Monthly Archives: February 2021

February 8, 2021

A brief word regarding the SuperBowl… it takes both teams to show up for it to be a great game. Tampa Bay, their defence and, of course, Tom Brady all showed up. The somewhat crippled Kansas City offensive line also showed up, but you can’t blame them… the balance of power when two powerhouse teams go at it is very delicate; it doesn’t take much to make a big difference. Accordingly, that, plus the entire KC offense not having a great day (two dropped TD passes are just a small part of it) equals a well-deserved rout by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And further cementing the fact that 43-year-old Tom Brady, the SuperBowl MVP, whether you love or hate the guy, is unquestionably the greatest QB the NFL has ever seen. And that is the last you’ll hear about NFL football from me for a very long time.

A brief word re the NHL and the Vancouver Canucks… here’s everything good to say about the team at present:

Moving on to what’s important… today we get a numbers “refresh”, and they echo the recent trend… and they keep right along with what I, and everyone else who watches numbers carefully, have been saying… it’s looking pretty good.

I was wrong about the SuperBowl, but so far have been right about the very simplistic assumption that “the worst will be over after the last week of January” – simply because the effects of the holiday season will already have taken effect, and now with warmer weather coming, things should improve… and with vaccines ramping up, and… etc etc.

So… the coldest weather of the year is coming this week. The hail and snow that showed up today is a good reminder… there’s a long way to go. The vaccine rollout has been disappointing; not what we expected. Family Day, Lunar New Year… and the effects of everyone who attended SuperBowl parties are two weeks away, and then some. And, of course, the far-more contagious variants now in our midst. Everything in this paragraph could conspire to wreck those beautiful downward trends we’re seeing everywhere… cases, hospitalizations, deaths.

For what we’re battling at the moment, and the way we’re battling it, it’s working. Some second-wave drop-offs (like in Alberta) have been as drastic as the rise that led to their peaks. But the key to that is that even though it’s working for now, there’s a nervous trigger-finger on harsher lockdown measures… because what we may end up dealing with is not a third wave of this pandemic; it would be a first wave of a new one… one that blows-up numbers far quicker. At least we’d have a huge head-start in fighting it, because we’d only be months (if not weeks) away from vaccines. A silver lining to this is that by the time most of us get a vaccine, it’ll likely be primed to be more effective for some of these newer strains.

All that being said, ideally, we don’t get to that point.

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By |2021-02-08T17:04:29-08:00February 8th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |1 Comment
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February 7, 2021

Just a few brief words because I’m watching… the SuperBowl… and I’m not the only one. The data sources for Canadian vaccinations and hospitalizations are all down, and I’m guessing the IT guys are all busy till after 6. No worries; updated numbers tomorrow.

It’s funny watching and listening and reading the lead-up to the game, by all sorts of companies who apparently aren’t allowed to say “SuperBowl” without paying for the privilege… so it’s “The Big Game” or “The Championship Game”. If you saw some advertising and were wondering what the heck it was all about, it’s this.

For what it’s worth, similar thing… The Kentucky Derby was called exactly that for over a hundred years… until it became “The Kentucky Derby Presented by YUM Brands”… and I guess YUM paid a lot for that, because they demanded it be phrased like that everywhere. You couldn’t say Kentucky Derby without the rest of it.

Anyway, back to football… it remains to be seen what happens, but Tom Brady, the oldest (43) player to ever play in a Big Game/Championship Game/SuperBowl… may well be on his way to leading his team to victory. Or not. Still a half of football to go.

Either way, the secret’s out. Patriots coach Bill Belichick may be good coach, but he wasn’t the key. He never was. The Patriots were 12-4 last year, 7-9 this year. The Buccaneers were 7-9 last year, 12-5 this year. What changed? Tom Brady… hopping from the Patriots to the Bucs. Pretty simple… win or lose, you have to hand it to the guy: Greatest Of All Time

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By |2021-02-07T17:03:02-08:00February 7th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report|Tags: , , , , , |5 Comments
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February 6, 2021

The only thing more brief than today’s update might be tomorrow’s… not just because it’s the usual incomplete weekend numbers, but also… it was a beautiful day… and a long, sunny-yet-freezing-cold bike ride was it order… and it’s interesting to people-watch as you whizz by… everything from large groups of mask-less people, to solitary souls standing in the middle of nowhere… wearing a mask.

