Pandemic 2020

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HGCC

Well-Known Member
Both are worth the wait.

Animal style for me ( the burger, not the test).
It's getting done today, I'm guessing the long ass lines had to do with it being one of the places open on the weekend, and people getting tested after new years before work/school today...though schools don't go back until tomorrow I guess.

Grumpy about the whole situation really. They shouldn't have gone, should have stayed home. The people they had to visit are assholes. It is what it is. Hopefully this cough the kid has is just because grandma refuses to buy the big pharma lie that cigarettes cause cancer, no smoking rules are liberal control or whatever so smoke everywhere you can.
 

CatHedral

Well-Known Member
If you are sick with any of those it's a good idea to self isolate. Most of those folks are probably there for employment purposes, they need a positive test to get the sick time off. The point is, testing is clearly overwhelmed and soon the hospitals will be too, if they have delta or omicron, their family members probably have it too. Some people do have legitimate and logical reasons to stay in a 2 mile long line for testing, but a positive test won't make much difference for most people, since they can't or won't be treated. It is useful for school and work or other things one must attend, but unless yer gonna get a hotel room after a positive test, you'll probably go back home, but perhaps to a tent in the backyard!
I imagine printer’s point to be that what I do hinges on the test outcome. Transmitting Covid is worse than transmitting a flu. I recently had something respiratory. Getting a negative result on the test meant I didn’t have to live off the freezer for two weeks. Different isolation protocols apply.

Oh, and two Flying Dutchmen.
 

printer

Well-Known Member
If you are sick with any of those it's a good idea to self isolate. Most of those folks are probably there for employment purposes, they need a positive test to get the sick time off. The point is, testing is clearly overwhelmed and soon the hospitals will be too, if they have delta or omicron, their family members probably have it too. Some people do have legitimate and logical reasons to stay in a 2 mile long line for testing, but a positive test won't make much difference for most people, since they can't or won't be treated. It is useful for school and work or other things one must attend, but unless yer gonna get a hotel room after a positive test, you'll probably go back home, but perhaps to a tent in the backyard!
So what if you have Delta instead?
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
So what if you have Delta instead?
It doesn't matter what strain you have, if there is no medical help available you live or die by nature's law. If you are feeling sick and can't get tested, many can't, then assume you have covid, if the symptoms line up and try your best to isolate yourself and wear a mask. This is just getting going and the next month will be Hell in the hospitals, hopefully omicron is as mild as they say and can bolster the immune system of the vaxxed and boosted. The only people showing up at emergency treatment centers will be those who have trouble breathing or other life threatening covid related conditions. The governments have given up on contact tracing and testing is overwhelmed, it appears that boosting and a combination of natural herd immunity are the strategies emerging. If they confirm omicron is less virulent, they won't be locking down much except to slow it while folks are boosted and to keep the health system from collapsing completely. Most people will have to deal with this alone or with their family for a couple of months.
 

printer

Well-Known Member
2 days ago the provincial government said they weren’t going to do anything so it’s an improvement.

I watched the news conference. Models were predicting hundreds of thousands of cases a day. Be careful, it’s going to be a bad stretch everywhere.
I got my shot yesterday, have enough food until it kicks in. Have my N-95 mask for when I need to pick stuff up. I don't need covid, enough problems on my own.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
2 days ago the provincial government said they weren’t going to do anything so it’s an improvement.

I watched the news conference. Models were predicting hundreds of thousands of cases a day. Be careful, it’s going to be a bad stretch everywhere.
I see Rob Ford saw the light on school reopening, just as we are about to get slammed with a horrific outbreak, the experts must have danced on his desk to make their point! Jesus Christ, school reopening in these circumstances would overwhelm the healthcare system in no time flat It's gonna be bad enough as it is with the post holiday surge in cases.

We can't stop it, we can only slow it down, barely, the objective is to prevent the collapse of the healthcare system. Hopefully vaccinations, boosters and mild omicron might help with that, right now though the hospital staffs are getting hit pretty hard with covid themselves. Stock up on what you figure you might need to deal with illness on your own and FFS take vitamin D supplements this winter. We will muddle through and I expect it will burn out pretty quickly, the worse it is the faster it passes.
 

CunningCanuk

Well-Known Member
I see Rob Ford saw the light on school reopening, just as we are about to get slammed with a horrific outbreak, the experts must have danced on his desk to make their point! Jesus Christ, school reopening in these circumstances would overwhelm the healthcare system in no time flat It's gonna be bad enough as it is with the post holiday surge in cases.

