January 9, 2021
There will be a slight delay in posting the pretty numbers and graphs… I haven’t been near a computer all day. This post comes courtesy of my iPhone. And the place-holder video explains why… we took the dog up to Mt. Seymour to wander in the snow a bit… so if you’re here for just the data, come back at 6pm… (EDIT: numbers and graphs are up… but the dog video stays ????) and if you’re here to read what I have to say, let’s go back to yesterday for a bit…
Like I’ve said before, I enjoy being wrong… it gives me an opportunity to learn something.
Certainly, when you post an opinion, it’s up for discussion… I’ve had a lot of contrarian opinions over the last several months when it came to my attitude towards Trump. It was much more fervent at the beginning; I’d post something negative about him, and the comments section would erupt with ugliness… as would my Inbox. I used to answer all of them, but I stopped when I learned to distinguish the difference between someone with genuine points worthy of discussion… as opposed to rabid pro-Trumpers that we’re all too familiar with now. But unless you were one of those foaming-at-the-mouth types, I’m always happy to share my thoughts.
It was a pleasant surprise yesterday to be wrong, but not be slammed by crazy people. On the contrary, the rational intelligent information provided to me by professionals, researchers, more-informed people; what a refreshing change. I’m happy to pass along what I’ve learned in 24 hours; some of it is in the comments from yesterday’s post, others came from calls and texts and emails… from people more familiar with the topic than myself.
The topic-du-hier was the vaccine, but, more specifically, the timing between the two required shots. I went off applying my experimental and empirical knowledge, and mapped it onto a subject that maybe doesn’t apply. Like I said yesterday, I’ve built IKEA furniture without reading the manual; the wooden pegs go in these holes, the round rotating fastening things obviously go in those big holes, the metal things they attach to go in these smaller holes; it’s not rocket science but nevertheless, if you do a step wrong, there’s a lot of rewinding. You may as well read the manual. Also, as per yesterday, I’ve actually landed an Airbus 320 that was way too heavy on an icy runway… and didn’t slide off the end. This was in an Air Canada Flight Simulator, not real… but the co-pilot/flight instructor next to me was saying… you’ll see why this is a bad idea.
So… as it turns out, my assumption that stretching the time between jabs being bad is… not entirely correct… it’s not a simple question of right and wrong. There’s certainly a gray area, and it looks like this…
On one side, you have Pfizer and the FDA… both of which have significant potential liability if they’re wrong. Accordingly, they can’t recommend something and stand behind it on just a whim. There’re both quite adamant: Stick to the script.
On the flipside, you have a couple of things that might make you see things differently… one are the logical conclusions based on the vast experience that exists in the field. While this vaccine is new, vaccines in general certainly aren’t… and there’s behavior around them that in this case can be assumed to be no different. The other is the frightening pace at which the pandemic is accelerating, especially in the U.S.
It’s that latter point that might be the tipping point; the staggering difference it makes getting as many first doses into people as possible. The immunity that one shot provides — enough to prevent a serious outcome (if not prevent infection entirely) means worrying about the second dose later. To that point, there’s plenty of evidence that delaying it a week does nothing to lower the efficacy… and stretching even further might have little detrimental effect. And, further to that… there’s always time in the future to fix that, once everyone has had their first shot and possibly-ill-timed second shot. Perhaps come back for a third if it’s found you really need it.
I’d certainly still prefer to do this on the prescribed and tested schedule, but now certainly understand the merits of stretching it out… which summarizes to hundreds of thousands of potential hospitalizations and deaths prevented.
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January 8, 2021
There’s a right way to do things… and a wrong way… and if you think I’m about to talk about the removal of Donald Trump from office… I might. But not today… there’s time for that later, and, as I’m writing this, the people capable of doing exactly that are thinking about the right way to do it. By the time I get around to writing about it, he might be gone. Wouldn’t that be cool. At least he’s been permanently removed from Twitter. Four years too late. But the same thing could be said about the entire presidency.
So, on a completely different topic, what’s the right way to build IKEA furniture? What’s the right way to land a plane? In many cases, you can just wing it, though it’s highly advisable to listen to the people who designed it, built it, and presented it to you with specific instructions. That’s probably the best outcome. The bookcase might be fine (nobody will notice you had to remove a panel and flip it around because you did it backwards the first time) and you might land the plane with too much fuel on a runway that’s too slippery… and not slide off the runway… but going against the design specs is never recommended. As the famous acronym RTFM says… Read… The… Manual…
I’ve been a big supporter of the vaccine and have cheered on Pfizer and Moderna and all the rest of them… and a big reason why is because I understand the process that went into their creation. I understand how it was done so quickly and where the bureaucratic corners were cut to save time and where the relevant science was kept pristine, specifically the clinical trials and testing and follow-up. Out of all of that detailed science came the very detailed instructions.
Nobody was too sure what these vaccines would look like when they finally emerged; the super-cold requirement of the Pfizer vaccine was unexpected. The fact you’d need two jabs instead of one… that was expected, but the timing between them wasn’t clear. Weeks? Months?
Pfizer came out with their vaccine… and, first thing, the temperature requirements. Here’s the number. Transport it at that temperature. Thaw it like this, mix it like that. Can we transport it a little warmer? No. Can we dilute it a bit differently? No. Can we thaw it for longer? No.
