Canadian Snowbirds heading home-Antigen Rapid Tests required

[Canuck_Travelle]

Seeing that soon there will be a swell of Canadian Snowbirds heading home and seeing the protocol at the border is a requirement of a certified Rapid Test (Antigen) test not more than 24 hours prior to crossing has anyone crossed yet or know of anyone crossing?

Anyone have any more info on this like did they or do they know of anyone crossing, where did they get the test, costs, was it certified, was there any problem at the border showing the Border personnel the test and acceptance.

Really appreciate any info, thanks....

[silversand]

....there has been no significant difference between US States with mask mandates, and those 35 States without mandates. Just look at the case rates. have a look at any of the reputable statistical data (Johns Hopkins, etc, etc). Even worse, one of the location in North America with the highest fully vaccinated levels in the World, and strictest mask mandates (Quebec, Canada) had an astounding Omicron BA.1 infection ratio of 1 in every 3 inhabitants.

The problem with "mask wearing" is the following: ....universal country-wide masking suffers from four big flaws. 1) the general population does not wear masks properly; 2) the general population may not/do not have proper fitting masks; and 3) among the general population, cloth masks still predominate; and 4) how many wearers change their masks EVERY TIME they make a sojourn out of the house (filthy and degraded mask filtration)?

IF masks are so significant in preventing transmission, why in the world did states with strong mask mandates like Rhode Island (1 State among many) experience in January an Omicron surge among the highest in America (at least as high as States with no mask mandate)?? Look at the UK, with one of the strictest masking mandates in the world; how did they fare during Omicron? Mask mandates and general population masking seem to be one of the least consequential Covid mitigation endeavors in the war against this pandemic.

There was a randomized masking trial in Bangladesh, that demonstrated that surgical mask wearing by the cohort studied only reduced the symptomatic infection rate by 11%.

There is something going on that is, as yet, not understood in the realm of rise and fall vis societal pandemic mitigation measures! Even with near perfect compliance (ie. Quebec) with near 100% lockdowns (ie. Quebec), 100% masking by law (ie. Quebec), and 100% travel bans (ie. Canada). None of that worked at all.

In ending, have a read of this systematic review and meta-analysis designed to determine whether there is empirical evidence to support the belief that “lockdowns” reduce COVID-19 mortality. SAE./No.200/January 2022.

The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.

"A LITERATURE REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS
OF THE EFFECTS OF LOCKDOWNS ON
COVID-19 MORTALITY"

Here-->

-18,590 studies are identified
-three levels of screening 34 studies ultimately qualified.
-Of those 34 eligible studies, 24 qualified for inclusion in the meta-analysis

....the conclusion: "While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument"

THIS is why I (and many others) say future Global vaccination mandates will fail miserably; they will be rejected outright by world populations. An do you know what? That is very, very sad.

On edit: I AM a proponent of voluntary masking; however, EVERYONE needs to take a course on proper mask fitment and post-wear disposal

[BCSnob]

A published, peer reviewed study that demonstrated the benefits of facial coverings (not specific to professionally fitted N95 respirators) at reducing the odds of becoming infected after exposure to an infected person.

Predictors of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection Following High-Risk Exposure
Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2021

Benefits of mask usage were greatest among unvaccinated and partially-vaccinated participants, and in interactions involving non-household contacts or interactions occurring without physical contact.

I view mask use in the same light as social distancing, I use the mask in crowded indoor locations when there is elevated community transmission. Like vaccines or social distancing, it is not 100% effective, but it reduces the risk of infection and can be additive to the other protections.

As the pandemic has continued, science has progressed and become more nuanced about immunity to this evolving virus. Immunity is no longer viewed solely by the measured level of antibodies circulating in the body but now also includes the breadth of circulating antibodies (their targets: specific parts of the RBD, spike, nucleocapsid, and their susceptibility to genetic variation in the virus) and the breadth of antibodies produced by memory cells. Studies have found that repeated exposure to the virus (or parts of the virus in the form of vaccines) increases the breadth of antibodies and breadth of memory cells and therefore future protection to new genetic variants. While circulating antibody levels (from infection or vaccination) may wane, immunity may continue.

It is difficult to know if the virus is really done with us as long as it continues to evolve within those it continues to infect and within the animals we are now learning it also infects (example: white-tailed deer). I for one will enjoy this time of much lower community transmission (where I live) but I will continue to monitor it and be ready to adjust my behaviors to limit my risk of exposure and then potential transmission to higher risk family and friends.

[silversand]

As everyone here knows, I am a HUGE proponent of vaccination. Let this be said right up front.

With that being said, and Omicron BA.2 being pretty well in the top 2 most contagious pathogens known to man, it is absurd and ludicrous to believe, or let anyone convince you that mask wearing (and I am talking about N-95 NIOSH masks, not Korean masks) will protect you against ingesting via breathing BA.2. Unless you have a professional fit your N-95 perfectly, you will be inhaling large quantities of atmosphere around the nose area. Even worse, IF you have not shaved, face stubble and any genre of beard will render the mask fitment useless.

