Not great news I’m seeing about Omicron, with the more data we’re seeing the more it’s looking like the mild outcomes observed in SA were more a cohort effect of it predominating in a young and healthy population. Apparently there are now 10 cases of it that have resulted in hospitalization in the UK, including in cases as young as 18 and in mostly fully vaccinated (though not boosted…is that fully vaccinated?), with 1 death.
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I had booked my booster but it was somewhere at the end of the year. I went to a walk in centre and stood in the cold and rain (with my wife (who also got the jab) and two young kids - was no picnic) but after about 3 hours, we got it done. Feels like an achievement.
What’s frustrating is that the centre opened at 1030 (when we arrived) and the queue was already more than150-200 meters. The demand for uptake is there and there were plenty of people that turned up just a few minutes after us that couldn’t get the jab. Furthermore, there was only one person jabbing!
Hopefully more easily accessible centres open soon.
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The mathematical element is the composition of that denominator. South African cases have a significant second-infection population, likely quite a bit larger than can be empirically established, a reasonable tranche of vaccination breakthrough cases, and in a young population. If you control for those, it starts looking not much milder at all.
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I wonder how that SA doctor feels at moment?
We’ve got our 7yo son booked for his first shot before Christmas. I’ll be getting a booster hopefully before that time as well. looks like this bullshit isn’t going away anytime soon.
my region “Fraser Health Authority” which includes the Greater Vancouver area is averaging about 80-100 new cases a day. has been on a plateau for some time here locally. Went to the USA last Saturday for the second time in two weeks as the border has re-opened to us. Was great to get down to our little property and clean up over 18months of stagnation there.
our vaccination rates as a country:
70.85% of what? Are they vaxxing polar bears now?
Comorbidities?
Are you in UK? Sevenoaks?
It is actually disappointing that Nunavut is not higher, only just under 40k inhabitants, but incredibly vulnerable as so many are scattered in small communities with crowded winter living conditions. A hospitalization case up North will cost at least 20x the cost in the south, and ICU capacity is tiny. I dread what happens when Omicron hits that population.
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Kingston has me really worried - Ottawa is already seeing hospital patients transferred, and testing capacity is overwhelmed. They are essentially flying blind. Friend’s son at Queen’s says it is ripping through the university community, he is headed home today, and is going to get tested in Ottawa before he actually comes home, spending the night in a quarantine hotel by the airport.
Three weeks ago, I was thinking of the under 12 vaccinations as the beginning of the end. Now I don’t see a way to avoid a lockdown or similar measures by the end of the month.
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How healthy? Isn’t 15% of their population HIV+?
well then they need to shut the airlines down and stop people from travelling with it. The “need” for public transportation over distance is the ultimate driving force behind the spread of this virus.
If they want it to stop, it will. but really, it’s all just saving face. the economy needs to roll on and with 10-15% of the population refusing to get vaccinated this pandemic is going to carry on for fucking YEARS more.
In this case, he is actually just driving from Kingston to Ottawa, but wants to get out of student housing - staying in the quarantine hotel at the airport while he gets his test results after arriving from Ottawa, because it will be another week right now in Kingston.
I actually disagree that it will roll on for years now. This variant is so contagious and so fast it is going to burn out. By the end of February, there will be very few people left who have not been exposed to it, vaccinated or unvaccinated. We will all have antibodies, it is just a question of what the next 12 weeks look like, what price we are going to pay.
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the “travel” wasn’t necessarily directed at your son but at non-essential travel in general.
am very glad we got our Mx trip in before this variant hit. we aren’t going anywhere for a while now.
Agree about travel in general. I am long since exasperated with the stories about snowbirds complaining about requirements, let alone the whining from people coming from South Africa in the week of Omicron discovery.
Note, not my son, son of a guy I play beer league with. One game left in the Fall season, and I am not sure that I am going to play next weekend. Things are moving far, far too quickly all of a sudden. Our only scheduled overnight outing is mid-February, skiing in Quebec, even wondering about that now.
our footy has wrapped up for the year until mid-Jan. Last two games were cold and wet and back-to-back losses. that hasn’t happened in a few years. shit way to go into the holidays, we’ll see if we end up playing again this season.
I’m talking specifically about the population in whom they were identifying Omicron, which was mostly a young population with low risk of negative outcomes to other strains.
