Dangerously negligent! “With the surging number of COVID-19 variants, (BC health chief) Dr Henry said BC would cease tracking individual variants, & proceed on assumption that variants are now dominant in community transmission.” This is so wrong
http://globalnews.ca/news/7746859/b-c-shatters-records-with-1293-new-covid-19-cases-pushing-average-over-1000-a-day/

2) “Our strategy moving forward, given this high rate of (variants of concern) that we’re seeing in British Columbia, will be to no longer routinely sequence for confirmation. We just assume those screened positives will be the variants,” she said.

3) Why is this so damn wrong? Because we need to know which variants there are to know the properties of their transmission speed, track severity, possible Reinfection breakthroughs, and if mitigation working for what types.

4) Why? Mitigation measures could only be partially working — and only slowing the old common strain(s) but not able to contain the newer variants—and if so, which ones?

5) BC is doing the exact opposite of NYC, which is tracking every variant of concern and even many variants of interest...

NYC is led by an actually experienced public health doctor. https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1380773390693376001

6) Tracking variants was how we first learned of a dangerous surge in #P1 that was surging in BC Canada in the first place!!! https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1374853942664953859

7) Don’t forget, Bonnie Henry had long dismissed variants—

Head scratching — I don’t know why BC health chief keeps insisting the variants (B117 P1 and B1351) are not different than older strains. That is patently false and been well known for months.

8) Oh hey.... anyone remember when this BC school outbreak was happening back in February? So many people ignored. BC leaders ignored. (HT to @realreporter for covering this early) https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1363693739085099008