This is the big one: ....does anyone actually believe that with Omicron BA.2's level of contagion at up to 12 persons per virus shedder, that they will have a chance in Hades in ever identifying their source of contagion? I highly doubt it! You could have contracted it from someone walking by you on the street, someone who vacated an elevator you entered 10 minutes ago, someone who walked by you in an underground parking garage, any one of a MILLION scenarios while you are even wearing your improperly fitted mask, or, while you were outdoors near 1 single infected person.

This is the big two: though the vaccination (IF you have had 3 shots!) is effective in preventing symptomatic Covid "most of the time" but over a VERY short period of 4.5 to 6 months, 3 shots will NOT prevent you from actually contracting BA.2. 4 boosters has almost no measurable efficacy past a handful of weeks (see the recent article on 4th booster in Nature). I don't know why our politicians can't seem to understand that, and, everything above? If anyone thinks that another Covid vaccination campaign will gain traction, those politicians are sorely wrong. Another global Covid vaccination campaign will fail miserably. That's too bad, because we WILL see another pandemic from maybe anothr specie of SARS, maybe something unrelated and worse; and the next pandemic may be many, many, many fold more deadly than Covid was; like not 15~18 million global mortalities, but maybe half a billion. And, because the sum total global governments failed to be sensible about the house arrest of their citizenry and failed miserable to fund their own health care systems over the past decades, no, half Century, the latency caused by rejection of some yet undeveloped vaccine for the next global pandemic campaign, may condemn the World.

Sars-cov-2 won folks. Get over it. Death rates from BA.2 are so low, they are now blended with the hundreds of other mortality statistics that tend to kill off humans. IF you are vulnerable, YOU make arrangements for home delivery of everything. Don't go out period. Let the rest of less vulnerable humanity go back to "normal". Set up virus surveillance not just in Denmark and the UK, but in every country on Earth, pulling samples from the hospitalized cohort. At least better surveillance will warn of some new pathogen coming at us in the future.

That is about all I have to say about Covid, as Covid pandemic enters its death throes, to likely be heaped upon the pile of endemic virus history over the next year or two.

[moisheh]

Wow. here it is in a paper issued a few days ago. So is Trudeau going to wander the streets and verify you are a traveler?
or 14 days following entry into Canada, you and any unvaccinated children under the age of 12 who travelled with you must:

maintain a list of the names and contact information of each person with whom you came into close contact and a list of locations visited
wear a well-constructed, well-fitting mask in public settings
keep a copy of the following and provide them on request to the Government of Canada or government of the province or territory where you are located, or to the local public health authority:
all COVID-19 pre-arrival test results
all on-arrival COVID-19 test results, including results from random testing and results for children under 12 and
proof of vaccine
monitor for signs and symptoms of COVID-19
if you start showing signs and symptoms, or receive a positive test result for COVID-19 before the expiry of the 14 day period, you must immediately:
report within 24 hours to the Public Health Agency of Canada by calling 1-833-641-0343 (the official will provide you with additional details and instructions)
isolate for an additional 10 days, even if your province or territory has a shorter isolation period
contact the appropriate public health authority
In addition, if:

the fully vaccinated parent, guardian, or tutor develops signs or symptoms, or receives a positive result, the parent, guardian, or tutor and the child must isolate for 10 days
you travelled with a person who develops signs and symptoms of COVID-19, or receives a positive result for any type of test before the expiry of the 14-day period, you and the child must quarantine for 14 days starting the day you or your child were most recently exposed to the other person

[Canuck_Travelle]

Just in from our local paper here in New Brunswick ie Brunswick News.

"All entering Canada are required after April 1st to wear a mask in public venues for 14 days."

I can't Google this as nothing comes up and the paper blocks it from forwarding or copying by copy protected text.

And there's penalties for not adhering to this but sorta boggles the mind how it will be enforced, oh well just another "control mechanism"

Oh incidentally if you get COVID-19 you can return to work for the Federal or Provincial Government in Canada after self isolating for five (5) days...can this protocol get any more ridiculous?
14 days...control, control, control when will Canadians wake up, if this was the USA there would be riots! No way this kind of control would be even tried in the USA the pushback would be horrendous!

[pianotuna]

b.2 is now 1/3 of all cases in USA. It is 40% more infective than b.1

Take as many precautions as you can.

[BCSnob]

Unlike vaccination where we have data demonstrating effectiveness against each variant for each vaccine and number of doses and time since these doses which can be used to assess immunity; there is very little data on the effectiveness of past infections based upon disease severity, variant which caused the infection, and time since infection to assess immunity.

What data has been published on natural immunity indicates that disease severity (much like vaccine dose and number of doses) impacts the level and duration of immunity.

Link

Until someone comes up with a means to subcategorize the level of acquired immunity based upon disease severity we (society) run the risk of conferring immune status to those who are at risk of reinfection much like those who are partially vaccinated.