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I dont know you can shut down travel as I think there isn’t the will to either do that, or deal with the commercial consequences of it. However, after having recently just dont domestic travel, and into a city with supposedly strict covid regulations, the restrictions put in place around protecting appear to be largely security theatre, or possibly some sort of attempt to signal virtue around the rule rather than its application or importance.
Of all the situations I was in, on boarding and deboarding the plane are the highest risk in terms of crowding and lack of airflow, yet I’d say that mask compliance was maybe at only 70% of so among the people I could observe. Likewise, they have strict rules on showing proof of vaccination or negative tests before entering a public place, which then allows a maskless environment. In 4 nights there, eating out every night and doing some late night bar hopping one night, I was IDed once.
it’s totally bullshit. here’s a great example, from what happened to us over 15 days in MX.
We were cramped into a crowded security line like Cattle at Cancun airport entering the country, a 90min mixing pot of arrivals from any and all countries landing at that airport. Zero segregation amongst thousands of fresh arrivals from all over the world.
at the resort, we were requested to wear masks when in public areas like bars or restaurants or at the spa (yes, nothing better than a massage in the tropics) However of course you didn’t need the mask at your table. all staff wear masks all day long. we did our PCR test 2 days before returning to Canada, we had the results the next day as all-negative (we were diligent with masks).
upon arrival to YVR on a completely-full plane, we were through the airport security within 30min and we handed a piece of paper with “instructions” but the handout was completely vague when it came to our unvaccinated 6yo son. We were allowed to leave without testing, basically to quarantine at home and keep him out of school and social events for 14 days
We were cautious and called the information line on the handout as something didn’t seem right. We found out 4 days later we were to be given a test for him upon arrival at the airport and another one to be done at day 8 of quarantine. So they sent us one by mail. But the test they sent us was for a completely different province 900KM away which we didn’t know at the time. we did the test with a virtual call with them, and I drove it to Purolator courier to be flown to their lab in Calgary AB (we’re in Vancouver, BC). but they didn’t fly it there, it was shipped ground and took 4 days to get there because of the flooding here and all the roads were closed. We got his negative test result at day 12 of quarantine.
it’s such a fucking joke…
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I was planning on taking non-essential travel to Australia for Christmas with my family. Booked in November just after Tasmania announced its plan to roll back of restrictions - a state that has had its borders closed for practically 18 months. Initially I would have been able to travel there with nothing more than a pre-departure test to take.
Then Omicron hit. At first there was 72 hr quarantine on arrival, then 7 days, now 14 days for all international travellers. It changed from 72hrs to 7 days 48 hours before I was due to fly. And for my planned 3 week holiday that was the point I called quits on the idea.
I’m not angry or unhappy about it and I had chatted to my wife prior to organising how the trip won’t happen unless it happens. I guess I was naturally expecting things to turn to shit. Tasmania has done what it needs to do though to protect what is effectively a very vulnerable population. I know the rules aren’t in place to punish me but to limit Tasmania’s risk.
Likewise I don’t feel guilty about planning the trip during a pandemic (maybe I’m a bit of a hypocrite given earlier discussions about traveling last year). I had planned every precaution with PPE etc to ensure I was as safe to others and as safe from others as possible had the trip gone ahead. Including voluntary self-isolating, daily testing, and keeping the kid’s back from school prior to the flight to limit the possibility of me bringing an infection onto the flights.
It’s absolutely not too suggest international flying is a great idea right now or particularly COVID safe, but I imagine, with how lax everyone is right now, there are a million far higher domestic risks for contracting COVID.
Granted there is a difference between spreading COVID from one high risk area to another high risk area compared to spreading high risk to COVID free of the opposite end of the world as would have been the case with me flying to Tas. So I can see how my trip would negatively affect that.
In the end the risk-reward graph wasn’t looking too hot so I pulled the pin. If I got infected on the flight I would likely be moved to paid hotel quarantine which would have been a horrible trip and an expensive one. 24 hours before my flight, after I had cancelled my flight I actually was denied entry by the Tasmanian state controller anyway so regardless of what I wanted I wasn’t going to travel.
I am really happy how flexible the airlines, testing companies and hotels have been with either refunding or exchanging tickets. I guess this was a requirement for most people who would be scared off from travelling with a looming COVID risk.
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