I'm struggling with the criticism I'm getting for sharing upbeat #COVID19 news.
For years, I probed data and shared accurate analysis showing COVID risks were higher than most thought. Many people liked and reposted me.
Today, I share that COVID is far lower than it's been in six years after two years of consecutively declining surges, and people act like I'm a COVID minimizer.
Same guy, same data, same analysis. If you welcomed my concern, I hope you'd equally embrace my optimism. 1/2
I'm not saying COVID is gone or you shouldn't be cautious. I think it's vital people have the freedom to do what they think is right for their and their families' health. But doing the right thing requires valid information, and I'd hope by providing that, I help people.
COVID is going to surge again. The question is if we'll continue the trend to lower surges and a safer world, or will that reverse? I'll still be watching. I just hope people will accept good news as eagerly as they do bad. 2/2
Co-signing this.
@buffyleigh @augieray The surges are, IMHO, so much more concerning with context.
This "relapsing-remitting plague" seems designed (I know but it's the best word here; don't @ me) to maximize a false sense of security.
@augieray Ever since Covid was politicised, the reaction to it from both sides has made no sense.
When, recently, the WHO announced that it was unlikely that hantavirus would lead to a pandemic, I saw a lot of snotty responses along the lines of "That's what the idiots said about COVID!"
If we can't accept that some science news might be good, then how can we say we trust it when the news is bad?
@augieray While I disagree with what the extent of your conclusion seemed to be in the previous posts, I do want to stress I don't want you to stop your reporting and appreciate wholeheartedly that you report on wastewater data. My problem was not the data so much as what I'm hoping was merely a lack of clarification and acknowledgement that while there is a light at the end, we're not out of the woods yet.
It's entirely possible in hindsight I misinterpreted your posts as being a lot more callous than they actually were. In which case, my concern remains the potential for inadvertent supply of ammunition to people who think COVID was "over" as early as 2021 when we're only just now in late May 2026 getting evidence that we're maybe finally close to that point.
edited to fix a grammatical oddity and make my point clearer (hopefully)
@disorderlyf
People that thought COVID was over 5 years still believe it's over. They can't be convinced otherwise in my experience.
When /if its finally over, they will say "it was over in 2021" despite all the COVID related deaths and sickness since that time.
@augieray
In Canada, Covid is still cycling more than twice a year, overwhelming some hospitals, and killing off residents in LTC and retirement homes.
When, in retirement homes, there are breakouts multiple times a year, and an ambulance shows up 4 times a day instead of once or twice a week, it's very difficult to read your comment that it's surging less often and so is less of a threat., especially since it causes strokes, heart injury, and shortens the lives of the elderly .
When you check the fed website, you are missing a lot of pertinent info like this warning for Ontario:
"Note: this province/territory has low population coverage. Please consider this coverage when interpreting the displayed graph."
more👇
part two of my reply:
I think before you rely on sketchy stats from our provinces/ feds (that rely on provincial data) and speak about covid in our country, you need to educate yourself about our provincial conservative governments, how they are wilfully ignoring the impact of covid on our hospitals, have purposely underfunded and ended testing; and the political will to turn our healthcare over to American style system.
more👇
part three of my reply;
There is a concerted effort by conservative premiers, to replace our universal healthcare with for profit, and to do so they are underfunding hospitals, fighting healthcare professionals who want fair pay for work completed; it' complicated.
If you talk with nurses and doctors in hospitals, they will tell you yes, other viruses are an issue, but covid is a big problem, so much so that if you are hospitalized with something other than it, 👇
final part of my reply:
..there is a high probability, in many hospitals, you will have it when returning home.
Over the past several years, because of my family's health issues, I 've spent a lot of time, often 24/7 for weeks each time, in up to 5 hospitals in different areas, talking with staff and I'm telling you along with provincial politicians , covid is making a huge negative impact on our healthcare system.
end
100%. I know many people who have returned from the ER with covid these days. They also required my friend remove his N95 mask and replace it with a surgical mask. It's deeply unnerving when the place that should be most actively following the science is very obviously ignoring the science.
yes, that's another problem, thanks to ignorant politicians making healthcare decisions.
Here are the qualifications of Ontario's minister of Health, Silvia Jones
"Jones grew up on her family's farm. She attended Fanshawe College, where she 👉 received a diploma in radio broadcasting. She worked as an executive assistant for former PC party leader John Tory. She and her husband David live in Dufferin County .."
I also cannot put down my absolute rage at the ongoing ableism of the general public. The basic headspace seems to say that disabled people do not have the same rights to life and public access as able bodied people because we should "just deal with it" on top of everything else we already deal with.
I haven't been able to eat a meal in a restaurant for nearly seven years now. Travel is an absolutely depressing nightmare. I'm a musician and can no longer perform in public.
All of it has driven home that the average abled bodied person doesn't care about anyone who is disabled. We should just disappear and deal with it in the shadows because we aren't worth the basic investment in HVAC and public infrastructure that would actually benefit everyone.
Being actively ignored and erased is a harrowing form of eugenics.
Indeed, it it troubling our society turned it's back on disabled, not only with covid, but effectively reducing financial support and housing , and then there's the failing healthcare system.
@RobotDiver @TrueNorthSpice @augieray
This. Exactly.
@augieray I will try to add some weight to the other side of the balance from the negativity. I value your analysis and outlooks. I may have a different risk tolerance than you and therefore make different decisions, but that’s okay!
Please keep bringing your expertise and honesty to the analysis and sharing it with others!
