Canadian COVID-19 News

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

......

Only an ˆ∂ˆot would not see how vaccine rollout has dramatically lowered the US infection rate. Our rates lag, but will soon catch up. And since we have a lower "vaccine hesitancy" rate than the USA, I predict our Covid-19 rates will soon decline even further than the US.

Should that make you proud?

Vaccine rollout in the US certainly seems to have made a serious dent in the daily new cases. Interestingly there are countries with much higher vaccine rates but still suffering high new case loads. Seychelles, Maldives and to a lesser extent UAE for example.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Vaccine rollout in the US certainly seems to have made a serious dent in the daily new cases. Interestingly there are countries with much higher vaccine rates but still suffering high new case loads. Seychelles, Maldives and to a lesser extent UAE for example.

True. It would be interesting to find a dataset to compare which dominant variant is circulating in each country, and see if what correlations emerge from that. Although that gets messy pretty quickly in physically large counties like Canada where we have different dominant variants circulating in different parts of the country.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

True. It would be interesting to find a dataset to compare which dominant variant is circulating in each country, ...

US CDC Global Variants Report
Countries that have reported variants of SARS-CoV-2.
➥ https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra...ant-report-map


Coronavirus Variant Tracker - The New York Times
➥ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...t-tracker.html

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

True. It would be interesting to find a dataset to compare which dominant variant is circulating in each country, and see if what correlations emerge from that. Although that gets messy pretty quickly in physically large counties like Canada where we have different dominant variants circulating in different parts of the country.

I suspect the greater correlation will be what was the dominate vaccine(s) used.

[Montanan]

Canada's prime minister is teasing that the country has plans to use vaccine passports or certificates similar to what the EU is developing.

"As people start to travel again, perhaps this summer if everything goes well, it would make sense for us to align with partners around the world on some sort of proof of vaccination or vaccine certification," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a press conference on Tuesday. "We are now working with allies, particularly in Europe, on that."

No mention of vaccine passports with the USA,

https://www.yahoo.com/news/justin-tr...215416047.html

[Mike OReilly]

CBC news: When will the Canada-U.S. border reopen?

Travel across the Canada-U.S. border could resume by late summer or fall, according to the cautious estimates of some experts, but they say the process will be complicated.

The border has been closed to non-essential travel like tourism and recreation since March 2020, and the closure agreement between Ottawa and Washington is expected to be renewed on May 21.
...
But the question on most people's minds, says foreign policy expert Aaron Ettinger, is probably "When can I do my day trips over the border once again?

"And my answer to that is, that it's going to be a long, long time."

[danstanford]

Imagining the hand-wringing at Federal and Provincial Governments as the media now has turned to inflaming us about the AZ and J&J vaccines. They sure seemed to enjoy it when it was about cases and variants.
Probably the right thing to do in both cases but I sure wish we were fed a diet of cold hard facts to make our own decisions more often. This past weekend since cases had been falling here without any mention by the paper of that fact they finally resorted to stating the cases of both the weekend days added together!

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by danstanford

Imagining the hand-wringing at Federal and Provincial Governments as the media now has turned to inflaming us about the AZ and J&J vaccines. They sure seemed to enjoy it when it was about cases and variants.

Probably the right thing to do in both cases but I sure wish we were fed a diet of cold hard facts to make our own decisions more often. This past weekend since cases had been falling here without any mention by the paper of that fact they finally resorted to stating the cases of both the weekend days added together!

Yes, the messaging around this is frustrating. Part of the problem is that advice given by NACI (National Advisory Committee on Immunization) was never meant for broad public consumption. It is an Health Canada advisory body which has a very narrow mandate and focus*. It's been around forever, but no one had ever heard of them until recently.

I'd love to trace this, but my bet is some hot-shot reporter stumbled on one of their Covid-19 vaccine reports, and thought it would be good to use this as the basis of a story. From there the ball started rolling, and now NACI is a public organization where it was never intended to be.

Their advice is to be considered within this very narrow band of vaccine science. It was never meant to include the broader spectrum considerations, and clearly they don't have this expertise. What they really need right now, since they are thrust upon the public stage, is better communications capacity. It's too easy for uninformed media to misrepresent or over-exaggerate their narrow scientific recommendations.


*Even though they claim (on their website) that their advice considered "economics, ethics, equity, feasibility, and acceptability", this is a recent expansion of their mandate. And it's clear from their makeup that they don't have the expertise to provide this kind of broad nuanced analysis.

