Pandemic measures reactions
There isn’t a lot of news Friday morning besides reactions to the new government measures. Restaurant owners are angry at having to close their dining rooms on New Year’s Eve. Le Devoir simply looks at the morale in Quebec and finds us weary.
The health ministry cites studies to show that curfews work, although it’s not a well-defined effect. Although Quebec has the most stringent pandemic measures at the moment, Canada’s Dr Theresa Tam is also recommending that everyone reduce their contacts.
jeather 11:12 on 2021-12-31 Permalink
They show that curfews work to keep people at home (fine), but I haven’t seen anything compelling showing the last round of curfews in Quebec did anything re transmission — our curves were pretty similar to the rest of the country.
mare 12:31 on 2021-12-31 Permalink
It surprises me that they don’t emphasize the real reason for these more stringent measures: reduce contacts NOW. Stay home, don’t go shopping or visit people during the day. The situation is in a way much more dire than in 2020 when we *had* a complete lockdown, but yet again political and economical reasons are more important.
During the pressers there’s lots of talk about getting vaccinated and boostered, which are important on the long term, but the current situation is that omicron will infect and spread just fine, if people are vaccinated or not. Even countries with very high vaccination levels like Portugal have huge spikes in cases.
Also there should be instructions for better masking when you really can’t avoid to be near people like in stores (hopefully doing only essential shopping) or public transport, or if you have to work near other people.
Wearing just a fabric or surgical mask alone doesn’t cut it anymore against omicron, so please wear a N95, KN95 or KT94 mask if you have them, or double mask with a well fitting fabric mask *over* a surgical mask. Don’t forget to bend the nose wire to close the gap under your eyes. You want to filter most incoming and outgoing air to minimize infection and spread.
(You can think and say that the government made wrong choices in the past with allowing Christmas gatherings, but let’s just do it right this time and stay home for a couple of weeks.)
The current situation and outlook in our healthcare system is very, very grim, and with all the cases ‘in the pipeline’ things won’t get better soon.
Kate 13:23 on 2021-12-31 Permalink
Good points, mare.
I’m still sick, and have to say, given that over the past couple of weeks I only went out for a couple of unavoidable errands, and double-masked the whole time, Omicron is a hell of a bug. I haven’t been tested, but I don’t need to be. There’s nothing else this could be, and I’m isolating anyway, but my god. I haven’t had a head cold in 2 years and haven’t had flu or anything else, but Omicron got me.
MarcG 13:38 on 2021-12-31 Permalink
@Kate: I’ve been meaning to ask you if you had any theories on where you picked it up. That’s pretty scary. Makes me feel a bit less crazy for having groceries delivered and never seeing anyone. Hope you feel better soon.
Uatu 15:05 on 2021-12-31 Permalink
Omicron is a hell of a bug… heh I heard that in Rick James’ voice. Take care and happy new year Kate
Kate 15:25 on 2021-12-31 Permalink
I did have to wait a little while inside a storefront about ten days ago for a transaction to go through – customers were masked, but the two people working behind a plexiglas partition were not. I’m not saying this was necessarily the place, but it’s the only situation I can think of where exposure seemed possible.
I have no idea whether Omicron can infect a person who steps inside a small store for a five-minute errand, when everyone present is masked. But if it’s indeed that virulent, good luck to us.
david455 17:38 on 2021-12-31 Permalink
If you can, you should try to get a test for covid when you feel well enough to, Kate. A lot of people are sick right now (including me), and I just came back negative for covid. That makes sense, as you can catch a cold from handling a door handle or eating a prepared meal, but you can’t get covid that way. The reasons you’d want to test would be to know how your body responded to this this covid episode (negative test means you still don’t know), and also to give the province more data on the scale of the current wave in form of positivity rate.
Many people who think it’s covid are very surprised to discover that it’s not. The tell-tale is completely losing the olfactory sense of taste and smell, which hit me both times I went down with covid. Otherwise, very good chance it’s just the flu or whatever.
steph 18:05 on 2021-12-31 Permalink
Is Covid Omnicron airborn? or is it still just droplet transmission. IIRC they concluded in the beginning that Covid was in droplets which fall to the ground and masks that cover your “moist speaking”, sneezing and splatters are worn to protect others. Sealing the top of your nose & wearing double layers did not add prodection if others weren’t areosoling the virus.
