futile.

A question remains in relation to the countries pursuing zero COVID-19 strategies, such as China and New Zealand. China has local omicron transmission in January, 2022.

⁹

^,  

¹⁰

 Given the high transmissibility of omicron, it seems unlikely that China or New Zealand will be able to permanently exclude the omicron wave. For zero COVID-19 countries, the question will be one of timing. Later omicron surges will allow further progress on increasing vaccination coverage and better understanding of the impact of the omicron variant in a fairly immunologically naive population.

By March, 2022 a large proportion of the world will have been infected with the omicron variant. With continued increases in COVID-19 vaccination, the use in many countries of a third vaccine dose, and high levels of infection-acquired immunity, for some time global levels of SARS-CoV-2 immunity should be at an all time high. For some weeks or months, the world should expect low levels of virus transmission.

 

I use the term pandemic to refer to the extraordinary societal efforts over the past 2 years to respond to a new pathogen that have changed how individuals live their lives and how policy responses have developed in governments around the world. These efforts have saved countless lives globally. New SARS-CoV-2 variants will surely emerge and some may be more severe than omicron. Immunity, whether infection or vaccination derived, will wane, creating opportunities for continued SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Given seasonality, countries should expect increased potential transmission in winter months.

The impacts of future SARS-CoV-2 transmission on health, however, will be less because of broad previous exposure to the virus, regularly adapted vaccines to new antigens or variants, the advent of antivirals, and the knowledge that the vulnerable can protect themselves during future waves when needed by using high-quality masks and physical distancing. COVID-19 will become another recurrent disease that health systems and societies will have to manage. For example, the death toll from omicron seems to be similar in most countries to the level of a bad influenza season in northern hemisphere countries. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the worse influenza season during the past decade in 2017–18 caused about 52 000 influenza deaths with a likely peak of more than 1500 deaths per day.

¹¹

 The era of extraordinary measures by government and societies to control SARS-CoV-2 transmission will be over. After the omicron wave, COVID-19 will return but the pandemic will not.

I'll believe it's over when it's ACTUALLY over