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Just catching up on @sflecce and @TBayMOH’s presser. First take away from this is that this is exactly the sort of thing I was warning about in my thread Saturday (see here: https://twitter.com/KMcIntyre94/status/1355574118121414658). 1/
NB: I’m not going to be able to fact check a lot of @sflecce and @TBayMOH’s lying/misconstruing since there’s just so much of it. Also sorry if advance if this becomes a little ramble-y there’s just so much to try and cover here. So lets get to it: 2/
A serious issue here is that we can’t get straight answers from our gov. @fordnation @sflecce and @TBayMOH can’t seem to answer a question clearly without spin. Between this & that they have been caught several times ignoring public health advice, trust in them has been eroded 3/
Eg @TBayMOH: “we are now seeing the numbers come down very quickly”. This is demonstrably false. Today we reported 1969, the 4 days before that 1848, 2063,1837, 2093. 5-day average=1962. If it were going down quickly today’s case counts should be well below average, not +7. 4/
Or him saying “Do we really know what is going on in the schools? We are confident in that fall that we did”. Again, without a robust asymptomatic testing program we DON’T actually know what is going on in the schools despite their gaslighting (more on this later). 5/
@TbayMOH’s unable to give clear metrics pretty much everything (re waiting for rates to
“Not an exact number per se”) I get that it's complicated and nuanced (there's a reason epi's motto is "it depends") but you need to transparently present criteria for decision making 6/
“Not an exact number per se”) I get that it's complicated and nuanced (there's a reason epi's motto is "it depends") but you need to transparently present criteria for decision making 6/
Eventually he said that he would want school’s back F2F at an incidence rate of <200/100,000/week. This implies that every PHU could return according to @imgrund’s weekly incidence. Remember PHO advises lockdowns at >25/100000 https://twitter.com/imgrund/status/1356225418718810114 https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/11/11/ontario-rejected-its-own-public-health-agencys-advice-when-it-launched-its-colour-coded-plan-for-covid-19-restrictions.html 7/
This is ~8x that of PHO’s (note there is a lot of nuance here but it's to illustrate the disparity). “Can we open up with community transmission?” Every academic study I have read says that mit measures in schools work at low community transmission rates. 200/100,000 isn't low 8/
“How do we make sure that separation is happening between the community and the school?” Schools are a part of the community. This is pretty basic stuff. Schools v community is a false dichotomy. Kids interact with both schools and the community. 9/
“What metrics are you using to reopen schools?” @TBayMOH refuses to give actual clear metrics. It comes down to individual MOHs’ comfort. This is not a data-driven, scientific approach (or if it is, it needs to be transparently presented to the public). 10/
“SickKids has noted that at a time of lower community transmission the plan has worked quite well” Unfortunately, we are no longer at a “time of lower community transmission” plain and simple. “We did a lot of testing” No we didn’t. 9000 tests among 2mil students isn't a lot. 11/
@sflecce talking about parents of people with intellectual disabilities as if @OntarioPCParty is standing up for people who have disabilities is beyond disgusting. Remember this is the government that has been undermining the AODA and ODSP for years. https://aoda.ca/the-ford-government-defeated-a-proposed-resolution-in-the-legislature-that-called-for-a-plan-to-implement-david-onleys-report-on-strengthening-the-implementation-of-ontarios-disabilities-act/ 12/
Now school policy decisions are hard. Everyone wants kids in school. The problem here, as I see it, is that there are no good options. Again we're in this position bc the gov failed to keep community transmissionin the 1st place due to their failed response w the 2nd wave 13/
in the 1st place due to their failed response w the 2nd wave 13/
Remember we don’t actually have reliable data on schools despite @sflecce’s spin. The way that we confirm cases is biased against finding cases in kids. Furthermore the best advice on how to safely return kids to school has been ignored (See article: https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2021/01/21/internal-government-documents-show-how-ontario-watered-down-its-strategies-to-keep-covid-19-out-of-classrooms.html) 14/
Some additional measures that could make return to schools safer includeclass sizes, proper distancing (2m), proper ventilation (not just spin), outdoor ed as much as possible, full asymptomatic surveillance, & supports for those who need to isolate (eg paid sick days) etc 15/
class sizes, proper distancing (2m), proper ventilation (not just spin), outdoor ed as much as possible, full asymptomatic surveillance, & supports for those who need to isolate (eg paid sick days) etc 15/
Now on to other pandemic related things because we can't just get focused on 1 thing. We CAN'T forget about what is happening in LTC. As of today 3543 residents have lost their lives to covid of the 6224 deaths reported due to covid in the province. But @DrFullertonMPP is MIA 16/
Also there has been a concerted effort to discredit experts see https://twitter.com/KMcIntyre94/status/1354469178854539278 and https://twitter.com/bruce_arthur/status/1354954525237518343 and https://twitter.com/DrVivianS/status/1355914638941188096 whether or not these attacks are directly tied to @fordnation I have yet to see him stand up for the experts leading us through this 17/
