NB: It has been very very hot here, and I have not wanted to spend a lot of time with a hot computer on my lap. So some news will be delayed.
Supply
According to the BC CDC Dashboard, we haven’t yet gotten all the Moderna that we were supposed to get last week. They owe us 526,400, on top of the 528,500 which is supposed to come this week.
Not to worry, we still have tons of vax. STUPID amounts of vax. By my calculations (if all the shipments we are due actually show up) we’ll have enough vax for second doses for everyone who has had a first dose by a week from now.
Press Briefing
NB: I did not write down as much at the time because of the heat, so this is going to be sketchier.
Observations:
- Dix and especially Dr. Henry looked really happy. The cases/hospitalizations/deaths/positivity/R are all down and the vaccinations are way up. 🙂
- THERE WAS A REPORTER IN THE ROOM! I think. I think it was Keith Baldrey from Global News.
- Because of the extreme heat, some of the vaccine clinics had to be moved or postponed. They assured us that everybody got notified, that everyone will be rescheduled, and that they were able to preserve 95%.
- Yesterday there were 1850 ambulance callouts — a record. This is undoubtedly due to heat, not COVID-19, but it is a reminder that the health care system has more stressors on it than just COVID-19.
- Last week, BC gave a record 427K vaccines.
- There was a data adjustment to remove 48 cases from the cumulative total. I don’t know what days those were from and I don’t care enough right now to dig into it.
- Dr.H gave a modelling presentation. You can check out the slides here, but mostly it was tables and maps and graphs of “yep, we’re doing well!”
- The Delta strain is now around 12% of cases. Alpha is about 48% of cases, Gamma (P.2, “Brazilian”) makes up about 40% of cases, and Beta is basically gone from BC.
- Dr.H said that the modelling showed that case counts might go up a little bit, but that we could still manage it.
- At one point, Dr.H said something about how we needed to “keep doing what we were doing”. Every single other time she’s uttered that phrase, she has recited a list of things individuals needed to do: stay home when sick, wash our hands, keep distant and/or wear masks, etc. This time, she talked about what Public Health needs to do: keep vaccinating and keep doing test/trace/track. That seemed significant to me.
- Someone asked Dr.H if she was worried about introductions from other provinces, and she didn’t exactly say, “chill, we got it covered”, but that was kind of the message. She basically said that Public Health would handle it: that we’ve got widespread enough immunization that it’s not going to get out of control and that the number of cases would be small enough that Pub Health will be able to contain it with testing/tracing/tracking.
- Someone asked DrH about the new Communicable Diseases Safety Plan (what’s taking over from the COVID Safety Plan that businesses have to do), and she positioned that as being ready for The Next Thing, not going back to what we had pre-COVID-19. Remember, in the Before Times, a significant number of people would die of the flu every year and we shrugged and accepted it. She was saying we should do better than in Before Times. The first specific thing she mentioned was the importance of sick leave. She mentioned that there are some industries where people are at quite high risk of respiratory infections (I thought immediately of meatpacking) and that some measures (like barriers) are probably going to remain forever in those industries.
- Several reporters pressed for regular reporting on how many cases/deaths were in un/partially/fully vaccinated people. Dr.H protested that those numbers weren’t as meaningful as the vaccine effectiveness rate, which is running ~75% for the mRNAs and ~60% for AZ and J&J. Ed: She’s… not… wrong. The vaccines are known to not be 100% effective and what really matters is how many people around you are sick. (Again: you are safer being unvaccinated in New Zealand than vaccinated in India right now.) As the number of vaccinated people goes up, the fraction of sick people who have been vaccinated will go up. If 100% of people are vaccinated, then 100% of the people who get sick will be vaccinated!
Statistics
Fri-Sat: +57 cases, +2 deaths
Sat-Sun: +50 cases, +2 deaths
Sun-Mon: +38 cases, +1 death
Over the weekend, +30,083 first doses, +153,077 second doses, of which +4112 were AZ.
Currently 107 in hospital / 37 in ICU, 930 active cases, 144,848 recovered.
| first doses | second doses | |
| of adults | 78.1% | 30.5% |
| of over-12s | 76.8% | 28.5% |
| of all BCers | 69.9% | 25.9% |
We have 827,151 doses in fridges; we’ll use it up in 12.8 days at last week’s rate. We’ve given more doses than we’d received by 10 days ago.
We have 753,544 mRNA doses in fridges; we’ll use it up in 11.7 days at last week’s rate. We’ve given more doses than we’d received by 10 days ago.
We have 73,607 AZ doses in fridges; we’ll use it up in 29.4 days at last week’s rate.
Charts
