Coronavirus All-Purpose Thread: The Second Wave

[Sainters7]

With all the talk about gyms on here lately, and what constitutes a "low intensity workout", I had to laugh at 960 this morning. Pinder, Warrener and DeForest all insinuating the Flames should be ok, as their games can be labelled as low intensity, and no heavy breathing. They're just doing their part..

[looooob]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

I'm not sure it becomes meaningless. 70 and older used about 40% of the hospital beds to date through the pandemic. We still have to manage the capacity of the system, and at elevated case counts we have the potential to tax it. Once we get everyone over 50 vaccinated that should eliminate 60% of the hospital usage to date, that's when the things change substantially.

one thing I don't know (I assume someone knows but I don't think I do) is really how many of the hospital beds (daily) the over 70 patients have used


I think you are correct we know the number of hospitalizations (admissions) that are over 70 (and that is around 40%) but do we know
1. whether the average hospital stay of an over 70 is longer (this could be true for a variety of reasons- their general health, the need to find placements for them- including LTC etc) such that the number of beds occupied by over 70 at any one time is well over 40%


or 2. the contrary might be true (I suppose) that the under 70 when hospitalized are both very sick, have significant comorbidities and actually have more aggressive health care (including ICU) applied to their case such that they are occupying a higher bed percentage that over 70 who are quickly in and out


or the 2 factors average out evenly. my gut is telling me scenario 1 is more likely but I don't actually know this

[opendoor]

From the data I've seen (just going from memory), the length of time in hospital definitely does increase with age, peaking in the 65-85 range. I think people under 50 usually spend about half as long as people over 65. However, time in the ICU was basically flat across all ages.

[AFireInside]

Originally Posted by Slava

You say this, and yet you’ve thanked this on the same page.



I’m not in favour of opening everything and just letting the virus run rampant, but I do favour a middle of the road approach. We have crossed the line from concerns about our healthcare system and are moving towards case counts and trying to stem the spread entirely. As the vaccine is more widely spread, the case count matters less and less. If we have 100 new cases today and it’s all people under 40, it’s far less of a concern than what we saw earlier. We know that, and it’s not a stretch to suggest that.

I would also add that we have a pretty good idea of where new cases are these days. To the surprise of no one, it’s meat packing facilities, correctional facilities and congregated living. Of course there are other places, but that’s the vast majority. Has there been a documented of someone in a library contracted the virus? I highly doubt it, but we still had to have these closed for months. Would a retail store that has masking and distancing measures in place be cause for concern if they could have a more normal number of people inside? Almost surely. Instead we’re glossing over common sense and people line up outside. (What in the world people need so badly at IKEA is a whole other discussion, but I digress)

Anyway, I’m fine with the masking, social distancing and all of those precautions. I follow all of this religiously. But, that doesn’t mean I agree with the continued hammering of small businesses and insufficient supports for them while that happens.

I was thanking a post for saying if we just kept on our path for a few more weeks, our numbers are so low that we have far less worry of a big third wave, which would be even more damaging to local businesses. I don't interpret that post as saying we need strict lockdowns forever until we zero cases. Get our numbers very low, also makes this much much easier to contain.

I'm with you on the small business stuff, and I'm not someone that thought restaurants needed to be entirely closed, or even gyms. Good rules and restrictions could have kept them going the entire time. Our government in Alberta is not good at this, and they have inconsistent, strange restrictions. Why haven't we been able to have gyms, by appointment, with masks, at a reduced capacity this entire time? I didn't think it made sense for small businesses to be closed while malls were open either. That said, I'd rather get numbers to levels where businesses could be impacted far less than they are with these restrictions in place. I also agree that the provincial government should have been doing a lot more to help small businesses in Alberta, they appeared to do almost nothing.

If we don't do this right, the over 70 hospitalized crowd just gets replaced with the under 70 hospitalized crowd. We're seeing this exact scenario play out elsewhere. It also leads to more variants, not just from other places, but ones that form in our own population. We're just so close here, and I really don't want to see what we've had to sacrifice go to waste.

I haven't heard that most of our cases are in correctional facilities, congregational living and meat packing plants. Is that actually true, I'm legitimately asking, as I haven't seen that. If that is true, then the idea that warmer weather will reduce cases doesn't make a ton of sense.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by opendoor

From the data I've seen (just going from memory), the length of time in hospital definitely does increase with age, peaking in the 65-85 range. I think people under 50 usually spend about half as long as people over 65. However, time in the ICU was basically flat across all ages.

that seems to fit intuitively and based on admittedly some pretty anectodal information I've heard

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Slava

I would also add that we have a pretty good idea of where new cases are these days. To the surprise of no one, it’s meat packing facilities, correctional facilities and congregated living. Of course there are other places, but that’s the vast majority. Has there been a documented of someone in a library contracted the virus? I highly doubt it, but we still had to have these closed for months. Would a retail store that has masking and distancing measures in place be cause for concern if they could have a more normal number of people inside? Almost surely. Instead we’re glossing over common sense and people line up outside. (What in the world people need so badly at IKEA is a whole other discussion, but I digress)

Anyway, I’m fine with the masking, social distancing and all of those precautions. I follow all of this religiously. But, that doesn’t mean I agree with the continued hammering of small businesses and insufficient supports for them while that happens.

