Everything COVID19 - PART 4

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Here are the questions:

Is Canada more or less racist than it was 50 years ago ? 25 years ago ?
Are we progressing in the right direction in your estimation ?

Do you find agreement or disagreement with claims that “nothing has changed” from decades of peaceful work to advance equality and human rights , and therefore rioting to force the change is justified ?

I think the amount of racism is the same...but the targets and way the racism is displayed has changed.

I think, overall, we're going in the right direction. But the voices against this direction are also growing louder and gaining a lot of traction.

This is the thing...it's not really a straight line or yes/no answer. We make progress in some areas, but have lost ground in other areas. Social media in particular is an area where common decency is almost disappeared for good...and there's one hell of an undercurrent out there of hate. And that's where things get very murky. Because there is little accountability, there are simple shit-disturbers milling about with the true anarchists and political saboteurs, so it's difficult to know how much of the shit flying around is true sentiment of the population. Some of it is political/power based, some of it is corporate/capitalistic based, some of it is old school hate...and some of it are immature folks just trying to get a rise out of people. Someone smarter than myself would have to sort out whether the pure hate has increased or decreased.

 

[Larionov]

So as it turns out, protests make concern about COVID-19 magically disappear. ;-) Seriously, look how quickly the news cycle moved on from COVID and on to race relations, civil unrest, etc. It makes you wonder if we aren't reaching a transition phase right now where public health concerns start to fade, and economic and social issues quickly rise to the forefront.

Related, if the cities that saw major protests don't see a large spike in hospitalizations, then a lot of the argument for the ongoing closure of restaurants, gyms, hair salons, etc. weakens considerably. Those protests are exactly the kind of so-called "super spreader" events that we have been warned about for almost three months. If public health officials can't draw a short straight line between those protests and increased COVID cases in the next couple of weeks, then it truly is time to get back to some state of normalcy and let kids play sports, people go to restaurants, etc. By all means stay smart - practice good hygiene, get tested if you feel symptoms, etc., but the rationale behind the ongoing hobbling of our economic and social structures grows weaker by the day...

 

[thinkwild]

So as it turns out, protests make concern about COVID-19 magically disappear. ;-) Seriously, look how quickly the news cycle moved on from COVID and on to race relations, civil unrest, etc. It makes you wonder if we aren't reaching a transition phase right now where public health concerns start to fade, and economic and social issues quickly rise to the forefront.

Related, if the cities that saw major protests don't see a large spike in hospitalizations, then a lot of the argument for the ongoing closure of restaurants, gyms, hair salons, etc. weakens considerably. Those protests are exactly the kind of so-called "super spreader" events that we have been warned about for almost three months. If public health officials can't draw a short straight line between those protests and increased COVID cases in the next couple of weeks, then it truly is time to get back to some state of normalcy and let kids play sports, people go to restaurants, etc. By all means stay smart - practice good hygiene, get tested if you feel symptoms, etc., but the rationale behind the ongoing hobbling of our economic and social structures grows weaker by the day...

Absolutely, we are going to get some solid data points here that should be instructive. Although I think we already have the data to understand the basic trend of what happens at normal and the effect social distancing and mask wearing can have on bending that curve back.

I would for sure anticipate that there would be spikes that can be directly traced to protests even if the amplitude of the spike might be lessened a bit by mask wearing. If we don’t see spikes by end of June early July, then a real re-evaluation will be needed for sure.

But every time we open something up, we see spikes. It will be most unexpected for that not to happen again.

We are slowly testing what is and isn’t possible everywhere and learning and adapting and trying as hard as possible to manage the risk and restore the economy where safely possible. The whole world is trying. All the data so far suggests this is likely to be fairly long process. And that this is an inflection point that will spur great change going forward more than returning to the normal of the past. We will have to be ready to interpret and act on what we are about to learn i agree.

 

[Masked]

Remember there was someone who kept ranting about how Sweden was doing it right and Canada was all sorts of stupid for what we were doing? Well..... Top epidemiologist admits he got Sweden's COVID-19 strategy wrong | Ottawa Citizen

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Remember there was someone who kept ranting about how Sweden was doing it right and Canada was all sorts of stupid for what we were doing? Well..... Top epidemiologist admits he got Sweden's COVID-19 strategy wrong | Ottawa Citizen

Quelle surprise.

