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Surrealplaces said:
Question regarding the truckers protest. I’m reading that the US is not allowing Canadians to enter the US unless they are fully vaccinated. If this is the case, it the protest seems like moot point no?
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I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I heard somewhere that the Canadian government lobbied the Americans to introduce a vaccine requirement at the border to correspond to the Canadian one.

Personally vaccine mandates at the American border seem pretty useless. It's not like it's going to make any kind of real difference in the case counts in either country. Really seems more like an excuse to punish the unvaccinated than actually public health policy.
 
It's funny, Jason Kenney was down in Washington DC this weekend attending the National Governors Association meeting supporting the truckers and urging the US to drop their mandate. However, most of these Albertan protesters were wondering why he wasn't in Ottawa at the protest while simultaneously hating on him. I understand they want an end to vaccine passports altogether (and there will likely be an announcement for that very soon), but it seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot.
 
YourBoy007 said:
there will likely be an announcement for that very soon
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I suspect they will announce thresholds to do so.

Whether we ever reach those thresholds is another matter. Omicron may become both endemic, but due to its characteristics, that endemic nature may be more like continual high baseline with peaks when it reaches unvaccinated pockets, not near extirpation, at least on a seasonal basis.
 
Or a logical next step, mirroring what we are seeing in European countries that were 3-4 weeks ahead of us in omicron progression.

Now that omicron has ripped through society (without overwhelming ICUs - as expected) acting as a pseudo-vaccine for those that didn't get the jab, we are in a good position to transition to the endemic phase of this virus. The vaccine passports were useful to maximize vaccine uptake, but they certainly should be in place indefinitely.
 
If the crazies are coincidentally right somehow and the pandemic does end it will bring forth a very bad political climate in this country. You don't want the far right to be empowered like that.
 
artvandelay said:
Or a logical next step, mirroring what we are seeing in European countries that were 3-4 weeks ahead of us in omicron progression.

Now that omicron has ripped through society (without overwhelming ICUs - as expected) acting as a pseudo-vaccine for those that didn't get the jab, we are in a good position to transition to the endemic phase of this virus. The vaccine passports were useful to maximize vaccine uptake, but they certainly should be in place indefinitely.
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I disagree with it as a policy, I'm not going to hide that. I'm immunocompromised, and it's been startling to see how many people do not care if I live or die as long as they don't have to suffer even the slightest inconvenience. But even if it was the best policy in the world, the government should have the spine to not negotiate with extremists.

Is Alberta governed by a democratically elected legislative body, or is it governed by the 50 angriest people who own trucks?
 
Downward trend continues. Not sure what's causing the downward trend to be so sharp, seeing as we really haven't had any restrictions to speak of. One theory I have is that a large number of people have picked up covid and/or symptoms and are isolating. Another large group of people have had no symptoms, and haven't tested positive, but because they are living with someone who has, they too are have been isolating. A number of people without any testing or symptoms have been separated from the large number of people isolating. The spread was so rapid that that the large numbers of isolations may have actually helped it slow down rapidly. I wonder if it's now going to slow down to a crawl, or cool down and ramp up again in a couple of months.

1644010673763.png
 
I'm worried our new baseline will be high.
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In which case we will be waiting for the omicron vaccine to get back close to that nice November equilibrium where I think many would agree things were looking up!
 
I'm suspecting it's probably just run out of steam. Probably 1/3 - 1/2 of literally all the people I know caught COVID within the last month. I think this is why I'm largely fed up with the mandates. I mean what good did they really accomplish? You can't really blame the unvaccinated anymore. In fact, ironically, of all the people I know who got covid this month, virtually none of them were anti-vaxxers.

Regardless of how people feel about the protests (which btw I've never seen something treated so unfairly by politicians or the media) it's time to start re-evaluating our response to the pandemic. With anti-viral medicine now approved in Canada, high vaccine (and natural) protection as well as the unstoppable and milder omicron variant among us, it's time to move towards treating this as endemic.

Will people die? Yes. Will more die than the flu? Probably.

Can we realistically do anything new to save lives besides endless lockdowns and restricting people's freedoms indefinitely? Probably not.

It's time to move on.
 
