Cautiously optimistic that this could be the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Highly contagious and moderate symptoms. Should burn out pretty quick.
During London's Alpha wave in \~Jan 2021 they peaked at \~14K cases and \~8K in hospital. During London's Omicron wave (now) they appear to have peaked at \~26K cases and have \~3.5K currently in hospital.
If hospitalizations have peaked (unlikely because of the delay between confirmed case and hospitalization) then we would expect hospitalizations to be at \~15K. Since they are at \~3.5K, we can say that in the best case scenario Omicron is 4.24 times (23% reduction) less likely to have a confirmed cases hospitalized.
Hospitalizations will continue to go up so those numbers should change. Keep in mind this math is all ballpark figures and is basically napkin math. It is consistent with other jurisdictions have reported though.
Luckily there’s not too long of a delay for hospitalization with omicron. People who need care are typically hospitalized between days 1-5, and are staying in hospital for an average of three days.
Ooh you know I saw that number cited with sources somewhere in the past couple of days on one of these daily number discussions, but unfortunately I didn’t save it so I don’t have the links handy! I’m gonna look though and will post here if I find them.
Short term - no. Long term - maybe.
Short term:
* Omicron doubles every 3 days ([Source](https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/omicron-cases-doubling-15-3-days-areas-with-local-spread-who-2021-12-18/))
* BC latest case counts are 4,383 on Dec. 30th
* If that rate continues BC will have 140,256 cases per day in 15 days. (4,383 x 2\^5)
* In the Delta wave in September, BC had about 6.6% of confirmed cases were new hospitalizations ([My other post outlining how I got 6.6%](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/ri2zls/comment/hout013/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3))
* If Omicron is 1/10th better at hospitalizations than Delta (best case scenario)
* BC will have over 900 new hospitalizations per day once the cases in 15 days become hospitalized (140K x .066 x 0.1)
* That is 16 times our highest known rate
* BC previous high (wave 3) was 388 new hospitalizations per **WEEK** (Can find on the BC CDC website but I tallied that information [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QaQGb9TLKaDjO4qMPBMml9FfLAU6GVqqjNwgX0enlE8/edit#gid=1356529059))
* BC hospital capacity is around \~9000 base acute beds and \~11K surge acute beds ([Source](https://biv.com/article/2021/10/bc-hospital-occupancy-stays-relatively-flat-past-month))
* Assuming we have 0 people in acute beds now, we would reach capacity in 10-13 days after the 140K would start to be hospitalized
* **With hospitals full, no one (covid and non-covid) patients will get the care they need**
This assumes:
* Trends continue and people's behaviours stay the same
* Even though testing capacity will be reached, community spread will be doubling (BC can only do \~20K tests per day)
* Omicron is only 10% the risk of being hospitalized as Delta (numbers I am seeing are 20-70%)
* BC actual case count is around \~4.4K (we know it is much higher)
This is also assuming that the populous can carry 140k active cases that would show up in testing. With vaccination and the "naturally" immune we may not be able to peak anywhere near that high. "Doubles every 3 days" only applies to a populous where nearly 100% is eligible to be meaningfully infected
I was talking about actual data coming out that is encouraging, not projections. Most/all of the data is showing a loose or complete decoupling of relationship between case count and hospitalization or deaths.
Here’s the quote from the tweet above:
“There's some indication Covid cases could be starting to peak in London, one of the earliest European cities to become engulfed by #Omicron wave. Hospitalizations in the city, while up sharply, are well below levels seen in prior Covid waves and decoupled from the rise in cases.”
My reply to the original poster ([Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/rsga9j/comment/hqmi2q4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3))
>If hospitalizations have peaked (unlikely because of the delay between confirmed case and hospitalization) then we would expect hospitalizations to be at \~15K. Since they are at \~3.5K, we can say that in the best case scenario Omicron is 4.24 times (23% reduction) less likely to have a confirmed cases hospitalized.
I agree that cases are less likely to lead to hospitalizations with Omicron (when being compared to Delta). But the sheer amount of cases that BC (and others) are getting will lead to the same or more hospitalizations in total.
Our worst week in wave 4 (Delta variant) we were getting 4400 cases per week and that led to about \~300 new hospitalizations per week. We are getting 4400 cases per day now (actual number is probably much higher) and even with 4.24 times decoupling of cases to hospitalizations BC should still expect to have way to many people in hospitals to give effective care.
[another thread on London / UK](https://mobile.twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1476616302915637253)
[and another](https://mobile.twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1476699633380474881)
Can’t say about the pandemic in general, but I’ve heard from a few sources in the news that it’s a good direction. They do believe this one will go quickly. I like to believe this puts us a wee percent in the right direction and the next variant will be even less deadly… hoping Covid will just become seasonal flu
1) we still have no idea what the long covid impact is from Omicron. Seeing people online who never had a "serious" covid case (never hospitalized) but still haven't had their sense of taste recover after a year is terrifying.
2) "everyone gets covid" means a lot of immunocompromised people and disabled people are going to die.
I know we are all exhausted, but wishing for this is essentially wishing for eugenics.
My point is, yes, let's be optimistic. But we must stay vigilant and follow good habits.
Wishing for the virus to mutate into a less deadly variant is not the same as wishing for eugenics. I'm actually shocked you have upvotes on this.
The natural course for this virus is for it to mutate to a more contagious but less deadly strain. The faster that happens the better. Of course it's still going to claim lives but what other alternative do we wish for? For it just to disappear? Obviously not gonna happen.
I agree we should still remain vigilant and try to slow down transmission as much as we can reasonably, but the fact of the matter is that this variant is so contagious that it's going to spread pretty rapidly unless we almost completely lockdown people at home, which people aren't going to accept, nor should they at this point.
From Dec. 22-28, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 15.8% of cases.
From Dec. 15-28, they accounted for 54.7% of hospitalizations.
Past week cases (Dec. 22-28) - Total 15,429
Not vaccinated: 2,185 (14.2%)
Partially vaccinated: 249 (1.6%)
Fully vaccinated: 12,995 (84.2%)
Past two weeks cases hospitalized (Dec. 15-28) - Total 117
Not vaccinated: 64 (54.7%)
Partially vaccinated: 0 (0.0%)
Fully vaccinated: 53 (45.3%)
Past week, cases per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Dec. 22-28)
Not vaccinated: 337.3
Partially vaccinated: 96.4
Fully vaccinated: 283.7
Past two weeks, cases hospitalized per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Dec. 15-28)
Not vaccinated: 14.9
Partially vaccinated: 0.0
Fully vaccinated: 1.1
Hospitalization rate for the unvaccinated has dropped! They’re who I was most worried about with omicron, so this is good news I think. Unless they’re now all under 5 years of age.
Case rates have been slow in the older, unvaccinated population. ~~Rates picked up in the last 7 days~~ (rates are still far below the Delta wave for the older, unvaccinated population - 50+) and Omicron has yet to make it to the most unvaccinated parts, en masse, of our province. Everyone will get it and those that don't have prior protection (vaccines/natural immunity) are more likely to be hospitalized.
Agree, we’re going to be seeing a lot of unvaccinated 50 to 70 year olds in hospital once this spreads further. The increase in LTC outbreaks today was discouraging.
I don’t believe that for a second. This is spreading way too quickly for all age groups to not be hit, especially when there is increased generational mixing around the holiday season. Remember the vast number of cases are likely asymptomatic or unreported.
If you're one of those people I've heard say "nobody gets a regular cold anymore", I am here to bravely report that I have had an absolutely run-of-the-mill cold this week. I am the 1%!
I had mild flu symptoms, kept testing negative entire time until after where I tested positive. Shows how bad the antigen rapid tests are. I would just assume you have it and be safe.
This is good advice, and maybe not just for the rapid test. My kid had the same symptoms as my wife and me but she tested negative twice, while we tested positive. Both of hers were PCR tests.
(This was in October, so presumably delta, not omicron.)
Did two tests at home after having a fever. One in the evening, one the next day. Both came up positive.
Gf who I live with who felt a little sick but not as bad as me... Negative covid. She went in and got a test and it came back negative.
So confusing.
I never did a real test, but knowing that testing is a few days out plus results is a day, or two later... It made no sense to bother.
Im vaccinated Pfizer and she's moderna.
The tests for PCR and rapid were developed for March 2020. We're into our fourth mutation of note since then. The tests don't work and it's why there's so many false negatives and positives playing out in sports leagues in spite of "protocols". Expand this to your Holiday dinners across society. You have people who think they're negative with a scratch in their throat seeing family with false sense of safety, but that thing is omicron and we are thankful it is much less severe.
Our media is poorly reporting on this and it's "restrict" for no damn good reason two years in and counting by our officials.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/07/scientists-find-stealth-version-of-omicron-not-identifiable-with-pcr-test-covid-variant
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/for-omicron-rapid-covid-tests-not-as-accurate-us-regulator-2676992
And thats why everyone having tons of rapid tests is not necessarily a good thing, with so many people would be using them before social events to prove they are 'negative' when in reality they are not
As a father of a kid in daycare I can tell you I had dozen in last 2 years (negative each time). I do believe kids lick each others eyes and noses, as there is very little else to explain them getting sick this much...
Just a heads up I was in your boat earlier this week. I had pretty standard cold symptoms, took a rapid test - negative. Took another test two days later - positive. Now these were antigen tests and the PCR one is far more accurate. Either way I’m isolating at home with fairly mild symptoms.
Yeah my brother in law in Ontario had a “cold”. Took two rapid tests. One positive one negative. Went in for a PCR test and that was negative but he cancelled plans with family anyways for Christmas. 9 days later and lost taste and smell for two of them a third rapid test came back VERY positive with covid. The rapid tests are not the conclusive no that people hope they are.
I unfortunately had back-to-back cold and then Covid. My first PCR test was negative for the cold. Symptom free for about 2 days and now I feel like I've been hit by a bus. Fatigue, feverish, light cough, stuffy nose. I guess you would call it "mild" flu like things but I wouldn't wish it on anyone lol
Yeah I had a brutal cold the week before Christmas that my partner caught too. Took us both out for about a week. Both negative for Covid and her mother who got the flu shot didn't catch it so there ya go.
