This weekend feels like seeing a Cat 5 hurricane bearing down on a remote island on Fri evening, knowing we won't hear for some days until power & telecom are back, praying for few deaths & devastation when they're out.
Except we're not a remote island in open ocean. We're in Alberta, supposedly a modern society.
The hurricane has not passed. We've just had outer bands pass through. Rain, wind, storm surge, etc.
The 250 km/h eyewall is still coming. Major casualties. Hail & Devastation.
Modern society? Let's compare AB to City of Chicago
Oh yes: R, test positivity and cases showing 2 Albertas. Cities going down, Zones going up.
Problem: we all need the same Hospitals. Whether we come from the upper 3 curves, or the lower 2 curves.
Shown with/without Alberta Avg.
We have record Hospitalization, in every way:
• ICU
• ICU Surge Capacity
• non-ICU Wards like Internal Medicine taking COVID-level ICU patients to save lives
• transporting patients from one Zone to another to use every last bit of capacity
HCW breaking, to slow AB dying.
Weeks ago, I was critical of Alberta Health showing Surge Capacity growing, thinking it was unachievable because you can't just clone record numbers of:
• Respiratory Therapists
• Critical Care Nurses
• ICU Docs
• Pharmacists
• Anaesthetists, etc.
like it's a video game.
I'm one of the many voices saying you can't keep stressing healthcare workers to deal with this kind of workload.
But our CMOH, Health Minister du jour, and Premier keep doing it.
I work with many of these people in @PopAlberta. Under huge stress, they are innovating too.
@PopAlberta One innovation? Putting ICU-level COVID-19 patients in non-ICU Wards like internal medicine.
I relayed @NeejaB work with a team of devoted people, which is happening in every major hospital.
But cancelling surgeries doesn't magically clone ICU staff.
I'm an engineer/project manager with background in electronics manufacturing.
• New product introduction, starting from zero, to pilot, to ramp up. All the problems you face as you grow.
• Bringing on other plants to add capacity/enter new markets. The stress of transferring.
These amazing people are doing it all simultaneously:
• from 80 people on 24 July
• to 1061 on 24 September
• 13.3x in 2 months
• using multiple sites
• try raising capacity of any manufacturing or organization process that fast
Imagine rush hour traffic 13.3x in 2 months.
These are human beings in our hospitals, not wireless telecom in a factory. They're about as fragile and perishable as a "product" can get.
And we're still not seeing how complex this picture.
Last week AHS CEO Dr Verna Yiu said deaths were making room for new admissions.
At the same time, I was working with a skilled "data wrangler" in Edmonton, who uses Tableau to illustrate complex concepts simply.
@jkparker taught me how to show the daily admissions, average daily deaths, and running count of patients in ICU.
So, looking at her Tableau, you can see:
• the running count at end of day understates the problem
• our Healthcare workers have to handle 50+ admissions PER DAY
• and absorb a rising AVERAGE of 11 deaths per day
• daily admissions fluctuate widely
• one day 53; next day 17
Last Friday, you got to see me cry on YouTube.
This Friday I got to watch my dear new friends, who are doing laudable work to save lives in Alberta, artful innovation and brute force pushing themselves.
Some were crying. Some numb. Some stoic. Some ??.
You can't do this to people. It's grotesque & sadistic.
@jvipondmd calls this the #IntentionallyCruelWave
• Not just to people dying.
• HCW breaking to stop it
• Family & friends of people in Hospital
• People whose surgeries were cancelled AGAIN to make room for COVID-19
@jvipondmd Kids age 5-11:
• started school in Sep
• too young to be vaccinated
• rooms with inadequate ventilation or filtration
• inadequate masks, if at all
Look how "Best Summer Ever" changed once school started.
These aren't just lines on a graph. They're people, with families.
But we can't ignore the Deaths happening in our province.
See that jump to steeper rate of death at end August? You can see it better compared to a straight line.