We can't stop it, we can only slow it down, barely, the objective is to prevent the collapse of the healthcare system. Hopefully vaccinations, boosters and mild omicron might help with that, right now though the hospital staffs are getting hit pretty hard with covid themselves. Stock up on what you figure you might need to deal with illness on your own and FFS take vitamin D supplements this winter. We will muddle through and I expect it will burn out pretty quickly, the worse it is the faster it passes.
Apparently he changed his tune because of public outrage. What did he think was going to happen? CaptainMorgan is right, Ford might be dumber than trump.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Apparently he changed his tune because of public outrage. What did he think was going to happen? CaptainMorgan is right, Ford might be dumber than trump.
Apparently he is capable of changing his mind! If he figured he would pay at the polls he will come around. If he reopened schools in the face of warnings and disaster ensued, they would burn the fucker at the stake come election day. Covid and winter in Canada are a bad combination Canuck, our high vaccination rate and mostly young unvaxxed should save us from the worst of it though, at least I hope.
 

Ozumoz66

Well-Known Member
Apparently he is capable of changing his mind! If he figured he would pay at the polls he will come around. If he reopened schools in the face of warnings and disaster ensued, they would burn the fucker at the stake come election day. Covid and winter in Canada are a bad combination Canuck, our high vaccination rate and mostly young unvaxxed should save us from the worst of it though, at least I hope.
He does change his mind occasionally. He's such a mulligan man - just wish he'd make better decisions to begin with vs after the fact.

Insane Clown Posse - it's in their logo.

z5ezWwI.png
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
They delayed school here in NS until around the 10th of January. The gave up on contact tracing here too and testing is overwhelmed. The focus here has shifted from cases to hospitalizations, where the rubber really hits the road, I don't think cases are a very useful metric anymore with vaxxed and boosted people, hospitalizations and ICU beds are more important.

Your daughter has been recently vaxxed, but she can bring it home, even if she is not too sick or sick at all, best everybody in the household gets boosted. That might not last though, the schools could shut down again, if it gets bad enough with staff shortages, at the very least they should make covid vaccinations mandatory for school kids.

It's pretty much the same all across the country as covid cases explode, they have here too. Doug kinda fucked ya though, they should wait another week or two at least to see how things go, since post holiday cases are about to explode and swamp hospitals.
It is not a matter of people "giving up", it's a matter of risk management. Today's situation presents us with a range of choices, each involve risk, some choices to reduce risk concurrently increase risk of harm in other areas. Canuck and I have to balance personal risk of contracting the disease with the risk of harming development of our kid. My HS kid did not thrive during school shut downs and almost a year of social isolation. For his sake, he's going to school if the school is open and I just have to accept the higher risk to myself. As you preach, we are vaccinated, boosted to current standards and I'm in lockdown even though my kid is not. He's 17 YO and knows the score, including the risks. It's up to him to stay safe.

I get it. Will a 17 YO boy, empowered to make decisions that affect the people around him make the right choices? Am I kidding myself?

I think I'm not kidding myself and only time will tell.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. vaccinate, maintain health, masks, do all that stuff too.
 

Budley Doright

Well-Known Member
It is not a matter of people "giving up", it's a matter of risk management. Today's situation presents us with a range of choices, each involve risk, some choices to reduce risk concurrently increase risk of harm in other areas. Canuck and I have to balance personal risk of contracting the disease with the risk of harming development of our kid. My HS kid did not thrive during school shut downs and almost a year of social isolation. For his sake, he's going to school if the school is open and I just have to accept the higher risk to myself. As you preach, we are vaccinated, boosted to current standards and I'm in lockdown even though my kid is not. He's 17 YO and knows the score, including the risks. It's up to him to stay safe.

I get it. Will a 17 YO boy, empowered to make decisions that affect the people around him make the right choices? Am I kidding myself?

I think I'm not kidding myself and only time will tell.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. vaccinate, maintain health, masks, do all that stuff too.
I just saw that 500+ doctors in Ontario signed a letter to the premier asking to keep the schools open. I think they are right to want that. From the very small window our health unit provides, the actual hospital admissions seem to be low given the numbers of cases. Maybe an extended break of a couple of weeks will be enough to at least get more data on how this is going to play out without the effects of a full blown extended lock down. Most of the families I know are not doing great with the kids not in a structured setting with their peers. I am at the point now where I feel it’s inevitable that old budley is gonna get the corona even though I stick pretty close to home these days :(. Hopefully my shots and booster keep me out of the hospital :(.
 

