Why Calgary and the rest of Alberta should still be concerned that the global pandemic hasn't disappeared and is still a concern.
Posted Sep 14, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC
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There's a declining case fatality rate across all ages so while cases may go up, deaths may not necessarily rise with them. In fact, for ages 80 and up, the case mortality rate went from 29% in the beginning to 11% now. Quite a difference.
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Of course the case fatality ratio is declining. As testing capacity increases the Case Fatality Ratio will also decline. When you improve the ability to test more people the more cases you will find. If Alberta Precision Labs can triple or quadruple testing capacity with pooled testing we would continue to see the CFR decline as we start casting a wider testing net.
Alberta's Infection Fatality Ratio was around 0.3% to 0.4% by Mid May when the first serology study data came out. The estimate that by that time was 0.8% (36,000 cases) of the population may have been infected out of a population of about 4.4 million. The ratio of unconfirmed infections to confirmed cases was about 5:1.
Deaths shouldn't be the only concern. Emerging evidence appears to suggest that organ damage (especially with heart cells) could cause unwanted long term effects across the population even for those who had mild cases. We can hope that medication and medical advances in the future can help mitigate the increased risks for other health problems that may result from COVID19 infection.
-2†
Case fatality rate is the amount of people dying from a confirmed case. Finding more people with the disease through increased testing doesn't lower people's chances of dying who already have it.
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Yup. People seem to forget that doctors are smart and constantly learning. Someone with covid today receives different care than they would have in April because we know more. We better know what to expect and how to treat things. As a result the fatality rate has declined significantly.
But people just want to fear monger that everyone is doing to die. Wear your masks, maintain proper hygiene practices, distance as best you can and life will continue on. Between car accidents, crime, other disease, personal health, weight, etc there's a ton of ways people die every day. Right now we've managed to get covid contained such that yes it's still a concern and we need to be vigilant but it's not as scary as it was in the spring and has fallen to a small makeup of the natural cycle of life.
Calgary averages 20 deaths a day due to all combined causes and we've had 2 covid deaths in 2 months now ...
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Case Fatality Ratio (it really isn't a rate but we are talking about the same thing) is the total number of deaths divided by the total number of confirmed cases.
If I test exactly 1 person and they are positive and they become a fatality the CFR is 100%. 1/1 = 1. If I tested 10 people and all are positive and one of those cases dies then I have a 10% CFR (1/10=0.10). If I tested 100 people and 11 are positive and 1 of the confirmed cases dies I have a CFR of 9.1% 1/11 = 0.091.
Effectively as we increase testing capacity and cast a wider net (we have gone from 8-9k tests a day to 11-12k in recent weeks and the province is looking to substantially increase this) the more cases we will find (especially in the large asymptomatic population). The more we can increase the confirmed cases for every death the more the CFR will drop.
As I happened to point out previously the serology study for data in May suggested that we are only detecting 17% of the actual infected people (1 confirmed for every 5 who aren't. 1/(5+1)=~17%).
This is why the estimated Infection Fatality Rate aka IFR (total number of deaths from COVID divided by the total infected population whether confirmed or not) is substantially less than the CFR because we can only test (at present) a fraction of the entire population.
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So a virus without a cure continues to spread? Shocker. This isn’t unusual or unnatural. I don’t see why you feel compelled to fear monger. Ya we get, COVID still exists. The virus was also always going to advance, all the shutdown did was prolong the inevitable.
Fixed that for you.
[deleted]
Alberta does in fact have an excess of deaths from previous years. The excess in deaths covers all kinds of deaths. The increase is statistically significant so despite a lowering of deaths in some things (like the flu numbers and car accidents because more people staying home and following COVID19 protocols) and an increase in others (suicides; drug overdoses; deaths from inadequate access to health care; etc) there is an excess and it is assumed that since the excess is in a COVID19 year that they will be attributable to COVID19. This phenomenon of excess deaths is now being found to be the norm in most places that have been affected by COVID19.
