Southwestern: 28 new cases from weekend

September 13, 2021 |

Southwestern Public Health was reporting from the weekend 28 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford on Monday, Sept. 13, or an average of just over seven a day.

Seven new cases had also been confirmed on Friday.

The number of ongoing cases being tracked by the health unit stood at 50 Monday, up from 41 Friday.

Ongoing cases in St. Thomas and area increased to 10 Monday from nine Friday and in Aylmer and area to seven from five, while two new cases were discovered in Bayham and one in West Elgin.

In Oxford, South-West Oxford rose to nine from eight and Tillsonburg and area to five from one. Woodstock and area stayed at 12 and Blandford-Blenheim at two, while Ingersoll and area dropped to two from three.

Four Southwestern residents are hospitalized with COVID-19, one in an intensive care unit.

The infection rate for the Southwestern region stands at 23.6 cases per 100,000 of population, up from 19.4 on Friday.

Across Ontario, 600 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed on Monday, down from 784 Sunday.

Posted in News

Drake Larsen

‘case rate’ is not ‘infection rate’ – words matter – how long will Aylmer Express continue the subterfuge?
- nobody
  
  I suspect that you are confused by any statistic that has “rate” as a descriptor.
  Infection rate and case rate are basically the same statistic.
  If there are 1000 Covid-19 infected people in a population of 100,000 then the infection rate is 1000 per 100,000. If there are 1000 Covid-19 cases in a population of 100,000 then the case rate is 1000 per 100,000. The stats could be expressed as percentages, but hard numbers are more expressive.
  The actual numbers of infected people is probably higher, given the possibility of asymptomatic people who might still be contagious, but it’s not a case till they test positive.
  Things like marginal case/infection rates, and a plethora of nuanced interactions aren’t calculated for public consumption but do play a part in modeling whether the Pandemic spread is accelerating.
  Positivity rates are a measure of how wide a net is being cast to contain the virus.
  
  Low Positivity rates, with many tests being done, might indicate that too much testing is being done, or not the right people are being tested. A positivity rate of 1000 positive tests in 100,000 tests given might indicate too much testing of the wrong people.
  An infection/case rate tells me the odds of running into an infected person if they were not quarantining, though the odds will obviously be higher since some people are infectious with no symptoms and are never tested.
  
  I suspect that armchair quarterbacks who claim a “scamdemic” on the basis of a couple of freely available statistics have no idea of the complexity involved in modeling anything, let alone an organic system.
  It really comes down to whether you have faith in the scientists, mathematicians, and politicians that keep modern economies functioning on a daily basis.
  Don’t have religion. Retired with few hobbies. But do enjoy playing “Whack a Mole”.
  - Drake Larsen
    
    infection is a term that describes when a disease-causing agent has invaded an organisms’ cells – finding genetic sequence in the nasal cavity (ie nature’s filter) is absolutely not a sign of infection. We can find 10^8 virus in your nose right now… are you rife with infection… no of course not.
    - nobody
      
      If a sample taken from a nasal swab tests positive for the Covid-19 virus the odds are very high that there’s a cellular virus factory churning out Covid-19 viruses in the person that nose belongs to.
      Science has identified ~5000 viruses that humans are susceptible to. You throw around meaningless statistics and numbers with abandon. You seem to be an advocate for “Throw the baby out with the bathwater”. False Positive Covid-19 tests may be an inconvenience, but False Negative Covid-19 tests could kill people which is much more inconvenient.
      - Drake Larsen
        
        We can debate to what extent a false positive is convenient or not… but that’s just another of your red herrings. What we do know is a false positive certainly ain’t infection, and the higher we test the more false positive there are. And as I have provided the latest peer review lit in our other on-going thread you will also find that the literature supports the idea that qPCR positives above 20-something (depending on source) aren’t scientifically defensible as infections either. Moreover, the higher the CT rate the more case rate and infection rate diverge. In Canada then with high test CT it follows case rate and infection rate will be highly divergent. So my point stands, positive-test cases rate is NOT synonymous with infection rate. Why is it so hard to realize that two different words mean two different things in the scientific lexicon; it’s a highly specific, well honed grammar not prone to needless redundancy. Words matter in science.
      - nobody
        