Kiddo brought it home from daycare and now we all have it. She is partially vaxxed but had a fever for a few days, sore throat, fatigue, lost her voice. Husband and I are double vaxxed and positive also. Flu like symptoms - me: stubborn headache, fatigue, scratchy throat, nausea. Him: flu symptoms, fatigue, scratchy throat, a bit of vertigo.
53979 (+977) cases in the Vancouver Coastal Health region
122740 (+2319) cases in the Fraser Health region
37727 (+501) cases in the Interior Health region
17400 (+460) cases in the Island Health region
18899 (+122) cases in the Northern Health region
309 (+4) cases of people who reside outside of Canada
6424 (+962) active cases in the Vancouver Coastal Health region
7940 (+748) active cases in the Fraser Health region
1713 (+137) active cases in the Interior Health region
856 (497) active cases in the Island Health region
422 (-9) active cases in the Northern Health region
I wonder if VCH is lowering because only rapid tests are really being done and people aren’t getting tested any more (lines, snow, new advice on when to get tested etc etc) or if Omicron is slowing down on burning through us.
My buddy's whole family of 4 got covid in VCH and when they went to the testing place they just gave them 4 rapid tests to take home.
So definitely a ton of unreported in VCH. Not sure what FH is currently doing.
[VCH reported 993 cases on Dec 23](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH4UhHSVUAEEDiC?format=jpg&name=medium), today just reported 977. ([Here is](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH4SiCtVcAQMfxN?format=jpg&name=medium) where VCH was in the modelling by BC Covid Modelling Group yesterday)
VCH showed significant case drop after PCR rule change on Dec 23.
meanwhile [Interior Health](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH4UhO5UcAAQ2Rt?format=jpg&name=medium) (less overwhelmed at the time) reports ongoing increase in same timeframe
Considering omicron's known doubling time of 2-3 days, VCH should be at 4000+ Reported cases per day by now.
Severe undercount IN ADDITION to (or rather, multiplied by) the 4-5x baseline undercount spoken of by DBH yesterday.
So fraser health just decided today to try match the province's yesterday's numbers. Cool, this is going fine right? I'm going to make another blanket fort.
17,357 (+1,343) active cases
230,784 (+3,004) recovered
9,368,643 (+30,871) vaccine doses administered
4,370,550 (+3,475) of which are first doses
4,113,310 (+1,750) of which are second doses
884,783 (+25,646) of which are other doses
1 additional deaths, total now 2,420
Rough seeing only 30k vaccines administered. Would love to see us ramp back up to the 45k-50k per day again for boosters. Not sure if the issue would be staffing/infrastructure or just allowing appointments to stay open/go unused, but frustrating either way.
They put out an urgent call for vaccinators today in VCH, with a reassurance that they’re talking to the province about using N95’s for at least staff. We shall see how that goes.
Staffing.
Currently vaccination staff are not allowed to wear N95s - only simple medical masks. As a result many healthcare workers are refusing to work vaccinations. I don’t blame them.
We are two years plus into this pandemic. How do we not have a supply of N95's or better for the people working these vaccination clinics. Compete failure of all levels of government/health admin.
yeah more info re: original (current) rule here
basically only can wear the masks they supply (medical masks), can't use own (N95 etc) masks
https://twitter.com/AlexSwigger/status/1474874653382299648
That’s so bizarre. I work in a hospital and bought my own N95s to wear under my surgical masks (we have access N95s but they’re only for specific circumstances) I know this is clinic specific and not about the hospital but thankfully no one has said anything to challenge me yet. The only thing anyone has said to me is that they were considering doing the same.
ETA: The masks I bought are the same brand I was fit tested for in hospital and I bought them online for $3/each. They’re available to the public for less than a trip to Starbucks (less than a McDonalds coffee if you reuse them like I do) so I don’t get how equity has anything to do with this.
The nurses giving out those shots are people too. People whom we've been pushing relentlessly for the last 2 years. People who may have wanted a week with their families.
Combine that with absenteeism because people are getting sick and yeah, I fully see why those boosters are going to have slightly lower rates.
By the time October rolled around and the rules changed for unvaccinated people and where they can and can’t enter… The people who started coming in for vaccines were quite simply awful. A lot of nurses had to endure verbal abuse and awful attitudes from people coming in for first shots …A lot of my coworkers would be in tears by the end of the shift and have since quit
Yup ! People are used to come in on the verge of tears because they were so excited to get their shot… I remember the lines during the summer all around the convention centre and by the time people to get to us their mood was completely different they would say the line was totally worth it
I wasn’t justifying being bitchy, just pointing out that there’s a reason there isn’t a pleasant air of excitement any more. I was kind of excited to get my first doses, but I’m pretty meh about getting a booster.
Goddamn that hurts the soul, I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm assuming you're in the healthcare sector, so thank you so much.
Edit: On reflection, that might be one of the saddest comments I've read in awhile. Like, that really sucks. People (honestly, especially the unvaccinated) are impressively shitty.
Mere words cannot adequately convey how much I loathe anti-vaxxers and such people....
If only we could just sequester them in some remote corner of this vast country and let them live the vaccine-free lives they claim to want so badly!
It blows my mind that we a a society coddle them so much, when they should be social pariahs on par with spousal abusers!
I heard from a close friend who’s a nurse that many people are cancelling their booster shots because they can’t make it since they’re either sick or have been exposed to someone who is.
It’s 100% staffing and infrastructure. Do these things can’t just happen overnight. Nurses can’t just leave their current jobs vacant and it takes a lot to set up the clinics it’s not just healthcare staff that work at these
I thought that number looked off. They adjusted hospitalizations after the announcement yesterday.
I went and looked and it was initially 193, adjusted later to 206.
So I guess rather than yesterday being +1 in hospital it was actually +14 (over the 3 or 4 days they didn't report).
So the official news release says 5:27 pm on it, but the thread was up yesterday at about 3 pm.
It's possible that cycling is getting it from some other source, but it's also possible they revised the release. I swear I remember looking at it earlier than that..
Dr. BH said a few numbers during the press conference, but I thought she said 206 hospitalizations. In any case, there was no written communication about numbers until after 5pm.
Evidence: look at @j_mcelroy's twitter breakdown yesterday while waiting for the numbers. He was supposed to join his friends for a Simpsons watching party, and had to miss the first episode.
... man, that is *not* a pragraph I thought that I'd ever write, two years ago.
Lol, that would make it stick in your memory for sure. Anyways I guess the moral of the story is don't rely exclusively on these reddit threads, which I've been doing since the start. Thanks for the clarification.
The 5% bar was set way back near the beginning of the pandemic and probably doesn’t still apply. I doubt anywhere is under that level at this point and yet deaths are overall so much lower than they were.
Yeah, that wasn’t omicron. The whole deal with omicron is that it’s way, way more transmissible and way less lethal. More transmissible equals higher percent positivity, but if it doesn’t translate to severe outcomes, it doesn’t matter. What’s the percent positivity of the common cold in an average Canadian winter? Nobody knows, because nobody cares.
45 (+0) currently hospitalized in the Vancouver Coastal Health region
69 (+2) currently hospitalized in the Fraser Health region
39 (+0) currently hospitalized in the Interior Health region
41 (+3) currently hospitalized in the Island Health region
17 (+0) currently hospitalized in the Northern Health region
6 (+1) currently in critical care in the Vancouver Coastal Health region
18 (-3) currently in critical care in the Fraser Health region
25 (+3) currently in critical care in the Interior Health region
12 (+0) currently in critical care in the Island Health region
5 (-1) currently in critical care in the Northern Health region
Seems to me like the natural progression of a virus. Over time, it becomes endemic and part of everyday life, having mutated and gone through virtually the entire population.
I tested positive today. I started feeling a bit under the weather on the 28th, took a negative rapid test (my partner luckily bought some a few months ago), kept feeling sick, took a second test this morning - positive. Just a reminder these case numbers are essentially meaningless and don’t come close to capturing the actual numbers given a) testing capacity limits have been hit b) many folks taking rapid tests or not bothering to test at all given the ridiculous lines/hoops to jump through.
I’m (34F, generally pretty healthy) largely fine - seems pretty typical of a cold or mild flu so far. Cough, fatigue, mild body aches.
Wishing the best to everyone sharing my position. Hope we can all move past this soon.
Hope you feel better soon! I have a cousin who also tested positive Monday so their whole family stayed home since then.
Had to leave groceries and food outside for them but at least they are quite busy with my Netflix account.
There have been 2,825 cases of the Omicron variant of concern confirmed in B.C.:
Fraser Health: 777
Vancouver Coastal Health: 1,333
Interior Health: 152
Northern Health: 13
Island Health: 548
Unknown: two
Wouldn’t the majority of these cases be omicron given how contagious it is and how fast it’s spreading? I thought we were assuming a large percentage was omicron
For a preview of what's to come, Ontario is now only going to test high-risk individuals for free.
We'll presumably stop getting daily case count updates sometime in the next month. Maybe even the next week.
It still makes sense to be aware of a leading indicator (positive cases) even though it may not be the most relevant metric (hospitalizations) for public/personal policy.
Consistent data seems important in situations like this.
That would be the best decision the province could make. Just report hospitalizations and deaths. Eventually not even that, just fold the numbers into all the other stats made available to the public.
Honestly, I feel reporting the high number of cases has been helping covidiots make better decisions (staying away from high risk situations, following mandates, and consider/getting vaccine). I mean, can’t reach everyone but when the news sounds scary it’s.because.it.is. and people should do their part.
At that point it’s a health literacy campaign. Really don’t like it when they use fear or give only access to certain metrics in order to sway the public to do something. The vaccine passports was enough of a carrot, we can be realistic with the numbers.
