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COVID-19 / Coronavirus updates in Victoria, BC


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#20941 spanky123

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 03:43 PM

Postmedia:

 

Apparently downgraded now to the common cold. I wonder if she wants Dix's job? She could probably run and be a shoe in. We be a big cut in pay though.

 

COVID-19 to be managed more like common cold, B.C. officials say | CTV News



#20942 Moderation

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 04:34 PM

You forgot the rest.   

 

Handle like a common cold now because it is so easily caught  and if you are fully vaccinated and not in a higher risk group.

 

It is still a serious illness as is demonstrated by our hospitalizations and deaths show .


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#20943 max.bravo

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 05:27 PM

Seems like covid might finally be winding down. At least the tide seems to be changing re: restrictions and vax coercion

Let’s place our guesses: how long until

1) mask rules removed in BC
2) Vax passport is removed in BC

For masks, I think this’ll happen by Feb 15. Bonnie has always had anti mask tendencies.
For vax passport, i think it’s gonna be gone by June.

#20944 spanky123

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 07:04 PM

Seems like covid might finally be winding down. At least the tide seems to be changing re: restrictions and vax coercion

Let’s place our guesses: how long until

1) mask rules removed in BC
2) Vax passport is removed in BC

For masks, I think this’ll happen by Feb 15. Bonnie has always had anti mask tendencies.
For vax passport, i think it’s gonna be gone by June.

They will leave the vac passport in place unless the tourist industry can bring a strong enough case that it is hurting business. The anti-Vaxers are not NDP supporters so F them!

Mask rules will remain for a while yet as again there is no demand within the NDP supporters to remove it

Remember it was only a week ago that we were told that unless we agreed to forgo our rights even longer the hospitals would be overrun and we would be seeing 10k cases a day in BC. Today covid is no worse than the cold for z93% of people.

Edited by spanky123, 21 January 2022 - 07:05 PM.


#20945 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 07:10 PM

We will see. 3/4 of Canadian restaurants are still closed. Travel is way down. 80% of January and February shows just got cancelled in Victoria. Nobody is back at offices.

Let’s just see where we go here.

#20946 Mike K.

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 08:42 PM

I have a close friend and colleague in hospital right now.

This is hitting close to home for me, with regards to someone ending up in hospital. I spoke with his wife today and she says he was admitted two days ago and is doing slightly better today. I hope it gets better for him from here on out.

This is far from over. Be careful out there. Wash your hands and distance.
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#20947 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 08:47 PM



#20948 max.bravo

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 09:39 PM

I have a close friend and colleague in hospital right now.

This is hitting close to home for me, with regards to someone ending up in hospital. I spoke with his wife today and she says he was admitted two days ago and is doing slightly better today. I hope it gets better for him from here on out.

This is far from over. Be careful out there. Wash your hands and distance.


I hope you don’t mind me asking some details out of curiosity. I don’t know anyone personally who’s been hospitalized.
What’s your friends age? Is he fully vaccinated? Boosted? Any comorbidities (diabetes/obese/general fitness and health?)

I hope he pulls through Mike.

#20949 TFord

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 10:17 PM

Give me examples where I have called your sources conspiracy theories. How do you conclude I have not listened. I do not believe that I have stated here an opinion on this matter.

 

It is possible for opposing positions to both be correct as seen from there perspective. 

 

I gave an example and a reference that people of both sides of the rNA vaccine is not  gene therapy vs yes it is a form of gene therapy.  If you do not explain or define what you are talking about a discussion can not begin. As I said.......

 

One has to have an understanding what rMNA vaccine do and how they do it and what is gene therapy what it does and how it works.  Until that information,, which may be seen differently, is described  it is difficult to get past... I am right and you are wrong. Each view has to have information like this before they can hold constructive discussion. 

 

 

Can't find one, my apologies to you. I was minded of a previous response to a post that I mistakenly thought was you. 

 

Thank you for the constant quality content, I enjoy it.

