Pandemic: geography, politics & death rate stats

[el duende grande]

Some good news on the corona front. I stopped by Correos today and I had a letter. Apparently from Dec. 1 and backstamped Jan 4 in mga. Employees said US-Nic mail back in business.
Now I just have to get my Paypal unblocked... Life in paradise I guess.

[KeyWestPirate]

Life's different here ... It's a whole 'nother pace.


Who knew Tom was talking about the US ?

[bill_bly_ca]

So the next door Neighbor's (Quebec) went into a 8PM to 5AM curfew Saturday night...

We (Ontario) are expected to be the same today or tomorrow

I must have missed the discovery of the "8:01 to 4:59" mutation <shrug>

[Jonh]

What’s the curfew about?

[el duende grande]

Christmas cheer
Gunna be shitty in a lot of places thru winter and maybe early spring. New strain is 50% catchier than the old and is spreading around the world.
Too bad they don't do smart shutdowns, like opening grammar schools and shutting bars.

[cookshow]

#s in states are through roof, I assume lot of that due to massive testing going on. Lots of regional and municipal regulations. Bars in New Orleans had reopened with 25% capacity, lasted few weeks, closed agai except for takeout drinks.

Lots of pissing and moaning over vaccine distribution, those that want it all wanted it yesterday. Some areas rolling out better than others. Lot of people saying they will not be vaccinated, surprisingly many Healthcare workers refusing it.

Looks to me like 2021 will be a washout, can't see virus playing out anytime soon.

At least now we have political hijinx to distract us from the virus.

[el duende grande]

Testing shows more cases, but doesn't explain more hospitalizations. Winter weather/indoor activities plus carelessness cause the hospitalizations.

So far no sign of much here in Nic., but info hard to get. We had a couple of parties over the holidays but limited them to about 6 adults outdoors. Still a statistical risk but much better than parties of 20.

Definitely a shit show politically in the US. Worse to come.

[cookshow]

Yep, media here says lots in hospital, pics of freezer trucks for storing bodies.

Fanatic FSLN friend in MGA has covid, in typical FSLN fashion blames it on a family friend that visited for holidays from States.

Shit Storm may be conservative description. Some State Capitols already boarding up in advance of expected inauguration violence, Ortega loving it, more distractions to keep attention off of Nicaragua.

[bill_bly_ca]

What’s the curfew about?

It is supposedly to contain the spread - Kinda silly as carless people between 5AM and 8PM are the same people after..

We hit 3096 new cases (a day) yesterday of 14 million (something 55 / 100K aggerate for the province - 31/100K for our area/region - active + new)

The curfiew talk is dropped for On-scare-e-o as of last evening and new containment actions will be announced around 1PM

Our ICUs will be full first week of Feb

[bill_bly_ca]

Peak Canadian smugness Eh!!!

[Daddy-YO]

Fear of covid is real. It’s overplayed in US media - which may save more of the vulnerable - and underplayed in little Nicaragua where life & death continue uninterrupted. My little woman’s hairdresser - her main source of gossip - says there are now more covid cases in the hospital. A local doctor (pulmonologist) died of it.

What are the Sars-CoV-2 facts now? (worldometers.info/coronavirus/)
Of all US covid cases: 1.7% died, 59% recovered, 39% are active
Of all Nicaraguan cases: 2.7% died, 69% recovered, 28% active.
Of all Canadian cases: 2.6% died, 85% recovered, 12% active.

Don’t forget that US hospitals are paid a premium for covid patients which skews statistics.

Mortality in 2019 (UN.org World Mortality 2019: Data Booklet)
Nicaragua 33,000 died in 2019; Covid deaths total = 166
Canada 291,000 died in 2019; Covid deaths total = 17,172
United States 2,909,000 died in 2019; Covid deaths total = 386,412

[bill_bly_ca]

After peaking 3 days ago (at 3300 new cases a day) we are starting to dip below 2000 / day today.

Almost prefect alignment with Xmas and new years gatherings.

Once we are below 1000/day the current measures (No public gatherings, curbside pick up for non essential businesses, no seated dining etc) will be rescinded to previous levels (10 ppl dining. public gatherings of 25 ppl and the like)

Most likely when it drops below 100/200 a day we will go back to 25ppl dining / 50ppl gatherings and no store limiting numbers but masks still mandated.

[bill_bly_ca]

Of all US covid cases: 1.7% died, 59% recovered, 39% are active
Of all Nicaraguan cases: 2.7% died, 69% recovered, 28% active.
Of all Canadian cases: 2.6% died, 85% recovered, 12% active.

Worldometer seems to show a statistically similar number for almost all countries, inc the US ..

