The COVID-19 pandemic

[tomh009]

MONDAY 2021-02-01

Waterloo Region reported 41 new cases today (7.2% of the active cases) and one less for yesterday for a total of 58; 439 new cases for the week (-40), averaging 9.7% of active cases. 534 active cases, -218 in the last seven days.

Next testing report on Tuesday.

Ontario reported 1,969 new cases today (NOTE: there are additional catch-up cases for Toronto for both yesterday and today, likely totalking over 500) with a seven-day average of 1,889 (+2). 2,132 recoveries and 36 deaths translated to a drop of 199 active cases and a new total of 19,017. -4,603 active cases for the week and 378 deaths (54 per day). 30,359 tests for a positivity rate of 6.49% (actually somewhat lower due to the Toronto data catch-up being included in the totals). The positivity rate is averaging 4.04% for the past seven days, compared to 4.59% for the preceding seven.

354 patients in ICU (-2 today, -43 for the week).

• 886 cases in Toronto: 30.2 per 100K
  
• 330 cases in Peel: 23.9 per 100K
  
• 72 cases in Windsor-Essex: 18.5 per 100K
  
• 15 cases in Chatham-Kent: 14.2 per 100K
  
• 90 cases in Durham: 13.9 per 100K
  
• 61 cases in Niagara: 13.6 per 100K
  
• 36 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 13.2 per 100K
  
• 47 cases in Middlesex-London: 11.6 per 100K
  
• 128 cases in York: 11.5 per 100K
  
• 55 cases in Halton: 10.0 per 100K
  
• 60 cases in Waterloo: 9.7 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 15 cases in Southwestern Ontario: 7.5 per 100K
  
• 14 cases in Eastern Ontario: 6.9 per 100K
  
• 9 cases in Lambton: 6.9 per 100K
  
• 39 cases in Hamilton: 6.7 per 100K
  
• 36 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 6.7 per 100K
  
• 5 cases in Huron Perth: 5.1 per 100K
  
• 7 cases in Thunder Bay: 4.7 per 100K
  
• 5 cases in Brant: 3.7 per 100K
  

[tomh009]

So apparently there is a Made in Canada solution. However, the business is having a hard time getting the attention of the government.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7608677/coron...rapeutics/

The Providence Therapeutics story makes great headlines, but your anti-Calgary conspiracy theories are frankly pure bullshit.

Provide Therapeutics is a tiny startup, as in ~30 employees tiny. Could they have made a Covid-19 vaccine? Maybe, they do have some experience with mRNA tech, but their ability to scale manufacturing is really questionable. (...)

No amount of money would make a Providence Therapeutics vaccine ready for mass distribution in 2021. They're just starting phase 1 trials now, and building a new mRNA manufacturing facility isn't exactly easy. I definitely think we should invest in domestic mRNA vaccine capability, and maybe Providence Therapeutics is a good way to do so, but that's a "next pandemic" sort of issue.

Correct. Running through phase 1, 2 and 3 trials will take 6-9 months minimum, even at the current accelerated pace, and then the approval process. Moderna and BioNTech phase 3 trials went very quickly because they were able to recruit tens of thousands of people (can Providence?) and because there have been huge numbers of new cases in the US. This may no longer be the case by the time Providence gets to phase 3, and that will mean having to run the trials for a longer time.

Hopefully they are successful and build domestic mRNA capability for us. But they would not have been able to do anything to resolve our current vaccine shortfall.

[danbrotherston]

Why is it that the media is unable to provide analysis and coverage of provincial numbers the way that many independent folks, like Tomh009 are doing.

I find their reporting utterly useless. Anyone have any ideas?

[tomh009]

10-day averages for key regions in Ontario, plus the weekly trend as of 2021-02-02 (posting this every two days).

