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Ziad 😷 Fazel 🇺🇦 Profile picture
@ZiadFazel
Apr 15, 2022 • 13 tweets • 12 min read • Read on X
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On Wednesday, Health Min Copping "addressed the speculation" about funding cuts to Rapid Test distribution. He said compensation was "changed" from $5/test to $60/case.

Suspicious of the change in units, I looked into it.

Compensation has been cut from $5/test to $0.093/test.
If you're going to lead off weekly #COVID19AB theatre to say "rumours are not correct", then your clarification had better not be deceptive.

This would be the Labour Min saying Alberta's minimum wage has been "changed" from $15/hr to $500/month.

This compensation cut to pharmacists was announced in a PDF dated 3 March 2022, effective 7 March.

Goodbye $5/test dispensing fee.

Hello flat $60/case (for eg. 650 BTNX) the pharmacist has to apply for, to cover shipping directly billed by distributor.

ab.bluecross.ca/pdfs/pharmacy-…
Dispensing fees are max $12.15 until 31 March 2022 (watch for that to get cut) so $5/test *might* have been OK given there's no pill bottle to provide, label or receipt to print.

But the pharmacist still has to give you advice on how to use the test.

alberta.ca/pharmacy-servi…
Here's the Product Insert for BTNX COV-19C25 Rapid Antigen Test - the most prevalent in Alberta.

Piece of cake, eh?

btnx.com/files/COV-19C2…

This is why people rely on their pharmacists to explain how to use the test.

What dispensing fees are for.

rxa.ca/for-the-public…
I showed BTNX because it is most prevalent in Alberta.

36m of the 55m rapid tests shipped free by the feds.

canada.ca/en/public-heal…

• BTNX 650/case = 9.3 cents each
• Panbio 800/case = 7.5 cents each
• BD Veritor 2880/*pallet* = 2.1 cents each?

ontariohealth.ca/sites/ontarioh…
Min Copping claims AB Health "eliminated almost all administrative work for pharmacists who are providing.."

In reality they eliminated the way for pharmacists to bill for their advice on how to use the test.

They won't even let the distributor bill the province for shipping.
One would expect a conservative gov to know when you stop paying private sector to do something, they likely stop.

Rapid tests are key to Alberta "learning to live with Covid-19".

Looks like AB Health is cutting off pharmacies to push business to high-$$ mail-order cronies.
Wish I'd seen @Adam_Toy spotless reporting before my 🧵

Turns out AB Health cut compensation to pharmacies 93%, to not even 7 cents per Rapid Test, putting pharmacies at a loss for distributing them.

Which of course is discouraging pharmacy orders.

globalnews.ca/news/8755532/r…
@Adam_Toy @Howl_it @GosiaGasperoPhD @jvipondmd @LeylaDAsadi @kasza_leslie @demandsbetter @littlepoteets @TheBreakdownAB @TehseenLadha @sameo416 When Rapid Test distro started in mid-Dec, pharmacies had to do TONS of work for $5 per kit:
• advising people carefully, especially to avoid false negatives
• unpredictable deliveries of tests and vax
• on top of 3rd-dose crush/panic from Omicron

ab.bluecross.ca/pdfs/Reference…
Looks like AB Health never wanted pharmacies to be compensated fairly for distributing Rapid Tests.

Another choking of publicly-funded supply to drive business to private-sector cronies.

Now, they can't even bill for 2 cases at a time. 1 Case per bill.

ab.bluecross.ca/pdfs/pharmacy-…
In Jan, Premier & Health Min repeatedly lied the holdup in Rapid Tests (👇 expensive failure to beat free tests from the feds) was due to Health Canada not approving enough.

In reality, they tied AHS hands by forcing it to bid against federal contracts.

Ugh. This gets worse every time I look at it.

The 7 March 2022 "change" shifted the shipping cost from directly billed to the province..

..to now billed to the pharmacy, which the pharmacy then has to claim from Blue Cross, ONE CASE AT A TIME. 😠

ab.bluecross.ca/pdfs/pharmacy-…

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More from @ZiadFazel

Ziad 😷 Fazel 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Dec 22
Alberta is projected to have its worst influenza vaccine coverage since 2010-2011.

9 weeks into this year's flu shot campaign, we're at 19%. Last year, we were at 23%.