At the moment, we are in the midst of restrictions that puzzle some people, but it’s really very easy. Sometimes, the only way to get what you want to is to over-reach, because that’s potentially the only way people will get it.

Like, Dr. Henry says no SuperBowl parties… but what she really means is, don’t get together in crowded, stuffy, over-crowded living rooms to watch it. She could’ve said, “Go ahead and have SuperBowl parties… just be sure to wear masks at all times and keep 6 feet of distance”… but she didn’t, because a lot of people would’ve stopped reading after the first 6 words. Or… would’ve had the intention of following those rules but we can all imagine what it’d look like an hour into the game. So – it’s the strong over-reach, and that’s that. At least it’s clear.

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By |2021-02-06T17:04:19-08:00February 6th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report|Tags: , , , , , |2 Comments
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February 5, 2021

At some point after this weekend, the streets of some impoverished nations will be filled with people wearing colourful shirts of this weekend’s SuperBowl’s losing team.

You may have noticed that about ten seconds after a championship game is concluded, the winning team is already smiling and celebrating and spraying champagne all over each other while already wearing t-shits and ballcaps and other paraphernalia branded with their victory. Indeed, some of that stuff sometimes makes its way to the sidelines before the game is even over if it’s a blowout; a few minutes before the end of the game, you may already see some of it. You’d have to assume all of that was already pre-printed (correct) which means there must be all of that pre-printed bling branded with the losing team as well (correct again). So… what happens to all the losing jerseys?

There are charities that gather them all and donate them to needy countries. The people in these places barely know that the NFL is, and even if they do, probably don’t care. You won’t see many t-shirts in Seattle celebrating the Seahawk’s SuperBowl XLVIII over the Patriots, but you might in places like Zambia, Armenia, Nicaragua and Romania. You would have been seeing them in Seattle had Pete Carroll decided to allow Russell Wilson to just hand the freaking ball to Marshawn Lynch, the best running back in the game at the time who, from the one yard line, almost certainly would’ve run it in for the winning touchdown and… yay Seahawks and… wait, what just happened. Still too soon.

Many years ago, I paid $800 for two little laptops from an initiative called OLPC – One Laptop Per Child. These cool little Linux-based indestructible hand-crankable laptops were meant to wind up in the hands of every child in Africa at the eventual cost of $100 each. For my $800, I got two of them… and two random kids in Africa got them as well.

Also, many years ago, I bought three indestructible soccer balls. They’re a little harder than most, but they’re un-puncturable… and indeed, more than ten years later, they’re still kicking around here (haha) – and hopefully, so are the three that wound up in the streets of Africa somewhere, as a result of the same sort of “buy one here and kid in Africa gets one too” plan. I hope somewhere, there’s a kid kicking around one of those balls while wearing a Canucks Stanley Cup Champions 2011 t-shirt.

This is all good in that someone that can afford something overpays, so that someone else somewhere where they couldn’t afford it benefits as well.

But today… well, it’s weird to think of Canada being on the receiving end of that sort of arrangement, but here we are. Canada, last April, signed on to the United Nations COVAX plan to get 2 billion doses of vaccine to impoverished nations. The rich counties pony-up and pay for vaccine to get manufactured… for themselves, and for those countries that can’t afford it. Laptops, soccer balls, vaccine. Same deal.

