Thought of the Day - July 5 - By The Numbers

Canada and BC look to have finished their downward trend in cases and deaths. Instead we are now seeing more of a sustained rate (the following graphs are from arcgis, which seems to be the "go-to" tool for many of the health authorities' dashboards across the country).

I put together a new graph below for your viewing pleasure. It clearly illustrates two things:

• If the red dot (representing deaths per ten-thousand citizens) is well within the blue bar then the province is doing a good job on testing and in COVID-19 care; as we have been talking about for some time this is clearly not the case in Quebec where one in ten official cases have died).

• Next, the grey section of the bars represents the amount of COVID-19 cases still active (cases per ten-thousand citizens). A small grey section means things are well under control and the first wave is by-and-large finished. A larger grey section is a harbinger of future cases and fatalities (thus the concern in the USA).

On Friday the Atlantic Provinces opened their borders to personal inter-provincial travel, no longer requiring a quarantine period as an Atlantic Pandemic Bubble has been established.

Last week New Brunswick launched its provincial dashboard. This includes a section on inter-provincial vehicle travel and even shows the number of travellers turned away. I guess a similar chart for travel by air, and for international travel is still too much of a political hot potato, and not under control of the provinces.

This weekend, lineups were reporting heading to PEI and between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. However, there is still plenty of room on the ferries to Newfoundland.

Unfortunately on the day of the reopening, PEI announced three new cases had been diagnosed - this after two months with no cases.

And now for something completely different. Activity Risks:

I am a little surprised with some. There is no bubble for sailing, being a sport with a limited audience, but it looks like beach & outdoor exercise, thus low to me.

This week the shout out goes to the Atlantic Provinces. While I am sure there are still some details to be worked out, it looks like they have successfully put an inter-provincial framework in place for travellers.

Don't forget there are more graphs at: https://clifffraser0.wixsite.com/covid-19/the-numbers.

Cheers

Cliff