COVID-19 Manitoba

[Festivus]

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/corona...able-1.4853805

Federal cabinet meeting today to discuss further steps, will consider closing border completely as well as instituting mandatory isolation for returning travellers, etc.

[pappcam]

Originally Posted by Festivus

Hoboken, NJ is being hit hard, and the mayor has instituted a mandatory curfew, people can't go out between 10pm and 5am unless they have to work. All restaurants and bars are barred from serving food.

So far AB, SK, and MB do not seem to be taking this as seriously as it needs to be taken. Schools are still open in AB and SK, etc.

Says the anonymous internet infectious disease expert?

Hoboken NJ has one confirmed case which I guess you consider "hit hard". I assume the curfew is more crime related as they don't wanna waste resources in that area of society at this time.

[cllew]

Bars and restaurants in Illinois to close on Monday for dine in service.

[Gravity Wins]

I live in Montreal and today they closed all bars, pools, and gyms. Yesterday it was museums, libraries, etc. Restaurants are still open but advised to keep capacity at 50% so people can social distance from each other.


Similar measures coming to Winnipeg soon I am sure.

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by Luisito

From zero cases detected on thursday wer are now up to 7 in Manitoba.

Most of these are people that had been travelling, mainly through Asia.

I know some people are not taking this seriously but just think of the elderly, babies and people with weak immune systems. They can die. In the case of Italy it is a real disaster. PLease be considerate and take of yourself and those around you. Take the government advice seriously, PLEASE!

No one under the age of 9 has died from this. Babies seem to be fine. It’s the elderly and anyone with underlying medical conditions that need to worry. At the end of the day no one really knows how deadly it actually is. In South Korea where there is extensive testing they’re a seeing 0.6% rate. In Italy in excess of 5. There is likely a large number of people who have the virus and have spread it with no symptoms whatsoever.

[dam_well]

Originally Posted by cheswick

No one under the age of 9 has died from this. Babies seem to be fine. It’s the elderly and anyone with underlying medical conditions that need to worry. At the end of the day no one really knows how deadly it actually is. In South Korea where there is extensive testing they’re a seeing 0.6% rate. In Italy in excess of 5. There is likely a large number of people who have the virus and have spread it with no symptoms whatsoever.

Probably still worth taking extra steps to keep babies safe, they can be more vulnerable than your average adult.

My bio prof mentioned the current thinking is that the death rate is about 2.4% (about twice that of the flu) but we really have no idea at this point with such little data.

For those who aren't interested in taking this seriously for the sake of others, I'll add a more selfish reason to the mix. Even though the virus isn't especially dangerous on it's own to most adults, it is insanely transmisible (and can be transmitted before symptoms are detectable). If the general pubic isn't careful, the hospitals will be massively overwhelmed and then it will start to be dangerous for everyone. The current estimate that I heard is that about 70% of the population will get infected but if we can spread that out over a long period of time, the hospitals will be able to cope and we won't end up with a scary triage system like what Italy is experiencing right now.

Stay safe everyone!

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Elderly is about 15% I heard today. They should isolate immediately.

[Danny D Oh]

Manitoba might be the only place in the world delaying school closures by a week. Looks like most of the rest of Canada beyond Sask and Alberta are closing immediately. Minnesota closes on Wednesday.

I assume schools will be running with very few students showing up this week anyway, but can't find many examples where a closure was announced with a planned delay.

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Universities are closed tomorrow, all classes online for now moving forward. Not sure why regular schools aren't yet.


I think Alberta just jumped in. Quite the moving story we've got going here. Should be an interesting next few weeks and months.

Yep, I just said months.

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Superstore St. James St. today

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by Danny D Oh

Manitoba might be the only place in the world delaying school closures by a week. Looks like most of the rest of Canada beyond Sask and Alberta are closing immediately. Minnesota closes on Wednesday.

I assume schools will be running with very few students showing up this week anyway, but can't find many examples where a closure was announced with a planned delay.

Ontario had its first case in late January. Manitoba is over a month behind their curve if you will. There are conflicting opinions of experts. Some saying these types of closures are useless. Alberta saying if they close schools it’ll have to be until September to be of any use.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by cheswick

Ontario had its first case in late January. Manitoba is over a month behind their curve if you will. There are conflicting opinions of experts. Some saying these types of closures are useless. Alberta saying if they close schools it’ll have to be until September to be of any use.

Depends on the desired outcome. We can have a relatively quick but severe outbreak, or we can "flatten the curve" and extend it out with people being exposed gradually but allow the healthcare system to face manageable demand.

School closures once there is suspected community spread absolutely need to happen either way. I guess how they are timed might help determine how long the closures are. Yeah we might lose 3 months of school. We also might save dozens of otherwise preventable deaths. I mean the direction from Public Health is no public gatherings of 250. How many schools in the province have enrollment less than that? You have schools built for 900 students with 1100-1200 in them. I went to high school in one of them 20 years ago, we were packed like sardines. Our class changes looked like those pictures from the airports last night.

I work in mental health, am a union rep and I've been in a lot of meetings the past couple weeks with medical/clinical people, data people, clueless people and a few people who have clinical brains but also understand data. The latter are the people I trust the most, they have the best balance. The pure data people have little connection to real-life, they get the issue but are a bit cold and always underestimate the human costs. The clinical people are always in a state of panic away from patients/clients due to the stress on our system running at about 110% of capacity at the best of times, they can't think long-term. In our first meetings the balanced people felt that once the community spread was confirmed in BC we were a few weeks from a mass quarantine. I think they were right and I think we're there today. But I'm still at work as normal tomorrow, operations are normal and we'll see if we move people back to their homes and maybe get pulled into other areas of the health system to help out.

