November 22, 2020
We’ll have to wait till tomorrow to see some B.C. numbers, so until then, let’s shift our attention eastward by one province and look at Alberta, who unfortunately is giving us a textbook example of what exponential growth looks like.
For today, I’ve added a third row of graphs. The top row of the three is each province’s journey through this pandemic, from day one. The bottom two rows represent only the 2nd wave; first, logarithmically… and, the bottom one, normally.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes, it’s not because the picture is so indescribably beautiful… but because the picture is difficult to describe. If math isn’t your thing, hearing a sentence like “the plot an exponential curve on a logarithmic scale will be a perfectly straight line.”… might sound confusing. But when you look at the pictures, it makes perfect sense.
Have a look at Alberta, and have a look at the bottom two graphs. They are displaying the same dataset, but on the bottom one, the Y-axis is linear, ie normal, ie… perfectly spaced out. The one above it is logarithmic, which “squashes” the Y-axis the bigger it gets.
The way a logarithmic scale works is that it perfectly compensates for that exponential growth… which is why those smooth, increasing curves of the bottom graph (TTDs of 20 and 25) show up as perfectly straight lines on the graph above it.
Accordingly, the seven-day moving average of daily case-counts of Alberta, the thicker black line, follows the curve on the bottom graph and follows the straight line on the upper graph. While the logarithmic graphs tend to minimize the growth as things get worse (the steepness gets squashed), the real-data graphs tell the truth. It’s clear from looking at these graphs exactly where Alberta is heading, if things don’t change. It’s clear as well that Saskatchewan’s recent increases are far worse than TTDs of 20 or 25; closer to 15 over the last few days.
Exactly 8 months ago, we were heading into the last week of March wondering the same thing we are today… I wonder what the week ahead will look like. It feels like a lifetime ago, March 22nd… that was the 6th day of me writing about all of this (here it is if you’re interested: https://kemeny.ca/2020/03/22/march-22-2020/). The U.S. had 32,000 cases. Canada had less than 1,500. B.C. had less than 500.
Here we are today (Day 251) – and the sentiment hasn’t changed. Just the numbers, which are all a lot bigger.
Day 250 – November 21, 2020
No B.C. numbers today, but here’s a brief look elsewhere…
Parts of Ontario (Toronto and Peel) are in a lockdown of the sort we saw around here at the start of this pandemic. Very tight constraints with respect to with whom you can get together, and strict rules around what that needs to look like. Everything else is pretty-much closed, except the essentials.
Saskatchewan saw a huge increase in numbers today, something they saw coming; measures were put in last week, but they’re now dealing with the effects of what came before. As we know, it can take a couple of weeks to realize the effects of these measures.
Alberta also set its record for new cases in the last 24 hours.
Today’s lesson in exponential growth comes from Nunavut… where, for the longest time (like till November), they’d seen zero cases. They got their first one Nov. 6th… their second one Nov. 7th… and then two more Nov. 8th. Then 8, 18, 26, 60… and they’re now over 100. Their graph is not a gentle slope or a hockey stick… it’s a literal cliff wall which they slammed into, after 7 months of flat road. That’s how this thing can take off.
In the spring, it was all about flattening the curve. For those late to the game, like Nunavut and Saskatchewan, where they never got a first wave, that’s where they’re at.
For places like Ontario and Quebec, it’s not just about flattening the potential frightening growth… it’s that the numbers, as flat as they may be (which they’re not) are already really big.
What’s worse… if you have 100 hospital beds available… to see cases go from 2 to 8 to 20 to 50 in a few days? Or to see them go 98, 99, 103, 98?
The answer is… it depends… on what measures are in place. Drastic measures are needed in example A, but example B is just as frantic, because it’s evidence of a problem that’s stressing the limits and that’s not going away unless something is done about it. Roughly speaking, example A is Nunavut and example B is Ontario.
The rate of growth is interesting to look at, on an apples-to-apples basis. I’ve added Time To Double (TTD) lines to the provincial graphs, and I’ve set them all (for now) to 20 and 25, so you can compare the data against those straight lines… and across provinces. Don’t worry too much about where those lines cross, just look at the slope of the data compared to the TTD lines. B.C. and Alberta are examples of consistent growth… you can see the recent growth is virtually parallel to the TTDs of 25. And at their steepest recent points, both Saskatchewan and Manitoba had recent TTDs approaching 10.