Aiming for herd immunity for an incredibly contagious novel virus and, with no vaccine in sight, was dumb from the get go.

At least it made it easy to identify who is an idiot.

 

[dumbdick]

Remember there was someone who kept ranting about how Sweden was doing it right and Canada was all sorts of stupid for what we were doing? Well..... Top epidemiologist admits he got Sweden's COVID-19 strategy wrong | Ottawa Citizen

I don't know, dude. I read the article and it's basically extrapolating off some comments that amounts to "We would do some things different in retrospect if we had the chance". Basically the same thing almost every country is saying. Not exactly a stunning reversal.

Ontario has admitted that it spent too much time worrying about hospitals and not enough time worrying about old-folks homes. That's possibly 1000 deaths that could have been prevented. But hindsight is 20/20, you know.

A lot of people are using the deaths per 100K metric to say Sweden isn't doing very well. I think that might be the wrong approach, since all countries are sitting at different levels of population immunity. IF (big, big IF) we will all have to get to some level of herd immunity eventually, then I think something like deaths per 100K antibody-positive people is the better metric. Korea looks great now with it's minimal case numbers, but if we never get a vaccine are they just delaying the pain?

For better or worse, we've shut down a province of 14 million people for a virus that so far has killed fewer than 800 people under the age of 80. Is that the right decision? I don't know.

If we skipped the lockdowns entirely and just went straight to the "new normal" back in March would that have been wiser (cancelled events, masks, distancing, etc.)? Perhaps the "new normal Ro" is closer to 1.0, preventing exponential transmission. Sweden's new cases are flat, so that certainly looks likely. But again, I don't know.

Perhaps we should have just locked down our retirees and most vulnerable instead of the entire population? That may have led to fewer deaths overall. If there's no vaccine coming and infection confers long-lasting immunity, that's probably the least painful way out of this that minimizes fatality rates. Maybe we should have reserved CERB for people over 60? Or given them some big incentives to retire early and mostly just stay home for the next 6 months?

I honestly don't know what the right answers are. Nobody got it right and for the most part we still don't know what "right" is. Regardless, I think this Citizen article really misses the mark.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Every Country has things they can learn and do better for the next one and the story on this one isn't over yet

 

[DaveMatthew]

Every Country has things they can learn and do better for the next one and the story on this one isn't over yet

Yes.

But it's interesting to compare a country like Germany that, just 75 years ago, exterminated 17 million people, to the United States.

There, the horrendousness of what happened is drilled into kids at a young age in school. There are memorials everywhere, reminding citizens of what took place. This is done so no one forgets what happened. So no one minimizes it. German citizens carry the shame of their past with them, and they use it to be better. Things certainly aren't perfect, but they're moving forward while recognizing the past.

In the United States, that doesn't happen. In many states, slavery is glossed over in school curriculums. The Civil War is glamorized. Plantations are nice places to visit for a glass of sweet tea. Confederate flag bumper stickers are sold in gift shops. And when someone brings up their own horrific past, half the country tells them that it was a long time ago. "We didn't" do that, someone else did. Everyone should just move on. Instead of moving forward, many want to move backwards. To how it was. Make America great again.

It's a very different mindset.

We in Canada do the same thing with how we've treated Aboriginal people.

If we don't talk about it, it never happened.

 

[Ouroboros]

Remember there was someone who kept ranting about how Sweden was doing it right and Canada was all sorts of stupid for what we were doing? Well..... Top epidemiologist admits he got Sweden's COVID-19 strategy wrong | Ottawa Citizen

'Sorry about all the deaths'.

 

[Masked]

I don't know, dude. I read the article and it's basically extrapolating off some comments that amounts to "We would do some things different in retrospect if we had the chance". Basically the same thing almost every country is saying. Not exactly a stunning reversal.

It's a marked contrast to the poster here who was steadfast in Sweden's approach being correct. But I guess an epidemiologist might not know as much as your average fast food worker.

