the assumption in my comment there is that the vast, vast majority of the willing are already vax'd or will be by the time we see things start to peak, thus it is only the unwilling (anti-vax) generally facing this additional exposure.

I think we are at 80% for the willing vax'd amongst those eligible and we are in a point of diminishing returns in terms of waiting to convert that last 20%.

A lot of people still haven't gotten second doses. There is still a consistent albeit small stream of first doses inching up. After the second dose it is still a number of weeks until peak immunity. That is to say, in no sense is the total immunity of Canada flatlined yet. So no, we should definitely still be trying to prevent the spread of Covid 19.

Well we can definitely agree to disagree on that.

Even in the US States that precaution deniers (pre vaccine) and who moved to a more Let it Rip status during the summer of 2020 you saw covid numbers soar but hospitalizations and deaths not pace anywhere near where they nd up being in Fall/Winter months.

Getting some burn through in summer with the natural immunity that follows would definitely be what i would be recommending right now in Canada if no vaccine was invented.

Right now we have about 80% of the eligible populace first vax'd and the second vax is being opened wide now that we have no constraints on supply. Anyone who wants to be second vax'd should be in the next 30 days or so.

So my view is that the Indian Variant will catch on and spread thru the unvax'd (and some vax'd) eventually. It is inevitable and it is far better to not have that align with Winter, especially since they are also predicting we may see a big Flu resurgence this winter.

Would you support something analogous to chickenpox parties, I.e. deliberately trying to spread COVID to other people when you are infected? The argument seems the same, that by increasing prevalence of COVID now, you reduce the peak you are worried about in the winter.

Once all the people who want the second vax have got their access then sure.

But we don't need parties as the unvax'd are attending all group function areas (restaurants, etc) just like they are vax'd and thus why the Indian variant has taken off like it has.

They are creating their own chickenpox parties.

We just saw it Rip thru the UK, peak, and it seems to now be rapidly dropping and the stress on the healthcare system was manageable. Had that same wave hit in the winter months what we have seen is that it would have been far worse in terms of hospitalizations and deaths.

I guess reductio ad absurdum isn't an effective argument to someone who embraces the absurdity.

Why do you think this? Isn't the UK almost certainly going to have at least somewhat higher vaccination rates in the winter months than they do now, which would mean if their fourth wave could have been magically delayed to winter it likely would have been smaller with fewer hospitalizations and deaths. You aren't wrong that winter is one factor that tends to increase R value due to increased indoor contacts, but it is one of many factors here and vaccines are the dominant one.

Didn't the UK just see a surge that is already dropping. Reality is I do not agree with what he did but if you only have one dose wear a mask and social distance. If your not vaccinated well that is your choice and sadly you will deal with the consequences. I get both your arguments and neither is as Uke says absurd

Right. The prevalence of vaccines wasn't large enough to prevent a massive spike in infections, but it was large enough that the spike burned itself out pretty quickly running through unvaccinated. Canada is definitely possible to have a similar thing happen (and might be happening right now, both BC and AB are posting huge week over week gains). However, the general principle should be we try to maintain good practices both culturally and policywise as we open up again, and hope to delay any possible spikes until our vaccination rates are even higher than they are now.

Keep in mind yesterday's announcement came from Dr Hinshaw not Jason Kenney. She could have said no way am I announcing this.
Though I do agree with you on the timing. Why not wait till the graph is going in the other direction

Ok I will put everyone else on notice that this thread will likely devolve now in to the normal type flame wars uke inevitably pushes for with me.

I can totally respect he may have a different GUESS and view here with out getting in to insults. He cannot do the same. With his next insult over opinion, I move also to the same with him.

Why i think it, is because in both waves so far you can see a correlation between Summer infection, hospitalizations and deaths being less severe than winter. The waves in summer had rose to scary levels and then tapered off at a peak without inflicting the same damage that similar numbers did in the winter.

So i think you will counter 'but we have the vaccine now' to which my reply is I am talking about how it will rip thru the unvax'd. If you are going to remain unvax'd and it is pretty much inevitable that you WILL get it, it appears to be much better to get in summer months than winter ones. Especially when they are predicting a potential tough flu season this winter.

That is my view. It is certainly a fair view of the RELATIVE risks of summer infection versus winter based on what we have seen in the prior two waves.

Check out the US States that resisted all CDC measures in the 2nd wave and who stayed open as their summer rates soared. They all had the same scary curves that we all just saw in the UK and it looked as if they were going to face a wave one NYC type travesty and yet the waves peaked and started to fall naturally in almost exactly the same way the UK one just did.

