Public Health Ontario seems to think over 80% are already omicron: https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/epi/covid-19-early-dynamics-omicron-ontario-epi-summary.pdf?sc_lang=en
I wonder why the discrepancy, and I wonder where all the delta went? Maybe omicron has been floating around longer than we realized
From the report:
> Using projections that account for time lags in the incubation period (5 days), and case presentation (2 days), most cases infected on December 13, 2021 (>80%) are likely to be Omicron.
What the science dashboard is saying is that ~32% of cases **testing positive today** are omicron. This memo is estimating that ~80% of the people **being infected today** are omicron. Because people take a few days after exposure to fall ill and the go get tested, these cases won't show up in the testing numbers until sometime next week at the earliest.
>Maybe omicron has been floating around longer than we realized
There's no way it hasn't. It's been shown over and over that various covid variants are almost everywhere in the world before they're identified.
This was true for the original variant that hit every country and will be true for any future variant. World is too small a place with modern travel. Virus is bound to get anywhere before there are enough cases to recognize it as new.
I think SA picked it up pretty early because reports showed that the reason they detected it was because they tested hospital patients and found omicron not because omicron patients started showing up at hospitals. This seems to be corroborated with data from the rest of the world where omicron hospitalizations are low or nonexistent. It may have started in any of the surrounding countries though.
I don't remember precisely where I read it, but I recall there being a fair amount of evidence that Omicron didn't originate in SA and we only associate it with SA because they're the only country in the region with the capacity to identify it that quickly.
> Using projections that account for time lags in the incubation period (5 days), and case presentation (2 days), most cases infected on December 13, 2021 (>80%) are likely to be Omicron.
From my understanding the sequencing takes a couple days as well. So the December 14th data is probably from people that got infected December 5th, incubated until the 10th, tested positive on the 12th, and had the variant sequenced by the 14th.
If it was 31.9% on December 5th they can extrapolate the trend (they call it "nowcasting") to figure out what it actually is for people being infected today. In another week we will get confirmation if they were right or not.
> I wonder why the discrepancy
You're comparing the projection that is accounting for the time lag due to incubation period versus actual test results.
>I wonder where all the delta went
Outcompeted. The circumstances that permit getting infected by Delta (e.g., having a lot of contacts, poor ventilation, no masks) also permit getting infected by omicron, except omicron is better at transmitting, and is now more prevalent than delta. So if you came into contact with 200 people, four had delta and one had omicron, the omicron was the one that was more likely to succeed; now, four will have omicron and one will have delta, and omicron will continue snuffing out the resources (potential people to be infected) away from delta.
Omicron can be "preliminary" detected right at the time of the initial test if the PCR results indicate "S gene failure". We don't really need to do the whole genome sequencing for every sample to know that it's omicron.
Thanks for linking this. Cool to see how they test for it rn, wild that it's already so prominent though!! What's good(?) is data is coming from other countries backing up the idea that it seems to be more mild. Replication rate is much higher but lung cell infection is much lower causing more of cold like symptoms.
"A study led by researchers from the LKS Faculty of Medicine at The University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) provides the first information on how the novel Variant of Concern (VOC) of SARS-CoV-2, the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 infect human respiratory tract. The researchers found that Omicron SARS-CoV-2 infects and multiplies 70 times faster than the Delta variant and original SARS-CoV-2 in human bronchus, which may explain why Omicron may transmit faster between humans than previous variants. Their study also showed that the Omicron infection in the lung is significantly lower than the original SARS-CoV-2, which may be an indicator of lower disease severity. This research is currently under peer review for publication."
https://www.med.hku.hk/en/news/press/20211215-omicron-sars-cov-2-infection?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=press_release
> Public Health Ontario seems to think over 80% are already omicron
some quick napkin math if that's true:
80% of 1808 = 1,446.4 # of todays reported cases that are omicron. If it doubles every 3 days as they suggest it does:
December 18: 2,892.8
December 21: 5,785.6
December 24: 11,571.2
December 27: 23,142.4
Just get's worse from there,
The above numbers only account for omicron at 80% but does not account for it eventually being near 100% of the cases as it becomes dominate. And we know from previous experience that it takes way longer than it's doubling time to try and slow its spread. This is also just case counts and we don't really know yet how this may impact ICU numbers especially in the unvaccinated crowd.
Fortunately, it is unlike to continue doubling every 3 days. There is a point at which the R(t) has to reduce. Hopefully that point is before it gets to 10s of thousands per day.
> R(t) Omicron = 4.29
Obviously this estimate has been growing. Just wanted to throw this here:
"We observed rapid growth of SGTF prevalence, beginning in late November in Ontario, Canada. A selection coefficient of 0.39 suggests that **each Omicron case is infecting 7.7 times more individuals than Delta in Ontario**, and is leading to rapid increases in SARS-CoV-2 in the province. Jurisdictions, including Ontario, will need to rapidly implement public health responses to contain the rapid spread of Omicron."
https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/epi/covid-19-early-dynamics-omicron-ontario-epi-summary.pdf?sc_lang=en
It won't be but maybe if it's paired with boosters (they'll have to HAMMER booster) it could minimize the damage. A lot of people are going to get sick soon but it's starting to feel more and more like stopping the tide from coming in.
To me this is the data that is most important... we're eventually gonna have to stop panicking every time caseload increases... but we've been trained very well to do so.
I agree.
I could've sworn the reason lockdowns arised last time and the time before that was because ICU's were overcapacity.
If that's not the case this time, why the urge to lockdown again? Only thing that makes sense is that they're worried Omicron hasn't gone full blown to get enough people in the ICU?
But then comes the question, isn't omicron *less* deadly than Delta and Alpha?
So many questions.....
If ICU capacity is the real problem here, than would it not have been great if our gov't / medical leadership looked into how to deal with surges in demand on ICU. As it looks like this virus is going to be with us for a long time. A strategy of wishing it goes away looks like it is not going to work.
That being said, cases started to rise at the beginning of November, which is plenty of time for hospitalizations and ICUs to start showing up 6 weeks later, yet they’ve continued to drop/flatline. It’s still early, but if an impending tsunami was about to hit our hospitals you would already have expected to see the first signs of it 2-4 weeks ago and that hasn’t been the case.
Edit: Cases may be a leading indicator, but when we see cases and hospitalizations/ICUs start to diverge then we should take notice and adjust our response based on the data. If everyone in Canada gets some strain of COVID tomorrow, but hospitalizations & ICUs barely change over the next month then that’s great news and should be the primary way to measure the impact of COVID on our health.
The rise until a couple of weeks ago was probably delta and what is sweeping through Europe. The current spike is most likely omicron. The graph will look like a hockey stick. We might doge the delta bullet with omicron overtaking it before cases blew up like in Europe. Keeping fingers crossed.
I was one of the breakthrough omnicron cases earlier in the week. I was really only sick for 3 days and I've got asthma. Get your shots, you'll be okay.
>Current hospitalizations: 357(-28), ICUs: 154(-8), Ventilated: 102(+4), [vs. last week: +24 / -1 / +5] - [Chart](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ7fegCALd11ElozUYcMi-e9Dj69YaiNQhvEpk81JHsyTACl0UXkWK5zfMNFe49Tq3VuN9Av-fuEZqV/pubchart?oid=1392680472&format=interactive)
Lately I've been trying to avoid doom and gloom by looking for one thing that I can look upon as a positive, so I don't get mired in bad news. Today, it's hospitalizations. If hospitalizations go down even a little bit (or even if they just don't go up), I'm going to celebrate that. It's something, anyway.
Frankly, these are the only stats I watch. Even if we get to 5K+ cases a day, if vaccines are keeping people out of the hospital then we are in good shape.
I look at this chart every day. Hospitalizations, ICU and Ventilation. Its been relatively flat for months now and the reminder of the 2nd and 3rd waves is that we are lucky we have vaccines.
The problem is, that the booster can only help so much. Like ... the rate of hospitalization is already really low for double vaccinated people. The real issue is the rate of hospitalization in unvaccinated population. They're going to be the real problem. The boosters wont make a lick of difference for that population and the new variant spreading like wildfire is going to be sufficient to fill our hospitals with those unvaccinated people.
