Thread by @ClimateAudit

Quebec, in midst of draconian lockdown, (unlike Ontario) publishes new hospitalization data by age group, vax status msss.gouv.qc.ca/professionnels…

These are real counts, neither "normalized" relative to population nor "adjusted" by Ontario Science Table (or CDC). What do you notice?

2/ the most obvious observation about new hospitalizations is that (unsurprisingly) they are dominated by seniors and particularly over 80s - a group which is almost totally vaxxed.

3/ a secondary observation is that, in younger agegroups, number of new hospitalizations among unvax is pretty similar to number of new hospitalizations among vax, even though population of unvax is much smaller. This is consistent with primary messaging from governments.

4/ but the pressure on hospitals, according to this data, is NOT arising from excess hospitalizations among unvax young people. If they were hospitalized in same proportion as vax young people, there would only be relatively small reduction in hospitalizations.

5/ the pressure on Quebec hospitals is coming from a different direction: fully vax 60+ seniors and especially 80+ seniors.

6/ Original vaccination of seniors was given urgent priority by Quebec and other govts and was VERY successful in mitigating hospitalizations and deaths in early waves. Seniors enthusiastically got vaccinated with Ontario 80+ over 99.99% fully vax.

7/ according to Quebec data, the primary operating problem for hospitals is the rapid and unexpected influx of fully vax seniors, not unvax young people.

8/ but rather than face this problem squarely and objectively, Trudeau and the "liberal" media focus entirely on condemnation of young unvax. No mention anywhere of hospital pressure from fully vax seniors. Not even on Science Table horizon.

9/ there's an interesting detail in Quebec new hospitalization data in two panels below: the increase in new hosps among fully vax in these two senior agegroups appears to lead (not lag) the subsequent increase among unvax.

10/ the other interesting detail is that the increase in new hospitalizations among Quebec seniors appears to start in November and be firmly established before arrival of Omicron. Consistent with hypothesis of lingering Delta being mainly responsible for worst outcomes.

11/ my own working hypothesis is that (1) boosters were given to seniors too late - that their protection ran out in less than 6 months, and/or (2) that protection for seniors against Delta, even boosted, wasnt as good as against "Covid Classic".

12/ federal policy set 6-month minimum between second dose and booster. If, as appears likely, protection for seniors was only 4-5 months, this vulnerable population would have been left totally exposed as a result of federal regulations and their focus on young unvax children

13/ in order to avoid discussion of resurgence of COVID among fully vax seniors, one can understand why Trudeau govt and "liberal" media are so hellbent on demonizing young unvax minority, rather than confronting their own policy failures on fully vax seniors.

14/ to re-iterate, I view vaxes as very important for seniors, who, as a group, account for vast majority of serious outcomes.

The apparent failure of present vaccines to provide significant protection against case infection from current variants is worrying.

15/ one other discouraging point about information that we're being provided: Ontario does NOT give us ANY data on new hospitalizations by agegroup and vax status. In a quick look, I couldn't find any for BC. For Alberta, I located a dashboard, but couldn't find csv with priors

16/ Nor did Alberta give data by age group or NEW hospitalizations. However, active cases are 79% two+ vax; and currently hospitalized are 59% two+ vax. (Latter compares to 71% in Quebec numbers shown above.)

17/ looks like Scotland is experiencing similar pattern to Quebec (and probably other jurisdictions): "double jabbed elderly" (not unvax young) are driving rise in hospitalizations heraldscotland.com/news/19843315.…