News Article: COVID 19 POSITIVITY THREAD: Useful links, hopeful news etc

[scelaton]

The problem is that this govenrment missed the window to take a proactive approach. We are shutting everything down because things are so bad that its forced them to be reactive.

A proactive approach would have included:

• Increasing testing capacity in anticipation for a large second wave during flu season
• Pushing for and acquiring rapid testing capability and distributing it for widespread testing
• Learning what happened in personal care homes in other provinces and implementing updated measures
• Ensuring our front line health workers had adequate PPE
• Modeling scenarios and keeping places where you cant trust the population demographic (late teens and 20nyear olds) to practice social distancing closed.

We are where we are because this government has been reactionary at every step this fall after being too busy parting themselves on the back all summer then adequately planning and being prepared for what is happening.

Absolutely. We were gifted a half-year to learn from the rest of the world and prepare for the predictable second wave, and this government/Shared Health did SFA but rest on their laurels. It's unacceptable.

In addition to your bulleted points, they needed to have ramped up ICU bed capacity, trained an army-reserve equivalent of nurses and docs to look after critical care units and laid out a comprehensive disaster plan. None of this happened.

This shutdown is actually a few weeks too late, and is a grudging response to pressure from the health care community. I would also have shut high school and post-secondary because, absent adequate population testing, they must be presumed to be asymptomatic vectors for transmission.

We need to make sacrifices to get through the next 3-4 months. Pallister should just get the f*** out of the way of his medical experts, open his wallet and support businesses at risk until they recover. His legacy of a balanced budget has died in the pandemic, along with all the other unnecessary deaths. He needs to deal with it.

 

[JetsWillFly4Ever]

Pallister has been a complete disaster. Trudeau hasn't been great but he has at least had good messaging and provided support for many Canadians financially.

Pallister spammed #RestartMB, blamed Manitobans when things turned south, gave no financial help to Manitobans, did not do enough to protect our personal care homes and resulted in a pandemic run completely out of control and hospitals being overrun. This was AFTER everything learned in the first wave.

I hate these shutdowns, I hate what this is going to do the economy. Unfortunately they are now necessary because the government AND individuals have not been proactive enough.

 

[buggs]

Roussin can't "figure it out" if he doesn't have the data (or the analytical resources).
Even if he does figure it out, he might not have the latitude to take decisions due to political / bureaucratic pressure.

It would be beyond remarkable if there is actually no transmission in school contexts, given the high community transmission levels now. I'm not persuaded that they are actually doing enough testing to actually understand how much transmission is happening within schools, and I think they might not like the answer in any case.

The reality is that the health care system and the vulnerable populations can't tolerate sustained transmission at this level. Things will get worse before they get better. Timing is everything - if public health had put in place more controls earlier (including a sharp lock-down), the duration would have been shorter and a lot of the morbidity and mortality and strain on the health system would have been avoided. Waiting until forced into a lock-down is basically the worst of all possible options, because you get a lot of health burden, and end up having to lock down more severely and for longer.

That's precisely why I put "guessing" in my comments regarding Roussin. As for political pressure, sure, no question. It happens across the spectrum, why else would there have been a huge 'diversity and inclusion' section in Tam's federal report? Got news for her, the virus doesn't suffer from discrimination bias - so that section provides precisely zero material benefit to the report.

On the data, agree, Roussin doesn't have the data, he can only interpret the numbers based on his degree of expertise, which, like everyone else dealing with Covid, is limited. But having the information on where cases occur (which schools and the numbers in said schools) and following the trends in those locations he should be able to make somewhat informed statements. For example there's a case at College Louis Riel that's known. There haven't yet been subsequent cases at CLR. That "should" indicate transmission hasn't occurred at the school, shouldn't it? They are tracing the known contacts of the student and if any develop symptoms and a subsequent positive test that would then be evidence of community transmission. Shouldn't the converse also be true? Absolutely inferior to hard, recorded, verified data but you won't get that in any meaningful form for quite some time.