But given the bottom-of-the-totem-pole treatment we’re getting with respect to vaccine delivery (we just recently learned that we’ll be getting even less Moderna than the already-less Moderna we’d learned about last week) – and, also, I know… the bottom of the totem pole is reserved for the important part of the story – the least important stuff is that the top – I’m just using the colloquial expression… ok, where was I…

… so… we, Canada, are now intending to draw from the COVAX supply… because we’re short. Canada is the only G7 country to do. Hey, gimme back one of those laptops… I need three. Hey, my soccer ball broke… gimme one back. I’m not sure it’s appropriate as much as I’m not sure it’s not. We paid $440 million into COVAX in September, and perhaps that should entitle us to at least what we were promised. On the flipside, people are people everywhere in the world and everyone deserves this vaccine, and I’d certainly back an infrastructure that distributes it fairly. There are people in Africa who’d prefer the vaccine… instead of the losing Tampa Bay Bucs (sorry Tom Brady fans) jerseys.

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By |2021-02-05T17:03:37-08:00February 5th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , |5 Comments
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February 4, 2021

Appropriate for sympathizing with the world’s smallest violin is the guy who decided to go visit a friend in North Carolina, took the wrong test on the way back (rapid test, which offers more false negatives than the government-required PCR test), and found himself stuck in a Toronto hotel, whining to the world about how unfair it is. I will gloss over the facts, because there’s something near the bottom of the story that’s just as important.

Indisputable is that this guy traveled to North Carolina to visit a friend, restrictions on non-essential travel notwithstanding. Canada requires proof of a negative PCR test, taken within the last 72 hours, to allow boarding onto a Canadian-bound plane… or, upon arrival. The guy should not have been allowed on a plane to begin with, but he was. And so, when he landed in Toronto, his answers with respect to quarantine were inadequate… and he was taken to what he describes as a detention centre. It was actually an airport hotel, where he was “incarcerated” for 60 hours.

He laments he’s out $130 for the useless test. He laments he could see Tim Horton’s, Harvey’s, Subway and Swiss Chalet from his 9th-floor room, but wasn’t allowed to order from them. He was stuck with the government-issued free food instead of that potential gourmet offering. And… he got in under the cut-off, so you and I paid for his hotel, food and internet.

The reporter reached out to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) to generate some outrage to add to the story, but the CCLA seems to be in agreement with the government. Their Director of Fundamental Freedoms, when asked to comment, replied, “If you take a look at section 4, it seems to deem a person without a proper test to be someone who is unable to quarantine themselves (s. 4(1)(a)), and then in s. 4(2) says that those who are unable to quarantine themselves must follow certain directions related to quarantine, which I think would include the requirement to quarantine in a hotel like the situations you describe”.

Basically, this guy made his own tax-subsidized bed, and then he had to lie in it… having neither a valid test result nor a quarantine plan upon his return.

But what bothers me most about this story is another quote from this poor, unfortunate soul who was stuck for three days with his warm bed and free food and free internet… with respect to the other eight people from the same flight taken to that hotel: “Some cried and said they would lose their jobs or didn’t have babysitters.” In other words, those other eight people also had the same idea as our hero: to hell with quarantine; it’s not in our plans.

You don’t have to agree with the rules, but you have to understand that they’re there for a reason, and that they’re clearly being taken seriously by the people enforcing them. Perhaps you shoul do the same. Or not. Up to you… but… play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

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By |2021-02-04T17:03:22-08:00February 4th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , |7 Comments
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February 3, 2021

While I will always endeavour to post these numbers and charts every day around 5pm, the quality and quantity of the accompanying text (ie this) may suffer a bit for a while… as a bunch of real-world responsibilities enter the picture… a bunch of projects which will require lot of time and attention, at least for a little while.

I have a rule of thumb I use with everything that has a distant finish line. How long will it take? How much will it cost? It’s simple. You ask that question of the people involved…then take the estimate, double it… and add 20%.

The $20,000 project that’s supposed to take 3 weeks? … will cost $40,000 and take close to 7 weeks. See? Simple.

What’s interesting is that I’ve been on both sides of that. When I was doing the low-level grunt work, I somehow always underestimated the big picture… usually because I had my head wrapped around what I thought was whole thing… and thought I had a clear idea of exactly what needed doing and how long it’d take. It’s easy when you know what to expect, but, of course… the world throws a lot of unexpectedness into things, the result being… double+20%.

