Select highlights from Friday’s @TorontoCouncil meeting discussing Covid-19 response, w/important implications for Ontario at large.
Thank you @kristynwongtam for asking @epdevilla fair questions regarding myocarditis in young men and recent vaccine guidance changes:
2/6
In response to a question from the Speaker asking about differences between the vaccines, @epdevilla, insists they’re safe and effective, and does not publicly state the ~7-fold difference between Moderna and Pfizer in 18 to 24 males after their 2nd dose.👇🏼
3/6
@PublicHealthON, and by extension Toronto Public Health, were aware of this material difference in the Moderna/Pfizer safety profiles > 5 weeks ago. Did @epdevilla make the Board of Health or Councilors aware of this troubling difference in outcomes? What took so long?
4/6
@TorontoCouncil wants better data: “…the information we have to provide has to become more granular…I know that @epdevilla is committed that information in her monthly reports is going to be further disaggregated…age specific incidence for effects form vaccine” Awesome!
5/6
"We’re going to scale up to go to 5- to 11-year-olds.."
@joe_cressy if you are confused by the recent, abrupt Ontario announcements—here’s an offer of help to unpack the data on young males and any new data that @epdevilla provides before mandated child vaccination begins.
6/6
Finally, @kristynwongtam, thank you again for advocating for a data driven and respectful approach: “I just want to make sure that we really focus on the details that addresses the concerns of folks out there without belittling them without smearing them as anti-vaxxers..”
Link to full council meeting below. Note: some clips above were sped up to fit the Twitter video clip time limitations. Relevant section starts around 5 hour mark:
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12 to 17 Year Old Males
2nd dose myo risk is now just 1 in 8,500 doses
(avg of both Pfizer/Moderna)
This increasing rate is now approaching the 1 in 5,000 threshold cited in this week's Pfizer v Moderna change
Detail (1/3)👇
Detail (2/3)
Detail (3/3)
Chart showing the increasing rate of myocarditis in young males aged 12 - 17. Rate now approaching provinces cited incidence rate in 18 -24 yo males of 1 in 5,000 2nd Moderna doses.
I joined today's @TorontoCouncil's Board of Health meeting as a pubic speaker.
An abrupt motion reduced speaking time for participants from 5 mins to 3. My prepared remarks on myocarditis would go overtime, so I respectfully ceded my slot.
#3. Looking deeper, calculating a 2nd dose “take-up rate” (2nd doses divided by 1st doses) for each neighbourhood we see that neighbourhoods with a HIGHER proportion of non-Asian visible minorities are strongly correlated with LOWER 2nd dose take-up rates.
According to Ontario data, for those 50+, unvax’d cases, partially vax’d cases and breakthrough cases *all have ~THE SAME hospitalization/death rates*
This seems inconsistent with the notion that breakthrough cases have less severe outcomes.
2/ Dr. Kieran Moore, please clarify:
While unvax'd cases/hosps/deaths appear more prevalent (both total & per 100k), Ontario doesn’t publish *testing data* or *testing protocol* by vax'd/unvax'd.
Its unknown if C19 surveillance protocol is affecting case/hosp/death prevalence!
3/ Dr. Kieran Moore, please clarify:
Example: in the last 6 wks, 50+ unvax'd case hospitalization rates have *more than doubled* vs. the consistent ~12% for the whole pandemic.
Could the sudden jump from 12% to 27% be due to relatively more hospital testing of unvax'd patients?
The “3rd wave” of C19 was LESS DEADLY than the “2nd wave”..
In-hospital fatality rates for Toronto patients:
2nd wave: 27%
3rd wave: 14%
The 3rd wave produced ~the same # of hospitalizations as the 2nd wave (~4,000), but just ~HALF the deaths (602 vs 1,054)
2/
The stark wave-to-wave in-hospital fatality rate differences is most pronounced when assessing only NON-INTUBATED patients (90% of all hospitalizations, ICU+ward):
2nd wave: 23%
3rd wave: 11%
(less than HALF!)
3/
Looking at the data another way, for NON-INTUBATED patients, the daily # of admissions in the 3rd wave was 55% HIGHER than the 2nd wave, yet the daily fatalities was 28% LOWER… (see bottom two charts)
This past weekend, @DonaldWelsh16 was targeted by his local community newspaper for expressing on Twitter his anxieties about the actions and tendencies of our public health advisors. Donald is a concerned citizen, and was undeserving of a smear. 🧵 lfpress.com/news/local-new…
The newspaper zeroed in on Donald recalling the early origins of the holocaust. That is of course a sensitive point of comparison (extremely mildly put) and he has since apologized and deleted the tweets in question. Here is his follow-up thread:
Apart from this parallel, the @LFPRess appears to have had no interest Donald’s message. Donald is, quite simply, a concerned citizen (& experienced scientist), who like so many see a devolution & regression in public health’s abandonment of western procedures for something else.