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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
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Some Comparative Stats re Deaths per year from Illness
1. 1918 - Spanish Flu (A Pandemic) - 50 million (World Pop. a bit under 1 billion)
2. 2018 - Seasonal Flu - under 3/4 million [650,000] (Pop. approx. 7.5 billion)
3. 2020-1 - Average of the two years - COVID-19 & Variants - 2.75 million (Pop. approx. 7.7 billion) - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/c...-deaths-region + Note: "For some countries the number of confirmed deaths is much lower than the true number of deaths. This is because of limited testing and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death."
Omicron variant & Seriousness
1. Hospitalizations: Though less serious than Delta, Omicron is expected to overwhelm the Quebec Hospital system in the next two weeks, despite the shutdown. https://montrealgazette.com/news/loc...G_HeadlineNews.
2. Seriousness of the Omicron Variant - 22/1/6 - though less serious than the Delta Variant, and the original SarsCov2, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that it is a mistake to refer to Omicron as "mild".
3. My opinion: in 2022, it is appropriate to term the ordinary flu "mild".
s
So what are the conclusions about the seriousness of COVID-19, Delta & Omicron??
~ Bob A (T-S/P)
I misstated "mild" in the other thread. I meant that future pandemics will make covid look mild. Covid has killed over 5 million.
That the % death rate for covid is much lower compared to some historical pandemics like the Bubonic Plague, 75-200 million. The Antonine Plague (smallpox?), Cyprian Plague, Justinian Plague killed millions and contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. The Cocoliztli epidemic (salmonella?) killed 15 million and contributed to the decline of the Aztec Empire. Small pox contributed to wiping out the majority of North American native peoples. And Cholera killed millions in India. Polio and AIDS. And there's drug-resistant superbugs in hospitals.
Certainly sanitation (plumbing, hot water), flu vaccines, antibiotics, and nutrition have prevented us from getting the historical pandemics.
Last edited by Erik Malmsten; Friday, 7th January, 2022, 11:58 AM.
For Thursday, 22/1/6: New Cases: 11,899; Hospitalizations - new record: 2,472; ICU: 338 (High volumes of new cases mean higher hospitalizations, despite Omicron being "less serious"; for some people it is quite virulent)
The "Mandatory" Jab Is it coming to a Canadian province/territory near you?
We will never reach the point where it is illegal not to get vaccinated. But more and more people will have to get vaccinated if they want to do anything outside of their home, eventually including buying food or even walking outside of their door. What I do expect if things get bad enough is hospitals having the power to refuse medical care to those not vaccinated because we have people who need surgery or they may die of cancer, or some other sickness, but are not getting the surgery because the hospitals are saving the beds for people not vaccinated who may be contracting COVID.
22/1/7 Communication from my wife and my personal physician's Health Team
"Many thanks to Unity Health Toronto for giving us permission to share this letter.
On Dec 30, 2021 the province announced some significant changes to COVID-19 self-isolation requirements and testing eligibility due to the Omicron surge. High case counts, limited testing capacity and evolving guidance are changing our approach.
Key messages:
•if you have symptoms, you can presume you have COVID-19 •most people do not need a COVID-19 test to confirm their diagnosis. COVID-19 tests are now being reserved for high-risk settings and high-risk individuals •there are important changes to isolation guidance that mean some people will only need to isolate for 5 days •household contacts of people who have symptoms also need to self-isolate •two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine continue to provide protection against severe disease for those with healthy immune systems. Most people with two COVID-19 vaccines and healthy immune systems will have milder symptoms if they get COVID-19. •three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine provide more protection from getting and transmitting the Omicron variant than 2 doses. All Ontarians 18+ are eligible for a 3rd dose 84 days after the 2nd dose (see here). Please book a third dose if you have not already done so!
Below is some more detailed information on what to do if you experience COVID-19 symptoms and when to reach out to us.
We have not been assisted by the experience of China (where the pandemic began in the city of Wuhan just over two years ago), actively misleading the world on many aspects of COVID-19, right from the start.
And northern Italy, where the illness first became really serious some 22 months ago, is about the worst possible place to try to contain a pandemic, since it is so close to so much of populated Europe, in many national directions.
I believe that the real number of worldwide deaths for COVID-19 is probably at least ten times the level being reported. It is simply politically impossible for certain countries to tell the truth about this; in a place like India, where it has been reported internationally that the true death toll there is at least seven times higher than the official totals, there would possibly be a revolution should the truth come out. At the street level, many people know how bad it is. Likewise with most African countries.
Back when I was an undergraduate, I took an advanced mathematical statistics course where we studied the mathematics of pandemics. I don't have advanced biology or medical education. Based on that knowledge set, my additional education and training, and through following the current pandemic closely, I will now venture some big-picture predictions for Ontario, with Omicron, and the ongoing Delta variant.
