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.