Ontario Covid lockdown - will it be extended?

[ssfc72]

With the daily count of new COVID cases remaining at well over 3000, it appears to me that Doug Ford government will have to extend the current month of Ontario lockdown, for another month. :-(
Or worse, the lockdown will have to be more severe, such as what Quebec is apparently going to do.

I didn't get around to bringing up this topic at our PLUG Mug video group chat, last evening.

[gmiller1977]

I suspect it will be extended.  It doesn't appear to be doing very much, regardless.  Case loads haven't dropped since the initial lockdown in Toronto and the surrounding areas.

It's a sad day when people in Canada are told they have an imposed curfew.

[buster]

I think this wave is going to be hugely dangerous. Neighbour lost his mother. A friend had a son and granddaughter with covid. The hospitals may get to having to decide who to accept for ICU, and necessary surgeries may be cancelled for others. Peterborough is so far sheltered from this, but probably not for long.

We must remember there are many stupid people in the world who do nothing to prevent the spread, like some of the vacationing politicians.

[gmiller1977]

The vast majority of people will be fine.  I'm not completely buying into the argument that this is being caused by people not following the rules.  Most people I see and encounter are complying and doing their part.

The government has not released a lot of data about who is in hospital, amongst other critical pieces of data.  I hope they become more transparent in the coming weeks, but I'm not holding my breath.

Stay home, wash your hands, wear a proper mask when you go out (not a piece of cloth), and stay home if you don't feel well.

[Jason]

I expect it will be continued. I'm not sure that people get the point without a longer lockdown. But a curfew may be necessary, too. It seems to have a bigger psychological effect.

I'm also worried that with that vaccine rollout, there are going to be people thinking that once they have the vaccine they don't need to worry about masks and social distancing. Because they will be disregarding that it takes a while to build up immunity in the system (especially with 2 shots a month apart) and you can still get sick right after the vaccine if you were already infected. We also don't know yet if people can be carriers even if they are protected themselves.

When you say that the government hasn't released a lot of data about who is in hospitals, gmiller, what data are you looking for? There have been media articles about how many are in the hospital with COVID-19, in the ICU and on a ventilator.

I do believe that the spread is mainly from people not following the rules as the numbers spiked right after Christmas and because we have a lot of evidence that people are breaking the rules. I don't know anybody that isn't following the rules either but to conclude from that that it's not true is to commit the anecdotal evidence fallacy.

The situation here is alarming - new cases and active cases have shot up. Go to this this page and scroll down to "Compare cases by Public Health Unit" and choose Peterborough and Active Cases. That's a pretty sharp change from just 2 weeks ago. We went from 26 active cases at Christmas to 100 cases by January 4. Now we're back to 85 cases. The PPH said we'd be an orange zone now if it wasn't for the lockdown and probably be in a red zone soon.

[gmiller1977]

I expect it will be continued. I'm not sure that people get the point without a longer lockdown. But a curfew may be necessary, too. It seems to have a bigger psychological effect.

I'm also worried that with that vaccine rollout, there are going to be people thinking that once they have the vaccine they don't need to worry about masks and social distancing. Because they will be disregarding that it takes a while to build up immunity in the system (especially with 2 shots a month apart) and you can still get sick right after the vaccine if you were already infected. We also don't know yet if people can be carriers even if they are protected themselves.

When you say that the government hasn't released a lot of data about who is in hospitals, gmiller, what data are you looking for? There have been media articles about how many are in the hospital with COVID-19, in the ICU and on a ventilator.

I do believe that the spread is mainly from people not following the rules as the numbers spiked right after Christmas and because we have a lot of evidence that people are breaking the rules. I don't know anybody that isn't following the rules either but to conclude from that that it's not true is to commit the anecdotal evidence fallacy.

