As Canada surges past the 800,000 cumulative case sum, a close look at the data shows ‘active cases’ plummeting.
“This is extremely good news,” says Dr. Anderson of The RINJ Foundation, a Canada-based humanitarian NGO.
by Sharon Santiago and Melissa Hemingway
Active cases are a measure of what a nation’s health care system may need to contend with. Marginally symptomatic cases can quickly become urgent care events.
COVID-19 cases, by World Health Organization standards, are resolved either by death or recovery.
Today, scientists know that ‘recovery‘ is somewhat ambiguous because many patients live with some effects of the disease for long periods of time. Death on the other hand is not ambiguous at all and is the other manner in which cases resolve.
Hence it is important to look at these factors in context.
At publication time Canada had a case fatality rate (CFR) of 2.57 which is substantially higher than the global average of 2.18%. For a comparison, the USA has a CFR of 1.7% and has held that rate for a lengthy period of time.
At least 4-New highly transmissible Variants of COVID-19 are in Canada. Two are from Brazil, one from the UK and one from South Africa. More are emerging daily of which few will pose new dangers.
While the Canadian government has taken the significant step of planning a vaccine manufacturing facility to be run by the National Research Council, it has not taken significant action to manufacture personal protection equipment in Canada.
For some reason Canada’s government seems unwilling to admit it was wrong from the outset about personal protective measures for Canadians.
SARS-CoV-2 is in the air as an aerosolized pathogen that from deep in the lungs of infected persons or from infected noses can linger for a long time once exhaled by an infected person.
Including unreported asymptomatic infections, an estimated 23% of the Canadian population has been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and able to spread the disease through the air.
The correct protection for all Canadians who leave their homes for any purpose is a filtering facepiece respirator such as the N95, European FFP-2 or the KN-95 from Asia.
Harvard Professor says N95 mask wearing by everyone will end Pandemic in a month. FPM.news medical authors and sources have been saying that for over a year. Why do some governments ignore the message of scientists?
Teaching Video: fit-test and wear a filtering facepiece respirator mask that can be reused up to five times.
Of the 45,463 Canadian active cases on todays date, 1,182 Canadians will die based on current trends and not counting tomorrow’s new cases in Canada.
Canada is not out of the woods by any measure.
Canada hits 800,000 COVID-19 cases as active cases plummet.
Every indication says that Canada is getting COVID-19 under some control with harsh measures but deaths remain high compared to global averages. Note: On 17 July 2020, the province of Quebec revised all of its criteria for establishing recoveries. The Institut national de sante publique claimed “the previous method resulted in ‘significant underestimates’ of recovered cases.” This error correction caused a radical drop in active cases nationwide from a total of 27,603 on 16 July to 4,058 on 17 July. This consequently looks bizarre in all graphs. It also creates an inexplicable blip in active cases at the time. Source: Civil Society Solidarity Partners against COVID-19
The cost of Lockdowns
“It appears that thus far, lockdowns have saved 1,000 lives this year, in round numbers,” notes Fred Harris, a computer scientist and biostatistician heading the Civil Society Solidarity Partners against COVID-19 team in Singapore.
“Canada was in a big spot of trouble.”
“The governments of Canada pre-empted a catastrophe with lockdowns in Ontario and Quebec and will save thousands of lives, as the public health actions continue,” added Harris, “but it is unfortunate that Canadians disregarded public health guidelines and even more unfortunate that those guidelines were so lenient. Canadians should have been wearing filtering facepiece respirators, especially so when considering the persistently high case fatality risk that Canada endures, among the highest in the world for much of the time of the pandemic.”
According to Statistics Canada‘s Friday updates, the jobless rate rose a little more than half a percentage point to 9.4 per cent. That translates to 858k fewer jobs over the past year since February 2020. The report also indicates that 529,000 Canadians, while still employed are working far fewer hours and receiving much less compensation.
Most job losses were in Ontario and Quebec provinces while Western provinces actually rose slightly.
Asked about the woes of complainants in the wealthy parallel economy to average Canadians whether there was any equity in the lockdown moves, Harris replied sourly that “statistically, dead Canadian workers would lower the unemployment numbers, and conversely, 200K unemployed are better off alive and seeking employment or starting their self-employment.”
“Countries like China, Singapore, South Korea and New Zealand,” Harris continued, “where every single life matters as a precious responsibility of government policy and actions, the success in fighting this pandemic with a view to saving lives and protecting the health of the populations has resulted in a good pandemic outcome and prosperous economy restarts.”
“That’s the statistical side. On the moral side, fighting like hell to save every life that can be saved is the only humane way forward. That’s what leaders like Xi Jinping of China, Jacinda Ardern, of New Zealand and Moon Jae-in of South Korea are doing and they are winning.”
Dynamic Live Global COVID-19 Data 2 Dec 2024
Source: Civil Society Solidarity Partners against COVID-19