        The real Red Herring is you pretending that this about science.
        It’s obviously not. This is all about politics for you. It shows in your attack of Dr Tam, who as federal minister of health does not dictate health policy in Ontario. Your use of the word “Scamdemic” should have been a Red Flag. You go ahead and worry about false positives. No one cares.
      - Drake Larsen
        
        I’ve cited the recent science on qPCR in the context of SARS-Cov-2. You have cited nothing. You continue to mischaracterize my statements and position – case in point I never called it “scamdemic” I called it “casedemic” because case rates are being greatly exaggerated in Canada, owing to poor testing protocol and I have presented evidence to support that. You aren’t interested in honest conversation, as seen in your false attributions above and rampant use of rhetorical fallacy in every post; you are just shadow boxing.
      - nobody
        
        Technically you cited nothing. Your first link link, which was not click-able, cited an obscure study that showed the decay of positivity, of a certain PCR test, of Covid-19 patients, versus time as compared to known positive control cultures. The relevance of that study was primarily to determine the safe quarantine period of infected patients. The Authors themselves stated that no finding should be used to determine Public Policy. Yet you twist that obscure study into a debate about PCR CT count validity.
        As to the second reference you made about declining prevalence and false positives, well my answer is that maybe if we want to reduce the prevalence to 0 we shouldn’t be worrying about False Positives but False Negatives. False Positives can not nurture the Covid-19 virus but False Negatives surely will. By all means use the best tools to Weed-Out this scourge. I suspect that Prayer just won’t cut-it.
      - Drake Larsen
        
        SMH – you call obscure two relevant contemporary citations from the journal published on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America; ranked 9th out of 148 journals in the category “Immunology”, second out of 78 journals in the category “Infectious Diseases”. Go hide in your closet you aren’t interested in real discussion of the matter at hand. False negatives you lament – you wouldn’t know a Type II error if it kicked you in the pants.
      - nobody
        
        I’m sorry for thinking you smell like Herring, Red Herring at that.
        Apologies for the sensitivity of my nose.
        Please provide links to WHO reports, and CDC reports, that support your claim of a recommended Cycle Threshold of 28 or less. Please provide links to reports that support your claim that Canada is testing to a CT of 40.
        You make Bold Claims of “Knowledge” yet just provide links to obscure references promulgated by CASEDEMIC Conspiracies.
        I admire your bluster though. Type II error? No Idea. But I do recognize an overconfident bag of wind trying to bully their way with a high pressure “Stream of Gas”. I would call “The Bible” a cute fable to scare children into eating their vegetables, but that would be promoting Child Abuse.
      - Drake Larsen
        
        Good Sir, I have provided you with multiple references from the foremost scientific journals on the topic (that’s how discussions in science works). I have provided you with the WHO reference you again request above. I have lamented that data on Canada CT has not available for the last year or more. You rage at me about facebook and politics and religion when I have invoked none of these. I make no bold claims – only share what I see and echoing what many far more trained doctors and scientists are saying around the world (like in the papers I’ve cited, ahem). I simply bring the discussion here to our little corner of the Aylmer Express because it’s high time society begins to wake up to the subtle miscues from the media as to the nature of this virus and how it shapes our interactions with each other as human. It is scientifically incorrect that PCR positive tests above a threshold are referred to as infections or infectious cases – in fact the science says the opposite. Whether this faux pas is ignorance or malice I cannot say. But I can say it’s wrong and that’s what I am saying here – words matter. Maybe not to nobody, but hopefully to somebody.
      - nobody
        
        Strange thing is that you’ve made no citation of WHO recommendations on CT count. None on Ontario CT number to completion, yet make a claim as to CT count based on suspicion.
        Your attack on Dr Tam, the Ontario Minister of Health, and Canada not being a “Free Country” make it Political. Maybe you don’t read the FUD your surrogates post in the guise of your account, or maybe you’re just a FudMeister.
        
        If your account spreads quotes taken directly from Facebook Conspiracy threads, you’re spreading FUD.
        If you post links to scientific papers, and then claim they support your position, when they don’t, you’re spreading FUD.
        And yet you make an issue of a newspaper reporting directly what a government agency puts on it’s website.
        Have a problem with the News, take it up with the source, NOT THE MESSENGER.
        