The situation here is alarming - new cases and active cases have shot up. Go to this this page and scroll down to "Compare cases by Public Health Unit" and choose Peterborough and Active Cases. That's a pretty sharp change from just 2 weeks ago. We went from 26 active cases at Christmas to 100 cases by January 4. Now we're back to 85 cases. The PPH said we'd be an orange zone now if it wasn't for the lockdown and probably be in a red zone soon.

Let me say that this is a contentious subject, and I'm not looking to start an argument - but I'm happy to have a discussion/debate about data.

Hospitals do not release age related data regarding admissions, or those in the ICU (aggregate data).  We are told that "patients are getting younger", but there is no data to support that from the province (hospitals report their own data to the province).  Originally we were told that it was all age brackets... in recent weeks (since the announcement of vaccines), the wording is changing to indicate that it is an older demographic.  The data from the province is quiet clear on one thing, those who are sucumbing to this virus, are in the later stages of life.  Over 87% of all deaths are from those 70+.  The data regarding deaths is public on the Ontario website, and it also indicates that *IF* younger people are being admitted to hospital, they are not the ones that are dying from COVID.

In the summer, everyone was told "go for a test", then we were told "only go if you have symptoms".... then the government said "the positivity rate is going up!".... of course it is, you have removed those who were getting tested without symptoms.  Statistically speaking this is to be expected; I don't suggest we stop testing, but any statistician would expect this outcome.

The metrics for the colour coding of the regions was initiated, then changed to match weekly positivity rates, then those rates were cut in half.

Testing is another matter.  I have friends who work in the healthcare sector (in both LTC and in hospitals), and what they share with me indicates that the province has lost all control of the testing and tracing system.  At LTC, they are notified of people in their centre that have tested postive... except, those people do not and have not ever lived there.  The same nurse in LTC needs to go for weekly COVID tests, but hasn't heard back on almost 40% of her tests; and when she approaches her manager, they just say "no news is good news".

Someone else I know booked a COVID test, went to the testing centre and was forced to wait for 3 hours; he then said "screw this" and left.  2 days later, the local health department called and told him he tested postive for COVID19 - no I'm not making this up.

I know of 2 other people in our friends/family that tested positive for COVID (in their 60s), after being alerted by a restaurant of a positive case.  They both got tested and were both positive... they were both asymtomatic.

Before Christmas, we were told that all of the outbreaks were because of people having house parties.  Today, the Premier stood in Pearson Airport and said the reason for the uptick is because of international travel.

The chief medical officer in Toronto (De Villa) and the the chief medical officer near my cabin in Parry Sound (Chirico) have both PUBLICALLY stated "ASSUME EVERYONE YOU MEET HAS COVID19" (their words, not mine)

This type of statement is not based in rational judgement or science.

I believe COVID-19 is a real thing.
I believe COVID-19 can impact the health of the elderly.

Based on the data provided from the province:

I believe COVID-19 in VERY rare cases can impact the young or middle aged, but it is NOT a death sentence and in over 97% of cases, people recover.

Re: vaccines

There is ZERO real world data on the vaccines that have been developed (and before anyone labels me/others an antivaxxer like our MPP Christine Elliott did on national television), I, my wife and my daughter all have our vaccinations - I believe in vaccinations.  We don't know the efficacy of these vaccines.  Moderna has NEVER developed a vaccine, yet we are now offering it to seniors (family friend received notification at her LTC home yesterday in North York).

Questions:

Who are the people not following the rules?  Don't tell me what you "think or feel", show me.  Annecdotal evidence, is just that.
What does a curfew accomplish?
Who delegated the responsibility of the 'psychological effect' you mention, to our public officials?

I do not believe we can go forward with the expectation of getting COVID infections to absolute zero.  That's an impossibility.  The damage done to the economy, and peoples lives is immeasurable at this point.  I don't believe the eldery are sacrificial by any means, but I do believe the governments of this country have failed those who were most susceptible to this illness.

