I forget which comedian said that right now, Canada is like a really nice apartment over a meth lab.
Well, yes and no. It certainly has nice views and plenty of running water. But it is slow to modernize, the landlord is a sarcastic hoser and the heating is not dependable - too much in the summer, way too little in the winter.
But I love that quote.
A bonus. (Kathleen Madigan talking about why meth labs run by “rednecks” explode.)
Bummer.
This was also after testing was shutdown for 2 days in Ontario. Our counts were based strictly on backlogged tests.
Ford was on tv bragging about how they got rid of lineups for tests. Why they didn’t use a central registry of available testing slots is beyond me. You have to go to each site individually and check for openings if they even offer online bookings, call, or physically visit the site to make an appointment.
Any goodwill Dougie built up over the spring and summer is rapidly drying up.
Welcome to the Dope, timothysmith! Glad to have you here.
Everyone needs to accept this will not happen for a long time and may never happen. Plans need to be put in place for how to deal with this AND live our lives without a vaccine existing.
The majority of people dying are still. incredibly, old people in nursing homes. How this continues, I cannot imagine.
I am also becoming really, really frustrated with our country’s lack of a large scale, unified, advance contact tracing program. Infections are growing and the authorities still don’t really have a clear picture of where. That is a disgrace. The feds apparently have hundredss of billions of dollars to send checks to everyone, but it never occurred to them to go to the provinces and say “Let’s get fucking serious about the epidemiology. Let’s bring in experts from countries that have done this. Here is ten billion dollars, earmarked for this project, and here’s a few really competent people we’ve hired to make it happen. Let’s do this.”
In time, it will be understood that the Trudeau government and most of the provinces did a shit job. “Shut down” or “Don’t shut down” isn’t a solution. It’s not even exploring a solution.
Why do you think this is the case? I don’t pin all my hopes on a vaccine, but I think it’s likely that a gen 1 vaccine will be a great help and a gen 2 vaccine will be a solid defence. The virus doesn’t appear to be mutating like a seasonal flu.
Ontario was first onboard with the CT app. I installed on all of our phones the day of release. Why the other provinces took so long to come onboard is beyond me.
Yes it doesn’t tell you who/when/where but it would target testing to known exposures before they hopefully are infectious.
I am puzzled and confused as to how cities like Toronto can give up on traditional contract tracing because they are overwhelmed. Put every parks and rec or parking enforcement staff on it and get it done!
Because it’s the safe assumption. It would be foolish not to accept that vaccines take a very long time to make. It would be foolish to assume it isn’t possible that we may never come up with one - it’s never been done before, after all. Creating a working vaccine for a coronavirus is new territory.
But what would be even more foolish is to not have a plan for these eventualities and just hide until there is a vaccine. We don’t know there will ever be one and if there is doo not know when it will arrive. Until then, what’s the plan?
Then I guess we have a fundamental disagreement. This is the Manhattan Project and Moon Shot tied up in one - a massive, global program to create a vaccine that is having success. It may not be 100% perfect, but it is part of a plan.
If the vaccine route doesn’t work, then we have treatment and infection mitigation as our other tools. I’m not prepared for my mother, my wife, my kids, or me to just say “screw it” and see if Covid kills or causes lasting effects to one of us.
I don’t even understand this response; what are you talking about? Who suggested just giving up?
There is no vaccine, Fins. There is not going to be one anytime soon, and it is possible there never will be. So what’s the plan for that? What are we doing? You’re talking about “treatment and infection mitigation.” Cool. Does Canada have a plan? Where is it? Who’s working on it?
Since there won’t be a vaccine anytime soon, what’s the plan for dealing with it in the meantime? We will be really lucky to have one by this time next year; is there a long term plan ffor how to deal with this for another year? Hey, wait, why aren’t they individually contact tracing every single person who has a confirmed infection? Who’s doing THAT?
It’s the defeatist attitude that gets me Rick. I reiterate, I believe there will be vaccine contrary to your statement.
The problem with contact tracing is this: people with limited contacts are easy to trace and unlikely to contract the virus, people that are likely to contract the virus are hard to contact trace.
If I’m a cashier at Tim Horton’s or a stupid 20-something going to a house party, you will never manually contact trace everyone. Technology like the Covid app is the only answer here. The feds have a solution, and it’s been available for months. Ontario was in on day 1, I have no idea why the other provinces took so long to get on board.
We have largely solved the PPE shortage issue, so that is hopefully behind us.
Localized business closures like Toronto and Ottawa will be needed to add a firebreak between outbreaks.
We’ve ordered millions of rapid tests and doses of Remdisivir.
What are the feds and provinces NOT doing that you think they should be and that are working in other western democracies?
