26251 replies to this topic

[max.bravo]

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.

Are you sure Bonnie is right about the unvaxed being the breeding ground for more variants? Because the history of leaky vaccines demonstrates the exact opposite.

"However, the leaky vaccine changes this evolutionary pressure and permits the evolution of highly virulent strains.[13] The vaccine's inability to prevent infection and transmission allows the spread of highly virulent strains among vaccinated chickens. The fitness of the more virulent strains is increased by the vaccine. "

https://en.wikipedia...ease#Prevention

For what it’s worth though, there’s no need to worry about new variants because viruses only mutate in one direction: to be more transmissible and less lethal. That’s how evolutionary fitness works, regardless of where you believe the evolutionary pressure comes from(vaxed or unvaxed).

[Spy Black]

Well, although I don’t support each and every step she takes … her CV is very long, and very impressive. 
 

Your CV is essentially  “a guy on the internet” … so I’ll continue to follow her advice, and continue to take her comments about the unvaccinated adults in BC as the one remaining COVID threat to all British Columbians seriously. 
 

BTW, your “guy on the internet” CV isn’t helped along when your “evidence” is a link to Wikipedia. 

[Victoria Watcher]

 

 

BTW, your “guy on the internet” CV isn’t helped along when your “evidence” is a link to Wikipedia. 

 

References:

 

https://www.national...chicken-viruses

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC4516275/

[spanky123]

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

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

 

So how long then until we can dispense with the covid tests before crossing the border? We won't have any meaningful international tourism business until that happens and the clock is ticking. People are starting to plan summer vacations.

[Victoria Watcher]

Speaking of travel. Check the reaction to Don Martin’s post:


https://twitter.com/...8896872448?s=21


Hundreds of Canadians, including my daughters and grandkids, are stranded overnight in Cancun and not one official from @SunwingVacay has given anyone the slightest indication what’s wrong. Big time crazy corporate communications fail.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 January 2022 - 01:18 PM.

[max.bravo]

Well, although I don’t support each and every step she takes … her CV is very long, and very impressive.

Your CV is essentially “a guy on the internet” … so I’ll continue to follow her advice, and continue to take her comments about the unvaccinated adults in BC as the one remaining COVID threat to all British Columbians seriously.

BTW, your “guy on the internet” CV isn’t helped along when your “evidence” is a link to Wikipedia.

I must apologize. I assumed you understood that the snippet from Wikipedia containing the bracketed “13” indicates there are references to support the information.

If you click the link to Wikipedia, you can see the reference as a clickable link within the text. That takes you to the bottom of the article where you’ll see the source.

VW has done that for you. Just so you understand why he pasted that.

[Victoria Watcher]

Hundreds of people have gathered on the front lawn of the B.C. Legislature Saturday protesting government mandates introduced during the pandemic with signs reading “freedom” and “no mandates.”

According to a poster for the event, the rally is being organized by the B.C. Businesses Against Health Pass Facebook group.

The poster said the rally in downtown Victoria is the end point for a drive which started earlier in the day in Mill Bay and is part of the broader World Wide Rally for Freedom.

https://www.vicnews....c-restrictions/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 January 2022 - 01:55 PM.

[Spy Black]

All idiots who don’t understand what “freedom” actually means.

[Sparky]

A married couple that we know have just emailed to say that have contracted the virus. Despite being double vaxxed, they said that this thing is NASTY.

[spanky123]

A married couple that we know have just emailed to say that have contracted the virus. Despite being double vaxxed, they said that this thing is NASTY.

 

Had they had their booster?

[Victoria Watcher]

Rebel News:

 

 

An Ontario judge has issued a gag order forbidding a father from criticizing the federal vaccination program within earshot of his 10-year-old son, Blacklock’s Reporter shares. Anything that “calls into question the safety or efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine” is not allowed, the Ontario Superior Court ruled.

 

“I find [the boy] is receiving mixed messages about the risks and benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine and that at 10 years of age he is unable to make an informed choice,” wrote Justice Francine Van Melle. The Court granted the urgent motion requested by the boy’s mother.

 

According to court records, the couple divorced in 2013. The mother, a teacher, wanted the boy to get the shot since “she is worried about sending the child back to school for in-person learning next week without him being vaccinated,” the Court was told.