 

 

TFord 


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#20950 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 05:37 AM

Healthy, vaccinated people face only tiny risk of hospitalization from Omicron, Henry says

https://www.timescol...ry-says-4983036

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 January 2022 - 05:37 AM.


#20951 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 06:58 AM

https://www.theglobe...a-newfoundland/

 



#20952 Spy Black

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 07:15 AM

For masks, I think this’ll happen by Feb 15. Bonnie has always had anti mask tendencies.
For vax passport, i think it’s gonna be gone by June.

Unfortunately, the anti-vax movement destroys any semblance of the timeline you've proposed.

It's very likely that we have at least two or three more variants to live with before any permanent adjustments are made to the health order currently in place.

 

My prediction would be that masks and generally similar conditions to the current health order will wane in the Spring and Summer (as they did in both 2020 and 2021), but that in or around October of 2022, we'll be returning to a health order that reads very similarly, if not identically to the one we're currently living with.

 

All to say, I don't think anything of substance will permanently change until well into 2023 ... basically due to the anti-vax pool remaining a prime breeding ground for COVID and its variants - and the fact that despite the fairly positive attitude of the double-vax + booster crowd, we're still right in the middle of a raging pandemic, albeit one that doesn't kill as many (because they're vaccinated) people as it did in March of 2020, but is still more than capable of rendering the unvaccinated either seriously ill, or dead.


Edited by Spy Black, 22 January 2022 - 07:16 AM.

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#20953 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 08:27 AM

 Quebec reported a third straight day of decreases in COVID-19 hospitalizations with 56 fewer patients from 24 hours ago.

 

 

https://montreal.ctv...eaths-1.5750750



#20954 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 08:55 AM

Quebec reported a third straight day of decreases in COVID-19 hospitalizations with 56 fewer patients from 24 hours ago.


https://montreal.ctv...eaths-1.5750750

Ontario:

The province is reporting 4,026 people in hospital with COVID-19 Saturday with 600 patients currently in intensive care.

The latest number of hospitalizations is a decrease of 88 from Friday’s data.

https://globalnews.c...oronavirus/amp/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 January 2022 - 08:55 AM.


#20955 amor de cosmos

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 08:58 AM

The pandemic has triggered a new debate over what used to be a settled principle of bioethics — that you don't treat patients differently based on past behaviour that may have contributed to their condition.
 
"The core fundamental principle of clinical ethics tells us that once a person enters the hospital as a patient, whatever got them there is no longer part of the equation," said Vardit Ravitsky, who teaches bioethics at the Université de Montreal and Harvard Medical School.
 
"The most extreme example I have ever seen was when I lived in Israel and a suicide bomber detonated on a bus, killing and injuring civilians around him. Somehow he was not killed by the explosion and he arrived at the hospital with his victims.
 
"Once they entered the hospital, everyone was treated equally. There was no sense of prioritizing the victims in relation to the person who caused the injury."
 
But the COVID-19 pandemic — which has overturned so many norms and assumptions — is now testing that principle.
 
Vaccinated majorities in wealthy western countries are growing increasingly impatient with a science-denying minority being blamed for prolonging the pandemic and stretching critical care resources to the breaking point.
 
Governments are responding to that anger by turning up the heat on the unvaccinated with policies intended to inconvenience them, curtail their social lives, drive them out of the public square, make them pay or even criminalize them — measures Ravitsky said are "politically meant to appease the vaccinated majority."
 
Quebec plans to impose a financial penalty on unvaccinated people who don't have medical exemptions.
 
As president of the International Association of Bioethics, Ravitsky has seen how the pandemic has tested a longstanding consensus of bioethics.
 
"Usually, bioethics is all about protecting and promoting the right of each patient to make their own decisions," she said. "And all of a sudden we find ourselves in a situation where the common good should sometimes be prioritized, and that has caused some unprecedented disagreements within the bioethics community."

https://www.cbc.ca/n...icron-1.6319844
 
COVID virus linked with headaches, altered mental status in hospitalized kids
https://www.eurekale...releases/940851
 

“One of the notable things about depression is that it can cause people to see the world differently—sort of the opposite of rose-colored glasses. That is, for some depressed people, the world appears as a particularly dark and dangerous place,” says lead author Roy H. Perlis, MD, MSc, associate chief of research in the Department of Psychiatry and director of the Center for Quantitative Health at MGH. “We wondered whether people seeing the world this way might also be more susceptible to believing misinformation about vaccines. If you already think the world is a dangerous place, you might be more inclined to believe that vaccines are dangerous—even though they are not.”

