News: Covid and more Covid
Dr Horacio Arruda has submitted his resignation and it has been accepted.
The CIUSS du Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal is on maximum alert as its hospitals put off operations and procedures to meet the crisis.
Homeless shelters are overwhelmed.
Three orthodox Jewish schools have been ordered to stop in-person teaching. (Here’s a story I found telling a related story from the Orthodox side.)
David77 02:30 on 2022-01-11 Permalink
The vaccinated are completely secure in what concerns serious risk of harm or death, and almost everyone is vaccinated, so . . . what is this panic for?
(And I say this as someone who is now triple vaxxed and also has had all three major iterations of covid)
David77 02:35 on 2022-01-11 Permalink
Basically, why are people being admitted to hospital – is there a real basis, or is a Covid diagnosis triggering an automatic admission? Is it really the case that we need to admit these Covid cases, or are we using old criteria in the pre-vax or pre-booster time? Has the government given us a good explanation of why their response is proportionate to the risk, considering the actual threat of the virus at this stage?
Raymond Lutz 08:39 on 2022-01-11 Permalink
Don’t look at the number of hospitalizations: “Les hospitalisations en cours correspondent au nombre de personnes actuellement à l’hôpital avec un diagnostic de COVID-19.” (source). So, those are not admitted _because_ they have covid but _with_ covid.
The stat to watch is ICU beds. And we are at a 2 yr record high, and more importantly, we (in Québec) are at ICU capacity: hard choices will have to be made between patients (Covid or not).
Omicron is 7x less severe than delta re needing ICU [1] but if we have 20x the number of infected people (Omicron is way more contagious) than it’s worse for the healthcare system.
[1] “Early Estimates of Omicron Severity in Ontario based on a Matched Cohort Study, November 22 to December 25, 2021”
walkerp 09:49 on 2022-01-11 Permalink
David you actually believe they are going to let somebody in the hospital without symptoms simply because they tested positive? Have you been to the ER in Montreal before?
And the vaccines are not completely secure in risk of harm or death.
Kate 12:10 on 2022-01-11 Permalink
david∞, there were 62 deaths from Covid in Quebec over the last 24 hours. Two years after this started, and you’re still in denial.
TeeOwe 13:15 on 2022-01-11 Permalink
Thank you Raymond for the reference, the article was easy to find, really helpful. Is there a reference for ’20X the number of infected people’? I mean, we see this sort of stat everywhere but I have trouble quoting a reliable source. Thanks!
Mark Côté 13:33 on 2022-01-11 Permalink
@TeeOwe The CBC interviewed the Canada Research Chair in viral control at Western University about measuring covid via wastewater analysis. He said it was very difficult to know the situation at a provincial level because of lack of (or lack of access to) data, but figured it might be 50 000 a day last week. That’s 14x the cases at the same time last year. And it could easily be higher.
Pinotte 18:05 on 2022-01-11 Permalink
The 62 deaths included deaths from other days. January is typically the number one month for dying in Quebec. The year 2018 – pre-covid – had more deaths than in any January during covid. There were no measures taken then.
https://statistique.quebec.ca/en/document/births-deaths-and-marriages-by-month-and-quarter-quebec/tableau/births-deaths-and-marriages-by-month-and-quarter-quebec
These death charts on Canada/Quebec demonstrate that there were two bad months at the start but the rest of the deaths totals have fairly insignificant. https://twitter.com/Milhouse_Van_Ho/status/1472591049172398090?s=20
Kate 18:39 on 2022-01-11 Permalink
Oh good, Pinotte. It’s all a big fuss over nothing!
qatzelok 19:13 on 2022-01-11 Permalink
So Pinotte, does that mean that the curve is finally flattened?