Canadian COVID part-2

[pcmm]

Originally Posted by Montanan

Canadian COVID part-2

Hmmn, second verse, same as the first, . . .

2022, starting as if it will be 2020, too.

Wishing a happy and healthy New Year.

Yeah, let's discuss more about boating under the limitations of Covid and less about the virus, and avoid anything to do with PolyTicks [many blood sucking parasites].

Boating is largely a social distancing activity, except for the close proximity of those one has onboard.

So how many months is it until boating season starts in earnest at various Provinces of Canada?

Ground Hog Day is just a couple of days away, not that Spring is anywhere near here in The Last Best Place.

Montana boating season is late May, until early September, basically our Memorial Day weekend to our Labor Day weekend. The four seasons being June, July, August and Winter.

If I desire to sail in our winter I have to head far south, preferably to tropical climates.

All the best.

Dan

88 days and counting to launch at my club!!! We're Launching weekend of April 29 (assuming no further restrictions)

[N Coast Murray]

Salt water doesn't freeze here on BC's north coast, but fresh water floating on top near creeks in bays does...sometimes for weeks during the occasional -20C (-4F) cold snaps.

Therefore there is no boating season, just times of the year where weather windows get few, short, and far between with 8 hours of daylight, or frequent and long with 16 hours of daylight.

Anybody hear how isolated villages on the BC coast are planning to deal with Covid & boaters this spring? I did a quick check, but couldn't find anything.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Indeed, let's try and do this. For example, I'm starting to actively monitor the state of Covid restrictions in Newfoundland (where my boat is). The province recently downgraded to their Level 4 (out of 5, with 5 being the worst) Covid restrictions. However travel to the province is still possible.

Fully vaxxed folks from outside the region need to self-isolate for up to five days. They must perform a rapid test every one of those days. After two consecutive negative (no-Covid) tests, you can leave isolation, but must still complete the battery of tests.

So still kinda a pita, but better than being completely barred. And hopefully this will change for the better by late Spring, which is the earliest I can consider returning.

Mike, that means freedom beckons. Yes, a distasteful hoop to have to jump through, but how darned nice to be able to sail and cruise again. Fingers crossed for you guys.

Ann

[AiniA]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Indeed, let's try and do this. For example, I'm starting to actively monitor the state of Covid restrictions in Newfoundland (where my boat is). The province recently downgraded to their Level 4 (out of 5, with 5 being the worst) Covid restrictions. However travel to the province is still possible.

Fully vaxxed folks from outside the region need to self-isolate for up to five days. They must perform a rapid test every one of those days. After two consecutive negative (no-Covid) tests, you can leave isolation, but must still complete the battery of tests.

So still kinda a pita, but better than being completely barred. And hopefully this will change for the better by late Spring, which is the earliest I can consider returning.

I was in touch with the NL tourism folks and should get a mailing this week from them. I wonder if they will include COVID information.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Mike, that means freedom beckons. Yes, a distasteful hoop to have to jump through, but how darned nice to be able to sail and cruise again. Fingers crossed for you guys.

Thanks Ann. Yes, it's starting to feel like it might happen this year. Of course, given that our winter cover completely disintegrated a month ago, I fear for what we're coming back to. But anything will better than this purgatory or limbo we've been going through.

Originally Posted by AiniA

I was in touch with the NL tourism folks and should get a mailing this week from them. I wonder if they will include COVID information.

I'd love to hear what they tell you. When were you planning to head off to The Rock? And where are you headed? Maybe there's a meet-up possibility. And of course, if there is anything I can do to assist, I'm always happy to do what I can.

[Mike OReilly]

CBC: Quebec scraps planned tax on the unvaccinated

Quebec Premier François Legault has scrapped his proposed tax on the unvaccinated, sources tell CBC and Radio-Canada.

Meanwhile...