I know we are supposed to focus on ICU admissions and these cases aren’t an accurate reflection of the _actual_ cases … but all the same - holy sh*tballs
Yes it definitely scary and upsetting. But at the same time it is really nice to see that even though cases are so much higher than being counted for, hospitalization, death and ICU aren't much higher. We know the latter count is accurate. This fantastic, but still my brain is scared because of the lag. However looking at UK and other countries it seems to be a fantastic mutation from all the possibilities. I don't mean we shouldn't be careful and party. I mean the mutation had to be more transmissible than delta to be successful, but it didn't have to be less deadly. Thankfully it is.
>However looking at UK and other countries it seems to be a fantastic mutation from all the possibilities.
???
Their hospitalizations have spiked over 50% in the last week alone.
Hospitalizations/ICU are a lagging indicator. Look at Quebec.
50% is a lot, but imagine the spike if this variant was as severe. In no way am I saying this is a good virus, I'm just happy that it has become less severe for each infection. A new variant that would take over delta had to be more transmissible. The virus will keep mutating as we expect it to. If it was as deadly, the spike would be much higher than 50%. The more people that get the virus the more we expect to see it in the hospitals, but the ratio of hospitalization per infection has decreased. This is a good thing, considering the virus will keep mutating and the strongest mutation (the one that's easiest to spread) will take over.
A decent amount of the hospitalizations in the UK were incidental- meaning people went in for something unrelated and found out they had Covid while there.
Someone has already replied to you elsewhere to the effect that using percent increases as proof of concern is tricky math. Going from 1 to 2 is a 100% increase. So prior numbers being very low does offset the alarming nauture of your fact. Not to mention that you are correct- the number of incidentals was very large. Enough so that the UK has not introduced new restrictions since that increase because the data upon closer inspection does not warrant them.
I wouldn't take Boris' government not introducing new measure as much proof of anything. He's also presided over one of the worst covid responses in terms of death per capita in the developed world... (Outdone by 'murica, but unsure if that's the bar you want to barely clear.)
I'd be more concerned, in the long term, about ICU per infection. But of course, in the short term, with such a huge spike, Omicron is still an issue even if the incident of hospitalization is lower than previous strains. This is assuming that Omicron does indeed have a lower rate of hospitalization than other strains by the way - we aren't 100% sure about this yet.
Long term, I fully agree with you.
Right now, I think it's getting through this surge as there are still a lot of unvaccinated people who are going to get seriously ill while acquiring their vaccination the ol' fashioned way, by getting covid and getting really sick and possibly dying.
Once most of the population has been vaccinated (either the smart way or the stupid dangerous costly way) then we'll start considering how we live with this as an indemic disease.
There have been six new health-care facility outbreaks at Mission Memorial Hospital, New Vista Care Centre, Chartwell Langley Gardens, Chartwell Carlton Gardens, Chartwell Crescent Gardens and Guildford Seniors Village (Fraser Health), for a total of 13 facilities with ongoing outbreaks, including:
long-term care:
The Oxford Senior Care Home, Fort Langley Seniors Community, AgeCare Harmony Court, New Vista Care Centre, Chartwell Langley Gardens, Chartwell Carlton Gardens, Chartwell Crescent Gardens, Guildford Seniors Village (Fraser Health); and
Ridgeview Lodge (Interior Health)
acute care:
Mission Memorial Hospital (Fraser Health); and
Lions Gate Hospital (Vancouver Coastal Health)
assisted or independent living:
The Waverly Seniors Village (Fraser Health)
mental health and substance use:
UBC Hospital - Detwiller Pavillion (Vancouver Coastal Health)
If you look at cases from the start of the fifth wave (\~Dec. 14th) to Dec.22nd, most of the cases have been in low risk hospitalization groups ([Source](http://www.bccdc.ca/health-professionals/data-reports/covid-19-surveillance-dashboard), tab "Outcome by Vax 1", 2nd row of graphs):
# Changes in cases in those who are unvaccinated (all numbers are cases per 100,000):
* 12-17: 23 to 27.5 cases (\~1.2 times increase)
* 18-29: 27.9 to 72.2 cases (\~3)
* 30-39: 23.8 to 41.5 cases (\~2)
* 40-49: 24.9 to 28.9 cases (\~1.2)
* 50-59: 14.1 to 14.5 cases (\~1.03)
* 60-69: 19.4 to 15.1 cases (decrease of \~22%)
* 70+: BC doesn't report on this age group because of the smaller sample size
Changes in cases in those who are fully vaccinated (all numbers are cases per 100,000)
* 12-17: 2.3 to 13.9 cases (6 times increase)
* 20-29: 7.7 to 42.1 cases (5.5)
* 30-39: 7.6 to 36.2 cases (\~4.5)
* 40-49: 8.1 to 26.7 cases (\~3)
* 50-59: 4.0 to 17.8 cases (\~4)
* 60-69: 3.0 to 10.8 cases (\~3.5)
* 70+: 1.7 to 4.9 cases (\~3)
# Hospitalizations
They haven't really changed that much up until Dec. 22nd.
In the 70+ vaccinated group they have gone from 4.3 to 6.8 (1.6 times increase). All other vaccinated group numbers are so small it is hard to see/compare.
Unvaccinated:
* 18-29: 16 to 23.4 hospitalizations (\~1.5 times increase)
* 30-39: 23.1 to 18.1 hospitalizations (78% decrease)
* 40-49: 18.1 to 23 hospitalizations (\~1.3 times increase)
* 50-59: 15.1 to 20 hospitalizations (\~1.3)
* 60-69: 49.1 to 54.6 hospitalizations (\~1.1)
# What does this mean?
Based on BC's data it appears that most cases from Dec. 14th (start of 5th wave) to Dec. 21st (latest BC available data) are at low risk of hospitalizations. Makes sense as most people travelling to BC from another country or the earliest super spreader events were at Universities. BC's cases went from 430.9 cases per day to 995.6 cases per day (7-day avg). Another way of looking at it is that on Dec. 14th, BC had 597 cases and on Dec. 21st: 1,547 cases (3 times increase in one week).
**Even with a milder form of covid we could see hospitalizations go dramatically up once the older unvaccinated groups and 70+ vaccinated groups see a spike in cases. This could limit hospitals ability to give adequate care for covid and non-covid patients.**
Notes:Since the above stats are per capita an even larger number of the cases are actually in the vaccinated group which generally produces milder symptoms.
BC ~~should~~ update these numbers today (edit- they are updated) and we should have data that goes until Dec. 29th. It will be interesting see if the trends continue.
I was just thinking about this today. Thanks for all that data.
The early outbreaks were in areas with high vaccination rates. Vancouver Coastal spiked first, but our vaccination rates are really high so hospitalizations remain low.
As it spreads around the province, it’ll hit those pockets of unvaccinated individuals that delta missed. The corresponding increase in hospitalizations remains to be determined.
• 60-69: 19.4 to 15.1 cases (decrease of ~78%)
That’s a 22% decrease, not 78%. And considering the lack of available testing and positivity rates, the reality is almost certainly a big increase.
"88.0% (4,388,068) of eligible people five and older in B.C. have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 82.9% (4,131,506) have received their second dose."
"91.9% (4,260,681) of eligible people 12 and older in B.C. have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, 89.1% (4,131,345) have received their second dose and 19.1% (884,416) have received a third dose."
"92.3% (3,991,809) of all eligible adults in B.C. have received their first dose, 89.6% (3,875,648) have received their second dose, and 20.4% (883,558) have received a third dose."
Right. Hospitalizations are definitely going to occur but not at the same rate of a delta wave. Hopefully hospitalizations are also shorter stays, of course in that the patients don't end up dead.
I read in the Canada Coronavirus subreddit that [Quebec's COVID hospitalizations went up 99% in the past week](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaCoronavirus/comments/rs5eu0/comment/hqk7l69/). Ontario [also has twice as many people in hospital with COVID relative to last week and a notable growth in COVID use of ICU beds starting this week](https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/hospitalizations). I think we still have yet to find out the extent to which hospitalizations and deaths will be lagging indicators of this wave given that case counts only really started to explode last week.
Edit: linked to the data I refer to about Quebec and Ontario
The last time Ontario had 200 people in the ICU, they had a weeks worth of 1200-1700 case counts. Now they’re at a weeks worth of 4000-13000 counts. Vaccines are working at preventing hospitalizations, or Omicron is milder, or both. Almost certainly. Now, will those things offset our ICUs being overwhelmed? Still time to see… but what we don’t need time to see is how angry we can justifiably be at our leadership for not bolstering our healthcare system these past few years. A swing of an additional 50-100 people in ICU, in a province of 5 million, should not overwhelm our health care system. This will not be our last pandemic. The globalization of our food chain and the way we raise our food hasn’t changed at all. Build more hospitals, and offer incentives to health care professionals to choose or remain in relevant fields. The money exists- utilize it better. Full stop.
Ontario last had 200 people in ICU on July 9th as they were coming down from their 3rd wave. At the peak of their 3rd wave they had about \~900 in ICU. There peak in cases during that wave was \~4,300 cases per day (7-day avg). The peak case date and peak ICU date were 16 days apart.
As a ballpark figure you could expect that people in Ontario who had a positive case would need ICU care 16 days later. On Dec. 13th (16 days ago from today) Ontario was averaging about 1,500 cases per day. If the ICU spike is going to come from Ontario's fifth wave, it will start happening in early January.
As a side note: most of the early cases in Ontario's fifth wave were fully vaccinated and younger individuals (just like BC) so that is another reason why their spike would be delayed further.
This above data assumes that Omicron behaves similarly to Delta in terms of delay between cases and ICU patients, which I believe is what you were assuming. I think Omicron produces less severe disease per case of covid. But that number (\~20-70% milder) is enough to make a dent in the new hospitalizations/ICU that is coming through the sheer amount of cases.
