Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Part VIII - The Long Winter is Here

[The Hanging Jowl]

It's hardly surprising it's mainly happening in homes

You shut people in homes together for weeks on end i'd be surprised if it wasn't 80% or higher

This thing is highly contagious, once it's heavily seeded in the population I don't think there is much you can do about it, if you have people interacting you've got problems

Even countries in Europe with mask mandates enforced by law and pretty draconian lockdowns seem to be having trouble, it even seems that way from state to state in the US with California getting whacked

Yup. Just look at how much better Florida is doing than California. Florida loosened their restrictions over the summer. California has progressively increased their restriction throughout. It could be people are just ignoring the restrictions but it could also be in part because the virus does what it wants.

 

[Jojalu]

Not really the point but I doubt we will see since flu rates are down 98%.



Thanks for asking and I've posted my solution about 10 times already. I would take about 10% of the ridiculous amount of money we spent on covid with the current approaches, hire thousands of long term care facility workers, double or triple their pay or whatever it takes to make that crap job worth their time and worth the risk during a pandemic. Focus on making rapid testing available. No one goes into a long term care facility (guests or workers) without a clear test, every single day and no one works at multiple facilities. If these two measures had been taken (rapid tests, focus on long term health care facilities), we would not be in this predicament.



I literally did the math for you. Comparing our rates to Sweden's gives you a good idea how much our measures may have helped. About 50%.



The US has poverty imbalance and lack of universal health care issues we don't have. Sweden is a much better example and yes, I'm admitting we did about twice as good. That still doesn't equal overburdened hospitals. Theirs never were. Did I mention we also happened to spend over $20M *per person* we've saved?



But you don't have to be. I'm following the rules, I wear a mask, like others I just want to get through this. I'm not your enemy here. I'm merely offering opinions you clearly don't agree with and I'm OK with that.



But you do have the option of protecting yourself from covid similar to how you can protect yourself from heart disease. If you're not comfortable around other people, don't be around other people. And soon, you will hopefully have the option of immunizing yourself against other people.

I believe your plan could work if LTC workers worked like oil rig workers do.

21 days on,, 14 off. Have the people isolate for 5 days before work with pay to compensate being away from their famalies and ensuring they too don't need to isolate.

 

[stealth1]

Yup. Just look at how much better Florida is doing than California. Florida loosened their restrictions over the summer. California has progressively increased their restriction throughout. It could be people are just ignoring the restrictions but it could also be in part because the virus does what it wants.

First Florida's cases are rising again. I disagree that restrictions don't work. Cause in public people do social distancing, wear masks and aren't around people for an extended period of time.

The virus needs people for it to move around. The problem is majority of people let their guard down when at home. Which is why they advised people to have Christmas with just their households. Limiting gathers would go along way in slowing the spread and getting us back to normal.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

First Florida's cases are rising again. I disagree that restrictions don't work. Cause in public people do social distancing, wear masks and aren't around people for an extended period of time.

You're right, I hadn't checked in awhile. They're actually almost identical in per-capita cases. But they both got there using different approaches. One has locked down much harder than the other.

The virus needs people for it to move around. The problem is majority of people let their guard down when at home. Which is why they advised people to have Christmas with just their households. Limiting gathers would go along way in slowing the spread and getting us back to normal.

That may or may not be the reason but I respect your opinion.

 

[PromisedLand]

Not really the point but I doubt we will see since flu rates are down 98%.



Thanks for asking and I've posted my solution about 10 times already. I would take about 10% of the ridiculous amount of money we spent on covid with the current approaches, hire thousands of long term care facility workers, double or triple their pay or whatever it takes to make that crap job worth their time and worth the risk during a pandemic. Focus on making rapid testing available. No one goes into a long term care facility (guests or workers) without a clear test, every single day and no one works at multiple facilities. If these two measures had been taken (rapid tests, focus on long term health care facilities), we would not be in this predicament.



I literally did the math for you. Comparing our rates to Sweden's gives you a good idea how much our measures may have helped. About 50%.



The US has poverty imbalance and lack of universal health care issues we don't have. Sweden is a much better example and yes, I'm admitting we did about twice as good. That still doesn't equal overburdened hospitals. Theirs never were. Did I mention we also happened to spend over $20M *per person* we've saved?



But you don't have to be. I'm following the rules, I wear a mask, like others I just want to get through this. I'm not your enemy here. I'm merely offering opinions you clearly don't agree with and I'm OK with that.