With respect to the testing your statement is showing a lack of objectivity. We're only testing people who are showing symptoms of illness anyway. If you're healthy then you functionally cannot get a test realistically because the system can't fit you in. You're not a priority. With a relative lack of cases what evidence do you have to support greater transmission in schools?

I'm not arguing against greater testing, be it in schools or otherwise. I think it would be tremendously informative to get a much broader picture of the situation.


So then when should the lockdown have occurred and how long should the duration have been? Would you have put it in place when we hit a spike in mid-late August? Would you have put it in place when we again reached around 100 cases in mid October? What is the magic number/point for the short/sharp lockdown? What's the duration of said short/sharp lockdown and how do you determine the endpoint? What's an acceptable number to you of cases/day? Remember that comment about political/bureaucratic pressure? Does it also play a role in your mind from an opposite viewpoint? Present your case. I'm legitimately asking for your rationale on this. What would Whileee do?

I'm in complete agreement that things will get worse before they get better. I think we're going to see the same situation arise in Saskatchewan shortly. I just don't agree that the start/endpoints for lockdowns are as crystal clear as many seem to believe. I'm not even actively supporting Pallister in this; my mentioning of any politician is just to show that they've all routinely shat the bed regardless of political stripe. As with sports it's easy to armchair the situation. It's also easy to ignore impacts beyond the virus that may have equally devastating consequences.

 

[Whileee]

That's precisely why I put "guessing" in my comments regarding Roussin. As for political pressure, sure, no question. It happens across the spectrum, why else would there have been a huge 'diversity and inclusion' section in Tam's federal report? Got news for her, the virus doesn't suffer from discrimination bias - so that section provides precisely zero material benefit to the report.

On the data, agree, Roussin doesn't have the data, he can only interpret the numbers based on his degree of expertise, which, like everyone else dealing with Covid, is limited. But having the information on where cases occur (which schools and the numbers in said schools) and following the trends in those locations he should be able to make somewhat informed statements. For example there's a case at College Louis Riel that's known. There haven't yet been subsequent cases at CLR. That "should" indicate transmission hasn't occurred at the school, shouldn't it? They are tracing the known contacts of the student and if any develop symptoms and a subsequent positive test that would then be evidence of community transmission. Shouldn't the converse also be true? Absolutely inferior to hard, recorded, verified data but you won't get that in any meaningful form for quite some time.

With respect to the testing your statement is showing a lack of objectivity. We're only testing people who are showing symptoms of illness anyway. If you're healthy then you functionally cannot get a test realistically because the system can't fit you in. You're not a priority. With a relative lack of cases what evidence do you have to support greater transmission in schools?

I'm not arguing against greater testing, be it in schools or otherwise. I think it would be tremendously informative to get a much broader picture of the situation.


So then when should the lockdown have occurred and how long should the duration have been? Would you have put it in place when we hit a spike in mid-late August? Would you have put it in place when we again reached around 100 cases in mid October? What is the magic number/point for the short/sharp lockdown? What's the duration of said short/sharp lockdown and how do you determine the endpoint? What's an acceptable number to you of cases/day? Remember that comment about political/bureaucratic pressure? Does it also play a role in your mind from an opposite viewpoint? Present your case. I'm legitimately asking for your rationale on this. What would Whileee do?

I'm in complete agreement that things will get worse before they get better. I think we're going to see the same situation arise in Saskatchewan shortly. I just don't agree that the start/endpoints for lockdowns are as crystal clear as many seem to believe. I'm not even actively supporting Pallister in this; my mentioning of any politician is just to show that they've all routinely shat the bed regardless of political stripe. As with sports it's easy to armchair the situation. It's also easy to ignore impacts beyond the virus that may have equally devastating consequences.

