May 1, 2021
Today is the Kentucky Derby, so while horse racing is on my mind, let me tell you about a certain match race.
A match race is quite simply a race between exactly two horses. Always very exciting, because they’re relatively rare. There’s usually between 5 and 20 horses in a race, not 2.
Mike Smith is a very-well-known hall-of-fame jockey. A tough, ragged and talented guy who’s ridden some of the best horses in the last 30 years.
Chantal Sutherland is a Canadian model, TV personality… and jockey. She’s been in in Sports Illustrated, Vogue, and has been one of People magazine’s “100 Most Beautiful People”.
Those two dated for a while. Then they broke up… and then someone decided they should do a match race – a Battle of The Exes. A winner-take-all sort of thing.
This was ten years ago, so who cares… except that it was one of our horses that was chosen to race. The track that hosted the event, Del Mar, picked two relatively-evenly-matched horses… got the OK from the owners/trainers (that was a very interesting phone call with our trainer, Carla Gaines…) and once the horses were picked, a coin was flipped to decide which jockey got which horse. Or vice-versa, I suppose.
As it turns out, Chantal got our horse “Parable” and Mike Smith got the other one, “Joker Face”… which added an extra layer of competition… American owner/jockey vs. Canadian owner/jockey
That was a fun weekend… we flew down for the race, participated in all the pomp and circumstance, had a great time… and, as you might expect when Canada goes up against the U.S., finished second.
In the race, Mike Smith controlled the pace beautifully. Forgetting how evenly the horses may have been matched, he really out-jockeyed Chantal. He went out in front, stayed exactly where he needed, kept her exactly where he wanted, and, as they say, had plenty of horse left to win easy.
But let’s talk about another match race that we’re all involved in…
When it comes to vaccinations, the U.S. got off to a terrific start… just like Mike on Joker Face, exactly where you’d expect them to be. Except… if this were a horse race, you’d now say they’re running out of horse. They’re fading. And here comes Canada, flying on the outside.
If you look at the two larger graphs below, you can see what I mean… the one on the left is a graph of what percentage of the population is being vaccinated every day. There was a time where it hit above 0.60% in the U.S., but they’re down to around 0.35% these days… and that number keeps dropping. In Canada, we’ve slowly been rising… and are pretty-much doubling our southern neighbours. We’re in the 0.70% neighbourhood, and have been out-performing the U.S. since around April 8th.
The graph on the right shows how the gap in vaccinated population is narrowing, and assuming things continue at this pace, the Canada horse will blow by the U.S. around May 26th… and will never look back. This extrapolation is relatively consistent with what the government is telling us… that 75% of adults will have had their first jab by mid-June. It looks like 80% by July 1st, according to how things are trending. And if this holds, the U.S. may have trouble breaking 60%… though this is all speculation and just numbers.
It’s speculation and numbers that just lost me a few bucks on the Kentucky Derby… but this other horse race is far more important… and I know where my money is.
April 30, 2021
So… are we close to reaching herd immunity? The short answer is NO… but, following up on two days of depressing news that vaccinations may not, after all, be the ticket out of this mess… for no other reason than people refusing to take it… comes a bit of optimism… of the game-changing sort. And the short answer to that, interestingly… might also be NO.
Forget the herd immunity upon which you were hoping to depend. What if you could shift control of the risk entirely back on yourself? What if you could simply protect yourself from getting infected? What if you’re not able to receive the vaccination for other reasons, but there’s still a way to be protected? What if you’re about to be headed into a crowded restaurant or concert hall or sporting venue for the first time in more than a year and, as protected by vaccines as you may be, are still feeling a little uneasy?
Trials of locally developed nasal spray are going very well. The company behind it, SaNOtize, has recently been pushing to receive emergency approval in Canada and in the U.K. They’re also now trying to figure out how to get it to India – ASAP.
