Montreal City Weblog

Kate 09:40 on 2023-07-06 Permalink Reply  

• MarcG 15:57 on 2023-07-06 Permalink

  Currently approximately 2 deaths every day. If the southern hemisphere is any indication of our future we’re in for a nasty fall/winter. What are we doing to prepare? Slowly removing masks from hospitals. They will get crushed and privatizing healthcare will be offered as the only solution.

• walkerp 22:51 on 2023-07-06 Permalink

  I don’t know about these deaths, but the behaviour of the disease has evolved (not sure if that is the right word) significantly. I caught it for a second time last week (probably at a workout spot, but not sure) and it was so mild compared to the first time. I basically had a mild sore throat and barely a cough plus some fatigue for two and a half days, tested positive for a week and that was it.

  Obviously, this is just a single case, but during my contagion period I did not manage to pass it on to any of my family members with whom I live, nor any friends and nobody else I know got it.

  It’s out there and it is going to have a continued impact but it’s not the universal social threat that it was the first 2 years when it came out.

• MarcG 08:52 on 2023-07-07 Permalink

  It’s a mistake to measure the threat of a virus solely on the severity of the acute illness. HIV, for example, presents as flu-like symptoms at first and then 10 years later you find out you have AIDS.

• Michael 09:34 on 2023-07-07 Permalink

  At this point covid is no longer a pandemic, but endemic like the cold. We need to compare cold / normal flu deaths in the last 6 months with covid deaths.

  Adding up covid deaths in aggregate no longer makes sense.

• Kate 10:20 on 2023-07-07 Permalink

  Are you a doctor, Michael?

• MarcG 11:45 on 2023-07-07 Permalink

  Interview quote from Arijit Chakravarty, a biologist working in data modeling for drug companies whose company writes papers on Covid in their spare time:

  To reiterate, we still have shockingly high rates of transmission, shockingly high death totals, and we have NO plan. And if something worse happens, we will react to it. And this is the key point in the “Gray Swan” paper, which underscores a reactive public health strategy, which is the kind of strategy where first you see something go wrong and then you do something about it. If I was generous about defining our global public health “strategy,” that’s our strategy. And in that kind of reactive strategy what will happen is billions will be infected before we realize something is wrong. And that’s too late to do anything about it. So not only is the pandemic very much not over, but by creating the impression that the pandemic is over in the face of rampant viral spread and continuing rapid viral evolution, we are essentially sticking our chin out and asking the virus to do its worst.