Raymond Lutz 19:03 on 2021-12-31 Permalink
What do you mean, steph? Covid (any variants) has always been airborn. And no need to talk to produce virion bearing aerosols
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1471054758085632002
Kate 21:18 on 2021-12-31 Permalink
david, loss of smell and taste are not nearly as typical of Omicron.
How many people are home right now, thinking they feel too lousy to go line up somewhere for hours to get a test? I bet it’s a lot.
Ephraim 22:58 on 2021-12-31 Permalink
@Kate – Seen the articles on people who have even worse that loss of smell and taste? People saying food tastes or smells of gasoline or vomit. And it’s likely never going to return, if it lasts past a year. Omicron’s symptoms supposedly differ for those vaccinated from those unvaccinated. For those vaccinated, it appears to resemble the common cold with congestion or a runny nose. But for the unvaccinated, it appears to resemble Delta and of course pneumonia, need for oxygen, etc.
ant6n 08:09 on 2022-01-01 Permalink
The testing situation in Quebec is sad, 2 years into the pandemic. In Berlin they have little test centers every couple of corners, testing is mandatory for many kind of events or the unvaccinated. It’s perhaps not super medical professional, but it beats not testing.
Kate 09:54 on 2022-01-01 Permalink
Ephraim, I’m double-vaxxed and only dealing with one of the symptoms on the Omicron list. It can stop anytime though.
Tee Owe 14:32 on 2022-01-01 Permalink
It’s interesting – 2 years ago if we caught a virus we wouldn’t ask ‘where did I catch it’ ‘did I screw up on masking/distancing , ‘is it covid/flu/ordinary cold (most of whichBTW are coronavirus-induced)’ – we would just get on with dealing with it – now we are conditioned or educated to ask these questions – maybe not a bad thing – ?
MarcG 14:42 on 2022-01-01 Permalink
Whenever I’ve caught a cold/flu in the past my first thought is always “which of you bastards gave this to me?”. Last one in Feb 2020 was 100% my optometrist.
CE 16:35 on 2022-01-01 Permalink
https://xkcd.com/2535/
Kate 17:29 on 2022-01-01 Permalink
For me, once it was the most lousy airplane experience I’ve had. I got wedged in the back row beside an enormous woman with a terrible head cold, and a day after i got home I came down with it and was sick for a week.
Another time – I was walking around Park Avenue with a friend, in wintertime. There was a woman who used to panhandle, using a pair of half-broken elbow crutches for pathos. I have not seen her in awhile. But there she was, sitting on a bench in midwinter, and she asked us, first, for money, and then if we could take her somewhere in Park Ex.
My friend is a softie. He has, in my company, occasionally given rides to some fairly dubious characters, as in this case. She had a cold, and within a day both he and I were afflicted with the most intractable and miserable colds either of us have ever had.
Usually, though, because I was working someplace and contacts were impossible to trace, I never had a clue.
CE: excellent link. Thank you!
H. John 18:48 on 2022-01-02 Permalink
Kate, you wrote:
“I did have to wait a little while inside a storefront about ten days ago for a transaction to go through – customers were masked, but the two people working behind a plexiglas partition were not. I’m not saying this was necessarily the place, but it’s the only situation I can think of where exposure seemed possible.
I have no idea whether Omicron can infect a person who steps inside a small store for a five-minute errand, when everyone present is masked. But if it’s indeed that virulent, good luck to us.”
The person didn’t have to be present to infect you. The government should have been stressing all along the importance of aerosols in transmission.
If they had people would pay more attention to ventilation.
If the air isn’t changed, for example through better ventilation providing new not re-cycled air, then the virus can hang in the air for hours.
This isn’t new. We’ve known that measles can remain airborne for 2 hours.
Here’s a paper from Ontario Health on COVID-19 Transmission Through Large Respiratory Droplets and Aerosols from May 2021:
https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/covid-wwksf/2021/05/wwksf-transmission-respiratory-aerosols.pdf?la=en
And, from page 7:
“Given that persistence of aerosols over time is a factor in long-range transmission, the viability of SARS- CoV-2 in aerosols is important to consider. The half-life of SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols is approximately 1 hour.48,49”
And this was published when Delta was prevalent and nowhere near as contagious as Omicron.
We should be paying as much attention as possible to better ventilation (aerosol), distancing (droplets), and better masks (N95 or KF95).
Kate 22:12 on 2022-01-02 Permalink
H. John, then I think it must have been that. I was stuck waiting for something for nearly an hour in a fairly small space with virtually no ventilation. Thanks for the cite!