My logic was if today we were sub 100 cases you would have about 5-6 doubling periods before overwhelming hospitals assuming a 50% reduction in hospitalization due to the vaccine. That would have been about 12-18 weeks from now which gets you into the 30% vaccinated range so you probably make it to the point where you hit peak cases and then vaccines drop them.

Instead we opened earlier because people were becoming non-compliant and that causes cases to start rising again to the 400 we are at today. So we now have only 2-3 doublings before we overwhelm hospitals again which gives much less time for vaccinations to drive down hospitalizations and spread.

It certainly wasn’t in support of endless lockdown or the elimination of Covid. It was to put us in a position that we would be done with widespread restrictions and back to summer mode from today onward. Instead businesses got to open 3 weeks earlier. (Note in general this is because people suck at avoiding in person social gatherings and not the fault of businesses. Businesses being closed makes it real for people so I think you get better compliance on the most important part of stopping spread)

Since we chose the partial open and it failed to maintain compliance I think we are better off just going back to the September levels, accept 30% case growth and in 6 weeks lock down again for 2-4 weeks to get the numbers on a permanent downward path.

I don’t like this half pregnant mode of people feeling like there are still restrictions And cases rising.

[guzzy]

The time for full lockdowns was back in March 2020. I can't believe some people here are still in support of that. It wouldn't have happened because our government didn't even close the border because our Health Minister said it wasn't a concern. We failed then. After one full year of lockdowns/restrictions, no one is listening anymore. People's lives are destroyed, companies are gone. The economic destruction of this is still TBD.

I get people's concern but by the end of this month all seniors will be protected. We will have protected the most of vulnerable citizens and our health care/front line workers. It's time to get back to some level of normalcy. If people want to sit in their homes and continue to be afraid of this, they are welcome to do that. I don't see a potential, and unlikely, third wave causing havoc on the health care system because of vaccination roll out. Most healthy people won't be affected by COVID.

[81MC]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Perfect

Which of your loved ones will you be ok with dying?

Because ultimately that is what will happen for some families.

These are ridiculous arguments, and have been for long enough.

Life is chock-full of risks, plenty of which we could reduce but by and large chose not to. Do you go around asking these questions to people when they don’t express the level of aversion that you are comfortable with regarding anything else?

Imagine Slava (not picking on him, just know he likes the gym) asking you which family member you want to die prematurely because of heart disease from lack of physical activity? It’s absurd to assert that anyone could be expected to identify which loved one they’d like to die, when the question is what level of risk to your loved ones are you okay with?

They’re two totally different things and constantly framing someone as a murderous monster for making their own assessment patently misrepresents the position.

[Knut]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1367242967644180482

First Variant Outbreak at a care home.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Yikes.....

Weren't all those facilities vaccinated?

[troutman]

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n136


Possible symptoms after acute covid-19

Symptoms are highly variable and wide ranging. The most commonly reported symptoms include (but are not limited to):


Respiratory symptoms

• Breathlessness
• Cough

Cardiovascular symptoms

• Chest tightness
• Chest pain
• Palpitations

Generalised symptoms

• Fatigue
• Fever
• Pain

Neurological symptoms

• Cognitive impairment (“brain fog,” loss of concentration or memory issues)
• Headache
• Sleep disturbance
• Peripheral neuropathy symptoms (pins and needles and numbness)
• Dizziness
• Delirium (in older populations)

Gastrointestinal symptoms

• Abdominal pain
• Nausea
• Diarrhoea
• Anorexia and reduced appetite (in older populations)

Musculoskeletal symptoms

• Joint pain
• Muscle pain

Psychological/psychiatric symptoms

• Symptoms of depression
• Symptoms of anxiety

Ear, nose, and throat symptoms

• Tinnitus
• Earache
• Sore throat
• Loss of taste and/or smell

Dermatological

• Skin rashes

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Yikes.....

Weren't all those facilities vaccinated?

Apparently on Monday.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by 81MC

These are ridiculous arguments, and have been for long enough.

