Monthly Archives: April 2020

Day 18 – April 3, 2020

By now, we’ve all settled into some sort of routine… or, at least, the intention of one. 3pm-5pm is my “Corona time” — not because I sit back to enjoy a refreshing Mexican beer (and my preference would be Guiness anyway), but because I’m trying to give this aspect of my life a limited and structured block of time. I listen to the provincial 3pm update from Dr. Henry and Mr. Dix while digging through articles and messages I’ve received, updating numbers, and writing this… and 10 seconds after posting this, shortly after 5pm, I try to forget all about it for the next 22 hours. Much easier said than done, but distraction helps.

If you’re reading this post on Facebook, then you have at your disposal the technology to distract yourself in isolation forever… with endless books, music, videos, movies… all at your fingertips. Distract yourself to your heart’s content with all of that… or just send memes and pictures of cute cats to your friends; whatever keeps your brain in a happy place.

And, of course, connect socially — not physically. You know, of all the whacked-out conspiracy theories I’ve heard — and I’ve heard many — if I had to believe one, it’d be that this virus was created by the people who are behind the Zoom software.

To Zoom’s credit, they took advantage of this situation very intelligently. Luck = preparation + opportunity, and lucky they were… but also smart. They announced that their software would be unlimited and free for educational purposes. Every school jumped onto it. They also made it free for everyone, sort of. Up to 100 people can communicate for free, for up to 40 minutes. It’s genius, because if you manage to get a large group together for free for a 30-minute meeting… and the meeting invariably drifts toward that 40-minute mark, the hassle of hanging up and starting over is superseded by the simplicity of just signing up. Somebody on that call will sign up. We are all signing up in droves. And above and beyond all of that, they understood where the “friction” was, and removed it. Setting up a conference is easy. Joining one, even if you’ve never done it, is simple. Jump through a couple of hoops and you’re in, and once you’re in, the next time is trivial. The days of tying up the first 15 minutes of any videoconference with “We can’t see you” and “I see you but can’t hear you” and “How do I unmute this” and “It won’t install” and “What’s the admin password” and “I’m getting an error… wait…” and so on… those days are over.

A company that many of us hadn’t even heard of a month ago is now worth close to $40 billion. And for those that know what it means, has its shares trading with a P/E ratio of 1,500. For comparison, Amazon’s P/E is 80. Apple’s is 20.

Whether it’s Zoom or whatever else you many be using, this has radically changed the way we socialize and, to a great extent, I find myself Zooming with people I haven’t seen in ages. Like, there is a particular group of people I’ve been hanging out with, on and off, for over 30 years. Before the internet (as we know it) existed, we were a bunch of geeks who connected via modems… which ran at speeds so comparatively low to what we have today, you’d think we’re kidding. We used to go for burgers and beers every week, but as people grew up and evolved into real lives, those meets got few and far between. But guess what we did last week — got together on Zoom, geeked out discussing technology, asked a lot of “Remember that time when…” questions, watched a bit of Demolition Man together, and watched each other eat burgers and drink beer. It was wonderful. Guess what we’ll be doing every week.

Yeah, it’s not the same, but how lucky we are that we have this technology to stay connected. Let’s milk it for all it’s worth. A virtual hug is nowhere near the same as a real one, but it’ll do, for now. Stay at home and reach out to all your friends and consume the gigabytes of free data being generously offered to us by our internet providers.

Back to today… this post didn’t talk a lot about numbers, because around here… B.C., and Canada in general — we’re in this sort of “hurry up and wait” phase. As optimistic as the B.C. numbers look, it’s exactly not the time to take our foot off the collective gas pedal. Don’t go dancing in the streets. Dance all you want in your living room. And if you’re don’t remember why, read yesterday’s post. Once the weekend numbers have settled down early next week, we’ll see where we’re at, and by then, there will be plenty of trending data to discuss. But don’t worry — even if I have nothing meaningful to say, or what I say seems to be irrelevant… the numbers and charts always have something to say and I’ll keep posting them daily while we’re all here.

And finally, in other news… I visited my car for the first time in a couple of weeks and found a 2-week-old Starbucks Iced Latte there. The mold/fungus/bacteria/whatever-the-hell-it-was growing in there may well have held the cure for COVID-19… but we’ll never know.

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Day 17 – April 2, 2020

I added a little table (just above the logarithmic chart) to the spreadsheet yesterday, and today I will explain it. It’s a simple “look-up” table for “Time To Double”, useful if you want to know how a certain percentage maps to a TTD. For example, let’s say you have $1,000 to invest, and you want to double it to $2,000 in 7 years. What interest rate would you need? The answer is 10.5%. If you can wait 10 years, you’d only need a rate of 7.2%. How long to double your investment if you’re being offered 20%? The answer is 3.8 years.

These percentages and their related time periods can measure years… or days, which is the relevant discussion.

Let’s begin with a simple example, where we start with the number 100. And we are adding 20 to it every day. After 5 days, it’s doubled to 200. A TTD of 5. Now we keep adding 20 per day… so it’s going to take another 10 days to go from 200 to 400. And to double from 400 to 800, it’ll require a further 20 days. The only thing doubling here is the TTD itself… and this represents linear, not exponential growth. Certainly, it’s growing… and in this example, that 100 will grow indefinitely… but, as it does, its TTD gets bigger and more distant.

