Everything Coronavirus

[S.R.]

Per capita that makes sense as ON and QC are the most populated and densely Provinces by far. I still thought for all the debate hype about Trump "killing" 200,000 people, we'd be doing far better per capita than the States. We're actually doing worse.

PEI and NS are the 2 most densely populated provinces actually, then ON, NB, and QC.

The virus has spread more quickly in urban centres often, but certainly not always. Density doesn't seem to be much of a factor when a lot of contact tracing points to behaviour - it's people having house parties, gatherings, and being out at bars. Those activities are available in cities of varying sizes. How much people are doing that vs following directives though varies widely.

Places in the world with much higher population and greater density than ON and QC have also handled the virus better. A real factor for mortalities is simply whether you let it get into LTC homes or not. I'd argue the LTC system is handled the worst in ON and QC.

[DanH]

PEI and NS are the 2 most densely populated provinces actually, then ON, NB, and QC.

The virus has spread more quickly in urban centres often, but certainly not always. Density doesn't seem to be much of a factor when a lot of contact tracing points to behaviour - it's people having house parties, gatherings, and being out at bars. Those activities are available in cities of varying sizes. How much people are doing that vs following directives though varies widely.

Places in the world with much higher population and greater density than ON and QC have also handled the virus better. A real factor for mortalities is simply whether you let it get into LTC homes or not. I'd argue the LTC system is handled the worst in ON and QC.

Population density on the scale of PEI and NS is meaningless. Ontario having huge swaths of empty land and then local much higher density city populations is far worse than the flatter population density in those provinces. Density is a huge factor. Guess how many people are going to bars and having big house parties in towns of 1000 people versus cities of a million? The activities are available in both. But that doesn't make the quantity and location of those activities and the number of different people who rotate through those venues particularly comparable between different size cities.

Obviously there are things you can do to mitigate the risks associated with density, but without density you can get away with a lot more stuff than you can in the city. School is another good example. You think there is more risk of spread in a high school of 1000 kids or a schoolhouse of 30 in the countryside? Even if you assume the same starting point, say that 1% of the populace has an active case in both areas, that's 10 kids in the big school in the same enclosed space as those 1000, and probably none in the small schoolhouse.

[S.R.]

Population density on the scale of PEI and NS is meaningless. Ontario having huge swaths of empty land and then local much higher density city populations is far worse than the flatter population density in those provinces. Density is a huge factor. Guess how many people are going to bars and having big house parties in towns of 1000 people versus cities of a million? The activities are available in both. But that doesn't make the quantity and location of those activities and the number of different people who rotate through those venues particularly comparable between different size cities.

Obviously there are things you can do to mitigate the risks associated with density, but without density you can get away with a lot more stuff than you can in the city. School is another good example. You think there is more risk of spread in a high school of 1000 kids or a schoolhouse of 30 in the countryside? Even if you assume the same starting point, say that 1% of the populace has an active case in both areas, that's 10 kids in the big school in the same enclosed space as those 1000, and probably none in the small schoolhouse.

Sounds logical, have you done the research? Pretty sure you'll find a range of emerging data. Some densely populated cities have handled this really well and some haven't. Some rural areas have been hit hard and some haven't. The virus also develops through phases as it spreads through a population (urban or rural) and the impact changes. You'll find a range of impact data but I haven't seen a consistent conclusion that supports the idea this will be necessarily worse in larger, more densely populated centres.

One of many informative takes on the range of factors, some risks are unique to rural areas: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...-growing-share

[S.R.]

It's hard to find new enough research at this point as things have definitely developed over the past few months, but a couple other conclusions:

- John Hopkins study identified "connectivity" and not density as a key factor (some cities are dense but more isolated socially/economically)
- American Medical Association has identified socioeconomic factors as critical. People in poverty, marginalized minorities, experience mortalities up to 10x the rate of middle class whites in America.
- A lot of studies showing early policy action is absolutely critical. Cities much larger and denser than Canada's largest have fared much better, Seoul, Hong Kong, etc. took much more decisive action sooner. The importance of taking early effective action is true across the board, regardless of local population.
- I'm telling you guys, the inept LTC home systems in ON and QC are a significant factor in mortalities:

https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/can...udy-finds.html

https://globalnews.ca/news/7355627/q...avirus-chslds/

[DanH]

Sounds logical, have you done the research? Pretty sure you'll find a range of emerging data. Some densely populated cities have handled this really well and some haven't. Some rural areas have been hit hard and some haven't. The virus also develops through phases as it spreads through a population (urban or rural) and the impact changes. You'll find a range of impact data but I haven't seen a consistent conclusion that supports the idea this will be necessarily worse in larger, more densely populated centres.

