It wouldn't be the Netherlands if the new year didn't start with some riotting
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/thousands-gather-in-amsterdam-despite-demonstration-ban-1.5725600

Thousands of people in the capital of the Netherlands defied a ban and gathered Sunday for a demonstration against the Dutch government's coronavirus lockdown measures before police pushed the crowd off an Amsterdam square.



Here First Nations are in crisis
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/covid-19-outbreak-in-fly-in-ontario-first-nation-an-extreme-crisis-grand-chief-1.5725297

An organization representing dozens of Ontario First Nations is asking the federal and provincial governments for help after a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases in one of its fly-in communities that has affected roughly one-third of the local population.

The Nishnawbe Aski Nation said many communities are losing their ability to care for members and have exhausted what limited resources they had, including drinking water and food deliveries for those in isolation, wood and fuel for heat, and measures that could alleviate overcrowding and housing shortages.

Fox said many of its member First Nations don't have a doctor on-call and instead, are using nursing stations to treat patients.

"We are extremely unique because we don't have that health-care system to support should someone get extremely sick," he said.

"Our concern is that currently with this crisis, there's just been no response. And there are pandemic plans within our communities, and our First Nations leaders are executing those plans well, but at this point, this is an extreme crisis," he said.

This is moving even faster than I had anticipated. But I share the (newfound?) optimism of the WHO that the pandemic should end this year since the next two to three months alone will see:

* Most of the population of middle and high-income countries receiving boosters
* Accelerating vaccination in Africa
* Omicron infecting up to half of the world's population and the resulting immunity
* Multiple antivirals becoming available

With the caveat being the possible survival and co-circulation of one or more non-Omicron lineages that behave more like the older variants. But this becomes less of a concern as fewer and fewer people worldwide are neither infected nor vaccinated.

New measures announced in Ontario:
- limit of 5 people indoors
- most shops/venues closed or limited to 50% capacity
- schools stay closed for 2 weeks
First two for at least 3 weeks.

This might have been effective if we had done that before Christmas, too late now.


I like the specific "indoor" dining to close and limited capacity outside, while it's -11c lol. Finish your food before it turns solid!

At least they're honest now, we're not going to stop it, it will hit us like a tsunami, hundreds of thousands of cases a day, we're just trying to blunt the impact to keep the hospitals going.

Hospitalizations are already going up, 20 to 30% absenteeism expected across the board due to people getting sick.

Meanwhile I don't think Israel is considering much in the way restrictions despite coming to the same conclusion:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/up-to-a-third-of-israelis-predicted-to-get-covid-in-next-3-weeks-tests-running-out/

Speaking to Army Radio, Segal said that “from a certain stage — 20,000 or 30,000 infections per day — we will become oblivious to the numbers because we don’t have enough tests. The test apparatus is already collapsing.”

“What will happen, like what is happening all over the world, is that the restrictions that somewhat worked [against other variants] will simply be ineffective against Omicron, and the stop will only come when almost everyone who could get infected gets infected,” he told Ynet, predicting that would take around three weeks before numbers start to drop.

In the end I think any measures at this point will only marginally prolong the pandemic, although in a few places they might be socially necessary.

Yep, the current measures are only to prevent the hospitals from collapsing. Already 30% of the staff is home sick or isolating. People on holiday have been called back into work. Anything now is only to blunt the peak.

Yep... Omikron, spreads quick.

In the UK they "ran" out of testing capacity (erm, can't find covid if you dont look for it right? look our numbers arnt that bad!)
In denmark, we re testing more than ever, and also doing strain tests on every sample (which makes our numbers look bad, but are closer to reality).
Omikron is like 80% of our cases now.

This thing spreads way faster than delta did.
We had 10-15% of people, test positive when they came in for PCR tests, leading upto the newyear.
Throw in Christpas gatherings, and new year gatherings & parties... its a cocktail of horror.