To summarize what this particular product brings to the table in four succinct points:
– A 95% reduction within 24 hours in viral load given to those who’d tested positive
– A 99% reduction in viral load within 72 hours
– A 100% prevention rate in getting infected in the first place
– Zero side-effects
You might think the capitalized “NO” implies NO Covid… but it’s more to do with Nitric Oxide, the key behind it. That, and their delivery method, kills the virus in the upper airways, preventing it from incubating and spreading to the lungs. A little blast of nasal spray… and that’s it. One in the morning when you get up, to clear out what may have accumulated over night. One before bed to clear out the day’s potential infections. Maybe one or two if you’ve been on a plane or crowded place for an extended period of time.
It’s safe, it’s effective, and one day it may be as common as eyedrops.
I’m looking forward to hearing what the crazies have to say about it… “You see! They want you to spray the 5G chip straight into your brain!”
Yeah, whatever. This could be a serious game-changer, and I hope they navigate the regulatory bodies as efficiently as possible. If this thing is as good as it sounds, things could be back to normal…. like normal normal… like… you know, the good old days… much sooner than later. This NO looks like it might be a big YES.
April 29, 2021
Today’s brief summary requires nothing more than a brief look at the vaccination graph I’ve posted below the usual charts. And if this were being presented as a brief summary in some boardroom somewhere, there would be some hushed whispers. “Hey… what’s the deal with the blue line?”
We’ll get to it.
This is a graph of smoothed-out daily data of the number of people being vaccinated by region, normalized to a number per million.
If you look at the tail-end of the graph, which is from the last day or two, you can see the thick red Canada line somewhere near 7,500… which means, on a daily basis, 7,500 out of a million Canadians are being vaccinated. That number was 4,500 a month ago.
In fact, here’s a look across the country of rough seven-day averages:
BC, a month ago: 4,600. Today: 7,100
AB, a month ago: 3,700. Today: 7,300
SK, a month ago: 3,600. Today: 6,000
MB, a month ago: 3,000. Today: 8,800
ON, a month ago: 4,700. Today: 7,600
QC, a month ago: 5,200. Today: 7,400
Across the board – very good. Vaccination programs across the country gearing up and/or delivering at increasingly-effective rates.
Now, let’s look at that thick blue line… our neighbours to the south. That’s the line that seems to be going in the wrong direction, opposite to all the others.
US, a month ago: 5,300. Today: 3,700
The irony of course is that the U.S. is comparatively drowning in vaccine… but demand is waning. This is the pattern that took them to a 43% vaccination rate, but the next 43%… well, it’ll be beyond difficult. It may actually be impossible.
Forget all of the complicated supply/demand market elasticity theories you may have come across. All of it is irrelevant. If this were a business, the boardroom presentation would be a PowerPoint full of lousy explanations and poor excuses… because the fundamental value proposition is gone. The business model is going to fail, because, as good as the product may be, demand is drying up. R&D department? They did what they were asked and delivered beautifully. Legal? Check. Logistics and distribution? Check. Marketing? Ouch.
It still boggles the mind. This is the part that I and many others simply didn’t see coming. That, after creating, in record time, what’s arguably one of the greatest achievements ever in medical science, an awful lot of people simply don’t want it. A massive failure, arguably due to nothing more than awful, irresponsible, criminally negligent messaging. The marketing department responsible got fired in November and the new team took over in January… but as hard as they’re trying to fix the damage, it may be too late.
Brutal. Meeting adjourned.
April 28, 2021
“It is often easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”
It was Admiral Grace Hopper, a legend and pioneer in the world of computer science, who said that… though it’s possible she didn’t quite realize the extent to which people would eventually lead their lives by it. It makes sense sometimes to bend the rules, but you have to know where and when to pick your spots. It’s not a free-for-all for reckless decisions.
You think you already know what I’m about to say, so instead of repeating what I’ve been saying for a year, here’s are some different examples.