Region	Cases today	per 100K	10-day average	per 100K	Weekly trend
Peel	334	24.2	341	24.6	-10%
Toronto	(negative)	(negative)	626	21.4	-38%
Niagara	65	14.5	86	19.2	-29%
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph	17	6.3	43	16.0	-53%
Chatham-Kent	9	8.5	16	15.3	-8%
York	124	11.2	168	15.2	-22%
Windsor-Essex	35	9.0	56	14.4	-33%
Hamilton	52	9.0	67	11.6	-34%
Durham	44	6.8	68	10.5	-3%
Thunder Bay	13	8.7	15	10.2	-2%
Waterloo	27	4.4	62	10.1	-27%
Halton	44	8.0	55	10.0	-21%
Huron Perth	2	2.0	10	9.7	-62%
Middlesex-London	14	3.5	36	8.8	-38%
Eastern Ontario	4	2.0	18	8.6	-21%
Simcoe-Muskoka	42	7.8	44	8.2	+6%
Southwestern Ontario	12	6.0	15	7.4	-45%
Lambton	3	2.3	9	7.2	-45%
Brant	1	.7	8	5.8	-71%
Ottawa	14	1.4	54	5.4	-53%
Ontario total					-31%

The numbers are skewed today due to the restructuring of the data feeds. Toronto reported a negative total today due to downward adjustments -- after two days of upward adjustments -- and there is really no way to reconcile those with the data provided by the government reporting. The seven-day averages will smooth this out, but it will take a few days, or maybe even a week, to really see where we are.

[danbrotherston]

10-day averages for key regions in Ontario, plus the weekly trend as of 2021-02-02 (posting this every two days).

Region	Cases today	per 100K	10-day average	per 100K	Weekly trend
Peel	334	24.2	341	24.6	-10%
Toronto	(negative)	(negative)	626	21.4	-38%
Niagara	65	14.5	86	19.2	-29%
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph	17	6.3	43	16.0	-53%
Chatham-Kent	9	8.5	16	15.3	-8%
York	124	11.2	168	15.2	-22%
Windsor-Essex	35	9.0	56	14.4	-33%
Hamilton	52	9.0	67	11.6	-34%
Durham	44	6.8	68	10.5	-3%
Thunder Bay	13	8.7	15	10.2	-2%
Waterloo	27	4.4	62	10.1	-27%
Halton	44	8.0	55	10.0	-21%
Huron Perth	2	2.0	10	9.7	-62%
Middlesex-London	14	3.5	36	8.8	-38%
Eastern Ontario	4	2.0	18	8.6	-21%
Simcoe-Muskoka	42	7.8	44	8.2	+6%
Southwestern Ontario	12	6.0	15	7.4	-45%
Lambton	3	2.3	9	7.2	-45%
Brant	1	.7	8	5.8	-71%
Ottawa	14	1.4	54	5.4	-53%
Ontario total					-31%

The numbers are skewed today due to the restructuring of the data feeds. Toronto reported a negative total today due to downward adjustments -- after two days of upward adjustments -- and there is really no way to reconcile those with the data provided by the government reporting. The seven-day averages will smooth this out, but it will take a few days, or maybe even a week, to really see where we are.

I mean, I already ranted about the media, but the government also not making a good showing here.

[tomh009]

I mean, I already ranted about the media, but the government also not making a good showing here.

I understand the changes to the systems, and they are for the better. But given the size of the adjustments, the provincial comments are insufficient.

I did manage to find the daily totals on Toronto's site (the main dashboard doesn't have them and the Open Data lags a week behind, urgh) and these look much more reasonable, about 600 cases per day total (recently).

   

[tomh009]

OK, so I tried to reconcile with the Toronto data. Not really clear what the real answer is. And, based on this notice on the Toronto web site, it looks like the move is not going particularly smoothly, and we might not get Toronto data until next week ...

   

[tomh009]

TUESDAY 2021-02-02

Waterloo Region reported only 21 (!) new cases today (3.9% of the active cases) and five more for yesterday for a total of 46; 399 new cases for the week (-40), averaging 9.1% of active cases. 489 active cases, -210 in the last seven days.

An average of 1,831 tests over the past seven days for a positivity rate of 3.11%. Much better -- down from 4.64% last week and 6.08% two weeks ago.