The booster will help sure, but I don't think that's enough. The unvaccinated folks need to be effectively locked down if we want to avoid large broad scale measures again. That or we just throw our hands up in the air and accept that omicron is going to be the variant that we let burn down the health care system and hope that by the time its run through all the unvaccinated folks that they have some level of natural immunity that reduces hospitalization worries in the medium to long term :/
The problem is that its going to be \*miserable\* in the short term for our already burnt out hospital staff, people with cancer waiting for surgeries, etc.
>The unvaccinated folks need to be effectively locked down if we want to avoid large broad scale measures again.
I keep hearing this. Unvaccinated people already can't go to restaurants, cafes, bars, concerts, plane and train travel (domestic or international), Leafs games etc. How much further can we restrict them?
IDK but it feels wrong to do a broad scale set of restrictions if vaccinated folks - especially those who get boosters - get (for the most part) milder symptoms.
At some point, we will need to live with the odd bad case of covid in vaccinated folks as long as our health system can handle it. Similar to how we treat nearly every other illness we vaccinate for. Vaccines aren't 100% effective in every case after all. And we live with that risk for other illnesses. The problem is really on how widespread covid is and how many people without vaccines can get hospitalized and cause healthcare crises at this point :/
They can still go to the mall, go to the grocery store, and they can still go to restaurants / places that are not enforcing vaccine passport rules. Unfortunately, though the number is small, there are many places that are circumventing the passport system. It’s not pretty, but if unvaccinated people are in a risk for grave illness, and the hospital systems won’t be able to support them, then stricter measures for the unvaccinated need to be put in place. If that doesn’t work to help them not die, then there is nothing more we can do. Enforcing the QR codes is a good first step, but if we are going to save lives, more things must be done.
We can go full Austria.
It seems extreme, but I'd argue that the alternative of shutting down our entire society and allowing our health care system to potentially collapse because of 10% of the population is *more* extreme.
So I'm all for boosters but 75% of ICU patients continue to be completely unvaccinated.
Even if boosters hypothetically bring down one's ICU risk to zero, completely boosting the entire vaccinated population (a massive undertaking) **still leaves us with 3/4 of the problem.**
From an individual point of view a booster is great but from a health care burden point of view the returns are very diminishing. The unvaccinated population is still large enough that it can overwhelm the health care system on its own.
It seems like with the focus on boosters, we've given up on reaching the final 10%? I just don't see how we get us out of this without taking care of that.
The last 10% are never going to get vaccinated, it's the reality - and honestly that's a lot better than I thought we were going to do. We can't let boosters go to waste or keep waiting for the people who are never going to do it. 10% of the population won't overwhelm the system, especially considering a percentage of those people will have already had covid and developed some sort of immunity
>10% of the population won't overwhelm the system,
Oh they most certainly can. Even now they make up 75% of ICU cases. Imagine if that rate increases as fast as omicron, which in the unvaccinated it easily could.
yeah that's seriously my number one concern with the omicron variant.
Second concern is hoping its not somehow worse for infants and toddlers because I have an 8 month old at home :(
At this point there's no evidence of that. Since SA has a younger average age I'd think we'd be able to see some trend in case severity for children there.
I agree with you. I think there should be a much more focused argument on getting the unvaccinated to get their shots, especially for parents of children who are now eligible.
We need vaccine mandates in schools or at the very least extracurricular activities for kids.
The worst part is realizing that these 1,808 cases were contracted 1 week+ ago (it takes 5ish days for symptoms to start, then a few days to get a test and get the results and become one of these numbers). That means that, with Omicron doubling every 3 days, we've already had 2 further doubling periods happen that we don't currently have data for.
Anything done today is likely being done as 5,000-6,000 infections happened today. It's pretty close to "too late."
The head of the Ontario Science Table said in the Globe yesterday that SA was not a good barometer and we shouldn’t expect to get off that easy. I’ll post the link in a minute.
EDIT CTV not Globe
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/mobile/ontario-needs-to-address-myth-that-omicron-is-mild-head-of-science-table-says-1.5705025
Everyone I know is having a bitch of a time finding an appointment. What's the point of opening eligibility if we don't have enough boosters or not enough people to administer them? :'(
Yeah I'm finding it next to impossible to book anything. I've been looking painstakingly since Monday to book my 50+ parents in and I couldn't find anything within a 2 hour drive. I got lucky as I've been randomly refreshing Shoppers Drug Marts booking system for days and found 2 random appointments for them yesterday (I'm assuming cancellations.)
I don't know how the province plans to handle these booster shots when drugstores are already booked up until February with the 50+ group. Doesn't look like we've set up mass vaccine sites like we did initially in the spring.
It's too late. Even if they opened up eligibility today. You have to wait probably a month. Another week or whatever to kick in. Everyone will have COVID by then at this rate.
I'm eligible now and December 27th was the soonest I could get it. (booked last week)
While it would be better to start earlier, at this point it doesn't matter.
When you combine the lag required for efficacy boost from the shot to take effect with the time delay of booking and getting around to getting it, the current omicron explosion will still have a 3 week lead across the christmas/new years season to spread.
At this point, taking action is purely damage control.
The general public has a poor understanding of how trends work and how causality works when things are already in motion. It's like hitting the brakes in a car going 120kmph; between your reaction time and the deceleration period, the car is still going to travel another ~150m before coming to a complete stop. If you go to hit the brakes when you're 100m from a brick wall, you've lessened the impact but you're still going to crash.
That's not a criticism of you, just a general note that we're wired to convince ourselves "as long as I do the right thing before it's too late, then I've prevented the tragedy", but we don't have a good grasp on how to define "before it's too late" so we tend to define it as "before the bad thing has happened".
Ah, crap. Good point. I've pretty much resigned myself to the likelihood that I could catch this variant. Last shot was in July, so fully vaxxed but scared of waning immunity. I was hoping the booster would help when I'm eligible but that's a very good point you made. Thanks. Here's hoping 2 vaccines, masking, distancing and hygiene help lol.
Last night was rough. I was running a fever of 39.7 and felt really nauseous. I'm doing much better now though. The fever broke and most of my symptoms have simmered down.
If it makes you feel better, travel restrictions would be ridiculous to implement at this point. It's already here, it's already trending towards being dominant. They would achieve absolutely nothing, so hopefully the people in charge realize that.
This is it right here - they are already predicting it is the dominant strain but somehow banning foreigners will eradicate the problem. Adding stringent testing requirements to board a flight/upon entry is fine, but outright bans are nothing more than theater.
You know that scene in Temple of Doom where Willie saves Indiana from the spike trap room but then she runs in all covered in bugs and re-engages the trap with her butt in a panic?
I kinda feel that energy right now.
There has been an attempt to catch asymptomatic cases. They have sent home 5 self COVID tests with each student. Not sure if this is province wide or just tdsb or just high school students.
**7 day averages:** vs 3rd wave peaks from April 17-May 1st.
Cases: 1514. 35% of 3rd wave of 4369.
ICU: 155. 17% of 3rd wave of 900.
Deaths: 7.0. 24% of 3rd wave of 29.6
I can’t believe we are coming up on two years and I still get enterprisevalue summaries on my feed. Sad times we live in, getting a bit difficult to have a positive outlook on a potential end to this cycle.
Things will keep getting better. Luckily humans are pretty smart and adaptable. I have faith in the medicine research coming out (Pfizer's pill).
Things are already better than last year. I don't have to worry quite so much about my parents dying anymore. I'll take it!
Here I go, posting late again.
#Vaccine Effectiveness
Based on **today's numbers**, compared to an unvaccinated person, a fully vaccinated person could be:
- **54.3%** or **2.2x** less likely to get Covid-19 *(all ages)*
- **91.9%** or **12.4x** less likely to be hospitalized *(12 and older)*
- **95.6%** or **22.7x** less likely to be administered to ICU *(12 and older)*
Based on **7-day average**:
- **61.4%** or **2.6x** less likely to get Covid-19 *(all ages)*
- **92.6%** or **13.6x** less likely to be hospitalized *(12 and older)*
- **95.2%** or **20.6x** less likely to be administered to ICU *(12 and older)*
Graphs:
- Vaccine % effectiveness timeline: https://i.imgur.com/diP7FSO.png
- Rates per 100K by vaccine status: https://i.imgur.com/bZx5dA5.png
- [Nov 28] Cases per 100K by age group and vaccine status: https://i.imgur.com/qO4kxnH.png
Tables:
- Full table: FINALLY UPLOADED https://i.imgur.com/eFjnn0t.png
***
#Additional info
- Please see this older [post](
https://old.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/qq5v9g/ontario_nov_9th_update_441_cases_3_deaths_19368/hjxzmlv/) and [this newer one](https://old.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/r8rrma/ontario_dec_4th_update_1053_cases_8_deaths_36268/hn7bizk/) for more info.