These “no” answers aren’t Pfizer trying to be difficult; it’s quite simply the range of what’s tested and what’s expected for the outcomes they’ve projected. Which is why there’s appropriately a lot of head-scratching and pushback on Dr. Bonnie Henry’s strategy of spacing out jabs, well-past the recommended time frame. Pfizer says space them three to four weeks apart. Moderna says four weeks. Dr. Henry wants to push it to 35 days. Why? Here’s her argument…
A first jab provides significant protection. Pfizer has said 52% after just one dose, though England’s own studies argue it’s 89%. Moderna is purported to be 80% after one dose. If the intention is to protect as many people as you can, then you try to get the vaccine into as many arms as possible… and you give everyone first doses and then wait around for the next shipment.
Apparently, the timing works out in such a way that if you stretch the time between shots a bit, more people can get that first one. Dr. Henry stated their plan was to use everything they got initially as first doses. That’s fine, if you can stick to the script. But… this on-the-fly modification, contrary to the specs from Pfizer?
I’ll be honest, if I signed up to get the vaccine with the understanding that I’d be getting the follow-up shot within the specified time period… and was later told, no… we’re going to do it a bit differently… I’d be upset. I might have chosen to wait a bit, until I can be guaranteed the right period of time is being adhered to. There is already enough vaccine anxiety out there; a lot of people are skeptical and worried and, while not being anti-vaxx, want to make sure things go well before they take it themselves. To introduce a variable into this equation that can, at best, maintain the status quo but, at worst, derail things… seems like a bad idea. If a bunch of once-vaccinated people become ill, now we have to figure out why and when and how – did the vaccine fail? Were they infected between jabs… or did they not develop the proper immunity, thanks to the spacing of doses? This would do nothing to instill confidence. On the contrary.
I didn’t sign up to be a test subject, to test the boundaries of efficacy. Around here, nobody did. That doesn’t mean this will cause problems… certainly, it might be ok. In fact, other jurisdictions, under the same plan of “get the first one into as many people as possible”, are stretching that time even further. In Denmark, up to six weeks. In the U.K., up to 12(!) weeks.
But let’s be clear, when you introduce a variable, this is no longer an execution of a plan. This is now an experiment, and the BCCDC may as well be tracking the results of playing with these time frames, as should the U.K. and Denmark; collect the data… because if there are issues down the road, it will be useful to know. It’d be also be useful to know that 35 days (or 42 or 84) works just as well as 28.
I’m guessing their thinking is that “pretty good” for a lot of people is better than “really good” for far fewer people… especially when “pretty good” might actually turn out to be “really good” as well.
Except… that’s not what a lot of people signed up for; if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right. The argument that this is “right” or “right enough” doesn’t hold a lot of water when the designer/manufacturer itself doesn’t agree. I think for a lot of people, myself included… we’ve waited this long, and we can probably wait a little longer… there’s just too much at stake.
Who was the great mind that came up with this quote… Plato? Socrates? Nietzsche? Oh yeah, no… it was Eminem: “You only get one shot to take your shot so don’t blow it.” Or something like that. See what happens when you veer off-script? Sometimes it doesn’t work so well.
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January 7, 2021
Kool-Aid has gotten a bad rap over the years. “Drinking the Kool-Aid” has become synonymous with believing in something crazy. It was over 900 people who died by suicide… many of them children, fed cyanide-laced Kool-Aid by their parents… parents who poisoned their own kids before taking their own lives. Over 300 kids.
This was all thanks to Jim Jones, a charismatic cult leader who’d rather die, and take everyone down with him… instead of facing the music. There’s obviously a lot wrong with this picture… that one man could convince so many people to die for his cause.
The first thing that’s wrong is the Kool-Aid itself. It wasn’t actually poisoned Kool-Aid that they all drank; it was Flavor Aid. No big deal, what’s the difference, who cares… well, I’m sure the marketing department at Kraft-Heinz would beg to differ. It’s impressive the good-will that Kool-Aid must have had before that massacre that they would choose to keep the name instead of just re-branding the flavoured juice crystals. Oh, yeah.
Kool-Aid aside, just how deep down the well do you need to be to go along something like that? The aforementioned Jonestown massacre of 1978 is the most well-known, but cult mass suicides happen… well, not “all the time”, but they’re perhaps more common than you might believe.
There was the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide in 1997, where 39 people in California killed themselves because their cult leader, Marshall Applewhite, had convinced them that a UFO was lurking behind the Hale-Bopp comet that was heading towards earth, and that “leaving the human world” was the only way to hitch a ride on it. Accordingly, Applewhite provided some poisoned applesauce for the group…who put on identical black tracksuits and matching Nikes (they got a good deal on the bulk purchase), poisoned themselves, and waited for their ride to another planet. One of those was the brother of Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on Star Trek… but that’s about as close to a spacecraft as they got.
There was the Order of the Solar Temple suicides, led by charismatic leaders Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret… where are total of 74 people killed themselves to “escape the world to a higher dimension”. They were from Switzerland, Canada and France.
In March of 2000, there was “Judgement Day” for a cult in Uganda who believed it was time for the end of the world. It’s unclear how many were suicides and how many were murdered, but the death toll was close to 800.
This list goes on, but the summary above is a good indication that if you have a charismatic leader with a group of well-indoctrinated fervent followers, they will do anything. And if they’re willing to kill themselves, certainly storming the Capitol is not much of an ask. Certainly not after the 4-year build-up that it took to get to that point.
At first, it’s just the typical cult indoctrination… you’re with us, or you’re against us. We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys. We’re the truth, they’re the fake news. Exaggerate, polarize, fictionalize… you’ll recall, it all started on day one. It actually started on hour one… less than one hour after the inauguration in 2017, with White House Spokesman Sean Spicer pleading to the bewildered world to believe him when he told you that Trump’s inauguration crowd was the biggest ever. And off we went, with more divisiveness and Charlottesville-type scenarios along the way, paving a road to a point that really has no destination. At some point, there’s nowhere left to go. Time to pay the piper… but the lead piper will be holed up somewhere, possibly in Florida or possibly not in the U.S. because, especially after yesterday, he may be facing an arrest warrant.