This whole season's coverage projects to 22%.
• last yr 25%
• 2011/12 was 23%

alberta.ca/stats/dashboar…Line graph of cumulative weekly immunizations showing at week 50 of this year's campaign (9 weeks in) 929,380 shots administered so far, which is only 90% of last year's 1,037,278 at the same time.
Line graph of cumulative weekly immunizations showing at week 50 of this year's campaign (9 weeks in) the coverage for all ages is 18.9%
Line graph of cumulative weekly immunizations showing at week 50 of last year's campaign (9 weeks in) 1,037,278 shots administered so far
Line graph of cumulative weekly immunizations showing at week 50 of last year's campaign (9 weeks in) the coverage for all ages was 22.7%.
Seniors 65+, at week 50, 9 weeks into the campaign:
• This year, only 49.2% coverage.
• Last year, 59.4% coverage.

LaGrange's arrogant, deceptive decision to cut off community medical clinics obviously figures largely in this drop.

cbc.ca/news/canada/ca…2024 vaccine coverage for certain ages at week 50, showing only 49.2% for age 65+
2023 vaccine coverage for certain ages at week 50, showing 59.4% for age 65+
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. Column graph of weekly flu shots administered, showing in week 42: • This yr, only 243,207
Column graph of weekly flu shots administered, showing in week 42: • Last yr, 330,264
Table of Influenza vaccine doses administered and coverage by season and provider, showing: • 2010-2011 was 20% • 2011-2012 was 23% • 2023-2024 (last year) was 25% • 2024-2025 to data at week 50 only 19%
Read 5 tweets
Ziad 😷 Fazel 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Dec 18
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".

For free.
/h @project_calgary

@DruhFarrell @TheBreakdownAB @CWalcottYYC @jasmine_mian

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.

"Seamless". Image
Read 6 tweets
Ziad 😷 Fazel 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Dec 16
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.

gecarchitecture.com/projects/sunal…
Read 10 tweets
Ziad 😷 Fazel 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Dec 13
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

alberta.ca/release.cfm?xI…Screenshot of bottom of press release where you would normally see multimedia or backgrounder. Instead, "Related Information" only has "map of proposed downtown elevated route".
1-page PDF with 2 maps on it - previous route and GoA proposal - that are so small and high level you cannot see the "map of proposed downtown elevated route" as touted in the press release link.
@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.

livewirecalgary.com/2024/12/13/pro… LWC has asked for a copy of the report done by AECOM for further review. A response has not yet been provided. Calgary city council has also not seen the details, according to several councillors. City admin had apparently not seen the AECOM report before the province released details. “We have not received the AECOM report before (Minister) Dreeshan ran to (Postmedia columnist) Rick Bell,” wrote Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott via text. In an official statement, the City of Calgary said that until council had the opportunity to review the report, including alignment and costing, they coul...
@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

calgary.ca/content/dam/ww… 3D map view of crossing into downtown and proposed station at 7 Av and 2 St SW
3D satellite view of crossing into downtown and proposed station at 7 Av and 2 St SW
Calgary Plus 15 map where I have circled the crossing into downtown as well as the proposed station location from https://www.calgary.ca/content/dam/www/transportation/roads/documents/road-maintenance/plus-15-skywalk-network-map.pdf?noredirect=1
Read 11 tweets
Ziad 😷 Fazel 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Dec 6
With PFC film members leaving Xitter, in last week's PFC, I promised to look into a shared calendar to potentially replace this Community.

Fiona (or anyone else we decide) can create a Google Calendar just for PFC, and share it with specific people.

🧵

support.google.com/calendar/answe…"Share a calendar with specific people" section from link.
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. "Control access to your calendar & individual events" table from link.
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.
Read 6 tweets
Ziad 😷 Fazel 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Nov 23
Curious anomalies in Alberta stats on Health Canada's Medical Device Incidents & Serious Adverse Drug Reactions dashboard.

Superficially unremarkable, but you know I drill down. 🧵

@Jantafrench @MBellefontaine @markusoff @PattiSonntag @picardonhealth

health-infobase.canada.ca/hospital-adver…Map of Canada showing reports by jurisdiction, with Alberta 3,968 not looking too far out of line at 14% of Canada's 28,301 people.
Map of Canada showing rate of reports per 100K people, by jurisdiction, with Alberta 81.17 slightly worse than Canada's 81.17.
See the ALT text in my map screenshots above.

Alberta slightly higher than Cdn average in ALL reports per 100K, but still in the pack.

But when you separate Serious Adverse Drug Reaction (Serious ADR) from Medical Device Incident (MDI), the stats get weird. Summary table of rate per 100K of all reports by province or territory, separated into ADR and MDI reports, Showing Canadian average of 69, with Alberta slightly higher at 81.
Alberta reports 3,269 out of Canada's 7,190 Medical Device Incidents. A whopping 45% from ~ 12% of the population.

Per 100K people, Alberta is by far highest in Canada at 67, nearly 4x the national rate.

These stats are since 16 Dec 2019, so are heavily affected by pandemic. Image
Read 10 tweets

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