The COVID-19 pandemic

[plam]

Thinking again about Quebec's test positivity rate, if it is the same proportion as the previous numbers I would think that the new cases are 12% of the number of tests but 30% of those cases might be by epidemiological link (household contacts + symptoms), so 9%. Still higher than it should be.

I also wonder about % of active cases and whether it's useful to look at particular regions and their rates.

The difference in the number of positive tests as compared to Ontario really is huge. There were three days in early April, a few weeks after Ontario started detailed reporting, when there were over 12% positives. Even in the first two weeks from when Ontario started reporting the number of daily tests, the positives averaged only 10.2%. And to me that means that today there is still significantly more COVID-19 in the wild in La Belle Provence.

I would really like to know the number of active cases for Quebec but I have not seen that published anywhere. Please let us know if you see that somewhere!

It's odd, because I would have thought that Ontario was under-testing (and maybe it is), but Quebec is testing more and finding more positive cases as a percentage. I think it is plausible to say that the cases are in Greater Montreal though.

This seems to have all the stats. Cases by report date. May 10, 38469 cases total, 25753 active.

https://www.inspq.qc.ca/covid-19/donnees

Quebec hospital usage looks quite flat, but I've also heard that staffing is an issue even at the current levels.

[tomh009]

The difference in the number of positive tests as compared to Ontario really is huge. There were three days in early April, a few weeks after Ontario started detailed reporting, when there were over 12% positives. Even in the first two weeks from when Ontario started reporting the number of daily tests, the positives averaged only 10.2%. And to me that means that today there is still significantly more COVID-19 in the wild in La Belle Provence.

I would really like to know the number of active cases for Quebec but I have not seen that published anywhere. Please let us know if you see that somewhere!

It's odd, because I would have thought that Ontario was under-testing (and maybe it is), but Quebec is testing more and finding more positive cases as a percentage. I think it is plausible to say that the cases are in Greater Montreal though.

This seems to have all the stats. Cases by report date. May 10, 38469 cases total, 25753 active.

https://www.inspq.qc.ca/covid-19/donnees

Quebec hospital usage looks quite flat, but I've also heard that staffing is an issue even at the current levels.

Thanks! I had looked at that page before but I had looked for some numbers and had not noticed that they are available by hovering over the chart. Discoverable, not so much.

[tomh009]

Having now extracted a bunch of data from the QC web site (should have practised my French more!) there are significant differences in the data:

• Positive tests, last 10 days: ON 2.6%, QC 18.7%
  A huge, huge difference as discussed
  
  
• % of total cases recovered: ON 74%, QC 25%
  How can this be? Is QC not tracking (or retesting) recovered patients?
  
  
• % of total cases deceased: ON 8.1%, QC 7.8%
  This makes sense, both have suffered from LTC outbreaks
  
  
• % of hospitalized cases in ICU: ON 19%, QC 10%
  Is QC ICU maxed out? Or why are there so many fewer ICU cases?
  

[plam]

Thanks! I had looked at that page before but I had looked for some numbers and had not noticed that they are available by hovering over the chart. Discoverable, not so much.

Nope. Unlike xkcd it is actually usable on touch-based systems (though you can go to m.xkcd.net).

Having now extracted a bunch of data from the QC web site (should have practised my French more!) there are significant differences in the data:

• Positive tests, last 10 days: ON 2.6%, QC 18.7%
  A huge, huge difference as discussed
  
  
• % of total cases recovered: ON 74%, QC 25%
  How can this be? Is QC not tracking (or retesting) recovered patients?
  
  
• % of total cases deceased: ON 8.1%, QC 7.8%
  This makes sense, both have suffered from LTC outbreaks
  
  
• % of hospitalized cases in ICU: ON 19%, QC 10%
  Is QC ICU maxed out? Or why are there so many fewer ICU cases?
  