        You can’t CO-OPT everyone, if many at all, to half baked BS.
      - Drake Larsen
        
        The rate data is not available for Ontario, yet you hold it against my argument. I placed requests through PHAC, the province, and my local health authority; I have asked my MPP and MP. Silence. I can find this information for any region in the USA in a matter of minutes online. I can find it for any region in Europe, most of South America and Africa. Previously we know Canada was testing at 38-45; that was over a year ago now.
        
        I have posted the WHO information for you – my guess is you have not even glanced at it. They are explicit that PCR is not a diagnostic tool alone; it should not be used as a yes/no drive-up solution for diagnosis. “Distinction between background noise and actual presence of the target virus is difficult to ascertain.” The USA’s CDC and NIH immediately announced changes to their PCR protocol following the WHO document update.
        
        I posted quotes from the Journal of Clinical Infectious Disease to back up my argument. “patients could not be contagious with Ct >25”. Contagion and infection are more closely correlated terms than positive test case and infection, which aren’t correlated at all (simply because positive test case doesn’t carry enough useful information as a term)
        
        Re: the Aylmer Express and their word choice, I don’t see the PHAC or local authorities being so flippant with their words. Canada Daily Epidemiological Update does not use the word “infection” fungible with “case”. These newspaper men make this word choice themselves – as rhetorical tool to lesson redundancy and add flair. They always make the change the last sentence, like a scare hook. It’s dishonest flip a term in the end of a story. Moreover, it’s incorrect and nonsensical. I take it up with the messenger because it’s the messenger that is, perhaps naively, making false statements. They are not alone.
      - nobody
        
        The sites may be relevant, the articles are obscure with no recommendations or conclusions other than those ascribed to them by Conspiracy Whack-jobs. Much as the proof offered to the simple minded, “Duh, it says so in the bibble”. Tautological Fallacy.
      - Drake Larsen
        
        Science informs the ‘how’ but does not provide the ‘ought’. If you are so anti-religion you should study more on the tenets of Science as you don’t seems to know those either. It’s no wonder we are lost like a ship adrift – most of the crew thinks the telecope is the compass.
      - nobody
        
        And many think that 1+3=13.
        Do You have a point?
        The average person is stupid.
        50% of people are even stupider than average.
        I thank George Carlin for that observation.
        I suspect that most of the fanatically religious are in the lower 50%.
        But that’s just me. I’m cynical.
      - bushywah
        
        I came back. 😉 See above. Why is this place lagging several sentences behind me in typing speed??
      - bushywah
        
        “False negatives you lament – you wouldn’t know a Type II error if it kicked you in the pants.”
        
        Well, one point for having heard the words and using them in a sentence, even though the sentence makes zero sense.
        
        The fact that you think that a false negative result of a test for the presence of a virus is a “Type II error” is good for a guffaw, but that’s about all it’s good for.
      - Drake Larsen
        
        Bushywah, I was just trying to make a little science joke for levity – but it was punching down because it’s obvious Nobody doesn’t have a science background.
      - bushywah
        
        Ah. What fun. If only “having a science background” were essential for understanding and making public policy in all instances, or accusing someone of not having a science background actually worked for dismissing their concerns or arguments in matters of public health.
        
        Could I just ask, on a similarly light note: have you heard of Typhoid Mary?
        
        We might also tarry a while on risk analysis, and the factors considered. Not just the likelihood that a risk will materialize, but the consequences if it does.
        
        It may be highly unlikely that the person who delivers our groceries is infected with COVID. But for my partner and me, who both have multiple risk factors for extremely serious outcomes if we are infected, contact with that person is an unacceptable risk. Ditto for him/her: It is improbable that we contracted COVID when we left home to vote, but I will continue to keep the door closed to protect the delivery person too.
        
        I also have a history of weak immune response (no immunity to measles when tested as an adult, despite having had measles twice as a child, pre-MMR vaccine, and being very ill both times). I got vaccinated, but I may still depend on herd immunity to protect me from measles, if I am one of the x% of the population that does not create my own antibodies — and, at least as importantly, to protect other vulnerable people I am in contact with if I happen to contract measles. If my covid vaccination has been effective, I could at least expect a less serious infection. I prefer to reduce that risk to the minimum possible, which means that I expect the people around me to be as conscientious about my health as I am about theirs. Civilization; such a nice thing.
        
