Outbreak in Vancouver Canucks hockey 🏒 team. “Privately, there is a lot of concern that medical evidence suggests more positive #COVID19 tests could follow. @NHL announced Canucks would not practise until at least Tuesday, nor play again until Thursday”🧵 sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/ri…
2) And also variant cases have been found among the Canucks hockey team outbreak.
3) As we know, Vancouver in British Columbia 🇨🇦 is the new epicenter of the largest #P1 variant outbreak outside of South America. P1 is very contagious.
5) Sidenote, have I warned about hockey rink #COVID19 airborne infection? Ummm, yes. It happens due to a thermal inversion. Masks would help but most don’t wear one.
Sobering words: “It is increasingly clear that the next few months will be painful... variants are spreading, carrying mutations that make #COVID19 both more contagious & in some cases more deadly.”
2) “Even as vaccines were authorized late last year, illuminating a path to the pandemic’s end, variants were trouncing Britain, South Africa and Brazil. New variants have continued to pop up — in California one week, in New York and Oregon the next.”
3) “As they take root, these new versions of the coronavirus threaten to postpone an end to the pandemic.
Why did Canadians respond so passionately to one @Canucks hockey outbreak, but ignored the #COVID19 & #P1 wildfire🔥 that we epidemiologists warned was already burning out of control?
Yes, hockey is big in Canada🇨🇦— but people also can’t empathize with big numbers & statistics.
2) we have known this problem for a long time of course. People relate to stories of people, especially who they know, like the household names of like NHL hockey players. But numbers are just numbers. Numbers & data are cold and unemotional. And that doesn’t get people to act.
3) But what does get people to act? Stories of individual / small scale groups suffering or experiencing a phenomenon. And that’s why stories like the Canucks hockey outbreak is so much resonating than more numbers of people dying or even photos of coffins. It’s sad but true.
📌Many instance of non-compliance with #COVID19 safety protocols. Warns:
📌Masks even if vaccinated (most 🇨🇦 players are not).
📌Don’t goto restaurants.
📌Discourage card playing even if masked.
📌Coaches not to pull down masks.🧵
2) This @NHL warning is in direct response to the worrisome outbreak of #COVID19 involving the #P1 variant in 16 players and 3 coaches on the Vancouver @Canucks—more than half the entire team!
Detailed thread 🧵 of the #P1 crisis in Canada 🇨🇦 below...
2) the Brazil-origin 🇧🇷 variant #P1 is extremely aggressive. It is 2-2.5x faster transmission, studies show, has some potential reinfection risk, and some early evidence it’s maybe more severe. #P1 is a major problem.
“VERY ILL”—many players of the NHL Vancouver @Canucks are “very ill” with #COVID19, some confirmed to have the aggressive Brazil 🇧🇷 #P1 variant. The 14-player outbreak is “unexpected” and the team is in “tough shape”. Practices & games cancelled. BC 🇨🇦 has huge #P1 outbreak. 🧵
2) The 14 @Canucks players with #COVID19 on NHL's COVID Protocol list—Travis Boyd, Thatcher Demko, Jayce Hawryluk, Bo Horvat, Tyler Motte, Tyler Myers and Brandon Sutter joining Alex Edler, Adam Gaudette, Travis Hamonic, Braden Holtby, Quinn Hughes, Zack MacEwen, Antoine Roussel.
3) British Columbia 🇨🇦 is now a world epicenter for the #P1 variant.