You’ll notice that Quebec and Ontario are a lot flatter. Indeed, their TTDs are 50 and 77 respectively. Their issue isn’t so much exponential growth… it’s just that any growth is already putting pressure on a system that at some point won’t be able to handle it.
November 20, 2020
In hindsight, there was plenty to learn from Donald Trump’s nomination of the first (of his three) Supreme Court Justices. Before Barrett and Kavanaugh, there was Gorsuch.
This was very early into his presidency, and the announcement was to be like no other. Trump wanted a full-on reality-TV moment. Had he had his way, it would’ve been like a Bachelor/Bachelorette-like Rose Ceremony – held in the White House Rose Garden, of course – where Trump would’ve had his three finalists standing there, and with some great drama – heck, perhaps even by handing them a Rose – revealed to the world his choice. One of the other two, Tom Hardiman, was actually on his way to Washington for the “ceremony” until an insider reached out and told him something like, “Dude, bail… this is bullshit.”
Trump still made the best of it. He had Gorsuch and his wife hidden away, in a hallway. Trump made it all about himself, as usual, and after his magnanimous speech, finally had Tom Gorsuch, and his wife, emerge… to the thunderous applause so that he, Trump, could take credit for his awesome selection. “What is going on?”, asked some people. “This is going to be fun!”, said some others.
The astonishing reality show is exactly two months away from cancellation. Many of the actors have already moved on, some trying to distance themselves from the negative reviews, to find new shows. Some are holding on, hoping for a sequel. They will soon be bitterly disappointed. Nobody is picking this up for another 4-year run.
The problem, of course, is that the star of the show doesn’t want to go away, and it’d be funny were it not so tragic. His pathetic attempts of “They love me! They really love me!” aren’t going to take him anywhere.
Yet – and this is where it gets very serious – every single hour that goes by, with this petulant child-actor’s attitude of “If I lose, we all lose”, people are dying. The studio needs to reconfigure for the next 4 seasons, but they can’t, because the soon-to-be-former star won’t hand over the keys. He just makes lame and baseless excuses. How appropriate it was for Giuliani to be holding that almost-final press conference in the parking lot of a Four Seasons. Not the elegant hotel, of course, but the kind of Four Seasons operation the specializes in shoveling manure, exactly what his BFF/client has been doing for four long seasons.
It’s far too late to restore the tarnished image in which Trump has enveloped himself, but like any good show or series, some people just remember the end. The last 10 minutes of the last episode. And here we are, and Trump could actually make a difference. With now literally nothing else left to lose as president, he could at least leave it with a bit of a swan song… and invoke a federal mask policy. It would upset a lot of his core. It would also save tens of thousands of lives. It’s sad – tragic – that he won’t.
Closer to home, we *do* have a new mask policy, and whether you agree with it or not, how about you just do it? We can discuss it next year, whether it was as right as I said or as wrong as you said… because we both agree we’d like to get to next year, and we’d also like everyone around us, especially those we care deeply about, to get there as well. Yes, you might be young and healthy, and maybe this won’t affect you… notwithstanding a recent death here in BC was an otherwise-healthy man in his 30s… he and some co-workers tested positive. The co-workers all had mild symptoms, but the unfortunate victim got it much worse… and the point is, that even if you think you’re immortal, you have friends and family who are older, immunocompromised and/or simply as unlucky as that guy whose friends, family and co-workers still can’t believe it.
Outbreaks can happen anywhere, but the serious ones we hear about are care homes, which of course are populated with the people who are at highest risk… and it’s within those walls that infections can spread like wildfire. Tabor Home, a long-term care facility in Abbotsford had 4 cases (two staff, two residents) two weeks ago. Today, it’s over 100. How did that happen…?
There are more of you out there than you think… that have this virus. Eighty percent of you will never even know it… yet, for a while, you were just as infectious as anyone else… and somewhere along the line… while not wearing a mask and/or being too close to someone else, you passed it along… and so on and so on. Breaking those chains of transmissions is what it’s all about, and far more of us are potential links in that chain… that inevitably end at someone who is unable to fight it off. Once it enters an environment like a care-home, it hits hard.
