26251 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

So is the Google busy-o-meter wrong, suddenly? It’s usually very much on point.

[Barrrister]

Good question about the busy meter. Personally, I would feel a lot more comfortable if the staff was also vaccinated. 

 

We have only gone out a few times over the summer and then we both keep our masks on when dealing with the server. But being old I am far more cautious than most.

[spanky123]

So is the Google busy-o-meter wrong, suddenly? It’s usually very much on point.

As there is no new Government money at stake, we are back to our ‘everything is roses’ mentality.

Now it was the first Monday post summer break but the restaurant I ate at was full most nights over the past month but was at about 70% last night.

Edited by spanky123, 14 September 2021 - 07:58 AM.

[Mike K.]

South Island school exposures:

Monterey Middle School - Sept 8th-9th
Sir James Douglas Elementary - Sept 8th-10th
Lake Hill Elementary - Sept 7th
Journey Middle School - Sept 8th

[Ismo07]

It’s a tough day for restaurants today.

If you look at the Google busy-o-meter, all the ones I’ve checked are 10-60% of by-hour capacity this evening.

 

Are you able to compare it to the previous Monday still?

[Victoria Watcher]

previous Monday was a holiday.

[Mike K.]

It just shows you what’s considered “normal” for a Monday, and gives you the instant reading on busyness at the moment you’re vowing the meter. Not all restaurants seem to have live data, only typically levels of patronage restive to other periods.

[Victoria Watcher]

News today says only 2 million passports downloaded.

[Mike K.]

Now the good news for restaurants is a relatively small population frequents restaurants, and you can still use your vaccine paper record to show at the door. You need to provide matching ID to what’s on the record.

[Mike K.]

But none of that is required if you’re going to a place without table service, and which doesn’t serve alcohol.

[sebberry]

I walked past the Beagle pub yesterday and they had a security guard stationed outside the door. 

 

 

Look, we can either put up with these temporary measures in an effort to make the virus temporary, or we can protest outside hospitals (where absolutely none of these decisions are made).  

[Danma]

How about yelling at owners of restaurants and businesses who would just like to stay in business and serve customers while following health rules, even though these people don't make the decisions? That seems like a popular outlet for those looking for someone to be upset at.

[amor de cosmos]

At a press conference Monday afternoon, BC health officials announced that they will begin vaccinating clinically-vulnerable populations (CEV’s) with a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccination.
 
Following the National Advisory Committee on Immunization(NACI) advice, the province will begin to provide a third dose of COVID-19 vaccinations this week to over 300,000 immunocompromised and clinically vulnerable British Columbians.
 
The Ministry of Health said that they are currently reviewing cases and data where CEV’s have been resistant to COVID-19 immunization. The province will be in contact with those eligible for a third dose.
 
In the same press conference, Dr. Bonnie Henry also announced that it would be a condition of employment for health care workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19, specifically for those working in long-term care homes and assisted living facilities.

https://www.victoria...unocompromised/
https://www.timescol...-b-c-1.24357570
 
‘It’s terrifying’: Police on hand as pandemic protesters picket hospitals
A group called Canadian Frontline Nurses posted notices of “silent vigils” in multiple communities
https://www.nanaimob...cket-hospitals/
 

Anyone who has seen the Canadian Frontline Nurses’ white nurse cap logo with its bright red cross on posters and flyers promoting anti-vaccine rallies might be wondering how this group — whose name suggests that it represents nurses — came to be fighting policies laid out by Canada’s top health officials.
 
The relatively new group helped organize an anti-vaccine rally held outside Vancouver General Hospital and Vancouver City Hall this month.
 
With a membership including some fired nurses, Canadian Frontline Nurses actually represents a small minority of Canada’s health-care workers and has been widely denounced by those working with COVID-19 patients across the country.
 
Who are Canadian Frontline Nurses?
 
Canadian Frontline Nurses is an offshoot of Global Frontline Nurses, which predates CFN by one year. The foundations for CFN were built mainly on social media by women like Kristen Nagle, a neonatal ICU nurse, and Sarah Choujounian, a registered practical nurse, both from Ontario.
 
Before the pandemic, Kristen Nagle’s Instagram was filled with photos of her children, healthy recipe ideas and dieting tips. But on Aug. 10, 2020, Nagle made one of her first posts about the pandemic, in which she argued public health measures were creating an atmosphere that was making more people sick than the virus was.
 
Over the next few months, she spoke at city council meetings spreading misinformation about masks, and went on to attend, organize and speak at anti-mask rallies in Ontario. For these actions, Nagle was eventually fired from her job, according to the CBC.
 
*snip*
 
A loud minority
 
Michael Villeneuve, CEO of the Canadian Nurses Association, which has represented nurses across Canada for nearly 100 years, says the Canadian Frontline Nurses represents a loud but small minority.
 