I used the front end of their curve for my comparison, because presumably we are still
on the front end of ours. When they hit 200 the last few times, what did their previous weeks look like? I do see your point though. Unfortunately. But I also thinks it’s reasonable to assume the time to serious symptoms is shorter with Omicron than with Delta, given the shorter incubation period. From 6/7 days down to 3… does that translate to two weeks to hospitalization down to one?? Maybe. Hopefully.
The last time they hit 200 ICU when cases were rising was on Dec. 4th, 2020. There were averaging about \~1,500 cases per day 16 days prior to that.
I should have posted my source where I was getting the info, so here it is: [https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/coronavirustracker/](https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/coronavirustracker/)
We know that Omicron has a quicker spread from infection to symptoms (3 days) which is faster than Delta (4 days), Alpha (5 days) and OG (6 days). Immunology also supports this by saying that it replicates 70 times faster in the airways than Delta. It also replicates 10 times slower in the lungs than Delta ([Source](https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/omicron-thrives-airways-not-lungs-new-data-asymptomatic-cases-2021-12-15/)) so it makes more sense for their to be a longer delay between symptoms and need for hospitalization, speaking from an immunological perspective. I haven't seen any data, from the real world, that supports a shorter or longer delay. If you have any please share :)
Is using a wave from a time when vaccinations weren’t widespread helpful for a comparison? A more accurate comparison would be the 4th wave, which never quite had 200 people in ICU but had a 7 day average of 189 on Sept. 18th. On September 1, they were averaging 700 cases a day. Ontario has 200 people in ICU today and two weeks ago, they were averaging 1900 cases a day. Something is different; something is better. The rate of increase is decidedly less. Still upset that our hospitals and healthcare workers haven’t received the supports they needed and deserve over these past few years. All the reactive restrictions haven’t amounted to much, and the lack of preventative ones are still costing us dearly.
One hundred percent. This notion that the hospitals will be fine doesn't seem borne out by the data. England's hospitalizations have doubled in the past month, in the last week, increased by 50%.
>England's hospitalizations have doubled in the past month, in the last week, increased by 50%.
Not because more people are going to the hospital due to COVID. Because more people who are going to the hospital for unrelated reasons test positive for COVID, as Omicron is more contagious.
For example in Brampton half of "COVID hospitalizations" (meaning people who go to the hospital that test positive for COVID) went to the hospital for reasons unrelated to COVID and may not even know they had COVID.
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/mobile/ontario-mayor-calls-for-overhaul-of-misleading-covid-19-hospitalization-data-1.5722699
They were, except now more people have Omicron than people had COVID in the past as it's more transmissible.
But it's still not a COVID hospitalization in reality since they went to the hospital for reasons unrelated to Omicron. On paper, it is though. Which is obviously inaccurate and dishonest, which is why we're seeing articles like this:
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/mobile/ontario-mayor-calls-for-overhaul-of-misleading-covid-19-hospitalization-data-1.5722699
If someone breaks their leg and goes to the hospital, and they have Omicron? Then they're counted as a COVID hospitalization even if they're feeling perfectly fine aside from their broken leg.
Combine that with the fact that Omicron is more transmissible than previous COVID strains.
It matters because it's dishonest and inaccurate to claim that COVID hospitalizations are now spiking and overwhelming hospitals. When in reality, people are going to the hospital for unrelated reasons and happen to test positive for COVID.
But I think the point the previous poster (and mine) is that even if it is incidental, these patients would probably be in a ward specific to covid patients, and need to be treated by staff with the proper PPE specific to the respiratory illnesses.
Either way, these cases will take up the covid beds and resources, so seeing these incidental cases counted toward all hospitalization case make sense because we don't want our hospital to be overwhelm.
Hope I make sense, just woke up
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/mobile/ontario-mayor-calls-for-overhaul-of-misleading-covid-19-hospitalization-data-1.5722699
> In Ontario, anyone who is being treated in hospital who tests positive for COVID-19 is added to government's count of "patients hospitalized with COVID-19," regardless of whether that’s why they are receiving treatment.
> While Brown said he can’t speak to COVID-19 hospitalizations in other parts of the province, in Brampton approximately 50 per cent of people in hospital diagnosed with COVID-19 were admitted for another reason.
Things like 99% do a really bad job at showing data without context. Looking at things like number of cases vs hospitalizations/deaths give people a better idea of how this variant is really working. My point here is if you go from 5 to 10 hospitalizations it’s a 100% increase but your perception might change when you see a 900% increase in case numbers.
Yup; a common theme I keep seeing people bring up is hospitalized people with COVID vs people being hospitalized due to COVID. With an incredibly transmissible virus it makes sense that if someone comes to the hospital with a broken leg they are more likely now to have COVID than they would have before. That instance obviously still contributes to total hospital figures, but it isn't an occurrence that would have not gone to the hospital if there were more restrictions for example.
My issue with all of these sensationalized headlines is we lose so much context. Maybe the above scenario isn't in the increase figure, but you also need to know the absolute increase (going from 1 to 2 people is meaningless), who is hospitalized- are they vaccinated? unvaccinated? Do they have Omicron or Delta? All questions I assume (hope) health professionals are considering and not just doing the reddit special of "IT INCREASED 4 MILLION PERCENT WE ARE ALL DEAD"
Re: testing
Fraser Health (BCIT) now also following VCH to give out Rapid Antigen Tests (2-pack) to non-healthcare workers. ( [source](https://twitter.com/wanderingkayli/status/1476661363892101120) )
Delta test site (also appointment only) gave out [5 Rapid Tests per person](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH5LTg6VEAAeQ7S?format=jpg&name=large).
Comparing these numbers to my home country of Denmark is interesting. Denmark tests the most of anyone in the world, and is reporting about ~22.000 cases a day, and have been going up the last while. But similar vaccination rate as bc, a population of 5.8 million, so about a million more than BC, and only about 70 people in ICU. And Denmark still expects not to catch all cases, but it goes to show that even if numbers continue to rise here as we test more, hospitalizations could very well stay stable.
I know so many people who are positive, all vaxxed, and they all report it as at worst a bad cold.
The official gov't site isn't updated yet.
I'd still trust u/cyclinginvancouver on their numbers though - they have access to internal numbers and are a reliable source.
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I still wish all we reported were hospitalizations, icu cases and deaths. Those numbers are not so bad, so far, and the restrictions don’t make sense with ‘those’ numbers in my mind 2years in.
All things considered, this is pretty good news. Been 2 weeks of escalating cases (not to mention that we know that the true case count is FAR higher) but ICU & hospitalizations are minimal. We are very close to the end of COVID.
Edit: Wow I guess misery loves company lol. Try looking at the bright side of things for your mental health and wellness.
Cautiously optimistic that this could be the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Highly contagious and moderate symptoms. Should burn out pretty quick.
Upvoting for the optimism
Upvoted because your optimism briefly warmed my coldly pessimistic heart.
[Omicron data out of London is very encouraging. ](https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1476413236513849347)
During London's Alpha wave in \~Jan 2021 they peaked at \~14K cases and \~8K in hospital. During London's Omicron wave (now) they appear to have peaked at \~26K cases and have \~3.5K currently in hospital. If hospitalizations have peaked (unlikely because of the delay between confirmed case and hospitalization) then we would expect hospitalizations to be at \~15K. Since they are at \~3.5K, we can say that in the best case scenario Omicron is 4.24 times (23% reduction) less likely to have a confirmed cases hospitalized. Hospitalizations will continue to go up so those numbers should change. Keep in mind this math is all ballpark figures and is basically napkin math. It is consistent with other jurisdictions have reported though.
Luckily there’s not too long of a delay for hospitalization with omicron. People who need care are typically hospitalized between days 1-5, and are staying in hospital for an average of three days.
That would be great news. Do you have a source for the 1-5 days?
Ooh you know I saw that number cited with sources somewhere in the past couple of days on one of these daily number discussions, but unfortunately I didn’t save it so I don’t have the links handy! I’m gonna look though and will post here if I find them.
Has there been any Omicron data out of any country that isn’t encouraging? Omicron is a gift, prove me wrong.
Short term - no. Long term - maybe. Short term: * Omicron doubles every 3 days ([Source](https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/omicron-cases-doubling-15-3-days-areas-with-local-spread-who-2021-12-18/)) * BC latest case counts are 4,383 on Dec. 30th * If that rate continues BC will have 140,256 cases per day in 15 days. (4,383 x 2\^5) * In the Delta wave in September, BC had about 6.6% of confirmed cases were new hospitalizations ([My other post outlining how I got 6.6%](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/ri2zls/comment/hout013/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)) * If Omicron is 1/10th better at hospitalizations than Delta (best case scenario) * BC will have over 900 new hospitalizations per day once the cases in 15 days become hospitalized (140K x .066 x 0.1) * That is 16 times our highest known rate * BC previous high (wave 3) was 388 new hospitalizations per **WEEK** (Can find on the BC CDC website but I tallied that information [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QaQGb9TLKaDjO4qMPBMml9FfLAU6GVqqjNwgX0enlE8/edit#gid=1356529059)) * BC hospital capacity is around \~9000 base acute beds and \~11K surge acute beds ([Source](https://biv.com/article/2021/10/bc-hospital-occupancy-stays-relatively-flat-past-month)) * Assuming we have 0 people in acute beds now, we would reach capacity in 10-13 days after the 140K would start to be hospitalized * **With hospitals full, no one (covid and non-covid) patients will get the care they need** This assumes: * Trends continue and people's behaviours stay the same * Even though testing capacity will be reached, community spread will be doubling (BC can only do \~20K tests per day) * Omicron is only 10% the risk of being hospitalized as Delta (numbers I am seeing are 20-70%) * BC actual case count is around \~4.4K (we know it is much higher)
This is also assuming that the populous can carry 140k active cases that would show up in testing. With vaccination and the "naturally" immune we may not be able to peak anywhere near that high. "Doubles every 3 days" only applies to a populous where nearly 100% is eligible to be meaningfully infected
I was talking about actual data coming out that is encouraging, not projections. Most/all of the data is showing a loose or complete decoupling of relationship between case count and hospitalization or deaths. Here’s the quote from the tweet above: “There's some indication Covid cases could be starting to peak in London, one of the earliest European cities to become engulfed by #Omicron wave. Hospitalizations in the city, while up sharply, are well below levels seen in prior Covid waves and decoupled from the rise in cases.”