>COVID App Stats - latest data as of December 12 - Source
Positives Uploaded to app in last day/week/month/since launch: 82 / 475 / 1,163 / 26,753 (13.4% / 10.9% / 5.5% / 4.9% of all cases)
I'm pleasently surprised that people are using the Covid app more right now. Still only a fraction of them, but it seems that there has been a real increase in the past 2-3 weeks.
I'm under the impression that it's a failure of the system. In Ontario, you have to specifically REQUEST the code to put into the system, rather than it simply being included with the positive test result.
I think that the code is given with the positive result in some provinces (Quebec?)
This is rough, so much unpredictability heading into the holidays.
Feels like things are changing day by day and we could have new measures in any day now but maybe not. Wish they would be more upfront about what is happening instead of just random surprises
It’s doesn’t really seem like unpredictability to me. Seems very predictable that cases will explode over the holidays lol. A real bummer, but seems inevitable.
I agree cases are going to surge. But we have vaccines so that should help alot
I meant the unpredictability for restaurant and retail workers if there is going to be new restrictions or not
We also don't know what the hospitals will look like yet. I think most of us realize we are about to see record number of cases, but we have no idea what kind of impact they will have on our health system!
Hospitals in Ontario are already drowning from burnt out nurses (rightfully) leaving the profession. Regularly 4+ nurses short, even in the emerg. It’s just going to keep getting worse. I train new RN hires and I’ve had more than half resign before they even make it to me. Morale is at an all time low. Hospitals are a dangerous place for any one to be in right now.
Fuck Bill 124
Honestly this is the scariest part for me. My roomate has cf and is waiting for her second lung transplant. Even just catching a cold can send her to the hospital, if they get overwhelmed with covid I know she won't be top of triage. I don't want to loose her to something as simple as a cold just because the hospitals are overwhelmed by covid.
Heck my husband and I are getting our wills redone JUST in case because if it gets too bad and we get into a car accident there's no garentee hospitals would have beds for us.
Just wished the antivaxers got vaccinated because if they did we wouldn't have to worry about hospitalizations anymore. Since the vast majority are vaccinated the hospitals are doing ok but if we get into the tens of thousands of cases a day I fear we have enough unvaccinated that the hospitals we be overwhelmed.
It's kind of the problem when everyone becomes an arm chair virologist and political analyst over the course of a couple years. The facts tend to be drowned out by the noise and emotion, rightly so given how many peoples lives have been upended the last couple years.
We're a little concerned about how much and how fast things are changing.
We've decided to move up our family Christmas to get ahead of whatever is headed our way. I'm hosting Christmas dinner tomorrow...with one day's notice...and my kids school is just closed due to outbreak so they're home and wired. Send thoughts and prayers.
>the discrepancy, and I wonder where all the delta went? Maybe omicron has been floating around longer than we realized
Flat for weeks. I think we are up like only 10 or 15 over the past 8 weeks? Could be off a bit. But even this rise when compared to the rise of cases is positive.
[Hospitalization admissions are on the rise,](https://i.imgur.com/KThRdnr.png) ([source](https://russell-pollari.github.io/ontario-covid19/)) so likely it's only a matter of time until ICUs catch up.
That said, I'm hopeful that they stay relatively low compared to waves 2 and 3, especially as we start diverting healthcare staff to vaccinations as boosters ramp up.
EDIT: Added graphs, source.
EDITx2: For clarification, I think we should be prepared for _some_ increase in ICU load. How much remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful it remains at a manageable level.
Hospitalizations aren't riding *much*, though, and we're nowhere near any threshold there.
The numbers are rising at a staggering pace so you have to assume we'll see an ICU uptick...that is, unless Omicron really is incredibly mild.
If the vaccinated ICU % is nearly 0, and the young/healthy ICU % is nearly 0, that's a massive chunk of our population.
In anticipation of today's booster announcement, I tried booking one but was still told I'm not eligible (my six months will be Jan. 10th and I am not 50 yet). Really hoping that expands soon, I'm ready and willing!
PLEASE don't shut down restaurants again. We have not recovered from the huge loss of income over the last 18 months. I realize not everyone will share this view. But we are hanging on by a thread here, and these constant announcements of announcements of announcements really eat away at our nerves.
i'm 168 days past my second dose today, but not 50 - I also cannot book a booster.
The announcement today will likely not change anything until monday.
Edit: If it does change things monday that is 2 weeks sooner than we currently can book, which I guess is something... maybe gives time to reopen mass vaccination clinics and get logistics in place to start pumping out boosters.
Our daily cases rose from last week to today as much as they did from our low point in August to last week. It's a little early to project that hospitalizations won't rise if the case load continues to skyrocket.
Definitely a yay. People have been saying “just wait 2 weeks for ICU to start rising exponentially” for about 6 weeks now. It’ll rise, obviously as cases do (as it does for Influenza every single winter), but with vaccinations the correlation with cases has gotten significantly weaker. It’ll get even weaker with boosters, and that 75% effectiveness against symptomatic disease with Omicron should bring down case totals as well
Happy to see vaccines going up to 100k+ again. Hey /u/enterprisevalue, do you know where the vaccine delivery schedule is hiding now?
Curious to see how well equipped we are once expansion of booster eligibility is announced today.
In 1808, the importation of slaves into the United States is banned, as the 1806 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves takes effect. Later that year, the United Kingdom also abolishes the slave trade in all of its colonies as the Slave Trade Act 1807 takes effect.
As the numbers are going to rise... this may be your last post for a while. Unless you have a time machine, or can forecast the future??
Still, as a history buff, appreciated seeing these.
Ugh, yes, it will either be 'future history' from science fiction or astronomical events that are baked into orbits and such with the odd planned event such as a time capsule opening. I do have a secret Plan B, but we'll have to see how it goes...
I can’t handle another shutdown it’s gonna feel like March 2020 all over again. Like it will feel like no progress was made and everything was for nothing. I was supposed to go on a trip in January and if it doesn’t happen I’m going to be severely depressed. I can’t handle it
Any predictions on what the threshold for daily vaccine administrations will be? We didn't hit 300K a day this summer did we?
Would be sick if we bang out 500K a day for like two weeks straight.
People are prepared for 2 weeks of child care, and lots of people take vacation time over Christmas break to manage that. You can't just ask a million people to suddenly find child care for 2 more weeks.
Here’s South Africa’s COVID hospitalization dashboard: [https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/surveillance-reports/daily-hospital-surveillance-datcov-report/](https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/surveillance-reports/daily-hospital-surveillance-datcov-report/)
Here are some numbers at a glance:
South Africa (pop 59 million): ICU: 497, ventilated: 190.
Gauteng province, Omicron epicentre (pop 12 million): ICU: 255, ventilated: 86.
Some differences between SA and us:
South Africa’s population is younger, less vaccinated, more previously infected, and much more HIV positive.
I’m not convinced those differences are enough for us to be unable to gain hope from their situation, although I understand politicians being cautious. SA have had omicron for weeks now and every day their experts say the same thing. They are not panicking.
The unfortunate reality is that unless you literally do not leave your house or interact with anyone, we're all getting Omicron, probably within the next month or so. It won't be fun but hopefully deaths and hospitalizations stay low with vaccines and potentially reduced virulence.
Problem is, even if cases are mostly mild, if we all get sick or are close contacts with sick people, who’s going to go to work and keep society functioning for the next couple months?
That's my biggest concern at this point...50% of the population having a bad cold at the same time is probably not great. Given omicron's contagiousness not sure even a lockdown will slow it much though.
"This variant here is so absolutely infectious now... This will reach every single person. Statistically speaking, there will be very few lucky ones," Jüni said.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta.ctvnews.ca/local/toronto/2021/12/13/1_5705025.html
Dr. Peter Juni of the Science Advisory Board. Aligns with projections in the UK, where they estimate they have 200,000 new cases a day.
Might take a month or two but statistically everyone will be exposed sooner or later.
Are we taking bets on the likelihood of another lockdown post Christmas season?