Ontario reported only 745 new cases today but, but, but .. there were big downward corrections Toronto today, so the actual number of new cases is really impossible to determine. My personal guesstimate is that it is somewhere around 1,200. But please watch the weekly numbers for now rather than the daily ones! As for now, we have a seven-day average of 1,746 (-143). 2,387 recoveries and 14 deaths translated to a drop of 1,656 active cases and a new total of 17,361. -5,675 active cases for the week and 3298 deaths (47 per day). 28,552 tests for a positivity rate of 2.61% (surely understated due to the Toronto corrections). The positivity rate is averaging 3.61% for the past seven days, compared to 4.57% for the preceding seven.

341 patients in ICU (-13 today, -42 for the week). 1,192 total hospital beds in use, -274 for the week.

• 334 cases in Peel: 24.2 per 100K
  
• 65 cases in Niagara: 14.5 per 100K
  
• 124 cases in York: 11.2 per 100K
  
• 35 cases in Windsor-Essex: 9.0 per 100K
  
• 52 cases in Hamilton: 9.0 per 100K
  
• 13 cases in Thunder Bay: 8.7 per 100K
  
• 9 cases in Chatham-Kent: 8.5 per 100K
  
• 44 cases in Halton: 8.0 per 100K
  
• 42 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 7.8 per 100K
  
• 44 cases in Durham: 6.8 per 100K
  
• 17 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 6.3 per 100K
  
• 12 cases in Southwestern Ontario: 6.0 per 100K
  
• 27 cases in Waterloo: 4.4 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 14 cases in Middlesex-London: 3.5 per 100K
  
• 4 cases in Leeds, Grenville & Lanark: 2.4 per 100K
  
• 3 cases in Lambton: 2.3 per 100K
  
• 2 cases in Huron Perth: 2.0 per 100K
  
• 4 cases in Eastern Ontario: 2.0 per 100K
  

(Toronto not listed.)

[jeffster]

Give your heads a shake guys. Our governments, both Ford and Trudeau, have let us down. So many things that have gone wrong that could have, and should have, gone better. Ford shutting down all small businesses while keeping Costco and Walmart open is a shitty answer. As for Trudeau, travel restrictions were never really in place, when they should have. Nothing that the provinces could do, with Toronto taking the brunt of infected passengers. Dealing with China vaccine maker rather than companies outside China was stupid beyond belief. We should have been setting up infrastructure right away to build our own, or the rights to another vaccine. And I know some call BS for me saying that Trudeau is uninterested in our current vaccine progress in Calgary, because, it's Calgary. If they could have got emergency permission to expand the trial, we might have had something in a few short months. Follow the money. There is none there for Trudeau, Family and Friends. This is why he approved for a facility to be built, guess where, Quebec, expected, by who? SNC? Yes. The same business involved in other scandals. Follow the money. We're being screw over so bad, yet we have so many apologists for what is going on. Just, follow the money. WE (pardon the pun) did with WE. It's the same thing here.

It does suck that we have .. deadbeats .. for the 3 other parties. But this crap needs to change.

/rant

I've said my part, and I'll leave it at that.

[ijmorlan]

There is none there for Trudeau, Family and Friends.

There is no evidence that Trudeau and family are profitting from their political decisions (or at least, nobody that I can recall has ever deigned to share it).

Honestly, you sound like the lunatics in the National Post comments boards. I’m not a huge Trudeau fan, and can point to several specific things he’s done which are really dumb, but this whole meme that he is a worse grifter than the previous president is ridiculous.

And nothing will change until the electorate starts thinking clearly — just reflexively denigrating whichever party one doesn’t like isn’t how one effects meaningful change.

[tomh009]

Dealing with China vaccine maker rather than companies outside China was stupid beyond belief. We should have been setting up infrastructure right away to build our own, or the rights to another vaccine.

And I know some call BS for me saying that Trudeau is uninterested in our current vaccine progress in Calgary, because, it's Calgary. If they could have got emergency permission to expand the trial, we might have had something in a few short months.

