On Aug 22, 2021, at 8:56 AM, Nicky Didicher <didicher@sfu.ca> wrote:
Thank you, Nilima and Cindy.
The BC COVID modeling group slides are extremely sobering. Even if we put six weeks of stringent social restrictions in place immediately (and that doesn’t seem likely at the moment), the hospitals have to deal with a load beyond what they experienced in the third wave. It looks like the acceptable risk route to protect the hospital system will not achieve its objective, but could come closer if we lockdown now.
Much as I was looking forward to in-person classes (assuming everyone masked), now I’m making plans for what seems to be the likely pivot back to remote in early October or even late September. Sigh.
Nicky
From: Nilima Nigam <nigam@math.sfu.ca>
Sent: August 22, 2021 8:02:17 AM
To: Igor Herbut
Cc: Cynthia Patton; academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Subject: Re: NYTimes article on the uncertainty around long covid and vaccinated people
- The data report doesn't provide key information (current effective reproduction rate/doubling rate, for instance). This is, of course, the more important metric to track during exponential growth: the raw case counts in the beginning may seem small, but a reproduction rate >1 is a bad thing. Nor is the Delta variant incidence being differentially reported. Reports which don't present this information aren't adding to confidence = the phrase 'now we're seeing exponential growth' as publicly deployed is kinda too late. As a nice illustration of this issue, perhaps look at the surveillance report from August 27th, 2020. Raw numbers seemed low, but the rate of growth (not reported, needed to be computed) was already concerning. http://www.bccdc.ca/Health-Info-Site/Documents/BC_Surveillance_Summary_Aug_27_2020.pdf
<image.png>
- To round off the data with model fits and projections seems important, and the BCCDC used to release monthly modeling updates. including work of many scientists in BC. The last one was June 28th.
http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/modelling-projections
The BC Covid modeling group has a more recent modeling update (August 18th).
https://bccovid-19group.ca/post/2021-08-18-report/slides.pdf
On Sun, Aug 22, 2021 at 3:36 AM Igor Herbut <igor_herbut@sfu.ca> wrote:
Dear Cynthia and colleagues,
I do not know what Bonnie Henry is thinking, but my guess is that she is certainly following ALL the COVID numbers relevant to BC. They can be found at the BC CDC official site:
http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/data#Situationreport
or, in less detail, but still informative at
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/covid-19-british-columbia-charts-1.5510000
It is clear from the charts that: 1) population 21-30 is also rapidly vaccinating, and their vaccination rates could soon reach those of older cohorts (which are among the highest in the world), 2) hospitalizations and ICU cases are dramatically lower this time, 3) the death rate has been stable at essentially zero value (below one/day).
Bonnie Henry is also not alone in keeping calm; very careful Denmark, with similar case numbers and vaccination rates to BC, which has been celebrated (and often contrasted to the lax Sweden) by the papers such as NYT in the past for her success against Covid by using various restrictions, is now lifting almost all of them:
Cheers,
Igor Herbut.
From: Cynthia Patton <cindy_patton@sfu.ca>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2021 4:03 PM
To: Chelsea Rosenthal; academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Subject: Re: NYTimes article on the uncertainty around long covid and vaccinated peopleYou can also find the reporting on the US clusters in the NYT app they are listed by type of venue and the data is about a month "old" (pre-Delta onslaught).
Colleges and prisons in the US have both exceeded elder care places in sheer number. The prison death rate are not that far off the elder care death rate. Colleges' have fewer deaths, but massive numbers . . . about 100 schools with between 1600 and 9000 (U Florida Gainsville is the current winner with 9914 cases). Add these kind of numbers and the uncertainty about long term effects of mild cases and "breakthrough" cases and YIKES.
What is Dr. "Let 'er rip" Bonnie thinking??? And Dr. "Our hands are tied by Bonnie" JJ????
From: Chelsea Rosenthal <chelsea_rosenthal@sfu.ca>
Sent: August 21, 2021 3:11:44 PM
To: academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Subject: NYTimes article on the uncertainty around long covid and vaccinated peoplehttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/well/live/vaccine-long-covid-breakthrough-infection.html
--
Nilima Nigam
Professor
Dept. of Mathematics
Simon Fraser University
