I don't know what SA has in terms of restrictions/mandates/etc, did they change anything at the same time as the spike or is this purely the course it took without doing anything?

I had one, my wife has had one, and my youngest has had one at different times for varying reasons.

In many cases, the US has been a free-for-all when it comes to COVID precautions. No fear of overwhelming the hospitals cuz people can’t afford it anyways.

If you want to bring up misconceptions in this thread, doesn’t take much effort to see that more than 90% of the us population has health insurance in one form or another.

The demographics also appear to show that the people who are insured are also the people who would be considered vulnerable to Covid. Where as the younger demos make up the 30 or so million who are not.

Maybe you’re not insured to be stuck on a ventilator for a month, but your life probably wouldn’t amount to much after anyways

I wouldn't equate the US health care system/insurance the same way we do ours. They have way more programs and private insurers than we do. The sheer complexity of it is... staggering. Not to mention their deductibles are insane.

One form or another is absolutely spot on. Being "insured" in the US wouldn't be considered the same as you would expect in Canada.

In the US, being insured just means you go into great financial duress if you're ever ill. If you're uninsured it just means you never get medical treatment. It's literally not relatable to Canada.

Also, Biden is pandering to a population that covers a significantly more polarized and extreme range of intelligence and critical thinking skills.

Trudeau doesn't have to worry about the neonazis brewing plans to turn up en masse at large cities with their arsenal of weapons, Biden unfortunately does (because of Trump's reign, I might add).

If Trudeau were the US president he'd say exactly the same thing Biden did, and vice versa.

To put it simply, if youre camping with 10 kids who are all between 8 and 12, you give them marshmallows and tell them its ok to roast them over an open fire, but to be careful. If you're camping witb 10 kids ranging from 2 to 16, you tell them there's no fire and no marshmallows, and hipe the 16 year olds understand it's for the greater good.

well Trudeau can't say that because boosters aren't available here for non-seniors whereas just an hour south of the border FEMA has deployed mobile vaccine units

i surprisingly thought Trudeau messaging made sense then read it again

'when you are tired there are people more tired than you'

lol so it's a race to the bottom? do you tell people suffering from depression you are sad but there are people more suicidal than you?

Well you can look at it two ways. That way, or the way that Canada has been in a better position in terms of life disruptions and severe illness than 95% of the world, so just fuckin deal with it.
I still will never understand the American comparison. Shits not sweet there. Just cause Biden is out there pandering to people telling them it’s safe, when they are going to hit a million deaths from this virus in the near future doesn’t mean it’s better there. It just means they are sticking to the motto of the New Hampshire license plate. Live free or die.
I’d probably feel differently if I lived in Quebec though, but here in BC, while things have sucked, they are not nearly as shit as they could be.

All you have to do is watch the global news loop to see what a clown show this is

Trudeau was asked where the funds were for all the businesses that are once again closed and his response was “well we all know the speed parliament works at”

You can’t write this shit.

The answer is straightforward: If you are not fully vaccinated, you have good reason to be concerned. You’re at a high risk of getting sick. And if you get sick, you’re likely to spread it to others, including friends and family. And the unvaccinated have a significantly higher risk of ending up in a hospital or even dying.

Almost everyone who has died from COVID-19 in the past many months has been unvaccinated. Unvaccinated.


"Not vaxxed? You gonna get rekt" - Biden

Well… he’s not wrong though? You wanted honesty from your politicians you got it lol... I mean they rolled out the program before for everyone with very few requirements to get things going as fast as possible and then all the righties and Cons bitched like crazy about how much fraud there was. Can't have it both ways?

Love how he threw in there that Trump got the booster as soon as it was available.

He really wants his read buttered on both sides. Shameless.

I mean, he spoke like a child, but he said the right things - so kudos to him there.

I sit here chuckling at the inner turmoil his supporters must feel though, "do I blindly cheer him on because he's our new racist Jesus, or do I boo him because he's advocating for the juice of the devil?"

Fuck, the BCIT testing centre which is located by the electrical trades building in the back parking lot, if you know where that is, is currently backed up all the way to crossing willingdon.. and going up Canada way passed wayburne the other way

Until today I had never even seen it backed up the BCIT driveway

Golden quotes from orange man here. The level of cognitive dissonance from MAGA supporters must be blowing their minds: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcar...le-arent-dying

Meanwhile, the same supporters have been hesitant to take it because they have been pushed so fast.