[silversand]

Philh wrote: "the hospitalization rate almost parallels the vaccination rate, indicating the jab is NOT stopping being from getting hospitalized."

.....OK guys, time out 😄

....when you look at Covid hospitalization studies, you always have to differentiate between those hospitalized as a direct result of Covid (and any resulting mortalities), and those hospitalized because of some unrelated affliction (and any resulting mortalities from unrelated affliction, or the additive affect of underlying Covid), and Covid is discovered (NAAS or PCR) as incidental.

If Covid mortalities don't include the above, then they can't inform.

Now, changing trajectory:

Again, " in a world where we know that we can never possibly vaccinate more than ~68 ~ 79% of the entire 8 -ish billion world inhabitants, we will simply have to "make due" with a world where 1 or 2 billion inhabitants will never ever be vaccinated against Covid. So, why not just confer "vaccination-equivalent" status on those 1~2 billion people?"

Vaccination although wonderful, is a global distribution failure. The "virus" outperformed global vaccination endeavors. We have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that 1 billion + of the World's population will NEVER receive a Covid vaccination, or never achieve full vaccination status. So, likely all of this population will contract Covid forthwith; do we confer immune status on this naturally immune cohort? No burrying heads in the sand here. What are your thoughts?

[BCSnob]

States with higher hospitalization rates in unvaccinated (based upon state health dept websites that list hospitalization by vaccination status).
WA
AZ
MN
NY
WI
TX
OR
PA
CA
KY
NE
OK
UT
MA

I’m sure I could find more states with data that parallel the info in the MI news article, but if you’re not going to believe the data linked above I’m just wasting my time.

Btw, the vaccination rate in the UK for >12 is ~90%. Saying most of the people in the hospital for Covid are vaccinated is like saying most of the people in UK hospitals are UK citizens. The best number is the hospitalization rate:

vaccinated that are hospitalized divided by total number vaccinated

Compared to

Unvaccinated that are hospitalized divided by total unvaccinated

[philh]

BCSnob wrote:
Correlation does not equal causation.

The numbers you want to look at are the vaccination status of those hospitalized and those who died. Overwhelmingly, hospitalization and death are higher among those not vaccinated.

Have you not been reading the news in MI; even Fox News reported higher unvaccinated people amongst those hospitalized.

Michigan hits record high COVID-19 hospitalizations, majority are unvaccinated

Article doesn't parallel studies coming out of UK or even other states. Even in MI, I have a friend that's an ER nurse, and she has stated that a high percentage of ER patients are jabbed.

[pianotuna]

silversand,

I've read the article and all links. I find the original document misleading. Woe betide us if the powers that be start making decisions based on this shoddy bit of work.

[BCSnob]

Correlation does not equal causation.

The numbers you want to look at are the vaccination status of those hospitalized and those who died. Overwhelmingly, hospitalization and death are higher among those not vaccinated.

Have you not been reading the news in MI; even Fox News reported higher unvaccinated people amongst those hospitalized.

Michigan hits record high COVID-19 hospitalizations, majority are unvaccinated

[philh]

BCSnob wrote:
What severity of illness provides immunity equivalent to vaccination (asymptotic, mild outpatient, hospitalized, or critical)?

Infection from which variant provides immunity equivalent to vaccination against all the other variants?

Why do studies find the rates of reinfection higher than breakthrough infections?

Bottom line, the hospitalization rate almost parallels the vaccination rate, indicating the jab is NOT stopping being from getting hospitalized. This was highlighted in both US and UK. Death rate is slightly higher amongst jabbed people, but it's probably a statistical anomaly

[BCSnob]

What severity of illness provides immunity equivalent to vaccination (asymptotic, mild outpatient, hospitalized, or critical)?

Infection from which variant provides immunity equivalent to vaccination against all the other variants?

Why do studies find the rates of reinfection higher than breakthrough infections?

[silversand]

.....so this begs the question:

"...is hybrid immunity THAT much stronger than purely natural infection..." ? Is natural immunity "good enough" ?

Look, in a world where we know that we can never possibly vaccinate more than ~68 ~ 79% of the entire 8 -ish billion world inhabitants, we will simply have to "make due" with a world where 1 or 2 billion inhabitants will never ever be vaccinated against Covid. So, why not just confer "vaccination-equivalent" status on those 1~2 billion people? We are fairly certain that this sars-cov-2 virus is in its "death throws" presently (at least moving into some form of predictable status: endemicity). So, we need to decide how we handle the several billion people who will, in the short run, have naturally contracted BA.2 sans any vaccination. And with the horrendous track record distributing vaccines globally (on time? yeah right), the "virus" is simply mutating many times faster than we could ever deploy vaccines to everyone on Earth. May be one day, some form of vaccine will be developed to recognize much more of the virus, not just the spike protein to confer 2, 3, 7 years protection....but who knows; this may be a year....two, 3 years off.

On edit: ....yeah. This article would have been better served being peer reviewed; however, I can see where the author could have been reined-in, tempered, and edited.