IMPORTANT! If you tested positive on a rapid test in BC and did not get a PCR test, pub health asks that you please go to https://www.vch.ca/covid-19/you-have-tested-positive, click on the purple “Complete your assessment” button, and fill out the form. (It’s easy, takes five minutes.) I cannot speak for pub health, but I can imagine… Continue reading 2021-12-23 BC
Author: Ducky
2021-12-22 BC/General
I am going to take the rest of the day off as a mental health break. Brief bits from what I have already seen: UK had 100K cases yesterday, which sounds like an unimaginatively huge number until you realize that’s ~6K cases/day when adjusted for the different population — which is only two doublings from… Continue reading 2021-12-22 BC/General
2021-12-21 BC
Mitigation Measures If I had known about the cap on food delivery fees (at 20%), I had forgotten it. Yesterday, the province put out a press release announcing that it had been extended until the end of 2022. I hope that doesn’t mean that the pandemic is going to last until the end of 2022!… Continue reading 2021-12-21 BC
2021-12-21 General
Variants More qualified good news: this preprint out of South Africa says that Omicron is only 70% as likely to send someone to the hospital as Delta. All the same caveats I’ve made previously apply, though. This Twitter thread does an estimate of the Case Hospitalization Rate (CHR) in New South Wales, Australia. This is… Continue reading 2021-12-21 General
2021-12-18 General
I knew this was coming. I knew this was coming. I knew this would be bad. I predicted that the health care system might collapse in multiple jurisdictions in the West. I’m still somewhat shocked at the ferocity and this wave. There are lots of people saying that Omicron is milder than previous variants (see… Continue reading 2021-12-18 General
2021-12-18/19/20 BC
Mitigation Measures Today’s press release strongly implied that there would be additional mitigation measures announced at tomorrow’s press briefing. Testing This article reports that there have been really long lines at testing centres. Sometimes testing workers have gone down the line giving rapid tests. They ask that if you do not have symptoms, to please… Continue reading 2021-12-18/19/20 BC
2021-12-17 BC
Vaccines This article talks about how a number of vaccine clinics will be closing for the holidays. Press Briefing The big news was that the Province amended a number of Orders to make them more restrictive. They start early Monday morning and go through the end of January. From their press release, the measures include:… Continue reading 2021-12-17 BC
2021-12-17 General
I remember thinking it was really strange that more people died in the second year of the Spanish Flu pandemic than the first. I’m not surprised any more. Vaccines Someone asked me today, “would Omicron still have arisen if we’d had equitable and effective vaccine distribution globally? At first I hedged, and said we couldn’t… Continue reading 2021-12-17 General
2021-12-16 General
I’m tired and kind of depressed. I (and many other people) saw Omicron coming weeks ago, and now it’s here. It’s just as bad as I feared, and perhaps even worse. 🙁 Omicron is dominating the news, but … it’s not really news. There’s a lot of people saying “OH SHIT! WE ARE FUCKED!”, but… Continue reading 2021-12-16 General
2021-12-16 BC
Cases are going up fast. Omicron is here! Testing This article says that testing sites are getting backed up. Statistics +753 cases, +3 deaths, +5,350 first doses, +2,678 second doses, +26,963 other doses. Currently 184 in hospital / 70 in ICU, 3,878 active cases, 218,616 recovered. There have been 135 cases of Omicron to date.… Continue reading 2021-12-16 BC