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Covid-19

So I just tested positive for covid with one of the at home rapid tests. Like someone mentioned already the at home tests aren't very sensitive. I began developing symptoms a few days ago and tested negative twice. Which led me to the conclusion that I'd just caught a cold. As my symptoms got worse I figured I'd test myself again this morning and sure enough it was positive.

Conclusion, the rapid tests are useless for early screening and will only test positive once you've already been sick for a few days. I suspect that a lot of people will prematurely let their guards down after testing negative too early on. I honestly think this wave could infect 50% or more of the population in pretty short order, gonna be a wild month
 
Urban Outdoorsman said:
So I just tested positive for covid with one of the at home rapid tests. Like someone mentioned already the at home tests aren't very sensitive. I began developing symptoms a few days ago and tested negative twice. Which led me to the conclusion that I'd just caught a cold. As my symptoms got worse I figured I'd test myself again this morning and sure enough it was positive.

Conclusion, the rapid tests are useless for early screening and will only test positive once you've already been sick for a few days. I suspect that a lot of people will prematurely let their guards down after testing negative too early on. I honestly think this wave could infect 50% or more of the population in pretty short order, gonna be a wild month
Click to expand...
I went and got my booster today and the pharmacist told me much the same. I have a friend who's been having the symptoms, but testing negative, even though her husband is testing positive with no symptoms. I'm guessing in a few days she'll test negative also.
 
Here's the most recent wastewater data from Calgary: source: U of C -- the site doesn't have a great user interface; there's a small link to wastewater in the upper right (mobile: in the three invisible dot menu).
1641840248190.png

It's showing our wastewater covid levels at around 5 times the third wave in May and around 8 times the September wave (fun fact: the fourth wave was driven largely by rural/small town Alberta). That would put us at around 45,000 active cases -- 2.2 times the official active case number. Edmonton has a similar pattern; they're about 6 times the May and September waves, which would put them at around 32,000 cases - about double the official case number. The wastewater is now showing Lethbridge and Red Deer something like double the fall '21 wave, Medicine Hat and Grande Prairie are not increasing much yet; Fort Mac is hard to tell because the data there doesn't go back to September. The official counts in Lethbridge and Red Deer show about 60% of the covid case rate per capita as Calgary and Edmonton; this is pretty consistent with an estimate using the wastewater to adjust their fall '21 case rates, so the 2:1 ratio in the big cities seems to hold for at least the next tier (Leth and RD have about 60% higher covid case rates in the official figures than the remainders of the South and Central regions). There's 5700 cases in the official count in the other health regions; if the same 2:1 ratio is there, that would be in the neighbourhood of 11,000 active cases, putting the province in the 88,000 active case range; doubling the most recent daily case number of 6000 puts the province in the 12,000 new case per day range.

45000 Calgary region residents is one in 35 or so people; similar sized groups in the Calgary region (2016 census) include:
  • A full McMahon stadium
  • The number of mining/oil and gas workers
  • The number of people whose mother tongue is a Filipino language (Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano)
  • The number of people of Italian descent
  • The number of education workers (including all workers, all levels of education)
  • The number of residents in the downtown, Beltline, Inglewood and Mission
 
That's great information to help put things in perspective. I think many of us suspected the real case numbers would be much higher than the official test numbers, and this really confirms that.
 
My comment above was written midday Jan 10 before updated numbers came out. The wastewater is from Jan 4 in Calgary and Jan 7 in Edmonton; the provincial numbers above are Jan 6.

Today's provincial update shows 26K active cases in the Calgary region and 20K in the Edmonton region; if the growth in provincial numbers since Jan 4 / 7 is applied, that suggests that there could be as of Monday morning about 70,000 active cases in the Calgary region (2.6x provincial estimates) and about 40,000 active cases in the Edmonton region (1.9x official estimates). Assuming the doubling is also consistent for the 10K official cases in the remainder of the province, that puts us at 130,000 active cases or so.