He said the CNA has been keeping tabs on Canadian Frontline Nurses because the group doesn’t represent the values of nursing.
 
“It’s dangerous to put that title out there, meaning a nurse title, which obviously carries meaning for the public and then misrepresents truth or science,” said Villeneuve, whose group released a scathing letter directed at participants and organizers of the recent anti-vaccine-card protests.
 
Titled “Enough is enough,” it says: “The reckless views of a handful of discredited people who identify as nurses have aligned in some cases with angry crowds who are putting public health and safety at risk. They have drawn in anti-science, anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-public health followers whose beliefs align with theirs. For some reason they would have us believe that millions of the best educated health scientists, public health experts, physicians and nurses globally have all missed something they have not. Their outlandish assertions about science would be laughable were they not so dangerous.”
 
The letter says anti-public-health disinformation threatens to confuse a tired and bewildered public by misrepresenting personal ideology as facts, and science as conspiracy. The letter also attempts to assure Canadians that the vast majority of Canada’s nurses are duty-bound to use science and evidence to evaluate the care they give.

https://www.timescol...ests-1.24357673

Hospitalized COVID-19 patients are substantially more likely to harbor autoantibodies—antibodies directed at their own tissues or at substances their immune cells secrete into the blood—than people without COVID-19, according to a new study.
https://medicalxpres...antibodies.html

Convalescent plasma shows no benefit in hospitalized COVID-19 patients
https://www.news-med...9-patients.aspx
 
Until recently, the degree to which breakthrough cases can cause long Covid was unknown, largely due to a lack of studies on the topic. Now, a new study published  in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal found that fully vaccinated people are about 50 percent less likely to experience long Covid than unvaccinated people.
It is the most substantial study to date to indicate that at immunization significantly decreases the risk of long Covid.
https://www.salon.co...ough-infection/

17 Things That Made Me Say, "We're Never Making It Out Of This Pandemic, Huh?"
https://www.buzzfeed...ic-never-ending
 

At least 63 people tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a dance party in the western German city of Muenster, local media reported on Tuesday.

Authorities were surprised at the high number of infections as only vaccinated or recovered people – both widely believed to have immunity against the disease – were allowed to attend.

Nearly 380 people were at the club during the party, and so far 63 of them tested positive for COVID-19, public broadcaster WDR reported.

https://www.aa.com.t...germany/2364593

Covid-19: Ukrainian government announces vaccine passports
https://www.khaleejt...ccine-passports

Deadly Nipah Virus Emerges in India, Could Become Global Problem Similar to COVID, Media Warns
https://sputniknews....1089038415.html

Putin Confirms He Self-Isolates After 'Communicating With COVID-Positive Person For a Whole Day'
https://sputniknews....1089065981.html

Southern Chinese cities closed schools and ordered testing for millions on Tuesday in a race to curb a new COVID-19 outbreak which has sparked concerns over infections among unvaccinated schoolchildren.
Putian, a city of 3.2 million in coastal Fujian province, ordered testing of all residents on Tuesday after Delta variant cases linked to a returnee from Singapore ballooned into a province-wide outbreak of more than 100 people.
https://medicalxpres...olchildren.html

China to donate COVID-19 vaccines to Afghanistan: diplomat
http://www.ecns.cn/n...hs7013374.shtml
 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened on Monday to fine cities and counties if they require their employees to get vaccinated.
 
DeSantis slammed the Biden administration's vaccine mandate during a news conference in Florida's Alachua County on September 13 and said he would fine county and city governments if they impose a vaccine mandate on their employees.
 
DeSantis said on Monday that Biden's vaccine mandate — which requires employers with more than 100 employees to mandate vaccines — violates state law. The governor was likely referring to Florida Senate Bill 2006, a law that prohibits any business or government entity from requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination.
 
"If a government agency in the state of Florida forces a vaccine as a condition for your employment, that violates Florida law, and you will face a $5,000 fine for every single violation," DeSantis said at the news conference.

https://www.business...-florida-2021-9

A Man Who Spent 15 Years On Death Row Before He Was Exonerated Died Of COVID-19
Damon Thibodeaux, 47, died from COVID-19 less than 10 years after he was released from death row following DNA evidence that proved his innocence in a murder case.
https://www.buzzfeed...-exoneree-covid
 

Many of these elected officials have declined to elaborate on their views about vaccine requirements and whether they only object to Biden’s federal plan or also think other mandates put in place by school districts, the military and private employers should be rethought or banned.
 
The sharp rhetoric and failure to clarify their broader views on vaccines are worrying some public health experts.