One of the big problems in Alberta though is that we are also going through a multiyear economic downfall that peaked during COVID19 so Alberta may be an outlier because we were already seeing a general increase in drug ODs and suicide the past number of years so not all the excess deaths here will be COVID19 related.
I seriously doubt the shutdown saved any lives. And if it did, it likely only prolonged a few individuals lives by 1-2 years (based on average age of deceased from Covid vs life expectancy). Saying that shutting down “saved lives” is only a way for people to begin to attempt to justify the outrageously high costs to society of shutting down at all.
Saved some lives in exchange for others. The sad thing was there was no option that didn't cause the loss of life.
Ya just traded a bunch of 85 year olds for 30 year olds
No, secondary death a real thing. Covid induced stresses like increased substance abuse, IPV, child abuse, suicide, avoiding cancer treatments and hospital visits. Globally, they estimate almost half a billion people have been thrust into objective poverty as supply chains closed. So no, not 85 year olds for 30 year olds.
I think the shut down was to basically buy people time. Buy people in the hospitals time to treat patients, buy people time to order/get proper PPE, buy businesses time to install and ready for openings that would better fit the current situation, buy the experts time to better study and examine this virus, create a plan to help mitigate spread, and put regulations in place, etc.
Sure, this all could have been done without closing everything, but realistically, I don't think many people would have listened (especially when you think about the current back lashes about even just wearing masks and the like). Even when things were a little more relaxed (eg. you had to declare if you've travelled from outside Canada, self-quarantine on your own), I don't think many people took those things seriously. I think our society is selfish in many ways and if a government had mandated strict rules from the get go...I really don't know how the general population would have responded (unlike some other places we've seen in Asia, Europe, etc.)
I do agree that it's something we have to live with though. I think giving COVID any kind of wiggle room, we've seen it it just explode. For instance, countries that had a handle on their COVID cases are kinda seeing a rise again.
Any ways, I think because we haven't really had to deal with a pandemic of this magnitude, we're all sort of in it together and trying to figure shit out. Easy to look back in hindsight and think about what we should have/shouldn't done, but yeah, hindsight is 20/20. But yeah, like you're saying...it'll be around for awhile. Given how some of the past pandemics lasted a minimum of 2 years (and didn't hit globally), can't imagine this going any way for any time shorter than that.
Agreed and OP, I'm curious about your statement "hasn't disappeared". There is one way out - herd immunity. Which is achieved by vaccines or an obscene percentage of the population getting infected and millions dying.
Herd immunity won't guarantee this virus will be eradicated if it could be achieved either way. Considering we have a number of vaccine that are being accelerated; people are distrustful of government; people are distrustful of big pharma; and that the anti-vaxxers have been eroding public trust for years based on lies and information - there likely won't be herd immunity unless there is mandatory vaccination for all and the government enforces it on top of it being effective enough. I expect that mandatory vaccinations for all would eventually land at the feet of the Supreme Court as constitutional challenges.
The "hasn't disappeared" comment was originally a shout out to a recent thread of comments on another post that showed up on Reddit suggesting that we are no longer in a Pandemic and that somehow the rationalization was the death rate was under 7%. There are people out there downplaying the pandemic and wish to believe it doesn't exist.
Indeed I saw that thread trying to equate "no longer a pandemic" with infection rates. That was probably a posting related a particular redditor - I think "workmask" is his handle.
I went to great lengths to explain to him that Pandemic isn't related to numbers, but rather characters of the virus. COVID-19 is pandemic because it's unique characteristics. Drop one COVID person into a city of a million - and without mitigation behavior - it's spreads like wild fire. Whereas SARS and Ebola won't spread as widely because they are so acutely deadly, aren't contagious before symptoms, etc.
Anyway - he ignored my reply.
Wrt herd immunity. The issues you mention are endemic to the southern US. I hate to say - but there's seems to some "American" behavior in Calgary.
Nevertheless - Canada as a whole will respond to vaccines quite well. And we'll achieve herd immunity. The anti-vaxxers will be at risk, but that's a life (and death) choice.
https://ipolitics.ca/2020/05/26/anti-vaxxers-likely-wont-undermine-canadas-covid-19-herd-immunity/