HGCC

Well-Known Member
Testing line down to almost nothing today, they drove right up. Will see how it goes, keeping him home tomorrow, hopefully results come in by Wed.

The school issue is tough, I come down on the side that it's better for them to be there. Perfectly good and valid arguments for both options.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
It is not a matter of people "giving up", it's a matter of risk management. Today's situation presents us with a range of choices, each involve risk, some choices to reduce risk concurrently increase risk of harm in other areas. Canuck and I have to balance personal risk of contracting the disease with the risk of harming development of our kid. My HS kid did not thrive during school shut downs and almost a year of social isolation. For his sake, he's going to school if the school is open and I just have to accept the higher risk to myself. As you preach, we are vaccinated, boosted to current standards and I'm in lockdown even though my kid is not. He's 17 YO and knows the score, including the risks. It's up to him to stay safe.

I get it. Will a 17 YO boy, empowered to make decisions that affect the people around him make the right choices? Am I kidding myself?

I think I'm not kidding myself and only time will tell.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. vaccinate, maintain health, masks, do all that stuff too.
Here is opinion piece in the Financial Times that I think indicate the direction we will end up taking. It is endemic now and highly contagious, we must protect the healthcare system from collapse by spring, and boost more folks, January promises to be rough. Sooner or later we are going to have to learn to live with it, hopefully with a plan that will minimize the damage during the adjustment period.

 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
It seems the link doesn't work right

The world must learn to live with Covid this year
There is a good chance the global impact of coronavirus will ease

Omicron, by far the most contagious coronavirus variant to date, is so rampant around the world that it is easy to feel despondent about the prospects of the pandemic easing — let alone coming to an end — in 2022. But there are good reasons to think that Covid-19’s toll on global health and its wider social and economic impact could wane this year, if governments and health authorities follow appropriate policies and if this volatile virus develops in the way that many scientists believe is most likely.

A debate is growing between those who think new pathogens such as Sars-Cov-2 tend to cause milder disease as time passes and those who say they are just as likely to evolve in a more virulent direction. Without taking sides, it is reasonable to conclude that the interaction between virus and the human immune system means that the more people acquire some protection against severe Covid-19 symptoms through vaccination or infection, the better the outlook. No conceivable descendant of Sars-Cov-2 could have enough mutations in the right places to escape fully the attentions of both antibodies and T-cells generated by prior exposure to an earlier variant.

The top priority is, therefore, to vaccinate the whole world — as it should have been for the past year. Unfortunately, Covid-19 vaccine inequity has never been greater, with just 10 per cent of the population in low-income countries having received at least one jab, according to the World Health Organization, while wealthy nations are rolling out third or even fourth shots. As the WHO says, with global vaccine production close to 1.5bn doses a month, there will be enough for these booster programmes to continue, while directing far more supplies to poorer countries than in 2021, through schemes such as Covax.

Although industrialised nations are justified in protecting their populations with boosters for adults and campaigns to extend vaccination to children, we cannot expect to keep jabbing people every four to six months for very long in the face of new variants. We will have to rely on the immunity provided by annual inoculations — preferably with a new generation of products that are effective against all coronavirus variants — and by repeated exposure to what will sooner or later become an endemic infection.

Governments and regulators must encourage the development of new vaccine technologies to supplement the near duopoly that Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer enjoy in the developed world with their mRNA products. At the same time, more investment should be directed towards antiviral drugs that could play a bigger role in suppressing symptoms in those who are infected.

Another vital area that must be reinforced is diagnosis and surveillance. Requirements here range from ensuring enough quick lateral flow tests are available for people to check whether they are infected before meeting others to building up more genomic sequencing capacity worldwide to monitor the emergence of new variants. Whatever slim chance we might have had at the beginning of 2020 to eliminate Covid-19 has long gone. Efforts to control the pandemic have been justified so far in the context of a global health emergency but they cannot continue indefinitely. The collateral damage — to mental health and wellbeing, social cohesion and the global economy — would be too great. This year the world will have to build up resilience so that we can live with Sars-Cov-2 and its descendants, in a way that causes less disruption while still protecting those who are most vulnerable.
 
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