Here's your AB COVID # analysis for Mon Feb 7th covering the days of Fri/Sat/Sun. 1/
Cases/d remain a useless metric, but FTR: Fri 2112. Sat 1393. Sun 1128. Positivity (a more useful leading indicator) Fri 32.02% (last Fri 36.15%) Sat 29.50 % (1st day below 30% since Jan 2nd (28.23%)) (Last Sat 32.24%) Sun 31.19% (35.47%). Slowly dropping but still v. high.2/
Hospitalization: Inpt: Last Sat (the 29th) -27 to 1450 (revised from 1446 Fri 1443 Thurs 1438 Wed 1433 Tues and 1418 Mon)Last Sun +28 to 1478 (revised from 1469 Fri 1463 Thurs 1459 Wed 1452 Tues and 1417 Mon) Mon +66 to 1544 (revised from 1536 Fri 1529 Thurs 1517 Wed 1476 Tues)3/
Tues +22 to 1566 (revised from 1554 Fri 1542 Thurs and 1492 Wed) (new pandemic record) Wed -36 to 1530 (revised from 1515 Fri and 1472 Thurs) Thurs -23 to 1507 (revised from 1466 Fri). I think wave 4 inpt #s peaked on Tues but time will tell. 4/
(all weekend numbers subject to revisions) Fri -15 to 1492, Sat -55 to 1437, Sun -13 to 1424. ICU: Thurs +8 to 121 (revised from 118 Fri) Fri +1 to 122 (new #weararespiratorwave record). Sat -6 to 116, Sun +2 to 118 (subj to revision). 5/
Paeds admits 23 but none to the ICU (yay!). Deaths 39, including 2 under the age of 50. Omicron wave death curve looking as bad or worse than the delta wave curve. 5/
demographics: urban areas continue to drop while rural areas stubbornly flat. 6/
Nothing more to add today. Stay safe all, please wear a respirator style mask. fin/
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/