Perhaps the shortest existence of a professional sports league in the history of the world took place last week. If you don’t follow football (ie soccer) on a global level, there’s a good chance you missed it entirely. Basically, a small group of the biggest teams in the world, spanning multiple leagues, announced they were forming their own super-league. Forget rankings and playoffs… this league of elites is by invitation only, and here’s $5 billion TV deal to go along with it, just for them.
Imagine the uproar you’d hear in Canada if the top 6 NHL teams decided to break away and form their own little league… and now imagine it on a global scale. The backlash from literally millions… of fans, players, coaches, reporters… pretty much everyone… was a tidal wave that, when you think about it, was completely to be expected.
“OK ok we’re sorry… forget the whole thing!! Jeez!!” – said the ringleaders… who no doubt are re-thinking their ridiculous, stupid assumptions that led to it in the first place. And who are now facing significant consequences for their failed mutiny.
Closer to home, the existence of Playland being open lasted just as long. The backlash was swift and expected. What else is going to happen when a few hours after announcing no inter-provincial travel, you announce the opening of one of Canada’s biggest amusement parks? “Sorry sorry yeah you’re right”. Playland will be open one day, just not when anybody from out of town isn’t supposed to be there in the first place.
Speaking of Playland, I really like that midway horse racing game… the one where you’re trying to fire the balls into the right hole which makes your little horse-in-lights move along. If I can’t have real horse racing, I’ll take that for now.
And speaking of horse racing, this weekend’s running of the Kentucky Derby notwithstanding, there’s an interesting sort of horse race that’s easier to explain if you visualize it… so, see below.
Replacing all of the tiny vaccination graphs today is one big one; this is what the provincial horse race of vaccinations looks like. This graph is based on vaccination percentages, using 10% as the same starting point for everyone.
What exactly does it tell us? You’d never have known that Manitoba seems to be vaccinating people, per capita, faster than anyone. Conversely, Alberta is the slowest.
At the end of the day, it’s not a big difference. It took Manitoba 23 days to go from 10% to 25%. It took Alberta 31 days. Everyone else is somewhere in between (B.C. is 26 days). By any definition, it’s a tight race. Also, who cares… the idea is we all get to the finish line, and then we all win.
But just to circle back to the premise of this entire piece, we get there not by doing stupid things and begging for forgiveness. Better to ask first… and act responsibly.
April 27, 2021
Take a map of Canada and tip it to the left… like rotate it about 45 degrees. Now you have British Columbia on the bottom. If you imagine the population being 38 million little specs of dust all over the map, you shake it a bit, and the specs all fall towards B.C. To some extent, this is the understood path of migration of people in this country. Should you choose to move from wherever you are, there’s a good chance you’re heading west. Vancouver is continually voted one of the best cities in the world to live in; choosing to move somewhere around here is pretty sane.
On the flipside, our neighbours to the south do it very much the other way around. First of all, you have to tip the U.S. map 45 degrees to the right. That leaves Florida on the bottom. And then, the little shakeout is not the sane people… quite the opposite. How else can you explain disproportionate insanity that seems to emanate from The Sunshine State.
News headlines from Florida are in a league of their own… things like “Thousands of gun owners in Florida planning to ‘shoot down’ Hurricane Irma”
In fact, whenever you see a news story that starts off with “Florida man…”, you know you can expect the crazy. It’s such a thing that there’s even a Twitter account of exactly that – a collection of Florida Man headlines… with gems like:
Florida Man tries to rob GameStop while wearing transparent bag on his head
Florida Man denies drinking and driving, says he only swigged bourbon at stop signs
Florida Man stabs tourist despite having no arms
Florida Man asks trooper if he can leave the scene of crash to get more meth
Florida Man bursts into ex’s delivery room, fights her new boyfriend as she’s giving birth
Florida Man bored, calls 9-11 to talk about Hitler
Florida Man tries to evade arrest by cartwheeling away from cops
Florida Man trapped in unlocked closet for two days
This is an endless list that grows on a daily basis, and serves as a perfect introduction to the “crazy of the day” – a private school in Miami that’s barring contact between students and vaccinated teachers. Because, somehow, vaccinated teachers may pose a threat.