Now what? A good question with many possible answers… but to answer the question of “How could this happen?” – how about, honestly acknowledging, how could it not? Where else was this headed? How is what’s playing out now not exactly what should’ve been expected with four years of trying to pry this country apart? Shocking? Sure. Surprising? Not in the least.
The worse is gets, the more people jump off the cult bandwagon… but, jeez… it took this long? This is what it took? This was your breaking point? This is certainly really bad, but what about what came before? His misogynistic statements before he was even president weren’t enough? His embracing of white supremacists? His complete mishandling of this pandemic? His calling Biden a pedophile? His continual lies? This is a very long list, for those who’ve been paying attention. Every week of this “presidency”, many people were asking the question, “How low can he go?” because as difficult as it was to imagine how he’d do it, he always did. One notch lower, much to the horror of most people, but to the delight or indifference of others. It took this long for you to get it? It took this long for Twitter and Facebook to figure out what giving this guy a platform might do?
Much of that latter group is now diving to the exits. Sure, welcome aboard… welcome to the lifeboats many have been clinging to for four years… but, for some of them… not so fast. There is a long list of Republicans who sided with yesterday’s violence, at least in that they propagated the charade of the stolen election and objected to the certification and all that. Their names should not be forgotten… many of them thinking only for themselves, thinking this would further their political ambitions while actually all violating their oaths of office. I can’t wait to see Senator Josh Hawley try to throw his name into the 2024 election ring. I can’t wait to see him eviscerated by both sides of the aisle for what he’s done. Call it what you want; I’ll call it treason.
“I didn’t vote for this”
“This isn’t America”
You’ll hear that a lot in the future, but here’s some news for a lot of you… yeah, you did vote for him… and yes, just maybe… this IS America. It always has been, with an undercurrent of ugliness that was surfaced and normalized by a cult leader who understood that all along.
Some 74,000,000 people voted for him, but I’m sure in 20 years you won’t find many who’ll admit to it. Here we are after four years… what would’ve happened in another four? The question doesn’t need answering because if Trump had been re-elected, that would’ve been the last American election for many years… perhaps ever.
Good riddance to this cult leader. It’s less than two weeks, but I hope they 25th-amendment his ass out of there sooner and completely wreck whatever legacy might have been left for the completely brainwashed that are still clinging.
And, might I end with that… if, after all of this, you’re still supporting him, thinking he’s the good guy, the victim, etc… then you are indeed beyond salvation by normal means, and I’d suggest you drag yourself (or have yourself dragged) to the nearest cult-deprogramming facility.
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January 6, 2021
In April of ’86 (in this case, 1886), the city of Vancouver was established. A couple of months later, it all burned to the ground… but, they rebuilt it… better, this time… more brick, less wood… and here we are.
Eighty-six years later, a group of local businessmen set out to bring professional soccer to this city… and a couple of years later, in 1974, the Vancouver Whitecaps played their first game in the North American Soccer League. The highlight of that team came in 1979 when they won SoccerBowl, the NASL championship. Unfortunately, a few years later, the team (and the entire NASL actually), burned into bankruptcy.
In 1986, on its 100th birthday, Vancouver hosted the world… for a World’s Fair – Expo 86… which undoubtedly changed the landscape of the city forever. It was a big year for the city, and it was a big year for professional soccer. Like the city that itself had risen from the ashes, so did a team… the Vancouver 86ers, founded by 86 people who put up $500 each to get it all going.
It was an impressive team; they inherited plenty of Whitecaps firepower. Waiters, Valentine, Lenarduzzi to name a few… then, add to that the homegrown talents of Mobilio and Catliff…it was a great team right off the bat. Perhaps they were named after the 1886 founding/resurrection of the city. Perhaps they were named for the World’s Fair/100th anniversary. Or, perhaps they were named for the verb… to “86” someone means to eject, reject, discard or cancel them…. and the 86ers did plenty of that; that powerhouse team went on to win 4 straight league championships and finished at the top of the league 5 straight years. Their streak of 46 consecutive games without a loss is a North American professional sports record that stands to this day.
But the powerhouse 86ing I’m obviously going to discuss today is the one taking place south of the border. It was supposed to have been simple; eighty-six the Trump presidency by the established process that’s been in place for centuries. Instead, that ceremony was vocally, violently and frighteningly interrupted by a mob of domestic terrorists who overran the Capitol. They took over the floor of the senate where VP Mike Pence, moments earlier, was trying to do his part to certify the vote. They broke into Nancy Pelosi’s office and left a threatening note. Not since the War of 1812 has the Capitol been breached in this manner, when the Canadians did it (OK, the British…).
Well, what else can you expect. The president, that narcissistic psychopath, led the charge… of trying to 86 the very foundations of democracy. To 86 the very foundations of the United States. This was no little protest; this insurrection would’ve turned into a full-on coup, given the opportunity… the thing is, to successfully carry out a coup requires the support of the relevant armed forces. The police, the national guard, the army, the navy, the secret service, etc. There’s zero evidence to suggest support for this mob goes any further than those involved in their own self-delusion, and those aforementioned groups are doing their part to squash this. One could certainly argue they might have done it sooner and more violently had the mob had a different colour of skin, but at least they’re on the right side of the equation and the Capitol is once again secure.