19% is actually a terrible positivity rate. Recovered cases: definition varies throughout Canada; Quebec has more new cases; Quebec and Alberta have stricter definitions and Qc has that a medical professional declare recovered but they're all busy. I don't think anyone is routinely retesting recovered patients. I don't have a good sense about the ICU.

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/169...rus-canada

[taylortbb]

Having now extracted a bunch of data from the QC web site (should have practised my French more!) there are significant differences in the data:

• Positive tests, last 10 days: ON 2.6%, QC 18.7%
  A huge, huge difference as discussed

Might be a product of different criteria. In Ontario it's very difficult to get tested as a member of the general public, you have to be in a LTC facility, hospitalized, or a healthcare worker. Anyone else is just told to isolate and self monitor. If Quebec is testing the general public, or generally targeting their testing more towards groups likely to be positive, that could explain the difference.

Ontario, for example, I believe tested everyone in a LTC facility over the past week. Regardless of being symptomatic or there being an outbreak there. That's naturally going to result in a lot of negatives, and a much lower percentage positive, unless Quebec did a similar mass testing project.

I don't know what Quebec's criteria for testing are, but unless they're the same it's not a comparable number.

% of total cases recovered: ON 74%, QC 25%
How can this be? Is QC not tracking (or retesting) recovered patients?

I don't think testing recovered patients is generally done anymore. PCR tests will be positive long after someone is infectious, as they just test for fragments of viral RNA and not for viable viruses. My girlfriend was deemed recovered and sent back to work (she's a nurse) just based on symptoms, with no re-test. In Ontario as soon as one is 14 days from symptoms first appearing, and no longer has a fever, public health considers them non-infectious and ready to go out or go back to work.

% of hospitalized cases in ICU: ON 19%, QC 10%
Is QC ICU maxed out? Or why are there so many fewer ICU cases?

Different testing criteria may also be a factor here. If Quebec's criteria is different (and I have no idea if it is) they may be testing more of the mild cases that recover at home, so they'll see a lower ICU percentage of total cases. The fact that a higher percentage of tests are positives suggests to me they're doing more active identification of those likely to be positive, rather than just instructing them to self isolate.

[tomh009]

Having now extracted a bunch of data from the QC web site (should have practised my French more!) there are significant differences in the data:

• Positive tests, last 10 days: ON 2.6%, QC 18.7%
  A huge, huge difference as discussed
  

Might be a product of different criteria. In Ontario it's very difficult to get tested as a member of the general public, you have to be in a LTC facility, hospitalized, or a healthcare worker. Anyone else is just told to isolate and self monitor. If Quebec is testing the general public, or generally targeting their testing more towards groups likely to be positive, that could explain the difference.

Ontario, for example, I believe tested everyone in a LTC facility over the past week. Regardless of being symptomatic or there being an outbreak there. That's naturally going to result in a lot of negatives, and a much lower percentage positive, unless Quebec did a similar mass testing project.

I don't know what Quebec's criteria for testing are, but unless they're the same it's not a comparable number.

Everybody's testing criteria (provinces, countries etc) are different but everyone is basically trying to test the highest-risk groups first, so to some extent they are somewhat comparable. The more you test (per capita) the lower your positive rate should go as you will be testing more of the low-risk groups. So, if you are testing more per capita (ie more low-risk groups in the mix) your rate should not be 8x that of the province that is testing less.

[panamaniac]

Having now extracted a bunch of data from the QC web site (should have practised my French more!) there are significant differences in the data:

• Positive tests, last 10 days: ON 2.6%, QC 18.7%
  A huge, huge difference as discussed
  
  
• % of total cases recovered: ON 74%, QC 25%
  How can this be? Is QC not tracking (or retesting) recovered patients?
  
  
• % of total cases deceased: ON 8.1%, QC 7.8%
  This makes sense, both have suffered from LTC outbreaks
  
  
• % of hospitalized cases in ICU: ON 19%, QC 10%
  Is QC ICU maxed out? Or why are there so many fewer ICU cases?
  

