The COVID-19 pandemic

[plam]

You are arguing that eliminating all cases may be too expensive, and that might be the case right now, but other places have achieved and it is beneficial.

Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan did achieve near-zero cases for quite some time ... but we have now seen that it was not sustainable, even with very tightly controlled borders. Or are there other countries that I am missing?

NZ would beg to differ. Still rocking the 0% positivity rate. I wrote about my experience getting a COVID test a week ago though: https://patricklam.ca/post/20210625-self-isolation/

The Atlantic provinces are also close to zero again.

I don't know much about what's going on in Australia, but I did chat with a colleague in Taiwan yesterday. They're in a light lockdown (no non essential retail) and case numbers are going down again. Every country has its own issues and Taiwan's is that China is making it hard for them to get vaccines.

Having said that, the question that's going around here in NZ in the media is "what's next", prompted by a pretty vague plan from Australia about re-opening. It's not clear yet and certainly isn't going to happen until everyone who wants a vaccine has one. I also think we're seeing that almost all the spread in North America and the UK is among unvaccinated people; in the UK that skews young as well, but Canada has actually been doing pretty well with that.

I think it'll probably have to be that most people are vaccinated and there are still outbreaks mostly among the unvaccinated. This really sucks for those who are immunocompromised for instance. Like having a severe peanut allergy maybe. It wouldn't be bad to have more masking and better ventilation in general.

I was looking around and Laos's numbers are surprisingly low, even though Cambodia's are not.

Oh, about the flu: it's only acceptable because the vaccines are not that effective. I wouldn't be surprised to see much less flu in our future.

[tomh009]

10-day averages for key regions in Ontario, plus the weekly trend as of 2021-07-03 (posting this every Saturday).

Region	Cases today	per 100K	10-day average	per 100K	Weekly trend
Waterloo	47	7.6	52	8.5	-26%
Lambton	3	2.3	4	3.0	-87%
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph	9	3.3	7	2.5	-16%
Hamilton	8	1.4	13	2.3	-53%
Niagara	20	4.5	10	2.1	+30%
Huron Perth	2	2.0	2	1.8	+37%
Windsor-Essex	11	2.8	7	1.7	-27%
Halton	22	4.0	9	1.6	+215%
Peel	12	.9	22	1.6	-51%
Durham	6	.9	10	1.5	-52%
Middlesex-London	2	.5	6	1.4	+89%
Toronto	20	.7	36	1.2	-42%
Southwestern Ontario	1	.5	2	1.2	-52%
Brant		.0	2	1.1	-73%
Northwestern		.0	1	1.0	-44%
Ontario total					-28%

[jeffster]

Current 7-day Covid-19 cases per 100k

• Grey Bruce Health Unit 107.1
• Porcupine Health Unit 62.3
• Region of Waterloo Public Health and Emergency Services 60.1
• North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit 23.9
• Niagara Region Public Health 14.6
• Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health 13.5
• City of Hamilton Public Health Services 12.5
• Halton Region Public Health 11.5
• Peterborough Public Health 10.8
• Toronto Public Health 9.9

• TOTAL ONTARIO 11.3

I've decided to add colour to these post to correspond to the old system: Red(or grey)=Lockdown, Orange=Restrict, Yellow=Protect, Green=Prevent.

[tomh009]

SATURDAY 2021-07-03

Waterloo Region reported 49 new cases for today (12.1% of the active cases) and zero more for yesterday for 35; 355 new cases for the week (-1 from yesterday, -20 from last week), averaging 11.1% of active cases. 387 active cases, -91 in the last seven days.

Next testing report on Tuesday.

Next vaccination report on Monday.

Ontario reported 209 new cases today with a seven-day average of 226 (-20). 262 recoveries and nine deaths translated to a decrease of 62 active cases and a new total of 2,113. -616 active cases for the week and 91 deaths (13 per day). 17,080 tests with a positivity rate of 1.22%. The positivity rate is averaging 1.09% for the past seven days, compared to 1.29% for the preceding seven. 183 patients in ICU (-7 today, -44 for the week).

New case variants reported today (these are substantially delayed so they do not match the new case numbers):

• Alpha (B.1.1.7): 34
  
• Beta (B.1.351): 0
  
• Delta (B.1.617): 32
  
• Gamma (P.1): 3
  

210,504 doses of vaccine administered (on Canada Day), with a seven-day average at 220,076 (previous week was 208,224). 67.84% of total provincial population vaccinated (+0.13% from yesterday, +1.03% from 7 days ago), 36.53% fully vaccinated (+1.30% from yesterday, +9.44% from 7 days ago).

• 47 cases in Waterloo: 7.6 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 20 cases in Niagara: 4.5 per 100K
  
• 22 cases in Halton: 4.0 per 100K
  
• 9 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 3.3 per 100K
  
• 11 cases in Windsor-Essex: 2.8 per 100K
  
• 3 cases in Lambton: 2.3 per 100K
  
• 2 cases in Huron Perth: 2.0 per 100K
  
• 8 cases in Hamilton: 1.4 per 100K
  
• 6 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 1.1 per 100K
  
• 11 cases in Ottawa: 1.1 per 100K
  

[jamincan]

The web site didn't show the Thursday number separately so I assigned half to each day. Not a big difference in the end.