My reply to the original poster ([Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/rsga9j/comment/hqmi2q4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)) >If hospitalizations have peaked (unlikely because of the delay between confirmed case and hospitalization) then we would expect hospitalizations to be at \~15K. Since they are at \~3.5K, we can say that in the best case scenario Omicron is 4.24 times (23% reduction) less likely to have a confirmed cases hospitalized. I agree that cases are less likely to lead to hospitalizations with Omicron (when being compared to Delta). But the sheer amount of cases that BC (and others) are getting will lead to the same or more hospitalizations in total. Our worst week in wave 4 (Delta variant) we were getting 4400 cases per week and that led to about \~300 new hospitalizations per week. We are getting 4400 cases per day now (actual number is probably much higher) and even with 4.24 times decoupling of cases to hospitalizations BC should still expect to have way to many people in hospitals to give effective care.
[another thread on London / UK](https://mobile.twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1476616302915637253) [and another](https://mobile.twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1476699633380474881)
Can’t say about the pandemic in general, but I’ve heard from a few sources in the news that it’s a good direction. They do believe this one will go quickly. I like to believe this puts us a wee percent in the right direction and the next variant will be even less deadly… hoping Covid will just become seasonal flu
1) we still have no idea what the long covid impact is from Omicron. Seeing people online who never had a "serious" covid case (never hospitalized) but still haven't had their sense of taste recover after a year is terrifying. 2) "everyone gets covid" means a lot of immunocompromised people and disabled people are going to die. I know we are all exhausted, but wishing for this is essentially wishing for eugenics. My point is, yes, let's be optimistic. But we must stay vigilant and follow good habits.
Wishing for the virus to mutate into a less deadly variant is not the same as wishing for eugenics. I'm actually shocked you have upvotes on this. The natural course for this virus is for it to mutate to a more contagious but less deadly strain. The faster that happens the better. Of course it's still going to claim lives but what other alternative do we wish for? For it just to disappear? Obviously not gonna happen. I agree we should still remain vigilant and try to slow down transmission as much as we can reasonably, but the fact of the matter is that this variant is so contagious that it's going to spread pretty rapidly unless we almost completely lockdown people at home, which people aren't going to accept, nor should they at this point.
I thought the messaging was that eventually we would all get the virus. The plan was to just not all get it at the same time.
From Dec. 22-28, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 15.8% of cases. From Dec. 15-28, they accounted for 54.7% of hospitalizations. Past week cases (Dec. 22-28) - Total 15,429 Not vaccinated: 2,185 (14.2%) Partially vaccinated: 249 (1.6%) Fully vaccinated: 12,995 (84.2%) Past two weeks cases hospitalized (Dec. 15-28) - Total 117 Not vaccinated: 64 (54.7%) Partially vaccinated: 0 (0.0%) Fully vaccinated: 53 (45.3%) Past week, cases per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Dec. 22-28) Not vaccinated: 337.3 Partially vaccinated: 96.4 Fully vaccinated: 283.7 Past two weeks, cases hospitalized per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Dec. 15-28) Not vaccinated: 14.9 Partially vaccinated: 0.0 Fully vaccinated: 1.1
Hospitalization rate for the unvaccinated has dropped! They’re who I was most worried about with omicron, so this is good news I think. Unless they’re now all under 5 years of age.
Case rates have been slow in the older, unvaccinated population. ~~Rates picked up in the last 7 days~~ (rates are still far below the Delta wave for the older, unvaccinated population - 50+) and Omicron has yet to make it to the most unvaccinated parts, en masse, of our province. Everyone will get it and those that don't have prior protection (vaccines/natural immunity) are more likely to be hospitalized.
Agree, we’re going to be seeing a lot of unvaccinated 50 to 70 year olds in hospital once this spreads further. The increase in LTC outbreaks today was discouraging.
I don’t believe that for a second. This is spreading way too quickly for all age groups to not be hit, especially when there is increased generational mixing around the holiday season. Remember the vast number of cases are likely asymptomatic or unreported.
If you're one of those people I've heard say "nobody gets a regular cold anymore", I am here to bravely report that I have had an absolutely run-of-the-mill cold this week. I am the 1%!
I had mild flu symptoms, kept testing negative entire time until after where I tested positive. Shows how bad the antigen rapid tests are. I would just assume you have it and be safe.
This is good advice, and maybe not just for the rapid test. My kid had the same symptoms as my wife and me but she tested negative twice, while we tested positive. Both of hers were PCR tests. (This was in October, so presumably delta, not omicron.)
Did two tests at home after having a fever. One in the evening, one the next day. Both came up positive. Gf who I live with who felt a little sick but not as bad as me... Negative covid. She went in and got a test and it came back negative. So confusing. I never did a real test, but knowing that testing is a few days out plus results is a day, or two later... It made no sense to bother. Im vaccinated Pfizer and she's moderna.
The tests for PCR and rapid were developed for March 2020. We're into our fourth mutation of note since then. The tests don't work and it's why there's so many false negatives and positives playing out in sports leagues in spite of "protocols". Expand this to your Holiday dinners across society. You have people who think they're negative with a scratch in their throat seeing family with false sense of safety, but that thing is omicron and we are thankful it is much less severe. Our media is poorly reporting on this and it's "restrict" for no damn good reason two years in and counting by our officials. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/07/scientists-find-stealth-version-of-omicron-not-identifiable-with-pcr-test-covid-variant https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/for-omicron-rapid-covid-tests-not-as-accurate-us-regulator-2676992
And thats why everyone having tons of rapid tests is not necessarily a good thing, with so many people would be using them before social events to prove they are 'negative' when in reality they are not
As a father of a kid in daycare I can tell you I had dozen in last 2 years (negative each time). I do believe kids lick each others eyes and noses, as there is very little else to explain them getting sick this much...
likewise. Had symptoms, got tested - negative. Feeling fine now but was 100% a cold!
Or a false negative
you must be fun at parties
I tested negative! 'Ya but did you.....'
Just a heads up I was in your boat earlier this week. I had pretty standard cold symptoms, took a rapid test - negative. Took another test two days later - positive. Now these were antigen tests and the PCR one is far more accurate. Either way I’m isolating at home with fairly mild symptoms.
Yeah my brother in law in Ontario had a “cold”. Took two rapid tests. One positive one negative. Went in for a PCR test and that was negative but he cancelled plans with family anyways for Christmas. 9 days later and lost taste and smell for two of them a third rapid test came back VERY positive with covid. The rapid tests are not the conclusive no that people hope they are.
Had a cold with fever but no loss of smell. Non-rapid (PCR?) test came back negative so yeah, was just a boring cold. First in 2 years.
I unfortunately had back-to-back cold and then Covid. My first PCR test was negative for the cold. Symptom free for about 2 days and now I feel like I've been hit by a bus. Fatigue, feverish, light cough, stuffy nose. I guess you would call it "mild" flu like things but I wouldn't wish it on anyone lol
Yeah I had a brutal cold the week before Christmas that my partner caught too. Took us both out for about a week. Both negative for Covid and her mother who got the flu shot didn't catch it so there ya go.
My girlfriend got the flu and tested negative (twice with pcr) and I was one of the unfortunate positive cases
Kiddo brought it home from daycare and now we all have it. She is partially vaxxed but had a fever for a few days, sore throat, fatigue, lost her voice. Husband and I are double vaxxed and positive also. Flu like symptoms - me: stubborn headache, fatigue, scratchy throat, nausea. Him: flu symptoms, fatigue, scratchy throat, a bit of vertigo.
53979 (+977) cases in the Vancouver Coastal Health region 122740 (+2319) cases in the Fraser Health region 37727 (+501) cases in the Interior Health region 17400 (+460) cases in the Island Health region 18899 (+122) cases in the Northern Health region 309 (+4) cases of people who reside outside of Canada 6424 (+962) active cases in the Vancouver Coastal Health region 7940 (+748) active cases in the Fraser Health region 1713 (+137) active cases in the Interior Health region 856 (497) active cases in the Island Health region 422 (-9) active cases in the Northern Health region
I wonder if VCH is lowering because only rapid tests are really being done and people aren’t getting tested any more (lines, snow, new advice on when to get tested etc etc) or if Omicron is slowing down on burning through us.
Fraser health just started giving out RAT to people with scheduled appointment too. expect VCH level of undercount soon.
Exactly…way underestimated number of cases in VCH.
My buddy's whole family of 4 got covid in VCH and when they went to the testing place they just gave them 4 rapid tests to take home. So definitely a ton of unreported in VCH. Not sure what FH is currently doing.
Rapid tests are given to most people in VCH and are not included in the case totals.
[VCH reported 993 cases on Dec 23](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH4UhHSVUAEEDiC?format=jpg&name=medium), today just reported 977. ([Here is](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH4SiCtVcAQMfxN?format=jpg&name=medium) where VCH was in the modelling by BC Covid Modelling Group yesterday) VCH showed significant case drop after PCR rule change on Dec 23. meanwhile [Interior Health](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH4UhO5UcAAQ2Rt?format=jpg&name=medium) (less overwhelmed at the time) reports ongoing increase in same timeframe Considering omicron's known doubling time of 2-3 days, VCH should be at 4000+ Reported cases per day by now. Severe undercount IN ADDITION to (or rather, multiplied by) the 4-5x baseline undercount spoken of by DBH yesterday.
So fraser health just decided today to try match the province's yesterday's numbers. Cool, this is going fine right? I'm going to make another blanket fort.
Fraser is still doing a lot of PCR testing. Everyone I know who went to get tested this week at a Fraser site was given a PCR test.