“The 20th century was a century of incredible progress against leading killers, and much of that progress was because of vaccinations,” said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “If we turn our back on vaccines at this moment where vaccines are really having a scientific heyday . . . I think that would be tragic, and it would cause a lot of unnecessary suffering and death, particularly among children.”
 
*snip*

Several Republicans have said they believe that people should get vaccinated against the coronavirus but should not be required to do so. That approach, however, has done little to overcome the problem of vaccine hesitancy that has helped prolong the coronavirus pandemic, which continues to strain hospitals and kill thousands of Americans.

Peter Hotez, a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and a leading expert on the virus, is already worried about the decline of other vaccinations in the United States, particularly among children.

“The problem is that, with covid-19, with the social disruptions, there was a steep decline in childhood vaccinations, including things like [measles-mumps-rubella] vaccines and especially teenagers getting the HPV vaccine for cervical cancer and other cancers,” he said. “It’s starting to rebound, but my worry is that there will be a spillover effect from all of this anti-vaccine aggression that we’re seeing and that we’re not going to get back to baseline.”

https://www.washingt...c2e5_story.html
via https://www.rawstory...asles-outbreak/
 
maybe a new low

After comparing vaccine supporters to Nazis and sharing an image of needles in the shape of a swastika on social media, Republican state Sen. Kelly Townsend dismissed a Jewish organization who admonished her to “learn your history."
 
On Sunday, Townsend tweeted an image a Nazi flag made up of needles with a caption that anyone who is vaccinated and “complaining" about the unvaccinated are saying the vaccine doesn't work.
 
The Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish organization that focuses on fighting back against antisemitism and hate, sharply criticized Townsend on the social media network.
 
“(Townsend) should delete this outrageous and offensive tweet," the Arizona chapter of the Anti-Defamation League wrote on Twitter. “There is never a valid time to share this flag which represents oppression and genocide for so many. Comparing health mandates to Nazism is highly insensitive and escalates tensions around efforts to fight #COVID19."
 
Townsend rebuked the 108-year-old Jewish organization. “Learn your history," she retorted.
 
Other local Jewish organizations have chimed in on Townsends' comments as well.
 
“There is no place for Nazi imagery in regards to vaccination. Period," the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix said on Twitter. “This is shameful, offensive and insensitive. Do better."

https://www.rawstory...can-2655021192/
 

A right-wing radio host has died from the coronavirus after leading a campaign against masks and vaccines.
 
Bob Enyart, pastor of the Denver Bible Church, passed away on Monday after contracting Covid earlier in the month. The news was confirmed by Fred Williams, who hosted the Real Science Radio Show along with Enyart.
 
“It comes with an extremely heavy heart that my close friend and co-host of Real Science Radio has lost his battle with Covid,” Williams said. “Bob Enyart was one of the smartest, and without question the wisest person I’ve known. All the while being exceedingly kind and humble, and always, always willing to listen and discuss anything you wanted.”
 
Over the course of the pandemic, Enyart said he and his wife refused to get vaccinated, falsely claiming on his website that the vaccines were tested “on the cells of aborted babies.” Enyart also waged legal battles against mask mandates and social distancing guidelines while downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic. The Denver Post notes that before the pandemic, Enyart was known as an anti-abortion activist and provocateur who used to have a bit on his old TV show where he’d mock people who died of AIDS by reading out their names while Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust played in the background.

https://www.mediaite...borted-fetuses/
 

It's a struggle for Joe Gammon to talk. Lying in his bed in the intensive care unit at Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, this month, he described himself as "naive."
 
"If I would have known six months ago that this could be possible, this would have been a no-brainer," said the 45-year-old father of six, who has been in critical condition with covid-19 for weeks. He paused to use a suction tube to dislodge some phlegm from his throat. "But I honestly didn't think I was at any risk."
 
Tennessee hospitals are setting new records each day, caring for more covid patients than ever, including 3,846 of the more than 100,000 Americans hospitalized with the virus as of Sept. 9. The most critical patients are almost all unvaccinated, hospital officials say, meaning ICUs are filled with regretful patients hoping for a second chance.
 
In hospitals throughout the South as well as in parts of California and Oregon, more than 50% of the inpatients are being treated for covid, an NPR analysis shows.
 
Gammon is a truck driver from rural Lascassas in Middle Tennessee who said he listens to a lot of conservative talk radio. The daily diatribes downplaying the pandemic and promoting personal freedom were enough to dissuade him from vaccination.
 
Gammon said he's not an "anti-vaxxer." And he said he's a committed believer in the covid vaccine now. He's also thankful he didn't get anyone else so sick they're in an ICU like him.
 
"Before you say no, seek a second opinion," he advised people who think the way he did before being hospitalized. "Just to say 'no' is irresponsible. Because it might not necessarily affect you. What if it affected your spouse? Or your child? You wouldn't want that. You sure wouldn't want that on your heart."
 
