It's Friday night twitter so I'm gonna go on a little rant here about the government secrecy and COVID-19
Someone died of COVID- where did they live?

There is a care home outbreak. How many people have died there?

How many ICU beds are there in northern B.C.?

If you thought the public should have access to any of that information you'd be wrong, based on government patterns
How many cases in schools?

What about infections in healthcare workers?

Again, no.
All of this is hidden behind a shroud of "privacy".

Hell, on any given day we don't know if the data we're getting will come in the form of an email, a news conference, or just go up on a website.

Some numbers don't make sense? You may or may not get clarification
It
Does.
Not.
Have.
To.
Be.
Like.
This.

Other jurisdictions even in Canada have consistent, proactive disclosure of data. They don't tell you Bob up the street has it but they can tell you where cases are seeing upticks
For TWO DAYS I have been trying to find out if there is truth to the whispers that the ICU unit here is full... or almost full... or overflow.

But I can't even get an answer on how many ICU beds are available.

It is definitely less than twenty. Someone could go and count them
People have died and are possibly still dying due to a care home outbreak in Dawson Creek.

We haven't received updated numbers on how many people in that care home have tested positive in a week.
They want people to take this seriously but when it comes to the serious things: ICU's filling up, people dying in care homes, they depersonalize it, bury it in bad data and delay.

I don't know what's behind it, but it is a deliberate decision to not share information
And it's not just with the public. It's with other health agencies. It's with data scientists who are collecting information worldwide to try and get an aggregate look at how this virus spreads and what activities are more dangerous than others
And it leaves us in the position of looking to the public that we're not doing our job. "Why aren't you reporting on the full ICU"? Because I can't get information one way or another about it because somehow either health officials don't know, or don't think the public should
Does any of this change the basic advice of wash your hands, keep your distance, stay home if you're sick? No. But it demonstrates whether you are being transparent with the information you have, or whether you even have the information the public hopes you do
And when you demonstrate an unwillingness to be transparent that's how people start buying into conspiracy and misinformation and rumour. Because absent of the truth, something else will fill the vacuum
Also this! You know those really resonant images and interviews with nurses you see in other places?

The idea of a nurse being able to talk candidly here is... I won't say impossible, but it's not great
This is supposed to go in fleets now, isn't it
Hey! I just got the critical care capacity numbers for Northern Health

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More from @akurjata

19 Nov
14 workers test positive for COVID-19 at LNG Canada worksite in Kitimat, B.C. cbc.ca/1.5808832
There have been calls for work camps to shut down since the beginning of this crisis. The former head of the Northern Health Authority called them "essentially land locked cruise ships" alaskahighwaynews.ca/opinion/letter…
Instead, though, the province worked with industrial groups to put safety protocols in place. For LNG Canada's part, it reduced its workforce by about 50 per cent to reduce contacts for those remaining in camp cbc.ca/1.5500429
Read 8 tweets
18 Nov
There is now a COVID-19 outbreak at Peace Villa in Fort St. John. This is the second care home outbreak in Northern B.C. Two people have already died at Rotary Manor in Dawson Creek where an outbreak is still active. #yxj #ydq Image
Northern Health says it's a single staff member with no evidence of transmission, which is exactly what was said when an outbreak was declared at Rotary Manor which spread to multiple staff members and residents and has killed at least two Image
So this is why rising COVID case counts are worth paying attention to, not just hospitalizations. Here's what B.C.'s Peace region looked like at the end of October. In the weeks since the virus has made its way into two care homes and at least two residents have died. Image
Read 4 tweets
13 Jun
I want to talk about how bizarre it is that there is even a debate about whether systemic racism exists in Canada when there are observable outcomes that make it self-evidently true. (thread)
First, because I think this is maybe where some of the confusion lies: What is systemic racism. It is *not* the belief that members of a society or organization are all secret Ku Klux Klan sympathesizers or overt white supremacists
It is instead the observation that the systems we operate in has racist outcomes. The individuals within it do not have to deliberately think or act in racist ways for this to work. Either by accident or design, it will still have racist outcomes.
Read 15 tweets
30 May
This is Dale Culver. The 35-year-old died after being pepper sprayed at taken into custody by police in Prince George in July 2017. He complained of shortness of breath, was taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead. (1/?) Image
Six months later, in January 2018, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association said they spoke to witnesses who had filmed Culver's arrest. They allege that RCMP members told onlookers to delete the video footage. cbc.ca/news/canada/br…
.@mckinnondeLEON and I spoke to family members at this time. They described Culver as a "happy go lucky" father of three who was in Prince George for training.

According to police, they were responding to reports of a man "casing vehicles" in a parking lot when he was arrested
Read 15 tweets
17 Apr
"We don't completely reorganize society to prevent traffic dea-" WELL MAYBE WE SHOULD
Traffic patterns, vehicle design, emphasis on safe modes of other transportation, accessible transit could all save lives! Every year! We don't need to accept current levels of traffic death as just the law of nature!
Car companies and bad urban design created the systems that we view as inevitable! "Jaywalking" was invented by ad agencies as a way to blame pedestrians rather than drivers for vehicle deaths! Freeways are not rivers, shaped by God and nature!
Read 5 tweets
10 Mar
This morning, Wet'suwet'en subchief Theresa Tait-Day is giving testimony in Ottawa to the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs. Testimony was announced to press by a comms group representing the First Nations LNG Alliance. Livestream: parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en/Pow…
So far Tait-Day is saying much of what everyone else has said: decision-making in Wet'suwet'en hereditary system is based on consensus. She says she's here as spokesperson for the Wet'suwet'en Matrilineal Coalition. Will get to that in a moment.
A couple of accusations from Tait-Day that I don't know sources for or have been verified.
She again says there are only five hereditary chiefs opposed to the pipeline (eight have signed eviction notice to CGL)
Read 15 tweets

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