Life is chock-full of risks, plenty of which we could reduce but by and large chose not to. Do you go around asking these questions to people when they don’t express the level of aversion that you are comfortable with regarding anything else?

Imagine Slava (not picking on him, just know he likes the gym) asking you which family member you want to die prematurely because of heart disease from lack of physical activity? It’s absurd to assert that anyone could be expected to identify which loved one they’d like to die, when the question is what level of risk to your loved ones are you okay with?

They’re two totally different things and constantly framing someone as a murderous monster for making their own assessment patently misrepresents the position.

#### you

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Yikes.....

Weren't all those facilities vaccinated?

Originally Posted by Slava

Apparently on Monday.

As in two days ago? Or 9 days ago?
Guess it doesn't matter.

Bad news is I assume those who performed the vaccinations are considered close contacts (?) and are out of commission for some time now. And it's possible the number of people they were in contact with is pretty high if they were on a 'vaccination team', and worse yet is those people would all likely be elderly/high risk. Hope this doesn't turn out this way.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by 81MC

These are ridiculous arguments, and have been for long enough.

Life is chock-full of risks, plenty of which we could reduce but by and large chose not to. Do you go around asking these questions to people when they don’t express the level of aversion that you are comfortable with regarding anything else?

Imagine Slava (not picking on him, just know he likes the gym) asking you which family member you want to die prematurely because of heart disease from lack of physical activity? It’s absurd to assert that anyone could be expected to identify which loved one they’d like to die, when the question is what level of risk to your loved ones are you okay with?

They’re two totally different things and constantly framing someone as a murderous monster for making their own assessment patently misrepresents the position.

The "life is full of risk" argument is pretty absurd at this point as well, isn't it? As well as awkwardly trying to compare the risk of heart disease from not being able to access a gym for 8 months vs. the risk of death from unmitigated spread of the coronavirus? Like... come on man... use your brain here.

It's important to put it into perspective, because "deaths" is an inevitable result here. And it's not absurd to relate that on a personal level.

If you look at the case fatality rate of the US, it is 1.8%. It's not a perfect measurement, but lets just use it for example since they have had a lot of cases (almost as many as our population, and Canada's is 2.5% for the record). If we say everyone over age 24 gets it, that's 493,000 deaths (wouldn't happen, just an example, and for reference, ~270k people die in Canada each average year). If we say 11.7% of people over 24 get it (the % of Czechia's pop that got it, which is one of the highest cases per million countries), that's an additional 55,000 deaths, or over a tripling from where we are today.

And with a sharp increase in cases, comes overwhelmed healthcare systems, which leads to more deaths unrelated to coronavirus in addition to the deaths related to it. The race against vaccines becomes very serious in this scenario.

So, let's be honest instead of blabbering about "life has risks." If you remove restrictions, cases will go up until vaccines provide enough immunity, and in that time frame, thousands of people will die. It's a foregone conclusion, there is no question.

The only honest way to look at it is answering whether you (if you're older) are ok being one of those people, or if you're ok with an older family member dying in the next few months. Because you might. That's the risk. You don't get to choose who dies from this, there's no promise it's going to be some stranger you don't care about. Are you ok with that?

If so, totally fine. But if you think it's absurd to think about, it might be time to wake up.

[Leondros]

Once the 70+ age demographic is vaccinated (which accounted for over 90% of total deaths and 45% of total ICU visits) the healthcare systems shouldn't be overwhelmed. Don't the risks dramatically decrease once we get these people vaccinated? That's what the numbers tell me atleast. Hopefully we can strike a balance sooner rather than later with fully opening while keep hospitalizations controllable.

The variants are the wild card to me - if these things start bypassing the immunity granted by the vaccines and continue to mutate, its a whole new ball game.


I understand the frustrations on both sides but at some point things have got to give and we have to start allowing businesses to reopen. Anecdotally I have seen far too many rules broken in the last couple of weeks both in private homes and in businesses and I just don't think people have an appetite for another lockdown. If people decide they don't care, give up on the lockdowns, they are no longer effective.

[vegasbound]

Not sure if this goes in the good news thread or not but thanks to someone having a close COVID contact, I had ear surgery today at South Health Campus. My surgeon's regular wait time is usually 18 months, they called me Monday afternoon and asked if I wanted surgery today or not. I said yes. The whole process is definitely weird in the COVID world.

[Boreal]

Originally Posted by 81MC

These are ridiculous arguments, and have been for long enough.

Life is chock-full of risks, plenty of which we could reduce but by and large chose not to. Do you go around asking these questions to people when they don’t express the level of aversion that you are comfortable with regarding anything else?

