Covid-19

[Roaring Flames]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1436448267156393985

https://twitter.com/x/status/1436448269870059521

 

[Silence&Motion]

There was a clip on CBC about cancelled cancer surgeries and liver transplants in the province:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1436359381541691395

Heartbreaking. I really wish there was some ethical and practical way to put wilfully unvaccinated COVID patients at the back of the line for care. We should also be prioritizing the mental and physical health of health care workers over caring for the wilfully unvaccinated. Doctors and nurses should not be skipping meals and breaks just because of the deluge of unvaccinated COVID patients, no matter how urgent their situation.

 

[Cowtown]

Yeah, it's sad indeed. These kinds of situations because of a few close minded people. A rally held against vaccine passports on the weekend. On the surface it seems like a big deal, as it's probably the biggest crowd yet for this kind of thing, but 1500 people out of a city of 1.5 Million....not exactly an indication of huge support.

Approximately 1,500 attend Calgary rally against vaccine mandates

The group is planning to host protests outside hospitals across Canada Monday, including at Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary.

calgaryherald.com

 

[Habanero]

Those people are going to have to suck it up, whether they like it or not vaccine passports are coming. Even if the UCP holds off on vaccine passports, everyone else is going to be doing it. You won't be able to travel anywhere, go to most businesses or go to most places of work. Eventually they'll be a small minority of holdouts who are losing out because of it, and rightly so.

 

[Mountain Man]

Big protest planned for today outside Foothill Hospital. It takes a special kind of shithead to protest outside a hospital during a pandemic! This is where we should start cracking down and arresting people, what a disgusting protest...

 

[Silence&Motion]

Big protest planned for today outside Foothill Hospital. It takes a special kind of shithead to protest outside a hospital during a pandemic! This is where we should start cracking down and arresting people, what a disgusting protest...

Did anyone actually show up? CBC radio said that the largest protest in the country was in Toronto and they only had about 100 people.

In other news, Alberta universities have finally announced a straight up vaccine mandate for stepping foot on campus. Four months late, but I'll take it.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

Here's my quick model updated with the weekend's vaccination numbers. The province is up about 4,150 first doses and 1,250 second doses since the $100 incentives came in. There's about $6.6 million now owed people for these doses since the start of the incentive program, so we're up to $782 per new first dose, and $2,675 per new second dose. (BC had 35,000 more vaccine doses the 9 days after the passport announcement than in the 9 days before, for a cost of $0.)

Something that is frustrating and I don't think has helped is the media coverage of things like protests. I saw a report that estimated a thousand people protested on Sunday. You know what 1,755 people did on Sunday? Got their first dose of vaccine (way late, but welcome to the party, guys.) The last day a thousand people didn't get a first dose of vaccine was February 21, when it was just being rolled out. Thousands of people take a real, definite, pro-vaccination stance every single day and it's not mentioned. Even a month ago when the ICUs had free space, vaccine mandates had massive, almost 80% support in Alberta, but the media has spent a huge chunk of their time talking to and about these fringe lunatics, elevating and making their position seem more prominent.

Even people on this board have pushed back on the reintroduction of things like mask mandates when the cases began to rise again after Stampede, saying that there would be protests. If we aren't willing to do the right thing because of a few lunatics protesting, then Deena Hinshaw isn't the chief medical officer of health, Kevin J. Johnson (and others of similar intellect) is. As it is, right now it seems that there are a couple of dozen rural UCP caucus members who are the de facto chief medical officer.

 

[Mountain Man]

So Kenny and the clown show are releasing vaccine certificates, but they are very adamant that it's not a passport lol. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmo...printable-covid-19-vaccination-card-1.6175295

 

[Mountain Man]

Now they are admitting that it's a vaccine passport lol. The level of ineptitude on display in Edmonton is actually quite staggering.

 

[Urban Outdoorsman]

Man.. the anti-vaxers are gonna blow a fuse. Those protests could get a little spicy

 

[Mountain Man]

I hope it doesn't get to the point where there are riot police outside the hospitals.

 

[Surrealplaces]

View attachment 348813

Here's my quick model updated with the weekend's vaccination numbers. The province is up about 4,150 first doses and 1,250 second doses since the $100 incentives came in. There's about $6.6 million now owed people for these doses since the start of the incentive program, so we're up to $782 per new first dose, and $2,675 per new second dose. (BC had 35,000 more vaccine doses the 9 days after the passport announcement than in the 9 days before, for a cost of $0.)

Something that is frustrating and I don't think has helped is the media coverage of things like protests. I saw a report that estimated a thousand people protested on Sunday. You know what 1,755 people did on Sunday? Got their first dose of vaccine (way late, but welcome to the party, guys.) The last day a thousand people didn't get a first dose of vaccine was February 21, when it was just being rolled out. Thousands of people take a real, definite, pro-vaccination stance every single day and it's not mentioned. Even a month ago when the ICUs had free space, vaccine mandates had massive, almost 80% support in Alberta, but the media has spent a huge chunk of their time talking to and about these fringe lunatics, elevating and making their position seem more prominent.

