Canadian COVID-19 News

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by nwdiver

Your own understanding of stats should show you why this is happening. If as some suggest we will all have Omicron in the next 2 months the hospitals will overflow…….

Yes... thanks ... I think .

[nwdiver]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Yes... thanks ... I think .

If 100% of the population had the first Covid-19 in a short time frame, we would have a very different world today, if 100% catch the Omicron variety over 2-3 month period, it will be tough but not total devastation. This form may be easy to catch but less severe in it’s outcomes.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Greg K

How about we skip the bullcrap about the source and just comment on the veracity of the information in the presentation itself.

Greg K, Your approach of posting a link then tell us we should go read it is absolutely the least likely thing you could possibly do to influence people like me.

I don't jump when someone says "jump" and I don't go read or watch something when some one says "go watch this". You think we are going to do whatever you tell us to do? You're crazier than your ideas about science and vaccines.

What would be more effective would be for you to summarize the content of the article or video, then post the link. I will read your post, and if it sounds reasonable, I might go read the whole thing or watch the whole video.

But the way you proceed now, I just skip to the next person's comment. Your effort is wasted.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by nwdiver

If 100% of the population had the first Covid-19 in a short time frame, we would have a very different world today, if 100% catch the Omicron variety over 2-3 month period, it will be tough but not total devastation. This form may be easy to catch but less severe in it’s outcomes.

Maybe. All depends on your definition of devastating I suppose. If the hospital systems collapse under the weight of cases, then it's going to be pretty bad. And of course there'd be a lot more dead people if your former scenario had happened.

But still not sure what point you're trying to make in response to my previous post.

[nwdiver]

The increase in Ontario hospitalizations is directly related to the number of cases.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by nwdiver

The increase in Ontario hospitalizations is directly related to the number of cases.

Sure... that's always been the case. The question (my hope) with Omicron has/had been around virulence. If it had been sufficiently lower, this might have offset the higher infectious number. This seems to have been the experience of South Africa.

Sadly, it doesn't seem to playing out the same here, or in most other colder parts of the world.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Sure... that's always been the case. The question (my hope) with Omicron has/had been around virulence. If it had been sufficiently lower, this might have offset the higher infectious number. This seems to have been the experience of South Africa.

Sadly, it doesn't seem to playing out the same here, or in most other colder parts of the world.

Happy 2022, all.

Everything so far seems to suggest that Omicron is significantly less virulent. The medical threat will be sheer numbers sick at once; the lower virulence could still result in a substantial number of hospitalizations. But fewer ending up on ventilators, given Omicron's preference for the throat over the lungs.

Right now, the greater social/economic threat is from labour shortages as infected people take the time off to isolate. Which is why so many countries have shortened the official isolation period, or dropped it altogether.

The silver lining is that getting Omicron seems to confer significant protection against the older and more virulent earlier versions. Although its still a viral illness and carries its own risks of harm.

Between vaccination & booster, and reducing unnecessary contacts for the next few weeks, I believe that most Canadians are unlikely to get seriously ill, and we could know by February whether or not COVID remains a pandemic. I'm looking forward to a resumption of most normal activities by spring.

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Maybe. All depends on your definition of devastating I suppose. If the hospital systems collapse under the weight of cases, then it's going to be pretty bad. And of course there'd be a lot more dead people if your former scenario had happened.

But still not sure what point you're trying to make in response to my previous post.

If there is a possibility of our hospital systems collapsing (and personally I think there is an EXCELLENT chance) we should all be very, very worried. We already have doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals leaving, from exhaustion and burnout, in droves - plus all those quarantining at home, down with Covid. Our capacity is drastically reduced at a time that we need it most - and the continuing overload is going to lead to more burnout and departures. It a vicious, downward spiral. It's going to take years and years to train and rebuild the staffing just to get back to pre-covid capacity - and all of this is happening as us baby-boomers (the biggest generation ever) prepare to REALLY hit the health-care system. I believe I have seen statistics that more is spent for health-care for a person during the last five years of their life than during all their preceeding years combined - and we're just getting there.

[Mike OReilly]

Glad to see some are holding onto optimism. When I see slopes like this on a graph, I don't see much evidence for such. My remaining hope is that this will be a very steep, but short, blip.