I liked the old version of the Ontario web site better, it was much quicker to find the numbers. And they would show the past two days separately in a case like this. Ah well, I supposed we can't stop progress!

That's rather interesting as it shows both days separately for me, which is the reason I said the data was incorrect, so would it be safe to assume that the provincal website is only different for some people, so something like a rolling update?

A/B testing perhaps?

[tomh009]

The provincial site I use (now that they got rid of the old page) is this:
https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data

If they had both days' recovery numbers there yesterday, they sure did not make them easy to find. In general, the new site is filled with charts and requires far more scrolling and clicking in order to access numbers that were front and centre in the older site.

[jeffster]

The Red Cross and the Army arrived at Saugeen First Nation today. Mass testing and vaccinations happening. This didn't make the news, likely because it's not Toronto. Though some suggested it's because it was on the reserve. Saugeen First Nation is on a strict lockdown.

https://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/news/l...rst-nation

Like Porcupine, the higher covid-19 numbers are a result of reserves being overlooked by the PHU's for vaccinations. At least in this case the Red Cross and army got involved.

I am sure we're in the pipeline at some point for a mass vaccination program -- my money is on a week or two (though the region did suggest that it's rolling something out that might be mind blowing in the coming days).

[panamaniac]

I’m surprised. I thought that First Nations had been vaccinated months ago.

[jeffster]

I’m surprised.  I thought that First Nations had been vaccinated months ago.

Me too. I thought they were first priority. Someone dropped the ball though. Despite that PHU's high covid-19 numbers, they are in stage 2, except for the Saugeen reserve. Same problem in Porcupine.

Not saying we have a racial problem here (as we all know we do), but it does seem that this was a racial problem.

At some point, we need to hold PHU's responsible for any screw-ups. I am sure when this is over, there will be a lot of revealing of things we don't want to hear.

[ZEBuilder]

The provincial site I use (now that they got rid of the old page) is this:
https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data

If they had both days' recovery numbers there yesterday, they sure did not make them easy to find. In general, the new site is filled with charts and requires far more scrolling and clicking in order to access numbers that were front and centre in the older site.

That's why it was different as we were using different websites to look at the data, the one I used to look at the data is: https://www.ontario.ca/page/how-ontario-...g-covid-19

On the website I have linked it's organized rather nicely as they have tables sorted by testing, variants, hospitalizations, and just general info, but in the end the information is the same even though it's presented differently so it doesn't really matter, I just pointed it out because when I looked at it it was slightly different then what I saw so I thought it may have been a mistake.

[ijmorlan]

Not saying we have a racial problem here (as we all know we do), but it does seem that this was a racial problem.

I don’t know what to think. If it really is true that we attempted to prioritize First Nations communities, then it makes no sense to make an accusation of anti-Indigenous bias. But on the other hand, how can we skip a few of them? It’s not that hard to get a list of all of them is it?

[tomh009]

I’m surprised.  I thought that First Nations had been vaccinated months ago.

Many had been. But different provinces and health units do things differently. And I don't really know how the regional health units operate on reserves, either.

[tomh009]

That's why it was different as we were using different websites to look at the data, the one I used to look at the data is: https://www.ontario.ca/page/how-ontario-...g-covid-19

On the website I have linked it's organized rather nicely as they have tables sorted by testing, variants, hospitalizations, and just general info, but in the end the information is the same even though it's presented differently so it doesn't really matter, I just pointed it out because when I looked at it it was slightly different then what I saw so I thought it may have been a mistake.

Thanks ... that page is similar to what I was using before (which URL disappeared, I think). The other page has more pretty graphics but this one is definitely quicker to use.

[tomh009]

Ontario now has about 3.5M doses in inventory, enough for about two weeks, and more coming, so it's time to put the pedal to the metal for the vaccinations. We should be able to deliver both first and second shots at an accelerated clip now, and prevent the Delta spread from getting out of hand.

Canada is at about 10M now, so the situation is the same for the other provinces. BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are really arriving at a furious rate now.

[jeffster]

Current 7-day Covid-19 cases per 100k

• Grey Bruce Health Unit 99.5
• Region of Waterloo Public Health and Emergency Services 57.2
• Porcupine Health Unit 50.3
• North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit 18.5
• Niagara Region Public Health 13.8
• City of Hamilton Public Health Services 12.5
• Halton Region Public Health 12.3
• Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health 12.2
• Peterborough Public Health 11.5
• Huron Perth Public Health 11.4

• TOTAL ONTARIO 10.8

Grey Bruce should start coming down in the coming days. Region of Waterloo will likely trend back above the 60's over the next few days.

Something to keep in mind as numbers in the rest of Ontario remain very low, so will hospitalizations -- this really means that we're getting to the point where case count should not be a concern for most of Ontario, with the exception of Waterloo Region. Hopefully in the coming months our region can start to target areas of concern with mass vaccinations. It will be needed to get us out of stage 1. Ontario is now about 1/20th of their peak this past spring, and we're about 1/2.