Here's your AB COVID # analysis for Thurs Jan 13th. 1/
Cases/d yest 6002 a 22.7% incr from last Tues's 4892. 7d ave (back tomorrow, @ByMatthewBlack taking a day off) Positivity 40.91% up from last wks 39.17%. 2/
Hospitalizations: inpts. Fri +61 to 581 (revised from 579 yest 570 Tues 558 Mon) Sat +14 to 595 (revised from 593 yest 585 Tues and 555 Mon). Sun +42 to 637 (revised from 633 yest 617 and Mon 563). Mon +43 to 680 (revised from 633 yest and 628 Tues) 3/
Tues +20 to 700 (revised from 666 yest) Yest +7 to 707 (subject to revision). 7d rise to Mon of 61.1% (yest 55.7% Tues 53.4% Mon 53%). 4/
ICU: Tues +4 to 84 (revised from 82 yest) Yest -4 to 79. one wk rise to yest of 39% (yest 48.1% Mon 37%) 5/
Paeds admits: 9. including 1 new baby in ICU. Total deaths: 8. 6/
Demographics: trends continue in ages. geographic data to return tomorrow. 7/
Recently returned from representing the @CanCovSoc with @RougeMatisse and Marie-Michelle Bellon at the 2nd Annual Long COVID Symposium in Edmonton, hosted by @LongCOVIDWebCA.
Thrilled to see so many caring docs and researchers in masks, many in respirator masks. 1/5
One thing I learned is that there is a load of resources out there for people (patients, docs, others) to learn about long COVID (aka Post-Covid Condition). I thought I'd share four.
The first, of course, is @LongCOVIDWebCA.
Time for a thread. Now that we are "post-pandemic" what is the impact of this "endemic" disease on people and society, from a strictly mortality perspective?
(quotation marks intentional)
Let's take a look at the Alberta data. 1/
Our respiratory "season" closes this wk. Currently deaths are at 715, up 10 from prev wk. With an av of about 10/wk recently, and a lag in reporting, I suspect we'll end up at at least 730 for the 12 month period.
Is that a lot? should we care?
source: 2/ alberta.ca/stats/dashboar…
We have good data from prev year's causes of mortaliy, found in this spreadsheet:
Recall that in Canada (and AB) for 2022 COVID was the 3rd leading cause of death at 1547. (2021 2nd at 1950) 3/ open.alberta.ca/opendata/leadi…
I think we need to talk about the Infection Prevention and Control- Canada organization (IPAC-Canada). @IPACCanada, who has their annual conference starting Sunday. 1/
I was lucky enough to present at last year's convention at the invite of @BarryHunt008, on environmental impact of masking policies, with a focus on airborne protection.
You can see my presentation here: 3/
It's out! The @WHO's new wordsmithing report on airborne transmission. I'm going to do a little dissection on the good and the bad, who wins and who loses. 1/ cdn.who.int/media/docs/def…
the TLDR is: "through the air" is the old "droplet" and "airborne" transmission modalities combined. "inhalation" is the new "airborne". "direct deposition" is the new "droplet" 2/
The great: finally an acknowledgment that short-range airborne transmission is an integral component of all (not just COVID) airborne transmission. This is huge. It means that workers esp. HCWs need respirator masks (FFP2/3, N95) when interacting with concerning patients. 3/
Apparently many in the Canadian ID community on this platform are weighing in that paxlovid should no longer be recommended to high-risk (elderly, immunocompromised) outpatients with confirmed covid.
I think we should take a look at the evidence they've presented.
(a thread) 1/
So far there has been no evidence presented, none, except for the blogpost posted in the first tweet.
No peer reviewed science. At all.
And a reminder that there are still >500 inpts in Alberta with covid, and 10-20 patients dying each week (all likely high risk patients).
2/
Another reminder is I reviewed the paxlovid evidence in a thread a few weeks ago, in response to a paxlovid-minimizing news story by @LaurenPelley of @CBCNews.
You can check out the thread here: 3/