Ehmagerd Vehriernts

Variants had occurred throughout but there was a marked increase in concern in these that correlated strongly with a reduction of asinine American tweets. Was the news just looking for something new to panic about?

Probably.

But of the variants we’ve heard about the most successful one appears to be the UK variant.

Epidemiologists can track individual cases and their knock-on effects and warned early on that the UK variant was more contagious. I wasn’t able to confirm this in my reports since the total variant counts were only a fraction of the totals, and could just as easily be noise. So I’ve been waiting until something can be seen.

Welp, today is that day. I have added trend lines for the UK variant with points near the start and points close to now. This second sloped line is steeper than the base trend, confirming that yes the variants spread faster.

Additionally, in many places the variant is now the majority of new cases and the effect of the faster growth can now be seen in the line showing Active Cases. Notice how the variant trend line starts to nudge up that main line in Alberta, for example.

Frustrating as it is, and as goddamn exhausted as we all are about all of this *gestures broadly but vaguely with arms*, the BC PHO is right to have enacted new circuit breaker measures. We are presently about to see faster growth, likely due to the number of variants approaching the majority of cases.

Vaccinations are still not widely available in BC so this kind of just kicks the can down the road, but the underlying goal of BC PHO’s orders are to soften the shock on hospitals and other resources.

There’s a strong effect of that variant trend line in Alberta, the government of Alberta has announced a return to Step 1 measures. A good decision at this point.

Ontario has recently implemented stricter measures is mulling new stay-at-home orders. This seems like the right thing to do. The trend line is far below the cases line and yet cases are increasing similar to other regions. I would guess this indicates that the data I have on variants in Ontario is missing a lot of cases.

Finland’s growth seems to be unaffected by variants, hopefully this continues.

Sweden had the UK variant for a while and its growth seems slow. I’m not sure if this is because of a lack of genomic sequencing or what.

Belgium’s cases are growing again now that variants are likely to be close to all of the new active cases.

UK is well past the predicted 100% variant point, and is effectively all the UK variant now as far as I can tell.

They’ve had lockdown measures since January now and started gradually easing them in March. The gradual easing makes sense as they are likely at a steady state now and can monitor how each step of easing affects the NHS, taking care to not break the hospitals.

British Columbia

Metro Vancouver

Canada

World

Base Growth

Canada

World

Despite a nearly 100% share of the UK variant, UK’s cases are continuing to decline and lockdown measures are easing. Hopefully vaccinations keep pace.

USA

Large counties across the US have shifted to be above r=1 again, let’s hope vaccinations outpace further growth.

Dunking on Alberta

We invite you to reflect upon the coverage of Alberta in December now that BC has overtaken it in cases per capita. Remember when British Columbians were calling to close the borders?

The calls to close the border are the same but now it’s because of variants. No matter what the facts on the ground, journalists will find some way to exploit inter-provincial rivalries for clicks.

Alberta vs BC:

November prediction: BC overtakes Alberta in raw and per-million active cases in January.
January 15: prediction adjusted to be by mid February (two weeks later, to match result of AB vs ON)
January 22: mid February seems possible still
February 12: our prediction has come true

Alberta vs Ontario:

November prediction: Ontario active cases per million surpass Alberta by the end of December.
Result: Prediction came true two weeks later, mid January.

British Columbia

Metro Vancouver

Starting February Vancouver Coastal started to get its act together. Fraser, while still slowing overall, is slowing less aggressively than before Jan 24.

Canada

World

Base Growth

Canada

Canada’s actions after Jan 17 have resulted in a steady decline, keep it up!

BC held levels over the holidays, increasing a tad in mid January, and starting to cool again.

Alberta continues to hold on its trend of reduction.

The measures in Ontario and Quebec continue to be effective.

The maritime provinces have done a good job changing behaviours, cases are way down. Quebec has not had much luck slowing the spread. There’s a slight turn after the new year but it remains to be seen if it holds.

Saskatchewan has stemmed the growth since new years. Keep it up!

World

UK’s lockdown continues to be effective. They are conemplating easing it, it will be interesting to see how that goes.

USA

Large counties across the US continue to stay under R=1.

Hawaii’s Big Island has got growth under control, returning back to R=1 after a week of high spread.

Seasonality

Cases started to grow in southern hemisphere countries around November, late spring. This corresponds to us northerners in March, except with a larger local and global base case load to start off from.

Unlike in the north, cases have continued to grow since then.

We weren’t sold on seasonality before, but seeing the sustained growth in the south’s Spring and Summer we will offer a prediction that this portends accelerated northern activity in starting March 2021.

British Columbia

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Metro Vancouver

Fraser Health continues to keep R below 1, however citizens in Vancouver Coastal got lax at New Years, resulting in a blip taking around 2 weeks to cool again.

Canada

World

Base Growth

Canada

Canadian habits appear to have started to change since Christmas, both nationally and by province. Here’s hoping it sticks!

BC held levels over the holidays, increasing a tad in mid January, and starting to cool again.

Alberta continues to hold on its trend of reduction.

The lockdown measures implemented over the holidays in Ontario are starting to show effect. Quebec also turned a corner during the holidays. Hang in there, make those changes permanent!

The maritime provinces have done a good job changing behaviours, cases are way down. Quebec has not had much luck slowing the spread. There’s a slight turn after the new year but it remains to be seen if it holds.

Saskatchewan has stemmed the growth since new years. Keep it up!

World

UK’s lockdown appears to be calming the effect of the new variant.

Dunking on Alberta

Alberta vs Ontario:

November prediction: Ontario active cases per million surpass Alberta by the end of December.
Result: Prediction came true two weeks later, mid January.

Alberta vs BC:

November prediction: BC overtakes Alberta in raw and per-million active cases in January.
January 15: prediction adjusted to be by mid February (two weeks later, to match result of AB vs ON)
January 22: mid February seems possible still

USA

Behaviours across the United States are improving, the majority of large counties are now below R=1. Keep it up and those case counts will slowly start to simmer away.