 

[dumbdick]

It's a marked contrast to the poster here who was steadfast in Sweden's approach being correct. But I guess an epidemiologist might not know as much as your average fast food worker.

In that person's defence, most doctors will tell you that Epidemiology is really only a rung or two up from fast food.

 

[maclean]

Remember there was someone who kept ranting about how Sweden was doing it right and Canada was all sorts of stupid for what we were doing? Well..... Top epidemiologist admits he got Sweden's COVID-19 strategy wrong | Ottawa Citizen

I have to say my biggest take-away from that is the very end of the article, where the guy from the extremist right party is saying they should've shut down. Very telling compared to everywhere else where the extremist parties are saying the government is trying to control us and we should never have shut down.

 

[maclean]

So as it turns out, protests make concern about COVID-19 magically disappear. ;-) Seriously, look how quickly the news cycle moved on from COVID and on to race relations, civil unrest, etc. It makes you wonder if we aren't reaching a transition phase right now where public health concerns start to fade, and economic and social issues quickly rise to the forefront.

Related, if the cities that saw major protests don't see a large spike in hospitalizations, then a lot of the argument for the ongoing closure of restaurants, gyms, hair salons, etc. weakens considerably. Those protests are exactly the kind of so-called "super spreader" events that we have been warned about for almost three months. If public health officials can't draw a short straight line between those protests and increased COVID cases in the next couple of weeks, then it truly is time to get back to some state of normalcy and let kids play sports, people go to restaurants, etc. By all means stay smart - practice good hygiene, get tested if you feel symptoms, etc., but the rationale behind the ongoing hobbling of our economic and social structures grows weaker by the day...

I do still think there'a a big difference between anything taking place outdoors and things taking place indoors where there are a lot more ideal conditions for the virus to chill, but at the same time you most certainly have a lot of yelling going on, which really sends those germs flying.

 

[Stylizer1]

I don't know, dude. I read the article and it's basically extrapolating off some comments that amounts to "We would do some things different in retrospect if we had the chance". Basically the same thing almost every country is saying. Not exactly a stunning reversal.

Ontario has admitted that it spent too much time worrying about hospitals and not enough time worrying about old-folks homes. That's possibly 1000 deaths that could have been prevented. But hindsight is 20/20, you know.

A lot of people are using the deaths per 100K metric to say Sweden isn't doing very well. I think that might be the wrong approach, since all countries are sitting at different levels of population immunity. IF (big, big IF) we will all have to get to some level of herd immunity eventually, then I think something like deaths per 100K antibody-positive people is the better metric. Korea looks great now with it's minimal case numbers, but if we never get a vaccine are they just delaying the pain?

For better or worse, we've shut down a province of 14 million people for a virus that so far has killed fewer than 800 people under the age of 80. Is that the right decision? I don't know.

If we skipped the lockdowns entirely and just went straight to the "new normal" back in March would that have been wiser (cancelled events, masks, distancing, etc.)? Perhaps the "new normal Ro" is closer to 1.0, preventing exponential transmission. Sweden's new cases are flat, so that certainly looks likely. But again, I don't know.

Perhaps we should have just locked down our retirees and most vulnerable instead of the entire population? That may have led to fewer deaths overall. If there's no vaccine coming and infection confers long-lasting immunity, that's probably the least painful way out of this that minimizes fatality rates. Maybe we should have reserved CERB for people over 60? Or given them some big incentives to retire early and mostly just stay home for the next 6 months?

I honestly don't know what the right answers are. Nobody got it right and for the most part we still don't know what "right" is. Regardless, I think this Citizen article really misses the mark.

In hindsight every country would do things different but no country is looking at Canada and saying that's what we should of done.

4000 of Sweden's 4500 deaths were people aged 70 years+. This virus affects primarily the elderly. Measures around the world should have been different to address this fact but at the time no one really knew. It is too early to know what the right approach was but the amount of debt countries have accumulated was probably very short sighted.

 

[Micklebot]

but no country is looking at Canada and saying that's what we should of done.

Funny you should say that...

America’s reopening is dangerous. Canada has a better idea.

 

[Stylizer1]

Funny you should say that...