Just my 0.02

[buster]

In the USA, a country that has pretty well lost control of covid, you can see news reports and pictures of people 'breaking the rules' pretty well daily. You can read reports of it in Canadian newspapers pretty well daily. But lets consider just one statistic from our neighbour to the south.

On average, someone dies from covid every 20 to 25 seconds.

Implying they are old, and the young are relatively safe, means nothing to me - I'm 81, and am in no hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil.

(4000deaths/24hr/60min= 2.777 deaths per minute)

[gmiller1977]

In the USA, a country that has pretty well lost control of covid, you can see news reports and pictures of people 'breaking the rules' pretty well daily. You can read reports of it in Canadian newspapers pretty well daily. But lets consider just one statistic from our neighbour to the south.

On average, someone dies from covid every 20 to 25 seconds.

Implying they are old, and the young are relatively safe, means nothing to me - I'm 81, and am in no hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil.

(4000deaths/24hr/60min= 2.777 deaths per minute)

As I said, I'm not suggesting that the old are in someway disposable, but, it's an important statistic to consider and could help reduce the amount of deaths that are occurring here if we acted on the data properly.  The problem in many long term care and senior homes (where 60% of all deaths have occurred - Ontario governments own data) is that staff rotate; this is done strictly for monetary purposes so they are not offered full time employment at a single care home.  This was happening at the start of COVID, and is still happening now.  Why?  If you have one LTC worker visit 3 homes on a daily basis, that's a vector for infection; if we reduced the number of visits by having fewer faces go into these facilities, the spread would be less.  This is a simple tactic that could save lives, but the government didn't act on it, and the "talking heads" on the news don't mention it either.... death death death sells.... not data.

If you are in your more advanced years, and you live by yourself, you can choose who you come into contact with (ie who enters you house, and when) in many cases; so, if you do the things that I'm doing (wearing a mask, washing your hands, only making trips that are important, etc) your risk level is quite low.

Other decisions made by the government are equally as ludicrous - schools are not a vector for infection?  What planet do these people live on?  The last time I checked, children were human beings and can spread infection equally as well as an adult.

There are plenty of reports of people "breaking the rules" in the mainstream media, no doubt; however, I refuse to believe that the uptick in cases is due entirely to these people mingling.  Our elected officials jump on the reports of these to pass the blame of the errors they are making.   

My belief is that this is a very serious illness if you get it in your advanced years, I hope one day we figure out why.... is it due to comorbidities?  Perhaps someone in their 70s and 80s came into a contact with a benign virus in their youth that is causing an overreaction in their immune system.  The data, however is clear, and the crude tactics we are using to try and control this virus is not going to work.

[Jason]

You've made a lot of arguments, kind of a shotgun approach and I can't keep up with them so let's address one argument at a time. You took issue with me saying that there were people breaking the rules by noting that you didn't know anyone that had broken the rules and I said it was a logical fallacy. Saying "Anecdotal evidence is just that," masks the fact that anecdotal evidence is piss-poor evidence. Because it's only a sampling of the people around you, not random and not representative.

Here's my argument:

I noted that the largest spread was right around and after Christmas. If you got together at Christmas with people that weren't a member of your household with the exception of having one person who lived alone there (who didn't get together with anyone else), you were breaking that rule on gatherings. It's pretty indisputable that people get together at Christmas and that many families have people over from different areas, some with high numbers of cases like Toronto. I don't think it's a huge leap of logic to say it explains a large number of cases, no, not the entire increase, I never said that. I said mainly. If you disagree, tell me why it's a bad argument.

[Jason]

Oh, and one point you made about hospitalizations and numbers in the ICU, for COVID-19 cases, we do know the numbers something I already mentioned. As for total hospitalizations and patients in the ICU, I have no idea if they track those numbers but I'd be surprised if they didn't at least now. Because they would have to project how much available capacity they have with the sharp increase in COVID-19 cases.

