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OT: Coronavirus Resources - and other things to not worry about

Stinky said:
Omicron in our wastewater before discovered in South Africa?

Presto, care to speculate?
nationalpost.com

Omicron was in Nova Scotia wastewater before it was identified in South Africa

'Our team detected Omicron, retrospectively, in Nova Scotia wastewater in mid-November,' Dalhousie researchers say
nationalpost.com nationalpost.com
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Doesn't mean it originated there. It was in South Africa before it was discovered too! But yeah, it wasn't around for too long. As we saw it moves fast!

Also

However, a provincial spokesperson clarified on Monday that Strang was not referring to the latest water samples. In an email, Kristen Lipscombe said Dalhousie University researchers identified two different wastewater samples as potentially containing the Omicron variant.

The first, taken in fall 2021, was confirmed to contain the Alpha variant and not Omicron. The second sample was taken in early December and sent to the province's public health team on Jan. 4.

Lipscombe said Strang had not received information about the second sample at the time of his comments, so he was referring only to the first sample.

"Results from the second sample are suggestive, but not conclusive, that Omicron is present in wastewater, but this isn't surprising given current community spread of this variant," Lipscombe said.
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These wastewater stories get posted a lot. Some showed covid in Italian wastewaters in the spring of 2019. Which is impossible and clearly a result of cross-contamination or lab error.
 
I like Zakaria, but he's not a medical doctor, virologist, epidemiologist etc.

I agree we're going to have to have that conversation at some point, but at least in Ontario, I'm not sure it can be right now, when you simply don't have enough hospital beds and personnel for people who need to be hospitalized.
 
hockeylover said:
I like Zakaria, but he's not a medical doctor, virologist, epidemiologist etc.

I agree we're going to have to have that conversation at some point, but at least in Ontario, I'm not sure it can be right now, when you simply don't have enough hospital beds and personnel for people who need to be hospitalized.
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Falls in line with the same mistakes we made 100 years ago...



There's a lot of that shit right now and it's important to block it out because it's largely bullshit. We are not there yet. We are literally eclipsing new highs in hospitalizations across the world. We'll get there but it shouldn't be rushed. It's like there's a race to give the hottest possible take.
 
hockeylover said:
I like Zakaria, but he's not a medical doctor, virologist, epidemiologist etc.

I agree we're going to have to have that conversation at some point, but at least in Ontario, I'm not sure it can be right now, when you simply don't have enough hospital beds and personnel for people who need to be hospitalized.
Click to expand...

We just had a paramedic code red the other day, with no ambulances available to respond to calls. Some people need to chill out with this "mild" bullshit. This is the rule of big numbers (as in, human beings are terrible at properly conceptualizing them) at work. If earlier waves of the pandemic infected 4x fewer people and was 4x more virulent but almost broke the health care system, 4x more cases leading to the same levels of hospitalization will again risk breaking an already well battered health care system.

In a country like the US that doesn't give much of a fuck about their "system" to begin with, whatever, let it buck. But we need to kill that talk here if we want our healthcare system to not suck for a decade while we rebuild it after covid leaves a smoking crater behind it.
 
Canada has 1 million pills on order, which I believe is only enough for around 50,000 folks (20 pills per course). Prolly gonna need moar. Hope we can at least get that initial order by Q1/Q2.

 
there are legs to the volume argument but we do need perspective on that. Cases are probably 10x peak and hospitalizations are going to be between 1-1.5x (and really, not unmanageable because of anything inherent in the disease, but because of our own longstanding capacity issues).
 
mbow30 said:
According to the paramedics union this is not rare / not a covid thing.

toronto.ctvnews.ca

Toronto paramedic union issues warning after no ambulances were available to respond to life-threatening call

The union chair representing Toronto paramedics says its health-care system is “on the verge of collapse,” confirming that Saturday night there were no ambulances available to respond to a life-threatening call.
toronto.ctvnews.ca toronto.ctvnews.ca
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According to Merriman, staffing was an issue prior to the pandemic. However, with the recent surge in infections, there are more personnel who are unable to come to work. Paramedics are also volunteering less for overtime due to burnout.


More people are also calling ambulances if they are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and want to go to the hospital, Merriman added.


“Our members could barely handle the calls before COVID. And now when to COVID, they can't keep up and they're exhausted,” he said. “The systems are a mess. I would say it is on the verge of collapse, at least EMS services.”
Click to expand...
 
Preston said:
Canada has 1 million pills on order, which I believe is only enough for around 50,000 folks (20 pills per course). Prolly gonna need moar. Hope we can at least get that initial order by Q1/Q2.

Click to expand...


50,000 should be alright to protect the olds.
 
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