Thought of the Day - December 27 - By the Numbers

The world is now over 80M cases and Canada over 550k. Staggering numbers.

As mentioned, hospitalizations are becoming a more effective way of assessing the level of COVID infection and impact. Only a small number of countries have been reporting this since early in the breakout. As you see Canada has a much smaller, but growing per capita figure than the other countries reporting.

Looking at ICU figures you can see that the Europeans are doing a better job in stabilizing people without needing to move them into ICU, than the US and Canada.

Canada still has one of the worst case fatality rates.

Looking at the major provinces the good news is that Ontario seems to be flattening and BC is now declining.

And in ICU, of the large provinces you can clearly see Alberta is in trouble and will continue to see rising fatalities.

The big news over the last week(s) has been the commencement of mass vaccinations. Canada is one of the countries reporting and is off to a great start. Comparable figures are still hard to come by but here are some preliminary figures (note the ones from China and Russia have not been recently updated - they are probably many times this now).

But if you look at it by population it is two countries in the Middle East that are leading the pack.

Looking at the countries where V501Y variants are common-place (UK and South Africa) you can see the significant uptick in cases and deaths - worrying now it has also been identified here in Canada.

Finally, some more new graphs: Return to "workplace" (measures indicators like return to rush-hour traffic patterns).

and Return to "normal" (measures retail & recreation, grocery & pharmacy, transit and workplaces).

And given the further lockdowns in Ontario and increasing cases in Alberta, it is clear that it is better to be in Vancouver than a major city elsewhere in the country - and thus this week's shout-out goes to BC.

Cheers

Cliff