[gmiller1977]

You've made a lot of arguments, kind of a shotgun approach and I can't keep up with them so let's address one argument at a time. You took issue with me saying that there were people breaking the rules by noting that you didn't know anyone that had broken the rules and I said it was a logical fallacy. Saying "Anecdotal evidence is just that," masks the fact that anecdotal evidence is piss-poor evidence. Because it's only a sampling of the people around you, not random and not representative.

Here's my argument:

I noted that the largest spread was right around and after Christmas. If you got together at Christmas with people that weren't a member of your household with the exception of having one person who lived alone there (who didn't get together with anyone else), you were breaking that rule on gatherings. It's pretty indisputable that people get together at Christmas and that many families have people over from different areas, some with high numbers of cases like Toronto. I don't think it's a huge leap of logic to say it explains a large number of cases, no, not the entire increase, I never said that. I said mainly. If you disagree, tell me why it's a bad argument.

I am aware of the data that the Ontario government shares on the COVID portal.  They list total hospitalizations, total in ICU and total on mechanical ventilators.  They do not, however show the age of those in hospital, in ICU and on ventilators.  This information should be shared.

I do not doubt that people got together over the holidays and this has led to additional spread.  I 100% agree with you.

What I'm trying to get at, and perhaps my rambling message derailed it, is that the way we are currently trying to deal with this is not working from a public health measure.  Lockdowns are not the answer.  Curfews are not the answer.  Sharing data of those who are MOST AT RISK is what will make a difference because it will allow us to act on that data to better protect them.  We as a society are not doing that right now, our elected officials have failed at doing this; instead of sharing that information and casting a light on their failing they are telling all of us to stay home and scared.

[Jason]

I am aware of the data that the Ontario government shares on the COVID portal.  They list total hospitalizations, total in ICU and total on mechanical ventilators.  They do not, however show the age of those in hospital, in ICU and on ventilators.  This information should be shared.

I understand now, I thought you were talking about the cases in hospital and ICU separately as well and the age information with it.

What I'm trying to get at, and perhaps my rambling message derailed it, is that the way we are currently trying to deal with this is not working from a public health measure.

I agree.

Lockdowns are not the answer.  Curfews are not the answer.

A lockdown worked in the Spring. We don't know if it will work now. I think it's still too soon to tell, at least I think so. We don't know about curfews at all. There have been places in the world where curfews have worked but probably cases where it hasn't. Paris imposed a curfew instead of extending the lockdown and it seems to bring down case numbers. Melbourne, Australia, did the same thing and also brought numbers down. The articles I've read suggest that maybe, and no, we don't have data, curfews get it through to people better than a lockdown that this is serious. I think it's obvious that people aren't taking it seriously enough whether it comes from travel, gatherings, too much time in commercial establishments and so on. That's the point of a lockdown, it limits the number and time that people are interacting. Having a curfew would, hopefully, do the same thing. People might just go out in the time they're allowed more to make up for the time they can't.

Sharing data of those who are MOST AT RISK is what will make a difference because it will allow us to act on that data to better protect them. We as a society are not doing that right now, our elected officials have failed at doing this; instead of sharing that information and casting a light on their failing they are telling all of us to stay home and scared.

We do know who is most at risk because of death rates. I don't know if would make a difference to have more data because the measures are the same except that health authorities could come up with new measures but I think they have that information and are doing the best. Stay home, mask, wash your hands, stay apart, nothing has changed from this Spring and Summer except that people got comfortable and relaxed the measures.

Keeping health care workers to just one LTC would obviously help. And the province started requiring that months ago.

I'm not sure how having more information would help. Why do you think it would?

I suppose knowing about outbreaks would prevent as many from visiting from the outside but when there's an outbreak that normally happens anyway. Having proper PPE for workers would also be better and the government has failed in this, I agree. I also think this is a failing of private LTCs who make the bottom line more important than protecting their staff which also protects their residents. I would like to see LTC homes made public.