My point about transmission in schools is that unless there is testing of school contacts (with and without symptoms), it's impossible to know whether there is transmission in schools. I think it is highly unlikely that there isn't any transmission in relation to school settings, but I also think that the testing protocols might not be focused on trying to identify within-school transmission. I don't think that's an unreasonable assumption, since there is very clear indication that keeping schools open is a top policy priority. Churches have been shut down, and I don't think we've heard about church-based clusters.

I think that it would have been prudent to bring in some modest restrictions (indoor mask mandate, and perhaps some limits on restaurant / bar capacity, etc.) when schools were re-opening. It would have been rational, and perhaps acceptable as most would want to give schools the best chance at staying open for as long as possible. The data showed very clearly in mid-October that there was a surge coming in Manitoba (with rising case counts and rapidly rising test positivity). A short, sharp containment at that time would have pushed the numbers down much more quickly, and perhaps avoided a lot of the transmission that occurred subsequently in hospitals and other institutions. As I recall, the surge in August was tied to a number of industries / plants, so not as much of an indicator of broader community transmission.

But it's pretty obvious just from the test positivity that things were getting out of control in mid-October.

 

[Eyeseeing]

Roussin can't "figure it out" if he doesn't have the data (or the analytical resources).
Even if he does figure it out, he might not have the latitude to take decisions due to political / bureaucratic pressure.

It would be beyond remarkable if there is actually no transmission in school contexts, given the high community transmission levels now. I'm not persuaded that they are actually doing enough testing to actually understand how much transmission is happening within schools, and I think they might not like the answer in any case.

The reality is that the health care system and the vulnerable populations can't tolerate sustained transmission at this level. Things will get worse before they get better. Timing is everything - if public health had put in place more controls earlier (including a sharp lock-down), the duration would have been shorter and a lot of the morbidity and mortality and strain on the health system would have been avoided. Waiting until forced into a lock-down is basically the worst of all possible options, because you get a lot of health burden, and end up having to lock down more severely and for longer.

After locking down the first time.
We locked down got to 1 case.
Government asked people to play nice the majority did.
What else can they do?
Locking down again and again won’t work.
This virus is like whack a mole.
Can’t keep everything shuttered forever.
This virus doesn’t look like it will be controlled by anyone or anything.

 

[buggs]

My point about transmission in schools is that unless there is testing of school contacts (with and without symptoms), it's impossible to know whether there is transmission in schools. I think it is highly unlikely that there isn't any transmission in relation to school settings, but I also think that the testing protocols might not be focused on trying to identify within-school transmission. I don't think that's an unreasonable assumption, since there is very clear indication that keeping schools open is a top policy priority. Churches have been shut down, and I don't think we've heard about church-based clusters.

I think that it would have been prudent to bring in some modest restrictions (indoor mask mandate, and perhaps some limits on restaurant / bar capacity, etc.) when schools were re-opening. It would have been rational, and perhaps acceptable as most would want to give schools the best chance at staying open for as long as possible. The data showed very clearly in mid-October that there was a surge coming in Manitoba (with rising case counts and rapidly rising test positivity). A short, sharp containment at that time would have pushed the numbers down much more quickly, and perhaps avoided a lot of the transmission that occurred subsequently in hospitals and other institutions. As I recall, the surge in August was tied to a number of industries / plants, so not as much of an indicator of broader community transmission.

But it's pretty obvious just from the test positivity that things were getting out of control in mid-October.

View attachment 375973

My point about transmission in schools is that unless there is testing of school contacts (with and without symptoms), it's impossible to know whether there is transmission in schools

Contrary to popular opinion I'm not actually an idiot. As I indicated, we don't do testing of people without symptoms, so you'll not see this data in the short term. Subsequently you have to rely on the proxy which is the known contact tracing absent the testing. If the known contacts aren't testing positive subsequently within a couple of weeks why then are you speculating that transmission is occurring anyway. I agree keeping schools is a top priority and a political decision but absent evidence to the contrary - and schools have been in for three months now - that doesn't appear to be happening. There would be outrage and media attention if it were, the Freep has no love for Pallister.