The school’s position: “Tens of thousands of women all over the world have recently been reporting adverse reproductive issues from being in close proximity with those who have received any one of the COVID-19 injections.”
That’s bullshit. There have been no such reports.
Also, “No one knows exactly what may be causing these irregularities, but it appears that those who have received the injections may be transmitting something from their bodies to those with whom they come in contact.”
Also bullshit… of the spectacular sort.
There is, of course, zero scientific credibility to any of this… and it’d be next to impossible to come up with anything plausible to explain it. Magical evaporation of vaccinated blood somehow making its way to bystanders? Just make up the insane narrative, shove it down peoples’ throats, and hope they swallow it. And many do.
The school’s response to being questioned on this policy: ““We’re doing what we think is in the best interest of the children because children shouldn’t be around teachers who are vaccinated.”
This is amusing at first glance, and then terrifying when you think about it some more. It’s frightening to think what else might be being taught to the kids there. We rhetorically ask… how can there exist people who think this way? The question and the answer are the same. Where do university-educated anti-vaxxers come from? Places like this.
The bigger problem is that this is all part of why the U.S. may actually never get to a vaccination percentage high enough for herd immunity. They have millions of doses available for whoever wants one… but the demand is waning. They’re at 43% of the population having at least one dose, but now some are saying they don’t want the second one… so there’s no real purpose in arguing what’s needed for full herd immunity. 70% 80% 90%… they’re all the same, because the way things are going, none of them will get reached.
It’s not incorrect to label this an issue of ignorance and bad messaging. The previous administration, the demonizing of science, the miseducation of large swaths of people… factors which add up and conspire against critical thinking and common sense. It’s perhaps not a lost cause for those who genuinely don’t know any better, but it’d require a big public-service effort of education. Back to school for everyone. Just… please… not that one in Florida.
April 26, 2021
I play around a lot with my 3D printer… it’s here, beside me, in my home office, and the little series of sounds it makes while operating is good background noise; it’s not distracting… on the contrary, it helps me focus. And, at the end of it, you end up with some interesting (and sometimes useful) object. I have an endless list of things I and the kids have designed and printed… and I’m fascinated with the technology. This printer is already three years old, and there have been upgrades to it… many of which I’ve printed myself. How’s that for innovation – instead of sending you a part, they just send you a 3d blueprint – then you print the thing yourself. So cool.
That being said, it’s still an evolving technology. Some of these prints take several hours… and sometimes, halfway through them, just when you think it’s all going well, one little thing goes wrong and the entire thing is ruined. We’re all familiar with that concept these days.
I’m looking forward, as the technology progresses, to being able to print things with better consistency, and with more and more detail… and with a greater variety of materials. This one only does plastic, but this is the same technology that’s printing metal. And food. And houses. And human organs… one day.
Soon, these things will be printing with the finest detail possible… atom by atom. What would I print with that?
The first thing I would print is the tiniest violin imaginable… suitable for playing the sympathetic music due to the likes of the soon-to-be-former owner of the Corduroy restaurant on Cornwall, Rebecca Matthews… and Alaska Republican state Senator Lora Reinbold.
These two have misunderstood something, and they’re beginning to pay the price for it. What they don’t understand is that nobody gives a crap about them, and long after the issues of the day have become non-issues, they will be left holding the bag for the misguided messages they were propagating.
After Rebecca Matthews loses her business license, liquor license and whatever court case the City of Vancouver throws at her, she’ll be wondering where all of her supporters have gone. Where are the people that were chanting “Get out!” to provincial health officials when she was illegally operating her restaurant? Where is the crowd that was chanting outside her restaurant yesterday, reminding everyone that social distancing and masks and vaccines are all useless? Where’s Mark Donnelly?