Funny thing… back in the day, at BCIT, they tried to teach that with a bit of real-world experience. Teams were thrown together, and you had to figure out how to make it work. Except that’s not where I learned that lesson; I learned a very different lesson.

Ostensibly, the lesson to learn was that when you work with a team, you will run into issues that span the spectrum of issues… personal, business, financial, time, lack of accountability… you name it: Here’s what the real world looks like.

Except… I lucked out… our team of four did everything – perfectly. We scored 100% on every single project, and every project was handed in well-ahead of the deadline. What was the secret? I’ve written about it before, but I’ll say it again; surround yourself with excellent people… and then let them do their thing.

We were building software, and everything that’s supposed to go along with a polished final product; the sort of thing the real world would demand. We were individually so good at each of our tasks that we could rely on each other and not worry about any other aspect than our own.

In our case, I would write the entire program. There were no whiteboard meetings, design documents or delegation of “you code this, I’ll code that”. I would wrap my head around it, sit down and then just do it. Then I would hand it off to the guy who did the pseudocode, which in theory is supposed to come before any programming… like the blueprints, before your pour the concrete, let alone start building. But in this case, the cart came before the horse; the building was complete, and then, his skill at drawing those blueprints was impressive; a perfect match. Then, someone else from the team did the software version of interior design on the building, making it all look pretty and user friendly. And finally, the last person did all the documentation on every aspect of constructing and operating the software/building. It all came together beautifully, so much so that on a few occasions I didn’t even see the final product until moments before it was handed in. I’d done my part weeks earlier and forgotten about it, but now my name was on this magnificent binder of art and documentation and, buried somewhere deep, my contribution. Always, one hundred percent. One of these days, I will write about the award-winning final project we did for the RCMP… and how the RCMP screwed us over.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a short paragraph explaining why I won’t be writing as much in the near future. I set aside 15 minutes to write it, but numerous interruptions and phone calls… guess how long it took… yeah, you guessed it… but here’s the math. 15+15+(20% x 15) equals… 33 minutes. Started at 4:30pm. Now it’s 5:03pm… perfect.

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By |2021-02-03T17:03:05-08:00February 3rd, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report|Tags: , , , , , |6 Comments
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February 2, 2021

Happy Groundhog Day! Happy Groundhog Day! – and if that little repeat doesn’t make sense to you, it’s time for you to emerge from your own gopher hole, and forget about shadows… just go see the movie… and, also, if you haven’t seen the movie, you might not want to read all of this because it’ll spoil it for you. And if you’re thinking “Who cares, I’m never going to see the movie”… that’s a bad way to look at it… because it’s a good movie. A great movie. In fact, so great… that it’s been selected by the U.S. Library of Congress to be included for permanent preservation in the National Film Registry.

The film isn’t really about Groundhog Day; it just so happens that its repeated events take place on this particular day. It could have been any other holiday… or just some regular Tuesday. And, like most worthwhile films, it touches on many different things; some obvious and some subtle.

Many days of this pandemic have felt exactly like what Phil Connors (Bill Murray in the movie) went through… the same repetitive pattern, day after day after day. Certainly, initially, in the movie, Phil embraced the novelty of having day after day to pursue whatever he wanted… with no consequences. He did more than make crafts and bake sourdough and watch Tiger King, but same idea… and, no matter what, back to 6am the next day. The same next day.

Eventually, he got sick and tired and depressed of it all… but even killing himself didn’t work. Back to a perpetual cycle of day after day… but let’s be clear… this wasn’t a few weeks or months into it… it was years; possibly decades.