Ottawa Citizen: Trucker convoy: Shutdown continues for fifth day; Shepherds of Good Hope overwhelmed by donations

For the fifth day, much of Ottawa’s downtown core remained off limits as the protest by truckers and others opposed to COVID-19 vaccines mandates and a wide variety of other causes began to look more and more like an occupation.

[pcmm]

Unfortunately a bit more doom and gloom from Ontario's Science table

https://www.cp24.com/news/new-modell...rios-1.5762494

Now that things are opening up, they predict that hospitalizations will increase . Honestly I'm fully vaccinated, been cooped up for 2+ years now...Time to start living again and living with the risk. We need to stop trying to "beat" covid and start developing strategies to live with it and put money into hospitals to give them the resources to cope.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by pcmm

Unfortunately a bit more doom and gloom from Ontario's Science table

https://www.cp24.com/news/new-modell...rios-1.5762494

Now that things are opening up, they predict that hospitalizations will increase . Honestly I'm fully vaccinated, been cooped up for 2+ years now...Time to start living again and living with the risk. We need to stop trying to "beat" covid and start developing strategies to live with it and put money into hospitals to give them the resources to cope.

We had this conversation last night. One of the problems we as a society have is that we have been moving towards a "any death is preventable—and should be prevented" model for several decades. Which is reasonable up to a point. But where that point is, is a matter of great contention and very viewpoint oriented and I believe Covid is going to be a watershed moment for how we treat risk.

Many advocacy groups for elderly, disabled etc. are not going to accept us as society saying that we are willing to accept the higher risk on their behalf and they will continue to fight for restrictions or vaccine mandates or whatever they think will lessen the risk—and they should. That's their job. But the general populace are going to be forced to push back and start saying, out loud, that which is generally ignored or at least kept as our dirty little secret. How much risk it too much? What level of death/serious illness is acceptable. And to whom?

It is also important to note that many of the most at risk are also the most inconvenienced by all the measures, My mom (jokingly...mostly) never fails to remind me that any one of my not-so-regular phone calls could be the last one. Two years really is an eternity if you look at it from that perspective.

I have no predictions, but I would remind all of us that we, who blather about on the internet are not the voice of the people and, as far as I can tell, don't really reflect the general consensus of the majority. We are just the loud ones.

But I agree. It's time to start moving towards...something...

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by pcmm
Time to start living again and living with the risk. We need to stop trying to "beat" covid and start developing strategies to live with it and put money into hospitals to give them the resources to cope.

I don't think anyone would disagree with this sentiment. But the devil is in the details. What level of risk are we willing to accept? And who will bear this risk? How much more money should be put into our healthcare systems? How much more are people willing to pay? And indeed, who will pay?

This is the societal discussion we're having. We have no choice but to "live with it." But what do the details look like? I don't think we have an answer to these questions yet.

[danstanford]

There are 2 essential elements to measuring risk, likelihood of occurrence and severity of impact. impactful events that are likely to occur deserve much more of our attention than catastrophic events that are unlikely to occur.

Though there are those who disagree with me, I believe we do a reasonable job measuring these risks in a normal environment. We fly in airplanes, we drive on freeways, we eat bad food, all things which could lead to death for us. What is making the environment different in the case of Covid is the way we are receiving the information on the two elements noted above.

To analogize our current state to some risk we have managed, I think we would need the news every day to be full of photographs of highway accident fatalities and tons of commentary on how many accidents there are every day on the 400 series highways.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by danstanford

There are 2 essential elements to measuring risk, likelihood of occurrence and severity of impact. impactful events that are likely to occur deserve much more of our attention than catastrophic events that are unlikely to occur.

Though there are those who disagree with me, I believe we do a reasonable job measuring these risks in a normal environment. We fly in airplanes, we drive on freeways, we eat bad food, all things which could lead to death for us. What is making the environment different in the case of Covid is the way we are receiving the information on the two elements noted above.