 

Justice Van Melle noted the father complained “the government was forcing people to be vaccinated against COVID,” that “there is no benefit to children to receive the COVID vaccine” and that he wanted to “wait until further evidence is available regarding the safety of the vaccine.”

 

Justice Van Melle ruled that the mother could vaccinate her son, and went further in issuing a gag order prohibiting the father from questioning the government's vaccine program with his son. “He is not to tell or suggest to [the boy] directly or indirectly that COVID-19 vaccines are untested, unsafe or ineffective or that he is particularly at risk from them,” wrote Van Melle.

 

 

https://www.rebelnew...10_year_old_son

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 January 2022 - 05:07 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

[Victoria Watcher]

COVID: Hong Kong leader defends hamster cull

 

Carrie Lam says an outbreak in hamsters has led to a rise in COVID infections and urges residents to avoid New Year events.

 

https://www.aljazeer...ds-hamster-cull

[Sparky]

Had they had their booster?

Not sure.

[sebberry]

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.

 

Because usually when the age/comorbidity argument is brought out, it's to frame the covid patient as expendable while arguing that the virus should just be left to rip through all the young and healthy folks.

[TFord]

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.

 

With recent developments in the United Kingdom, I would say  10 days for Vax pass removal here. I'm watching with interest the convoy of trucks heading to Ottawa. JT is very likely to buckle this week. Who knows what might happen, could he go? 

 

Masks? who cares, cloth masks are garbage, always have been. I always giggle at the folks sitting alone in their cars in them. They must be terrified, honestly I have a lot of sympathy. 

 

It was incredibly positive in Victoria today, great turnout and a warm response from the passers by and traffic! a lot of horn toots & thumbs up. Remarkably different than the last gathering. 

 

General public know what is going down

 

TFord 

[sebberry]

If you need evidence as to how harebrained the anti-vax movement is, one needs to look no further than today's protestor on the legislature lawn holding up her freedom fighting sign calling for the end to 5G

 

Somehow I suspect they didn't feel heard enough when they failed to stop smart meters and still think chemtrails are a thing.

[amor de cosmos]

For eighteen months, the manufacturing company CESSCO, based in Edmonton, Alberta, has locked out unionized employees. Meanwhile, the firm has used Canada’s federal government COVID-19 wage subsidy funds to hire scabs.
 
Unionized employees at CESSCO Fabrication and Engineering Ltd have opposed a raft of attacks on their pay and working conditions. These include slashing wages by 10 percent, pensions by up to 50 percent, and removing seniority from their collective agreement. In union agreements, seniority stipulates that wage and security benefits accrue to workers based on their length of service, so those who have been there the longest are paid the most and are the last to be let go in the event of layoffs.
 
The employees, many of which are boilermaker fitters and welders who manufacture containers that hold gases and liquids for the oil and gas industry, have been locked out of their workplace since June 28, 2020.
 
Hugh MacDonald, the business manager at Boilermakers Lodge 146, which represents the locked out CESSCO workers, told Jacobin that the union was initially willing to accept wage rollbacks until the price of oil increased. As of January 14, the price of Canadian crude has more than doubled, from USD $27.84 on June 29, 2020, to USD $69.51.
 
“Many of the guys on the picket line have worked all their adult lives in that facility. Some of them have been there for 40-plus years. They would certainly rather be working,” says MacDonald. “But we’re getting support from the labor community in northern Alberta and we’re getting support from our international in Kansas City. That helps the members on the lockout line realize that there are many people who stand up and support them.”

https://jacobinmag.c...alberta-strike/
 

More than 1,700 passengers refused to wear masks during flights on Canadian air carriers last year — a problem the union representing many of Canada's flight attendants says is getting worse.
 
Figures collected by Transport Canada show that 959 of those cases resulted in enforcement action, ranging from warning letters to fines.

Airlines like Air Canada and WestJet say the vast majority of their passengers respect the rules.
 
WestJet says it has a zero tolerance policy for passengers who refuse to wear masks on board and has banned 163 customers since Sept. 1, 2020 for refusing to respect masking rules — less than 1 per cent of the passengers who flew with the airline during that time period.
 