[pcmm]

The problem is in the messaging. NACI was never really meant to be a public facing organization just as Mike mentioned but they have become and have been caught flatfooted giving contradictory advice. One of their spokespersons recently in an interview said that they would not recommend to their own family to get AZ when the mRNA vaccines are available even if they had to wait. which flies in the face of the messaging we have been hearing for weeks of get what ever you can as soon as you can!

As one of the GenX'ers that when out and got my shot as soon as I was eligible (as in by 12:30pm the day it was open to my age group) and got AZ. I'm glad I got my shot but a little annoyed at their attitude and switching back and forth. Now they are even talking about mixing doses from different brands. I can't see that as having a good outcome. Its almost like they are saying its now "not good enough" after millions of us got the AZ vaccine.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by pcmm

The problem is in the messaging. NACI was never really meant to be a public facing organization just as Mike mentioned but they have become and have been caught flatfooted giving contradictory advice. One of their spokespersons recently in an interview said that they would not recommend to their own family to get AZ when the mRNA vaccines are available even if they had to wait. which flies in the face of the messaging we have been hearing for weeks of get what ever you can as soon as you can! ...

I hadn't seen that.
Do you have a supporting reference?

Edit:
Is this what you're reporting?
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization said Canadians less at risk could wait for 'preferred' vaccine
➥ https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens...ctor-1.6013526

[pcmm]

Originally Posted by GordMay

I hadn't seen that.
Do you have a supporting reference?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNw-cg2ZKqI

about 3 minutes in. She says that if she recommended to her sister to get the AZ and she go the Vittt side effect and die... super hyperbolic. the blood clot risk is 1 in 100,000-250,000. Its no different than birth control pills but she's making it seem like a 1-1 risk!

[danstanford]

Originally Posted by pcmm

The problem is in the messaging. NACI was never really meant to be a public facing organization just as Mike mentioned but they have become and have been caught flatfooted giving contradictory advice. One of their spokespersons recently in an interview said that they would not recommend to their own family to get AZ when the mRNA vaccines are available even if they had to wait. which flies in the face of the messaging we have been hearing for weeks of get what ever you can as soon as you can!

As one of the GenX'ers that when out and got my shot as soon as I was eligible (as in by 12:30pm the day it was open to my age group) and got AZ. I'm glad I got my shot but a little annoyed at their attitude and switching back and forth. Now they are even talking about mixing doses from different brands. I can't see that as having a good outcome. Its almost like they are saying its now "not good enough" after millions of us got the AZ vaccine.

Where we differ is the fact that the messaging is aimed at a specific place that in this case you and the government agree is best for us and I think, as it is with censorship in other forums like Facebook, management of the message is dangerous. For the record, I agree with the message.

Many of us would be horrified if the press began trumpeting that more than 98 out of 100 cases are largely tolerable (without death or hospitalization) but we are apparently fine with them reciting how unlikely we are to have an intolerable circumstance with vaccines.

I know what we readers want to read and that is inflammatory scary news so that is what is click bait. What is disagree with is the way we delude ourselves in pursuit of managing the world into a result we want.

If we want to shout that everyone should look at the science we should not get to choose not to look at science we don't think will lead to results we don't want.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by pcmm

about 3 minutes in. She says that if she recommended to her sister to get the AZ and she go the Vittt side effect and die... super hyperbolic. the blood clot risk is 1 in 100,000-250,000. Its no different than birth control pills but she's making it seem like a 1-1 risk!

I heard her suggest a hypothetical ...

[pcmm]

Originally Posted by GordMay

I heard her suggest a hypothetical ...

yes and she said that based on that hypothetical, she wouldn't have her family use AZ followed by a lot of backpedaling. From my perspective there is risk in everything in life, 1 out of 100,000-250,000 is a low enough risk that we really shouldn't be worrying about it. For reference, the risk of getting blood clots from birth control is 0.3% of users or 300 out of 100,000 users.

The problem is the more NACI and others try to talk their way out of this, the worse they are making it. They say that the mRNA vaccines are preferable and that given a choice wait for it. Then why bother with the AZ vaccines? Then at the same time they say if you are in an area with Covid, get the first available.

[boatpoker]

The experts and the pols have different opinions. The experts are being told what to say and they keep getting different stories.
Anyone who belives anything when a politician is involved is naive.