Urban Outdoorsman said:
I'm suspecting it's probably just run out of steam. Probably 1/3 - 1/2 of literally all the people I know caught COVID within the last month. I think this is why I'm largely fed up with the mandates. I mean what good did they really accomplish? You can't really blame the unvaccinated anymore. In fact, ironically, of all the people I know who got covid this month, virtually none of them were anti-vaxxers.
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It's possible as many as a third of Calgarians have already had covid, or maybe even as many as half the population, but that's still only half. Still potential for a lot more people to die or get sick from it, so I wouldn't say that it's run out of steam yet.
As for blaming the anti-vaxxers, I agree we can't necessarily blame them for the spread of it at this point, but they can be blamed for putting health care in the state it's in. Also just because the people you know who caught it were vaccinated doesn't reflect the actual numbers.
The rate of people catching omicron is slightly higher for unvaccinated compared to vaccinated. We already knew the vaccine wasn't going to stop people from catching it, it is supposed to help keep people from being hospitalized or dying, and that has been the case. The unvaccinated have a much higher rate of hospitalizations, and and even higher rate of deaths.
Urban Outdoorsman said:
Will people die? Yes. Will more die than the flu? Probably.
Can we realistically do anything new to save lives besides endless lockdowns and restricting people's freedoms indefinitely? Probably not.
It's time to move on.
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While anti-vaxxers continue complaining about their 'freedoms' and inconveniences, they ignore the fact that the unvaccinated, who represent 10% of the Calgary population are needlessly clogging up our hospitals, costing everyone millions of dollars, burning out health care workers and jeopardizing everyone else's health care.

You ask, can we realistically do anything to save lives besides endless lockdowns? 'Probably not' is the wrong answer. Yes we can. Seeing as the vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are by unvaccinated people, the simple, and obvious answer is to get vaccinated.

I normally don't like draconian type measures, but I support vaccine mandates. I know some say it's not effective and is simply a punishment, and maybe they're right, but I'm fine with that. The unvaccinated still have the freedom to turn down the vaccine. If they do, then yes, they are effected by it, and they should be. Their choices have affected the other 90% of us.
 
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Stephen Ave said:
It's possible as many as a third of Calgarians have already had covid, or maybe even as many as half the population, but that's still only half. Still potential for a lot more people to die or get sick from it, so I wouldn't say that it's run out of steam yet.
As for blaming the anti-vaxxers, I agree we can't necessarily blame them for the spread of it at this point, but they can be blamed for putting health care in the state it's in. Also just because the people you know who caught it were vaccinated doesn't reflect the actual numbers.
The rate of people catching omicron is slightly higher for unvaccinated compared to vaccinated. We already knew the vaccine wasn't going to stop people from catching it, it is supposed to help keep people from being hospitalized or dying, and that has been the case. The unvaccinated have a much higher rate of hospitalizations, and and even higher rate of deaths.

While anti-vaxxers continue complaining about their 'freedoms' and inconveniences, they ignore the fact that the unvaccinated, who represent 10% of the Calgary population are needlessly clogging up our hospitals, costing everyone millions of dollars, burning out health care workers and jeopardizing everyone else's health care.

You ask, can we realistically do anything to save lives besides endless lockdowns? 'Probably not' is the wrong answer. Yes we can. Seeing as the vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are by unvaccinated people, the simple, and obvious answer is to get vaccinated.

I normally don't like draconian type measures, but I support vaccine mandates. I know some say it's not effective and is simply a punishment, and maybe they're right, but I'm fine with that. The unvaccinated still have the freedom to turn down the vaccine. If they do, then yes, they are effected by it, and they should be. Their choices have affected the other 90% of us.
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Ironically it seems the lockdowns are only helping the safety of the unvaccinated. For that reason I’m okay with lifting the restrictions for business, gyms, etc.
When it comes to the vaccine mandates, I’m on board with them, but wonder if they had made it optional for younger people, maybe those under 30 since the number of deaths or hospitalizations for those under 30 is very low, even for the non-vaccinated.
 
Here are my thoughts on vaccine passports.

The logical side of me wonders if there is much point to them. I was at a packed and busy Superstore, with no passport required. It was the same at Chinook Centre. Jam packed, and no passport needed. I went to 10 foot Henry and showed my passport, but was immersed in a packed restaurant full of unmasked people 3 feet apart.
The whole system is inconsistent and makes me wonder about its effectiveness.

The other side of me thinks we should keep the passports for another 6-12 months as an FU to those who aren’t getting vaccinated. It may sound childish, but I don’t care. It’s those people that have dragged this out longer than it needs to be. If they suffer because of the passports I don’t feel any sympathy.
Imagine if the 90% of us who are vaccinated had decided not to get vaccinated? We’d be an absolute disaster right now,. The hospitals would be a distaste and virtually everything shut down.
 
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