|
Here is a personal story: I had the uncommon symptoms of COVID last week (runny nose and sneezing) and thought it was a cold. Three days later, I lost my sense of smell and taste. Wanted to get tested
but the first available appointment was for three days later. So, there was no point as the government says you do not need a test if you are double vaccinated and can go about your business after 5 days since you had symptoms. Four days ago my wife showed
symptoms. Her work requires her to show a positive test result if she stays home if COVID is suspected. Booked a time to test on the 9th to get tested today. We spent >1 hour waiting in line for our time slot and showed all the booking confirmation
plus documentation. After that, one person at the exit was handing out rapid test kits to all and asked everyone to do the test at home (PCR tests are kept for health care workers). Sure enough, she tested positive.
A massive waste of everyone’s time who was involved. Behraad From: James Fleming <james_fleming@sfu.ca>
Here's my take. Public health officials around the world (with the notable exception of the PRC) are now saying that, under the Omicron variant (1) almost everybody is going to get Covid. But (2) for almost everybody, it will cause only mild disease. The BC numbers over the last month or so (rates of infection relative to hospitalizations and deaths) certainly seem to bear this out. Bonnie Henry was asked at one of her recent press
conferences "how do we know if it's Omicron, or a cold?" I think if we need to ask that, we don't need to ask that. Here at SFU we have an overwhelmingly vaccinated, and overwhelmingly young, population. Various decrees of lockdown, in the name of a chimerical covid-zero, have already taken two years
away from our students' lives. Two precious years of a youth that will never come back. I think it would be unconscionable to take another minute. JDF From: Behraad Bahreyni <bba19@sfu.ca>
I have found the statements and announcements by Dr Henry (and her Federal counterpart) to coincide perfectly with the availability of the resources…
From: Eirikur Palsson <epalsson@sfu.ca>
I wasn’t going to say anything but I do not understand why anyone would really trust everything Bonnie Henry say.
She has been caught multiple time in lies by omission if not outright making statements that are the opposite of what infectious disease specialist in rest of the world believe. For instance her refusal to acknowledge
that the coronavirus is airborne (especially the later variants) and insisting that the virus is spread by droplets is dumbfounding since it has been clearly demonstrated. Now technically she could argue that the virus spreads by nanometer sized droplets,
but those are airborne and are not filtered out by cloth masks. Yet she continues to advocate for clot masks or surgical masks that although may reduce the spread do not protect the wearer from getting infected. There is a reason why CDC wants to recommend
N95 masks for everyone, to combat the Omicron variants. Her refusal to allow healthcare workers to use N95 masks in hospitals or at vaccine sites is ridiculous and potentially dangerous and it makes me very nervous and uncomfortable when I have to go there
even though I am wearing a N99 mask. I am not going to list all the other times she has gone agains the general science community consensus.
Bonnie Henry's blind faith in vaccines and that the Omicron variant is milder is putting people with underlying health conditions at great risk and especially those who are immunocompromised. Her policies are not based
on the prevailing science and she goes agains the advice of most people in the field. Just because Omicron is milder doesn’t necessarily mean that people won’t suffer later from long covid. The only thing that will prevent this from becoming a disaster is
possibly milder symptoms.
We most certainly have over 10,000 people getting infected every day in BC, but we will never know the exact numbers since most people are not being tested. So it is easy to say there is no evidence of spreading in
certain situation since there is no testing. We are not getting these high numbers just from people partying. Based on my experience going to hospitals or pharmacies or grocery stores there are always a few people wearing their masks on their chin or under
their nose. If you are close to them in a closed space and only wearing a cloth mask you are at a risk.
If SFU really wanted to protect vulnerable people they would make sure everyone was vaccinated and would use good masks and wear them properly when in the classroom and corridors, but they don’t. As a consequence they
are making campus unsafe and for both students and staff who are immunocompromised.
Eirikur
|