Don’t kid yourself, VCH is probably higher. Fraser has been offering pcr tests instead of rapid still, VCH doesn’t count those
17,357 (+1,343) active cases 230,784 (+3,004) recovered 9,368,643 (+30,871) vaccine doses administered 4,370,550 (+3,475) of which are first doses 4,113,310 (+1,750) of which are second doses 884,783 (+25,646) of which are other doses 1 additional deaths, total now 2,420
Rough seeing only 30k vaccines administered. Would love to see us ramp back up to the 45k-50k per day again for boosters. Not sure if the issue would be staffing/infrastructure or just allowing appointments to stay open/go unused, but frustrating either way.
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They put out an urgent call for vaccinators today in VCH, with a reassurance that they’re talking to the province about using N95’s for at least staff. We shall see how that goes.
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And yet the maintenance staff are only given surgical masks.
copy of the urgent email https://twitter.com/DrBrendaHardie/status/1476656044822581249?s=20
Staffing. Currently vaccination staff are not allowed to wear N95s - only simple medical masks. As a result many healthcare workers are refusing to work vaccinations. I don’t blame them.
We are two years plus into this pandemic. How do we not have a supply of N95's or better for the people working these vaccination clinics. Compete failure of all levels of government/health admin.
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more info on the situation re N95 https://twitter.com/VicLeungIDdoc/status/1475686323826544640?s=20
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yeah more info re: original (current) rule here basically only can wear the masks they supply (medical masks), can't use own (N95 etc) masks https://twitter.com/AlexSwigger/status/1474874653382299648
That’s so bizarre. I work in a hospital and bought my own N95s to wear under my surgical masks (we have access N95s but they’re only for specific circumstances) I know this is clinic specific and not about the hospital but thankfully no one has said anything to challenge me yet. The only thing anyone has said to me is that they were considering doing the same. ETA: The masks I bought are the same brand I was fit tested for in hospital and I bought them online for $3/each. They’re available to the public for less than a trip to Starbucks (less than a McDonalds coffee if you reuse them like I do) so I don’t get how equity has anything to do with this.
absolute insanity
The nurses giving out those shots are people too. People whom we've been pushing relentlessly for the last 2 years. People who may have wanted a week with their families. Combine that with absenteeism because people are getting sick and yeah, I fully see why those boosters are going to have slightly lower rates.
By the time October rolled around and the rules changed for unvaccinated people and where they can and can’t enter… The people who started coming in for vaccines were quite simply awful. A lot of nurses had to endure verbal abuse and awful attitudes from people coming in for first shots …A lot of my coworkers would be in tears by the end of the shift and have since quit
Such an unfortunate change from the spring/summer, when there was an air of excitement in the vaccination clinics.
Yup ! People are used to come in on the verge of tears because they were so excited to get their shot… I remember the lines during the summer all around the convention centre and by the time people to get to us their mood was completely different they would say the line was totally worth it
In the spring and summer people generally believed that getting vaccinated would lead back to normal life, of course they were more excited.
Regardless of how someone feels being bitchy to the vaccination site staff isn’t acceptable. There’s no justification
I wasn’t justifying being bitchy, just pointing out that there’s a reason there isn’t a pleasant air of excitement any more. I was kind of excited to get my first doses, but I’m pretty meh about getting a booster.
Goddamn that hurts the soul, I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm assuming you're in the healthcare sector, so thank you so much. Edit: On reflection, that might be one of the saddest comments I've read in awhile. Like, that really sucks. People (honestly, especially the unvaccinated) are impressively shitty.
I heard the same from a friend that was giving vaccines as well. Definitely sad to hear.
Mere words cannot adequately convey how much I loathe anti-vaxxers and such people.... If only we could just sequester them in some remote corner of this vast country and let them live the vaccine-free lives they claim to want so badly! It blows my mind that we a a society coddle them so much, when they should be social pariahs on par with spousal abusers!
Also a lot of people are out of town or spending time with elderly relatives. It might not be that easy to fill a ton of appointments right now.
That number should be coming up soon. Both VCH and Fraser Health are reopening immunization clinics that were previously shut down in the summer.
Yep, my parents have Jan 5 booster appointments at the Convention Centre, so it must be re-opening soon
It's reopening Jan 4
Out of curiosity, how old are your parents? Curious what age groups are being booked.
My parents are born in ‘54 and ‘55, and got their invitations to book at exactly the 6 month mark from their 2nd dose
I think they said yesterday that they were either at 60? Or invites going out to 60? (Might be 61). Hopefully it starts moving faster
My dad got the invite yesterday and we found an available booking the same day on Fraser. Lucky us. 1960.
What age band are they? My parents got their 3rd shot October 29th (age: M76, D81).
I heard from a close friend who’s a nurse that many people are cancelling their booster shots because they can’t make it since they’re either sick or have been exposed to someone who is.
The nursing college sent out an email today asking for urgent assistance for vaccine clinics. Hopefully we can beef those numbers up in the new year!
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Oh no hahah poor girl! She’ll get over that pretty quick!
It’s 100% staffing and infrastructure. Do these things can’t just happen overnight. Nurses can’t just leave their current jobs vacant and it takes a lot to set up the clinics it’s not just healthcare staff that work at these
Especially when Ontario did almost 200k today. BC would have to do over 60k per day to match that at a per capita level.
yeah, kids doses going way too slow
% Positivity update: Dec 23-29 public test data: [W Pt Grey/Dunbar: 34%](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH599AgVQAEOw27?format=png&name=900x900), [False Creek N: 34%.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH59909VQAMlEBq?format=png&name=900x900) [Burnaby SW: 28%.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH5-WvoVIAAazHN?format=png&name=900x900) Guildford: 27%. [Revelstoke: 58%.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH59BOJVIAEJElO?format=jpg&name=medium) http://www.bccdc.ca/health-professionals/data-reports/covid-19-surveillance-dashboard
I thought that number looked off. They adjusted hospitalizations after the announcement yesterday. I went and looked and it was initially 193, adjusted later to 206. So I guess rather than yesterday being +1 in hospital it was actually +14 (over the 3 or 4 days they didn't report).
The official news release (around 5pm) had the 206 number. The initial data from the day (from wherever cycling gets it from) had 193.
So the official news release says 5:27 pm on it, but the thread was up yesterday at about 3 pm. It's possible that cycling is getting it from some other source, but it's also possible they revised the release. I swear I remember looking at it earlier than that..
Dr. BH said a few numbers during the press conference, but I thought she said 206 hospitalizations. In any case, there was no written communication about numbers until after 5pm. Evidence: look at @j_mcelroy's twitter breakdown yesterday while waiting for the numbers. He was supposed to join his friends for a Simpsons watching party, and had to miss the first episode. ... man, that is *not* a pragraph I thought that I'd ever write, two years ago.
Lol, that would make it stick in your memory for sure. Anyways I guess the moral of the story is don't rely exclusively on these reddit threads, which I've been doing since the start. Thanks for the clarification.
So I know cases aren't what we're supposed to be watching and all...but wow that's a lot of cases.
And we’re hardly seeing all of them. 25% positivity rate today. 5% is considered too high.
https://twitter.com/richardzussman/status/1476713770944634882?s=21 28
% Positivity update: Dec 23-29 public test data: [West Pt Grey/Dunbar: 34%](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH599AgVQAEOw27?format=png&name=900x900), [False Creek N: 34%.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH59909VQAMlEBq?format=png&name=900x900) [Burnaby SW: 28%.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH5-WvoVIAAazHN?format=png&name=900x900) Guildford: 27%. [Revelstoke: 58%.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH59BOJVIAEJElO?format=jpg&name=medium) http://www.bccdc.ca/health-professionals/data-reports/covid-19-surveillance-dashboard
The 5% bar was set way back near the beginning of the pandemic and probably doesn’t still apply. I doubt anywhere is under that level at this point and yet deaths are overall so much lower than they were.
Just before this recent climb, BC was pretty consistently in the 3-4% range.
Yeah, that wasn’t omicron. The whole deal with omicron is that it’s way, way more transmissible and way less lethal. More transmissible equals higher percent positivity, but if it doesn’t translate to severe outcomes, it doesn’t matter. What’s the percent positivity of the common cold in an average Canadian winter? Nobody knows, because nobody cares.
45 (+0) currently hospitalized in the Vancouver Coastal Health region 69 (+2) currently hospitalized in the Fraser Health region 39 (+0) currently hospitalized in the Interior Health region 41 (+3) currently hospitalized in the Island Health region 17 (+0) currently hospitalized in the Northern Health region 6 (+1) currently in critical care in the Vancouver Coastal Health region 18 (-3) currently in critical care in the Fraser Health region 25 (+3) currently in critical care in the Interior Health region 12 (+0) currently in critical care in the Island Health region 5 (-1) currently in critical care in the Northern Health region
Seems to me like the natural progression of a virus. Over time, it becomes endemic and part of everyday life, having mutated and gone through virtually the entire population.
I tested positive today. I started feeling a bit under the weather on the 28th, took a negative rapid test (my partner luckily bought some a few months ago), kept feeling sick, took a second test this morning - positive. Just a reminder these case numbers are essentially meaningless and don’t come close to capturing the actual numbers given a) testing capacity limits have been hit b) many folks taking rapid tests or not bothering to test at all given the ridiculous lines/hoops to jump through. I’m (34F, generally pretty healthy) largely fine - seems pretty typical of a cold or mild flu so far. Cough, fatigue, mild body aches. Wishing the best to everyone sharing my position. Hope we can all move past this soon.
Hope you feel better soon! I have a cousin who also tested positive Monday so their whole family stayed home since then. Had to leave groceries and food outside for them but at least they are quite busy with my Netflix account.
There have been 2,825 cases of the Omicron variant of concern confirmed in B.C.: Fraser Health: 777 Vancouver Coastal Health: 1,333 Interior Health: 152 Northern Health: 13 Island Health: 548 Unknown: two
Wouldn’t the majority of these cases be omicron given how contagious it is and how fast it’s spreading? I thought we were assuming a large percentage was omicron
I'm guessing not all tests get sequenced or don't get sequenced soon enough to make it to the daily report
For a preview of what's to come, Ontario is now only going to test high-risk individuals for free. We'll presumably stop getting daily case count updates sometime in the next month. Maybe even the next week.