America’s reopening is dangerous. Canada has a better idea.

This is different than what was done over the coarse of this situation. The US is definitely the worst case scenario so everyone looks better, even China.

 

[dumbdick]

4000 of Sweden's 4500 deaths were people aged 70 years+. This virus affects primarily the elderly. Measures around the world should have been different to address this fact but at the time no one really knew.

I'm not so sure that people didn't know about the big jump in deaths with age. I think people knew the importance of age back then, they just didn't want to consider this kind of segmentation by age.

I posted this back on March 17th, which includes a table for the age-specific fatality rates from back then:

NHL suspends season due to COVID-19 pandemic - formerly "what if"

I put the number of deaths required to get to get every Canadian under 50 up to 60% herd immunity at about 8000 deaths (if everyone else quarantined perfectly). That's about 4-5 times more deaths than we've had so far, but way less than NYC has seen already. The number of deaths rises very quickly for anyone over 50.

The dominant idea back then (and probably still now) was to "crush the curve" with short-term lockdowns to try to knock new cases close to zero. Then re-open and re-lockdown if necessary based on case tracking.

I think we're going to end up somewhere in between the two strategies, which will be closer to Sweden's current approach. Lots of restrictions, heavy lockdowns on nursing homes and for the elderly, but not full lockdown.

And we'll just learn to accept a certain number of deaths and new cases every day over the next few years as population immunity slowly increases. We don't need to get all the way to herd immunity. The transmission rate is a function of both the virus pathology AND our own mitigation efforts. Our mitigation efforts are working and the curve is flat in most places. So the restrictions can keep the virus in check even when there is low population immunity. As that population immunity rises, I think we'll see the new cases naturally dwindle off and the virus start to burn out like SARS/MERS did.

Of course if everyone just stops caring, it's going to go exponential again. If/when that happens, we have no excuse for not doing everything we can to keep the elderly safe.

 

[Stylizer1]

I'm not so sure that people didn't know about the big jump in deaths with age. I think people knew the importance of age back then, they just didn't want to consider this kind of segmentation by age.

I posted this back on March 17th, which includes a table for the age-specific fatality rates from back then:

NHL suspends season due to COVID-19 pandemic - formerly "what if"

I put the number of deaths required to get to get every Canadian under 50 up to 60% herd immunity at about 8000 deaths (if everyone else quarantined perfectly). That's about 4-5 times more deaths than we've had so far, but way less than NYC has seen already. The number of deaths rises very quickly for anyone over 50.

The dominant idea back then (and probably still now) was to "crush the curve" with short-term lockdowns to try to knock new cases close to zero. Then re-open and re-lockdown if necessary based on case tracking.

I think we're going to end up somewhere in between the two strategies, which will be closer to Sweden's current approach. Lots of restrictions, heavy lockdowns on nursing homes and for the elderly, but not full lockdown.

And we'll just learn to accept a certain number of deaths and new cases every day over the next few years as population immunity slowly increases. We don't need to get all the way to herd immunity. The transmission rate is a function of both the virus pathology AND our own mitigation efforts. Our mitigation efforts are working and the curve is flat in most places. So the restrictions can keep the virus in check even when there is low population immunity. As that population immunity rises, I think we'll see the new cases naturally dwindle off and the virus start to burn out like SARS/MERS did.

Of course if everyone just stops caring, it's going to go exponential again. If/when that happens, we have no excuse for not doing everything we can to keep the elderly safe.

By this logic then Sweden "should" come out ahead and what they did in the short term was tragic but in the long term results in greater immunity. They could have went the route of complete lock down and kept their deaths below say 1000. Still too early to tell but will be interesting to see the results.

 

[dumbdick]

By this logic then Sweden "should" come out ahead and what they did in the short term was tragic but in the long term results in greater immunity. They could have went the route of complete lock down and kept their deaths below say 1000. Still too early to tell but will be interesting to see the results.

Yep. I think that's right. Except I think either way they should have done more to protect their most vulnerable which could have prevented some of their deaths. And possibly should have recommended masks or done some other small measures.