But you do have the option of protecting yourself from covid similar to how you can protect yourself from heart disease. If you're not comfortable around other people, don't be around other people. And soon, you will hopefully have the option of immunizing yourself against other people.

Your whole schtick is based on deaths; meanwhile the adverse health impact of covid is just not death but other adverse health impact as well

What they don't tell you about surviving COVID-19

The virus is brand new and we have no idea what "recovery from covid" even means

Second, sweden is not comparable; most of their population is concentrated with stockhom having about 10% of the population (about 1.5 million people).

Toronto alone has 6 million people; people to hospital ratio in Canada is worst than in Sweden.

Also,
'Caught up in their own bullshit': The cost of Sweden's controversial coronavirus strategy

AND their PM just denounced their initial strategy and sidelined the guy who wanted to go with her immunity strategy with results now worst than their Scandinavian neighbours
Swedish PM Makes Covid Plea in Historic National Address


In Canada, the hospitalization rates continues to rise with increase in covid cases regardless of age; your LTC schtick once again is just based on deaths
Epidemiological summary of COVID-19 cases in Canada - Canada.ca

your claims are baseless and not thought out.

As for freedom of choice and masks and staying away from population; that is what govt in ON and Canada are asking, where majority of the folks follow but small fraction are runinig it.

Here I will spoon feed how small fraction ruin it:

• Majority of Canadians follow protocols
• Small Faction dont
• Small fraction touch the surface
• One protocol following member mistakenly touches the surface and gets infected;
• they go home and spread it to their family
• their family not knowing they have covid (because onset of illness is at a lag - worst they are asymptomatic); go out and touch surfaces instead of isolating;
• and the sequence repeats and the virus spreads

I have already outlined how Canadian healthcare system is going to get overburdned if cases continue to rise with 8% hospitalization rates on average.

You can think whatever you want; facts and logic will not change.

 

[4thline]

Thanks for asking and I've posted my solution about 10 times already. I would take about 10% of the ridiculous amount of money we spent on covid with the current approaches, hire thousands of long term care facility workers, double or triple their pay or whatever it takes to make that crap job worth their time and worth the risk during a pandemic. Focus on making rapid testing available. No one goes into a long term care facility (guests or workers) without a clear test, every single day and no one works at multiple facilities. If these two measures had been taken (rapid tests, focus on long term health care facilities), we would not be in this predicament.

I apologize, I was mid-way through a for more articulate reply and accidentally navigated away, don't have the patience to completely recreate so this will be more blunt.

Fortress LTC doesn't work for 2 reasons

A- even if it were true that protecting the 70+ is enough to return to normal life (it's not) Fortressing LTC's wouldn't be enough to accomplish that goal. 93% of seniors live in private homes, with 350 plus thousand living in multi-generational households. Protecting the 70+ from an uncontrolled spread situation is not logistically or ethically feasible.


B- even if it were, it's not enough.
Looking at Canadian data Epidemiological summary of COVID-19 cases in Canada - Canada.ca

The 40-49 group has a ~3% hospitalization rate, 50-59 a ~6%, 60-69 a 12%. Mapped onto the Canadian population at an 80% infection rate that's a demand for 822,000 hospital beds, before looking at anyone under the age of 40. We have something like 16,000 acute care beds in Canada.

Of course, those hospitalization rates are based on reported cases, which we know is lower than reality. So cut it by a factor of 5. 164,400 thousand beds. And they won't all be needed at the same time. But it's still way more than we could possibly handle, and mortality rates would absolutely skyrocket.

It's a question of scale, not guaranteed lethality.


I don't mean to be rude here, but (correct me if I'm wrong) you're an engineer/architect with no public health or policy experience, who's economic reaction to this crisis to sell at the bottom and stay out of one of the most explosive stock market recoveries in recent memory.

For perspective, can you see how your "I don't like this situation and the fix, here's a much cheaper and simpler one" in an area completely outside of your expertise would be akin to a doctor bitching at you for having trouble solving the most serious and complex structural challenge of a generation and saying "this is overblown, just slap a couple I-beams into the most obvious problem area"?

 

[nsleaf]

Without lamps, there'd be no light.

Go outside and look up, big bright yellow thing is called the sun. It provides light.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

I apologize, I was mid-way through a for more articulate reply and accidentally navigated away, don't have the patience to completely recreate so this will be more blunt.

