I only had two pieces of BC-specific news, so I folded them in to the General post. COVID-19 Pathology IMPORTANT! This paper from USA (2024-06-21) reports using that cannabis raises your risk of severe COVID! The study found that people who used cannabis had a 28% higher risk hospitalization and 78% higher risk of ICU… Continue reading 2024-06-29 General/BC
Category: BC
2024-06-19 General
Unsolicited Product Recommendation I realized that I forgot to gush about the Readimasks fully in the last General post. They are a little expensive. HOWEVER, they gave a great seal (though see below) and were EXTREMELY comfortable. I do not have dangerously sensitive skin — I don’t go into anaphylactic shock when I touch latex… Continue reading 2024-06-19 General
2024-06-15 BC
This post is brief — the province gave us no data and there wasn’t much BC-specific news about COVID-19 (and the scant news that I did find was boring). Charts From Jeff’s wastewater spreadsheet:
2024-06-07 BC
COVID-19 wastewater and hospitalizations (the most reliable indicators!) are indisputably going up. COVID-19 Statistics As of 6 June, the BC CDC situation report says that in the week ending on 1 June there were: +310 reported cases, +93 hospital admissions, +11 ICU admissions, and +16 thirty-day all-cause deaths*. In the week ending 25 May, they now report… Continue reading 2024-06-07 BC
2024-06-01 BC
I’m on vacation, so behind on the General posting. Treatments This press release from the Ministry of Health (2024-05-30) says that MSP will now cover Paxlovid instead of the federal government, but doesn’t say anything about eligibility claims. This press release from Do No Harm BC (20204-05-31) says that eligibility is now restricted to people… Continue reading 2024-06-01 BC
2024-05-10 BC
Reminder: the province has gone to once-per-month COVID reporting. Testing This paper examined multiple commercial RATs. For the ones available in BC (at least, which were available in BC), the Panbio (dark blue box, but NOT the Artron) was not very sensitive; BTNX Cassette was one of the best but BTNX was one of the… Continue reading 2024-05-10 BC
2024-05-04 BC
Reminder: the province is dropping to monthly reports, so I won’t do a weekly BC report unless there’s some major BC-specific news in either COVID-19 or H5N1. Maybe wastewater is going up, or maybe that’s just noise. Hospitalizations continue to go down, dropping below 100 for the first time since last summer but not as… Continue reading 2024-05-04 BC
2024-04-26 BC
The good news: there were only 105 people in hospital on 13 April, which isn’t as low as the summer 2023 low or the low between Alpha and Delta, but it is lower that the low point between Delta and Omicron. Other indicators look flat or down slightly. The bad news: this article reports that… Continue reading 2024-04-26 BC
2024-04-19 BC
Levels are falling down pretty quickly! Yay for weather nice enough to open windows! Vaccines I have a friend who lives in BC but outside the core metro areas — not rural, but not The Big City. Because of some unusual medical conditions, Friend has really bad reactions to the mRNA vaccines. Friend thus tried… Continue reading 2024-04-19 BC
2024-04-12 BC
Well, after some nice drops in COVID-19 levels recently, it looks like we’ve gone back up — which is probably noise. But it looks stagnant at best. 🙁 Mitigation Measures This BC Ministry of Health press release says that masks are no longer required in health care settings. A lot of places weren’t masking or… Continue reading 2024-04-12 BC