mudhoney profile

Nice pic…got to get down there to ride in the summer!
Penny

Posted by: Couch_Surfer

Fair point. I get that this person is uncomfortable with a changed set of conditions, and will have to adjust. I guess I’m just not buying that our current mishmash of (mostly cloth) masking is the thing de-risking life. Life cannot be completely de-risked, and this person unfortunately lives with higher day to day risk than others. I don’t know how to solve for that, but there are many activities we all choose to accept even though they add risk for everyone.

We have vaccinated everyone that will get it. We don’t have overrun hospitals. Omicron variant is significantly less dangerous than original Covid. We have anti-virals to treat it. We have a hospital staff that have had a 2 year course on how to treat this disease. It’s here to stay, we need to get comfortable with that.

It's not just that immunocompromised and other vulnerable folks are "uncomfortable" with the lifting of mask mandates, or that they "feel at risk" (to quote DBH), they ARE at increased risk. While wearing a mask themselves will help protect them, it's not as effective as having the majority of us wearing masks too. IMO, wearing a mask is a pretty minor inconvenience compared to the risk of dying. I will continue masking in public indoor spaces to protect more vulnerable folks.

Having anti-virals available helps, but there are a number of contraindications for taking them (e.g. many of the most vulnerable can't, such as folks with kidney or liver disease). They need to be taken within five days of onset of symptoms, and with BC's very restrictive testing, good luck with that.

Oh, and kids under 5 aren't vaccinated yet.

Learning to "live with it" should not mean giving up & removing protections.

Things like increasing health care capacity, making testing easy & accessible, wearing masks (or better yet, providing N95 or equivalent for free), improving ventilation/air filtration in public spaces & monitoring, and working to distribute vaccines world-wide are what we need to "live with it".

This is worth a read... https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2022/01/16/you-are-not-entitled-to-our-deaths-covid-abled-supremacy-interdependence/

Posted by: syncro

They're a recent kindey transplant so they are immunocompromised due to the anti-rejection meds, which they'll be on for the rest of their life. I think flu is less of a concern tho, but don't quote me on that. 

I don't know the numbers but I would guess that it's a very small percentage of the population that is in similar circumstances. It's a question of how de we let the majority of people live their lives while still trying to provide a reasonable level of protection to those who need it.

Not sure of numbers in Canada, but assume that they are pretty similar to US...

"Close to 3 percent of U.S. adults take immunosuppressive drugs, either to treat cancers or autoimmune disorders or to stop their body from rejecting transplanted organs or stem cells. That makes at least 7 million immunocompromised people—a number that’s already larger than the populations of 36 states, without even including the millions more who have diseases that also hamper immunity, such as AIDS and at least 450 genetic disorders."

Many autoimmune disorders are treated with drugs that knock out the B cells or T cells of the immune system. This means that even if these folks get vaccinated, the immunity conferred by the vaccine will not be as strong because they can't produce the antibodies etc needed.

"At one extreme, about half of organ-transplant recipients produce no antibodies at all after two vaccine doses. Compared with the general vaccinated public, they are 82 times more likely to get breakthrough infections and 485 times more likely to be severely ill. Should they get infected, their risk of hospitalization is a coin flip. Their risk of death is one in 10. “Imagine walking around and being in society and thinking, If you give me COVID, I might have a 10 percent risk of dying,”"

From https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/02/covid-pandemic-immunocompromised-risk-vaccines/622094/

Seymour below the power lines is snow free. Corkscrew has some death patches, power lines was slush. Pingu was good, Pangor was a river in the usual places, Severed clear, GSM clear. Lots of branches & debris everywhere. Some trees down too, so best to look before you leap.

Below the powerlines is snow free (a few random patches in places), lots of branches & debris down.

Posted by: FLATCH

Posted by: trumpstinyhands

Mountain biking Vs hikers was largely solved by mountain bikers building our own trails. These days for the most part hikers use 'our' trails rather than the other way around. Maybe in the future there will be 'E-specific' climbs that provide an interesting challenge for E-bikers, which is currently what is happening with them riding up downhill only trails....

Is this really an issue or just a white rhino? I personally have never seen any ebikers climbing downhill tracks.

I've seen ebikers climbing up John Deer and Severed at Seymour more than a couple of times.

https://bcparks.ca/reserve/day-use/

I think the nsmbA newsletter was a bit confusing. From the BC Parks website, it seems you only need the day pass if you're parking at the ski hill (lot 1 or lower lot 5) and don't have a resort pass. Parking at Mushroom lot isn't listed as requiring the pass & most of the authorized Seymour mtb trails aren't within BC Parks (just the very top of Corkscrew, a bit of Bridle, Old Buck, some of Baden).

My interpretation is that shuttling/parking at Mushroom will be the same as usual, no pass needed

One more month? https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/coquihalla-opening-early-1.6279892

Hwy 1 between Abby & Chilliwack closed again

https://www.abbynews.com/news/tiger-dam-being-built-on-highway-1-to-hold-back-floodwaters/#

Mushroom lot on Seymour was pretty busy both Saturday & Sunday.

Posted by: Couch_Surfer

There was a bridge accident at some point yesterday, don't know if that was before or after 3pm.

I used that onramp at 11:30am yesterday and got the new light structure.  I was curious how that system was going to pan out - I figured it would bugger up the west side traffic on Main more because of another light in the mix.

Saw emergency vehicles at the north end of the eastbound entrance to the Cassiar on my commute home yesterday around 5:30.