A thread. For 4 months I’ve been investigating Covid-19 disasters in Vancouver care homes. The story drops now: Documents obtained via FOI reveal dozens of Vancouver care homes deliberately DID NOT DECLARE OUTBREAKS when a worker first tested positive 2/ scmp.com/news/china/dip…
In many cases, the outcomes under this new strategy known as "enhanced surveillance" or "enhanced monitoring" were horrendous. The FOI docs show that 42 homes failed to stop the virus spreading. More than 1,000 people became infected in these outbreaks. And 192 residents died 3/
The obscure strategy was introduced on Nov 9. Implementation varied, but Vancouver Coastal Health told homes if one worker tested +ve without "high-risk" exposure, visits, group activities, group meals, admission, transfers could continue. Mass testing? Not required (policy here)
The policy shows that these staff infections could be kept secret: not only from the public and reporters, but from residents, relatives and even fellow staff of the care homes.
The worst outcome is now notorious. Little Mountain Place delayed outbreak status by two days after a worker caught Covid. 171 people were infected. 41 residents died in BC's worst outbreak. Among them, Cui Chan Wong. She was 73.
But the FOI docs show that this was no isolated failure. German Canadian Care Home, South Vancouver: a staff infection was detected on November 18, but outbreak was not declared for another eight days. 61 residents and 54 staff became infected. 25 residents died.
December 19, a worker tested positive at Fraser Health's Surrey’s Hilton Villa Seniors Community. But the outbreak declaration was not made until three days later. Twenty-four residents died, out of 76 who became infected (plus 47 staff)
Christmas Day: a worker tests positive at Royal City Manor in New Westminster (Fraser Health). But outbreak protocols are not introduced until nine days later. When the outbreak was over on March 5, 28 residents were dead, out of 102 who were infected along with 31 staff.
On avg, it took abt 5 days after their first worker tested positive before these 42 facilities realised the virus had spread & they belatedly imposed outbreak precautions. The outbreaks were a major contributor to BC's 2nd wave: 1/4 of all care home deaths/infections Nov9-Feb26
So why did VCH & Fraser Health (and other BC health authorities) use this strategy? It was recommended by the CDC of BC to conserve staffing, and allow residents to continue to enjoy visitation+other social situations. In most cases, it appears to have worked. In many, it did not
It's impossible to say exactly how much death and sickness might have been mitigated had these 42 homes declared outbreaks immediately when staff got infected. But the FOI data shows Fraser Health was much quicker than VCH to detect 2nd infection that triggered outbreak status
Fraser Health delayed outbreak status by avg 3.9 days, VCH by 7.1 days. And Fraser Health's outcomes were much better. Avg 21 people infected per facility in Fraser Health, vs 37 per VCH facility. Avg 7.4 died in VCH vs 3.7 in Fraser Health
Although the focus has gone off the care home crisis, thanks to widespread vaccination of residents, I suspect there will be more to say about this strategy. Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie plans to investigate. Read the full story here scmp.com/news/china/dip…

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More from @ianjamesyoung70

16 Feb
So, regarding Kevin Falcon and his probably run for BC Lib leadership. Falcon was instrumental in creating BC Panda Bonds, joined by HSBC on trip to China to pitch the idea of the yuan-denominated bonds. He left govt in 2013 to join the #VanRe industry as VP of Anthem Capital
At the time, Anthem CEO Eric Carlson said Falcon’s duties were to “assist in raising [money] from institutional and individual investors.” HSBC would go on to be the joint lead underwriter of BC panda bond, along with Bank of China
The BC Lib govt would go on to pitch the province to China (and elsewhere in Asia) as an investment destination on the unusual basis of the strength of its real estate price growth. These slides are from the province's 2016 pitch to Asian investors
Read 6 tweets
7 Jan
1. The disaster at Vancouver's Little Mountain Place care home - 41 elders dead, 87% infected - is stunning. How did it occur? A leaked briefing by VCH investigator says infected staff tried to "push through" symptoms & kept going to work. Result? Tragedy scmp.com/news/china/art…
2. Pre-outbreak covid detection system at LMH (and across BC homes) is based on "active self-monitoring" by staff, instead of having them tested. It failed. Multiple infected carers infected numerous frail residents, other staff, said VCH officer Dr Andrew Hurlburt in Dec 29 call Image
3. As staff started going down, it created roster shortages, and a deadly snowball effect. Other staff fell prey to the phenomenon of "presenteeism" - they downplayed their own symptoms because they felt compelled to make up for the shortages. All told, 70 staff would be infected
Read 9 tweets
25 Nov 20
Attending the "Zoom to Free Meng Wanzhou" meeting , and speaker KJ Noh is right now sharing the love poetry of Chairman Mao
(I know I often joke on Twitter, but this is not a joke)
KJ Noh now discussing Canada's "rule of law", slide speaks for itself
Read 45 tweets
21 Nov 20
So, the NYT’s story about AI-generated faces is getting a lot of attention. It’s a phenom I encountered when I was recently mobbed by pro-CCP folk on Twitter and some of them used AI-generated avatars, like this one:
Look pretty normal but there are a number of “tells”. Let’s look. Here’s one: a weird fleshy protuberance out of the side of her head that clearly isn’t an ear
Here’s another: a missing earring. AI faces often have missing or mismatched earrings
Read 9 tweets
21 Nov 20
You mean, you were invited to TRU by the TRU Chinese Students and Scholars Association, which like other CSSA’s falls under the CCP United Front Work Dept and which held this flag raising in military type uniforms?
The same umbrella organization whose McMaster branch was expelled from the university for ratting out a Uygur to the Chinese consulate, right? cbc.ca/amp/1.5298882
So what you really meant to say is that you were invited to give a speech by a group under the Chinese government whose members elsewhere have acted as informants for the CCP on Canadian soil, right?
Read 4 tweets
14 Nov 20
It occurs to me that most people haven’t got any concept of how large a crowd of one million people actually is. They haven’t the faintest idea what it looks like
Here’s the crowd in Freedom Plaza. It’s about 1.6hectares, including the roads. This isn’t a super dense. You cld walk thru most parts. At one person per sq meter (tight enough to hit people all round if you spin with bent elbows), it’s abt 16,000 ppl
This is Queen at Knebworth, 1986. This is a big crowd. It’s 120,000 people
Read 5 tweets

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