Donald Trump doesn’t care… though I can tell you what’s really bothering him; his Twitter account got suspended and his last three Tweets were removed. For a narcissist to have their stage of tens of millions pulled out from under them; that’s severely traumatic. I can assure you, he’s screaming at everyone around him to get that fixed. Forget the riots and votes and election; get me my Twitter back. Now!
And, of course, he was nowhere near the actual violence. Like any good dictator… sitting far away, calling the shots from the safety of the White House. Most dictators know exactly what they’re doing, but I sincerely think Donald Trump is too mentally ill to actually get it. I don’t think he’s clear on just how much power his cult-like craziness holds on his brainwashed masses. It took his most trusted staffers begging to get him to release a statement or video, and even that was misguided. He told them the election was stolen. He told them to go home. He told them he loves them.
What a colossal, ugly mess he leaves behind. Two more weeks, and that’s it. Well, that two weeks could arguably get cut short if finally someone (collectively) has the guts to pull the trigger on the 25th amendment and forcefully remove him; he’s clearly unfit for office. The thing is, he’s been unfit for office for a long time, and nobody has done anything about it.
As I post this, the senate chamber is once again filling up so they can, as my father used to love to say, “Get on with it.”. They will resume counting and the vote will be certified tonight, and it’s one step closer to the inevitable conclusion that Trump can’t seem to understand. Biden’s inauguration and the security around it will be like nothing we’ve ever seen. But the entire country will indeed… get on with it. Two weeks.
Finally… appropriately… today, January 6th, 2021 – would have been my father’s 86th birthday. He was a big fan of this city, and he was a big fan of soccer… but he was an even bigger fan of watching violent, corrupt, demagogic world leaders getting 86’d out of existence. Happy Birthday, Dad.
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January 5, 2021
There’s that old saying… “Never ASSUME, because when you ASSUME, you make an ASS of U and ME”. There’s an assumption I made a while back that’s clearly wrong… and it changes a lot of other assumptions that go along with it.
My assumption was that when a vaccine finally arrived, it’d be welcomed with open arms. You wouldn’t be able to plug it into people fast enough. Sure, there’s the fanatic “Bill Gates/5G/mind control/conspiracy” crowd, but I’d thought it’s a handful of people, similar in numbers to the tiny pockets of anti-vaxxers who cause measles outbreaks from time to time. But this was a very bad assumption, because it’s coming to light that a lot of people, for reasons that don’t make sense to me (but that’s not the issue), are choosing to not get vaccinated. These aren’t crazy people screaming and banging pots and pans in the streets. These are, for example, well-trained medical professionals. In California, something like, 20-40% of frontline workers in L.A. county have turned down the vaccine. Head inland a bit to Riverside County, and the number goes up to 50%. This is causing head-scratching confusion in what had been assumed to be a pretty straightforward process.
In some of those hospitals, those refusals were popping up so unexpectedly that the vaccines risked being wasted. Once thawed, there’s only so much time before it’s useless. Accordingly, some nurses were calling up spouses and other family members… come quick, there’s a jab here for you if you want it. This is a violation of federal guidelines, of course… but I’m all for it. That’s far better than chucking them in the garbage. And apparently, there are some so anti-vaxx, that they’ll purposefully destroy the vaccine, given the opportunity… like that hospital employee in Wisconsin who threw 57 vials of Moderna into the garbage.
The unfortunate nature of the feedback loop/echo chamber of social media is that if you were at some point questioning the new vaccine (not from a conspiracy theory point of view, but a legitimate concern… you just wanted to know more about it), after clicking a few things and then perhaps clicking on a few more questionable ones, you suddenly plunged yourself into the “question everything” camp. Accordingly, all you get now is story after story that make you skeptical of the vaccine. Is it safe, does it actually work, is it really necessary… and so on. Once you’ve thrown yourself into that rabbit hole, it can be hard to emerge.
I wrote something a while back, just before the vaccines became publicly available… here’s a link to it:
If you or someone you know is questioning the vaccine from the “there’s no way they could come up with something so safe and effective so quickly” point of view, it’s worth a read.
The flipside to all of this is how many people *do* want the vaccine but can’t get their hands on it, due to inefficient deployment plans. I’m going to give it some time before criticizing everyone; it’s early in the game and the kinks are being worked out, but jeez, it’s not like there wasn’t a lot of time to plan ahead. Perhaps the ultra-low temperature requirements threw a big wrench into it… but everyone is way behind.
Well, almost everyone. One place where the overlap of organization and forward-thinking and technology and urgency came together impressively is Israel, who, on a per-capita basis, are one or two orders of magnitude ahead of everyone else when it comes to vaccinating their population…
U.S. 1.52%
Canada 0.42%
Israel 15.14%
Wow. Instead of complaining it can’t be done, it’s worth looking at how they’re doing it. The notification/registration/reservation system was in place. The innovation to be able to transport the ultra-cold vaccine to remote areas was in place. Volunteers were in place. When the word went out to go online and book an appointment, there was a huge rush…but the website didn’t crash. People signed up, showed up and got vaccinated in 15 minutes.
And… a touching note; for those who showed up, they were given gifts to take away… of kids books and games. What an odd thing to be giving away, especially since it wasn’t little kids who are being vaccinated. That comes later… these injections were mostly front-line workers and the elderly. And that was exactly the point; here you go, respected elder – take your vaccination, and also take some books and games for your grandkids… because, we know… you haven’t hugged them in almost a year, and when you show up to do so, no need to show up empty-handed.
Israel has 9 million people and 150 vaccine clinics around the country and roving vaccine vans. It obviously helps that Israel is a small country (it’s about the size of Vancouver Island)… but they’ve so far managed to administer 1.4 million doses. For comparison, Ontario has 14.5 million people and 19 vaccine clinics. They’ve managed less than 60,000 doses so far. B.C. has a population of 5.1 million and has administered 28,000 doses.