To analogize our current state to some risk we have managed, I think we would need the news every day to be full of photographs of highway accident fatalities and tons of commentary on how many accidents there are every day on the 400 series highways.

At the risk of taking this way off topic I think you forget that most people don't analyze risk—they accept it. We drive on a freeway because it is what we know and what we were taught. I remember reading a lot of comments from people who were anti-car back in the day. It takes time for risk to become broadly acceptable.

What is different about Covid is it came out of nowhere (to the general populace) and policy has been made and remade on the fly ever since. To correct your analogy it would be as if self-driving cars became mainstream overnight and the accident and death stats were suddenly followed by everyone who has to go out to buy milk.

But to bring this back to boating, I will need to get to my boat in BC in May. Normally I would have plane tickets already bought on some seat sale. I would fly into YVR and then hop a seaplane to Nanaimo. But what are the risk levels? Should I sacrifice a couple of days on each end and drive? Should I fly into Nanaimo and risk a 40 minute cab ride to avoid flying in a small plane? Should we just say f' it and treat it like a normal trip. So many options each based on too little certainty and too much speculation.

All I know now is I will likely hold off deciding until the very last minute, and if we do fly, take the hit that last minute tickets will cost.

[N Coast Murray]

Influenza deaths were background noise in the past because they didn't negatively impact the rest of the healthcare system. There were seasons impacts, but it didn't overburden the whole system all the time.

The question now is, what will be the additional burden with Covid-19 in the mix, and how will our healthcare system adjust so that diagnostic tests and surgeries don't get cancelled because beds are occupied by Covid patients?

ICU staff have been shouldering the burden so far, as have people who's health is being compromised because their surgeries and tests keep getting cancelled.

Hard to say right now what adjustments will be needed because we're early in the game and Covid is fluctuating wildly. Hard to plan long term when the ground rules keep shifting.

It could be that Covid related deaths will settle out and be the same or double what Influenza deaths would be, then we will have to increase our health care systems capacity by that amount.

[pcmm]

I think there are 2 primary things the govt can do.

1. at the federal level, actually pay their fair share of healthcare costs. My understanding (and this information is now 6 years old) but when I was in the healthcare industry there constant complaint was Ottawa paid as little as 23% of the costs (originally meant to, in spirit be 50/50) yet holds control.

2. Maybe spend less $ on paying people to stay home and divert that $ to actually improving healthcare. Updating and expanding facilities, etc. This takes time but we're 2 years in and I don't think we've had drastic improvements on healthcare (SNC lavalain field hospitals aside)

[danstanford]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

At the risk of taking this way off topic I think you forget that most people don't analyze risk—they accept it.

I don't believe this. While we may not use conscious risk assessment tools, we all learn throughout our lives how to analyze risk. We let our kids play in our back yard largely unsupervised but not in the front yard where the street is.

If you prefer sailing examples, we are much more likely to be ready to reef or drop sails when we see nasty black clouds coming that we are on a sunny day with clear skies no matter what the forecast is. If we are going to be far from shore we may decide not to go out at all when the forecast is bad.

[Mike OReilly]

I agree with you Dan, (R)isk is proportional (∝) to (I)mpact of said risk, factored by the (L)ikelihood of the event happening. The problem with Covid-19 is that we don't yet fully understand either of them. And further, the R is not shared evenly across the demographic or age spectrum. There are some who bear much greater levels of I and L than most of us here.

Don't get me wrong; we know a whole lot more about this virus that we did two years ago when it all started. But clearly we don't know everything yet. So it's hard to make a rational risk assessment.

Even assuming we knew with great certainty the real risk, we still need to develop a societal acceptance of that risk, and further agree it is OK for some to bear much higher risks than others.

This process of acceptance tends to happen pretty organically, with most constant risks. We accept a certain level of death and destruction on our highways, and a certain mortality and morbidity from influenza. But these evolved over long periods. This was, and still is, a novel virus. It will take time ... a lot more than just two years.