Restaurants in Vancouver are a fickle business. 70% of restaurants fail in the first year. 90% are gone by year 3. Where’d everyone go? To the next one… the new one… the latest and greatest. That’s where all those people will have gone, and her GoFundMe will be puzzlingly disappointing. But that’s what you get for being the voice of unreason.
Similarly, Senator Reinbold is one of these freedom-fighting anti-maskers who doesn’t want to wear a mask in an airport or on a plane. Accordingly, Alaska Airlines has banned her indefinitely… a significant issue when Alaska Airlines is the only airline that services her hometown of Juneau. As a result, what would have been a routine one-hour flight getting home for her turned into a 14-hour road-and-ferry adventure. And, for the foreseeable future, she’s somewhat stuck if she needs to get anywhere in a hurry. Now she’s whining about the monopoly of air transport to/from Juneau… an issue that, of course, was non-existent a few days ago. I actually hope she resolves that “issue”…. so that United and American and Delta and JetBlue and Southwest… can also all ban her.
One thing that’ll never be 3D printed is intelligence, and the ability to think big-picture. And that’s too bad… because, as per above, there are at least two people who’d benefit greatly from it.
April 25, 2021
Lazy Sunday… good one to sit on the couch and not do much… but a special shoutout to all my fellow Gen-Xers who managed to secure an AstraZeneca vaccine and are feeling somewhat hungover. Like the old days, the hangover fades after a few days… and, like in those old days, you sit around and wonder if it was worth it. And the answer back then is the same as the answer today.
Well worth it, eh… we’ll be all ready for next weekend. Let’s meet at Luv Affair or Twilight Zone… then maybe head over to the Purple Onion after a bite in Gastown somewhere.
OK, so this isn’t 25 years ago… none of that is likely to happen… especially since none of those places are still around… but this hangover is still totally worth it.
Back tomorrow with updated numbers across the board… then, with a clearer head, we’ll see where we’re at…
April 24, 2021
The last time I wrote about India, it was to congratulate them on how well a country with some pretty awful conditions for large parts of its population was managing to keep things so well under control. It is actually possible to keep people in less-then-ideal situations safer than you think, and there’s no better example then our own Downtown East Side… which has pretty much reached what’s being called “significant herd immunity” thanks to the persistent effort of getting all of the at-risk and homeless population vaccinated… even resorting to bribing them with $5 gift-cards to do so. Whatever it takes. It’s the least Covid-infested part of town.
But whatever squalor you imagine on the DTES, it pales in comparison to vast areas of India… which is why it was so impressive that they were keeping things under control. Masks, social distancing, etc. So much for that.
I’ll resume the usual graphs tomorrow, but for today, here is a view of what’s going on over there.
The graph on the left is daily new cases counts since mid-March, with Canada and the U.S. thrown in for comparison.
That’s an insane graph to look at, but raw numbers aren’t necessarily fair when you’re comparing vastly different population sizes… so, the graph on the right normalizes it for every one million of population.
When you look at the graph on the left, you see the sheer numbers and how quickly they’re growing. But the graph on the right tells the real story; a month ago, they were doing well; better than us, and better than the U.S… as far as new cases go. Both countries have been bouncing around an average of ~200 new cases per million population for a while now, but India was down at less than 50 about a month ago… but now, as you can see from the graph, there’s no bounce in their step… it’s straight up.
That is textbook exponential growth, and I really have no idea what they’re doing over there to try to mitigate it… but if you were wondering what happens when you don’t do enough – or when you allow things to derail — there’s your answer.
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June 6, 2021
Happy Sunday!
You might think there’s nothing good about B.C. being the only province that doesn’t update C19 numbers over the weekend… but you’re wrong!
… because it means… contest time!
I’m not sure how long I can keep doing this, because at some point the numbers get too low… but that’s a good thing. I hope the “It’s not worth running a contest” thing happens sooner than later… but, until it does, we’re doing it again: Take a guess at what the cumulative (Sat/Sun/Mon) new daily cases will be – put your guess in the comments below – and whoever is closest will get (besides *coveted* bragging rights) $100 donated to their charity of choice.