If you think wearing a mask or not getting together socially or not travelling isn’t to your benefit, think about others… because your irresponsibility could literally kill someone else. Think about them… some elderly resident of a care home… whose life is worth far more than your irresponsible little maskless get-together. The get-together can wait. That elderly resident is also waiting… for a hug from their grand-daughter. Do your part to make sure that eventually happens.
November 19, 2020
Earlier today, Dr. Henry laid down the law… a detailed and lengthy list of restrictions, which are now in place for at least two weeks (Dec 7th)… and this now applies to the entire province. The whole thing can be read at www.bccdc.ca – but here’s the summary… go back to how you were doing things in March and April: No social gatherings outside your immediate bubble. No non-essential travel. And by the way, masks are now mandatory. Finally, some clout behind the good sense. If you’re out in public, indoors, wear a mask. It’s that simple, and every business and every person walking into a business… needs to respect that.
As heavy-handed as it sounds, it’s with a finish line on the horizon… and the idea is to get there without overwhelming our medical system. The numbers don’t lie; if we don’t change course, we will run out of hospital beds and equipment before we get there… yet, we know there are people who won’t follow the rules. We know there are people who held lavish parties over the weekend. Heck, I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, but police in New York busted an actual Fight Club, with 200 fighters and numerous participants all crowded together. The U.S. went over 12,000,000 cases today… over 2,000 deaths today, for the first time. Almost 200,000 new cases today. Ouch.
It takes a while to see the effects of these orders… so, again, like back in March/April… we sit and wait… and hope things don’t spiral out of control.
From a flattening-the-curve point of view, when we’d actually flattened it… back in June, the cases Time To Double was 175 days. That dropped to 100 in July. In October, cases were doubling every 43 days. In the first week of November, that number dropped to 26. In the second week of November, down to 24. Right now it’s at 23. I’d be surprised and delighted if it managed to stay above 20, but nothing changed till today, so the trend that got us here is likely to continue before it turns around. Now, we just wait and see how much worse it gets before it gets better.
November 18, 2020
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything about Sweden, so it’s time for an update. To rewind to the almost-beginning, the first thing I ever wrote on the topic was on April 10th… my opinion with respect to what they were doing handling this pandemic… you can read it here: https://kemeny.ca/2020/04/10/april-10-2020/
If you’re not familiar with what they attempted to do, it’d be helpful to read that, for context. And here we are 7 months later:
Did their approach cause more deaths? They’d hoped it wouldn’t, but understood it might… but that the risk/reward was worth it. To summarize, “Some people might die, but saving the economy makes it worth it.” That post from April makes it pretty obvious that things were not heading in a great direction, but I suppose they’d hoped things would settle down.
How bad was it? The obvious comparison would be against their Scandinavian neighbours… and here are the deaths per million caused by C19:
Norway: 55
Finland: 67
Denmark: 133
Sweden: 624
Let’s mark that one down in the “miserable failure” column… but at least the economy was saved, right?
The usual measure of economic growth/decline is GDP. Here are those four countries’ rough economic declines for 2020, as per data from the OECD:
Norway: -5.1%
Finland: -5.9%
Denmark: -7.9%
Sweden: -7.7%
Not only did their economy suffer just as badly as their neighbours (the ones with one tenth the number of deaths), but it was actually a little worse.
Well… at least they achieved herd immunity, and after all those great sacrifices, they won’t have to face a second wave like all the rest of us, right?
Unfortunately, that second wave is hitting Sweden very hard, as we speak… so hard, in fact, that Sweden is abandoning the Swedish model. The very lockdowns and closures they’d so adamantly refused… are now in place. They’ve finally admitted to themselves that herd immunity is unachievable without a vaccine, or a tremendous amount of carnage, something that’s been evident to everyone else for a long time.
The whole thing was an unfortunate disaster, and for more than one reason, not the least of which was other “leaders” touting the benefit of the Swedish model and imposing it on their populations. Before all of this, the only thing that came to mind when you heard “Swedish model” was Tiger Wood’s wife… but, oh… how things have changed.
Those two Swedish models actually have something in common… one beat up her cheating husband and smashed up his SUV. The other one beat up an entire country, and smashed any confidence anyone could possibly have that letting this virus run its course is a good idea.