 

To investigate, Perlis and his colleagues examined responses from 15,464 adults from all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., who completed an internet survey between May and July 2021 that included statements related to COVID-19 vaccines after answering a questionnaire that measured depressive symptoms.

 

The team found that levels of depression are at least three times higher than what they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants with moderate or greater major depressive symptoms on the initial questionnaire were more likely to endorse at least one of four false statements about COVID-19 vaccines on the subsequent survey, and those who endorsed these statements were less likely to be vaccinated. Specifically, the presence of depression was associated with a 2.2-times higher likelihood of endorsing misinformation, and respondents endorsing at least one misinformation statement were half as likely to be vaccinated and 2.7 times more likely to report vaccine resistance.

 

Perlis and his colleagues also analyzed data from the subset of 2,809 respondents who answered a subsequent survey two months later. Those with depression in the first survey were twice as likely as those without depression to endorse more misinformation than they did in the prior survey.

 

“While we can’t conclude that depression caused this susceptibility, looking at a second wave of data at least told us that the depression came before the misinformation. That is, it wasn’t that misinformation was making people more depressed,” Perlis notes. Because the study also included questions about social media and news sources, the investigators were also able to exclude the possibility that the effect of depression was a result of getting news from different places. They also found that the effect was not limited to people with particular political beliefs or members of particular demographic groups.

https://www.eurekale...releases/940864

https://www.eurekale...releases/940847

 

The U.S. pandemic lockdown in 2020 caused a $2.3 trillion economic downturn and split the nation politically, and now some European nations are locking down again as Omicron surges through the global population.

 

But do these drastic measures save lives? Are they worth massive job and income losses?

 

A new University of Michigan-led study shows the early lockdowns implemented in the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic saved lives––but the decision to use lockdowns is much more nuanced and the research shouldn't be used to justify lockdowns now or to retroactively endorse that approach, said health economist Olga Yakusheva, associate professor at the U-M School of Nursing.

 

The study found that from March through August 2020, implementing widespread lockdowns and other mitigation in the United States potentially saved more lives (866,350 to 1,711,150) that the number of lives potentially lost (57,922 to 245,055) that were attributable to the economic downturn.

 

However, the results are more ambiguous when looking at the quality-adjusted life expectancy added by lockdown (4,886,214 to 9,650,886) vs. quality-adjusted life years lost (2,093,811 to 8,858,444) due to the economic downturn.

 

This is because many of the people saved were high-risk older adults with multiple illnesses and fewer healthy years left to live, while those most impacted by the economy were younger people in service jobs and other lower-paying occupations who found themselves without employer-provided health insurance and, in many cases, unable to pay for health care or even life-saving medications. A quality adjusted life year is one year of life in perfect health.

 

The study, published in PLOS One, should not be used to justify more lockdown measures, Yakusheva said. Nor is it a retroactive endorsement of the strict economic lockdown approach the U.S. imposed during the first six months of the pandemic.

https://medicalxpres...o-strategy.html
 

Meat Loaf dead at 74, reportedly had a case of severe COVID
https://www.dailykos...stories/2075987

Night Was Young? No 10 Party Reportedly Continued Until 1 AM on Eve of Prince Philip's Funeral
https://sputniknews....1092446685.html
 

Multiple governments have been relying on contact-tracing apps to limit the spread of COVID. This has gone on nearly uninterrupted for the last couple of years in more than a few countries. Given the type of data collected -- contact information and location data -- it was only a matter of time before some government decided to abuse this new information source for reasons unrelated to tracking COVID infections.

I guess the only surprise is that it took this long to be abused.