Like I said, it’s early in the game… but these assumptions… that everyone would want it when it gets here, that it’d be easy to get once it’s here, that the infrastructure to deliver it would be in place… were all just plain wrong. As per the opening paragraph… Never ASSUME… but just in case, here are a few more:
– I assume vaccine distribution will become more streamlined and efficient as time goes on
– I assume people will see that those getting the vaccine aren’t growing a third arm, and that it’s safe, and they’ll go get their shot
– I assume we all want to go back to normal as quickly as possible and will do our part to make that happen
I assume I’ll be right about at least some of that.
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January 4, 2021
Imagine a parallel universe… there’s an earth there too, and everything is pretty similar. They’re going through a C19 pandemic as well, but it’s a little different. On that parallel earth, the virus behaves quite differently. There, it’s very, very contagious. So contagious, in fact, that by the time people realized it even existed, everyone already had it. The good news is that as contagious as it was, it seemed relatively harmless. No big deal.
Except, as time went on, it was realized that the longer it lingered in your body, the worse it got. It’d mutate inside of you and, over time, make you sicker and sicker. The fact it mutated so easily made it difficult to formulate a vaccine… but, great news, there was a simple way to purge this thing; the more you associated with other people, the better the outcomes. It seemed that people breathing all over each other and sharing their exhaust would provide others with the anti-virus tools their bodies needed to heal… and, the more variety you got, the better.
The provincial health orders went out; nobody go to work; instead, congregate with as many people as you can. Big, thick crowds, ideally strangers. Pack the gyms, sweat… and breathe all over each other. Tight spaces with little ventilation are ideal. Spread the goodness around. Party on. Spend as much time with as many different people as you can. It’s for the greater good.
The government begins offering people 2 grand a month to not work, but instead… just socialize. Wealthy people rent out entire venues… clubs downtown, Rogers Arena… even BC Place. Come one, come all – free food and drinks (within reason) as long as you promise to stay at least 3 hours and mingle with as many strangers as you can. Tens of thousands of people show up every night; needless to say, this is embraced by a tremendous amount of people. This year becomes the best and most memorable time of their lives.
For others, though… it becomes a nightmare. For the introverts of the world, being forced to party and mingle – with strangers, no less – is as far out of their comfort zone as it gets. Once in a while… maybe. But every single night?
So… these people start looking for ways to duck the orders… what if we don’t go out every night? What if it’s with a few people, not just huge crowds? What if it’s in a private place, not out in public? What if it’s with some people we know, not just all strangers?
“Covidiots!!”, yell the masses, “… stop trying to bend the rules. Stop trying to think you’re special. Get the hell out there, party and mingle and meet as many strangers as you can. It’s for the greater good!”
Crowds of people go door to door, banging on doors, shaming those who’ve chosen to stay home. “Save your books and chess and Netflix for next year!!”, they scream in your face, “It’s your responsibility! It’s your duty! Get the hell out here… come on man, there’s this great Rave going on in this warehouse in Chilliwack… like 5,000 people… it’s on till 6am!! Let’s go!!”
Personally, I am an affirmed introvert. I score 90% in those personality tests where it comes to introvert/extrovert. So, while for me, the isolation part of this pandemic has been no big deal, I’m well aware the mental toll this is taking on others. How would I feel having to go out every day, partying all night with a bunch of strangers? If we flip all of these circumstances around, how would I feel? When I think about what I just described, if I had to live like that… I think I’d be losing my mind. And so, I realize… that for people for whom that’s the norm, this has all been a significantly bigger struggle.
I know people who spend 200 days a year traveling… airports, airplanes and hotels are their norm; their safe space; their comfort zone. Being forced into this present experience is just as jarring as it’d be to me to have to leave this comfort zone of mine and party all day. Actually, it’s probably far more jarring for them; if the entire world is your office, your workspace, your play-zone… having all that disappear, pretty-much overnight… it’s a huge jolt.
I say all this because while I’m firmly on the “follow the rules/get the vaccine/wear a mask in public/this will soon be over” bandwagon, I realize that for a lot of people, it’s far more easily said than done.
Later this month, January 28th, will be the tenth anniversary of the “Bell’s Let’s Talk” campaign, which aims to raise awareness around mental illness. It’s very clear what this year’s topic of discussion will be, because long after the virus is physically gone from our lives, the mental impact will linger.
For the moment, it helps us all to put ourselves in other people’s shoes… because talk is cheap, but actions speak louder than those words… and while it’s very easy for people to preach to others “Stay home!”, that’s a difficult ask for many, and we need to understand that.
“What’s the big deal – just stay home” – it works for me, but it might not work for you…and I sympathise. And hopefully one day, sooner than later, you can all be throwing your big parties. Feel free to invite me; I’ll probably show up for a bit, say hi… and then stand by the wall for a while… and sneak out when no one’s looking.
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January 3, 2021
No new B.C. data since last year… and it seems the Alberta data is just some guy guessing over the last few days. Those perfectly round numbers for new cases are, as my teenage children’s parlance would suggest, “pretty sus”. So, we will leave all that till tomorrow when hopefully everything gets updated. Some numbers (vaccination counts in the eastern provinces) actually went down. I’ll figure it out tomorrow.
Tomorrow will bring forth a lot more than numbers, though… south of the border, the currently-sitting president is running out of time and out of options. When it comes to “fight or flight”, Donald Trump is very much a “fight” sort of guy, and the dirtiest sorts of fighters are the ones that are against the ropes with nothing to lose. That’s where the low blows and ear bitings come in.