Elin Nordegren realized she was in a crappy situation, and moved on. Better late than never. I guess the same can be said about Sweden.
November 17, 2020
Back at the start of the pandemic, when things were growing frighteningly out of control, there were a lot of charts and diagrams being published about the present and future potential “Time to Double”. When you’re dealing with exponential growth, the steeper the curve, the quicker the numbers double from where they are today. For a while, things got frantic. Then they got flat. Now they’re not so flat anymore, but certainly not as steep as they were back then. Which is perhaps why there’s less panic about these ever-increasing numbers.
But maybe there should be a bit more concern than what’s actually being seen. It’s harder to move bigger numbers. But that’s because they’re already big, and we’re not just dealing with relative numbers here. We’re dealing with absolutes.
If you look at B.C, it’s pretty consistent over the last week… a 3% growth of cases on a daily basis. That translates to a TTD of about 25 days… meaning, at the rate things are increasing, we will go from 23,500 cases to 47,000 by Dec. 12th. We’d be hitting 100,000 by early January. The demand on hospital beds, ICU beds and ventilators will scale up proportionally as well. Today’s hospitalization and ICU numbers are the highest ever in this province. What’s also the highest, by a lot, is the 11 deaths over the last 24 hours.
I’m growing uneasy at the nonchalance that’s out there, potentially starting at the top. I’ll be honest, if I were in charge, commanding traffic, there would be some stiff measures being thrown into place. I’m clear on the reasons being given as to why that’s not happening; that the majority of transmission is taking place in private homes, by the nonchalant crowd who simply won’t listen to reason. And while that’s going on, restaurants and many other businesses are all open, because they have all the safety measures in place.
That’s all fine in theory, but for some reason I keep hearing about people catching this; people who are taking all the safety measures they can, and they simply get it, and they have no idea when or where or why. So yes, I would be heavy-handed and I would take a lot of flak for it and some businesses might fail, especially those who count on the holiday season to see them through the much leaner rest-of-the-year. But I would mitigate this with some intelligent guesswork with respect to what the future has to offer. Nobody likes to make announcements they can’t live up to, so we get ‘safe’ guesses. On the flipside, never underestimate the human potential when our backs are against the wall.
I have a bet with a friend that I think I’m going to cash, made back in March – me saying there will be a vaccine by the end of the calendar year; perhaps not one readily available, but the one we’ll all eventually get by the time they manufacture enough. But the public, not just test-subjects, will be getting jabbed with it by Dec 31st. And it’s looking likely that might happen.
We’ve all heard vaccines typically take 3 to 5 years. We’ve all heard this one will be super-rushed to get it down to 12 to 18 months. Here we are, 9 months into it… with a very real possibility that this particular finish line has already been hit. Way to go, humans.
Which brings me back to the point… a very viable finish line on the horizon, with a time period of “now till then” which is shorter than what we suffered through the first time. We’re hearing summer. We’re hearing by this time next year. And I’m saying it’ll be sooner than that… because it won’t be a magic switch. This will be like trying to get a car going, starting in 6th gear. You have to let that clutch out super-slowly, and you might damage it, but if you do it right, you won’t stall the car and eventually you’ll be up to speed. It’s a painful process to get there, but at some point, you realize your foot is completely off the clutch… and you’re driving normally. Similarly, as things slowly re-open for real, one day you’ll realize it’s back pretty-much back to normal.
When we locked this province down back in the spring, there were outcries of “overkill” and “our economy” and all that. But it worked. With a big, vast unknown future in front of us, we bought into it, we did it, and it worked.
I think it’s time to take that deep breath, suck it up, and do it all again… this time, with that finish line well in sight. Call me Captain Overkill – I don’t mind. I know a bit about risk/reward, and I’m not known for not taking risks… but that means carefully thinking about it and picking your spots. And this one, to me, is a no brainer. Everyone go home for a few weeks, close schools early, suffer through a very weird holiday season… and then things, sooner than later, will be better. A lot better. I promise.