@GinevraCat I believe the low level of COVID in wastewater (and COVID infections) is being driven by a combination of prior immunity (from past infections and vaccinations), plus evidence that COVID evolution is running out of ways to defeat immunity.
Barring a major saltation, I'm hopeful current trends will continue.
@augieray thanks for all you do. I know I have some negative emotions about good news. Mainly because I’m so angry at people not taking it seriously. And so if it all fades away and gets better, then I feel like all my hard work masking and urging caution is diminished. People will conclude it wasn’t necessary.
It’s all in my head. And it doesn’t overwhelm me to the point that I reject good news. But I can feel this twinge of negativity. I can see how that might be a more powerful emotion for some folks.
@augieray I have also noticed the downward trend, but I'm still not going to change what I do. It's been down to "personal choice" for years now rather than public health, and I refuse to go along with the crowd.
The "good" part is, perhaps, but not as many people will pick the virus up right now. I mean, that's good news in my book, even if everyone else moved on in 2021 or 2022 and doesn't think that Covid even exists anymore.
I still get looks like I have three heads when I'm out in public masked or with a HEPA filter, but I can't and won't take risks with my already-precarious health. There are so many things that I wanted to do in life that I will now never, ever get to do, and the entire world deciding on collective amnesia regarding this virus is one of the main reasons.
It would've been so much simpler five years ago to be focusing on better filtration and air quality in all of our public spaces, especially our transportation spaces. But nooooo. It was too hard. It was too expensive. It "wasn't airborne". Yeah. 😖
I appreciate your reporting and I don't see you reporting about a dip as being a negative thing. I'm sorry that people are piling on you about that. The hills that people pick to die on are pretty mystifying sometimes.
@emjonaitis
I haven't seen any good evidence one way or the other to date.
There has been modelling on wastewater and hospital burden.
I have not seen work looking at the time dependancy & stability of that relationship that I recall.
For example, it may be that different variants change their gut shedding characterisitics which would provide a systematic but time limited bias to waste water results and modelling.
Its an interesting modelling problem.
@augieray
@augieray
I depend on your COVID reporting as a trusted source.
I haven't abandoned my COVID cautions due to your good news.
I do use your new, more positive data to alleviate some of my anxieties about being in public spaces.
Don't let the haters affect your analysis.
@augieray "Optimism" about covid is able to be, and is, weaponised to oppress immunocompromised people.
It is used as the justification to scale back affordances to protect the vulnerable, and to force those people into situations that are a risk to them, but perhaps not so much for the abled population.
One might argue that expressing optimism about Covid is inherently unethical, and for a doctor, directly contradicts the "do no harm" principle.
@augieray "Optimism" about covid is what makes it impossible to see a dentist, because their staff may refuse to wear N95 respirators when you have to take yours off, because "Covid is over" and "Covid isn't so bad". Or, get trades in to your house, because even though you supply them with masks, they take them off when you're not looking.
It speaks to your attitude that you're not thinking from the perspective of people less fortunate than you.
@yatil @augieray Just because a piece of information is “true”, it doesn’t make disclosing that “fact” moral, ethical, or useful.
For example, publishing the ethnicity of every person who commits a (violent) crime.
“Facts” are not neutral, especially when used to justify outcomes that disproportionately affect vulnerable groups and individuals.
@metaning @augieray So what is your alternative? Keeping people who care about this uninformed? As people who are not caring are already uninformed. Or might the vulnerable person get the tradespeople in now to make the important repairs that they have delayed previously.
The information enables vulnerable groups to make appropriate decisions. And facts are indeed neutral, their interpretation might not be. Yours not more than others.
@yatil OK, well, I'm sure you would have no problem with your news stations reporting on "black perpetrated violent crime", every night. Right? That's a "fact", and would be "neutral" according to you.
How people will respond to that, will just be "their interpretation". Right?
The key phrase from this conversation was "optimism". Optimism about covid leads to people becoming unconcerned, to not take seriously their obligations to others because they've just heard "it's not around much".
@metaning I did not engage with that strawman because that’s what it is. And the fact is that most crime is conducted by white people here. That is the fact.
Again: What is your suggestion to handle this news that people who are vulnerable have the best chances to stay COVID-free since 2020? This is the concrete thing you just avoid answering. This is good, optimistic news. It’s not “COVID is over news”, but “there have been fewer road fatalities” is also not “there are none” news.
@yatil I did not say "most", I said merely reporting the "fact" of crime by a specific ethnicity. Facts are never neutral, they are always subject to the agenda of whomever reports them.
I reject your assertion that this "fact" implies what you are suggesting. What it suggests is vulnerable people are now at a heightened risk, because a "fact" which may merely be a quirk of surveillance methodologies, will encourage those around them to be less cautious, to not test before visiting, etc.
@metaning And again: How does less viral load makes it a higher risk if all other parameters stay the same (e.g. the vulnerable people still keep their guard up and others care about nothing)? People have not tested without explicit prompting at any time in the last 4+ years.
I visited my parents for the first time in 7 years in March and a Pluslife test was the basis for it. They wouldn’t have tested otherwise.
People have not been cautious around vulnerable ppl for 4+ years.
@augieray Mind-boggling. I've seen your stuff being shared here for years, and if anything, you sharing this news should probably be given *extra* weight and cheer.
I'm sorry you're catching hear for it, but I'm glad I saw this post today. I see your posts so often I assumed I was following you, but I realized today I was not. Now rectified.
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