• https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/hospitalizations
• https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashboard/

[Midnight Son]

Originally Posted by nwdiver

Your own understanding of stats should show you why this is happening. If as some suggest we will all have Omicron in the next 2 months the hospitals will overflow…….

A smaller percentage, of an extremely huge number, is still a very very large number.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Glad to see some are holding onto optimism. When I see slopes like this on a graph, I don't see much evidence for such. My remaining hope is that this will be a very steep, but short, blip.

• https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/hospitalizations
• https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashboard/

I haven't got a ready source, but it would put the numbers a bit more in context to see the current spike compared to the peaks in 2020 and earlier in 2021. And to also look at the current hospitalizations, their nature and severity, and what percentage of those require ventilation, again compared to pre-Omicron levels.

I'm not so much optimistic as resigned, or maybe even as 'fatigued' as many others. I've found myself accepting some risks now that i wouldn't have a year ago, perhaps overconfident in the vaccines (boosted of course) and the lower severity of Omicron. There's gonna be a spike for sure, could be bad, but it seems likely to be a short, sharp one, and that Omicron is going to displace the more virulent earlier versions, and COVID will become endemic.

As with last year, it would be nice if the government officials and others concerned about the current spike told us of their plans to handle the anticipated spike, instead of the current mixed message ("We're concerned, but not locking down, we're shortenening the isolation periods, we're starting to give up on testing...")

[Mike OReilly]

Here's the hospitalization curve for Ontario for the entire pandemic. We're only about 1/2 way to the peak of the 3rd wave, but the concerning part is the steepness of the rise right now. If you look at all the other waves, the slope of each curve is much more gradual. This one is shooting almost vertical.

ICU has not yet taken on this slope, but ICU admissions lag hospitalization. If it follows hospitalizations, ... .

As I said, the only optimistic point I see right now is that this may be a steep, but short wave.

[GordMay]

‘No evidence’ Omicron milder than Delta, British researchers say
Imperial College London study [1] also finds Omicron five times [5.4X] more likely to cause reinfections [than Delta], but some experts say there are still not sufficient data to draw conclusions.
Much more about ➥ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/...esearchers-say

“Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses” ~ Imperial College London
The study [1] finds no evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta, judged by either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection. However, hospitalisation data remains very limited at this time.
➥ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/2326...ity-from-past/


[1]“Report 49 - Growth, population distribution and immune escape of Omicron in England” ~ by Neil Ferguson, Azra Ghani, Anne Cori, Alexandra Hogan, Wes Hinsley, Erik Volz on behalf of the Imperial College COVID-19 response team [December 16, 2021]
➥ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-globa...rt-49-Omicron/

[GordMay]

However:

Public Health Ontario says the Omicron variant has 54% less risk of death or hospitalization than the Delta variant, according to an early study [1]

“... We compared COVID-19 cases with Omicron, to closely matched cases with Delta, and found the risk of hospitalization or death was 54% lower for Omicron. However, given Omicron is more transmissible, we expect an increase in hospitalizations ...”

The study found that Delta cases had a 2.24% rate of hospitalization or death, with seven deaths, and Omicron cases had a 0.33% rate of hospitalization or death, with no reported deaths.

However, despite the Omicron variant's "reduced severity," the study says, "due to the transmissibility of Omicron, the absolute number of hospitalizations and impact on the healthcare system is likely to be significant."

The Omicron variant also had slightly younger median age [28 years old] compared to the Delta variant [30 y/o].

[1] “Early Estimates of Omicron Severity in Ontario based on a Matched Cohort Study, November 22 to December 17, 2021" ~ Public Health Ontario [PHO]
➥ https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-...pdf?sc_lang=en

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by GordMay

However:

Public Health Ontario says the Omicron variant has 54% less risk of death or hospitalization than the Delta variant, according to an early study [1]

Another factor - the spread of Omicron is so rapid that authorities have just about given up on having accurate case counts. They can't keep up with PCR testing demand, and there's no reliable capture of the results of self-testing with the rapid tests. So actual cases could be 3x or higher than tested positives. But hospitalization hasn't (yet) increased at a rate comparable to previous waves. Which supports the idea that Omicron isn't as virulent. And of course, in Ontario, we have had a pretty high vaccine uptake.

Still early days, and of course hospitalizations and deaths lag the case count. So, yeah I'm optimistic, but with some justification.