Fortress LTC doesn't work for 2 reasons

A- even if it were true that protecting the 70+ is enough to return to normal life (it's not) Fortressing LTC's wouldn't be enough to accomplish that goal. 93% of seniors live in private homes, with 350 plus thousand living in multi-generational households. Protecting the 70+ from an uncontrolled spread situation is not logistically or ethically feasible.


B- even if it were, it's not enough.
Looking at Canadian data Epidemiological summary of COVID-19 cases in Canada - Canada.ca

The 40-49 group has a ~3% hospitalization rate, 50-59 a ~6%, 60-69 a 12%. Mapped onto the Canadian population at an 80% infection rate that's a demand for 822,000 hospital beds, before looking at anyone under the age of 40. We have something like 16,000 acute care beds in Canada.

Of course, those hospitalization rates are based on reported cases, which we know is lower than reality. So cut it by a factor of 5. 164,400 thousand beds. And they won't all be needed at the same time. But it's still way more than we could possibly handle, and mortality rates would absolutely skyrocket.

It's a question of scale, not guaranteed lethality.

I'll have to look into what you say here. I have no problem looking at other info.

I don't mean to be rude here, but (correct me if I'm wrong) you're an engineer/architect with no public health or policy experience, who's economic reaction to this crisis to sell at the bottom and stay out of one of the most explosive stock market recoveries in recent memory.

For perspective, can you see how your "I don't like this situation and the fix, here's a much cheaper and simpler one" in an area completely outside of your expertise would be akin to a doctor bitching at you for having trouble solving the most serious and complex structural challenge of a generation and saying "this is overblown, just slap a couple I-beams into the most obvious problem area"?

You're not rude at all. You obviously do remember my posts. Yep, I got the F out of the markets (not at the bottom - well before that). No, those aren't my motives. I care about our country and I feel the worst of this pandemic from an economic point of view is still to come and people don't see it. Markets will be going down again BTW unless our governments just keep printing money and buying corporate debt forever in which case, nothing's real right now. The economic hardships will be as bad as the health implications. Or so I believe. There has to be a better way.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

Go outside and look up, big bright yellow thing is called the sun. It provides light.

Sorry, it was a quote from The Breakfast Club that I hoped a couple of people would get.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

Your whole schtick is based on deaths; meanwhile the adverse health impact of covid is just not death but other adverse health impact as well

It's not a schtick; it's what I believe.

What they don't tell you about surviving COVID-19

The virus is brand new and we have no idea what "recovery from covid" even means

I've seen and read it all. I don't buy it. All very vague and certainly rare. There are legacy effects from being hit by a car too. Nothing special about covid in that regard.

Second, sweden is not comparable; most of their population is concentrated with stockhom having about 10% of the population (about 1.5 million people).

That makes their situation worse. I.e., that makes my numbers conservative.

Toronto alone has 6 million people; people to hospital ratio in Canada is worst than in Sweden.

If you say so (I believe you) but again, that means our highest population density makes things worse. On average, it doesn't change my argument.

Also,
'Caught up in their own bullshit': The cost of Sweden's controversial coronavirus strategy

AND their PM just denounced their initial strategy and sidelined the guy who wanted to go with her immunity strategy with results now worst than their Scandinavian neighbours
Swedish PM Makes Covid Plea in Historic National Address

I'm not saying Sweden did everything right, I'm exclusively using their numbers to try to find context on how effective our measures have been. The US is a very bad comparative given their social situation. Sweden is the most comparative country to us socially that didn't lock down as hard. You should be happy: we did better than them and I'm admitting it. I'm just looking for a measuring stick to see how much better we did vs. looser rules.

In Canada, the hospitalization rates continues to rise with increase in covid cases regardless of age; your LTC schtick once again is just based on deaths
Epidemiological summary of COVID-19 cases in Canada - Canada.ca

your claims are baseless and not thought out.

Put a lot of thought into them thanks.

As for freedom of choice and masks and staying away from population; that is what govt in ON and Canada are asking, where majority of the folks follow but small fraction are runinig it.

I never even mentioned masks. I'm not against them. You said you can protect yourself against heart disease so my analogy was bad. I said you can protect yourself against covid too. Nothing more.