I think the right strategy, in hindsight, was to do three things back in February:

1) Air tight lockdowns of the elderly (nursing homes, hospitals, social distancing for those at home)
2) No lockdown but common sense measures for everyone else (masks in public, work from home where possible, limit contact with the vulnerable, no large gatherings, isolate if sick). Together those should be enough to keep the spread linear instead of exponential. Tell everyone to put on their big boy pants and make good informed choices for themselves based on their personal health status and age.
3) Otherwise keep your borders and economy open.

If there's a country that did that, regardless of the number of cases they've had so far, they get my vote for the "winners" in all this. Theoretically this strategy would be the most effective way to get through the pandemic in a slow and managed way, without bankrupting themselves in the process or resting all hope on a vaccine that may never be coming.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Over 20,000 tests
344 new cases
180 in Toronto
111 in Central East (mainly York and Peel)
11 in Eastern (10 of these in Ottawa)

 

[The Lewler]

Over 20,000 tests
344 new cases
180 in Toronto
111 in Central East (mainly York and Peel)
11 in Eastern (10 of these in Ottawa)

It's just going to keep plodding along like this.

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

Were any extra measures or rules/guidelines given out during the protests nationwide during the pandemic?

Seems like the virus took a backseat to the protesting

 

[The Lewler]

Were any extra measures or rules/guidelines given out during the protests nationwide during the pandemic?

Seems like the virus took a backseat to the protesting

Yeah that's a circle that can't be squared.

The narrative is that it was a unwise but justified break with the "rules", that is not condoned by health officials, but nothing will be done to curb that right to assemble.

I agree that basic rights like speech/assembly/association etc should only be abridged in the most dire and limited of circumstances. So I have no problem with the protests.

What you can't then justify, is telling Canadians small business owners of all races (who are watching everything they worked to achieve and build disappear) that they have to stay closed because it's too great a risk to people's lives to open.

The messaging should be shifting to what we saw from some circles around these protests. This activity should be allowed with masking and social distancing. As should almost every business that exists.

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

Yeah that's a circle that can't be squared.

The narrative is that it was a unwise but justified break with the "rules", that is not condoned by health officials, but nothing will be done to curb that right to assemble.

I agree that basic rights like speech/assembly/association etc should only be abridged in the most dire and limited of circumstances. So I have no problem with the protests.

What you can't then justify, is telling Canadians small business owners of all races (who are watching everything they worked to achieve and build disappear) that they have to stay closed because it's too great a risk to people's lives to open.

The messaging should be shifting to what we saw from some circles around these protests. This activity should be allowed with masking and social distancing. As should almost every business that exists.

I agree with everything you've said

 

[Micklebot]

Yeah that's a circle that can't be squared.

The narrative is that it was a unwise but justified break with the "rules", that is not condoned by health officials, but nothing will be done to curb that right to assemble.

I agree that basic rights like speech/assembly/association etc should only be abridged in the most dire and limited of circumstances. So I have no problem with the protests.

What you can't then justify, is telling Canadians small business owners of all races (who are watching everything they worked to achieve and build disappear) that they have to stay closed because it's too great a risk to people's lives to open.

The messaging should be shifting to what we saw from some circles around these protests. This activity should be allowed with masking and social distancing. As should almost every business that exists.

Taking your position to the logical end point, you are saying if gov't is not willing to curb peoples right to protest in a given situation, then the must also not be willing to suspend business.

It sounds good except that the gov't is currently subsidizing those very businesses to stay closed. Now you can certainly argue that they should be doing more, but in the end there's a false equivalence in equating suspending non-essensial businesses while you subsidize them to do so and suspending the right to assemble in protest.

There's also questions as to what is the greater risk; outdood assembly for the purpose of civil protest or opening busineses that typically opperate indoors. Then you have to ask if the benefit gained by taking those risks balance. Is lessening economic pain for the busineses told to stay closed equal in vale to easing social pain caused by systemic racism?

I think it's important for protesters to consider the impacts of their choices in times like these, the moral questions that arise are pretty significant as their actions put all of society at greater risk, not just them and their social circle. To me, thats a far bigger moral dilemma than whether gov't should be comfortable letting protests go on while asking businesses to stay closed.