Wesley Lesosky is head of the Canadian Union of Public Employees' Airline Division, which represents 14,000 flight attendants with nine Canadian airlines. He said Canadians appear to be tiring of the pandemic and are increasingly ignoring the requirement that they wear masks on board when not eating or drinking.
 
"We have had incidents that have escalated to a physical nature," he said. "We have had issues of obviously being sworn at, we have had issues of being spit at. We have had issues of just disgruntled people. We have had people [who] are just ticked off with the mask policy."

https://www.cbc.ca/n...lines-1.6316164

Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are travelling abroad despite Omicron
In December, more than 700,000 Canadian air passenger arrivals returned home from international travel
https://www.cbc.ca/n...-test-1.6322609
 
New Zealanders are set to face new COVID-19 restrictions after nine cases of the omicron variant were detected in a single family that flew to Auckland for a wedding earlier this month, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Sunday.
The so-called "red setting" of the country's pandemic response includes heightened measures such as required mask wearing and limits on gatherings, and the restrictions will go into effect on Monday.
https://medicalxpres...ns-omicron.html
 

Beijing city officials on Sunday said all two million residents of a neighbourhood where they identified a small cluster of COVID-19 infections will be tested, less than two weeks ahead of the start of the Winter Olympics.
 
The announcement came days after China's postal service ordered workers to disinfect international deliveries after authorities claimed mail could be the source of recent coronavirus cases.
 
Some 30 infections have been detected in the past week in Beijing, one of the world's most populous cities.
 
Both the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control have said the risk of being infected from contaminated surfaces is low.
 
China's cases constitute a tiny fraction of the massive surge in countries around the globe, with the highly contagious Omicron variant driving a fresh spike in infections.
 
Still, multiple small outbreaks around China—including in Beijing—have tested the country's strict "zero COVID" policy, which authorities have pursued even as the rest of the world has gradually reopened.
 
Local authorities have identified Fengtai district in southern Beijing as the epicentre of a cluster of six new confirmed infections, taking the number of cases in the capital to 34.
 
All two million of the area's residents will be tested for COVID-19 starting from Sunday.

https://medicalxpres...r-olympics.html

BEIJING: Beijing Olympics organisers said on Sunday (Jan 23) that they had confirmed 72 cases of COVID-19 among 2,586 Games-related personnel entering China from Jan 4 to Jan 22, with no cases among 171 athletes and team officials arriving in that period.
https://www.channeln...9-cases-2454456

Over 2.96 bln COVID-19 vaccine doses administered on Chinese mainland
http://www.ecns.cn/n...fa9716468.shtml
 

Many of those who are reluctant to be vaccinated cite the alleged risks posed by the vaccine to fertility or sexual health in general.

COVID-19 and its after-effects pose a risk to the reproductive health of men, whereas vaccination does not appear to affect the fertility of males or females, scientists from Boston University said in the wake of recent research.

According to the scientific team, they enrolled 2,126 self-identified females living in the United States or Canada between December 2020 and September 2021 and followed them through November 2021.
 

"We fit proportional probabilities regression models to estimate associations between self-reported COVID-19 vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 infection in both partners with fecundability, the per-cycle probability of conception, adjusting for potential confounders," the study's abstract said.

It turned out that the vaccination did not have any discernable effects in either men or women. However, men who were infected with COVID within 60 days of their partner's menstrual cycle were 18 percent less likely to conceive during that cycle compared with those who did not test positive for coronavirus.

"There's not necessarily any harm in trying to conceive shortly after having Covid, but it may just take a bit longer," Amelia Wesselink, the study's co-author and research assistant professor of epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health, told CNBC Make it.

https://sputniknews....1092450809.html

only on sundays. i wait all week for these:


https://www.reddit.c...e_as_eye_drops/


https://www.reddit.c...ovidiotsincars/

there is a simple, free solution

https://www.reddit.c...lution_to_this/


https://www.reddit.c...falls_in_these/


https://www.reddit.c...xed_apocalypse/
 
glorious


https://www.reddit.c...of_antimaskers/

[Mike K.]

Just awful. Glad it’s only on Sundays 🥳

[Victoria Watcher]

Deaths and hospitalizations linked to COVID-19 decline in Quebec

https://globalnews.c...an-23-2022/amp/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 23 January 2022 - 10:23 AM.