To your church point no contact results in no transmission based clusters. How shall I phrase this? Well...duh. Again, I've not seen any school-based clusters. If you're aware of them, point them out and I'll happily concede.

Didn't we have an indoor mask mandate? I know going into Joey's on occasion required me to sanitize at the door, wear a mask prior to entering and don said mask prior to going to the washroom in the building. This seemed to apply at each restaurant I visited and goes back as far as August.

I don't believe restaurants ever surpassed 75% capacity though I know we have restaurant related individuals on this board who can comment on that further. They were at lower capacity earlier, though I don't precisely recall when that changed. I do know for some restaurants that the 75% capacity it didn't do anything for their actual Covid-related capacity because they also had to adhere to distance minimums so the 75% was no different to them than 50% capacity because they didn't have the space to meet the second requirement.

Yes, I believe August was related to the hog plant in Brandon and one spectacularly impressive individual. But I still think you're looking at the past to predict what should have been done in the past. What I mean is that the arrow in your graph looks to be approximately 3.6% TPR. In the absence of being able to see the remainder of the graph is that the point you'd put the restriction in? The reason I ask is the slope from September to mid-October looks to be remarkably similar to the slope from August into September while ignoring the Brandon outbreak, assuming all other things are equal. Is it the %TPR that dictates your decision process and if so, why ~3.6%. Is there epidemiological significance at that point? Why not 2.5% earlier in October? I know you're well versed in statistical variability and it certainly applies here on a day to day basis, which is why I'm looking at slope.

I'm not being antagonistic or contrarian here, I'm legitimately asking.

You didn't indicate duration and what short/sharp lockdown means. I'd like to know your interpretation.

 

[Eyeseeing]

Absolutely. We were gifted a half-year to learn from the rest of the world and prepare for the predictable second wave, and this government/Shared Health did SFA but rest on their laurels. It's unacceptable.

In addition to your bulleted points, they needed to have ramped up ICU bed capacity, trained an army-reserve equivalent of nurses and docs to look after critical care units and laid out a comprehensive disaster plan. None of this happened.

This shutdown is actually a few weeks too late, and is a grudging response to pressure from the health care community. I would also have shut high school and post-secondary because, absent adequate population testing, they must be presumed to be asymptomatic vectors for transmission.

We need to make sacrifices to get through the next 3-4 months. Pallister should just get the f*** out of the way of his medical experts, open his wallet and support businesses at risk until they recover. His legacy of a balanced budget has died in the pandemic, along with all the other unnecessary deaths. He needs to deal with it.

Second wave?

This is actually our first wave by my reckoning.

I’m not sure any country got it right.
Care to share whose done it right?

Seems every country has had a go at increasing cases.

But hey if we want to politicize this in the hopes of making it better so be it.
I’m mad Pallister ended summer too.
2 things he doesn’t control.

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

Politics aside, Pallister is a jackass.

I got to know him because I lived in Whyte Ridge since 2005 and he represented the riding for years. The guy shouldn't even be premier.

 

[scelaton]

Second wave?

This is actually our first wave by my reckoning.
I’m not sure any country got it right.
Care to share whose done it right?
Seems every country has had a go at increasing cases.
But hey if we want to politicize this in the hopes of making it better so be it.
I’m mad Pallister ended summer too.
2 things he doesn’t control.

First wave started worldwide in the spring and, because of geography and isolation, we were largely spared. That was my point.

There is extensive literature on who got it right--many countries in southeast Asia, for starters.
There is also extensive data on who got it wrong. The US and Brazil lead the rankings

I am not "mad Pallister ended summer". I am appalled at the unnecessary loss of life that is within the purview of both our elected officials and also our apolitical health services leadership.