I’m a bit confused, RickJay. There are at this moment 11 vaccines in 3rd phase trials. 3 or 4 of those trials are well into the 3rd phase, and all of them had second phase results that were reasonably promising in terms of efficacy. (2nd phase is testing for safety and dosage, not efficacy. They’re too small to get a real handle on how much protection the vaccine might provide in the real world, but the researchers do look at subjects’ vaccine-generated immune response via blood tests and such because why wouldn’t they.)
I believe the 3rd phase results for the Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca vaccines are due out by early 2021, as are the results of 2 or 3 Chinese candidates, though China hasn’t been overly cooperative with the west in vaccine research. Why are you so sure none of these are going to be viable? Because we don’t have any vaccines for previously extant corona viruses? There’s perfectly good reasons for that. Most corona viruses cause the versions of the common cold, for which the cost/benefit analysis of a vaccine doesn’t merit any development work. A number of vaccines were under development for SARS, but the disease vanished before trials could be concluded. You can’t do phase 3 efficacy testing if your test subjects aren’t going to be exposed to the virus, so the prospective SARS vaccines were put on the shelf. MERS vaccines are in development, but haven’t made it all the way through trials because the disease is uncommon enough that the funding and other impetus aren’t there to speed things up.
There are vaccines for a variety corona viruses that infect domesticated animals, so it’s not like we have any reason to think vaccines for corona viruses are overly difficult.
I think it’s reasonable to expect vaccines with some reasonable level of efficacy within 6 months. Even a relatively limited efficacy level would be helpful in keeping outbreaks from ballooning in size, and possibly in decreasing the severity of cases. Obviously we should continue to develop therapeutic responses and such as well, and getting a really effective vaccine might well take a while, but I don’t see any reason to be quite so pessimistic as you seem to be.
I have long stated that vaccines are hard to make and are not a panacea. More effort has gone into finding a reliable and tested vaccine for Covid than any other virus. It won’t be broadly available before November but it will happen eventually.
But not everyone will get the vaccine. And wearing masks may well prove more important than a vaccine, since we cannot predict mutations well. Putting everything on hold until there is a vaccine overstates it’s efficacy. We must learn from this pandemic since future ones may be worse.
Government response to new pressures is never perfect. Both Trudeau and Ford have done better than expected. It is not easy to close borders or business. Our government has done pretty well - of course these things are never ideal. There were errors in reducing and maintaining the initial PPE supply; and over reliance on foreign governments in dismantling virus surveillance networks. Although non-medical masks aren’t perfect, they are cheap and easy and reduce transmission - this benefit was initially under recognized. It was necessary to spend money and it is possible this could have been better targeted. I’d say they started pretty well. They did a good job of educating the public. They did quite a mediocre job of balancing this with prudent reassurance and leading by example.
Contact tracing is a different issue. South Korea did it well. Canada has not, having “manpower shortages” despite widespread underemployment. It makes sense to write down the name of people eating inside restaurants or going to gyms. Electronic contact tracing might be ideal but has not seen wide enough uptake. This makes sense given the weakness and archaic nature of Canadian privacy law, the unexplained use of Covid databases by various authorities, the concern of Canadians about these issues and the general increase in nefarious actions during the pandemic. Perhaps only plastic should be accepted for payment - although tracing in this manner may also cause concerns.
You’re absolutely sure? Cool. When? Do you know when it’ll be ready? Because if you don’t, we do need to prepare for the period of time between now and then, right?
How long do you think it’ll be? A year? Two? You know that would actually be pretty fast, right?
There is no defeatist attitude here; I’m not convinced you know what that term means. A “defeatist attitude” would be saying “there is nothing we can do so let’s give up.” What I’m pointing out is the exact opposite of that; we should be doing MORE. The government isn’t really doing enough.
CREATING A VACCINE IS HARD, TOO, and you seem happy to just assume it’s right around the corner. Hard things are hard. We still need to do it.
The failure rate for drugs and vaccines in Phase III is 80-90 percent, and that’s under normal circumstances, which these are not. If one pans out, that’s great. We still need to plan for it not panning out. You wear your seatbelt, don’t you?
I’m not. No one knows. That’s why we need to be working towards any eventuality. Won’t we look really, really stupid if we assume a vaccine will save us, and there isn’t one at the end of 2021.
Well, ultimately either a vaccine (or miracle therapeutic option, but that seems unlikely) will save us, or we’ll continue to limp along trying to limit social contact until most people have had the disease and it will be like measles used to be - one of those diseases virtually everyone has had by the time they’re adults. There really aren’t any other options.
Our current strategy, trying to radically slow the spread of the disease via decreased social congregation, is really only viable for a relatively short while. Increasing the extent of the social isolation will decrease the amount of time before people say fuck it and stop following the rules. Given how many people already think the rules go way too far, I don’t think the government can do a whole lot more than it is. People want to gather in large groups. We’re social critters. Either the government tries to walk the line between encouraging protocols that are effective but not so onerous that people refuse to obey them and hope that a vaccine shows up before people are completely fed up, or they should bite the bullet and try to get to natural herd immunity in the most cost-effective way possible, which would probably involve building a bunch of auxiliary medical facilities and then letting covid run rampant and just accepting whatever mortality rate. That seems a stupid plan to me, at least at the moment, because if we just hang on for another year or so there’s pretty good odds that at least one of the 60 vaccine candidates already in human trials will pan out.