Gammon's lungs are too damaged from covid for a ventilator. He is on the last-resort life support ECMO, which stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Unlike previous generations of life support, people on ECMO can be fully conscious, can speak to their loved ones (or even reporters), and can even move around with the help of a team of nurses and technicians.

https://www.news-med...and-regret.aspx

[Mike K.]

How about yelling at owners of restaurants and businesses who would just like to stay in business and serve customers while following health rules, even though these people don't make the decisions? That seems like a popular outlet for those looking for someone to be upset at.

It’s what society is like today. You don’t like something, so you act out towards the person or people behind it, expecting them not to react because you have this perceived notion that they can’t. And if they do, you try to cancel them, or threaten to cancel them.

There’s this notion now thanks to social media that the user/customer has the right to berate, disparage, belittle, harass, lie about and even threaten the business owner/moderator/representative of a company or group or organization if they do something that person or group don’t like.

[vortoozo]

FreeDUMB:

 

Alberta's 'open for summer' plan set trajectory of COVID's 4th wave, Hinshaw now says | CBC News

 

 

Alberta's chief medical health officer now says the province's controversial lifting of all COVID-19 public health restrictions in early July set the trajectory for the explosive fourth wave that has pushed its health-care system to the breaking point.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw also said in a Zoom meeting with Primary Care Network physicians on Monday that she "deeply" regrets her part in contributing to a narrative that "COVID's over."

 

Premier's handling of COVID 'doing long-term damage to the brand of Alberta,' Mayor Nenshi says | CBC News

 

 

Naheed Nenshi told reporters Monday that five conventions that were booked for Calgary have been cancelled directly because of the government's COVID policies.

 

The mayor says the conventions all cancelled after the government's announcement in the summer about scrapping COVID testing, tracing and isolation rules.

...

"I can tell you the No. 1 question that I get asked and my colleagues at Calgary Economic Development get asked is: Why would I move to Alberta with that provincial government?" he said.

"'How in the world would I attract young people to want to live there when it's so retrograde?' And the premier and his cabinet have to come to terms with this and understand you're doing long-term damage to the brand of Alberta."

 

Most businesses support vaccine passports, survey finds, as Edmonton and Calgary chambers of commerce call for provincial action | Edmonton Journal

 

 

The majority of businesses in Alberta’s two largest cities support a COVID-19 vaccine passport system in order to avoid further closures, according to a new survey.

 

Article content

In a Leger survey released Monday morning, 70 per cent of respondents representing members of the Edmonton and Calgary chambers of commerce said they support proof of vaccination policies to access certain businesses and services. Out of 1,000 independent citizens polled, 74 per cent responded in support for a vaccine mandate.

[Mike K.]

Naheed Nenshi told reporters Monday that five conventions that were booked for Calgary have been cancelled directly because of the government's COVID policies.

 

 

Shouldn't that be a good thing those five conventions were cancelled?

 

Here we are having to limit ourselves with passports and reduced capacities at restaurants, limited engagements with our friends and families, and the mayor of Calgary is upset conventions had to be cancelled.

[Victoria Watcher]

sounds like a win for the environment too.

[Victoria Watcher]

B.C. health officials announced 677 new cases of COVID-19 and one more death on Tuesday.

In a written statement, the provincial Health Ministry said there are currently 6,165 active cases of people infected with the novel coronavirus in B.C.

A total of 288 people are in hospital, with 140 in intensive care.


https://www.cbc.ca/n...ept14-1.6175088



The province has released its COVID-19 case numbers for Tuesday, September 14, covering the past 24 hours.

1,434 new infections were reported in Alberta. There have now been 272,211 confirmed cases, with 18,265 of those currently listed as active. 251,475 people have recovered.

https://lethbridgene...lberta-tuesday/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 14 September 2021 - 03:44 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Two more residents have died after becoming infected with COVID-19 at a long-term care home in Greater Victoria.

A total of six COVID-related deaths have been reported at Sunset Lodge since an outbreak was declared on Aug. 27, chief medical health officer Dr. Richard Stanwick said Tuesday.

https://www.timescol...home-1.24357786

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 14 September 2021 - 04:24 PM.

[vortoozo]

Shouldn't that be a good thing those five conventions were cancelled?

 

Here we are having to limit ourselves with passports and reduced capacities at restaurants, limited engagements with our friends and families, and the mayor of Calgary is upset conventions had to be cancelled.

 

It's certainly not good for the businesses that support those conventions. Remember, Alberta is "open for business". Yet their policies re: the pandemic are literally doing the opposite. Ignoring the problem and hoping it goes away doesn't work. Shocker. It's telling that 70% of businesses there are asking for a passport, and think that that's the best way out of the mess that the AB government has created.