November 16, 2020
Terrific news today regarding Moderna’s vaccine trial… an unheard-of efficacy rate of 94.5%. In the study, 30,000 volunteers received a vaccination. Half of them got the real thing, half of them got salt water. Out of all those volunteers, 95 of them got infected with C19. Of those 95, 90 had gotten the placebo, and 5 had gotten the vaccine. Of those 5 who’d gotten the vaccine, none had a serious case of C19. Out of the other 90 cases, 11 of them were serious, a number that lines up with what’s been seen with some consistency out in the wild. In summary, as expected with any vaccine… it doesn’t guarantee you won’t get sick, but it dramatically cuts down your chances. And, if you do get sick, it’s likelier to be a milder course of illness. And, added bonus, this Moderna vaccine doesn’t need extreme cold to be transported or stored. It lives at the same temperature (conventional refrigeration) as many other common vaccines.
It’s great news if it holds up, like nobody in that study suddenly gets super-sick and has serious side-effects or anything like that. On that assumption, Moderna is already manufacturing for production, and some of the public (those at highest risk) might be getting the jab by late December. Perhaps by spring, we’ll be seeing a much larger general rollout. If that’s the case, there will be one hell of a lot of incredible summer parties. I’ll be sure to host a few. You’re all invited. Well… most of you.
However… we’re not there yet… and, as every day goes by, we seem to be drifting further and further from it. We will ultimately hit that finish line, but the idea is that most of us get there, and in good health.
I’ve added a new row of graphs… a graphic representation of deaths, just below the corresponding case-counts, just to keep a little reality in the picture… because there is a double-edge to the sword that will ultimately slay this virus, and that is… that this vaccine’s existence, whether today or in the future, gives many people the idea that this is all almost over and we can just gently glide to the end, and it’s party time now.
This is exactly not the time to let our collective guard down. The virus is still out there, the weather is getting colder and we’re all going to be indoors a lot more. The steepness of case counts and death counts – see attached. The gently rising curve of death hasn’t hit the levels we saw back in April, but it’s not hard to see the trend. We saw how quickly it blew up last time; not taking the proper measures could lead to this getting far worse. It’s up to us to not let that happen.
November 15, 2020
On the evening of March 21st, 2006, the B.C. Ferry Queen of the North departed from Prince Rupert, headed for Port Hardy. There is a tremendous amount of controversy as to what happened that night… books have been written, court cases have been tried, people have been fired, and… policies have been changed.
That night, thanks to the gross negligence of the two people on the bridge of the vessel – the ship’s fourth officer and the Quartermaster (who may have been fighting, or may have been having sex – either way, completely distracted), the ship missed the timing of an important maneuver, hit an underwater ridge of rocks that tore open the hull, and sank. Were it not for the heroic efforts of the Gitka’a’ata people in Hartley Bay, things would’ve been far worse. They took to the water in every boat they had, and rescued everyone they could. Unfortunately, 2 out of the 101 people on board were trapped, and are presumed to have gone down with the ship; their bodies have never been found.
One outcome of this tragedy was the policy change that made it mandatory for all ferry passengers to leave their vehicles during travel, lest the ship should sink and you be trapped.
The unlikeliness of that happening is difficult to overstate. BC Ferries provided more than 160,000 trips last year, moving close to 22 million passengers. Multiply that by 10 or 20 or 50 years, it doesn’t really matter… all you’re doing is changing your chances of dying on a ferry from one in a million to one in a billion or trillion or zillion. Whatever.
This policy does not sit well with many people, and I’m one of them. If I want to sit in the comfort of my car for the journey… maybe I have a crying baby or two, finally asleep in their car seats. Maybe I have a dog who’s cozy in his spot. Maybe I just want to listen to my music, read my book, play on my phone… in peace, in my environment. Maybe I have a broken leg and don’t want to be hobbling all over the place. Over the decades, I’ve had many reasons. More recently, one of those reasons was, of course, this pandemic… and B.C. Ferries, initially, agreed. In fact, they flipped the rule 180 early in this pandemic. Stay in your car. Don’t you DARE come upstairs, unless it’s a dire emergency. Sounds good.
Now, they’ve flipped it back again, at perhaps the worst possible time… and they’re being surprisingly adamant – arguably militant – about it. I really don’t get it. Persistent vigilance of the vehicle decks. Threats of fines or bans.