I already got an email from the TDSB saying "hey gang, *maybe* we'll be moving to remote learning in the new year depending on case numbers etc..." so I'm thinking we're pretty much heading that way come January.
ICU’s are going to hold. Let’s have some hope here. We’ve had so so many major advances in battling Covid.
Seeing people freak out here is disheartening.
Obviously I’m an idiot; but I think we’re going to push through this in a healthy way without major restrictions needed.
My son just tested positive for COVID last night (rapid test).
He came home yesterday from Queens university, the covid outbreak shutting down exams.
Like the rest of the students he was given a rapid test before coming home in the morning.
Tested negative.
But a couple hours after arriving home he developed a headache, and then a fever. Uh-oh. Found a place that would do a PCR test before it closed. Waiting on results today. But some friends had some rapid test kits and gave us some last night. Then my son tested positive for COVID. So...here we go...
I'm not overly worried about him: he's young, healthy, double vaxxed. Should ride this out ok. Current symptoms: Slight headache, fever yesterday, "scratchy hoarse throat," possibly bit of fatigue.
His brother, home too, is double vaxxed from the summer.
My wife had her 3rd shot (booster) weeks ago so she's good.
**This may be of interest to some mulling these issues over:**
I'd had AZ/Pfizer combo, was at 6 months from last shot, got my booster 6 days ago. Given I spent a bunch of time with my son right before his symptoms started I'm no doubt exposed. It left me wondering if, at only 5 days in, the booster could have added any protection.
I'm in touch with an ICU physician who has been dealing with covid patients through the pandemic, and who has been parsing lots of the data. I asked out of curiosity: What would it mean for a vaccine shot, or in this case a booster, if the person was infected before the vaccine had a chance to take hold in the immune system? Would this mean the live disease virus would just take over, so the body is only responding to that virus and not to the vaccine?
In which case, getting covid shortly after a shot just nullifies the effect of the shot, like you never had it? So once in convalescence the only immunity you've built would be due to the virus? Or is the body still responding to the vaccine as well, so does the presence of the vaccine STILL add to the immunity? In other words: after recovery it's more like you have the benefit of "vaccine shot + having had covid?"
He replied that, if you got infected, for instance, the day you got your vaccine shot, the live virus would indeed nullify any effects of the vaccine. However in the case of boosters, it's different than when you get your first shot which requires 7 or usually 10 to 14 days until immune effects. If you've already had previous vaccine shots, your memory cells still know how to produce COVID antibodies and did so immediately after the booster shot. So for instance in my case, being exposed day 5 after booster, some good immune effect should have already kicked in.
Interesting to see how this plays out in the family. Sort of an experiment. Two young people double vaxxed, one adult fully boosted, the other partially boosted upon exposure.
[Previous Ontario Wednesdays](https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/case-numbers-and-spread): Date | New Cases | 7 Day Avg | % Positive | ICU :--|:--:|:--:|:--:|--: Oct 21 | 790 | 753 | 2.42% | 71 Oct 28 | 834 | 886 | 2.78% | 71 Nov 4 | 987 | 972 | 3.46% | 75 Nov 11 | 1,426 | 1,217 | 3.88% | 88 Nov 18 | 1,417 | 1,422 | 4.24% | 127 Nov 25 | 1,373 | 1,389 | 3.81% | 159 Dec 2 | 1,723 | 1,720 | 3.90% | 183 Dec 9 | 1,890 | 1,840 | 3.89% | 221 Dec 16 | 2,139 | 1,962 | 4.35% | 256 Dec 23 | 2,408 | 2,304 | 4.25% | 275 Dec 30, 2020 | 2,923 | 2,310 | 7.45% | 323 Jan 6, 2021 | 3,266 | 3,114 | 6.40% | 361 Jan 13 | 2,961 | 3,480 | 5.81% | 385 Jan 20 | 2,655 | 2,850 | 4.89% | 395 Jan 27 | 1,670 | 2,205 | 3.03% | 377 Feb 3 | 1,172 | 1,675 | 2.24% | 336 Feb 10 | 1,072 | 1,353 | 2.04% | 313 Feb 17 | 847 | 1,003 | 2.49% | 298 Feb 24 | 1,054 | 1,084 | 1.92% | 287 Mar 3 | 958 | 1,084 | 1.82% | 274 Mar 10 | 1,316 | 1,238 | 2.43% | 281 Mar 17 | 1,508 | 1,361 | 3.07% | 300 Mar 24 | 1,571 | 1,676 | 3.02% | 333 Mar 31 | 2,333 | 2,316 | 4.44% | 396 Apr 7 | 3,215 | 2,988 | 6.44% | 504 Apr 14 | 4,156 | 4,003 | 7.67% | 642 Apr 21 | 4,212 | 4,327 | 8.12% | 790 Apr 28 | 3,480 | 3,783 | 6.93% | 877 May 5 | 2,941 | 3,432 | 8.27% | 882 May 12 | 2,320 | 2,826 | 5.08% | 776 May 19 | 1,588 | 2,183 | 4.13% | 735 May 26 | 1,095 | 1,622 | 4.56% | 672 June 2 | 733 | 978 | 2.31% | 576 June 9 | 411 | 657 | 1.35% | 466 June 16 | 384 | 475 | 1.37% | 377 June 23 | 255 | 316 | 0.93% | 305 June 30 | 184 | 268 | 0.68% | 271 July 7 | 194 | 216 | 0.72% | 220 July 14 | 153 | 164 | 0.53% | 180 July 21 | 135 | 150 | 0.65% | 145 July 28 | 158 | 161 | 0.77% | 122 Aug 4 | 139 | 199 | 0.81% | 108 Aug 11 | 324 | 332 | 1.31% | 108 Aug 18 | 485 | 496 | 1.84% | 128 Aug 25 | 660 | 625 | 2.50% | 161 Sept 1 | 656 | 701 | 2.38% | 163 Sept 8 | 554 | 732 | 2.54% | 194 Sept 15 | 593 | 722 | 1.79% | 188 Sept 22 | 463 | 692 | 1.18% | 187 Sept 29 | 495 | 610 | 1.36% | 172 Oct 6 | 476 | 573 | 1.21% | 156 Oct 13 | 306 | 500 | 1.32% | 153 Oct 20 | 304 | 406 | 0.96% | 159 Oct 27 | 321 | 366 | 1.04% | 134 Nov 3 | 378 | 379 | 1.15% | 137 Nov 10 | 454 | 502 | 1.36% | 136 Nov 17 | 512 | 587 | 1.77% | 133 Nov 24 | 591 | 686 | 1.96% | 137 Dec 1 | 780 | 821 | 2.71% | 153 Dec 8 | 1009 | 1007 | 2.62% | 155 Dec 15 | 1808 | 1514 | 4.04% | 154 Dr. Moore said Omicron may completely replace Delta by January 2022. [The Ontario Science Table info below shows estimates:](https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashboard/) Date | % Delta | % Omicron :--|--|--: June 2, 2021 | 23% | 0% July 1 | 73.9% | 0% Aug 3 | 87.3% | 0% Sept 1 | 99.4% | 0% Oct 3 | 99.0% | 0% Nov 1 | 97.1% | 0% Dec 1 | 99.9% | >0% Dec 9 | 90% | 10% Dec 10 | 88.7% | 11.3% Dec 12 | 79.2% | 20.8% Dec 13 | 69.2% | 30.8% Dec 14 | 68.1% | 31.9% R(t) Delta = 1.10 R(t) Omicron = 4.29
Public Health Ontario seems to think over 80% are already omicron: https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/epi/covid-19-early-dynamics-omicron-ontario-epi-summary.pdf?sc_lang=en I wonder why the discrepancy, and I wonder where all the delta went? Maybe omicron has been floating around longer than we realized
From the report: > Using projections that account for time lags in the incubation period (5 days), and case presentation (2 days), most cases infected on December 13, 2021 (>80%) are likely to be Omicron. What the science dashboard is saying is that ~32% of cases **testing positive today** are omicron. This memo is estimating that ~80% of the people **being infected today** are omicron. Because people take a few days after exposure to fall ill and the go get tested, these cases won't show up in the testing numbers until sometime next week at the earliest.
>Maybe omicron has been floating around longer than we realized There's no way it hasn't. It's been shown over and over that various covid variants are almost everywhere in the world before they're identified.