On Saturday, the president committed an act called “sedition”, defined as “conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.”
Sedition, treason, attempted coup – call it what you like. I guess it started earlier in the week with Republican senator Josh Hawley, the guy who’s leading the charge in trying to get congress to not certify the electoral college vote. This is quite simply an authoritarian hoping to overthrow the results of an election because it didn’t go his way. He will fail, of course, but he should actually face an ethics charge and expulsion; he’s clearly violating his oath of office… you know, the one that talks about supporting and defending democracy. And now a number of GOP members are hopping onto that bandwagon, for a showdown on January 6th.
GOP stands for “Grand Old Party”, but it’s certainly not that anymore… perhaps “Formerly-grand Old Party” is more appropriate. FOP. For what it’s worth, the word “fop” has been around since the middle ages. Its original meaning was, quite simply, a fool of any sort. How appropriate.
On Saturday, Trump… the leader of the FOP… called up Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and spent an hour on the phone with him. Like any exemplary narcissist, Trump tried every angle of persuasion… nice guy, bad guy, compliments, threats.
Raffensperger is a Republican and Trump supporter, so this clearly put him in a weird situation. Some clips of this phone call were leaked to the Washington Post, and have now been picked up and released by every news outlet… even Fox. It’s worth a listen… hearing Trump begging the guy to find him 11,780 votes (Biden won by 11,779) from somewhere. Anywhere. Make shit up if you need to.
Raffensperger didn’t cave, of course, and the intonation in his voice is telling… a mixture of a little fear, but also the sort of tone you might take trying to explain something to a child. And by the way, even if the state of Georgia were flipped, Trump still loses the election. By a lot.
But these are the actions of a desperate man; he’s on the ropes, flailing away, hoping to land something. He won’t stop swinging till he’s laid out on the canvas.
One thing that fortunately didn’t land was the enormous storm that formed a few days ago over the North Pacific Ocean… so powerful it was labelled a “bomb cyclone”. Winds over 100 MPH, 45-foot waves in open water. That storm formed in 2020… and fizzled out in 2021. Hopefully like the FOP’s latest (and final) attempts to bomb democracy.
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January 2, 2021
Somewhere downstairs in the storage room, there’s a box with a lot of old papers. Among them, a few select school papers I chose to keep, for one reason or another. Among the surprisingly good ones (8 or 9 out of 10), there is one with nothing on it but a big, fat, red zero.
I wrote that paper in grade 9, for Social Studies. I’d been sick for a few days, and a friend had called me up to let me know what I’d missed. A paper had been assigned, due Monday… with a weird topic, but ok… I’d missed several classes and didn’t really know what was going on. The topic was something like “Discuss the potential implications of youth in Asia in Canada.”
Odd… but, I’d recently done a big project on Japan, and knew all about Japanese schoolgirls and their influence on the world, how marketing companies in Japan were catering to their wishes and how the world was watching that, etc. This was the early 80s, and “Made in Japan” was a lot more common than “Made in China”. I had plenty of material, and I wrote what I thought was an excellent paper.
The teacher was a super-cool guy, Mr. Turner… who years later went off and founded a very successful outdoor school. On this day, he handed back all of the papers except mine. “See me after class” was all I heard.
So, I stuck around after… and he was usually very chill, but for once he was actually mad. “What the hell is this?”, he asked, as he threw the paper in my direction. He thought I was making a stupid joke, but the truth is, up to that point, I’d never heard the word “euthanasia”.
There was a moment of great confusion… then laughter… and he let me go home and re-write it… but the jokes kept coming… for years. He also taught grade 12 Geology… so three years later, on a test where I wrote an answer to a question about plate tectonics, he commented something like “the magma gets it moving but the youth in Japan keep it going!” Yeah, LOL. Cheers, Tim… wherever you are.
All that being said, there’s plenty to learn from Japan. Their handling of this pandemic has been exemplary, especially when you consider how crowded it is, and the advanced age of their population. This pandemic should have decimated that country, yet it’s been the opposite.
For comparison, here are some numbers…
Tests per million of population:
Canada — 363,000
U.S. — 772,000
Japan — 39,000
Cases per million of population:
Canada — 16,000
U.S. — 63,000
Japan — 2,000
Deaths per million of population:
Canada — 410
U.S. — 1,074
Japan — 28
More people will have died from C19 in the U.S. in the last 24 hours than in Japan since the very beginning.
What did they do right?
Did they do massive lockdowns, like so many other places? No. Did they try the “let it run wild but shelter the elderly” approach, like Sweden and, briefly, the U.K.? No. Did they massively test everyone over and over? Clearly not.
What looked like a cloud but turned out to be a very silver lining was the ill-fated cruise ship Diamond Princess, consumed with C19, that arrived in Japan in February. Their 3,700 passengers with 712 cases (699 recoveries, 12 deaths) were studied; it was a very good learning opportunity, and they took full advantage of it… and, out of it, developed a plan called the three Cs:
Closed spaces
Crowded places
Close-contact settings
They simply bashed that message into everyone’s heads repeatedly, because they understood the nature of transmission of this virus: Avoid all of that, and you’ll be ok. Yes, it’s good to wash your hands and not touch your face and all of that… but that is hugely outweighed by what they understood to be the real risks.
In Japan, some people carry around devices to measure airflow. Any place with a CO2 ppm of more than 1,000 implies poor airflow; stay away and/or get out. Subways are ok if windows are open and passengers wear masks. Sitting diagonally instead of across from someone can reduce the risk of infection by 75%. Well-ventilated movie theaters where people are eating popcorn and drinking Coke? No problem. Lots of other little warnings, some very specific: dinner parties with alcohol… groups of more than four… talking without masks at close quarters… changing rooms… break rooms… dormitories.