Even people on this board have pushed back on the reintroduction of things like mask mandates when the cases began to rise again after Stampede, saying that there would be protests. If we aren't willing to do the right thing because of a few lunatics protesting, then Deena Hinshaw isn't the chief medical officer of health, Kevin J. Johnson (and others of similar intellect) is. As it is, right now it seems that there are a couple of dozen rural UCP caucus members who are the de facto chief medical officer.

You took the words right out of my mouth. Nothing is more annoying than watching the news make a big deal of a small group of people protesting.
I know they need to post some of the kinds of stories to keep themselves afloat but it would be nice if they backed off on those stories.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Now they are admitting that it's a vaccine passport lol. The level of ineptitude on display in Edmonton is actually quite staggering.

Yeah, it is very annoying, just call it a vaccine passport like everyone else… get the program rolled out and running properly and we’ll go from there. Those idiots in power up north don’t seem to be capable of that.
Regardless, they’re going to have to do it at some point, even if they’re dragged kicking and screaming into it. Clearly everybody else is, not just other nations/provinces/governments but other organizations and private corporations are already looking into it, or have already started.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

So, how's everybody feeling about their old opinions on this topic?

July 5-7:

Bad take. It’s pretty much over. Get used to it. In 4 weeks we will have 76-77% first dose and 70% double dosed. Get back to living.

We are headed in the right direction, but I hope people don't get too overconfident. We may be back to restrictions before we know it.

There are people in the medical community still advocating some form of lockdowns, restrictions, wearing mask etc because of the delta variant and what 'we don't know'. The problem as I see it is that if we don't get on with life, there will always be another variant that gives us pause or sets us back. Now it is the delta variant ... then it will be the 'omega' variant .. and another one ... and another one. In the meantime, the human, social and economic cost will be staggering the longer this goes one.

I haven't heard of anyone advocating lockdowns. I've seen calls for masks and more restrictions on people without vaccines, which are strategies aimed at letting everyone get on with life. The people who are advocating for continued public health interventions are doing so to avoid the possibility of future lockdowns. Wearing a mask in the grocery store is not costing anyone anything.

You have to admit, throughout this pandemic, people advocating caution have continued to be proven right. Governments that have been reluctant to act quickly, and then rushed to remove restrictions, have caused far more damage in terms of human, social and economic cost.

The issue with comparing us to the UK is that they used almost exclusively AstraZeneca to vaccinate their population, which is far less effective at protecting against the variants (and even original strain). Given that the majority of people in Canada received mRNA vaccines I'd say we probably don't need to be looking to the UK for comparison. Israel maybe.

Overall though I feel fairly confident that for the time being a fourth wave will be pretty unlikely, or at least have fairly few consequences.

July 28-29:

Cases on the rise, unfortunately. Looks like something unforeseeable must have happened in the rough July 8-15 range to drive cases back up; apparently something particularly appealing to people in their 20s.

The good news is that this is still a low level, so as long as the people in charge of public health take quick and decisive action, we won't be overwhelmed with exponential growth by the time we get back to school. And there's no reason for them not to, since this isn't the first, second or even third time we've seen cases spike, so there should be a clear playbook -- we obviously must have learned from the lessons of the recent past; it would be inconcievable for us not to.

Do you want to lockdown the 20-30 year olds? Those days are probably over. Time to move on.

Unfortunately, if we have incomplete data and no technical ability to quickly require vaccine passports, if we are seeing an ICU surge from unvaccinated people, our options come back to: lockdown or an even worse ICU surge.

This virus, things don't look so bad until they look very bad, and it seems the decisions being made are to reduce the warning.

We will see where we are mid October and mid November. What we do know is the virus is circulating-it just needs to reach the wrong pocket of people and it will take off. Think a choir, a religious community, a hippy elementary school's parent group and their parents, maybe middle age+ party people, a curling team, a call centre or open office where only 40% are vaccinated.

The UCP's strategy seems pretty clearly aimed at encouraging the virus to wash over the entire population. Why else remove isolation and testing, place no restrictions on unvaccinated people, and force university students back into stuffy, crowded lecture halls?

Once again this same attitude of "why can't everyone just suck it up, and get back to normal?!?!?" is going to run into some very simple math problems.

Depends entirely on what happens with the hospitals. The Conservatives can stick their heads in the sand and pretend it's all over, but we don't know what is going to happen. Caution should still be the policy, not pretending this is all over.

I know I have regrets -- I misspelled inconceivable.

In closing, from August 11:

Without comment but in response to the above:
View attachment 340903

 

[UrbanWarrior]

The new-Nazi brigade (“anti-masker” lmfao yeah right! ) was in full force at Central Park today. Thousands when we walked by just before one with thousands more pouring in from every direction. Was pretty f*cked up.