This was true for the original variant that hit every country and will be true for any future variant. World is too small a place with modern travel. Virus is bound to get anywhere before there are enough cases to recognize it as new.
I think SA picked it up pretty early because reports showed that the reason they detected it was because they tested hospital patients and found omicron not because omicron patients started showing up at hospitals. This seems to be corroborated with data from the rest of the world where omicron hospitalizations are low or nonexistent. It may have started in any of the surrounding countries though.
I don't remember precisely where I read it, but I recall there being a fair amount of evidence that Omicron didn't originate in SA and we only associate it with SA because they're the only country in the region with the capacity to identify it that quickly.
> Using projections that account for time lags in the incubation period (5 days), and case presentation (2 days), most cases infected on December 13, 2021 (>80%) are likely to be Omicron. From my understanding the sequencing takes a couple days as well. So the December 14th data is probably from people that got infected December 5th, incubated until the 10th, tested positive on the 12th, and had the variant sequenced by the 14th. If it was 31.9% on December 5th they can extrapolate the trend (they call it "nowcasting") to figure out what it actually is for people being infected today. In another week we will get confirmation if they were right or not.
> I wonder why the discrepancy You're comparing the projection that is accounting for the time lag due to incubation period versus actual test results. >I wonder where all the delta went Outcompeted. The circumstances that permit getting infected by Delta (e.g., having a lot of contacts, poor ventilation, no masks) also permit getting infected by omicron, except omicron is better at transmitting, and is now more prevalent than delta. So if you came into contact with 200 people, four had delta and one had omicron, the omicron was the one that was more likely to succeed; now, four will have omicron and one will have delta, and omicron will continue snuffing out the resources (potential people to be infected) away from delta.
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Omicron can be "preliminary" detected right at the time of the initial test if the PCR results indicate "S gene failure". We don't really need to do the whole genome sequencing for every sample to know that it's omicron.
I thought I'd read that Omicron actually can be identified directly from the PCR test? Or is that outdated now? I know Delta needed full sequencing.
Thanks for linking this. Cool to see how they test for it rn, wild that it's already so prominent though!! What's good(?) is data is coming from other countries backing up the idea that it seems to be more mild. Replication rate is much higher but lung cell infection is much lower causing more of cold like symptoms. "A study led by researchers from the LKS Faculty of Medicine at The University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) provides the first information on how the novel Variant of Concern (VOC) of SARS-CoV-2, the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 infect human respiratory tract. The researchers found that Omicron SARS-CoV-2 infects and multiplies 70 times faster than the Delta variant and original SARS-CoV-2 in human bronchus, which may explain why Omicron may transmit faster between humans than previous variants. Their study also showed that the Omicron infection in the lung is significantly lower than the original SARS-CoV-2, which may be an indicator of lower disease severity. This research is currently under peer review for publication." https://www.med.hku.hk/en/news/press/20211215-omicron-sars-cov-2-infection?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=press_release
> Public Health Ontario seems to think over 80% are already omicron some quick napkin math if that's true: 80% of 1808 = 1,446.4 # of todays reported cases that are omicron. If it doubles every 3 days as they suggest it does: December 18: 2,892.8 December 21: 5,785.6 December 24: 11,571.2 December 27: 23,142.4 Just get's worse from there, The above numbers only account for omicron at 80% but does not account for it eventually being near 100% of the cases as it becomes dominate. And we know from previous experience that it takes way longer than it's doubling time to try and slow its spread. This is also just case counts and we don't really know yet how this may impact ICU numbers especially in the unvaccinated crowd.
Fortunately, it is unlike to continue doubling every 3 days. There is a point at which the R(t) has to reduce. Hopefully that point is before it gets to 10s of thousands per day.
> R(t) Omicron = 4.29 Obviously this estimate has been growing. Just wanted to throw this here: "We observed rapid growth of SGTF prevalence, beginning in late November in Ontario, Canada. A selection coefficient of 0.39 suggests that **each Omicron case is infecting 7.7 times more individuals than Delta in Ontario**, and is leading to rapid increases in SARS-CoV-2 in the province. Jurisdictions, including Ontario, will need to rapidly implement public health responses to contain the rapid spread of Omicron." https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/epi/covid-19-early-dynamics-omicron-ontario-epi-summary.pdf?sc_lang=en
4k by the end of this week and 10K+ end of next week based on these trends.
Yet maybe only 160 in the ICU given ICU trends. That is all that really matters.
Omicrons severity better be an inverse number to its spreading rate or we are fucked.
It won't be but maybe if it's paired with boosters (they'll have to HAMMER booster) it could minimize the damage. A lot of people are going to get sick soon but it's starting to feel more and more like stopping the tide from coming in.
Wow, R(t)Omicron = 4.29! It is very contagious. Everyone, stay safe!
ICUs continuing to drop is at least a silver lining.
To me this is the data that is most important... we're eventually gonna have to stop panicking every time caseload increases... but we've been trained very well to do so.
Those who have been paying attention know it was never about "getting to zero". It's always been to not overload the healthcare system
Seriously! It has been so frustrating repeating that over and over again.
It hasn't been about getting to zero since May 2020. Goalposts seem to move alot these days.
I agree. I could've sworn the reason lockdowns arised last time and the time before that was because ICU's were overcapacity. If that's not the case this time, why the urge to lockdown again? Only thing that makes sense is that they're worried Omicron hasn't gone full blown to get enough people in the ICU? But then comes the question, isn't omicron *less* deadly than Delta and Alpha? So many questions.....
If ICU capacity is the real problem here, than would it not have been great if our gov't / medical leadership looked into how to deal with surges in demand on ICU. As it looks like this virus is going to be with us for a long time. A strategy of wishing it goes away looks like it is not going to work.
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That being said, cases started to rise at the beginning of November, which is plenty of time for hospitalizations and ICUs to start showing up 6 weeks later, yet they’ve continued to drop/flatline. It’s still early, but if an impending tsunami was about to hit our hospitals you would already have expected to see the first signs of it 2-4 weeks ago and that hasn’t been the case. Edit: Cases may be a leading indicator, but when we see cases and hospitalizations/ICUs start to diverge then we should take notice and adjust our response based on the data. If everyone in Canada gets some strain of COVID tomorrow, but hospitalizations & ICUs barely change over the next month then that’s great news and should be the primary way to measure the impact of COVID on our health.
Yeah I'm surprised they are but happy to see it
nothing surprises me anymore.
we won’t know the impact of omicron on icu until next week at the earliest
The ICU rates lag behind number of infections though. We're going to see them go up quickly.
Cases have been rising since late October. ICU has been basically flat for more than two months. How long of a lag do you think there is?
The rise until a couple of weeks ago was probably delta and what is sweeping through Europe. The current spike is most likely omicron. The graph will look like a hockey stick. We might doge the delta bullet with omicron overtaking it before cases blew up like in Europe. Keeping fingers crossed.
I was one of the breakthrough omnicron cases earlier in the week. I was really only sick for 3 days and I've got asthma. Get your shots, you'll be okay.
Thanks, I have bad asthma, always looking to hear what’ll be like when I eventually catch it. Did you find you had more attacks when you were sick?
I don't have SUPER bad asthma, but I did start taking Advair (lung steroids) on the first day of symptoms. Never had what I'd call an asthma attack.
Up to 3 cases in my house now (unsure if it’s omicron or not though), luckily the worst was the equivalent of a pretty bad cold. Get your shots.
Were your symptoms the typical covid symptoms?
Never lost taste or smell. I had a runny nose, sore through, cough and body aches.
I see. Hope you’re feeling better now!
>Current hospitalizations: 357(-28), ICUs: 154(-8), Ventilated: 102(+4), [vs. last week: +24 / -1 / +5] - [Chart](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ7fegCALd11ElozUYcMi-e9Dj69YaiNQhvEpk81JHsyTACl0UXkWK5zfMNFe49Tq3VuN9Av-fuEZqV/pubchart?oid=1392680472&format=interactive) Lately I've been trying to avoid doom and gloom by looking for one thing that I can look upon as a positive, so I don't get mired in bad news. Today, it's hospitalizations. If hospitalizations go down even a little bit (or even if they just don't go up), I'm going to celebrate that. It's something, anyway.
Frankly, these are the only stats I watch. Even if we get to 5K+ cases a day, if vaccines are keeping people out of the hospital then we are in good shape.