Imagine Slava (not picking on him, just know he likes the gym) asking you which family member you want to die prematurely because of heart disease from lack of physical activity? It’s absurd to assert that anyone could be expected to identify which loved one they’d like to die, when the question is what level of risk to your loved ones are you okay with?

They’re two totally different things and constantly framing someone as a murderous monster for making their own assessment patently misrepresents the position.

I was going to get some physical activity, but I remembered I couldn’t go to a gym.

Welp... back to the chesterfield for me...

Once others see me do this it’ll probably be contagious & we’ll all get heart disease.

Just like Covid.

[AFireInside]

Originally Posted by Leondros

Once the 70+ age demographic is vaccinated (which accounted for over 90% of total deaths and 45% of total ICU visits) the healthcare systems shouldn't be overwhelmed. Don't the risks dramatically decrease once we get these people vaccinated? That's what the numbers tell me atleast. Hopefully we can strike a balance sooner rather than later with fully opening while keep hospitalizations controllable.

The variants are the wild card to me - if these things start bypassing the immunity granted by the vaccines and continue to mutate, its a whole new ball game.


I understand the frustrations on both sides but at some point things have got to give and we have to start allowing businesses to reopen. Anecdotally I have seen far too many rules broken in the last couple of weeks both in private homes and in businesses and I just don't think people have an appetite for another lockdown. If people decide they don't care, give up on the lockdowns, they are no longer effective.

Deaths may decrease, but more people under 70 will get it and end up in the hospital. They are finding 10% of people are getting long covid. What does that cost us down the road? A 35, 50 and 60 year old just died from working in the Red Deer pork plant. The 35 year old had no known pre-existing conditions. One outbreak at the Red Deer meat plant has been known to be responsible for at least 500 cases, and 4 deaths. A pub in BC had trivia night with 24 people that has now linked to more than 300 cases.

What happens to businesses when we start having 1500, 2000, 2500 cases per day? They are worse off in that situation then they are now, because the majority of people will avoid places they don't absolutely need to go. If 55 - 60% of cases in the hospital are under 65 and we let our cases double, or triple, what happens to the hospital numbers? In the US of the 4.1 million estimated hospitalizations, 2.2 million or about 55% are under 65.

We already know there are places in North America that are completely open and they are still doing way less business. I believe someone earlier in the thread pointed out that business is down in Florida to about the same levels as BC.

The best thing for businesses will be getting our numbers low enough that with spring, and vaccines we can avoid a serious third wave. We keep doing this little dance, and we're very close to being able to have a great summer, I just don't want to see what we've done the past couple months wasted for nothing. I hope the experts are wrong on what they think is a very real possibility for case numbers here in Alberta.

[AFireInside]

Originally Posted by Leondros

Once the 70+ age demographic is vaccinated (which accounted for over 90% of total deaths and 45% of total ICU visits) the healthcare systems shouldn't be overwhelmed. Don't the risks dramatically decrease once we get these people vaccinated? That's what the numbers tell me atleast. Hopefully we can strike a balance sooner rather than later with fully opening while keep hospitalizations controllable.

The variants are the wild card to me - if these things start bypassing the immunity granted by the vaccines and continue to mutate, its a whole new ball game.


I understand the frustrations on both sides but at some point things have got to give and we have to start allowing businesses to reopen. Anecdotally I have seen far too many rules broken in the last couple of weeks both in private homes and in businesses and I just don't think people have an appetite for another lockdown. If people decide they don't care, give up on the lockdowns, they are no longer effective.

Deaths may decrease, but more people under 70 will get it and end up in the hospital. They are finding 10% of people are getting long covid. What does that cost us down the road? A 35, 50 and 60 year old just died from working in the Red Deer pork plant. The 35 year old had no known pre-existing conditions. One outbreak at the Red Deer meat plant has been known to be responsible for at least 500 cases, and 4 deaths. A pub in BC had trivia night with 24 people that has now linked to more than 300 cases.



What happens to businesses when we start having 1500, 2000, 2500 cases per day? They are worse off in that situation then they are now, because the majority of people will avoid places they don't absolutely need to go. If 55 - 60% of cases in the hospital are under 65 and we let our cases double, or triple, what happens to the hospital numbers? In the US of the 4.1 million estimated hospitalizations, 2.2 million or about 55% are under 65.



We already know there are places in North America that are completely open and they are still doing way less business. I believe someone earlier in the thread pointed out that business is down in Florida to about the same levels as BC.



The best thing for businesses will be getting our numbers low enough that with spring, and vaccines we can avoid a serious third wave. We keep doing this little dance, and we're very close to being able to have a great summer, I just don't want to see what we've done the past couple months wasted for nothing. I hope the experts are wrong on what they think is a very real possibility for case numbers here in Alberta.