To help you with your integral calculus, statistical analysis, regression… or just good old-fashioned, plain, intuitive guessing… here’s what the last several weekend totals have looked like… and please note the very-encouraging and consistent dwindling towards zero:
Apr 24,25,26: 2,729
May 1,2,3: 2,174
May 8,9,10: 1,759
May 15,16,17: 1,360
May 22,23,24: 974
May 29,30,31: 708
Guesses will be accepted till noon tomorrow. Henry, Dix, Horgan & their associates are banned… but anyone else can play!
Numbers will be released tomorrow at 3pm… and I’ll post the winner at 5pm.
Good luck!
June 5, 2021
There are lots of discussions going on with respect to what exactly happened to the flu this year. It was certainly expected that the social distancing and masking would have an effect, and that numbers would be lower… but nobody really expected it to be virtually zero. The number of pediatric flu deaths in the U.S. this season was exactly one (where it’s normally in the hundreds), and you can be sure that unfortunate kid caught it from a foreign traveller.
How do I know that? Because the flu, like C19, is a virus… and viruses need a breeding population of hosts that they can infect.
Unfortunate side-note for those of you who want to believe in Bigfoot or the Yeti or the Loch Ness Monster or the Ogopogo; perhaps the biggest show-stopper in there being a possibility of them existing is that you can’t have just one. You’d need a breeding population, and it’d have to be significant enough to perpetuate the species. They’d take up a lot of space, and there would be ample evidence (droppings, dwellings) to find, even if not the creatures themselves, whether on land or in the water. It’s not like “I saw *the* Ogopogo”; Lake Okanogan would have to have been teeming with them for centuries.
The masking, and sanitizing surfaces every 10 minutes, had a drastic effect. Flu probably arrived in North America on various airplanes, but died out with nowhere to go. No breeding population of hosts. In fact, so drastic was its demise that there are two common flu strains that may well be extinct. Around the world, there were zero cases reported of two particularly common strains; two that are always part of the annual flu-vaccine concoction. That, on its own, doesn’t yet mean they’re gone forever… but if they don’t show up next year or the year after that… well, it’s a virus. Unlike 200 BigFoots (Bigfeet?) that might be hiding in a cave somewhere in Sasquatch Park, there’s no hiding place for a virus. When the last one has no place to go, it’s gone forever.
It’s ironic that a couple of flu strains might be eradicated simply as “collateral damage”… while C19, with its variety of variants, is going to be around for a lot longer.
The bigger irony would … [Continue Reading]
June 4, 2021
For old time’s sake, I’ve thrown in the graphs showing the progression of this pandemic from day one. If you look below, you’ll see three rows. The first row is the shape of the entire pandemic, going back to Feb 15th of last year. The next row is the second wave onward, starting Sep 8th of last year. You can easily see where that second wave fits into the graph above it. And the third row is the 3rd wave, as of Mar 10th of this year. You can also see where it fits into the one above.
It’s very interesting to note, looking at the column of the 3 B.C. graphs… that our first wave was relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things; it’s barely a blip in the big picture. That tiny little bump at the bottom left of the top B.C. graph; that’s it. Daily new case counts never broke 100 that entire time… compared to today’s number, +183, which sounds kind of low… and it is. It’s the lowest number since Oct 20th. It’s below what we’re considering the start of the third wave, where, at its worst, we were seeing more than 1,200 new cases a day. The same can be said for hospitalizations and ICU admissions… lowest numbers since November.
Looking at those towering subsequent second and third waves should remind us that, while things are certainly trending in the right direction, it’s not quite over yet. Those flare-ups happened for a number of reasons; reasons which haven’t gone away.
But, of course, one big thing has changed, and it’s not going away… and that is vaccines. And that’s what’s made the biggest difference of all.
