RealAvalon

Is that where evolution is taking us?

Oh my. Spring 2022, "I'll take COVID for $400 Alex"

Get pregnant ... oops ... wrong forum.

Isn't the important part of recognizing there is a difference in how the virus may affect different blood types, is learning that there IS a difference. That difference may tell us something about how the virus operates. We've exposed something new about how the virus's operates.

The USA is similar, but different, to Australia and Canada, in being a federation of states/provinces. And the Canadian confederacy definitely impacted the ability to have a truly national response. There isn't the same 'states rights' movement as the USA, but there's a continual federal/provincial jurisdictional argument. And Quebec, is more than a 'states rights' situation. Going back to the Quebec Act of 1774, Quebec has been recognized as a unique society (different language, religion and legal code) within the Canadian confederation. With natural disasters, which COVID is one, Federal assistance is often delayed until it's unavoidable in Quebec. This time, the Canadian Army was eventually called in, so that their medical personnel could help with elder care in Quebec nursing homes it was getting so bad. https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/covid-19-canada-sends-army-to-quebec-care-homes-starting-saturday/ Outside of Quebec, in ROC (that's the 'rest of Canada' colloquially) amongst 27 million people, Canada has had: 45,000 cases (with 34,000 of those in Ontario) 3,000 deaths (with 2,600 of those in Ontario, with the majority concentrated in private for-profit nursing homes) One thing we've definitely learned, in every country that COVID has hit, is that this virus exposes each of our societal weaknesses. In Canada, that's clearly elder care, and there will be a national commission on that, once this is all over. There needs to be federal standards with federal dollars for the provinces. And the efficacy of for profit seniors care needs to be discussed. There has been a much higher rate of infection and death in private facilities, than in publicly operated ones. Question to Americans: What societal weaknesses has COVID exposed in the USA? And what is the action needed to address those weaknesses? It's wrong to focus simply on a lock down, separate from all the other measures needed to respond to COVID. A lock down isn't/wasn't a "silver bullet" solution, separate from all the other actions taken/needed. Talking about the "Swedish Model" and limiting that to "herd immunity" is at best ingenuous and at worst, deliberately ignorant. The "Swedish Model" is also, universal free quality publicly run health insurance, extensive sick leave benefits, an economy with high quality jobs where people can work from home, a social ethos where wearing a mask is part of a person's social responsibility not "oppression". If someone wants to cherry pick "herd immunity" in absence of everything else, then talk about Brazil.

Your headline ... working stiff. I bet your co-workers are ... working stiff Keep up the sprinting, and stay safe on your bike. Good luck with the career shift.

Tight lock downs have worked in New Zealand, Australia, British Columbia, all of Atlantic Canada, Uruguay. It has been demonstrated, repeatedly, that if the lock down was quick and clear, with lots of public education and buy in, they worked. In the USA that model may no longer be relevant, whether a person acknowledges that it has worked other places, or even possible. The virus seems to be so wide spread in the USA, demonstrated that with an increased number of tests happening, which should lead to reduced rates of positive tests, that the positive test rates are increasing. From the CDC website data today, as of June 12th, perhaps there will be better news tomorrow. It looks like the vast majority of testing is done in commercial laboratories. The overall percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 increased slightly from week 22 (6.0%) to week 23 (6.3%) nationally driven by increases in four regions. National percentages by type of laboratory: Public health laboratories – decreased from 5.8% during week 22 to 5.0% during week 23; Clinical laboratories – decreased from 5.5% during week 22 to 5.3% during week 23; Commercial laboratories – increased from 6.1% during week 22 to 6.5% during week 23. I guess the question for the USA is, are their other countries that also botched the initial response, that have figured out how to get a handle on the viral spread and reduce death rates? Is Italy an example? Or Spain, or France, or New York/New Jersey? Reading posts from you guys in the USA, the initial national response was so botched in the USA, it's sounding like some of you feel like you're bailing just to get to shore, forget about saving the boat.

You're seem stuck; you show no interest in learning from other experiences, only complaining about your own. Many of us have provided data and descriptions of other jurisdictions. If you're a doctor, I would love to read your Yelp reviews.

Or boat!

Yes to your Vitamin D concern. Vitamin C is water soluble and excess amounts is pissed away, so to speak. Vitamin D is fat soluble and can build up in the body.

BC has a large number of elderly residents, it's a retirement destination from across Canada, especially the Prairies. Victoria in particular, is known as a place for "newly weds and nearly deads." But the demographic that seems to be of most interest to health researchers, in terms of mortality rates from COVID, is not not age, gender or racial, it's obesity. Washington State has an obesity rate of 29%, and BC's is 19%. Obesity is a risk factor with COVID mortality. Everything is connected.

