Johnbisonbear said
"so yes it was personal.
How do I feel about covid numbers going down and also the hospitalizations? I see testing being done on the health care workers that are unvaccinated. There has been some positive tests, totally understandable. But the HCW who are vaccinated (some with three shots now) should also undergo regular testing, IMHO. Since vaccinated people can still carry/spread the virus it only makes sense to test ALL that work at the hospitals. We'll never eradicate covid, never. You can say that DV have a lower viral load but I believe that a person can spread covid to another person who in turn might die because of the virus. It all depends on their immune system. Kind of like cancer, some can stage a good fight, others cannot.
I see Ontario and Quebec have backed off on the HCW who won't get the shot. Both premiers know how essential these workers are to keep patients/clients cared for.
Will our hospitalizations and ICU cases go down if 100% are vaccinated? I don't know, I don't have a crystal ball. I know in other countries in the world covid cases have skyrocketed. Over in Ireland some counties have high vaccination rates. One place has 99.7% VR but they are slammed right now and possibly heading into another lockdown.
Anyway, that's my thoughts. I do spend a lot of time reading/thinking about covid, probably way too much time.
"I trust that the average person reading can see all of the uses of words like “some” and “can” for what they are. Nobody in public health is going to make decisions without looking at numbers for just how many “some” is or just how high the likelyhood that something “can” do something and nobody is going to take an argument seriously that’s propped up in that way. The way you’re using them is how people that have a losing argument try to keep moving the football down the field without confronting the facts.
Re the question I asked about if the unvaccinated were vaccinated, it goes something like this. From https://covid19tracker.ca/provincevac.html?p=MB …
Total Manitobans fully vaccinated: 1,005,742 (72.7% of the population)
Using the percents, that means that there would be 298,697 without a single shot (21.6% of the population)
Using the percents, that means that there would be 79,317 with just one shot (5.7%)
In all of this, take into account that from MB population data 7.4% of the population are kids under 12 that as of now aren’t eligible for the vaccine.
Based on case and vaccine info from provincial data that means that the numbers are:
ACTIVE CASES
Unvaccinated: 820
Partially vaccinated: 81
Fully vaccinated: 430
(assume plus or minus one or two cases in active case data based on rounding, doesn't affect conclusions in this wide of data... AB, SK, ON data points in the same direction)
ACTIVE HOSPITALIZATIONS
Unvaccinated: 53
Partially vaccinated: 5
Fully vaccinated: 20
ACTIVE ICU PATIENTS
Unvaccinated: 16
Partially vaccinated: 0
Fully vaccinated: 1
You can look at that 820 cases, 53 hospitalizations and 16 in ICU and get a pretty strong impression for what it means when numbers that high come from just 21.6% of the population but let’s drill deeper and apply the percentages such that the unvaccinated are vaccinated and make the reasonable assumption that the same percentages apply.
Doing that you come up with these numbers for a hypothetical fully vaccinated Manitoba:
ACTIVE CASES
592 in stead of 1345
ACTIVE HOSPITALIZATIONS
28 in stead of 78
ACTIVE ICU PATIENTS
2 in stead of 17
(Harder to calculate when there’s only 1 fully vaccinated Covid case in all of Manitoba in ICU, but I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and say that it would be 2)
Would be quite the unbelievable difference and in reality it would be smaller still when you remove the extra unnecessary cases in the unvaccinated from circulation, but I’ll stick with what can be more objectively calculated.
Not unreasonable to say that we would be able to have a reduction in restrictions much sooner if we got closer to that 100%. Of course we’ll never get to 100, but there’s a point where we would be close enough that we can move along with that very small percent of folks that have a valid medical exemption, being respectful of their reasons and why a medical professional has deemed them to have one.
Do also have to take into account what case rates would look like without masking and other measures in place to limit spread. I think Alberta and Sask gave us a pretty decent look at where it would trend until they pulled their socks up. As much as it would seem Manitoba flipped the switch on restrictions a little early in August, I consider us quite fortunate to have seen where things were headed and reversed course to avoid what this can further blow up into before vax rates are where they need to be.
When looking at Manitoba-wide numbers, do have to take into account the Southern Health factor… especially regions with lower vax rates and higher ignorance to public health measures where the virus will be in higher circulation. Have to ask what the numbers would look like just for Prairie Mountain Health with our vax and case rates.
But again it all comes down to the fact that if someone working in the medical system can't see the obvious difference in case prevalance and hospitalizations in the unvaccinated to the point where they refuse vaccination or even testing, they are as Dr Henry would say in the wrong profession.
Covid is a complex topic that epidemiological and medical experts are making decisions on daily as they try to manage case loads and walk a delicate tight rope between restrictions and openness. Given your way of posting that cherry picks only part of the picture, if you’re going to try to contradict what experts more qualified than I or you are advising in order to keep us safe it’s hard to trust the info you post without being able to factually verify. You need to be specific with facts. “Other countries in the world” or “some counties” should be replaced with a reference to a specific places. “Skyrocketed” should be replaced with specifics on the vaccine and case rates of those specific places (links are best) and where they’re at as far as restrictions versus opening up. Black or white thinking needs to be replaced with accepting that moving on from Covid is not in anybody’s mind getting to 100% perfection, but that there’s a point where the percentages are enough in favour to take the next step towards a new normal. We all want to get to that same place, some just don’t realize that they’re slowing down the process of us getting there.