The COVID-19 pandemic

[tomh009]

462 new cases in Ontario today for a 16% increase. 66,753 tests done to date, and the testing backlog is now down to 1245.

462 cases hospitalized to date (coincidence?) and 192 have been to ICU. Numbers are much higher than yesterday (which was the first day for this data) so it's possible that yesterday's data was incomplete.

Quebec reported 583 new cases, down to an impressive 8%, at least for one day.
2020-03-23 778 (+258%)
2020-03-24 1040 (+34%)
2020-03-25 1339 (+29%)
2020-03-26 1629 (+22%)
2020-03-27 2021 (+24%)
2020-03-28 2498 (+24%)
2020-03-29 2840 (+13%)
2020-03-30 3430 (+21%)
2020-03-31 4162 (+21%)
2020-04-01 4611 (+11%)
2020-04-02 5518 (+20%)
2020-04-03 6101 (+8%)

375 new cases in Ontario today for a 12% increase. The trend is in the right direction but two days is too soon to assume that this will hold (21% average increase for the past seven days). 71,338 tests done to date.

506 cases currently hospitalized (+44) and 196 in the ICU (+4). (The wording has been changed to make it clear that this is a current hospital census as of midnight last night.)

Quebec reported 896 new cases, an increase of 15%. Seven-day average is 15.8%, still high but down significantly from the high 20s.
2020-03-23 778 (+258%)
2020-03-24 1040 (+34%)
2020-03-25 1339 (+29%)
2020-03-26 1629 (+22%)
2020-03-27 2021 (+24%)
2020-03-28 2498 (+24%)
2020-03-29 2840 (+13%)
2020-03-30 3430 (+21%)
2020-03-31 4162 (+21%)
2020-04-01 4611 (+11%)
2020-04-02 5518 (+20%)
2020-04-03 6101 (+8%)
2020-04-04 6997 (+15%)

[danbrotherston]

Stats Canada is doing a survey...I found it very interesting.

https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/survey/hou...1-COVID-19

[plam]

BC's hospitalization numbers are staying constant (not the growth but the actual number):

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c...-1.5522122

BC is a bit more self-contained than Ontario probably, but its neighbour to the south is Washington, which also is doing well I think.

Once it's contained then testing has a key role to play in outbreak suppression.

Vaccine: People hate government "waste" but somehow future-pandemic-vaccine really doesn't sound wasteful to me. I really don't know how long it will take. But Bill Gates is funding vaccine factory development even for ultimately unsuccessful vaccines, which will help us get more towards 12 than 18.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/202...ickly.html

[MidTowner]

We don't have to get it close to 0, we have to get it under 1...I misspoke.

For getting it under 1, that's entirely possible, somewhere, I'm not sure where, estimated that with China's restrictions, which are obviously impossible here, it got down to 0.3, which results in a strong negative growth rate (I'm not sure I understand the math right, but I believe it would shrink at a rate close to the growth rate with an R0 of 3, which means it will shrink faster than it grew).

We don't have to get that low, but anything under 1 would result in negative growth. And yes, travel will be restricted for a long time, it will be very bad for tourist destinations. But with tracing and testing, it appears possible to keep this virus under control without strong local restrictions. This is exactly what many Asian countries are doing right now. Yes, they have differen contexts from ours, but if we can shut down half our economy for 6 months, I believe we can also implement similar controls. The even bigger benefit is that we have a model to follow for achieving that.

As for vaccines, an 18 month timeline would be extremely ambitious for a new vaccine, but again, much of the work has already been done, meaning a 12-18 month timeline is instead reasonable. If one of the first vaccines they are testing is successful, then 12 months is very much in play.

Edit: Some data: https://medium.com/@Joe_C_London/covid-1...9e485b0c63

While the author of this is not a healthcare expert, nor a contageous diseases expert (and can be a bit....overconfident sometimes) he generally backs up his opinions with numbers.  If a peak has been reached in those countries, then the R is less than 1, so it's entirely possible. I think the restrictions are more severe in those countries, but it still demonstrates it is possible in western democracies.

I don't think that the Asian restrictions are models we can practically follow. And it really does remain to be seen whether we can keep half our economy shut down for six months. I have no prediction about when, but at some point people will reject stringent controls, and the continued shut down of the economy.

Thanks a lot for that link; encouraging possibility.

Edit: Sorry, I realize that you mean that we will have models to follow from our fellow liberal democracies in Europe, presuming they are close to peaking and go on to open their societies back up. Yes, you're right, that will be huge to see what kind of progress they are able to make, when.

[tomh009]

We don't have to get that low, but anything under 1 would result in negative growth. And yes, travel will be restricted for a long time, it will be very bad for tourist destinations. But with tracing and testing, it appears possible to keep this virus under control without strong local restrictions. This is exactly what many Asian countries are doing right now. Yes, they have differen contexts from ours, but if we can shut down half our economy for 6 months, I believe we can also implement similar controls. The even bigger benefit is that we have a model to follow for achieving that.

I don't think that the Asian restrictions are models we can practically follow. And it really does remain to be seen whether we can keep half our economy shut down for six months. I have no prediction about when, but at some point people will reject stringent controls, and the continued shut down of the economy.