Here I will spoon feed how small fraction ruin it:

• Majority of Canadians follow protocols
• Small Faction dont
• Small fraction touch the surface
• One protocol following member mistakenly touches the surface and gets infected;
• they go home and spread it to their family
• their family not knowing they have covid (because onset of illness is at a lag - worst they are asymptomatic); go out and touch surfaces instead of isolating;
• and the sequence repeats and the virus spreads

I have already outlined how Canadian healthcare system is going to get overburdned if cases continue to rise with 8% hospitalization rates on average.

Yep, you've said it. Hasn't happened so far, but you keep saying it. Neither you or me knows if it will happen.

You can think whatever you want; facts and logic will not change.

The problem is, we're both giving facts and logic. You seem to think you have a monopoly on the two and completely dismiss what I'm saying. That's your prerogative but it's not convincing in any way.

 

[Nineteen67]

You're right, I hadn't checked in awhile. They're actually almost identical in per-capita cases. But they both got there using different approaches. One has locked down much harder than the other.

View attachment 378171



That may or may not be the reason but I respect your opinion.

I like to look at ED visits with CLI and Florida is going in the right direction.

 

[Kiwi]

First Florida's cases are rising again. I disagree that restrictions don't work. Cause in public people do social distancing, wear masks and aren't around people for an extended period of time.

The virus needs people for it to move around. The problem is majority of people let their guard down when at home. Which is why they advised people to have Christmas with just their households. Limiting gathers would go along way in slowing the spread and getting us back to normal.

I've got some doubts about the effectiveness of masking, especially if the masks aren't the M95 or surgical variety and people haven't been properly instructed on how to wear, fit and clean them

There's also been some conflicting information on how big the particles are and how long they stay suspended, which would effective the distancing rule

I'm not saying don't do it I'm just not sure those are the silver bullets people think they are

I'm going to categorically state that that there is no way in hell many families won't get together for Christmas, I don't know what it would take to stop that happening but I doubt the Canadian government would be willing to do what it would take to make that happen

Hell any Western government

 

[stealth1]

I've got some doubts about the effectiveness of masking, especially if the masks aren't the M95 or surgical variety and people haven't been properly instructed on how to wear, fit and clean them

There's also been some conflicting information on how big the particles are and how long they stay suspended, which would effective the distancing rule

I'm not saying don't do it I'm just not sure those are the silver bullets people think they are

I'm going to categorically state that that there is no way in hell many families won't get together for Christmas, I don't know what it would take to stop that happening but I doubt the Canadian government would be willing to do what it would take to make that happen

Hell any Western government

We are going to pay for it in the end. Its not that hard to limit your Christmas for one year. Why can't people limit it to immediate family. My family is limiting it to my wife, child, my mom, sister and her kids. 6 of us when normally it's closer to 20. Why people can't do that is beyond me.

 

[Muston Atthews]

Define indoors.

Anywhere but your house. Ergo right now.

 

[Sens]

We are going to pay for it in the end. Its not that hard to limit your Christmas for one year. Why can't people limit it to immediate family. My family is limiting it to my wife, child, my mom, sister and her kids. 6 of us when normally it's closer to 20. Why people can't do that is beyond me.

because the majority of people can read stats and the majority are ok with the risk

 

[Muston Atthews]

Had we all just kept wearing masks, did social distancing and limiting who came into our homes we wouldn't be in this situation. There is a reason majority of cases are from family gatherings. People need to limit them as much as possible so businesses can get back to being open.

where do you go that people aren’t wearing masks?

 

[Kiwi]

We are going to pay for it in the end. Its not that hard to limit your Christmas for one year. Why can't people limit it to immediate family. My family is limiting it to my wife, child, my mom, sister and her kids. 6 of us when normally it's closer to 20. Why people can't do that is beyond me.

Good luck telling people they can't get together with family over Christmas after having limited contact with them for the last 9 months

You can only ask so much of people before they rebel and 9 months of policies that draconian has pushed many people well past that point

 

[stealth1]

where do you go that people aren’t wearing masks?

Inside my house just like every other people's homes. There is a reason majority of cases are being traced back to private gatherings. Which is why they have advised people not to have large family gatherings for Christmas.

 

[PromisedLand]

this thread reminds me of the great quote

 

[GQS]

It would be impossible to prove, but what the total number would have been if we took no measures could have been worse.

Now we will never know because they chose this path.

Except we DO know if we look at places like Sweden where taking relatively few measures has only impacted their elderly and sick more while the rest of their population has remained largely unaffected. People can keep saying they messed up, but its crazy to think that choosing to remain mostly open has only resulted in 263 deaths among people 60 years old and under and think that is a 'failure'.