On that note, I got my second-dose email today… the one asking what I want to do… get a second AZ shot, or wait a bit longer and get Pfizer or Moderna. Given the results I’ve been observing from what’s been published so far, for me, mixing it up with Pfizer might be the way to go.
There’s obviously a lot of discussion going around asking what’s the right move, and the answers differ. The original adage of “get whatever is offered to you” will never be wrong, especially for first doses. Get the one being offered to you. But what … [Continue Reading]
June 3, 2021
Do you remember learning about convex vs. concave? Which is which? If you have trouble remembering, and are frustrated, go punch a piece of sheet metal… see that indentation? How the sheet is now “CAVEd” in? There you go… conCAVE when it goes in, conVEX when it comes out… like the VEXed expression on the face of the guy on the other side of that sheet, wondering why you did that.
Now that we’re clear on that, let’s look at this new colourful graph I’ve thrown in today… the one on the bottomright. You’ll notice it has three convex lines, a thicker blue one that’s a bit of both, and only one concave one – the thick red Canada line.
Much like the Canada line that runs from downtown to the airport, this one also took a while… and was expensive in its own way… but well worth it in the long run.
This particular Canada line tells a few interesting stories. The first thing that pops out is how ridiculously steep it is in recent months, compared to the others. That’s what happens with a lot of pent-up demand; in fact, you have to wonder if the fact it took so long to hit 5th-gear with our rollout is now contributing to its continuing momentum. Would we have wanted it so badly if it were so easy to get…? Brilliant psychological trick, if that’s what they pulled on us. Either way, it’s showing no signs of slowing down.
The best thing it indicates – exactly what the others don’t – is that we’ve not yet reached the end of the “low-hanging fruit”. We’re still injecting as much of the stuff as is made available, but let’s not fool ourselves; we’re going to plateau at some point, and we will start to look like that thick blue American line… concave to start as demand outweighed supply… followed by that flattening… which is also evident in the three other countries I threw in there; Israel, the UK and Chile. Those three were the world leaders in vaccinations… but once the fanfare wore off and the low-hanging fruit was picked… now it gets more difficult. In the last two months, we’ve gone from 14% to 59%. Israel has gone from 61% to 63%. It’s not difficult … [Continue Reading]
June 2, 2021
Shocking news to report… we didn’t win the Lotto Max. And… nobody else did, either. I’ll spend a bit of time analyzing whether what I predicted was in any way statistically significant. Of the top 10 tickets generated, 5 of the 7 numbers picked were on them. Never more than 2 together though. I’m not sure if a monkey throwing darts would’ve done better, worse, or simply the same.
In the meantime, other numbers… my vaccination numbers and graphs differ from the official ones because I’ve never used “eligible people” as a denominator; I’ve always simply used everyone. That two-month-old baby? One day he’ll get a C19 vaccine – not sure when… but as far as vaccinated/not-vaccinated, I’m counting him.
As such, here’s something interesting; in Canada, at this moment, B.C. has taken the lead with respect to vaccinated population. We’ve vaccinated 61.3% of everybody (at least one jab). Now in second place is Quebec (61.0%). The country overall is at over 58.4% with at least one dose (which is really good), and 6% fully vaccinated (that certainly has a ways to go).
The next big issue will be vaccine passports or immunity certificates or green passes or whatever you want to call them. Many countries and even some provinces are starting to talk about how it’ll look, how it’ll be implemented and how it will affect things. The “Freedumb!!” crowd will start screaming, etc… perhaps without realizing that vaccine passports in some fashion have been around for centuries, and many places have always required them… for your protection as well as theirs. Of course, the vast majority of people complaining are not those who typically travel to malaria-infested river basins or parts of the world known for Dengue Fever outbreaks.
Just remember, the couple dining next to you in the restaurant has rights too. They have to the right to know they’re in a safe environment. And the restaurant itself has rights too… to do whatever they want to provide that.