Quebec's ICU capacity was well below that of Ontario (pre-covid), iirc.  I would have thought that their ICUs, especially on the Island, have been under considerable stress.

[tomh009]

Ontario saw a new-case count of 361, another uptick after two very low days, but still only a 1.8% increase on the total and only 9.5% of active cases. 260 recovered and 56 dead for a net increase of 45 active cases. There are now 3,791 active cases, given 15,391 recoveries and 1,725 deaths.

459,921 tests to date with 11,957 for the day, with the tail end of the weekend in the data. 3.0% of the daily tests were positive. 1025 cases currently hospitalized (-2) and 192 in the ICU (-2). ICU counts are now down about 25% from their peak a month ago, in spite of a similar number of active cases.

Quebec added 744 cases today, a tick less than yesterday, for another 2.0% increase. They reported 295,743 people tested to date, about 7,000 in the last 24h, so roughly 10% of the tests were positive. 186 cases currently in ICU (-7).

I will no longer post historical Quebec data since it's all available here:
https://www.inspq.qc.ca/covid-19/donnees

[tomh009]

Might be a product of different criteria. In Ontario it's very difficult to get tested as a member of the general public, you have to be in a LTC facility, hospitalized, or a healthcare worker. Anyone else is just told to isolate and self monitor. If Quebec is testing the general public, or generally targeting their testing more towards groups likely to be positive, that could explain the difference.

Ontario, for example, I believe tested everyone in a LTC facility over the past week. Regardless of being symptomatic or there being an outbreak there. That's naturally going to result in a lot of negatives, and a much lower percentage positive, unless Quebec did a similar mass testing project.

I don't know what Quebec's criteria for testing are, but unless they're the same it's not a comparable number.

Everybody's testing criteria (provinces, countries etc) are different but everyone is basically trying to test the highest-risk groups first, so to some extent they are somewhat comparable. The more you test (per capita) the lower your positive rate should go as you will be testing more of the low-risk groups. So, if you are testing more per capita (ie more low-risk groups in the mix) your rate should not be 8x that of the province that is testing less.

I'll add another note to this: 22 of 50 US (plus DC) had test positivity rates over 10%, many of them well over 15%, as of last Wednesday.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot...tate-doing

Only seven states (Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming) were below Ontario's 2.6% mark. The US as a whole is around 6.6%.
https://covidtracking.com/data/us-daily

[tomh009]

Waterloo Region reported nine new cases today, a 0.9% increase on the total and 2.7% of active cases; for the past seven days I am guesstimating those numbers as 1.5% of total and 3.5% active cases, not substantially different from the Ontario numbers. There are now 330 active cases, given 528 recoveries and 105 deaths.

Ontario new-case count back down to 329 today, a 1.6% increase on the total and 9.1% of active cases. 454 recovered and 40 dead for a net decrease of 165 active cases, a total drop of 445 (11%) for the past seven days. There are now 3,626 active cases, given 15,845 recoveries and 1,765 deaths.

475,058 tests to date with 15,137 for the day. 2.2% of the daily tests were positive, and 2.3% over the past seven days. 1018 cases currently hospitalized (-7) and 189 in the ICU (-3).

Quebec reported 756 cases today, for yet another 2.0% increase on total cases (now 38,469). They reported 295,743 people tested to date, about 6,700 in the last 24h, with 11.2% of the tests positive. 186 cases currently in ICU (+0).

[bgb_ca]

Didn't really know where else to put this, but this is a video from the cockpit of one of the snowbirds flying over waterloo region on Sunday as part of their tour.

https://www.kitchenertoday.com/coronavir...eo-2347487

[embe]

Very inspirational, and it goes a long way.  

[KevinL]

Very interesting flight path! Obviously they made big loops over GRH and St. Mary's, but they did one over Stanley Park too?

[danbrotherston]

Very interesting flight path! Obviously they made big loops over GRH and St. Mary's, but they did one over Stanley Park too?

Freeport Hospital?

[KevinL]

No, they turned too early. Maybe Sunnyside Home?