In Ontario the numbers are just as low with only 165 people under 60 years old dying by the virus. And all this in the face of thousands of new cases of covid being added every day recently. In fact we've added some 75,000 new cases since the end of September and yet the number of hospital beds being taking up by virus patients remains at around 700-720 or so currently which is still 300 lower than the peak 1,050 back in May.

And again for the entire continent of Africa of 1.3 billion people only recently surpassed 53,000 deaths and I refuse to believe that all those African nations are handling the virus infinitely better than western countries are. The fact is taking extreme measures is mostly pointless when you could simply spend most of that time and resources protecting and treating the most vulnerable that we aren't doing enough of even as we keep acknowledging that they're the most at risk.

 

[GQS]

Fortress LTC doesn't work for 2 reasons

A- even if it were true that protecting the 70+ is enough to return to normal life (it's not) Fortressing LTC's wouldn't be enough to accomplish that goal. 93% of seniors live in private homes, with 350 plus thousand living in multi-generational households. Protecting the 70+ from an uncontrolled spread situation is not logistically or ethically feasible.

The data shows that something like 80% OF ALL covid deaths in Canada are long term care patients. Namely the vast majority of seniors living outside of those homes ARE NOT massively affected by the virus even though they're the most at risk group of people and hence should've been dying off by the tens of thousands except they haven't during this pandemic. As it has been shown all along, as long as you're even decently healthy your chances of dying are pretty damn slim even if you're a senior.

So ABSOLUTELY YES, protecting long term care homes and doing everything possible to keep those people safe would've resulted in thousands of fewer deaths in Canada and the facts are indisputable on that point. Remove long term care home deaths from the total and Canada is sitting at around 2,500 covid deaths to date.

B- even if it were, it's not enough.
Looking at Canadian data Epidemiological summary of COVID-19 cases in Canada - Canada.ca

The 40-49 group has a ~3% hospitalization rate, 50-59 a ~6%, 60-69 a 12%. Mapped onto the Canadian population at an 80% infection rate that's a demand for 822,000 hospital beds, before looking at anyone under the age of 40. We have something like 16,000 acute care beds in Canada.

Of course, those hospitalization rates are based on reported cases, which we know is lower than reality. So cut it by a factor of 5. 164,400 thousand beds. And they won't all be needed at the same time. But it's still way more than we could possibly handle, and mortality rates would absolutely skyrocket.

Ontario has added 75,000+ covid cases since the end of September and its been 1,000+ daily cases since the beginning of November. In that same time frame the number of people in hospital for the virus has only increased by about 600. Currently there's about 700-720 people in hospital for the virus out of those 75,000+ new cases in the past couple of months so that shows yet again that all those projections by our 'experts' ARE COMPLETE BULLSH*T.

And a reminder there were 'experts' that said at the beginning of the pandemic that ONTARIO ALONE would have up to 100,000 deaths if we did absolutely nothing to stop the spread of the virus in the province and we know how accurate that was. So excuse me if I find it hard to believe our so called experts when they've been wrong at practically every turn with their opinions on the virus.

 

[Muston Atthews]

Inside my house just like every other people's homes. There is a reason majority of cases are being traced back to private gatherings. Which is why they have advised people not to have large family gatherings for Christmas.

So you’re advocating wearing masks inside of your own home? Or at the very least shaming people for not doing so?

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

We are going to pay for it in the end. Its not that hard to limit your Christmas for one year. Why can't people limit it to immediate family. My family is limiting it to my wife, child, my mom, sister and her kids. 6 of us when normally it's closer to 20. Why people can't do that is beyond me.

FYI: you're actually not supposed to be doing that. Ford says immediate household family only. Ironically, I'll be following the rules I don't agree with and you won't.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

where do you go that people aren’t wearing masks?

That's what I keep asking. Everywhere I go, people are masked and they keep their distance.

 

[Nineteen67]

We are going to pay for it in the end. Its not that hard to limit your Christmas for one year. Why can't people limit it to immediate family. My family is limiting it to my wife, child, my mom, sister and her kids. 6 of us when normally it's closer to 20. Why people can't do that is beyond me.

Large family gathering should be put on hold this year. We had to deviate from our typical Thanksgiving and will do the same at Christmas. I have a lot of family in the that vulnerable age group so it was wise for us.
Every family will have to make the decision based on their circumstances.