        Oh yeah. My sister contracted COVID before there was any real awareness of the risk and the consequences. She couldn’t be tested, because she did not have the then-“classic” symptoms. She was ill, but not ICU-ill. She has since been hospitalized and also had multiple out-patient procedures to try to diagnose and treat her condition. She is disabled now, apparently permanently, by the damage done to her lungs. I will not wish that on anyone else’s sister, and don’t know why anyone would wish it on mine.
      - Drake Larsen
        
        Typhoid – a bacterial disease agent; you’re confusing apples with orchestras; Gorillas to germs to garbage exosomes, you don’t even discern do you… it’s just ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ and your envision yourself as prey in every scenario. And that’s fine – absolutely live your life in balance with your perceived risks – but don’t pull others into the living hell of your own conjuring.
        
        According to the ON military’s report dozens Ontario seniors died of DEHYDRATION in care homes literally abandoned on account of casedemic of poor data. We’ve besieged an entire generation of young ones; the suffering and trauma is unfathomable; on account of casedemic of poor data.
        
        You’ve made your bed through a lifetime of personal health choices and environmental impacts beyond your control, and so you must sleep in it – that’s called growing up and being a man. However, your preference ends where other’s skin begins. My father had a heart attack 2 weeks after his second Pfizer injection; my neighbor has ongoing searing headaches; my good friend’s father exploded with rare terminal luekemia 2 weeks after his second Pfizer injection and he will die soon, the right side Dr Tam’s face is obviously sagging with palsy these days… these are all ailments that I wouldn’t wish on another; which is why I refrain from offering medical advice to anyone, and I wish for no less than FULL INFORMED CONSENT absent coersion to anyone considering the mRNA therapies.
      - bushywah
        
        (Forgive me; I had work and I had difficulty typing in this box, which decided to do 5 words per minute … and still is.)
        
        Ah, argument by analogy eludes you. The fact that typhus is bacterial and COVID viral (I’ll bet you thought that I didn’t know this, snort) is not relevant. If I had offered the analogy to support some argument that I was not making here, it might have been. The distinction you make defeats the analogy only if it is relevant. In discussing asymptomatic transmission of an infection, it ain’t. Of course, you can pretend to counter the analogy with the bald assertion that there is no asymptomatic transmission (or transmission by people with only very mild symptoms) of COVID. Again. Feel free. Don’t forget pre-symptomatic transmission, ‘k? I expect you would like to, but you may not.
        
        Also, don’t overlook distinctions among asymptomatic populations, i.e. the age groups most likely to transmit if asymptomatic. Yes, Virginia, asymptomatic transmission DOES occur.
        https://www.pnas.org/content/118/34/e2109229118
        
        “literally abandoned on account of casedemic of poor data” – I literally have no idea what argument you are making here, but whatever it is, it appears to be counter to reality. I don’t really care to attempt to penetrate your impenetrable denialdemic of idiosyncratic (idiotic) jargon, either, just fyi. But for our information:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation#%22Casedemic%22
        
        “However, your preference ends where other’s skin begins.” – Since you know very well that NO ONE is being compelled to accept the vaccine, this right-wing crap is just another dishonest attempt to mislead, and to subvert public discourse as it should be conducted in a democracy: with honesty, first and foremost. Oh, and my preference is not to die. This is not the “little temporary safety” of which old Ben Franklin spoke, and your preference not to wear a mask is not an “essential liberty”, either — nor does that preference override the interest of coworkers etc. in their own lives and health.
        
        “your envision yourself as prey in every scenario” … “You’ve made your bed through a lifetime of personal health choices and environmental impacts beyond your control, and so you must sleep in it – that’s called growing up and being a man.” – Actually, I’m a woman; and here we see your true colours flying free. You’re a rotten, snivelling POS, and your own pathetic tales of woe (and strange conflation of causes and correlations*) do not impress me.
        