So while I think the vax obviously plays some role, i think so to obvious does temperate weather.

The main factor IMO (and this is just a guess) is that I think due to people being outside more, the exposure window when they catch covid tends to less severe, meaning they get a smaller dose, and thus have less severe infection. That is a working theory we have seen discussed by the health professionals as to why masks and distancing are good even when they do not prevent you getting infected. They may reduce the severity.

Again you are welcome to not agree with any of that, as it is all in areas of working theories now.


There is a concept to consider called 'diminishing returns'.

If there is a chance we can spend 3 months and move the vax rate from 80% to 90% then sure that needs to be considered to get that extra 10% better positioned to survive.

However if you spend 3 months to move the vax rate from 80% - 82% and position that 2% for better outcomes but now have 18% of the population exposed as the Indian Variant ramps up and that is enough to have another tough winter then waiting for that 2% might not be the right strategy.

Your guess is backwards. You are right that many things play some role, but the absolutely dominating difference between now and last winter is vaccines. It isn't close. Weather also isn't close to the second biggest factor either, which is all the policies about how open/closed society is etc.

Firstly, it was renamed the delta variant quite a while ago now. Secondly, this is admittedly transitory, but every week that goes by we are still making big strides in immunization, mostly in a lot of people who havn't had second doses yet, and then the sufficient window after second doses to build immunity, and a small trickle of increased first doses. So definitely we don't want a wave to hit us today. But the most important point is that the way the math on this works is related to the distance to the herd immunity tipping point which isn't known exactly but is somewhere in the 80s likely. Every percentage point away from it makes dramatic drops in the severity of subsequent peaks. So going from 78-80 is less of a difference from going from 80-82 or 82-84, as you inch closer to herd immunity the ability for massive spikes diminishes.

Perhaps one of the largest reasons to hope to delay the peak as long as possible is regarding children where the studies are not yet finished about whether we can immunize them, but if we can immunize 5-12 that would make a HUGE improvement in vaccination rates.

HODOR, basically.

Nope not backwards at all.

You need to step back to a time pre vaccines.

You then need to consider the States (Florida, Texas, etc) who largely ignored all measures and as other areas implemented measures to control the second wave, they largely refused.

We saw the same type of impending doom building wave that in the winter months lead to disaster building and just as with the UK wave this time, it just turned.

You say 'vaccines' are the clear reason it turned in the UK, (and i am sure they are significant factor there) but then what was the reason the curves in those States followed almost the exact same trajectory when they had no vaccines and were NOT taking any measures such as masking or distancing or closing gathering areas?


Anything that you could argue that bent the curve in those areas was not present. Temperate weather was the main thing.

And temperate weather being a significant factor in how sustained a spread becomes is not just my theory nor controversial, world wide we mostly saw that pattern play out with that being more the rule and with few exceptions.

Sure, the Indian Variant is more robust but that does not mean that temperate weather is now nothing.

Perhaps you just missed it. It has been renamed as the delta variant.

Can you provide some evidence for your theory that weather was the "main thing"? Like the third wave in the US peaked in January 7th. Your theory is that this is weather related?

I'm not disputing that seasonal weather patters affects, to a degree, behaviour that affects covid rates. But you are WAY overvaluing how important this is. Vaccinations >> Weather.

When i say that weather was the 'main thing that changed' I mean in that time frame nothing other than weather really changed.

It was the end of March 2020 in Vancouver as warm weather broke in when the first wave broke and new cases started to recede. All across Canada we saw the same pattern but slightly delayed as Spring starts later and their first waves started later than BC but still with nothing else really changing but the better weather we saw new cases plunging across Canada by mid May as Spring/summer started only to soar again as Fall and then Winter set in.

As the second wave started in Oct 2020 and cases again started to soar we saw very similar patterns.

And as we saw the same patterns in US states who took almost no measures,.

And one last time, as i understand that all these issues are still being studied and little is settled in this area but I think the main thing warmer weather does is allow for more distancing. More outdoor activity. Less concentrated breath (like you get indoors) and thus less severe covid infection even when someone gets it (smaller dose).

Dose science is not yet settled either but it seems to be a leading theory at this point that getting a more diffused first exposure tends to lead to milder disease.

wtf are you talking about. In March of 2020 was the very beginning of the pandemic and....a massive amount changed! We implemented extensive public health health measures that drove the pandemic down. It wasn't the weather, dude. That was a tertiary factor.