Including this growth, comparisons in the Calgary region include (additions in bold):
  • A full McMahon stadium, Saddledome and Atco Field (soccer at Spruce Meadows)
  • The number of mining/oil and gas, arts, entertainment or recreation workers
  • The number of people whose mother tongue is a Filipino language (Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano), Vietnamese or Korean
  • The number of people of Italian or Swedish descent
  • The number of people ages 25-64 with a Master's degree or higher
  • The number of residents in the downtown, Beltline, Inglewood and Mission, Cliff Bungalow, Lower Mount Royal, Sunalta, Hillhurst and Sunnyside
 
Add me and my wife and son to list of Covid cases. I got knocked on my butt pretty hard from it and am still recovering. My wife and son hardly got anything, just a few mild symptoms.
We aren’t part of the official case count, but all three of us tested positive with the rapid test.

The crazy thing is that we have hardly been anywhere in the last two weeks. My son has been home from school, not having gone back since the break. My wife and I have been out a grand total of 3 times - 2 times to the grocery store and once to the pharmacy.
 
We’ve avoided it so far, but I’m pretty sure without our N95 masks we’d be in the same boat. Know at least a handful of people in our networks who picked it up masked doing groceries or similar. Get well soon!
 
Pretty sure the GF and I had it last week, minor cold for me, mild flu for her. I've had 3 doses and possibly Covid now, so I think my immunity is about as good as it will get now lol.
 
Numbers in the US are crazy out of control, even at a time when they are running out of of tests as well. Not sure what the real numbers are in the US, but if the official test numbers continue averaging around 800K for the next couple of months, they may actually hit herd immunity! Of course they would likely see over a million total deaths by the time all is said and done.
 
My partner and I drove out to Southern Ontario just before Christmas (early omicron). Not a single place in the US we stopped at along the way had people wearing masks. We stayed in a hotel in Madison, WI, and on the news they said that fully vaccinated rates for Wisconsin were only at 50%. Felt a bit better about Alberta's 80whatever percent at the time.

One exception being Chicago - we stayed an extra day there on the way home. In the city itself people wore masks everywhere, and even one restaurant had asked us for proof of vax.

On the other hand, there were free covid testing and vax centres everywhere, on every corner, taking over empty retail spaces and other closed businesses and many of the cities and towns we drove through. These places didn't seem to be very busy at all though. We were able to get a free travel PCR test, administered by an esthetician in her shop. We thought that this system was actually quite interesting. So we talked to her a bit about the testing program. Her business was obviously struggling due to the pandemic, and the testing company paid her per test she administered. She would still video in with a nurse practitioner for the testing process so a medical professional was involved.

Seems to me like a good system to keep some more businesses open/income flowing. Also probably an effective way to keep widespread testing open. If a system like that would be put in place in Alberta, it could really take some pressure off the medical professionals that work at testing facilities. Also, it doesn't concentrate people who need testing at those facilities. I could just walk over to the barber, or cannabis store or whatever in my neighborhood instead of driving to the testing facility off Deerfoot.
 
^ The matter is cost allocation and resource minimization. It is one way the USA allocates resources more efficiently than we do in edge cases. All health providers have a massive incentive to minimize case loads, because the costs of cases are visible in dollars and cents, whether insurance companies or government insurance. Then you create an incentive structure, with massive surge capacity, which is compensated for with a per test price. In Canada the testing for the most part has been all public -- the public pays whether it is being used or not. So no incentive to overbuild, focus on convenience, out compete, innovate, etc.

It is rediculous that the USA has seen massive amounts of money flowing into testing, trying to staff normally idle ICU beds, monoclonal antibodies treatments, but can't seem to manage the more basic sides of public health--contact tracing, enforcing isolation, paid sick time off, masking, vaccine promotion.

The USA will always find the cheapest way to do things the hard way!
 
Question regarding the truckers protest. I’m reading that the US is not allowing Canadians to enter the US unless they are fully vaccinated. If this is the case, it the protest seems like moot point no?
 
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