When Test Positivity stuttered in September, then peaked in mid-September (urban mask mandates & restrictions) experts with @PopAlberta kept warning of danger.
My analogy then was a 1000-km wide wildfire at 80 km/h.
Because there weren't strong province-wide safety measures.
So while Test Positivity in Calgary & Edmonton was:
• falling below 10%
• dragging down the provincial average
• masking the choppy rise in North, Central & South.
I remembered @GosiaGasperoPhD warning of (early) exponential growth of B117 Alpha in Jan, and Delta in May.
I'm just talking about leading indicators here: Test Positivity and New Cases.
We always knew the back half of the canoe - Hospitalization, ICU and Deaths- was still rising the roller coaster.
Canoes, Rollercoasters, Wildfires, Hurricanes... sorry about all the metaphors.
Looking again at the @ucalgaryCHI chart, notice how in all 3 previous waves, test positivity would stutter, maybe retreat a bit, and then keep rising.
4th Wave didn't get that, rising without a break from ~0.5% to 11%.
Our CMOH & Premier were beholden to their secret models.
Even India - hit so badly by the Delta variant images of people dying outside hospitals short of oxygen or ventilators - got back under some control.
Not Alberta. We plowed ahead, benchmarking to the worst decisions in the US and UK to cover our own.
This gratuitously frightening, dog vomit of a presser on Wed 15 Sep:
• measures effective at midnight
• Health Min reading Kenmore Canister Vac model 1407 Owner Manual into his chin
• 8pm emergency alert on our phones with link to useless website
This meeting of Calgary Metro Region Board on 17 Sep was lauded for Mayor Nenshi response to the Foothills County Reeve's persistence at spreading ant-vax "bs".
(Nice diplomatic work by Chair @GregClarkAB too, trying to stay on topic and on fact.)
The hidden value in that meeting was the metro area board trying to fix the dog-vomit from GoA two nights before:
• leverage Calgary efforts including great Q&A
• High River Mayor Snodgrass blasting GoA for putting his town's businesspeople in danger
8 days ago, this psychiatrist/neurosurgeon in UK wrote "how do you convince people that the people in power actually want them to die?"
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
Just finished watching @PopAlberta special on:
• protecting children too young to vaccinate
• learning that the risk in schools SEEMS to be scientific: #COVIDisAirborne but is ACTUALLY political
• Learn how to address this at home, school & your MLAs.
Last night @CMOH_Alberta gave a presentation to Alberta family docs, and I got a chance to see it and take screenshots before the video was set to Private.
Whenever a politician wants to give you "Context", be wary of Deceptive Framing.
The damage was done in July with that steep rise of R > 1.2 during & after Stampede.
I'm sticking with Leading Indicators of the spread of #COVID19AB, because They. Lead. To. Severe. Outcomes, including Death.
You can't grow ICU Capacity to match exponential growth. You have to stop the spread up front to give your healthcare system a chance, Public + Private.
Sadly, today is the day we exceed Alberta's baseline ICU Capacity.
Again.
• Blue Exponential Growth Curve = Albertans in ICU with COVID-19
• Red line = Baseline Capacity
• Surge Capacity comes from Cancelling Surgeries & Redeploying Doctors, Nurses, other Healthcare Workers
I don't normally do one graph inset into another, but I wanted to show @GosiaGasperoPhD modelled this exactly, on 24 August.
She's a world-class biologist who could be doing this anywhere in the world, saying "Look what is happening over there in AB."