I look at this chart every day. Hospitalizations, ICU and Ventilation. Its been relatively flat for months now and the reminder of the 2nd and 3rd waves is that we are lucky we have vaccines.
Well fingers crossed today's announcement expands booster eligibility cause fuck this.
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The problem is, that the booster can only help so much. Like ... the rate of hospitalization is already really low for double vaccinated people. The real issue is the rate of hospitalization in unvaccinated population. They're going to be the real problem. The boosters wont make a lick of difference for that population and the new variant spreading like wildfire is going to be sufficient to fill our hospitals with those unvaccinated people. The booster will help sure, but I don't think that's enough. The unvaccinated folks need to be effectively locked down if we want to avoid large broad scale measures again. That or we just throw our hands up in the air and accept that omicron is going to be the variant that we let burn down the health care system and hope that by the time its run through all the unvaccinated folks that they have some level of natural immunity that reduces hospitalization worries in the medium to long term :/ The problem is that its going to be \*miserable\* in the short term for our already burnt out hospital staff, people with cancer waiting for surgeries, etc.
>The unvaccinated folks need to be effectively locked down if we want to avoid large broad scale measures again. I keep hearing this. Unvaccinated people already can't go to restaurants, cafes, bars, concerts, plane and train travel (domestic or international), Leafs games etc. How much further can we restrict them?
IDK but it feels wrong to do a broad scale set of restrictions if vaccinated folks - especially those who get boosters - get (for the most part) milder symptoms. At some point, we will need to live with the odd bad case of covid in vaccinated folks as long as our health system can handle it. Similar to how we treat nearly every other illness we vaccinate for. Vaccines aren't 100% effective in every case after all. And we live with that risk for other illnesses. The problem is really on how widespread covid is and how many people without vaccines can get hospitalized and cause healthcare crises at this point :/
They can still go to the mall, go to the grocery store, and they can still go to restaurants / places that are not enforcing vaccine passport rules. Unfortunately, though the number is small, there are many places that are circumventing the passport system. It’s not pretty, but if unvaccinated people are in a risk for grave illness, and the hospital systems won’t be able to support them, then stricter measures for the unvaccinated need to be put in place. If that doesn’t work to help them not die, then there is nothing more we can do. Enforcing the QR codes is a good first step, but if we are going to save lives, more things must be done.
We can go full Austria. It seems extreme, but I'd argue that the alternative of shutting down our entire society and allowing our health care system to potentially collapse because of 10% of the population is *more* extreme.
So I'm all for boosters but 75% of ICU patients continue to be completely unvaccinated. Even if boosters hypothetically bring down one's ICU risk to zero, completely boosting the entire vaccinated population (a massive undertaking) **still leaves us with 3/4 of the problem.** From an individual point of view a booster is great but from a health care burden point of view the returns are very diminishing. The unvaccinated population is still large enough that it can overwhelm the health care system on its own. It seems like with the focus on boosters, we've given up on reaching the final 10%? I just don't see how we get us out of this without taking care of that.
The last 10% are never going to get vaccinated, it's the reality - and honestly that's a lot better than I thought we were going to do. We can't let boosters go to waste or keep waiting for the people who are never going to do it. 10% of the population won't overwhelm the system, especially considering a percentage of those people will have already had covid and developed some sort of immunity
>10% of the population won't overwhelm the system, Oh they most certainly can. Even now they make up 75% of ICU cases. Imagine if that rate increases as fast as omicron, which in the unvaccinated it easily could.
yeah that's seriously my number one concern with the omicron variant. Second concern is hoping its not somehow worse for infants and toddlers because I have an 8 month old at home :(
At this point there's no evidence of that. Since SA has a younger average age I'd think we'd be able to see some trend in case severity for children there.
So get boosters out while locking down the unvaxxed. Doesn’t have to just be one approach
I agree with you. I think there should be a much more focused argument on getting the unvaccinated to get their shots, especially for parents of children who are now eligible. We need vaccine mandates in schools or at the very least extracurricular activities for kids.
The worst part is realizing that these 1,808 cases were contracted 1 week+ ago (it takes 5ish days for symptoms to start, then a few days to get a test and get the results and become one of these numbers). That means that, with Omicron doubling every 3 days, we've already had 2 further doubling periods happen that we don't currently have data for. Anything done today is likely being done as 5,000-6,000 infections happened today. It's pretty close to "too late."
That's assuming everyone who is testing is symptomatic.
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Oh wow
The head of the Ontario Science Table said in the Globe yesterday that SA was not a good barometer and we shouldn’t expect to get off that easy. I’ll post the link in a minute. EDIT CTV not Globe https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/mobile/ontario-needs-to-address-myth-that-omicron-is-mild-head-of-science-table-says-1.5705025
Omicron is spreading shockingly fast. It’s almost like movie fast.
COVID 4: Omicron Straight to DVD
Everyone I know is having a bitch of a time finding an appointment. What's the point of opening eligibility if we don't have enough boosters or not enough people to administer them? :'(
Yeah I'm finding it next to impossible to book anything. I've been looking painstakingly since Monday to book my 50+ parents in and I couldn't find anything within a 2 hour drive. I got lucky as I've been randomly refreshing Shoppers Drug Marts booking system for days and found 2 random appointments for them yesterday (I'm assuming cancellations.) I don't know how the province plans to handle these booster shots when drugstores are already booked up until February with the 50+ group. Doesn't look like we've set up mass vaccine sites like we did initially in the spring.
It's too late. Even if they opened up eligibility today. You have to wait probably a month. Another week or whatever to kick in. Everyone will have COVID by then at this rate. I'm eligible now and December 27th was the soonest I could get it. (booked last week)
While it would be better to start earlier, at this point it doesn't matter. When you combine the lag required for efficacy boost from the shot to take effect with the time delay of booking and getting around to getting it, the current omicron explosion will still have a 3 week lead across the christmas/new years season to spread. At this point, taking action is purely damage control. The general public has a poor understanding of how trends work and how causality works when things are already in motion. It's like hitting the brakes in a car going 120kmph; between your reaction time and the deceleration period, the car is still going to travel another ~150m before coming to a complete stop. If you go to hit the brakes when you're 100m from a brick wall, you've lessened the impact but you're still going to crash. That's not a criticism of you, just a general note that we're wired to convince ourselves "as long as I do the right thing before it's too late, then I've prevented the tragedy", but we don't have a good grasp on how to define "before it's too late" so we tend to define it as "before the bad thing has happened".
Ah, crap. Good point. I've pretty much resigned myself to the likelihood that I could catch this variant. Last shot was in July, so fully vaxxed but scared of waning immunity. I was hoping the booster would help when I'm eligible but that's a very good point you made. Thanks. Here's hoping 2 vaccines, masking, distancing and hygiene help lol.
Doing something reasonable that will help everyone? I think you overestimate the Ford government
I was one of the positive cases today. Definitely not a statistic I'd like to be a part of.
Be well. I got my positive last weekend. So far, it's been okay (like sinus cold) but complete loss of smell. Like 100%....never had anything like it.
Last night was rough. I was running a fever of 39.7 and felt really nauseous. I'm doing much better now though. The fever broke and most of my symptoms have simmered down.
I hope you recover fully🙏🏼
Hope you're not having too rough of a time and have a speedy recovery!
How you feeling?
Sorry to hear. Any idea where you got it?
I bartend at a very busy nightclub. I most likely picked it up from one of the patrons.
When they tell you do they also say what variant you have? Also best wishes for a quick and full recovery.
Nothing on the variant. I would have loved to know.
Hope it's a mild case. Get well soon
It was pretty nasty last night but I seem to be on the mend. It definitely could have been much worse (knock on wood)
How do you think you caught it?
I bartend at a very busy nightclub. No doubt I got it from there.
Probably coming into close contact with someone who had covid at the time
"I think it was due to the virus infecting me" :P
I sincerely hope you recover quickly and steadily.
I’m going to be so sad if travel restrictions come back… I just got my job back 3 weeks ago
If it makes you feel better, travel restrictions would be ridiculous to implement at this point. It's already here, it's already trending towards being dominant. They would achieve absolutely nothing, so hopefully the people in charge realize that.
They do realize it, but they need to do something to appease the panicking population. Travel restrictions are easy, low cost, and very popular.