Ontario has about 15 million residents, who are distinctly distributed very unevenly around the province. The pandemic has hit Canada's (and the world's) urban areas the hardest; this is where population density is highest, and people are thrown into closer contact with each other, increasing the transmission risk.
1) The area within 150 km. of downtown Toronto, with something like 11 million residents, may see very high case numbers persist until late March or early April, and a significant number of deaths, most of which will be people who were unvaccinated. In this region, there are at least one million unvaccinated adults who could be vaccinated. Some of them will figure it out and take the jab, overcoming whatever it is holding them back. As the case load worsens, we will hopefully see these people get their first shots. Many hospital systems in that region will be overburdened; we are already starting to see this. There will once again be delays for people seeking non-COVID treatment and surgery.
2) The Ottawa region, with about 1 million residents, will see high case numbers until at least mid-February, with most hospitals getting very crowded, and a fairly heavy death toll, again mainly among those who remain unvaccinated.
3) The rest of the province (about 3 million residents, Southwest Ontario, East not including Ottawa, and North) could see its case numbers drop significantly by the end of January, with some deaths.
Ontario has made a lot of mistakes, but it has taken a strong steep with boosters, having vaxxed over 30 per cent of its population, as of today. It has over 190 vaccinations per 100 Ontario residents, and this is a bit higher than Canada as a whole, mainly because of the boosters. Canada is at 186, as per cnn.com today.
Concerning mandatory vaccination for COVID-19, Canada already does this for children, covering many diseases, as has been pointed out recently by several media outlets. New immigrants also must receive their shots for these diseases. Personally, I don't have a problem with it. There are quite a few people who will, and there will be a few legitimate cases to avoid (allergies). I think it will happen this year in Canada, mandated nationally. I would not be in favor of denying health care access to those who are unvaccinated.
But I would advocate for this to happen:
1) Set a date, say May 1, 2022, for all Canadians to at least receive their first shot (note that children under age 5 cannot yet receive shots);
2) If a person hasn't received it by then, and they want to access health care, then they are on their own for any and all costs, on anything they want, until they get vaccinated.
Very simple, and very effective.
As of end of Sunday, 22/1/9:
New Cases: 9,706 (Dropping)
....
That number *may* be far from accurate, Bob. Last night, on CBC news, a doctor was interviewed who indicated that, because of Ontario's testing capacity issues, in his opinion the true number of daily new covid cases in Ontario could be in the 50-70,000 range. You're interested in discussing philosophy. Well, here's a real-life ethical issue for you: should unvaccinated people with covid be treated differently than people who are fully vaccinated?; e.g. how would you feel if your right hip couldn't bear any weight, and you were in constant pain, but your hip-replacement surgery was indefinitely deferred primarily because of anti-vaxxers clogging up our hospitals? What are the ethical issues here? Should the anti-vaxxers be told to go to QAnon Memorial Hospital where they can be under the care of Dr. Foxnews? How about the ethical issues relating to anti-vaxxers (whoops!! I almost typed 'assholes' there) harassing public health workers and officials?
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
IMHO there isn't much to philosophize about here: the antivaxxers are free to choose their own path but interfering with any workers (esp. health care/emergency/hospital) should be jail time.
They (the AVs) are not only clogging up hospitals, they are helping spread Covid but unilaterally punishing them by association is a bit of a leap. I am astounded by the number of arm-chair health experts out there now (and growing) but I see it as a general decline in intellectual ability (sort of like herd immunity to reasoning). They are free to choose, but there are (currently) consequences and there soon may be retaliation from knuckle-draggers who are tired of them.
I think the entire area of rights, privileges, and requirements, for both non-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers, with respect to those of the general population, during a pandemic, is a huge gap in legal structure and praxis in Canada, and elsewhere. We are in an entirely new situation.
What concerns me the most are four elements:
1) people who are not vaccinated put themselves at risk, but also endanger everyone they encounter;
2) everyone's tax dollars are going, at all of the federal, provincial, and municipal levels, to fund organizations which employ some people who remain unvaccinated;
3) people who remain unvaccinated seem to have first call on health care resources, for COVID-19, ahead of those who are vaccinated and still suffer from COVID-19;
4) major inconsistencies among provinces and territories, on policy and implementation, stem form our constitutional setup which makes both health care and education provincial responsibilities.
Now, if Parliament would actually meet and debate these points, we may actually get somewhere!
Question on COVID-19 Ontario death data:
I spent some time examining Ontario COVID-19 cases and death data on the Ontario government websites, over the past few days.
What I found is that if you obtain the death data for all the health regions in the province, and add them up, the total comes out about 700 short of the published number for Ontario COVID-19 deaths (about 10,400).
I've checked and re-checked my work half-a-dozen times, and it comes out the same.
The question is: under which category are those 700 missing deaths?
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