I don't feel scared, btw. And my wife is more vulnerable. I just take precautions as I did when I had to self-isolate because of symptoms in the Spring and have been masking since then. I admit I get a bit more nervous with local numbers skyrocketing. I also had sanitizer and Lysol already on hand because of flu season before the pandemic started and I didn't want to get sick or, more importantly, spread the flu to others. All these measures have the nice side effect of helping to protect us against colds, pneumonia, etc.

[Jason]

I don't know about Ontario, but apparently, they do have numbers for hospitalizations by age for Canada. You can find it here. I can't see why the proportions would be very much different in Ontario except that a better healthcare system may increase or decrease the number of deaths but the proportions should still hold at least from highest to lowest. It shows some interesting data such as:

19% of those 50-59 are admitted to the ICU
9% of those 40-49
3% of those 20-29 even!

Those that are deceased are seniors and above but you can't just pass off being in the ICU as no big deal. If you have a respiratory disease that is that serious requiring you being in the ICU, chances are more than not that you will have lasting lung damage making it difficult to breathe the rest of your life.

[gmiller1977]

I can assure you, the rotating staff in LTC is still happening in many centres.  I know this for fact.  I don't care what the province or the media says.

We may have dropped the numbers last March when we #flattenedthecurve but our elected officials squandered the summer months when infections were low.

The disproportionate number of deaths based on age indicates who is at risk, and who is likely in the hospitals/ICU/vents.  We aren't acting on this data.  The goverment is trying to get to zero COVID and blaming bad actors for the increase in positive tests.  Rather than looking at the data and telling everyone that we need to support and protect our elderly (and holding those accountable who said they would), we've decided to club the economy to death, shudder schools, and create a looming economic crisis of which we have never experienced.

...oh yeah, and seniors are still dying in droves who currently account for 95.657% of all deaths (aged 60 - 99).

When all of this started, we didn't know this.  It's been almost a year, and the picture is becoming clearer.... but rather than change our tactics based on what we *now* know, we are using the same, unsuccessful plans that were drafted up at the beginning of this and expecting a different result.  We're making *all* of the data relevevant when it doesn't need to be.  4249 new cases isn't relevant data when the recovery rate is 99.8503% for ages 0 - 59 years, the relevant data in the sample is the 95.657% in DEATHS in the top 4 age brackets.

But we don't frame the data that way, we're transfixated on the big scary number and the almighty graph which encompasses ALL the data, and when that number gets big enough.... we shut everything down.

It's obvious that a curfew is coming to Ontario based on the rhetoric in the media today.  It won't do anything.  The virus doesn't stop spreading because of a curfew, nor will the bad actors that are apparently causing all of this stop doing their "bad acting".  The same percentage of deaths will occur, the same percentage of recoveries will occur.  The curfew will make some people feel safer, some people will feel emboldened by it, some will believe that the "bad actors are now getting what they deserved".

Most importantly we will continue to overlook the relevant data.

I hear China was welding people in their houses.  Maybe that will work?

[gmiller1977]

I don't know about Ontario, but apparently, they do have numbers for hospitalizations by age for Canada. You can find it here. I can't see why the proportions would be very much different in Ontario except that a better healthcare system may increase or decrease the number of deaths but the proportions should still hold at least from highest to lowest. It shows some interesting data such as:

19% of those 50-59 are admitted to the ICU
9% of those 40-49
3% of those 20-29 even!

Those that are deceased are seniors and above but you can't just pass off being in the ICU as no big deal. If you have a respiratory disease that is that serious requiring you being in the ICU, chances are more than not that you will have lasting lung damage making it difficult to breathe the rest of your life.

Thank you for finding this.

From the page:

70.4% of all hospitalized cases (cumulative) are aged 60+
63.9% of all ICU cases (cumulative) are aged 60+

Therefore the vast majority of all hospitalized COVID patients are seniors. 

Per my last message, we're looking at and acting on, the wrong data.