 

[Jets 31]

The government letting Canadians travel around province to province didn't help either. I know someone that works for WestJet and was going back and forth between provinces because they have family there and fly for free. I even told them that probably isn't wise considering the pandemic we have going on.

 

[MardyBum]

Ya I agree but I no longer have kids in school so it is easy for me to say that. It just seems that Pallister has taken half measures since we dodged the first breakout.

Closing high schools is one thing, closing elementary schools is another.

 

[Eyeseeing]

First wave started worldwide in the spring and, because of geography and isolation, we were largely spared. That was my point.

There is extensive literature on who got it right--many countries in southeast Asia, for starters.
There is also extensive data on who got it wrong. The US and Brazil lead the rankings

I am not "mad Pallister ended summer". I am appalled at the unnecessary loss of life that is within the purview of both our elected officials and also our apolitical health services leadership.

The loss of life is awful no question.
As far as absolute blame I can’t get there with a definitive answer.
So I will leave this be and hope we all come out of this unscathed.
It’s unprecedented and unpredictable.
Have a good evening.

 

[Eyeseeing]

 

[Whileee]

Contrary to popular opinion I'm not actually an idiot. As I indicated, we don't do testing of people without symptoms, so you'll not see this data in the short term. Subsequently you have to rely on the proxy which is the known contact tracing absent the testing. If the known contacts aren't testing positive subsequently within a couple of weeks why then are you speculating that transmission is occurring anyway. I agree keeping schools is a top priority and a political decision but absent evidence to the contrary - and schools have been in for three months now - that doesn't appear to be happening. There would be outrage and media attention if it were, the Freep has no love for Pallister.

To your church point no contact results in no transmission based clusters. How shall I phrase this? Well...duh. Again, I've not seen any school-based clusters. If you're aware of them, point them out and I'll happily concede.

Didn't we have an indoor mask mandate? I know going into Joey's on occasion required me to sanitize at the door, wear a mask prior to entering and don said mask prior to going to the washroom in the building. This seemed to apply at each restaurant I visited and goes back as far as August.

I don't believe restaurants ever surpassed 75% capacity though I know we have restaurant related individuals on this board who can comment on that further. They were at lower capacity earlier, though I don't precisely recall when that changed. I do know for some restaurants that the 75% capacity it didn't do anything for their actual Covid-related capacity because they also had to adhere to distance minimums so the 75% was no different to them than 50% capacity because they didn't have the space to meet the second requirement.

Yes, I believe August was related to the hog plant in Brandon and one spectacularly impressive individual. But I still think you're looking at the past to predict what should have been done in the past. What I mean is that the arrow in your graph looks to be approximately 3.6% TPR. In the absence of being able to see the remainder of the graph is that the point you'd put the restriction in? The reason I ask is the slope from September to mid-October looks to be remarkably similar to the slope from August into September while ignoring the Brandon outbreak, assuming all other things are equal. Is it the %TPR that dictates your decision process and if so, why ~3.6%. Is there epidemiological significance at that point? Why not 2.5% earlier in October? I know you're well versed in statistical variability and it certainly applies here on a day to day basis, which is why I'm looking at slope.

I'm not being antagonistic or contrarian here, I'm legitimately asking.

You didn't indicate duration and what short/sharp lockdown means. I'd like to know your interpretation.

Sorry, Buggs. I'm not all that keen to get into a long back and forth on this here... it's too much like work.

 

[nobody imp0rtant]

What a relief. The positivity in this thread is so uplifting.

 

[buggs]

Sorry, Buggs. I'm not all that keen to get into a long back and forth on this here... it's too much like work.

As you wish.

 

[ps241]

As an aside most provincial governments in areas we operate are not providing financial support to businesses. The financial aid packages are primarily federal. There are exceptions but they are in the margins and tiny programs comparatively.