Authorities in Germany faced increasing criticism on Tuesday over their misuse of a COVID contact tracing app to investigate a case.

[...]

The incident concerns authorities in the city of Mainz. At the end of November, a man fell to his death after leaving a restaurant in the city, prompting police to open a case.

While trying to track down witnesses, police and prosecutors managed to successfully petition local health authorities to release data from the Luca app, which logs how long people stayed at an establishment.

Authorities then reached out to 21 potential witnesses based on the data they had unlawfully acquired from the app.

The Luca app used in Germany collects data on visitors to public places. Users enter their contact info into the app and scan QR codes posted at restaurants, bars, and public events. When they leave the venue, Luca users sign out of the location.
 
This app has proven very useful in Germany, mostly due to it automating the mandatory paperwork required of restaurant and venue owners, who were required to gather contact information on patrons and log the time they spent in their businesses. The Luca app does this automatically and encrypts the info, protecting it from the prying eyes of malicious outsiders.
 
Both the venue and the health department have to agree to decrypt the data and, once decrypted, it remains solely in the hands of the health department. It is only supposed to be used to track potential infections, hence the backlash against police and prosecutors in Mainz.

https://www.techdirt...witnesses.shtml
 
Fox News' Tucker Carlson recently compared COVID vaccine mandates to medical experiments that were conducted during the times of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
https://www.alternet...son-2656459013/

Aaron Rodgers Blasts Biden for Calling Covid ‘The Pandemic of the Unvaccinated’
https://www.mediaite...e-unvaccinated/
 

Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike earlier this month advised residents to be wary of potentially fraudulent testing centers.
 
"We do want to urge some caution with some of these clinics," she said. "There unfortunately are those who are taking advantage of these crazy times to try and scam people. So if you have any doubts about the testing location that you are looking at, go ahead and ask some questions. What lab is the testing site using? When will you receive the results, and from whom?"
 
Here are eight tips to help discern which testing centers are legitimate—and protect yourself against all different types of COVID-19 testing scams.
 
1. Start with state-sponsored testing sites, when possible. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul recently issued a warning about unregulated testing centers, urging residents to first try government test sites or those recommended by their health care providers. Testing locations can be found at the Illinois Department of Public Health website, the Cook County Department of Health website and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website.
 
2. Ask questions about the medical director, the type of test performed and the lab used for results. Infectious disease expert Dr. Robert Murphy suggested asking for the name of the site's medical director and their credentials.
 
"A quick Google search should be informative," said Murphy, executive director of Northwestern University's Institute for Global Health and a professor of infectious diseases at the Feinberg School of Medicine. "If they will not provide you with a legitimate name with credentials, don't go there."
 
Ask for the name of the exact test that's being done and if the test has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration. Consumers can ask for the name of the laboratory that will be processing the test, officials said, and then search if the lab is appropriately certified.
 
3. Get a phone number. Ask when the results will be available and how they'll be communicated to you, the attorney general's office said. Ask for a phone number and who you can call with any questions or concerns about test results.
 
4. Being asked to pay for the test out-of-pocket is a red flag. The attorney general's office added that consumers should be cautious if a site requests cash or credit card payments for a test. Most testing locations "will instead bill insurance companies, or, if individuals are uninsured, seek reimbursement from a federal fund," according to the attorney general's website.
 
5. Go somewhere else if the location says it won't accept insurance. "If the site does not accept insurance, this is another red flag as insurers are now required to accept requests for COVID tests," Murphy added. "If they will not accept your insurance, which includes Medicaid and Medicare, go someplace else."
 
6. Check health and safety standards. "I would make sure the site has good infection control processes," said Dr. Elizabeth Davis, medical director of community health equity at Rush University Medical Center. "The site should be clean. People should be hand sanitizing and changing gloves between every patient. They should be wearing medical masks."
 
When getting a rapid test, Davis advised asking for the brand name as well as the expiration date, to make sure it hasn't expired.
 
"There should be social distancing on-site and a mechanism to limit flow," she added.
 
