This is on you Jason Kenney...

[nucksRnum1]

I don't agree with what he did to health care workers in the province. Just pointing out the transparency they are giving people about the reality of deaths with COVID, and what we should see across this country.

Transparency? So if there were stats on "murders" and the graph said that 2 percent of by were by machette - and 7 percent was by ice pick - this is a good thing?

[fluffy]

The covid cases in Alberta aren't as bad as they are in almost every state, and many other nations in the world, and yet the hospitals are overwhelmed. That's because we don't have the capacity in Canada.

They certainly don't have the capacity in Alberta. I'm sure they could have made use of the 5000+ healthcare workers Kenney cut loose just before the pandemic hit.

https://www.friendsofmedicare.org/black ... ealth_care

[fluffy]

Transparency? So if there were stats on "murders" and the graph said that 2 percent of by were by machette - and 7 percent was by ice pick - this is a good thing?

Maybe the point is that if murder victims had pre-existing medical conditions then the murderers should get a reduced sentence.

[gardengirl]

They are also more transparent about the co-morbidities linked to their deaths with COVID:
Screenshot_20211003-074555_Chrome.jpg

I don't think it is transparent at all. If you were to remove the care home deaths, the chart would look very different. Obviously people in care homes have a medical issues, that is why they are there. They could also have multiple issues (as indicated on the chart) so the same person could appear several times on the chart.

If you take care homes out of the equation, the chart would look very different.

[hobbyguy]

Transparency? So if there were stats on "murders" and the graph said that 2 percent of by were by machette - and 7 percent was by ice pick - this is a good thing?

Maybe the point is that if murder victims had pre-existing medical conditions then the murderers should get a reduced sentence.

Listing things like hypertension in a public transparency on covid is a tactic. It is designed to support Kenney's political positions.

There are two statistical measures used to count hypertension. One uses BP 140, and the other BP 130. Which one did Kenney's folks use? The 130 number will be much higher. According to StatsCan 40% of males and 30% of females aged 20-79 in Canada had hypertension using the BP 130 stat. Hypertension has effective treatments. IF your BP is under control using meds, are you hypertensive? Yes, according to stats. So an otherwise healthy person, who has their BP controlled by meds to below the threshold (and therefore no longer actually hypertensive) is still counted as hypertensive. So a person who is otherwise healthy, and has a BP of 125 but takes meds to get there, is counted as hypertensive - even though they do not currently have hypertension.

The complexities of these things make the stats useless.

Renal diseases is another "broad sweeper". If you have incidences of kidney stones - is that included? Not clear - but in almost all cases kidney stones, while very painful, are not life threatening. COVID is a respiratory disease - so what does Renal disease have to do with it? Severe renal disease might indeed make you less able to withstand COVID, but how many of the folks had severe Renal disease? It gets really fuzzy.

And so on. It is uselessly over simplified and uninterpretable information - and very easily misinterpreted by the public.

The obvious intent is to support the position that Kenney took downplaying the severity and seriousness of COVID and therefore the need for collective action(s).

[bernie428]

Simply put, if old folks, especially in care homes, are more vulnerable, then you need to take more care, try harder, etc.
I love the small print. Some people had multiple issues.
For my own personal knowledge, I looked up some underlying issues.
Not research, a dumb dumbs google search.
1 in 3 Canadians will get diabetes before they die.
The percentage of people with RA and Lupus is more then I thought.
Hypertension is quite common.


How about many healthy people died? Have long term issues?
These stats seem to be more absent than a breakdown of the sick and unhealthy.
They are now looking into the pancreas, as they suspect the virus is rewriting the genetic code in some people.
Only some, don't worry about it.

In the end, if you have double and triple the neighbours numbers, you screwed up.
And maybe you fired too many people, but that didn't give more people Covid, it's just another bad twist.

[hobbyguy]

There is the underlying cultural element of the region. That was always going to make COVID things difficult for any government in Alberta. Alberta, after all, has been the most oriented against collective action province.

Something like COVID (and this just a current example) responds best to collective actions in its management. When you get vaccinated etc., you do it for yourself but also to protect those around you (mother, brother, grandfather, neighbor etc.). It is a team sort of thing that requires all of us to be team players.

I am not surprised that Alberta, with its history of leaders like "Bible Bill" Aberhart and Ernest Manning (and son Preston still very active) and Ralph Klein is not disposed to collective action and team play. That such leaders prospered in their times speaks to a similarity in the culture with other regions that have struggled with the collective actions needed for overall positive results.

That aside, Kenney could have chosen to put politics aside and do the right thing. That much of the failure aspect is politics is in little dispute. It would indeed have been a struggle, as various factions within Alberta simply seem diametrically opposed to collective actions of any kind. Kenney has seemed loath to at least try for the necessary collective actions from the get go, and much more interested in saving his political skin.

[Merry]

Canada's health care sucks, including in Alberta. The covid cases in Alberta aren't as bad as they are in almost every state, and many other nations in the world, and yet the hospitals are overwhelmed. That's because we don't have the capacity in Canada.

You just “hit the nail on the head”. And, as you point out, this is true in EVERY province, whatever the Government political stripe, not just Alberta.

[daria]

I know a guy in critical condition with Covid. I don't know if he was vaxxed or not, but assume he was because he was involved with coaching hockey.

But if he isn't vaccinated, you can guarantee people will be blaming him for not getting vaccinated, but won't say anything about his 350lb weight, even though losing weight and giving up smoking would do more to ward off Covid death than the vaccine does.

This!

