I was going to watch today’s press conference delayed, so I could watch at double-speed, but the video still hasn’t posted…. so you’re going to get information (see Vaccines, below) third-hand instead of second-hand.
Mitigation Measures
This article says that provincial civil servants no longer need to be vaccinated (except for health care workers).
You might have heard about a study that found that “masks don’t work”. That’s a gross, gross, simplification — so simple that it’s inaccurate. Read this article. Basically, the study could not find evidence taht mask mandates were not effective at slowing the spread at a population level. First, it’s really really hard to do a randomized clinical trial of masking, so they didn’t have many studies to evaluate. Second, part of the reason mask mandates didn’t work is that people didn’t wear masks properly all the time. (Both didn’t wear in locations where they were mandated and they didn’t wear them when they were with at home, and a lot of infections happen at home, with friends and family.) Third, that study doesn’t say anything about whether masks work at a personal level, at keeping YOU from getting sick.
Money quote from the article: “Of those 10 studies that looked at masking, the two done since the start of the Covid pandemic both found that masks helped.”
Vaccines
This article reports that the people eligible for spring boosters in BC will be:
- Over 80,
- indigenous people over 70,
- long-term care home residents, or
- immunocompromised adults.
Note that this is slightly different than the NACI recommendations. NACI opened vaccination to anyone over 65.
The province is also recommending a spring booster if your are over 60 (or over 50 if indigenous) and have not been infected with COVID-19. (The article above’s wording is ambiguous, but the ministry’s press release is not ambiguous.)
The press release doesn’t say anything about what delay there had to be between shots, but I just phoned the vaccination hotline and they said it is still 6 months. (Note: I have heard that the vaccination hotline people don’t always have good information, but he was certain when I asked.)
This article says that provincial employees — except for health care workers — no longer are required to be vaccinated.
Side Effects
Something that happened in the Before Times was an annual survey of the homeless population in eleven Lower Mainland cities, but that didn’t happen for a few years because of the pandemic. This article says that the count is restarting this year.
This article reports that reports of hate crimes doubled during the pandemic; incidents against indigenous-descent people were up 367%, against East Asian-descent people were up 181%, against African-descent people were up 112% and against South-Asian-descent people were up 78%.
Wastewater
I have no idea what is going on with the wastewater. Looking at the province’s charts yesterday and Jeff’s charts from last week, everywhere in the province looked like it was going up. Today, Jeff’s charts look like they are back down to close to where they were a month ago:
So I have no idea.