If you're wondering when the next COVID wave will hit, Bruce Arthur writes, it's already here:
That’s it, all right: the surge is coming, and it’s here. Anecdotally COVID is racing all over the place, and why wouldn’t it? Omicron BA.2 is one of the two or three most infectious viruses humans have ever found, and two doses of vaccine has limited protection vs. infection, and Ontario, like many other jurisdictions, has removed almost all wide-scale public health measures.
“The government has essentially removed any semblance of the fact that we’re still in a pandemic, right?” said Dr. Andrew Morris, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Toronto and a member of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, and the medical director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at Sinai-University Health Network.
“We still have not gone six months without a wave, but we’re acting like the Omicron wave was the last one, and there are zero hypotheses that’s true.”
It is true that the vast majority of Ontarians are vaccinated:
The good news is many of us are vaccinated. The bad news is that’s more or less the whole plan. The reason I say anecdotally is because PCR tests are limited — positivity on 15,515 tests was 16.7 per cent Thursday — and rapid tests aren’t generally recorded. Daily data is therefore of limited help, and we’re left with rising outbreaks in seniors homes and wastewater surveillance, with the GTA still closer to stable. We’re not just flying blind into this wave: we are flying blind by design, expecting an increase in hospitalizations.
“We don’t have good (anti-viral) drug delivery systems in place,” says Morris. “We don’t have (new) vaccinations. We don’t have the testing. None of this is currently in place right now. And we have a public who’s been led to believe that the pandemic’s over, and that not only is the pandemic over, but that the vaccines are of no value now.
“We have no situational awareness, and the public’s fed up. I get all this, like I really do. And I think the public deserves it should be allowed to be as free as is reasonably possible. But we do need some kind of system in place to be able to respond to that.”
Where we live, the old system is still in place. Lots of us are still walking around with masks. My wife is attending an event on Thursday of next week. Word has gone out that those attending must show proof of vaccination.
It appears -- at least down here -- that people take Mr. Ford's assurances with a grain of salt.
Image: Toronto.com
6 comments:
The next wave is already here. Wastewater monitoring shows rising levels of Covid in Toronto, and hospitalizations and deaths will inevitably follow. It's especially worrying that cases are up in long-term care facilities, proof once again that Ford has failed to fix the underlying problems there.
The UK, with similar levels of vaccination and public healthcare, gave up on Covid about a month before Ontario did. Covid cases in England are now back to what they were when Omicron peaked, and are higher than that in Scotland and Wales. That's where we're headed. Me, I keep my N95 mask on when in public.
Cap
Wise policy, Cap. Don't expect wisdom from Mr. Ford.
Well, Owen, we still have "telephone" health care here where I live, so until our family doctor decides that it is safe to see the whites of my eyes again, we will continue to wear our masks any time we leave the house.
We were still spending some of our winter in Arizona and in 2020, as Trump was busy polishing up his BS act again, decided enough was enough and sold out. When we came home and saw our Dr. he immediately cautioned us with a "do not go out - get your son to do your shopping for you" speech, we realized this was serious.
It's still serious, Lulymay. The virus has not disappeared.
Don't expect wisdom from Mr. Ford.
That almost cost me a keyboard!
I live a bit east of you and I have noticed a lot of people of all ages, I'd say a good majority, are masked in local grocery stores especially. Probably the same number of people walking down busy streets are masked as were before the lifting of the mask mandate.
I do not think a huge number of people trust Mr. Ford on this.
I agree, jrk -- and that gives me reassurance.
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