For the Asian countries referred to, the only ones that are kind of relevant to the description are Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, I think:

• Civil rights are severely curtailed in mainland China; I believe that Canadians simply would not accept that level of government control
  
• Singapore and Hong Kong are very compact city-states (or city-regions!) and the management is not easily transferable to Canada
  

However, the Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese restrictions on business and behaviour are actually less strict than those here, with most businesses remaining open. What they do have is better tracking and inherently safer social behaviour -- but riskier public transit with massive usage and no chance of social distancing.

It's a complex subject, but those three did not contain the infection by shutting down half their economies, that much is clear.

South Korean and Taiwan do have some good lessons, though. And Taiwan has heavy traffic to and from the mainland, just as we have to the US.

[ac3r]

I'm waiting on test results for COVID-19. I've had a pretty bad cough and feel a bit "off", but otherwise I've felt okay. I sure hope they come back negative because I was exposed days ago and have been around a lot of vulnerable people for work. They didn't even want to test me, I was just sent home and told to self-isolate for less than the minimum 14 days, which was strange. I had to pull some strings (so to speak) to get public health to offer to test me. I've got my fingers crossed I don't have it for the sake of others.

[panamaniac]

Were you told how long it would take to get your results back?

[ac3r]

Yeah, but I forget what exactly the nurse said. I think it was something like 5-7 days. If you're positive, they will try to contact you ASAP, whereas if it's negative they'll wait to call you until they contact more people with positive cases. It's up to public health and so it'll really depend on how busy they are (GRH did the test, but it's up to RoW to contact you back).

[panamaniac]

Still 5 to 7 days?  When this is all over, there needs to be a serious enquiry into what went wrong in Ontario wrt testing (among other things).  I confess that I don't understand how it is that the Province with the most labs and the most money seems to be doing the worst job.

Anyway, stay strong and be well!

[danbrotherston]

Still 5 to 7 days?  When this is all over, there needs to be a serious enquiry into what went wrong in Ontario wrt testing (among other things).  I confess that I don't understand how it is that the Province with the most labs and the most money seems to be doing the worst job.

Anyway, stay strong and be well!

That's what they have said, no guarantee that is the actual backlog, they may just be being conservative, further, some tests seem to take longer than others, I don't know why, but they won't tell you a number less than the 90th %ile of tests.

So, 5-7 days is almost certainly very conservative.  At one point it may not have been, but the backlog has shrunk.

[tomh009]

375 new cases in Ontario today for a 12% increase. The trend is in the right direction but two days is too soon to assume that this will hold (21% average increase for the past seven days). 71,338 tests done to date.

506 cases currently hospitalized (+44) and 196 in the ICU (+4). (The wording has been changed to make it clear that this is a current hospital census as of midnight last night.)

Quebec reported 896 new cases, an increase of 15%. Seven-day average is 15.8%, still high but down significantly from the high 20s.
2020-03-23 778 (+258%)
2020-03-24 1040 (+34%)
2020-03-25 1339 (+29%)
2020-03-26 1629 (+22%)
2020-03-27 2021 (+24%)
2020-03-28 2498 (+24%)
2020-03-29 2840 (+13%)
2020-03-30 3430 (+21%)
2020-03-31 4162 (+21%)
2020-04-01 4611 (+11%)
2020-04-02 5518 (+20%)
2020-04-03 6101 (+8%)
2020-04-04 6997 (+15%)

408 new cases in Ontario today for an 11% increase; that's three good days in a row. 75,046 tests done to date. 523 cases currently hospitalized (+17) and 200 in the ICU (+4).

Quebec reported 947 new cases, an increase of 14%.
2020-03-23 778 (+258%)
2020-03-24 1040 (+34%)
2020-03-25 1339 (+29%)
2020-03-26 1629 (+22%)
2020-03-27 2021 (+24%)
2020-03-28 2498 (+24%)
2020-03-29 2840 (+13%)
2020-03-30 3430 (+21%)
2020-03-31 4162 (+21%)
2020-04-01 4611 (+11%)
2020-04-02 5518 (+20%)
2020-04-03 6101 (+8%)
2020-04-04 6997 (+15%)
2020-04-05 7944 (+14%)

[tomh009]

Still 5 to 7 days?  When this is all over, there needs to be a serious enquiry into what went wrong in Ontario wrt testing (among other things).  I confess that I don't understand how it is that the Province with the most labs and the most money seems to be doing the worst job.

That's what they have said, no guarantee that is the actual backlog, they may just be being conservative, further, some tests seem to take longer than others, I don't know why, but they won't tell you a number less than the 90th %ile of tests.

So, 5-7 days is almost certainly very conservative.  At one point it may not have been, but the backlog has shrunk.

The province says 981 cases under investigation (testing in progress) and they are doing 4,000+ tests per day so even allowing for some shipping and processing overhead it would not have expected it to take much more than a few days.

[jgsz]

This (concerted?) campaign of disinformation about Covid-19 in the USA is nothing short of criminal.  

https://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow/vi...471130085/

[embe]

...because I was exposed days ago...

Can you clarify?  Like exposed to other people that have since tested positive, or just exposed in a general way (ie: out in public grocery shopping for essentials)

[jeffster]

This (concerted?) campaign of disinformation about Covid-19 in the USA is nothing short of criminal.  

https://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow/vi...471130085/

All that show is the reality that a huge percentage of our neighbours to the South are completely stupid. And by that, I mean, it's a few pounds of stupid in each person.