We're all looking at the same numbers. The question is: what philosophy guides the interpretation of those numbers? To put it very simplistically, there are currently "two camps" in BC and elsewhere. The "COVID Zero" camp and the "acceptible risk" camp. BC seems to have shifted from a COVID Zero approach (do everything you can to stop transmission) to an acceptible risk approach. You can see this in language like "endemic" and the claim that the infection rate is dislinked from the hospitalization rate (this, for the record, appears from the data not to be true, but it is hard to tell because BC's testing strategy has also narrowed, and changed focus).
Why is the case for Zero in this context? Corona virus runs its course very quickly. You fight it off or you die, in either case, you become unable to pass the virus on. From the virus' point of view, it has no where to go. If you have a situation like this, you actually can outrun the virus on a population level by masks, quarantine, distancing, improved ventilation and vaccines if the function to decrease the amount of spread.
The problem with Zero is that it requires a lot of government intervention and a lot of civic will to comply.
The acceptible risk approach (in this case) sets the objective as protecting the health care system so any level of COVID that does not cause that to happen is okay. The logic is that the problems cause by masks, quarantine, You can see that this has been the explicit approach from the third wave on.
There are currently two problems with the acceptible risk approach: the current vaccines are designed to reduce the burden on the health care system by reducing severity of disease, but apparently they are no proving as effective at reducing transmission as have other pharmaceutically interventions (anti-HIV drugs, however, toxic to individuals, reduce transmission on from the infected person to nil in many cases, although you must continuously monitor the effectiveness of the drugs, thus tying the individual to health care system, an additional expense to the system.)
The second problem is that with the increase in vaccination, there seems to have been a dismantling of the contact tracing and ambient monitoring. It will be very interesting to see what Wuhan looks like Delta variant-wise -- they are currently test every single person in the city. Many of the small countries with the Zero approach have high levels of monitoring and they are able to "see" cases before much transmission occurs. BC explicitly rejected that approach at the very beginning, probably for cost reasons. But this means that a variant that can get out of control before it is detected is a real problem for BC's system.
So in short, yes, BC CDC is reading the data, but there are a growing number of other analysis groups (including colleagues at SFU) who have applied different analytical lenses to the data and come up with different conclusions about "what should be done."
Sent: August 22, 2021 3:36 AM
To: Cynthia Patton; academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Subject: Re: NYTimes article on the uncertainty around long covid and vaccinated people
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.
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 people
You 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????
Sent: August 21, 2021 3:11:44 PM
To: academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Subject: NYTimes article on the uncertainty around long covid and vaccinated people
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/well/live/vaccine-long-covid-breakthrough-infection.html
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While the vaccines are effective at
preventing serious illness and death,
the risk of developing post-Covid
health problems after a breakthrough
infection isn’t known.
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