At this point, I assume most of the population will eventually get Omikron, reguardless of where you are in the world.
Its too contaigious to contain, and too hard to avoid getting (forever), eventually everyone will have gotten it.

That reminds me, time to book my 3rd shot (a booster)....
Hopefully get it, before omikron gets me.

I'm getting my Booster shot on February 1st.

While our reported cases now sort of stay level, 11K again today (testing is now only open for essential workers) hospital admissions are now exploding :/

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-reports-2-081-hospitalizations-288-icu-admissions-and-more-than-11k-new-covd-19-cases-1.5728358

Ontario health officials say 2,081 people are hospitalized due to COVID-19, and 288 of those patients are in intensive care, marking a significant increase in the number of people in hospital due to the disease.

The province released the data on Wednesday, showing a significant increase over the day before, when officials reported 1,290 hospitalizations and 266 intensive care unit (ICU) admissions.


Tests are limited and there's still a big backlog as well (95K pending still)

With 59,137 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the province's positivity rate is about 28.1 per cent.

288 people in ICU with COVID-19, 202 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 86 are fully vaccinated.

According to data released by the Ontario Science Table on Jan. 3, which takes into account population sizes, people who are fully vaccinated with at least two doses are 83.2 per cent less likely to end up in hospital and 95.3 per cent less likely to end up in ICU compared to people who are unvaccinated.

The science table also noted there was a 12.4 per cent reduction for people who are fully vaccinated with at least two doses in regards to contracting COVID-19 compared to those who are unvaccinated.

Ontario is 76.9% fully vaccinated. 12.4 percent reduction of catching Omicron isn't a lot, but at least your survival chances are a lot higher and should have far less issues. First and Second shots are prioritized here, while boosters are available for 18+, 3 months after the second shot. I got my second dose October 18th, should be eligible from Januari 18th.

Is the healthcare system really struggling that much, or are the provincial governments somewhat overreacting? Because I often hear the same thing being said in Australia, who like Canada didn't have truly big Covid waves before Omicron, but it strikes me as odd given how developed both countries are.

I mean, New York City alone is almost half as populous as Toronto and is nearing ~ 4,000 hospitalizations, same as last winter, but last winter NYC was one of the least hit places in the US with little excess deaths. Just to give an idea how bad this thing truly used to be. But it was still being coped with (relatively decently?) by hospitals etc.

We've been downsizing healthcare for decades
https://www.statista.com/statistics/831668/density-of-hospital-beds-canada/

And Ontario is the lowest in Canada
https://www.fao-on.org/en/Blog/Publications/health-2020
In comparison to other countries, Ontario’s rate of total hospital beds per 1,000 people is among the lowest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Ontario’s occupancy rate is the highest.

We're sitting at about 2.3 beds per 1,000, comparable to South Africa.
The other problem is a lot of the staff is burned out, sick or isolating. We can add more beds, but have no people to tend to them.

We're not in an emergency yet and still under the previous peak, but the graphs look quite scary without any signs of slowing down
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/covid-19-ontario-jan-4-2022-hospitals-icus-1.6303596
https://www.oha.com/Bulletins/COVID-19%20Capacity%20Slides%2005%20Jan%202022.pdf

This thing is moving so fast, every single hour counts... 7 day averages are far too coarse to track this.

William Osler Health System, which oversees Brampton Civic and Etobicoke General hospitals, has initiated a "code orange" as COVID patients requiring care and staffing shortages put tremendous strain on its operations.

A code orange is typically declared "when demand outpaces capacity to ensure internal and external resources are deployed efficiently," the health system said in a news release. It is the first time William Osler has issued a code orange during the pandemic.

"We're seeing levels of illness within our health-care workforce higher than we've ever seen at this stage in the pandemic," said Dr. Andrew Healey, corporate chief of emergency medicine at William Osle.

Omicron is attacking the healthcare systems from both sides, staff shortages and admissions.