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Covid-19

Quebec reported over 6300 today! 😮Manitoba, over 400, a huge bump from the last couple of days.
We are def going to get blasted by this in Alberta.
 
Wow. I really hope omicron infections are not as serious as delta, because infection rates have almost returned to what they were at the height of the 4th wave. We went from 200 new cases to almost 1500 new cases in only 10 days. By comparison, it took us about a month to increase that much at the beginning of the 4th wave. Also, covid hospitalizations are much, much higher now than they were at the beginning of the 4th wave.

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It's very difficult to parse through all of the conflicting information that is out there right now, but we are starting to get a picture of the severity of Omicron from the data coming out of South Africa, Denmark, and the UK. We will see how things play out over the next few weeks, but luckily it's looking like the rates of hospitalization and mortality are much lower than previous waves.
 
artvandelay said:
It's very difficult to parse through all of the conflicting information that is out there right now, but we are starting to get a picture of the severity of Omicron from the data coming out of South Africa, Denmark, and the UK. We will see how things play out over the next few weeks, but luckily it's looking like the rates of hospitalization and mortality are much lower than previous waves.
Click to expand...
So far that seems to be the case. We should get a good idea by comparing to the UK, as they have similar age group demographics and vax rates. right now cases in the UK are skyrocketing, but deaths are still low, but it's still early. We should have a good idea in a couple of weeks. The US has about double the number of cases, but 10-15 times more deaths than the UK.
 
On the news last night they were speculating that Omicron is as serious as Delta, vaccinations rates are much higher now than at the beginning of the 4th wave and that's why hospitalizations haven't spiked. Most people I know are going ahead with their Christmas plans, so we will know for sure in about 2 weeks I guess.
 
Mountain Man said:
On the news last night they were speculating that Omicron is as serious as Delta, vaccinations rates are much higher now than at the beginning of the 4th wave and that's why hospitalizations haven't spiked. Most people I know are going ahead with their Christmas plans, so we will know for sure in about 2 weeks I guess.
Click to expand...
It wouldn't surprise me if Omicron end up being just as dangerous. It's hard to tell until time goes and we can get better numbers to work with. If I had to take an educated guess, I'd say it's just as dangerous for people who aren't vaxxed or had one dose a long time ago.
 
Surrealplaces said:
It wouldn't surprise me if Omicron end up being just as dangerous. It's hard to tell until time goes and we can get better numbers to work with. If I had to take an educated guess, I'd say it's just as dangerous for people who aren't vaxxed or had one dose a long time ago.
Click to expand...
The other thing is that covid spread is as much behaviour as it is biology and what people do matters. The talk in the media about omicron is so much about it (potentially) being milder (on average) with the stuff in parentheses taking second fiddle that I'm worried too many people have taken in an impression that it'll be no big deal.

It's like the first day of snow every fall, there's tons of crashes on the roads - mostly fender benders - and the media does a good job talking about how carefully people should drive. What would happen if instead they (accurately) said "it's the first day of snow folks; the severity of road crashes is much lower than usual today"? I don't think it would turn out well.
 
Omicron being labeled as 'mild' is the result of Simpson's paradox, it's not numerically incorrect in a specific context, but it's a misleading and dangerous conclusion.

It works like this: omicron is just as severe as delta for the unvaccinated. For the vaccinated, it infects people that would not have gotten delta. On average, the outcomes in vaccinated people are 'milder' compared to an unvaccinated, but there's a part that's left out, mild symptoms are more severe than no symptoms.

Add in the insane rate of spread and insufficient testing, the net effect is not mild at all.
 
We haven't seen numbers from Alberta health the last couple of days, but suddenly, I personally know a lot of people who have tested positive, and those people are all tied to different 2 events. People from a group that was at a restaurant gathering, and people from a group who were bowling a week ago. What's crazy is the percentage of people affected, in both cases it's around 50% of the people. Most of those people have tested positive with a rapid test, but haven't gone for a PCR yet, so who knows what the actual numbers of infections are.
* Home tests do have a rate of around 1% for false positive, but given the numbers from these two groups it's probable that both events were spreaders.

Any guesses on what the daily new case number for Alberta will be on say...January 6th?
 
Very high I'm guessing. My brother and most of his friends tested positive earlier this week. Pretty sure they've all used the at home kits, meaning they likely won't even be counted in the official numbers. I suspect the actual case numbers are going to be significantly higher than the official numbers, which will probably already be really high.
 
Cases in Canada as a whole are skyrocketing, even with people testing positive at home but not getting a PCR test. There was a breakout at my workplace and a number of people tested positive with the rapid test, but still haven't gone to a test centre yet.

An incredibly sharp rise for Canada. curious to see Alberta's numbers over the next 10 days.

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Surrealplaces said:
Cases in Canada as a whole are skyrocketing, even with people testing positive at home but not getting a PCR test. There was a breakout at my workplace and a number of people tested positive with the rapid test, but still haven't gone to a test centre yet.
Click to expand...
I can't find the article now, but I saw an article this morning where a Canadian doctor was saying it might be better for people who test positive at home, to stay home and isolate instead of getting a PCR. I'm thinking it's not such a bad idea at this point. It's so contagious that you're liable to infect others by going to do the test.
The doctor said that people who tested positive and were in a position of having contacted a lot of people should get the full test, but for most people just stay at home and isolate.
 
Personally, I think it makes sense depending on the situation. The people that caught it at my workplace work from home and are staying home to isolate, and do another rapid test in a couple of weeks. It's not as accurate as the PCR, but giving the huge numbers of people who will be hitting the test centres, it's probably just as well they stay home.

Is this the article?
www.ctvnews.ca

Confirming all COVID-19 positive rapid tests with PCR may not be practical, doctor says

As certain provinces experience backlogs in administering and processing COVID-19 lab tests, one doctor says confirming a rapid test result with PCR may not be practical in all situations.
www.ctvnews.ca www.ctvnews.ca

Confirming all COVID-19 positive rapid tests with PCR may not be practical, doctor says​

 
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