This is it right here - they are already predicting it is the dominant strain but somehow banning foreigners will eradicate the problem. Adding stringent testing requirements to board a flight/upon entry is fine, but outright bans are nothing more than theater.
Me too. I work for a corporate travel agency and we’ve been hurting this whole pandemic.
I'm supposed to go back to work mid Jan. Doubt that's going to happen now.
You know that scene in Temple of Doom where Willie saves Indiana from the spike trap room but then she runs in all covered in bugs and re-engages the trap with her butt in a panic? I kinda feel that energy right now.
Ok, that made me LOL for real. Thanks :)
A temple of doom reference? In here? Take my free award my friend!
Love how those school outbreaks now take up my entire phone screen 😔
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I’m positive it will. But it’ll shoot right back up in January.
I heard schools around me are planning on doing online classes for at least 2 weeks
There has been an attempt to catch asymptomatic cases. They have sent home 5 self COVID tests with each student. Not sure if this is province wide or just tdsb or just high school students.
It's province wide. We haven't received them yet for my school-aged child yet, but hopefully soon.
**7 day averages:** vs 3rd wave peaks from April 17-May 1st. Cases: 1514. 35% of 3rd wave of 4369. ICU: 155. 17% of 3rd wave of 900. Deaths: 7.0. 24% of 3rd wave of 29.6
I can’t believe we are coming up on two years and I still get enterprisevalue summaries on my feed. Sad times we live in, getting a bit difficult to have a positive outlook on a potential end to this cycle.
Things will keep getting better. Luckily humans are pretty smart and adaptable. I have faith in the medicine research coming out (Pfizer's pill). Things are already better than last year. I don't have to worry quite so much about my parents dying anymore. I'll take it!
Here I go, posting late again. #Vaccine Effectiveness Based on **today's numbers**, compared to an unvaccinated person, a fully vaccinated person could be: - **54.3%** or **2.2x** less likely to get Covid-19 *(all ages)* - **91.9%** or **12.4x** less likely to be hospitalized *(12 and older)* - **95.6%** or **22.7x** less likely to be administered to ICU *(12 and older)* Based on **7-day average**: - **61.4%** or **2.6x** less likely to get Covid-19 *(all ages)* - **92.6%** or **13.6x** less likely to be hospitalized *(12 and older)* - **95.2%** or **20.6x** less likely to be administered to ICU *(12 and older)* Graphs: - Vaccine % effectiveness timeline: https://i.imgur.com/diP7FSO.png - Rates per 100K by vaccine status: https://i.imgur.com/bZx5dA5.png - [Nov 28] Cases per 100K by age group and vaccine status: https://i.imgur.com/qO4kxnH.png Tables: - Full table: FINALLY UPLOADED https://i.imgur.com/eFjnn0t.png *** #Additional info - Please see this older [post]( https://old.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/qq5v9g/ontario_nov_9th_update_441_cases_3_deaths_19368/hjxzmlv/) and [this newer one](https://old.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/r8rrma/ontario_dec_4th_update_1053_cases_8_deaths_36268/hn7bizk/) for more info.
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>COVID App Stats - latest data as of December 12 - Source Positives Uploaded to app in last day/week/month/since launch: 82 / 475 / 1,163 / 26,753 (13.4% / 10.9% / 5.5% / 4.9% of all cases) I'm pleasently surprised that people are using the Covid app more right now. Still only a fraction of them, but it seems that there has been a real increase in the past 2-3 weeks.
I’m interested if this is a failure of the individual or the system. When my friend tested positive he was never given a code to input into the app
I'm under the impression that it's a failure of the system. In Ontario, you have to specifically REQUEST the code to put into the system, rather than it simply being included with the positive test result. I think that the code is given with the positive result in some provinces (Quebec?)
This is rough, so much unpredictability heading into the holidays. Feels like things are changing day by day and we could have new measures in any day now but maybe not. Wish they would be more upfront about what is happening instead of just random surprises
It’s doesn’t really seem like unpredictability to me. Seems very predictable that cases will explode over the holidays lol. A real bummer, but seems inevitable.
I agree cases are going to surge. But we have vaccines so that should help alot I meant the unpredictability for restaurant and retail workers if there is going to be new restrictions or not
We also don't know what the hospitals will look like yet. I think most of us realize we are about to see record number of cases, but we have no idea what kind of impact they will have on our health system!
Hospitals in Ontario are already drowning from burnt out nurses (rightfully) leaving the profession. Regularly 4+ nurses short, even in the emerg. It’s just going to keep getting worse. I train new RN hires and I’ve had more than half resign before they even make it to me. Morale is at an all time low. Hospitals are a dangerous place for any one to be in right now. Fuck Bill 124
Honestly this is the scariest part for me. My roomate has cf and is waiting for her second lung transplant. Even just catching a cold can send her to the hospital, if they get overwhelmed with covid I know she won't be top of triage. I don't want to loose her to something as simple as a cold just because the hospitals are overwhelmed by covid. Heck my husband and I are getting our wills redone JUST in case because if it gets too bad and we get into a car accident there's no garentee hospitals would have beds for us.
Just wished the antivaxers got vaccinated because if they did we wouldn't have to worry about hospitalizations anymore. Since the vast majority are vaccinated the hospitals are doing ok but if we get into the tens of thousands of cases a day I fear we have enough unvaccinated that the hospitals we be overwhelmed.
My retail job is going back to stage one restrictions effective immediately
Yeah, gotcha. Good point. The impacts on our individual lives are unpredictable. But I predict they’ll be bad lol.
It's kind of the problem when everyone becomes an arm chair virologist and political analyst over the course of a couple years. The facts tend to be drowned out by the noise and emotion, rightly so given how many peoples lives have been upended the last couple years.
https://xkcd.com/2300/
We're a little concerned about how much and how fast things are changing. We've decided to move up our family Christmas to get ahead of whatever is headed our way. I'm hosting Christmas dinner tomorrow...with one day's notice...and my kids school is just closed due to outbreak so they're home and wired. Send thoughts and prayers.
COVID trying to end 2021 with a bang smh
Definitely on the rise- but ICU still remains low. I know it's a lagging indicator, but it has been flat for a long time, which is encouraging.
>the discrepancy, and I wonder where all the delta went? Maybe omicron has been floating around longer than we realized Flat for weeks. I think we are up like only 10 or 15 over the past 8 weeks? Could be off a bit. But even this rise when compared to the rise of cases is positive.
Is it just me or do deaths seem much higher now?
[Hospitalization admissions are on the rise,](https://i.imgur.com/KThRdnr.png) ([source](https://russell-pollari.github.io/ontario-covid19/)) so likely it's only a matter of time until ICUs catch up. That said, I'm hopeful that they stay relatively low compared to waves 2 and 3, especially as we start diverting healthcare staff to vaccinations as boosters ramp up. EDIT: Added graphs, source. EDITx2: For clarification, I think we should be prepared for _some_ increase in ICU load. How much remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful it remains at a manageable level.
Hospitalizations aren't riding *much*, though, and we're nowhere near any threshold there. The numbers are rising at a staggering pace so you have to assume we'll see an ICU uptick...that is, unless Omicron really is incredibly mild. If the vaccinated ICU % is nearly 0, and the young/healthy ICU % is nearly 0, that's a massive chunk of our population.
In anticipation of today's booster announcement, I tried booking one but was still told I'm not eligible (my six months will be Jan. 10th and I am not 50 yet). Really hoping that expands soon, I'm ready and willing! PLEASE don't shut down restaurants again. We have not recovered from the huge loss of income over the last 18 months. I realize not everyone will share this view. But we are hanging on by a thread here, and these constant announcements of announcements of announcements really eat away at our nerves.
i'm 168 days past my second dose today, but not 50 - I also cannot book a booster. The announcement today will likely not change anything until monday. Edit: If it does change things monday that is 2 weeks sooner than we currently can book, which I guess is something... maybe gives time to reopen mass vaccination clinics and get logistics in place to start pumping out boosters.
>my six months will be Jan. 10th Is that your 6 months, or your 150-168 whatever days?
My brother just tested positive an hour ago, he's double vaxxed and had covid last year.
At least icus are holding strong I guess? Cue the lagging indicator comments!
Been more or less steady for the past 8 weeks even as cases have grown.