So yeah, I’m pretty much pinning my hopes on a vaccine, because I predict that if there isn’t one by next fall we’ll start seeing waves of infection that make last spring seem like a picnic due to people just not giving a fuck anymore. Maybe I’m the pessimist? I dunno.
Exactly. I’ve been saying this for a while: we’re social critters and need each other. We’re bred to join together, especially at various times: Mother Cat can give birth to kittens all by herself and Father Cat is long gone, but when a human female gives birth, there’s a father, new grandparents, sisters, brothers, and friends; all of whom want to greet the newborn. When it’s Rover’s time, we ask the vet to do the kind thing, and grieve alone; but when Grandmother dies, we call family and friends together for the funeral. Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter/Birthdays are times when families join together to celebrate. Telling humans to stay apart is like telling the tide to stay off King Canute’s feet: it’s not going to happen. We are instinctively social creatures.
That’s where the scientific view and the human view clash. Science tells us to stay away from each other, to wear masks, and not to gather in groups. The human view says that’s not sustainable. For example, two friends of mine hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for their family today: all 21 children and grandchildren. Was that safe? No. But was it Thanksgiving? Yes. Were my friends sick of masks, and “social distancing” and “limited numbers on groups”? Definitely yes. Why? Because they’re humans, not scientists, and they wanted to have a traditional family gathering like they had last year, and the year before and the year before. Like human instinct tells them to.
Governments mean well, but they have to strike a balance between science, and human nature and instinct. If governments go back to full lockdown based solely on science, with no allowance for human nature and instinct, I can see the people saying, “Screw you, government; we’re doing what we want.” Especially after nine months of this. Balance is necessary if we are to maintain order in society.
So what are YOU suggesting?
I want things to be better. Until September, things were pretty good for me personally, my wife, and kids.
My business hadn’t failed, my kids were holding up, and I was managing being isolated from my elderly parents.
4 weeks ago today my father died. A funeral with less than 20 people. No in-person support from the community who would have visited in that first, very hard week. An 82 year old widow who just wants to be hugged. Two siblings who have very different ideas of what’s safe causing a likely fatal crack in a family relationship.
I’m sick and tired of this too, but yes, it’s defeatist when you say “no vaccine, they aren’t doing enough”.
I ask you again, what should the government be doing that they are not that is working in other western democracies? Because they are suppporting the economy, getting PPE, working on a vaccine and other treatments, managing the health care system, encouraging distancing, and many other things.
Do they drop the ball occasionally, yes. Do I think they could have handled back to school better? Did the province screw the pooch on the current testing debacle? Do I think that my company could have done a better job rolling out a province wide app for finding an open testing slot instead of the mess they have? Yes to all.
To answer your question about the vaccine timeline, I fully expect needles in arms with a 1st generation vaccine by March for front line workers, followed by seniors. I’m in a vulnerable group and am guessing by June for me. I would hope that we are at the herd threshold by this time next year.
I have faith in what we are doing in Canada, and we will keep moving ahead to a return to normality but we can’t just wish it away.
I completely agree with RickJay and it’s not defeatist, it’s just realistic (or, it’s not magical thinking). This is not something predictable, and even though it may be likely (or not), there are no guarantees. If it was predictable then there would have been an effective AIDS vaccine 30 years ago, and there still isn’t one. It’s nothing like the moon shot or the Manhattan project; those were engineering challenges, albeit huge ones. This is a biological one.
I would even venture to say that those who are depending on a vaccine in the near future don’t want to make the necessary sacrifices for our species to continue in an as least damaging way as possible.
Bottom line - if biology cooperates and an effective vaccine is developed, and if the anti-maskers and antivaxxers cooperate and wear masks (until enough people are vaccinated and continue to get whatever boosters are required on schedule) and get vaccinated, then maybe we can return to normal.
However, if this takes more than a few years, during which downtown commercial real-estate craps out, then what? I personally believe that this is far more serious than a lot of people understand while at the same time the physical sacrifices (wearing a mask and distancing), though not really that difficult, are actually so, so fucking difficult for a large population of selfish assholes. I live in Quebec and this province has jack-shit to be proud of.
And regarding Gorsnak’s “there are at this moment 11 vaccines in 3rd phase trials.”, that’s meaningless until they are scientifically tested and proven. And when did RickJay say that he is “…so sure none of these are going to be viable…”? We, as a species, can’t be sure of anything about vaccines at this point. This is a significant crisis that we are experiencing and it is also being exacerbated by the deniers and mask-holes etc as well as the political crap going on south of us.