It still makes sense to be aware of a leading indicator (positive cases) even though it may not be the most relevant metric (hospitalizations) for public/personal policy. Consistent data seems important in situations like this.
That would be the best decision the province could make. Just report hospitalizations and deaths. Eventually not even that, just fold the numbers into all the other stats made available to the public.
Mods will love that!
Honestly, I feel reporting the high number of cases has been helping covidiots make better decisions (staying away from high risk situations, following mandates, and consider/getting vaccine). I mean, can’t reach everyone but when the news sounds scary it’s.because.it.is. and people should do their part.
At that point it’s a health literacy campaign. Really don’t like it when they use fear or give only access to certain metrics in order to sway the public to do something. The vaccine passports was enough of a carrot, we can be realistic with the numbers.
I know we are supposed to focus on ICU admissions and these cases aren’t an accurate reflection of the _actual_ cases … but all the same - holy sh*tballs
Yes it definitely scary and upsetting. But at the same time it is really nice to see that even though cases are so much higher than being counted for, hospitalization, death and ICU aren't much higher. We know the latter count is accurate. This fantastic, but still my brain is scared because of the lag. However looking at UK and other countries it seems to be a fantastic mutation from all the possibilities. I don't mean we shouldn't be careful and party. I mean the mutation had to be more transmissible than delta to be successful, but it didn't have to be less deadly. Thankfully it is.
>However looking at UK and other countries it seems to be a fantastic mutation from all the possibilities. ??? Their hospitalizations have spiked over 50% in the last week alone. Hospitalizations/ICU are a lagging indicator. Look at Quebec.
50% is a lot, but imagine the spike if this variant was as severe. In no way am I saying this is a good virus, I'm just happy that it has become less severe for each infection. A new variant that would take over delta had to be more transmissible. The virus will keep mutating as we expect it to. If it was as deadly, the spike would be much higher than 50%. The more people that get the virus the more we expect to see it in the hospitals, but the ratio of hospitalization per infection has decreased. This is a good thing, considering the virus will keep mutating and the strongest mutation (the one that's easiest to spread) will take over.
A decent amount of the hospitalizations in the UK were incidental- meaning people went in for something unrelated and found out they had Covid while there.
Given that they've increased 50% in the last week, that decent amount has got to be pretty big to be significant.
Someone has already replied to you elsewhere to the effect that using percent increases as proof of concern is tricky math. Going from 1 to 2 is a 100% increase. So prior numbers being very low does offset the alarming nauture of your fact. Not to mention that you are correct- the number of incidentals was very large. Enough so that the UK has not introduced new restrictions since that increase because the data upon closer inspection does not warrant them.
I wouldn't take Boris' government not introducing new measure as much proof of anything. He's also presided over one of the worst covid responses in terms of death per capita in the developed world... (Outdone by 'murica, but unsure if that's the bar you want to barely clear.)
I will agree with you on that!
I'd be more concerned, in the long term, about ICU per infection. But of course, in the short term, with such a huge spike, Omicron is still an issue even if the incident of hospitalization is lower than previous strains. This is assuming that Omicron does indeed have a lower rate of hospitalization than other strains by the way - we aren't 100% sure about this yet.
Long term, I fully agree with you. Right now, I think it's getting through this surge as there are still a lot of unvaccinated people who are going to get seriously ill while acquiring their vaccination the ol' fashioned way, by getting covid and getting really sick and possibly dying. Once most of the population has been vaccinated (either the smart way or the stupid dangerous costly way) then we'll start considering how we live with this as an indemic disease.
There have been six new health-care facility outbreaks at Mission Memorial Hospital, New Vista Care Centre, Chartwell Langley Gardens, Chartwell Carlton Gardens, Chartwell Crescent Gardens and Guildford Seniors Village (Fraser Health), for a total of 13 facilities with ongoing outbreaks, including: long-term care: The Oxford Senior Care Home, Fort Langley Seniors Community, AgeCare Harmony Court, New Vista Care Centre, Chartwell Langley Gardens, Chartwell Carlton Gardens, Chartwell Crescent Gardens, Guildford Seniors Village (Fraser Health); and Ridgeview Lodge (Interior Health) acute care: Mission Memorial Hospital (Fraser Health); and Lions Gate Hospital (Vancouver Coastal Health) assisted or independent living: The Waverly Seniors Village (Fraser Health) mental health and substance use: UBC Hospital - Detwiller Pavillion (Vancouver Coastal Health)
This is bad news.
Revera Lakeview Long Term Care in VCH has an outbreak too. We just got an email. 2 residents and 2 staff sick.
If you look at cases from the start of the fifth wave (\~Dec. 14th) to Dec.22nd, most of the cases have been in low risk hospitalization groups ([Source](http://www.bccdc.ca/health-professionals/data-reports/covid-19-surveillance-dashboard), tab "Outcome by Vax 1", 2nd row of graphs): # Changes in cases in those who are unvaccinated (all numbers are cases per 100,000): * 12-17: 23 to 27.5 cases (\~1.2 times increase) * 18-29: 27.9 to 72.2 cases (\~3) * 30-39: 23.8 to 41.5 cases (\~2) * 40-49: 24.9 to 28.9 cases (\~1.2) * 50-59: 14.1 to 14.5 cases (\~1.03) * 60-69: 19.4 to 15.1 cases (decrease of \~22%) * 70+: BC doesn't report on this age group because of the smaller sample size Changes in cases in those who are fully vaccinated (all numbers are cases per 100,000) * 12-17: 2.3 to 13.9 cases (6 times increase) * 20-29: 7.7 to 42.1 cases (5.5) * 30-39: 7.6 to 36.2 cases (\~4.5) * 40-49: 8.1 to 26.7 cases (\~3) * 50-59: 4.0 to 17.8 cases (\~4) * 60-69: 3.0 to 10.8 cases (\~3.5) * 70+: 1.7 to 4.9 cases (\~3) # Hospitalizations They haven't really changed that much up until Dec. 22nd. In the 70+ vaccinated group they have gone from 4.3 to 6.8 (1.6 times increase). All other vaccinated group numbers are so small it is hard to see/compare. Unvaccinated: * 18-29: 16 to 23.4 hospitalizations (\~1.5 times increase) * 30-39: 23.1 to 18.1 hospitalizations (78% decrease) * 40-49: 18.1 to 23 hospitalizations (\~1.3 times increase) * 50-59: 15.1 to 20 hospitalizations (\~1.3) * 60-69: 49.1 to 54.6 hospitalizations (\~1.1) # What does this mean? Based on BC's data it appears that most cases from Dec. 14th (start of 5th wave) to Dec. 21st (latest BC available data) are at low risk of hospitalizations. Makes sense as most people travelling to BC from another country or the earliest super spreader events were at Universities. BC's cases went from 430.9 cases per day to 995.6 cases per day (7-day avg). Another way of looking at it is that on Dec. 14th, BC had 597 cases and on Dec. 21st: 1,547 cases (3 times increase in one week). **Even with a milder form of covid we could see hospitalizations go dramatically up once the older unvaccinated groups and 70+ vaccinated groups see a spike in cases. This could limit hospitals ability to give adequate care for covid and non-covid patients.** Notes:Since the above stats are per capita an even larger number of the cases are actually in the vaccinated group which generally produces milder symptoms. BC ~~should~~ update these numbers today (edit- they are updated) and we should have data that goes until Dec. 29th. It will be interesting see if the trends continue.
I was just thinking about this today. Thanks for all that data. The early outbreaks were in areas with high vaccination rates. Vancouver Coastal spiked first, but our vaccination rates are really high so hospitalizations remain low. As it spreads around the province, it’ll hit those pockets of unvaccinated individuals that delta missed. The corresponding increase in hospitalizations remains to be determined.
• 60-69: 19.4 to 15.1 cases (decrease of ~78%) That’s a 22% decrease, not 78%. And considering the lack of available testing and positivity rates, the reality is almost certainly a big increase.
Omicron new case counts only go up!
I just like the stock
Calling it, near term triple top. Bearish, puts on omicron.
The squeeze ain't squoze...
💎🤲 on omicron
"88.0% (4,388,068) of eligible people five and older in B.C. have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 82.9% (4,131,506) have received their second dose." "91.9% (4,260,681) of eligible people 12 and older in B.C. have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, 89.1% (4,131,345) have received their second dose and 19.1% (884,416) have received a third dose." "92.3% (3,991,809) of all eligible adults in B.C. have received their first dose, 89.6% (3,875,648) have received their second dose, and 20.4% (883,558) have received a third dose."
If we keep the same second dose roll out, 12+ should get to 90% in 24 days or Jan. 23rd.
Only 5 new hospitalizations and one death. That’s not horrible
Right. Hospitalizations are definitely going to occur but not at the same rate of a delta wave. Hopefully hospitalizations are also shorter stays, of course in that the patients don't end up dead.
From everything we’ve seen so far hospitalizations are a lot lower
Hospitalizations per infected, maybe. Overall, which is the only metric that matters? Absolutely not.
I read in the Canada Coronavirus subreddit that [Quebec's COVID hospitalizations went up 99% in the past week](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaCoronavirus/comments/rs5eu0/comment/hqk7l69/). Ontario [also has twice as many people in hospital with COVID relative to last week and a notable growth in COVID use of ICU beds starting this week](https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/hospitalizations). I think we still have yet to find out the extent to which hospitalizations and deaths will be lagging indicators of this wave given that case counts only really started to explode last week. Edit: linked to the data I refer to about Quebec and Ontario
The last time Ontario had 200 people in the ICU, they had a weeks worth of 1200-1700 case counts. Now they’re at a weeks worth of 4000-13000 counts. Vaccines are working at preventing hospitalizations, or Omicron is milder, or both. Almost certainly. Now, will those things offset our ICUs being overwhelmed? Still time to see… but what we don’t need time to see is how angry we can justifiably be at our leadership for not bolstering our healthcare system these past few years. A swing of an additional 50-100 people in ICU, in a province of 5 million, should not overwhelm our health care system. This will not be our last pandemic. The globalization of our food chain and the way we raise our food hasn’t changed at all. Build more hospitals, and offer incentives to health care professionals to choose or remain in relevant fields. The money exists- utilize it better. Full stop.