Their list of risks was far more detailed, and, therefore, far less restrictive. And, evidently, very effective when respected… and that’s perhaps where the biggest difference comes in… a culture willing to strictly accept certain restrictions. Not the wishy-washy, bend-the-rules, find-the loopholes sort of attitude; actually adhere to it. The long line-ups in Japan weren’t for toilet paper and paper towels and hand sanitizer… they were simply for masks.
On June 19th, the day the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected a requirement for face masks and social distancing at Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, people in Japan were lined up for hours, waiting to purchase the just-released breathable-fabric Uniqlo masks. They sold out almost instantly. The website crashed. Everyone wanted masks.
Japanese people have been wearing masks long before this pandemic. It’s culturally welcomed, accepted, not-frowned-upon and, most of all, clearly understood… so this wasn’t a tough sell. The breakdown of mask-wearing data around the world stops tracking north of 80%… but that’s where Japan is… > 80%. Canada and the U.S… depends what state/province. As low as < 10% in many places, 10-20% in a few. A handful at 40-50%, everyone else… less.
You want proof masks are effective? Japan for the win.
It’s unfortunate that, culturally, around here, we’re a lot more like the U.S. than Japan… and that’s why our restrictions seem harsh; because anything less, we wouldn’t listen to them. As it is already, we’re not listening enough… I’m not even going to talk about the U.S… where wearing a mask is an affront to personal freedom and all of that absurd bullshit; even around here, everyone listens to the rules and then pats themselves on the back for finding out clever ways around them.
“What difference do masks really make?” you ask, rhetorically… well, there’s your not-so-rhetorical answer… a profoundly better situation in every sense… they’ll be back to normal long before us. Arguably, they’re already there. Arguably, they always were.
Summary: stick to those three Cs and wear a mask.
The only question left to answer is… what to order for dinner tonight… yeah, sushi… of course.
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March 28, 2021
The discussion of how medicine and politics got so wrapped up will carry on for decades. For the moment, though, it raises practical issues. Like, 49% of Republican men refuse to get vaccinated. What’s the implication for society when large demographics think similarly? It’s going to create some significant problems for those cultures. On the flipside, societies where vaccinations are welcomed are facing different issues.
Israel, who’s led the charge with vaccinations, no doubt had been thinking ahead to what a post-vaccine pre-end-of-pandemic future might look like, and their answer, with which I completely agree, is a vaccine passport. They have what’s called a Green Pass, basically a QR code you can carry around, printed out or on your phone. The pass is valid for 6 months after your second shot has kicked in, and it gives you all the freedom you’d expect to have when you yourself are not a danger to those around you. Pubs, restaurants, concert venues, sporting events, whatever… they’ll scan your code and in you go. Some restaurants will only allow valid pass holders inside, but everyone else is welcome to sit outside. This makes sense on every level.
We are still unfortunately far from this… close to 60% of Israelis have had at least one dose. Our number is a little under 12%. But I would urge our powers that be to think ahead a bit, and not get caught with our pants down as we have with this vaccine rollout.
Start planning NOW for this infrastructure; it’s not complicated… just a robust, secure back-end that connects to a subset of people’s medical records (specifically, only vaccination info) and plugs it into a user-friendly front end. I have this all so clearly designed in my head… I could whiteboard the whole thing for you in 20 minutes and if you say go, I promise you… it’ll be done in 4 months. If someone had given me that “Go!” 4 months ago, it’d be done already. And it’s not like I’m some genius; this isn’t complicated. I know development teams, both here and in Israel, that would make short work of it. I know some fantastic development teams who’d love to sink their teeth into this. I’d be happy to make the introductions and get this thing … [Continue Reading]
March 27, 2021
We hear a lot about “They”. Who are “They”? Or, maybe… better yet, what is “They”? … as in,
“They’re trying to ruin our lives”
“They’re trying to control us”
“They’re trying to get rid of us”
Different versions of the same old idea that “They” imposed C19 upon us so “They” could get us all used to being controlled so that eventually we’re all just some drone army of zombies doing whatever “They” want so they can make lots of money and then… whatever.
If there is a controlling “They”, there are actually 200+ versions around the world, all of them getting some parts of this right and some parts of it wrong. You’ll have a hard time convincing me that there’s a “They” above that, because that “They” would be suffering greatly these days.
But on the note of enslaving everyone, some 3,500 years ago, there *was* a “They”. It was the Egyptians, and it was the Israelites who were enslaved, and it took Moses to appeal to the Pharaoh to let his people go. If you’re not familiar with the story, I hear you can read all about it in some Chapter of some Book. But if you’re not into reading The Bible, and whatever is found in the book of Exodus doesn’t excite you, do what you did in high school: watch the movie. There are various to choose from, but here are the top 3:
1. The Ten Commandments – a three-hour epic of biblical proportions starring Charlton Heston. The movie is 65 years old so the CGI might not be what you’re used to, but it’s good… and if you’ve ever taken the Universal Tour and seen the waters part so that your tour buggy could drive through (3,500 years ago, it was the Israelites crossing the Red Sea), you’ll be able to relate.
2. The Prince of Egypt – a more accessible animated version that tells some, but not all, of the story… DreamWorks, award-winning music, etc.
