Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[Farsala]

EricHiggin said:

SvennoJ said:

We're behind the USA and just starting our 4th wave, deaths lag a couple weeks behind.

At the peak of the 3rd wave Canada was at 9100 cases per day and our hospitals were strained to the max, we came very close to having to reject people (emergency triage protocol). Some parts of the country are already getting close to that point again. Less people die now thanks to vaccinations, yet hospitalizations are still needed, although less. Which means other diseases like cancer get less attention and kill more people.

So if we're going to live with Covid-19 with few restrictions, we need more hospital beds and staff. Hospitals in Ontario are still recovering from the 3rd wave and now the next influx is starting. We're getting less updates now because the election has been called, which means the government has switched into caretaker mode until after the election. Plus covid-19 numbers are not good election material, focus of the campaigns is economic recovery. The conservative party is slamming all the measures, enough is enough, time to get back on track (10 year recovery plan).

The problem is, Covid-19 is still far more contagious than the flu, even with 66% fully vaccinated. (going up pretty slow now) and still needs a lot more hospital care than the flu.



https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/vaccines-not-enough-to-stop-fourth-wave-of-covid-19-in-canada-experts-warn-1.5560876

“Unfortunately, when we compare Canada to other comparable countries, our ICU capacity per capita is not very robust,” said Bogoch.

This is what resulted in lockdowns during the third wave, he added, referencing the "dire" situation earlier this year in which ICUs in some provinces hit capacity, patients were sent to other cities, adult patients were in pediatric ICU beds, and surgeries were cancelled.

“We can't let this wave get out of control because the more cases there are, the more hospitalizations, the more ICU [admissions] and tragically, the more deaths we will see this fall,” Craig Jenne, Canada Research Chair in infectious diseases at the University of Calgary told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Tuesday.

What's worrying is that we're in a worse state now than last year

“If you look back to last year’s cases, they really didn't start rising sharply until we got into September with people back indoors at school,” he said. “This year, the cases really have started to go up in a number of places – Alberta, Ontario and British Columbia in early August, basically the wave has a month head start.”

And this year, the plan is everyone back to school and more businesses open, less restrictions, plus a variant that's far more contagious. And at home we're at the junction of, we kept the kids home last year based on the situation then. This year, they really need that school interaction again, yet the current outlook is worse than last year and the measures at school haven't improved at all.

USA also has way more people, and much more freedom right now, at least in some places.

What good are the vaccinations when vaxed are still getting it and potentially spreading it? What's the point in ending the pandemic with vaccines if they don't help enough to stop the spread? Sagaar of Breaking Points recently contracted it and is rightfully questioning the numbers considering he's been double vaxed as well, like so many others. How many more mutations will there be and how long until the vax no longer gives any immunity to a new strain? What then?

Two of my friends have been double vaxed and yet one got covid last week and was quite sick so they tell me. The majority of my friends haven't gotten vaxed and none of them have been sick for over a year now and nobody really followed the guidelines much. The one guy who got covid earlier this year at my bros work got double vaxed after, and had covid again about a month ago. Yet even though he was clearly sick for a couple days at work the first time, none of the other 25 workers at the shop got sick, and they don't exactly adhere strongly to social distancing and masking. Same as the more recent covid case. He started showing symptoms while at work for hours before he went home yet nobody else got sick.

Getting every last person vaxed isn't going to solve this since the vax clearly doesn't stop enough people from contracting it. It's even worse because some of the vaxed feel more safe even though they're not, making the spread even more likely. Having everyone wear masks all the time isn't enough either. Not to mention the news has made sure to let people know that animals, pets especially, can contract and spread covid. Are we going to vax and mask all the wildlife?

We either lockdown on an unthinkable level for a long time with people wearing hazmat suits when they have to go out, or we learn to live with it until perhaps there is a better vaccine or treatment. Even then, it may not be enough.

@bold People getting vaxed and stopping wearing their masks is definitely a problem. They are still transmitting the virus to unvaxed people and killing them. You can see the ratio with the Ontario numbers, with so many unvaxed people in serious condition compared to the vaxed.

A big problem here in Japan is it is Summer and the weather is either full on rain or extreme heat, so people naturally move inside and party. Only half of the population is vaxed, so a lot of unvaxed people are in serious condition in the hospitals, even young people.

The government has had mixed messages the entire time so people stopped caring so much. So despite the high mask usage, cases have skyrocketed with indoor Olympic viewing parties, since public spectators were banned. As well as Obon holiday with people visiting families and going to holiday prefectures.

Luckily the Vax hesitancy in this country is low and mask usage high, even during non pandemic times. Eventually things will flatten out.