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Richard White said:
Over 3100 cases reported today.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1471837215852482567
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I don’t really follow case counts anymore. It’s essentially pandemic porn. What I look for is hospitalizations and ICU.

As of now, per https://covid-19.ontario.ca/ out of 18 million Ontarians we have 328 people hospitalized with Covid, of which 165 are in ICU. To give this some perspective, on Dec 17, 2000 we had 938 people hospitalized, of which 263 were in ICU.

Where case counts would be useful is as a ratio of cases to hospitalizations. This would demonstrate if the vaccines are working. If the vaccines prove to be keeping hospitalizations down, by early 2022 people are going to begin demanding that we accept the Covid risk and return to normal life. I have older friends who have been waiting for a year plus for knee and hip replacements - they're now becoming depressed and despondent (and worried about opiate addiction) due to ongoing Covid-related postponements.
 
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In the Financial Times: there is no evidence omicron is milder. Which means the current surge will strain hospitals in short order.
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Admiral Beez said:
I don’t really follow case counts anymore. It’s essentially pandemic porn. What I look for is hospitalizations and ICU.

As of now, per https://covid-19.ontario.ca/ out of 18 million Ontarians we have 328 people hospitalized with Covid, of which 165 are in ICU. To give this some perspective, on Dec 17, 2000 we had 938 people hospitalized, of which 263 were in ICU.

Where case counts would be useful is as a ratio of cases to hospitalizations. This would demonstrate if the vaccines are working. If the vaccines prove to be keeping hospitalizations down, by early 2022 people are going to begin demanding that we accept the Covid risk and return to normal life. I have older friends who have been waiting for a year plus for knee and hip replacements - they're now becoming depressed and despondent (and worried about opiate addiction) due to ongoing Covid-related postponements.
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Hospitalizations are much lower now in part because cases were relatively low until the surge in the past week. Hospitalizations won't have had a chance to catch up to infections yet. Last year, infections had been steadily rising for months, meaning more time for people to get seriously ill.

I certainly hope that hospitalizations dont follow, but if we wait and see we certainly are rolling the dice and risking a really desperate situation.

Just for kicks I went back to read the start of this thread yesterday, and early on someone made a comment about how we shouldn't be alarmed. Covid had only killed 11 people in italy at that point, and the flu killed hundreds each year so we shouldn't blow it out of proportion. Within days, Italy's daily death tolls had surpassed annual flu death tolls.

I'd always rather err on the side of caution personally.

Though as you say, surgery backlog is becoming a huge issue, one that's also costing people their lives.

At two years into this, my opinion is the focus has to be on equipping hospitals to handle covid surges rather than limiting cases. Unfortunately we haven't done that yet and so the same tactics that we used as a last case resort initially are still being relied upon.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Where case counts would be useful is as a ratio of cases to hospitalizations. This would demonstrate if the vaccines are working. If the vaccines prove to be keeping hospitalizations down, by early 2022 people are going to begin demanding that we accept the Covid risk and return to normal life. I have older friends who have been waiting for a year plus for knee and hip replacements - they're now becoming depressed and despondent (and worried about opiate addiction) due to ongoing Covid-related postponements.
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I don't think we will return to a pre 2020 normal world. A large part of the world is still un-vaxxed. Omicron developed in South Africa, a country that had a surplus of vaccines. The US has a vaccine surplus, yet over 100 million people are still unvaxxed. Covid is going to keep mutating. Vaccinations may have to be given out yearly like a flu shot. Restrictions and temporary shut down could be part of life.
 
gabe said:
I don't think we will return to a pre 2020 normal world. A large part of the world is still un-vaxxed. Omicron developed in South Africa, a country that had a surplus of vaccines. The US has a vaccine surplus, yet over 100 million people are still unvaxxed. Covid is going to keep mutating. Vaccinations may have to be given out yearly like a flu shot. Restrictions and temporary shut down could be part of life.
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In other words, nobody's going to follow them. I know I won't follow restrictions if they become annual.
 
DirectionNorth said:
In other words, nobody's going to follow them. I know I won't follow restrictions if they become annual.
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Well then... if we do away with restrictions. I hope you don’t get into a car accident, or need life saving surgery, or are the victim of violent crime, or have a heart attack, because the ICU's will be full of covid patients.

I was talking to a guy at the bus stop the other day.. He was saying how much he hates wearing masks, i said yeah, masks suck.... but wearing one is definitely better than having Covid. And he agreed with me.
 
Bayer said:
In the Financial Times: there is no evidence omicron is milder. Which means the current surge will strain hospitals in short order.
View attachment 369826
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Other studies have been saying otherwise, as well as anecdotal information.

Another report I read on that study framed that it's primary purpose was to determine vaccine effectiveness, not reduced hospitalization rates.
 
gabe said:
I don't think we will return to a pre 2020 normal world. A large part of the world is still un-vaxxed. Omicron developed in South Africa, a country that had a surplus of vaccines. The US has a vaccine surplus, yet over 100 million people are still unvaxxed. Covid is going to keep mutating. Vaccinations may have to be given out yearly like a flu shot. Restrictions and temporary shut down could be part of life.
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lol what a terrible outlook on the world.

"lets lock ourselves in our houses for 6 months a year and have constant reduced social contacts to prevent life expectancy from dropping by 3 months".
 
innsertnamehere said:
Other studies have been saying otherwise, as well as anecdotal information.

Another report I read on that study framed that it's primary purpose was to determine vaccine effectiveness, not reduced hospitalization rates.
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It might still be, but in the absence of concrete information, precautionary principle should rule - and we should watch other countries with similar profiles as us closely. UK is probably a good indicator - if hospitalization and ICU doesn't go seriously up in a week or two then it is probably ok to relax.

AoD
 
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