[bomberguy]

I don't want to go to work tmrw. But I have no more sick days left. sighh

[Festivus]

Originally Posted by dam_well

Probably still worth taking extra steps to keep babies safe, they can be more vulnerable than your average adult.

My bio prof mentioned the current thinking is that the death rate is about 2.4% (about twice that of the flu) but we really have no idea at this point with such little data.

Just FYI, 2.4% mortality rate would be about 24x that of the seasonal flu (which is 0.1% in a normal year). It seems COVID-19 is probably somewhere between 0.5% and 2%, likely on the low end when you take into account the asymptomatic cases that aren't being tested for in most countries (but are in South Korea).

Also, I wonder if we are going to see some sort of emergency national universal basic income rolled out (through EI system perhaps) to combat the closing down of entire industries.

[vid]

NWO's first case so far is in Fort Frances, involving an individual who returned from the US via Winnipeg Airport.

How crowded are Manitoba hospitals? Thunder Bay's hospital operates at about 110% capacity during quiet periods (peaks to 140% during flu season), if this is 24 times worse, that means it'll be at 830% capacity. I feel like that's not a thing it can be?

If only 2.5% of cases even require hospitalization, and only half of Thunder Bay gets it, that's 1,800 people in a hospital with 375 beds, and it is the only hospital within a 115 km radius. (The other facility called a hospital here is actually a long-term care and rehabilitation facility which is also about 110% over capacity.)

[Gravity Wins]

Originally Posted by vid

How crowded are Manitoba hospitals? Thunder Bay's hospital operates at about 110% capacity during quiet periods (peaks to 140% during flu season), if this is 24 times worse, that means it'll be at 830% capacity. I feel like that's not a thing it can be?

There are reports that Italy is not accepting anyone over 80 into hospitals, because they no longer have capacity. So they're prioritizing treatment for those with higher rates of survival. That's why their fatalities are skyrocketing.

Meanwhile in BC, they've made a call looking for retired doctors who will come back and help through the crisis. Completely unprecedented in Canada's modern history.... So yes, a shortage of doctors and hospital beds is by far the biggest problem we'll be faced with if things escalate too far.

Canadians all need to do our part. Avoid crowds and inform others to take it seriously, to help us avoid this tragedy.

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by vid

NWO's first case so far is in Fort Frances, involving an individual who returned from the US via Winnipeg Airport.

How crowded are Manitoba hospitals? Thunder Bay's hospital operates at about 110% capacity during quiet periods (peaks to 140% during flu season), if this is 24 times worse, that means it'll be at 830% capacity. I feel like that's not a thing it can be?

If only 2.5% of cases even require hospitalization, and only half of Thunder Bay gets it, that's 1,800 people in a hospital with 375 beds, and it is the only hospital within a 115 km radius. (The other facility called a hospital here is actually a long-term care and rehabilitation facility which is also about 110% over capacity.)

Exactly why strict screening should have started at major Canadian airports weeks ago along with travel bans!

Not saying COVID-19 isn’t going to spread here but it needs to be minimized every way possible or we’ll end up doing what they are doing in Italy, deciding who to save or let die as ventilators needed eclipse the actual number available. So in other words someone 74 gets a ventilator and the person 75 doesn’t, exactly what is happening in Italy right now,

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

Exactly why strict screening should have started at major Canadian airports weeks ago along with travel bans!

Not saying COVID-19 isn’t going to spread here but it needs to be minimized every way possible or we’ll end up doing what they are doing in Italy, deciding who to save or let die as ventilators needed eclipse the actual number available. So in other words someone 74 gets a ventilator and the person 75 doesn’t, exactly what is happening in Italy right now,

Seems like you want to be Prime Minister. Hmm?

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by OTA in Winnipeg

Seems like you want to be Prime Minister. Hmm?

Well I’m a lot smarter than our current Prime Minister, not as nice hair though!

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by Danny D Oh

Depends on the desired outcome. We can have a relatively quick but severe outbreak, or we can "flatten the curve" and extend it out with people being exposed gradually but allow the healthcare system to face manageable demand.

School closures once there is suspected community spread absolutely need to happen either way. I guess how they are timed might help determine how long the closures are. Yeah we might lose 3 months of school. We also might save dozens of otherwise preventable deaths. I mean the direction from Public Health is no public gatherings of 250. How many schools in the province have enrollment less than that? You have schools built for 900 students with 1100-1200 in them. I went to high school in one of them 20 years ago, we were packed like sardines. Our class changes looked like those pictures from the airports last night.

I work in mental health, am a union rep and I've been in a lot of meetings the past couple weeks with medical/clinical people, data people, clueless people and a few people who have clinical brains but also understand data. The latter are the people I trust the most, they have the best balance. The pure data people have little connection to real-life, they get the issue but are a bit cold and always underestimate the human costs. The clinical people are always in a state of panic away from patients/clients due to the stress on our system running at about 110% of capacity at the best of times, they can't think long-term. In our first meetings the balanced people felt that once the community spread was confirmed in BC we were a few weeks from a mass quarantine. I think they were right and I think we're there today. But I'm still at work as normal tomorrow, operations are normal and we'll see if we move people back to their homes and maybe get pulled into other areas of the health system to help out.

I hear ya. The economic fallout of the attempt to "flatten" will be tremendous though. Just going out on the weekend you could already see it in Winnipeg and that's before any known community spread. Ghost towns everywhere. Places are shutting down across the continent. No one spending money. Supply chain issues arising from mass closures in China. Schools closing forcing some people to stay home, not working / contributing to the economy. The markets are going to be down another double digit % today and this is far from the bottom imo.