[daria]

They are also more transparent about the co-morbidities linked to their deaths with COVID:
Screenshot_20211003-074555_Chrome.jpg

I don't think it is transparent at all. If you were to remove the care home deaths, the chart would look very different. Obviously people in care homes have a medical issues, that is why they are there. They could also have multiple issues (as indicated on the chart) so the same person could appear several times on the chart.

If you take care homes out of the equation, the chart would look very different.

Nonsense. Co-morbidities are there across the board for people who die with COVID, regardless of whether they die in a long-term care facility or in hospital.

[daria]

No, they are not "lesser than," but the reality of their underlying health conditions shouldn't be swept under the rug, as if it doesn't make a difference in the outcomes once they have contracted Covid.

I don't dispute that underlying health conditions can increase the severity of a COVID infection, I'm just not getting why that's important. It's not a reason to take the virus any less seriously.

It's very important that people understand the risks of maintaining unhealthy lifestyles, especially if they can take steps to improve their overall health (diet, exercise, meditation, or other means of reducing stress). The last time I saw the average age of death in Alberta it was set at 79, so, yes, people who are older are more likely to have one or more co-morbidity, the hypertension statistic was actually the most interesting one for me, because while it is predominantly associated with an unhealthy BMI, even "skinny" people can have the markers for hypertension.

Public health should be stressing that people also focus on getting healthy and not just taking a vaccine, because plenty of double vaxxed people are dying with COVID, too. I don't think that people should wrap themselves in the vaccine like a security blanket and blissfully go on leading unhealthy lives, especially if it can be avoided.

But our health care system is definitely not matching the pace of our ageing population, whether that's here in BC or in any province/territory in this country.

Yes, the cardiovascular, renal and respiratory diseases should be broken down into CHF, CKD, COPD, etc, and I would prefer to see those statistics across this country set along side age groupings and vaccination status. Real transparency. I just found it refreshing that at least Alberta was willing to show that there are other health factors contributing to these deaths.

[nucksRnum1]

I know a guy in critical condition with Covid. I don't know if he was vaxxed or not, but assume he was because he was involved with coaching hockey.

But if he isn't vaccinated, you can guarantee people will be blaming him for not getting vaccinated, but won't say anything about his 350lb weight, even though losing weight and giving up smoking would do more to ward off Covid death than the vaccine does.

This!

So people have empirical evidence that weight is a trigger for covid risk? Where from? Jason Kenny's personal trainer? Local isogenic pyramid dealers? A demographic that frequent local gyms that are ignoring passports? Or do these smug people use science? If the answer is "science" - then I find it interesting how the science that supports a preference of fat-shaming is gospel - and reasons for shots that are ignored by roid ragers - is because of "studies". I wonder what other snake oil claims these powder-shaking dealers make about their products. Can they regrow limbs? Or be an elixir of forever youth? Is the testosterone drops a silver bullet? Or the veggie powders with heavy metals ground into them? I wonder if caffeine and ephedrine pills would have been better for fat people to use while struggling to breathe? With other antihistamines. Or how about horse pills? There are too many yoga mat "doctors" and not enough PHD physicians out in hospitals out there making the mandates obviously.

[daria]

So people have empirical evidence that weight is a trigger for covid risk? Where from? Jason Kenny's personal trainer? Local isogenic pyramid dealers? A demographic that frequent local gyms that are ignoring passports? Or do these smug people use science? If the answer is "science" - then I find it interesting how the science that supports a preference of fat-shaming is gospel - and reasons for shots that are ignored by roid ragers - is because of "studies". I wonder what other snake oil claims these powder-shaking dealers make about their products. Can they regrow limbs? Or be an elixir of forever youth? Is the testosterone drops a silver bullet? Or the veggie powders with heavy metals ground into them? I wonder if caffeine and ephedrine pills would have been better for fat people to use while struggling to breathe? With other antihistamines. Or how about horse pills? There are too many yoga mat "doctors" and not enough PHD physicians out in hospitals out there making the mandates obviously.

From Science:
https://www.science.org/news/2020/09/wh ... eyre-young

Since the pandemic began, dozens of studies have reported that many of the sickest COVID-19 patients have been people with obesity. In recent weeks, that link has come into sharper focus as large new population studies have cemented the association and demonstrated that even people who are merely overweight are at higher risk. For example, in the first metaanalysis of its kind, published on 26 August in Obesity Reviews, an international team of researchers pooled data from scores of peer-reviewed papers capturing 399,000 patients. They found that people with obesity who contracted SARS-CoV-2 were 113% more likely than people of healthy weight to land in the hospital, 74% more likely to be admitted to an ICU, and 48% more likely to die.

That article is more than a year old, so I am sorry that you have missed the discussions around COVID 19 and obesity.

It's not fat shaming to want people to reduce their BMI for their own well-being.

[Glacier]

That article is more than a year old, so I am sorry that you have missed the discussions around COVID 19 and obesity.

It's not fat shaming to want people to reduce their BMI for their own well-being.

I just made the mistake of going shopping on an empty stomach. Long story short, please don't shame me for eating half the box of pastries before I got home!

No, I take that back... I need to be scolded so I don't do that again. Covid and unhealthy eating are not a good combination.

[daria]

That article is more than a year old, so I am sorry that you have missed the discussions around COVID 19 and obesity.

It's not fat shaming to want people to reduce their BMI for their own well-being.

I just made the mistake of going shopping on an empty stomach. Long story short, please don't shame me for eating half the box of pastries before I got home!

No, I take that back... I need to be scolded so I don't do that again.

Lace up your ice skates and do some lines, and I don't mean coke.