Now let’s imagine an example where on day 1, we’re at 100. But by day 4, we’re are 200. And at day 7, we’re at 400…. and we’re at 800 after only 10 days. So this is clearly a TTD of 3, and if you look at the continuing growth… 800, 1600, etc… it’s not hard to imagine what this would look like on a graph… an ever-increasingly steep curve. With a consistent TTD, there is exponential growth. The steepness of that curve has everything to do with the actual TTD, and that’s important because no matter what the finish line, it’s important how quickly we get there. In this case, we want to get there as slowly as possible.

The big graph on the bottom left shows those curves, overlapped on each other, showing how numbers have evolved for different jurisdictions from similar starting points. The logarithmic graph to its right shows the same data, and when you graph exponential data on a logarithmic scale, consistent exponential growth shows up as a straight line. Those 4 TTD lines of 2, 3, 5 & 10 days are the best example. A logarithmic presentation also helps to show the deviation, positive or negative. As that exponential growth increases or decreases… ie, as the TTD increases or decreases, the lines for each country (or province) will move… and obviously, to the left (into the steepness) is bad, and to the right (flattening out) is good.

Logarithmic graphs can be a little misleading in the way they squish data, and can misrepresent reality. But from the point of view of displaying trends, they’re pretty good. We can look at the encouraging B.C. line. We can look at the Canada line, and at least relate to the fact that we’re on a very different trajectory than what the U.S. is following. As much as the numbers back east have jumped, and as exponential as the growth continues to be, it’s less exponential, ie slower, ie the TTD has gone up, ie… from a trending point of view, not worse than what led up to it.

Even without the graphs, the numbers speak for themselves, and the growth percentages are there, day to day, both for Canada and for B.C. You can plug those numbers in to the little table… from today, from a week ago… and see what TTD would correspond.

That being said, what exactly are we measuring? These TTDs are important to chart the rates of growth, but rates of growths of what? Known cases? Presumed cases? Hospitalizations? Patients in critical condition? Deaths?

The only thing I’ve been dealing with are confirmed cases and their growth. My data deals with the confirmed known spread of the virus…. but all of those other numbers are also important, and will be tackled in due course. Topics for another day.

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Day 16 – April 1, 2020

I’m going to talk about antibiotics for a moment.

Important point number one: COVID-19 is a virus, not a bacterial infection. Antibiotics won’t work. Secondary complications that can arise, like pneumonia, are… and those would be treated with antibiotics… but if someone has told you that taking some antibiotic may prevent you from getting this virus, or might help treat it, they’re wrong. And if you’re taking some antibiotic for no reason, stop. Which leads me to point number two…

If you’re supposed to be taking antibiotics, there’s exactly one correct way to do it. When the doctor prescribes them, she will look you in the eye and say “Be sure you complete the entire course, till you’ve taken them all, till the container is empty.” That might be 3 or 4 times a day, and it might be a week or two weeks or 3 months. When you pick up the prescription from the pharmacy, the pharmacist will tell you the same thing.

The reason is simple, and we will use a simple example: War. I have an army of 100,000 and you have an army of 100,000, and we battle it out, and since my army is better than yours, I’m down to 20,000 men, but you are down to 50… and we have all you backed into a deserted building and we’re about to surround you and finish you off. But instead, for some silly reason, we decide we’ve already won and we’ll show some mercy, and we let you go. So off go your 50 men, rebuild their army, and in a few months, you come back with a replenished army of 100,000 and destroy me, because chances are that’s a much tougher group than the original 100,000.

Why? Because those last 50 out of 100,000 men were the toughest of the lot. They’re the real survivors, having made it to the very end. They’re the last people you should let go. They’ll go off and recruit and train equally-tough warriors before returning.

So, if you’ve got some bacterial infection, and let’s say you’re supposed to take a course of antibiotics for a week. To begin with, you’re feeling really awful, and you start taking them and guess what, it’s the perfect antibiotic for what you’ve got, and after the third day, you’re feeling fantastic. It’s all cleared up. Awesome. But ugh, taking these pills is so annoying. And you have to stay up so late or get up so early to take one, etc etc. You’ll just go down to two or three a day, what difference can it make. Maybe you’ll just stop.

What you’re basically doing is letting the strongest of the bacteria live on, re-group, and re-attack. Maybe not you, but someone else. And, worse than that, they might mutate a bit, be a bit more resistant to that particular antibiotic… and then, after that cycle has repeated thousands of times, you’re left with our present-day problem of drug-resistant bacteria that require a whole new suite of antibiotics, many of which have yet to be invented.

The relevant connection is to our present-day plight. The COVID-19 is the bacteria, and you and I are the antibiotic.

We’re on “day 3” of that “7-day” antibiotic course. Our social-distancing seems to be making a difference… but we’re not cured yet, and loosening up the treatment can quickly change the outcome. The fact it’s working is all the reason in the world to keep doing it properly.

I actually had another example… it involves the Canucks and the Bluejackets and allowing 4 goals in the 3rd period. But you know what, YouTube is full of videos… cyclists raising their arms in the air in victory as they approach the finish line, only to be passed at the very last minute. Or football players spiking the ball 3 inches before crossing the goal-line, fumbling the ball instead of scoring a touchdown.

The countless examples all point to the same thing, and by now I’m sure you get it: There is no victory until you actually cross the finish line, the game ends, the enemy is extinguished. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Keep taking the medicine… it’s working, but we’re not cured. And abandoning the treatment now could lead to non-victory, whatever that looks like. I don’t know, and nobody wants to find out around here… and for those that are not from around here, look around at the world at places where physical distancing has been implemented correctly, and its effects. And, even more to the point, look at where it hasn’t.

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