Testing This report says that rapid tests are really inaccurate (they compared to PCR). This Twitter thread summarizes, but the brand I just picked up in the US misses half of symptomatic cases and a quarter of asymptomatic cases. (They say you should test multiple times, which if the failures are randomly distributed, should drop… Continue reading 2021-12-11/12/13 General
2021-12-08/09/10 BC
Cases have been kind of flat for a while, and today they went up. I’ve heard speculation that there have been a fair number of holiday parties. Even if the attendees are fully vaccinated, that can’t be good for transmission. Mitigation Measures This article reports that worship services are being allowed again in Northern Health,… Continue reading 2021-12-08/09/10 BC
2021-12-08/09/10 General
I was out of town for a few days. I think this mostly catches up. Variants This press release from Pfizer says that three doses of Pfizer will give reasonable protection against infection with Omicron, but two doses isn’t enough. Two doses should still protect against severe disease. This Twitter thread on a report from… Continue reading 2021-12-08/09/10 General
2021-12-07 General
A lot of highly technical material dropped today, on a day when I was kind of busy, so I have not had enough time to really understand everything. AND information about Omicron is still in flux. So if you don’ t understand something here, it’s not just you. Also, there will probably not be postings… Continue reading 2021-12-07 General
2021-12-07 BC
Note: There probably will not be posts on Wednesday and Thursday. Press Conference Today is kind of a busy day today, so this discussion will be somewhat abbreviated. They have now identified five Omicron cases in BC and expect there to be more. The feds had identified 204 people originally who had recently travelled to… Continue reading 2021-12-07 BC
2021-12-04/05/06 General
Variants I referenced a preprint on Friday which said that Omicron’s doubling time was 1.2 days, but everybody else seems to be saying more like 2.5 days. This makes a difference: ten doublings (which is about 1000x) is either 12 days away or 25, which means before Christmas or after Christmas. Either way, don’t plan… Continue reading 2021-12-04/05/06 General
2021-12-04/05/06 BC
Transmission This article says that there was a big cluster to a religious gathering on Vancouver Island. Mitigation Measures This article says that several BC hospitals have been getting big HVAC upgrades. According to this article, the City of Vancouver appears to have caved in the face of the police, and is letting them do… Continue reading 2021-12-04/05/06 BC
2021-12-03 BC
Mitigation Measures This article says that the head coach of a Kootenay International Junior Hockey League team has been suspended and the team fined for violating the league’s vaccination policy. Statistics +405 cases, +6 deaths. Currently 276 in hospital / 95 in ICU, 3,071 active cases, 214,047 recovered. first doses second doses third doses of… Continue reading 2021-12-03 BC
2021-12-03 General
Variants I had been hearing that Omicron had a doubling rate of something like 5 days. I finally went and scraped the data for Guateng province — which is only like two-thirds Omicron right now — and calculated a doubling time of 3.1 days. Then this preprint came out (which probably has information about just… Continue reading 2021-12-03 General
20211202 BC
Assholes This article says that a woman who call herself the “Queen of Canada” and called on her 73K followers to shoot health care workers has been arrested and detailed under the Mental Health Act. I can’t tell for sure from the article, but I think she is no longer in custody. Mitigation Measures This… Continue reading 20211202 BC