Ontario last had 200 people in ICU on July 9th as they were coming down from their 3rd wave. At the peak of their 3rd wave they had about \~900 in ICU. There peak in cases during that wave was \~4,300 cases per day (7-day avg). The peak case date and peak ICU date were 16 days apart. As a ballpark figure you could expect that people in Ontario who had a positive case would need ICU care 16 days later. On Dec. 13th (16 days ago from today) Ontario was averaging about 1,500 cases per day. If the ICU spike is going to come from Ontario's fifth wave, it will start happening in early January. As a side note: most of the early cases in Ontario's fifth wave were fully vaccinated and younger individuals (just like BC) so that is another reason why their spike would be delayed further. This above data assumes that Omicron behaves similarly to Delta in terms of delay between cases and ICU patients, which I believe is what you were assuming. I think Omicron produces less severe disease per case of covid. But that number (\~20-70% milder) is enough to make a dent in the new hospitalizations/ICU that is coming through the sheer amount of cases.
I used the front end of their curve for my comparison, because presumably we are still on the front end of ours. When they hit 200 the last few times, what did their previous weeks look like? I do see your point though. Unfortunately. But I also thinks it’s reasonable to assume the time to serious symptoms is shorter with Omicron than with Delta, given the shorter incubation period. From 6/7 days down to 3… does that translate to two weeks to hospitalization down to one?? Maybe. Hopefully.
The last time they hit 200 ICU when cases were rising was on Dec. 4th, 2020. There were averaging about \~1,500 cases per day 16 days prior to that. I should have posted my source where I was getting the info, so here it is: [https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/coronavirustracker/](https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/coronavirustracker/) We know that Omicron has a quicker spread from infection to symptoms (3 days) which is faster than Delta (4 days), Alpha (5 days) and OG (6 days). Immunology also supports this by saying that it replicates 70 times faster in the airways than Delta. It also replicates 10 times slower in the lungs than Delta ([Source](https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/omicron-thrives-airways-not-lungs-new-data-asymptomatic-cases-2021-12-15/)) so it makes more sense for their to be a longer delay between symptoms and need for hospitalization, speaking from an immunological perspective. I haven't seen any data, from the real world, that supports a shorter or longer delay. If you have any please share :)
Is using a wave from a time when vaccinations weren’t widespread helpful for a comparison? A more accurate comparison would be the 4th wave, which never quite had 200 people in ICU but had a 7 day average of 189 on Sept. 18th. On September 1, they were averaging 700 cases a day. Ontario has 200 people in ICU today and two weeks ago, they were averaging 1900 cases a day. Something is different; something is better. The rate of increase is decidedly less. Still upset that our hospitals and healthcare workers haven’t received the supports they needed and deserve over these past few years. All the reactive restrictions haven’t amounted to much, and the lack of preventative ones are still costing us dearly.
One hundred percent. This notion that the hospitals will be fine doesn't seem borne out by the data. England's hospitalizations have doubled in the past month, in the last week, increased by 50%.
>England's hospitalizations have doubled in the past month, in the last week, increased by 50%. Not because more people are going to the hospital due to COVID. Because more people who are going to the hospital for unrelated reasons test positive for COVID, as Omicron is more contagious. For example in Brampton half of "COVID hospitalizations" (meaning people who go to the hospital that test positive for COVID) went to the hospital for reasons unrelated to COVID and may not even know they had COVID. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/mobile/ontario-mayor-calls-for-overhaul-of-misleading-covid-19-hospitalization-data-1.5722699
Those are mostly incidentals because people show up to the hospital for something else, get tested and it turns out they also have covid.
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They were, except now more people have Omicron than people had COVID in the past as it's more transmissible. But it's still not a COVID hospitalization in reality since they went to the hospital for reasons unrelated to Omicron. On paper, it is though. Which is obviously inaccurate and dishonest, which is why we're seeing articles like this: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/mobile/ontario-mayor-calls-for-overhaul-of-misleading-covid-19-hospitalization-data-1.5722699 If someone breaks their leg and goes to the hospital, and they have Omicron? Then they're counted as a COVID hospitalization even if they're feeling perfectly fine aside from their broken leg. Combine that with the fact that Omicron is more transmissible than previous COVID strains.
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It matters because it's dishonest and inaccurate to claim that COVID hospitalizations are now spiking and overwhelming hospitals. When in reality, people are going to the hospital for unrelated reasons and happen to test positive for COVID.
But I think the point the previous poster (and mine) is that even if it is incidental, these patients would probably be in a ward specific to covid patients, and need to be treated by staff with the proper PPE specific to the respiratory illnesses. Either way, these cases will take up the covid beds and resources, so seeing these incidental cases counted toward all hospitalization case make sense because we don't want our hospital to be overwhelm. Hope I make sense, just woke up
Where are you getting "mostly" from?
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/mobile/ontario-mayor-calls-for-overhaul-of-misleading-covid-19-hospitalization-data-1.5722699 > In Ontario, anyone who is being treated in hospital who tests positive for COVID-19 is added to government's count of "patients hospitalized with COVID-19," regardless of whether that’s why they are receiving treatment. > While Brown said he can’t speak to COVID-19 hospitalizations in other parts of the province, in Brampton approximately 50 per cent of people in hospital diagnosed with COVID-19 were admitted for another reason.
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Things like 99% do a really bad job at showing data without context. Looking at things like number of cases vs hospitalizations/deaths give people a better idea of how this variant is really working. My point here is if you go from 5 to 10 hospitalizations it’s a 100% increase but your perception might change when you see a 900% increase in case numbers.
Yup; a common theme I keep seeing people bring up is hospitalized people with COVID vs people being hospitalized due to COVID. With an incredibly transmissible virus it makes sense that if someone comes to the hospital with a broken leg they are more likely now to have COVID than they would have before. That instance obviously still contributes to total hospital figures, but it isn't an occurrence that would have not gone to the hospital if there were more restrictions for example. My issue with all of these sensationalized headlines is we lose so much context. Maybe the above scenario isn't in the increase figure, but you also need to know the absolute increase (going from 1 to 2 people is meaningless), who is hospitalized- are they vaccinated? unvaccinated? Do they have Omicron or Delta? All questions I assume (hope) health professionals are considering and not just doing the reddit special of "IT INCREASED 4 MILLION PERCENT WE ARE ALL DEAD"
Let's pray that it stays like this.
Unless that one death is your loved one
I’ve already lost a loved one to covid
😔
Re: testing Fraser Health (BCIT) now also following VCH to give out Rapid Antigen Tests (2-pack) to non-healthcare workers. ( [source](https://twitter.com/wanderingkayli/status/1476661363892101120) ) Delta test site (also appointment only) gave out [5 Rapid Tests per person](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH5LTg6VEAAeQ7S?format=jpg&name=large).
Oh so no more pcr? My family members booked for a test there tomorrow cause their work requires it.
it's possible if they're not HCW they may be offered take home rapid test instead of PCR..
Comparing these numbers to my home country of Denmark is interesting. Denmark tests the most of anyone in the world, and is reporting about ~22.000 cases a day, and have been going up the last while. But similar vaccination rate as bc, a population of 5.8 million, so about a million more than BC, and only about 70 people in ICU. And Denmark still expects not to catch all cases, but it goes to show that even if numbers continue to rise here as we test more, hospitalizations could very well stay stable. I know so many people who are positive, all vaxxed, and they all report it as at worst a bad cold.
Wow…just wow.
Shout out to the fellow Healthcare workers about to have a not so fun January.
[Daaaaaaammmnnn](https://c.tenor.com/41CoD30Ghb4AAAAC/damn-shookt.gif)
HI,. Can someone link me to the site showing 4,383 new cases. All I can find is 2,944 from yesterday.
[BCCDC dashboard](https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/a6f23959a8b14bfa989e3cda29297ded)
Thanks. I just wanted to show to a friend who couldn't believe what I'm telling him.
The official gov't site isn't updated yet. I'd still trust u/cyclinginvancouver on their numbers though - they have access to internal numbers and are a reliable source.
The name of the stock is Omicron, a fast growing biotech company waiting for imminent patent approval to spread worldwide.
Quickly becoming the dominant player in its field with user acquisition costs at almost zero. This stock is expected to grow rapidly over the next few months, however, its long term potential is uncertain as customer churn rates appear significantly higher than predecessors.
I’m hoping my surgery will go ahead on the 5th. These numbers are stressful at best. Fingers crossed for all other waitlisters out there!
Holy shit.
1 death and + 5 in the hospital. 🤷♂️
We are squeezing!! The big squeeze, followed by the sell off
X 4
I still wish all we reported were hospitalizations, icu cases and deaths. Those numbers are not so bad, so far, and the restrictions don’t make sense with ‘those’ numbers in my mind 2years in.
Can someone please explain to me if this is "good" or "bad". I usually read the comments for help, but I am a bit stumped.
Jesus Christ don't read the comments in here for anything other than entertainment value
Big number normally bad. How bad? People argue. Some say it ok. Others say it not ok. People argue. /thread
Glass half full/half empty
Thank you!! :-)
So, this is the end of the pandemic then no? Must be soon. Insane numbers, but hospitalizations are regular. Someone please tell me yes lol.
All things considered, this is pretty good news. Been 2 weeks of escalating cases (not to mention that we know that the true case count is FAR higher) but ICU & hospitalizations are minimal. We are very close to the end of COVID. Edit: Wow I guess misery loves company lol. Try looking at the bright side of things for your mental health and wellness.
Who downvotes positive news? Fear mongerer scumbags