[bill_bly_ca]

Bah - Screen grab did not attach to last post.

[Daddy-YO]

That's in terms of 'closed cases', those who died (3%) or recovered (97%). The stat does not include active, confirmed infections.

Worldometer seems to show a statistically similar number for almost all countries, inc the US ..

[Daddy-YO]

“Lockdowns are far more harmful to public health than COVID-19 can be.” - Dr. Ari Joffe, Clinical Prof, Dept of Pediatrics, U Alberta, Canada.
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202010.0330/v2
see pdf

[el duende grande]

The curfews are smart shutdowns. Its a numbers game. If bars stay open till 1am there will be more people with more alcohol in them for longer times. Shut down at 10 or whatever time the local authorities decide and you will have fewer sick people. Not a perfect solution, in Spain the police are cracking down on "private" parties that have sprung up. "Private" as in large gatherings illegally organized by a billion dollar crime syndicate. But smart shutdowns are better than the dumb ones they started with.

The numbers game will stretch out to all of 2021. I wish the oxford vaccine would come around, I might take it.

I suspect once Trump is out of office the US will start taking effective actions against covid so Biden gets the credit.

Worldometers does show "active cases" with a current total of about 9.5 million in the US. This is a moving total as most will recover, some will die, and new ones will be identified..

[bill_bly_ca]

Happy inauguration day....

[el duende grande]

You gets the award for the most communication with the fewest words!

I wonder if the Chinese Ambassador is attending?
Or the Jamaican one for that matter.

[Jonh]

Or the Indian ambassador?

[el duende grande]

Being "black" es mas rentable. The Indian Ambassador will just have to suck an egg or something.

[bill_bly_ca]

“Lockdowns are far more harmful to public health than COVID-19 can be.” - Dr. Ari Joffe, Clinical Prof, Dept of Pediatrics, U Alberta, Canada.
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202010.0330/v2
see pdf

The former Chief medical officer of health for Ontario (who was in office during SARs ) is also against lock down - So is one member of conservatives caucus also spoke about it publicly - He now sits as an independent.

There may be something to a lockout prohibition, but with the data not properly vetted yet, and the unfortunate results of Sweden, Brazil and for the USA, it (lockdown) is tacitly accepted.

After I mentioned Monday the 1900 (which was a product of an under test day of only 39,000) the rate is back to the expected decline - 1900,2300, 2500, 2600 and 2600 over the last 5 days - A good pull back from last weeks 3,600 - 3300 per day (most all based on 56,000 tests a day save for the outlier)

We have an infection ratio below 1 for the first time since Nov. Causation or correlation to lock down? Who knows. My son's experience of his work place - Where 6 of the 25 ppl staff pool had infections over the time span of Dec 30 to this past Friday (15th) kinda shows it - Now that the store 1 is closed and store 2 is down to 8 hours a day, no new infections in the staff nor across staff.

This is 4 weeks in to the (our) lockdown - It was to end tomorrow, but is extended to Feb 9. We are hoping sub 1000 a day at that time if the trend holds.


We did get a kick in the teeth from Phizer, no deliveries this week and a 50% delivery rate for the next 4 - There is some talk that it is tied to the Canadian Government reluctance to offer Phizer tax breaks - Mostly because the EU deliveries have not been impacted (we get ours from Belgium) and there was a document petitioning the federal government for some sort of subsidy that was leak earlier in the week.

There are studies emerging from Isreal that Phizer vaccine efficacy drops to 35% if the second dose is not administered.

Like with SARs - the next event we will have a better understanding on how to handle social interaction

[bill_bly_ca]

OK looks like the Pfizer production delays were not a manufactured problem just for us as Germany, France and hte Netherlands were also short /not / Shipped.

Saturdays numbers were 2300 for the province - in our area we dipped below 3 digits for new cases since lade Nov I think. https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/h...oo-region.aspx

[bill_bly_ca]

Looks like Canadian health care providers will be using Colchicine for early case treatment..

Paper(s) will be released later in the week..

CTV

[bill_bly_ca]

Seen a few bits on the actual mechanics of the Pfiser/Maderna mRNA methods vs the more traditional vaccines from Astro Zenica and J&J. The Astro and JnJ are more of a DNA implant to generate a Tcell memory of the virus while the mRNA spend more effort on blocking the spiked receptor you see on all of the C-19 graphics then generating a Tcell responce - Or at least that was the jist I took away from it.

Also while only having 75% efficacy (approximately for both) for infection there is initial evidence is that infection is milder, hospitalisation rate was lower and no recorded deaths in the 46,000 case test cohort for the A-Z variant.

So all things considered I bet I will lean to the A-Z / JnJ variant when it comes my turn.