Did you know: The pandemic isn't over?
Long-term N95 wear, labor market, did you know (Canada), CH.1.1 Orthrus
It’s a rhetorical question, I know: likely you either you know, or you don’t care. But if you’re on the fence, or are politely talking to someone who genuinely cares to know, you might find these helpful.
Consider everything I share today as a data point for you to consider and verify independently. I am sharing this information in the good faith belief that it is useful and generally correct, but I am not a medical nor public health professional.
Also to note, these are a few informational high points, but this is not a comprehensive survey of information about the pandemic, precautions, or responses.
Wore N95 Masks for Weeks Over the Holidays
A blog post I’ve ended up not having the time to write would have been about our 2.5 week experience over the winter holidays, where my wife and I, who are COVID-conscious / COVID-cautious, visited in-laws at their homes, and had relatives over to our house after a 12-hour road trip together, always while observing N95 masking when sharing air. (We had a cumulative total of a few minutes of mistakes, such as walking in from outside without a mask, then walking right back out after realizing it; or piling into the car and forgetting to put on a mask, then having to stop the car to put on a mask. We also traveled with our dog, who could theoretically gotten COVID and then given it to us.)
Two key takeaways:
The Envo Mask elastomeric mask we really like (very comfortable, doesn’t fog glasses) started to give me a raw spot over the bridge of my nose, after ~9 days of wearing most waking hours. I switched to 3M Aura masks, which are also really nice. My wife kept wearing her Envo Mask without problems. I’ll go back to my Envo Mask, but will watch it if I’m wearing it many hours for a number of days. (Envo Mask has been having 40% sales every few months; their current sale ends the evening of 31 January. I have no affiliation, I am just a (more or less) happy customer.)
Have a heart-to-heart with the people you’re visiting, before you visit. In this social climate, nobody knows what the social conventions are, or why you feel you need to be COVID-cautious when other people don’t. It’s good to go through your reasons, and what approaches you will take (renting a separate house, taking food and drinks outside, splitting your house into separated air zones, etc.) before you’re visiting. Make sure to speak directly with your hosts/hostesses, not just someone in the family who would then need to convey the messages.
One Reason the Labor Market Is Tight: People Are Dying From Covid-19
I don’t feel like we’re getting enough reality from US public health agencies yet, but COVID is starting to affect general reality enough that other people, like insurance actuaries and economic chiefs, need to talk about it.
From “The missing workers who are never coming back” (Axios, 2022-12-16):
Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell struck a particularly somber note at his press conference earlier this week when he mentioned that one reason the labor market is so tight right now is that many workers died from COVID-19.
"Close to a half a million who would have been working ... died from COVID," Powell said while talking about the U.S. labor shortage.
Long COVID is sort of similar, but delayed. We are starting to hear a little about it from US public health agencies (although they won’t say yet that masks and air quality are an important way to prevent long COVID, by preventing COVID infections), but it seems like it’ll be a year or two before it starts to affect reality enough (more people with serious health problems, more strain on healthcare systems) to become a big issue for society.
“A few things you might not know about the pandemic...” (Canadian edition)
T. Ryan Gregory has a good list of “A few things you might not know about the pandemic...” in Canada, with sources cited; the gist of it applies to the US and other nations, too. The items to pay particular attention to are the “peak and trough” numbers; the peak numbers in a wave used to be the important number, now it’s that the low numbers don’t get very low anymore, and the area under the curve is growing.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TRyanGregory/status/1618622988722778114
Threadreader: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1618622988722778114.html
Did you know that 2022 was the deadliest year of the pandemic in Canada?
Did you know that Canada recently passed 50,000 COVID deaths? [of 38.59M people, 0.13% of total, same percent of US population would be 435,000]
Did you know that more Canadians have died of COVID than died in World War II?
Also, did you know that more of our American neighbours have died of COVID than dies in combat in every war they've fought since 1775?)
Did you know that the *lowest* number of COVID patients in hospital has been increasing through 5 waves of Omicron and that the troughs have all been higher than the *peak* of the Delta wave?
Did you know that summer 2022 had twice as many deaths as summer 2021?
Did you know that the main issue with Omicron variants is no longer "tsunamis" caused by individual variants, but rising sea level with high and low tide? This imposes sustained pressure on the healthcare system.
Did you know that 15% of Canadians infected with COVID (1.4 million people) report long-term symptoms?
Did you know that there are now more than 700 Omicron subvariants, and that many of them can escape prior immunity and are resistant to available treatments?
Did you know that mitigation measures like high-quality (N95) masks worn properly, ventilation, air filtration, and avoiding high risk contact are all variant-proof?
Did you know that the pandemic is not over?
Quick note about the not-low lows of hospitalizations since Omicron. Same pattern happening in various places (New York, UK, France, Denmark, etc.).
CH.1.1 (“Orthrus”) a new wildcard Omicron strain with a concerning Delta mutation
Another one to watch: What’s CH.1.1? Meet ‘Orthrus,’ a new wildcard Omicron strain with a concerning Delta mutation (Fortune, via Yahoo News, 2023-01-27)
Thanks for reading. Stay healthy and happy! — Pete