Since everyone *has* to get out now, it’s very crowded upstairs. The elevators are slow. The staircases are cramped. The cafeteria is full of people eating. The seating area is full of mask-deniers making selfie-videos of themselves showing how awesome they are, flaunting their freedom and laughing at all the people around them who are wearing masks and trying to socially-distance in an impossible environment.
A few things need to change here in B.C.
- This ferry policy has to go. In the midst of this pandemic, I don’t think I need to spell it out. If someone from B.C. Ferries can explain to me how staying in my car is more dangerous or puts me more at risk than the potential C19 exposure, I’d like to hear the argument. And I’m speaking for the benefit of others as well. What if I’m contagious and don’t even know it? You’re making me put everyone else at higher risk.
- B.C. is the only province not publishing anything C19-related over the weekend. No press release, no numbers, no update, no nothing. Everywhere else, whether they have over 120,000 cases (Quebec) or less than 20 (Nunavut), they’re keeping the information flowing continually, seven days a week.
- Mask policy – it’s high time they are made mandatory everywhere here in B.C., period. “Strongly urged” is no longer sufficient. Enough of the “we’re polite and we’ll do the right thing” mantra, and enough of the “people so inclined will ignore the rules anyway”. Just because the province doesn’t feel it can enforce it, it doesn’t mean you and I can’t. I’d welcome the opportunity to tell some mask-denier who taunts me with “Why should I?” with some sort of clout. “Because it’s the law”. “Because it’s an order”. Too much wishy-washy going on here, and the stakes are too high. It’s pretty clear what we’re heading towards, so let’s get ahead of it a bit. If the time for a mandatory mask enforcement is coming anyway (and it certainly is, or, at least, certainly should be), let’s just get on with it now.
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February 26, 2021
When you bash your finger with a hammer, yelling out “Golly!” doesn’t quite have the same clout, effect and/or relief than some other choice word. Why is that? There’s actually a word that describes it:
Lalochezia: (n.) the emotional relief gained from using abusive or profane language
We grow up attaching “value” to certain words, and that emotional release they offer is the payoff for all the investment over the years… the small outbursts and exclamations load the profanity cannon, ready to blast when needed. And it’s all inward-facing. There’s nothing magical about the words we all use, and if we’d grown up in a household where different words were used as exclamations of the sort, we’d have learned those associations instead… and then, when you’re in the parking lot of the supermarket and slam your finger shut with your car door, whatever you scream out wouldn’t be met with looks of disapproval from nearby mothers with small innocent children who’ve obviously never heard such vile language. Ah, what a great memory.
Interesting though… for those who speak more than one language… can you swear “effectively” in something other than your primary language? Of course you know all the bad words (it’s the first thing you learn in any new language…) but does it have the same effect?
I was out riding my bike today, lost in thought. A beautiful sunny windy day… perfect.
The vast majority of the time, I think in English… but I was composing a business letter in my head, in Spanish, so that’s where my brain was at when someone decided to walk straight onto the bike lane, crossing it without looking. I slammed on my brakes and skidded to a stop; nobody was hurt, but I did instinctively find myself yelling out a profanity… and so, one might wonder… in what language?
The answer is… English. Whatever fight-or-flight reflex that gets triggered… whatever part of the brain gets activated in this situation… it’s separate from the intellectual part, regardless of whatever language in which it was currently engaged. I switched instantly from intellectual, verbose Spanish… to one single well-known English word. And, in doing so, switched my brain entirely back to English, in which the ensuing conversation took place.
For those pedestrians who also enjoy the sunny windy beautiful fresh air, … [Continue Reading]
February 25, 2021
Leap years… leap seconds… even, with some calendars, leap months… these tiny (or not-so-tiny) course corrections are necessary because, unfortunately, the earth doesn’t rotate exactly every 24-hours, nor does it orbit the sun exactly every 365 days. At the moment, one rotation is 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.09053 seconds. One year is 365.2422 of those rotations. These are not nice, round numbers to work with… and even if they were, the earth is slowing down, so it’d all have to change eventually. In fact, they change continually.
The people who manage all this keep careful track of it, and often fiddle with it without us even knowing. If you weren’t aware of it, you certainly would’ve missed the extra second that was tagged on to New Year’s Eve in 2016. Approaching midnight, the time went from 11:59:58… to 11:59:59… to 11:59:60 (!) before continuing on to 12:00:00am, January 1st, 2017.