Eventually, after all of that, he emerged with some clarity… that if he’s stuck in the same day forever, why not make the best of it for other people, if not himself. He fixes a flat tire. He saves a guy choking to death. He catches a kid falling out of a tree. He lights someone’s cigarette without being asked. On a touching note, he continually and persistently tries to save a man’s life, yet no matter what he tries, it’s to no avail. And that’s just touching the surface of it. There’s a lot of discussion regarding exactly how long Phil replayed that day. Some estimates are in the range of 34 years… more than 12,000 times. No matter what. No matter where. No way out of that town, and no way out of that day… no matter what he tried.

It was eventually living through a “perfect” day that gets him out of his loop. From a spiritual point of view, in Judaism, there’s a concept of “repairing the world”, and that by doing a good deed (a “Mitzvah”) you release a spark of holy energy to the universe… and if everyone went around doing good deeds all the time, we’d all benefit. Certainly, on that particular day, Phil lit a forest fire of reparation.

Like the movie, there’s an end to the pandemic… and like the end of the movie, when we eventually get there, it’ll be happy… but we can all sympathize with Phil. If we didn’t quite get it the first time we ever watched the movie, we certainly do now. I recall watching an interview after Schindler’s List came out… and one of the Schindler Jews who survived The Holocaust was in the audience. She was asked after if she thought the movie was too long. “The real thing was longer”, she replied. Yep. Understood.

And back to today… in a very pandemically-themed ceremony (Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil was wearing a mask), the official little guy came out and saw his shadow… so, as far as Pennsylvania is concerned… six more weeks of winter. On the other hand, Ontario’s Wiarton Willie saw no shadow, so it’s an early spring for them. Here in B.C., I’m not sure we have an official groundhog to make the call, so I’ll do it – and it’s very easy, because unless we hit one of our annual 20 days of sunshine (which obviously today we didn’t), it’ll be cloudy and gray, which means no shadow, which means an early Spring. Great! I can’t wait to go… nowhere.

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By |2021-02-02T17:05:03-08:00February 2nd, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Space & Astronomy|Tags: , , , , , , , |5 Comments
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February 1, 2021

Monday is data catch-up day, when we try to make some sense of where numbers are… and, on the surface… for the moment… not bad. The downward trend is evident everywhere… all across Canada. Here in BC, the first 10 days of the year averaged 539 new cases a day and an average of 364 people hospitalized. The next 20 days saw an average of 493 daily cases and 339 hospitalizations. The last 10 days have shown an average of 445 new cases… and 303 hospitalizations. Today’s numbers show 277 new cases and 289 people hospitalized across the province with C19 (79 in ICU).

If looking at numbers isn’t your thing, just look at the pictures. Great, right?

Sort of. Also, over the weekend… Canada surpassed 20,000 C19 deaths. Quebec alone is approaching 10,000. Nevertheless, the trends are going in the right direction. What could go wrong?

Three big things, with varying degrees of potential impact.

One is that I mentioned, perhaps a little short-sightedly, that the worst is over with respect to large family gatherings. Notwithstanding the ridiculously irresponsible penthouse parties popping up in Yaletown… upcoming, we have the SuperBowl. Then there’s Lunar New Year. After that there’s Family Day. All of that is supposed to look a little different this year, and for most people it will… but not everybody… so, there could be an effect… especially because of number two…

… which are these new C19 variants, which have everyone a little concerned. The concern isn’t that they’re any more deadly, because they’re likely not. As viruses evolve and mutate, their intention is to propagate faster, and killing the host too quickly isn’t part of the plan. Killing the host at all, by the way, isn’t necessarily part of the plan, from the virus’s point of view. It just wants to propagate. The fact it makes us sick is an unfortunate side-effect, one about which, I assure you, the virus couldn’t care less. Because, of course, it can’t care in the first place.

But, we can care, and we should… because, as we’ve learned, we’re never too far from a full-on outbreak, and a virus with a higher Rø the potential to cause exactly that. Many people are sick and tired of hearing Dr. Henry’s “Now is not the time to (party/travel/get together)…” and “Now it’s our time to (oh, you know)…” slogans, but they’re true… more than ever.

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By |2021-02-01T17:05:20-08:00February 1st, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report|Tags: , , , , , , , , |3 Comments
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