We know, that wave after wave, around world, when you change public health measure, there is a cadence:
• leading indicators change in ~2 wks
• Hospitalization in ~3-4 wks
• Deaths in ~4 wks
So what happened at end July for Deaths to📈~4 wks later?
In Alberta, babies under 1 year old are getting clobbered by Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), and it is overloading our children's hospitals:
• Hospitalized at 36x the rate of average Albertan
• Hospital & ICU at 3x rate of COVID in babies under 1
Typical LaGrange-style quote in reporting by @JenLeeCBC:
"In a statement emailed to CBC News, a spokesperson said the hospital is seeing an increase in respiratory admissions, which "aligns with seasonal trends.""
Expecting mothers should speak with their family physician or obstretician (like @FionaMattatall) about getting vaccinated during their pregnancy to protect their newborns. (I'm not a doc)
RSV shots are $1000 each, but perhaps other immunizations.
Both last year and this year, peak weekly flu shots administered was in week 42:
• This yr, only 243,207
• Last yr, 330,264
Many of us are now off from school or work for the Xmas holidays. Good time to get vaccinated. It should help you for January return to school or work.
3-min video posted 31 Oct 2024 by Liricom & Plenary shows what they expect provincial taxpayers to build + operate for them between airport & "Grand Central Station".
Before I get into pros and cons, let me just help you figure out their bizarre colours:
🟧 for Calgary Airport Downtown Express track that is at grade or in the 80th Ave tunnel
🟦 Teal (close enough) for stations
🟨 for track that is elevated from Bow River near zoo to Crowchild
Why does it need to be elevated from south shore of Bow River near Zoo, to Downtown West End before Crowchild?
Because CPKC wouldn't let them stay parallel at grade though downtown. Needed to be elevated to not interfere with freight loading/unloading at grade.
When UCP claims their elevated track & station #GreenlineYYC design through Beltline into Downtown is better than tunnels, but🚩won't release a single rendering, others will.
😱
Visit @yycbeltline web page, where each image is labelled. You barely recognize the streets after.
@yycbeltline Beltline Neighbourhoods Association tries to recreate Dreeshen's claim that only one "non-driving lane" on 10 Av would be affected (after multi-year construction probably closes the whole street) by rendering only a single column for the track and two columns for station.
@yycbeltline They use structural designs from Sunalta, which is 15 m above ground, but have to render two columns straddling reduced 10 Ave to support Beltline station.
Sunalta station is supported by an enclosed building, with interior stairs, escalators & elevator.
Confirmation GoA's plan for Green Line into downtown is terrible:
• no press conf
• nowhere in press release do they state where it crosses the rail tracks, or meets 7 Ave
• only 1 high level map - no renderings or closeup on downtown
• no AECOM quote
@TheBreakdownAB @GregGinYYC @DuaneBratt @CWalcottYYC @jasmine_mian @JyotiGondek @cspotweet @AdamMacVicar @LiveWireCalgary @GreenLineYYC Rick Bell's "exclusive" claims the crossing into downtown is at 2nd Street SW, but I refuse to link to that propaganda. @LiveWireCalgary has always provided excellent, deep journalism on #GreenLine and they confirms the crossing AND the cheap blindside.
@TheBreakdownAB @GregGinYYC @DuaneBratt @CWalcottYYC @jasmine_mian @JyotiGondek @cspotweet @AdamMacVicar @LiveWireCalgary @GreenLineYYC Some quick work with Apple Maps 3D views shows crossing into downtown at 2 St SW requires:
• elevation over a circular ramp and vehicle bridge across the tracks to parkade
• crossing two Plus 15 pedways
• a third Plus 15 medway just north of 7 Ave
My concern about privacy, like everyone's email address shared with everyone else in the group, have been resolved with the oddly-named "See all event details" access permission, which doesn't even show the guest list.
But there are still other privacy concerns I want to check.
Obviously, the owner of the shared calendar would have to know the email addresses of the PFC members who want to subscribe to it.
I don't know if any one of the subscribers can see who the other subscribers are, or their email addresses.