They would drive through BC to the Alaska Highway, and take that through northern BC, Yukon and into Alaska. It was built during WWII to provide supplies to Alaska. They'd have 24 hours to make it across Yukon, from BC to Alaska. It's 929 kilometres, so 24 hours is lots of time. transiting through Yukon to a neighbouring jurisdiction (24-hour limitation); https://yukon.ca/en/health-and-wellness/covid-19-information/borders-and-travel-covid-19/border-enforcement-during-covid-19

That means exponential growth. More concern about the Canada/USA border today with information on testing and increasing cases in Washington State. Background: British Columbia and Washington State, same geography and climate, and similar economies. Washington State has about 1 1/2 times as many people as British Columbia. Vancouver and Seattle are almost the same population, with Seattle more sprawled development. Since June 8, there have been almost 1,800 COVID-19 cases reported in Washington plus 56 deaths, compared to 50 cases in B.C. and one death. Washington state is doing more testing for the virus than B.C. (about 450,000 to almost 170,000), so American health authorities are bound to find more cases. However, here is a worrisome fact: Washington test positives are coming back at 5.9 per cent of those tested, more than three times the infection rate in B.C. (currently about 1.7 per cent). You'd expect with wider testing, beyond the outbreak sites, that rates should have gone down NOT up. And the higher testing levels do not explain a much grimmer statistical difference: as of last Sunday, more than 1,200 people had died from COVID-19 in Washington, compared to 167 in B.C. American tourists have been found circumventing the border closure rules. They are saying that they are traveling through BC to get from the southern 48 states to get to Alaska. But they don't leave. And they don't comply with the 14 day quarantine rules for foreign travel. And they could be subject to fines and charges.

Thank you for my morning fix. I'm just going to head out to my B.A. support group meeting now

Is that a bar code? That's so wrong in so many ways, and yet, oddly convenient.

It's a novel corona virus. It's new. And public health has been saying over and over again, in Canada anyway, that each jurisdiction is going to have its own pandemic experience. We started with no hard data, and there is more and more all the time, but there is still a lot of educated guess work I expect. We just don't know all we need to about the virus. We are learning all the time, and know a lot more now, than we did four months ago. I don't know if this is similar or different from your experience. Where I live the public health decisions that the political folks are following, is based on modelling (essential educated guess work based on the best information available). At the height of the shut down the modelling said we were at 30% of normal social interaction levels. Then public health went through different modelling exercises for opening up different sections of the economy, to reach 40% interaction levels, 50% and 60%. From this, public health modelled out the number of cases that would emerge from each level of re-opening, and at what level the health care system could manage without being overwhelmed. With the current model, they've determined its about 60% of normal social interaction levels that we can manage, after that the virus replication rate goes above 1% (i.e. one person will infect up to one other person) to 1.1% and this becomes an exponential rate. Angela Merkel has a speech about 1 1/2 months ago about the same modelling done in Germany (it probably helps Germany, that she has a doctoral degree in chemistry). Here anyway, the economic opening is based on the modelling public health has done on viral spread. The model is continually updated, as new information is gleaned from managing and treating this virus. And these updates are shared at daily press conferences by the Provincial Health Officer and Minister of Health. Angela Merkle, addressing the nation explaining what individual citizens can do to help prevent spread: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/angela-merkel-nails-coronavirus-speech-unlike-trump.html Continually updating the science based modeling, and explaining these changes to the public, is about as much as I think we can expect of public health.

Question is why do you avoid hard facts? Your post #287 is baseless, has no facts or evidence provided. None. Step it up.

You really haven't paid attention to the news today. North Carolina, Florida, Texas (Houston) all have spikes and increased hospitalizations. For someone that really seems to want to know information, how are you missing all of this obvious information, it's almost hard to avoid finding out about it.

Seriously? How have you been able to avoid all the broad data available, in your searches for COVID information? It's an infodemic of both broad and specific information, just naming two, from John Hopkins and CDC, without naming all of the different State data (except Florida of course). Do you need help with science-based sources, so you can inform yourself?

I may need to start a new support group ... B.A. Belfies Anonymous

I may need to start a new support group ... B.A. Belfies Anonymous

I bet a mint copy of that mag would be a collector's item worth a few fucks ... err ... I mean bucks ... a few bucks

I bet a mint copy of that mag would be a collector's item worth a few fucks ... err ... I mean bucks ... a few bucks

This thread is nothing but junk ... thankfully

The thing I like about that ad, beyond its message, is that the 'porn stars' come across as just normal likeable people.