He's only behind it because the vaccine was developed while he was President..... if it had come at any other time he'd be telling everyone it's poison.

He can't walk away from ANY opportunity to self-promote. He really can't.

All these anti-vaxxers who say it's rushed and untested don't understand how fast human technology has begun advancing... we were around for thousands of years with slow innovations... and then suddenly in the 1900's there was only 65 years or something between the first airplane flight and standing on the moon. Technological improvement is staggering the last hundred years.

Can confirm, I've never seen the three roads entering BCIT lot that full at dead stop, it literally wraps around all the adjoining blocks
Probably 300+ cars waiting just to enter the BCIT road

Yeah, my guess is that BCIT testing centre is going to see heavy traffic from the start of this week until the end of winter.

A colleague mentioned that his family saw those long lineups at BCIT on Monday.

Still have not spent most of the money we got last time but you want the government to give us more money?

From what I gather when watching the news, we have antivaxxers / covidiots on one side, and Branch Covidians on the other.

Two years and the same arguments keep going and going. No one fatigued from arguing in circles?

I've just been listening to people's individual stories on how they're handling it as well as them telling me forwarded stories from other people. That's what I take from this whole thing. From people who are 'proudly' not taking the vax, to people seeing their elderly parents who only want to see their children / grandchildren in case their life ends next week for some unrelated reason. Even had multiple people tell me about their experience dealing with the actual Covid infection post double vaccination.

Politicians arguing? Fucking eh, what else is new??

Latest news about Covid testing. It appears that the short staffing at testing centres is catching up to the test sites now:

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2021/1...ts-denied-pcr/

People waiting in hours-long lineups for COVID-19 testing in Metro Vancouver are in some cases being denied PCR tests and being handed rapid tests, they say.

While we had previously reported that staff at testing sites were giving this option to people this week, these are the first cases weÂ’ve heard of staff telling people they would not be provided a PCR test.


CityNews has received multiple reports from people that this is happening. One of the people who went through this on Thursday was West Vancouver man Jay Spicer.

His son became very symptomatic on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, the pair went to North VancouverÂ’s COVID testing site at ICBC.

“His symptoms just came on super quickly Â… like heavy fever, he slept for it seemed like 20 hours. So I woke him up early, got down there half an hour ahead of when they opened and we were a good eight blocks away I think” Spicer recalled.

After waiting two hours in line, he says he was offered a rapid test for his son.

MILDER as in people aren't as getting sick and able to fight off. It doesn't mean it's not transmitting.

Anti-vaxxers are wahtever, cant' convince them. Few of my aunts are not getting it; due to heart / sick. Tried, but honestly, it was no use. Beacuse if they ever gotten sick / allergies... then they'll blame that shit on me / vaccine ...

K ... I'm not understanding why so many people want to get tested?

If you don't have symptoms, they won't test you.
If you have symptoms, just stay home and isolate or take precaution and ride it out.

So WHY are there so many people wanting to get tested ... what for?

I mean at the rate that this thing is spreading, you can get tested, it could be negative and from the time you tested till you get result (1 day), you could have caught it.

1528 today ... at least our daily increase is not exponential.

Edit .. >2000 cases and that's only those who were able to get tested!

So I’ve heard two different stories in the last day that somewhat answer your question lol..

A friends parents both had symptoms, they didn’t want to wait the time to get a test because they were concerned they were “going to miss Christmas” so they lied at the airport testing centre said they were both without symptoms and needed tests for travel, both got PCR tests and came back negative

On the flip side you have people who want to feel “safe” gathering for Christmas and are lying about having symptoms and getting a test so they can gather with friends and family more confidently.

In both cases you’re an idiot. However, earlier I tuned into 980 which I had sworn off in time to catch the end of an interview with some rep for doctors and nurses and they said from this point on the numbers will be even more skewed than they have been in the past because now they don’t even have the capacity to test everyone everyday, as the above article lays out.

Way to delay that at home rapid testing Bonnie/Adrian. This is becoming more of a circus everyday

https://c.tenor.com/uN_sLmFqa9cAAAAC...ie-numbers.gif