7. Check at-home COVID-19 tests before purchase. The attorney general's office is also cautioning consumers about potential fake at-home test kits offered for sale; the FDA has a list of authorized at-home test kits. The FDA also keeps a list of fraudulent COVID-19 treatments and prevention products, which includes the names of some COVID tests.
 
Expect to pay between $14 and $25 for packs of at-home rapid test kits. Report fraudulent tests or price gouging to the state attorney general's office.
 
8. Beware of phony websites when signing up for free government-issued COVID tests. With the Biden administration offering American households free COVID-19 tests requested via the U.S. Postal Service, the Better Business Bureau is warning consumers to be on guard for fraudulent, look-alike websites.
 
Scammers often take advantage of these kinds of government initiatives, creating phony sites to get access to financial or other sensitive information, according to the BBB.

https://medicalxpres...rs-rampant.html

 

CHICAGO – First it was a Toyota pickup.

 

Then a sky blue Lamborghini.

 

Then, at the end of August last year, Illinois resident Akbar Ali Syed posted a TikTok video of a red Lamborghini Countach being unloaded from a flatbed truck.

 

"Countach added to my collection," Syed wrote in the caption, adding the tag "#entrepreneur."

 

"Oil money?" a user asked.

 

No, Syed responded, "COVID money."

 

Questions swirl around more than the cars and Syed's new $1.36 million mansion. The inquiries are focused on a nationwide chain of coronavirus testing sites known as the Center for COVID Control, under scrutiny by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Oregon Department of Justice and multiple state health departments.

etc (long)

https://ca.news.yaho...-235623361.html


Edited by amor de cosmos, 22 January 2022 - 09:07 AM.


#20956 sebberry

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 09:52 AM

I hope you don’t mind me asking some details out of curiosity. I don’t know anyone personally who’s been hospitalized.
What’s your friends age? Is he fully vaccinated? Boosted? Any comorbidities (diabetes/obese/general fitness and health?)

I hope he pulls through Mike.

 

Why don't you ask the same questions of someone who is hospitalized for the common cold? 


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#20957 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 09:57 AM

Why don't you ask the same questions of someone who is hospitalized for the common cold? 

 

He probably wasn't asking Mike to identify the person.

 

Just he thought he had a case where some specifics might be known, from a trusted source.

 

Since the person posting had no other first-hand knowledge about a specific case.

 

Having said that, the poster can probably learn more by looking at some broad statistics.

 

Alberta has most of the stats:

 

https://www.alberta....ting-conditions

 

 

https://www.alberta....severe-outcomes

 

 

 


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 January 2022 - 10:03 AM.


#20958 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 10:41 AM

https://www.gofundme...dom-convoy-2022

 


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#20959 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 10:51 AM

Patients who test positive for COVID-19 may no longer be kept separate from other fully-vaccinated patients in Fraser Health hospitals, according to new guidance from the province’s largest health authority.

 

According to revised infection prevention and control recommendations dated Jan. 14 and obtained by Global News, COVID-19 cohorts are now being reserved for patients “requiring medical management of significant respiratory symptoms” due to the virus.

 

The document cites evolving epidemiology around the Omicron variant, which it says “generally causes mild disease particularly in fully vaccinated individuals.”

 

Patients who test positive for COVID, but who are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic will be treated in the unit that “best serves their care needs,” with droplet precautions in place, according to the recommendations.

 

https://globalnews.c...-fraser-health/


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 January 2022 - 10:52 AM.


#20960 max.bravo

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Posted 22 January 2022 - 12:01 PM

Why don't you ask the same questions of someone who is hospitalized for the common cold?


I don’t follow… can you explain what you mean?

I asked because I don’t know anyone personally who’s been hospitalized with covid, and I thought it would be an interesting datum point / anecdote. I’m interested in the grey areas of covid hospitalization/death reporting. Eg, people who died with covid vs. of covid; the prevalence of comorbidities among covid deaths; etc.

But no worries if Mike doesn’t want to share that info. I’m not trying to push a particular narrative by my question; I was just curious. Again, I hope Mike’s friend avoids intubation and pulls through quickly and completely.

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