One of many informative takes on the range of factors, some risks are unique to rural areas: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...-growing-share

Right, you are seeing the impact of big cities taking significant precautions because of the early results and smaller cities not doing so. If you set all things equal (as it was early in the pandemic when no one had any protections in place) you see the higher population areas run rampant, with the spread in the smaller cities much slower. Ideally we'd be setting all things equal by having everyone take those precautions, but we clearly live in a non-ideal world.

There are of course many other factors. But population density is a real driver for spread of disease in general and we have no real reason to doubt that's the case with COVID. That said, if the lesson to be applied is for lower population density areas to start practicing better prevention methods, then that's great. If we are going to start deciding which approaches work and don't without considering things that have traditionally been significant factors though, that could be dangerous.

[G__Deane]

Yeah where are you getting this? We are doing way better than the states by basically any measure, even with the Ontario government trying their very best to screw up at every turn.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...-covid-before/

"In Canada, there have been at least 168,958 cases reported. In the last week 13,496 new cases were announced, 37% more than the previous week.

There have also been at least 142,368 recoveries and 9,504 deaths. Today, 23 deaths were reported, compared to 20 yesterday."

Round numbers
US population 300M
200,000 deaths

Canada population 30M (10% of the US)
10,000 deaths (5% of the US)

My math was messed up, gotta lay off the beer at noon....we're doing comparatively well.

[saints91]

From March - May Canada had done poorly compared to other developed countries. We failed to protect our long term care homes that resulted to 87% of our fatalities. Since then we have done a better job of screening people entering long term care homes.

We have also improved our testing and our guidelines.

[saints91]

The US has testing rate is much higher than Canada, which has exposed more cases. That has brought their fatality rate down lower than ours. But if you look at per capita numbers, we are doing very well. Once again LTR accounted for 87% of deaths, which should have never happened.

[saints91]

Easy math 210,000 death divided by 9,500 = 22.1 times the amount of deaths

The US is 8.75 times more populous of a country. Comparatively Canada has done much better in terms of dealing with Covid.

[saints91]

We have a more socialist, communal ideology than the US, which is a more capitalist, everyone for them selves mentality. The Canadian population, for the most part, has bought into the guidelines set out by the Canadian government. Where as in the states there has been far more push back. Some of that can be the inconsistent message coming from the US government.

[Yuri Gagarin]

The US has testing rate is much higher than Canada, which has exposed more cases. That has brought their fatality rate down lower than ours. But if you look at per capita numbers, we are doing very well. Once again LTR accounted for 87% of deaths, which should have never happened.

I wouldnt say its because of more testing. They had to test more because it was so rampant. Florida at one point was getting a 15% positivity rate in testing. At the start of August I think Ontario was getting a .4 infection rate per test

[Yuri Gagarin]

There was a study a few weeks ago in the US that said over half the people they surveyed with positive tests were at a restaurant in the last few weeks. And there was that choir in western US where 80% of the people there got it.

Enclosed areas with others is bad news.

rural areas can contract trace better than big cities

[saints91]

I wouldnt say its because of more testing. They had to test more because it was so rampant. Florida at one point was getting a 15% positivity rate in testing. At the start of August I think Ontario was getting a .4 infection rate per test

They definitely have more cases, but our testing is also lagging which doesn't project the asymptomatic cases as much.

[Yuri Gagarin]

Canada finally approved these quick 20 minute tests and oredered 20 million of them from the US. Theyll be in pharmacies, meat plants, schools etc.

[Yuri Gagarin]

For what its worth I read that the virus parks itself on the back of the throat for a few days before entering the lungs so its a good idea to gargle salt water once a day