Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV/COVID-19)

[killramos]

That and once you get to the end of the line you get a glimpse of what last eras Soviet Union might have looked like.

All for the low low price of all of our money every year forever. But I digress.

[ExtraSlow]

So apparently people are doing private covid testing ahead of gathering for the holidays. Seems like a reasonable decision if you do plan to spend time around people outside your household. Shit like that exist in Alberta?

[jutes]

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His comment was "Humanity in general has gotten unhealthier over the generations", which is a lol any way you cut it.

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This thread is unhealthy, I think I lose brain cells every time I read it in the last week or two.

Yeah it's crazy some of the things you read here.... There is no hope for you if you think that people are better off physically now than they were before the first WW. Our medical systems are keeping these people alive for decades longer, but when you have a virus that attacks unhealthy people and a healthcare system that can't keep up, well you have the USA right now and Canada is not too far behind. We are witnessing the perfect storm. People today are less active, mostly overweight, eat poorly and in most cases need a pill to keep them happy through out the day. Modern medicine, stress free living, going to a store to buy food instead of hunting all contribute to better life expectancy, not overall physical health. I thought you were smart enough to know the difference.

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Yeah... There is a lot I agree with there actually.
Reminds me of how a lot of people speak to causes and say something like "Well my father had this disease and it's an awful thing which is why I chose to donate..." etc. To me it reads as someone who only chose to help this particular cause because it affected them personally. It's bizarre. I don't need to starve to understand that there are many people who don't have a full stomach everyday, or get chemo to understand the challenges to everyone involved with cancer.

Look at all the virtue signalling lately from people. Stay home, Save lives! Like they really care about saving lives or helping people. We have a problem that affects THEM and now they make themselves feel good by demonstrating empathy and compassion. The entire BLM movement was a great example of selfishness. Millions of black lives die every year due to starvation and there are no demonstrations or riots protesting lack of food. It only matters if the black lives are from western world, shot by cops. Those other black lives, across the ocean, don't matter because it's not our problem.

[Disoblige]

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So apparently people are doing private covid testing ahead of gathering for the holidays. Seems like a reasonable decision if you do plan to spend time around people outside your household. Shit like that exist in Alberta?

Like immediately before the gathering or a few days before, then go on a 10 store run for errands and supplies, go have a couple beers with friends, go visit your buddy's new home.. etc.

Lol.

[ExtraSlow]

Ideally, no.

[Buster]

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So apparently people are doing private covid testing ahead of gathering for the holidays. Seems like a reasonable decision if you do plan to spend time around people outside your household. Shit like that exist in Alberta?

Not to beat a very dead horse, but if our dumb gov'ts would get off their ass and support rapid antigen testing like they did vaccines, then you could hand out tests to people in their cars outside your home...clean test you come in the house for christmas dinner, positive test, fuck you auntie martha, stay the fuck off my property.

[ExtraSlow]

Can you get rapid antigen tests privately?

[Buster]

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Can you get rapid antigen tests privately?

nein. Companies won't produce them because the gov't wont allow them to be sold.

[ExtraSlow]

Yeah. So as a private citizen who would like private access to ANY test, what are my options in Alberta today?

[ExtraSlow]

Seems like in most cases Ichor is your only ootion: https://ichorblood.ca

[pheoxs]

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Yeah. So as a private citizen who would like private access to ANY test, what are my options in Alberta today?

Ichor was doing it but they switched to travel testing now, same with Dynalife (Ichor just ships it to Dynalife in Edmonton anyways). If it's for travel you can book through them but if its just peace of mind I don't know that there are any options at the moment.

I can't imagine they really check if you are actually travelling though ... guessing you could book a test and say you're going to Hawaii on X date and see what happens.

[Buster]

we're days/weeks away from a couple of revolutionary vaccines being released and people can't suck it up on the lifestyle front for a few more months? The cavalry is on the horizon.

- - - Updated - - -

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Personally I would quantify wait times as part of the quality measurement, and one of the reasons I rank our system so low for quality. But I can understand how one might group that into access.

I don't think we have a fundamental disagreement here...

[lasimmon]

I just spent 3 days in hospital at rockyview. General consensus from nurses is it’s getting busy not too crazy yet but could get out of hand. A long term person on the unit I was on tested positive which means someone who visited them gave it to them. Which is just crazy.

[Xtrema]

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I don't think we have a fundamental disagreement here...

Well my anecdotal evidence of AHS on my mom's cancer treatment is that they are way better than anything I have seen for a publicly free system compared to what my relatives goes thru public side of 2 tier system in HK or Macau.

People who complains about our healthcare system in Canada only compared to a paid system in US and not free systems elsewhere in the world, especially under the 2 tier system.

2 tier system is not necessary better when public health is concerned. Macau is famous for 2 hospitals, the free one is full of quacks and paid one only serves the 1%.

[ExtraSlow]

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we're days/weeks away from a couple of revolutionary vaccines being released and people can't suck it up on the lifestyle front for a few more months? The cavalry is on the horizon.

You advertise this timeline. The government who is responsible for handling access does not.

[Xtrema]

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You advertise this timeline. The government who is responsible for handling access does not.

And if people can actually "suck it up", we won't be here in the first place.

[Buster]

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Yes, this is the single largest problem with health care in Canada. There is a constant shortage.

I agree with you.

However, that's a bit like saying "that's the problem with money - there is a constant shortage."

The demand for health care services will always exceed supply. So whatever health care system we implement, it will always really just function to ration that supply in some form. Capitalism/markets in healthcore, or a gov't monopoly...just different tools for the same problem - matching supply with demand. The problem with gov't management is that there is a very poor feedback loop to quell demand - really the only one is people complaining about taxation rates.

[Buster]

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You advertise this timeline. The government who is responsible for handling access does not.

It has become apparent to me that the gov't's priority is managing the message to the public. I don't pay a lot of attention to what they say, but look for other indications of what is going on. For instance, it was clear when they did the announcement in alberta last week or the week before that they knew we were heading for a circuit breaker this week, but they carefully manicured their public messaging. Call it manipulation if you want.

[ExtraSlow]

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And if people can actually "suck it up", we won't be here in the first place.

I'm working on the assumption that peoples compliance will go down over time, and there will be a particular dip around traditional holidays. I don't think that's an unreasonable assumption.
If that dip in compliance coincides with people inside my own social circle getting some private testing, that's a benefit to me personally.

If I had information about widespread vaccine access within 1-2 weeks then I'd probably act differently. I do not have any information of that type.

[pheoxs]

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You advertise this timeline. The government who is responsible for handling access does not.

Canada announced they're set to get 6 million doses between Pfizer and Moderns in Q1 next year. Some articles said January but some said January to March so I just put Q1.

Although that's a small amount that's still 10% of Canada's population. Or if we target 50% vaccinated that's 1/5th the way there.

Though how well Canada will roll it out ... We'll see.