        (*Yes, Bell’s Palsy is one known rare side effect of various vaccines. My former law partner – hm, also of Chinese ethnicity – developed the condition many years ago with no instigating factor at all, and was one of the even rarer people who never recovered. If I asked her today whether she would rather have Bell’s Palsy or the condition my sister has – unable to engage in exertion or to walk any distance without a mobility aid, plus various other known sequelae of COVID – or, you know, be dead – I know what she would tell you. So do you. BTW, even if you were qualified to diagnose, and even if your diagnosis did comport with the facts, do you imagine the Tam would rather that people die of COVID or that she have Belll’s palsy? I know the answer, and so do you, and we both know that it marks the difference between a decent human being and you.)
        
        As for suffering and trauma: my 90-yr-old mother died this spring, of apparent heart failure in her own apartment, after over a year of various degrees of isolation from her family (my baby sister who had COVID was her primary helper), and while continuing to receive the miraculous new cancer immunotherapy she had started nearly three years earlier – having been in contact with a person who tested positive for COVID at one of her essential immunotherapy infusion appointments, but having fortunately not been infected.
        
        Her younger brother died earlier in the pandemic, also after months of isolation from family. We all kept in touch by various means, but you bet she was depressed. And it won’t be hard for you to imagine the depth of her contempt for people like the lovely Aylmer Christians and members of her own brother’s family closely associated with another of those “Christian” ratholes of resistance in Ontario. She and we worked hard to stay positive (ha, ha) in the knowledge that we were doing the right things and we were decent and were in fact admirable human beings, and not scum like the ones whose behaviour was extending our isolation. Which we are, and they are, still.
        
        Buh bye now.
      - bushwah
        
        You “be a man”, you giant A whole. I happen to be a woman. And you meet no criteria for “being a man” that I would ever accept.
        
        And no one “with a science background” would ever present your bs correlations as causation.
      - bushywah
        
        Playing whack-a-mole can indeed be fun. As is watching someone play it. 😉
        
        I’d agree that no one cares … except for last night’s results. Of course, they don’t prove that anyone actually cares. Only that two kinds of people showed their colours:
        
        (1) Stupid, selfish people who have decided that being wilfully ignorant and ignorantly selfish is the best way to live their lives. They care because all they care about is themselves, and they don’t have the simple intelligence to figure out that they’re acting in someone else’s interests, not their own.
        
        (2) Liars. Evil scum whose interest is in getting power so they can wield it in order to ensure the continuing supremacy of white men, and who will exploit the stupid selfish people to that end at every opportunity.
        
        — keeping in mind that the #2 crowd isn’t actually acting in the interests of all or even most white men, but stupid, selfish white men who love their guns and need to control their women, and just generally believe they are better than they are, make the best followers for evil lying scum. (And of course none of either crowd actually gives a toss about their religion; it’s just another way of bringing stupid, selfish people into their ugly right-wing fold.) Ask … you know … Hitler and the boys.
        
        And never pretend that our homegrown evil lying scum are not first cousins to that crowd. Scamming people about COVID isn’t really what it’s all about, as any body with an iota of intelligence and a grain of integrity knows.
        
        Read quick. This comment will disappear in 5, 4, 3…
      - nobody
        
        Sometimes when playing Whack-A-Mole you get the sense that the mole keeps popping up, and looks the same, but smells different. Then you think “that’s not the same mole, but many rats using the same Mole costume”.
        
        Sometimes you think that Mole must have multiple personalities. Maybe prone to believing in, fantasies, the infamous quotes of
        ” The Jesus”, like…”The end justifies the means”, or “It’s not a lie if You truly believe it”, or ” God is just recycling souls when he kills you through disease and pestilence”.
        
        Yes Dorothy, God does recycle. lol
      - bushywah
        
        And never forget alternative facts — and we’re all entitled to our opinions!
        
        There are various versions, all good:
        
        https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/03/17/own-facts/
        (speakers and sources at that link)
        
        (1) Everybody has a right to their opinion, but nobody has a right to be wrong in their facts.
        (2) You are entitled to your own views, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
        (3) People are entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.
        and
        Every man has the right to an opinion but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts. Nor, above all, to persist in errors as to facts.
        
        Those come from a day when people didn’t actually pretend to think they were entitled to lie in public, or to the public, to get their own way in their own self-interest (or what they stupidly believe it to be). It was all part of what used to be known as civil discourse. Civil discourse doesn’t mean you can’t call a liar a liar; it means that you can’t lie.

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