The 2nd wave peaked on Jan 3rd 2020 in Canada. That is the middle of winter. It would be many months before the weather dramaticaly changed....why do you think weather was the reason that wave peaked?

Again, I'm not disputing a seasonal effect. It exists. But public health measures and today vaccines are the dominating effects here.


What are you referring to here?

If you are not disputing this "...Again, I'm not disputing a seasonal effect. It exists...." then we do not really disagree at all other than over how much impact it has and that is still an unknown they are researching. You can search for 'scholarly articles' but again, you say you don't dispute it.

But you seem to be missing my point about.

You say 'yes but we have these known measures now, and that is why we can tamp it down', and I agree.

First wave started in Feb in BC and by end of March it was on its way out, with measures. YEs but WHY did it start in Feb/March.

Why around the World do Wave seems far more likely to start and be more severe in Fall/Winter.

Put aside we are better at tamping it out with measures (thus we turned the second wave by the end of Jan) as that is us being better at dealing with it and instead ask yourself why it flairs in that time frame MORE.

That is my point. If you know it has more of a propensity to flare more and be more severe than we do not want the 3rd wave in Canada to start in that time, even if you think we can tamp it out. Better for it to start in when the seasonal effect is less such that spread naturally does not take hold as much nor is typically more severe. Delta is much harder to tamp out so you want all factors in your corner including whatever help you get from seasonal effect, imo.

I love the Beaverton:

https://thebeaverton.com/2021/07/mee...****ing-idiot/

Request: can you please start a tipping argument.

edit: nevermind, unless you want to add the f-word to the URL, it won't work. Puritannical (is that a word?)!

Putting it more simply, the BC second wave was tamped down due to measures in March almost certainly as the main factor. But why is that here and around the world the 2nd wave all mostly take hold again in the fall/winter (Oct here and really bad by Nov)?

Nothing had really changed in BC since the April tamp down. We all went about life and it was the same in Oct when the second wave started again. Nothing had really changed but the seasons.

It certainly suggests (since we saw that same pattern mostly play out world wide) that the seasonality has a big impact on it becoming more transmissible and the severity of illness (those in hospital) seems to be worse. Again the theory on that is more indoor activities = higher dose exposure = more transmission and more severe illness.

So even if we have better measures (treatments, vaccines, etc) that will help bring it back under control there is no reason I can see to think you could still want the UK spread they just went thru to start corresponding with what tends to be the most transmissible and worst outbreak months of Winter.

If you have to go thru a new Delta wave those who go thru in the spring/summer months, will, imo, see the curves bend and better results across the line.

Why won't people be self-isolating when they have COVID?


Man this is quite the hot take. But I guess this is what happens to a person that doesn't know the difference between Newfoundland and New Brunswick after 18 months of fear mongering.

Alberta is ~5% below the national average. They are also in step with the 2nd dose average ahead of BC, PEI, Nfld and Quebec. Alberta also has 230k vaccine appointments booked over the next 2 weeks. Alberta is also the youngest province in Canada and all provinces are having a lower uptake in vaccinations with people younger than 35. If vaccines work then why should government continue to waste money and resources on people that refuse to get them when they are readily available? At some point enough is enough.

You know how I know this is all about politics and more power for you and you're team (socialist)? Not once when Alberta led the way easing restrictions did you say "I really hope this works because I want to go back to normal". You just reply with fear mongering claiming people are going to die.

Probably because they think covid is not a big issue since the start .

If people would self isolate being responsible , we wouldn’t of need laws and restriction applied in the first place .

There is definitely a lot of truth to this post by you.

There are people on both sides far more interested int he politics and fight. Conservatives who want to 'own the Libz' by saying F-U to all measures and vaccines, even it kills them knowing the absurdity of their positions is the FEATURE and not the bug of what rankles Libz.

On the other side you have liberals who go above and beyond even normal guidelines pushing measures and positions knowing it will own the right.

But that is normal as you always have extremists or activists on both sides more interested in the fight than any compromise.

We'd never know, because he'd just lie about it and fire anyone who didn't.

I tend to disagree, because preventing the spread is more or less impossible. As long as the health care system isn't in any danger of collapsing then covid-19 becomes just another in a long list of ailments that are dangerous, sure, contagious, definitely, but still very manageable.

Besides, does it really make that much difference if they 'enforce' an isolation over 'recommending' one? Maybe at the micro level it might, but not at the macro one.

idk about support, but I don't think this would work simply because most aren't willing. I tried to pay somebody to give me corona last year so I could take 2 weeks off work and had zero takers