3. When Do We Eat? – this is a shameless plug, because I produced this fantastic little movie… but if you want an R-rated mix of religious observance with a whole bunch of craziness, this is the one for you. If you’re Jewish and haven’t seen this already… why the hell not? For all … [Continue Reading]
March 26, 2021
The good news with numbers is brief. Yesterday, B.C.’s vaccination rate went from nine point something to ten point something percent. Today, so did Alberta and Ontario… all of which allowed me to change the percentage to one decimal place instead of two. That’s one small step for a decimal point; one giant leap for significant figures as it pertains to reaching the end of this thing. I look forward to Manitoba joining the club soon.
And that concludes the numbers-related good news.
Today, B.C. had over 900 new cases… for the first time since November. What’s also bad is that the new-case growth rate was over 1%… not a particularly good direction for the trend to be heading.
Here are the weekly new-case averages per week, starting 6 weeks ago:
433, 441, 480, 559, 537, 560, 699. There was a nice dip a few weeks ago… right around the time Dr. Henry was calling it a turning point; it’s up to us, yadda yadda… so, how’d we do? There you go.
We’re likely to see the new-case numbers crawl over 1,000 in the next few days… so, to be clear, we’re very much in a 3rd wave… the question is, how bad will it get? Nowhere near as bad as it’d be if we didn’t have improving weather and vaccines. But nowhere near as good as it’d be if we didn’t have variants… and if we’d all properly followed those rules we used to be so good at. Half of that we can’t control… but the other half…
Now it’s Spring Break; people are traveling and doing their own thing. This is how we roll, and for the people who’ve simply “had it” with the pandemic, none of this matters. Ask me in two weeks how much it really matters, but as good or bad as it gets, when it comes to reaching the finish line, it’s not that we’re not running towards it as fast as we can… it’s that we keep pushing it our further. It’s a tough race to figure out when the finish line keeps moving, but it’s even more frustrating when we’re the ones moving it.
Stay tuned for Monday’s numbers… and don’t hold your breath for any radical change in restrictions. If anything, we’re presently going the wrong way.
March 25, 2021
On the flipside of the virulent anti-vaxxers comes the crowd who’ll do anything to jump the line and get their shot. Our most famous local exhibit are those two “hotel workers” who flew to that remote village in the Yukon, happily joining the queue with the Indigenous elders of the area. Pathetic, and grossly unethical.
… and, as it turns out, far from uncommon. Given the haphazard rollouts at provincial and state levels, there are plenty of opportunities appearing. It’s come to light that any of us could hop on a plane, fly to an American city… and easily get jabbed. Different places have different requirements, but here’s a good example: Any smoker in Illinois is instantly eligible. People have been lying and getting shots all over the place… and if your ethics allow for it, why not fly to Chicago for $300, walk into a pharmacy, buy a pack of smokes and say, “Hey… while I’m here…”
Were it not for the 3-day, $2,000 mandatory hotel visit on the way back, I suspect this might be a more popular thing to do.
But, you don’t have to go so far… and, this changes daily. And, it’s completely ethical:
In four days, any adult in Ohio will be able to get the vaccine. A couple of days later, anyone in Utah. A few days after that, Michigan and Connecticut. Washington State is a bit behind, but they’ll likely have that in place by May. And that’s for *everyone*.
Eventually, places reach the point where the supply outpaces the demand, and the doors can fly open. Come and get it. And, until things get to that point, still… with a pre-existing eligible condition, just wander into the CVS and walk out vaccinated… as easily as getting a flu shot around here.
The three most common words that you’ll overhear at a racetrack are “Woulda”, “Coulda”, and “Shoulda”; you hear them a lot when the horses cross the finish line and frustrated horseplayers crumple their losing tickets and toss them angrily onto the floor.
“I coulda bet the Daily Double!”
“I shoulda put the 4 in my Trifecta!”
“I woulda bet the 7 if I had more money!”
One day, when this is all over, and the people in charge are trying to figure out why Canada, a first-world nation … [Continue Reading]
March 24, 2021
On July 12, 2018, an elongated dump truck, entering the Knight Street bridge via an onramp – a little too quickly – rolled over and dumped its contents all over the bridge deck, leading to a closure (in both directions) that lasted hours. Unfortunately, it started leaking diesel as well, which led to hazmat team showing up. Further complications (including the truck driver being trapped – he was fine, but it took a while to extract him) led to this entire episode going on for several hours; no traffic flowing either way.
The cascading effect of that was interesting to see. Knight St. being blocked led to Marine Drive being backed up… beyond the point where alternate routes were accessible. Trying to get out of Vancouver towards Richmond and Surrey is next to impossible from the south end if Oak St. is backed up and Marine Drive is clogged… so people started trying to head east from avenues that were further north… and slowly, 49th, 41st, King Ed… all the way down to Broadway and, eventually, downtown… all clogged. Standstill. For hours.
From an engineering point of view, the Knight St. bridge is a SPF – a Single Point of Failure. When it fails, there is a cascading effect that leads to bigger and bigger problems because everything that depends on it will also fail. It’s what you always try to avoid, but sometimes, it’s inevitable… as is usually the case with bridges. Traffic in Vancouver is at the mercy of our bridges… because we’re on the coast, and because we have rivers and inlets. The trade-off of not having 9 bridges spanning every arm of the Fraser River is that once in a decade or two, this will happen… and there’s really nothing to fix, and there’s really nothing to mitigate. Once in a long while, an accident will close that bridge and chaos will ensue, and we will deal with it. The previous time, you might recall, back in 2000… a boat carrying a crane miscalculated something, and 15cm of the top of the crane hit the bridge and ruptured the water and gas lines. Good times.
Those are SPFs at a municipal level. What do SPFs at a global level look like? The Panama Canal is an obvious one. Plug … [Continue Reading]