Ontario health officials are reporting another record-breaking number of new COVID-19 cases as more than 18,000 infections are logged on Saturday.
Public Health Ontario, which released the data, confirmed 18,445 new cases of the novel coronavirus today, surpassing the previous record of 16,713 new COVID-19 infections reported on Friday.
Some residents under lockdown in the Chinese city of Xi’an say they do not have enough food, even as officials insist there are adequate supplies.
More than 13 million were ordered to stay at home last week as authorities sought to battle a Covid outbreak.
But compared to other lockdowns globally, locals cannot go out even for essential reasons like buying food.
The government is delivering supplies but many on social media say they are yet to receive them and are struggling.
Two Ontario epidemiologists are warning that recent changes to the province’s COVID-19 pandemic strategy risk uncontrolled transmission of the virus, while at the same time, limiting the ability to measure its spread.
Raywat Deonandan, epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa, and Colin Furness, infection control epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Toronto, both say they aren’t convinced the province’s new approach will be able to protect Ontarians and the broader health system from the impact of a surge of the highly-infectious Omicron variant.
“There seems to be an acceptance that transmission will be out of control the next few weeks and maybe there is a silent hope that unrestrained transmission might result in sufficient immunity in the population without much cost,” said Deonandan.
Why is it that the CDC website that lists 146 million people having already had COVID-19 in the USA has not been updated since October 2, 2021? A quick, back of the napkin calculation projects at least another 20-30 million have had COVID since then. Bringing the number of people who have had COVID to around 170 million. Well over half the people in the USA.
Infection Control Epidemiologist, Dr. Colin Furness, is calling on Toronto Public Health to defy the province and close schools until January 24th to prevent a potential surge of unvaccinated children being hospitalized.
Active-duty Marines had a deadline to get fully vaccinated by Nov. 28, while for reservists, the deadline was Dec. 28.
A drastic lockdown is shutting down semiconductor production in the Chinese city of Xian, where China acknowledges a mere total of 1,000 cases (not hospitalizations or deaths) during the current outbreak in a city with a population of 13 million. By comparison, New York City, with a population of 8 million, had 40,856 cases on December 30 and a 7-day average of 28,808 cases per day.
The ruling elite are not going to surrender power without a fight.
Over the last two years, many of us have been surprised and troubled at how eagerly millions of citizens have surrendered their freedoms to the shifting, contradictory, nakedly politicized diktats of various “experts” and government agencies. Coerced vaccinations, boosters, masks, and social distancing continue to be mandated and just as eagerly obeyed, even in the case of the mild Omicron covid variant. The technocratic Left currently ruling the country has wrung every ounce of unconstitutional power from the sovereign people, a large cohort of whom, especially the cognitive elites, have willingly gone along with every new crisis and command.
Ottawa’s war against the pandemic has had an outsized impact on millions of Canadians frozen out of home ownership. But politicians have proved oblivious
Just how much of a disaster has COVID-19 been for housing affordability in Canada? Let us count the ways, if there is a stomach for it.
Since the pandemic began in March 2020 house prices across Canada have jumped 34 per cent.
Why are liberals immune to medical and scientific evidence that’s staring them in the face?
As the Supreme Court considers the unconstitutional overreach of the Biden OSHA mandate forcibly vaccinating Americans, it might also consider the common-sense alternatives. These are obvious options pursued by countries and organizations that follow science and haven’t lost their minds in a mass bout of vax psychosis, as we have here in America, especially our liberals.
…..what? pic.twitter.com/3qkCOZhPV9
— Scotty (@RightOfEast) December 31, 2021
Jobless Canadians who refuse to get vaccinated for COVID-19 could be shut out of unemployment benefits, warns Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough.
Speaking to Canadian Press, Qualtrough said as long as there’s a public health emergency, unvaccinated workers who lose hours or their job may not be eligible for employment insurance benefits.
Trudeau calls the unvaccinated racist and misogynistic extremists
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a Quebec television station people who do not get vaccinated against COVID-19 are often racist and misogynistic extremists.
But he said the people of Quebec are not the problem and questioned whether the rest of Canada needs to “tolerate” the unvaccinated.
Progressives are monsters.
h/t RE
As Canadians enter year three of COVID-19, a significant proportion appear apprehensive about returning to mass public transit and other pre-pandemic “normal” activities.
A new Leger poll for Postmedia, conducted just as Omicron was beginning its ascent and before cases began skyrocketing, sought to assess people’s comfort levels for increased contact with other humans.
Unprecedented levels of COVID-19 across Canada are driving hospitalizations as well and once again threatening many provincial health-care systems.
Yet experts say it’s too soon to say how much hospitalizations could grow in the days and weeks to come. With testing capacity at its breaking point and data still coming in on Omicron’s severity, they say modelling this latest wave will require updating their methodology.
“We’re flying blind,” said Caroline Colijn, a mathematics professor at Simon Fraser University who has been modelling the pandemic in British Columbia.
They’re doing away with case counts and much more. We’re all cured up now.
Update – Ontario reports more than 16,000 new cases of COVID-19 as hospitalizations continue to rise
…. Going forward the Ford government has indicated that it will only provide publicly-funded PCR testing to certain high-risk individuals in a bid to ensure that those who need a test the most can get timely access to one.
That, however, will mean that the daily case counts will no longer be a reflection of community spread in the weeks to come.
“I don’t think we’ll have any real idea of the true community burden,” infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch conceded during an interview with CP24 on Friday. “We will be in the dark in terms of knowing what the true burden of infection is in the community.”
FUREY: Ontario’s COVID response evolving big time — here’s what you need to know
“We have to pivot.”
Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s chief medical officer, said that line more than once during his Thursday press conference.
And what a pivot it turned out to be. The province has made radical changes to some of the ways COVID-19 is being managed.
Well this may be last regularly scheduled morning report on what’s going on in the world of Covid in Ontario, but we’ll see.
May God have mercy on us all.