The Feds have done a good job adjusting their programs along the way to provide support where needed and ease up on support where not needed. They have been listening to the Chamber and to organizations like RC (Restaurants Canada). They have done a deep dive to figure out pain points by studying the financial statements of restaurants and understanding the major leverage points to assist (labour and rent). They have also adjusted programs that had failure points structurally.

There have been and will continue to be lots of closures in the hospitality industry but in my opinion they are doing fairly well under very trying circumstances at getting the aid packages about right so far.

I expect and am planning for a very tough winter in our industry.

 

[scelaton]

As an aside most provincial governments in areas we operate are not providing financial support to businesses. The financial aid packages are primarily federal. There are exceptions but they are in the margins and tiny programs comparatively.

The Feds have done a good job adjusting their programs along the way to provide support where needed and ease up on support where not needed. They have been listening to the Chamber and to organizations like RC (Restaurants Canada). They have done a deep dive to figure out pain points by studying the financial statements of restaurants and understanding the major leverage points to assist (labour and rent). They have also adjusted programs that had failure points structurally.

There have been and will continue to be lots of closures in the hospitality industry but in my opinion they are doing fairly well under very trying circumstances at getting the aid packages about right so far.

I expect and am planning for a very tough winter in our industry.

Really sad to see so many local businesses suffer, and many fail. Lots of people I know have been trying to support the restaurant industry by ordering in and tipping well.
Any other suggestions?

 

[ps241]

Really sad to see so many local businesses suffer, and many fail. Lots of people I know have been trying to support the restaurant industry by ordering in and tipping well.
Any other suggestions?

If people can afford it ordering curb side pick up really helps local full service restaurants. They get to save the 20% fees from 3rd party delivery companies. I shouldn’t specify full service it’s really any places. I have good friends in all segments.

I know Restaurants really appreciate any business but especially during the lock downs.

 

[Gotaf7]

We did our part during the last lockdown and I have the waist line to prove it lol! We were ordering and picking up at least once a week most weeks twice, starting again tonight having our kids over before the lockdown starts ordering Chinese.

 

[Buffdog]

Here's some positivity, but makes you scratch your head a bit.

All cause mortality rates from Aug-july the past 4 years (so would include all deaths from the first wave in the spring).

The lack of excess mortality over a 12 month period brings up some questions. Are covid deaths simply being pulled from other causes? Have they offset the lower mortalities associated with auto accidents and workplace injuries due to lockdowns?

 

[Gotaf7]

I am not sure but my way of thinking is that they are not so much worried about the death rate because it is no where near to what they were predicting. I assume it is the hospitalization that is the real issue.

 

[Ducky10]

The double standard in closure of retail stores, whereby small and mid size retailers are forced to close while WalMart, Costco and Superstore can remain open and sell their full range of products is a complete joke.

It makes zero sense in light of the regulations retailers are required to follow, most importantly limits on capacity, and in fact is very likely completely counterproductive. Let’s take more people from a wider catchement area and drive them all into centralized locations. Makes perfect sense.

Retail stores have not been identified as main sources of transmission at any point. There has been literally zero communication from the government regarding concerns over unchecked community spread originating in retail stores.

The lack of resources, direction and commitment to properly tracing sources of transmission have been a complete joke. The province should have been in a far better position to react to rising cases far sooner than this and had the ability to more closely identify where the sources were. That way closures and restrictions to “short circuit” transmission could have actually been more direct as opposed to pissing in the wind.

I get sacrifices have to be made, retailers have made significant ones. This did not need to happen had this government had the slightest bit of foresight and initiative.

 

[Gotaf7]

It seems that the province has walked back the “household only” rule, it is staying as it was no more than 5 people NOT including the people in the household. Once again half measures from this Government.

 

[SM]

It seems that the province has walked back the “household only” rule, it is staying as it was no more than 5 people NOT including the people in the household. Once again half measures from this Government.

I suppose when the chief provincial public health officer can be overruled by a teacher, we end up with bullshit like this. Absolutely embarrassing to see.