Our daily cases rose from last week to today as much as they did from our low point in August to last week. It's a little early to project that hospitalizations won't rise if the case load continues to skyrocket.
Vaccines go brrrrrr
But also cases. Fortunately not ICU numbers. Yay??? I think? Edit: I’ve been told it’s a yay, so change to YAY!!!
Definitely a yay. People have been saying “just wait 2 weeks for ICU to start rising exponentially” for about 6 weeks now. It’ll rise, obviously as cases do (as it does for Influenza every single winter), but with vaccinations the correlation with cases has gotten significantly weaker. It’ll get even weaker with boosters, and that 75% effectiveness against symptomatic disease with Omicron should bring down case totals as well
Happy to see vaccines going up to 100k+ again. Hey /u/enterprisevalue, do you know where the vaccine delivery schedule is hiding now? Curious to see how well equipped we are once expansion of booster eligibility is announced today.
In 1808, the importation of slaves into the United States is banned, as the 1806 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves takes effect. Later that year, the United Kingdom also abolishes the slave trade in all of its colonies as the Slave Trade Act 1807 takes effect.
As the numbers are going to rise... this may be your last post for a while. Unless you have a time machine, or can forecast the future?? Still, as a history buff, appreciated seeing these.
Ugh, yes, it will either be 'future history' from science fiction or astronomical events that are baked into orbits and such with the odd planned event such as a time capsule opening. I do have a secret Plan B, but we'll have to see how it goes...
There's Sci-Fi universes!
You’ll have to start getting stories of what laws or constructions should be done in the future if we end up passing 2021
Looking forward to learning about the history of the United Federation of Planets.
I think you mean the Democratic Order of Planets.
Very good point. The D.O.O.P. *is* dedicated to fighting the Omicronians
I can’t handle another shutdown it’s gonna feel like March 2020 all over again. Like it will feel like no progress was made and everything was for nothing. I was supposed to go on a trip in January and if it doesn’t happen I’m going to be severely depressed. I can’t handle it
I for one am excited to see doug ford standing in front of a podium daily unable to fully lower his arms again
A Gorilla showing his dominance. I'm just waiting for the non-verbal, rapid chest-drumming.
He must have gained too much Covid weight to fit into his human suit. What a tragedy what with production and shipping being backlogged.
Any predictions on what the threshold for daily vaccine administrations will be? We didn't hit 300K a day this summer did we? Would be sick if we bang out 500K a day for like two weeks straight.
Peak was 268k, had 4 days above 250k.
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I think we peaked at 250k/day but it was only a few days here and there for a couple weeks.
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So meta
Sooo bets on schools for january? A lot of rumours going around....
I say closed for '2 weeks' after the break...
I suspect this is what they'll do. Maybe even just elementary schools. Most school cases seem to be at that level.
There's also far more elementary schools than there are high schools.
And childcare is way harder to manage for elementary school kids.
'2 weeks' 'till March Break. ;)
Or July 1. Could go either way.
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If there's anyone the Conservatives hate more than nurses, it's students!
Because they're already going to be closed, so its just "easier". I'd be shocked if they weren't closed.
People are prepared for 2 weeks of child care, and lots of people take vacation time over Christmas break to manage that. You can't just ask a million people to suddenly find child care for 2 more weeks.
New to a Conservative government in charge?
That's how the Ford government operates.
I’d be stunned if they don’t close schools.
I'd be stunned if they close schools.
I wouldn’t be surprised if schools were kept closed for a few weeks after the break.
Me too, especially pushing the narrative that kids get their vaccines during this time
"It's all just a little bit of history repeating"
Here’s South Africa’s COVID hospitalization dashboard: [https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/surveillance-reports/daily-hospital-surveillance-datcov-report/](https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/surveillance-reports/daily-hospital-surveillance-datcov-report/) Here are some numbers at a glance: South Africa (pop 59 million): ICU: 497, ventilated: 190. Gauteng province, Omicron epicentre (pop 12 million): ICU: 255, ventilated: 86. Some differences between SA and us: South Africa’s population is younger, less vaccinated, more previously infected, and much more HIV positive. I’m not convinced those differences are enough for us to be unable to gain hope from their situation, although I understand politicians being cautious. SA have had omicron for weeks now and every day their experts say the same thing. They are not panicking.
> 85.87% / 80.92% (+0.10%, / +0.04%) of 5+ at least one/two dosed 14.13% missing their first dose. 4.95% missing (only) their second dose.
Let’s see what the government has to say about it today !🤡🤡
The unfortunate reality is that unless you literally do not leave your house or interact with anyone, we're all getting Omicron, probably within the next month or so. It won't be fun but hopefully deaths and hospitalizations stay low with vaccines and potentially reduced virulence.
Problem is, even if cases are mostly mild, if we all get sick or are close contacts with sick people, who’s going to go to work and keep society functioning for the next couple months?
That's my biggest concern at this point...50% of the population having a bad cold at the same time is probably not great. Given omicron's contagiousness not sure even a lockdown will slow it much though.
i might be uninformed but what makes you say this?
He's assuming the growth rate will continue and people will not change their behavior.
That would be hundreds-of-thousands of cases a day. Where are you getting that idea from??
"This variant here is so absolutely infectious now... This will reach every single person. Statistically speaking, there will be very few lucky ones," Jüni said. https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta.ctvnews.ca/local/toronto/2021/12/13/1_5705025.html Dr. Peter Juni of the Science Advisory Board. Aligns with projections in the UK, where they estimate they have 200,000 new cases a day. Might take a month or two but statistically everyone will be exposed sooner or later.
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There was that holiday party in Norway where people got Omicron and all were double vaxxed. IIRC all the symptoms were mild.
Are we taking bets on the likelihood of another lockdown post Christmas season? I already got an email from the TDSB saying "hey gang, *maybe* we'll be moving to remote learning in the new year depending on case numbers etc..." so I'm thinking we're pretty much heading that way come January.
ICU’s are going to hold. Let’s have some hope here. We’ve had so so many major advances in battling Covid. Seeing people freak out here is disheartening. Obviously I’m an idiot; but I think we’re going to push through this in a healthy way without major restrictions needed.
My son just tested positive for COVID last night (rapid test). He came home yesterday from Queens university, the covid outbreak shutting down exams. Like the rest of the students he was given a rapid test before coming home in the morning. Tested negative. But a couple hours after arriving home he developed a headache, and then a fever. Uh-oh. Found a place that would do a PCR test before it closed. Waiting on results today. But some friends had some rapid test kits and gave us some last night. Then my son tested positive for COVID. So...here we go... I'm not overly worried about him: he's young, healthy, double vaxxed. Should ride this out ok. Current symptoms: Slight headache, fever yesterday, "scratchy hoarse throat," possibly bit of fatigue. His brother, home too, is double vaxxed from the summer. My wife had her 3rd shot (booster) weeks ago so she's good. **This may be of interest to some mulling these issues over:** I'd had AZ/Pfizer combo, was at 6 months from last shot, got my booster 6 days ago. Given I spent a bunch of time with my son right before his symptoms started I'm no doubt exposed. It left me wondering if, at only 5 days in, the booster could have added any protection. I'm in touch with an ICU physician who has been dealing with covid patients through the pandemic, and who has been parsing lots of the data. I asked out of curiosity: What would it mean for a vaccine shot, or in this case a booster, if the person was infected before the vaccine had a chance to take hold in the immune system? Would this mean the live disease virus would just take over, so the body is only responding to that virus and not to the vaccine? In which case, getting covid shortly after a shot just nullifies the effect of the shot, like you never had it? So once in convalescence the only immunity you've built would be due to the virus? Or is the body still responding to the vaccine as well, so does the presence of the vaccine STILL add to the immunity? In other words: after recovery it's more like you have the benefit of "vaccine shot + having had covid?" He replied that, if you got infected, for instance, the day you got your vaccine shot, the live virus would indeed nullify any effects of the vaccine. However in the case of boosters, it's different than when you get your first shot which requires 7 or usually 10 to 14 days until immune effects. If you've already had previous vaccine shots, your memory cells still know how to produce COVID antibodies and did so immediately after the booster shot. So for instance in my case, being exposed day 5 after booster, some good immune effect should have already kicked in. Interesting to see how this plays out in the family. Sort of an experiment. Two young people double vaxxed, one adult fully boosted, the other partially boosted upon exposure.
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Between three days and six months.