The feds tried to negotiate manufacturing rights with other pharma companies but those companies were not willing to license, until Novavax did so recently. And licensing from BioNTech or Moderna wouldn't have worked since there is no mRNA vaccine manufacturing infrastructure in Canada -- the NRC facility will only be able to make conventional vaccines.

The Novavax licensed manufacturing will not help with the current vaccine demand, but if the COVID mutations continue, as they likely will, we will surely need new vaccines by next year. And, at that point, having domestic manufacturing capacity will be a big help, even if it's only for a few million doses per month.

As for Providence (in Calgary), you simply cannot run through phase 1, 2 and 3 trials in a few months. There are no emergency permissions required, but the trials take time. The biggest pharma companies in the world, with all their funding, staff and technology, took nearly a year to get through those three sets of trials. (Pre-COVID, the trials would have taken many years.) And they have no manufacturing facility for mRNA vaccines -- and, as noted above, neither does anyone else in Canada.

[Rainrider22]

Give your heads a shake guys. Our governments, both Ford and Trudeau, have let us down. So many things that have gone wrong that could have, and should have, gone better. Ford shutting down all small businesses while keeping Costco and Walmart open is a shitty answer. As for Trudeau, travel restrictions were never really in place, when they should have. Nothing that the provinces could do, with Toronto taking the brunt of infected passengers. Dealing with China vaccine maker rather than companies outside China was stupid beyond belief. We should have been setting up infrastructure right away to build our own, or the rights to another vaccine. And I know some call BS for me saying that Trudeau is uninterested in our current vaccine progress in Calgary, because, it's Calgary. If they could have got emergency permission to expand the trial, we might have had something in a few short months. Follow the money. There is none there for Trudeau, Family and Friends. This is why he approved for a facility to be built, guess where, Quebec, expected, by who? SNC? Yes. The same business involved in other scandals. Follow the money. We're being screw over so bad, yet we have so many apologists for what is going on. Just, follow the money. WE (pardon the pun) did with WE. It's the same thing here.

It does suck that we have .. deadbeats .. for the 3 other parties. But this crap needs to change.

/rant

I've said my part, and I'll leave it at that.

You took the words right out of my mouth... Oh and SNC Lavalin isn't suppose to take on any new government contracts as part of their punishment for bribery.  Guesses what though, they have been awarded multiple contracts as well as 150 million dollar contract in April 2020 to deliver mobile health units.   

https://nationalpost.com/news/snc-lavali...ontroversy

[Rainrider22]

There is none there for Trudeau, Family and Friends.

There is no evidence that Trudeau and family are profitting from their political decisions (or at least, nobody that I can recall has ever deigned to share it).

Honestly, you sound like the lunatics in the National Post comments boards. I’m not a huge Trudeau fan, and can point to several specific things he’s done which are really dumb, but this whole meme that he is a worse grifter than the previous president is ridiculous.

And nothing will change until the electorate starts thinking clearly — just reflexively denigrating whichever party one doesn’t like isn’t how one effects meaningful change.

So if someone doesn't align with your thinking or point of view they are a lunatic ?  Speaks volumes....

[tomh009]

You took the words right out of my mouth... Oh and SNC Lavalin isn't suppose to take on any new government contracts as part of their punishment for bribery.  Guesses what though, they have been awarded multiple contracts as well as 150 million dollar contract in April 2020 to deliver mobile health units.   

https://nationalpost.com/news/snc-lavali...ontroversy

The public prosecution service decided against a remediation agreement (which might have limited the company's right to bid on government contracts) and decided to pursue a criminal conviction instead.
https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/trans/pq-qp/qp36-eng.html

As a result, at this time the company is not prevented from bidding on government contracts.

I do think it's safe to assume that the company would have preferred a remediation agreement to a criminal trial, but the prosecutors decided against offering that option.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with the pandemic at this point.

[Rainrider22]

Thanks for letting me know that. However, there is still something called poor optics....and poor decision making, and a lack of moral compass....