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Covid-19

Chinook Arch said:
I doubt the numbers here will increase to the rate she's predicting. I won't be surprised to see them rise a bit and then start dropping again.
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Unless there is a widespread change in behaviour (either forced by the government or by people making choices) there is no reason to believe that.

interesting to note: the predictions would bring us in line to where Louisiana is today, which has about the same population.
 
Agreed. Of course if there's no widespread change the numbers will keep going up, but we've seen numbers go up in the past, and then the public and government react and numbers go down again. I hope I'm right about this, but I predict Calgarians and Albertans will react to the numbers, and make adjustments. It's that mentality that has help keep the numbers down from the beginning, and not out of control like most of the U.S.
darwink said:
Unless there is a widespread change in behaviour (either forced by the government or by people making choices) there is no reason to believe that.

interesting to note: the predictions would bring us in line to where Louisiana is today, which has about the same population.
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Mountain Man said:
1440 Cases over the weekend with 572 on Saturday, get ready for restrictions if the curve isn't flattened this week...
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New restrictions were put in place-private gatherings limited to 15. Also, event organizers (public or private) are now charged to notify attendees at events if a COVID case is connected to the event within 24 hours of being notified. This reinforces that events need to record attendees.
 
Good thing about the new restrictions. We're going to need them.

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Any guesses on weekend numbers?

Given Kenney's surprising comments yesterday that new measures are coming this week, I would hazard a guess that we are in for some eye poppers.
 
Unless there is a wave of outbreaks that can be linked to multiple restaurants in a particular market, they should not penalize that industry again. None of the data that I have seen is pointing to it. Outbreaks from private gatherings (i.e weddings, Thanksgiving dinners, hospitals, the Calgary Correction Center) spike the total numbers but it does not point to a widespread problem everywhere.
As long as restaurant owners are following protocols and policing guests accordingly, why can't they stay open?
 
JonnyCanuck said:
Unless there is a wave of outbreaks that can be linked to multiple restaurants in a particular market, they should not penalize that industry again. None of the data that I have seen is pointing to it. Outbreaks from private gatherings (i.e weddings, Thanksgiving dinners, hospitals, the Calgary Correction Center) spike the total numbers but it does not point to a widespread problem everywhere.
As long as restaurant owners are following protocols and policing guests accordingly, why can't they stay open?
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I wouldn't disagree with any of this, however I think dine-in services are a low hanging fruit that seems to get picked first. The only argument I can make in favour of it would be to mitigate the number of places people can gather indoors.
 
JonnyCanuck said:
Unless there is a wave of outbreaks that can be linked to multiple restaurants in a particular market, they should not penalize that industry again. None of the data that I have seen is pointing to it. Outbreaks from private gatherings (i.e weddings, Thanksgiving dinners, hospitals, the Calgary Correction Center) spike the total numbers but it does not point to a widespread problem everywhere.
As long as restaurant owners are following protocols and policing guests accordingly, why can't they stay open?
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The problem is that most cases are currently from "unknown" sources. Over the past week, more than half of the new cases were from unknown sources. If you exclude the close contact cases to look at just where someone brought covid into a household, then more than three quarters are from unknown sources.

And because of the nature of outbreaks, we know that this unknown transmission is likely not coming from the same places as outbreaks -- there's nobody with covid sitting in a cell in the Correctional Centre (or a bed in a hospital), being recorded as an unknown source; we know where those cases came from.

It's unfortunate that the province hasn't been able to set up a good system to track (which takes humans, money and trust, not an app), but with most cases coming from unknown sources at this point, I don't think we can pretend they don't exist, at least not if we want to stop covid.

There is evidence that restaurants, bars and coffee shops are high risk businesses; this study looks at 10 different activities, and restaurants, bars and coffee shops seem to be the highest risk businesses. Gyms and religious gatherings added risk although the sample wasn't large enough for statistical reliability; salons, offices, shopping, public transport and in-home gatherings had no additional risk. (Honestly, we should have this sort of information locally by now.)

I suspect the reason Kenney likes to talk so much about individuals having parties is because the more the spread can be blamed on individuals, the less it is a systemic problem, and he's in charge of the system. If he actually thought that parties were the problem, then in-home gatherings of 15 to 50 people (also known as... "a party") shouldn't be permitted.
 
I suspect that some people are not telling the truth to the tracers, to stop their gym/shop/church from being shut down. But, there is no reason to believe that the people dodging questions aren't in entirely the same pattern as others and that it really is private gatherings which are driving this.

That being said, I bet we get some of the following:
  • businesses and churches down to 1/2 nameplate capacity to make enforcement way easier
  • explicit guidance that mingling between tables is a no go
  • a modification of 'over serving' alcohol regulations or a universal early last call
  • a provincial mask mandate for areas surrounding Calgary and Edmonton
  • guidance that people only go to a private gathering once a week
  • guidance for cardio activities indoors, including a risk framework so that if a shutdown eventually comes, it is far less arbitrary than the Ontario one which classified all group exercise as the same, despite all known Ontario group exercise outbreaks being linked to vigorous cardio like spin.
 
Honestly, what we really need is a clear set of levels, where green is generally what we have now, red is an April style lockdown, and yellow and orange are in between; maybe gyms are at half capacity at green, cardio shuts down at yellow and everything else at orange and red. Maybe general purpose stores have the same rules as now in green and yellow, orange drops them to half capacity and they go to curbside/online at red; whatever is appropriate. And then there would be guidelines to actually transition between the colours; if an area is over 50 new weekly cases per 100K, or ICU capacity is over 20% (for example), then it goes from green to yellow.

That way, it would be clear to everybody not only how we were doing, but what was likely to happen if conditions change; it must be a nightmare to run a business with no certainty around what's coming up. Maybe there will be more restrictions tomorrow; maybe a month from now, who knows? Have fun ordering supplies and scheduling workers.
 
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