If those little adjustments didn’t take place, the errors would accumulate. The sun would start rising and setting at weird times. It would snow in Spring and get super-hot in late Autumn. And, once in a while, having not kept up with the corrections, some abrupt fixes would need to be implemented.
The calendar we’re all familiar with is the Gregorian calendar, which was preceded by the less-accurate Julian calendar… and not everyone switched over at the same time. While the Gregorian calendar was adopted in places line France, Italy and Spain back in 1582, it wasn’t until 1752 that the U.S. and Canada switched over… and since the Julian calendar is less accurate with respect to leap-anythings, it was falling further and further behind. In 1582, it required a 10-day adjustment. When Canada and the U.S. did it, it required 11 days… and when Turkey and Greece finally made the change, less than 100 years ago, they had to drop 13 days from existence. History is full of stories of landlords who tried to charge a full month’s rent during those half-month switches; you can imagine how popular that was…
Indeed, that’s what happens when you keep letting errors pile up; they become more difficult to correct down the road.
All of this is relevant because of the data and charts you see attached to this little blurb… and it has to do with … [Continue Reading]
February 24, 2021
It’s always good practice never to get version one point zero of anything… wait a bit, let them work the bugs out, let them fix what they got wrong. New car model, completely redesigned…? Maybe last year’s model is ok. iPhone update? Sounds good… but maybe wait a day or two till a lot of people have done it… just in case it “bricks” the phone. It makes sense.
A lot of intelligent, educated and well-vaccinated people with every intention of getting the C19 vaccine – eventually – had (and still may have) that level of uncertainty. That’s fair, though it’s turning out to be a concern that’s irrelevant to most of us because hundreds of millions of people will have gotten their shot before we do.
Would I have been first in line on day one to get the vaccine? Actually, yeah… I would’ve… but understand why many people would’ve wanted to wait a bit.
We’re well past that point by now. There’s a lot of data out there, and most of it is agreeing with what was expected, and most of it is even better.
And, for those that waited, now you’re on to version 1.1 or maybe 2.0… because the Moderna vaccine has now been modified to directly combat the South Africa variant. Those who had the old version can get it line for a booster down the road. Those who haven’t had it yet will get the new one… a silver lining of benefit to the cloud of having to wait this long. The irony, here in Canada, is that by the time we get them, we won’t need them – we’ll be enjoying the herd immunity offered by the rest of the world.
The arguments these days are all about whether we can actually end this pandemic, or whether it’ll turn into a ho-hum version of seasonal illness. COVID-19 may become just another version of coronavirus that never goes way, but is easily defended against via vaccine or treatment. Or, interestingly… the vaccines are so good that they may eventually eradicate it. We shall see.
… and, might I add, this is a much better discussion to be having compared to the one that was springing up a year ago… the “Can we even develop a vaccine against this thing?” That … [Continue Reading]
February 23, 2021
Imagine a big map of North America… now, take 100 pins and stick then on the 100 biggest cities. Now imagine trying to find the shortest path that visits every city exactly once. Imagining the problem isn’t difficult. Solving it is a different story.
To solve it, you’d create a table of all the distances from once city to another. Each city would have a list off 99 entries below it… Vancouver to Seattle, Vancouver to Portland, Vancouver to Miami… etc. The total number of distances to consider would be 100 x 99… and yes, even though Vancouver to Seattle is the same as Seattle to Vancouver, you need the entry twice in the table because, in the solution, you’re not sure from which direction you’d be approaching.
Setting up a computer to solve this is simple: Generate every version of path through all cities, add up the little distances, and keep track of the best one so far. Once you’ve cycled through all the combinations, you’ll have the answer. This is easy, in theory.
It gets a bit more complicated in practice.
How many combinations of paths are there? Starting in any city, there are 99 options for the next one. Once you get there, there are 98 choices for the next one. After that, 97. Therefore, the number of combinations is 100 x 99 x 98 x… all the way down to x 1. That’s 100 factorial (100!) which equals… a really big number. How big? It’s a number with 157 zeroes after it. The number of particles in the universe is a number with 80 zeroes after it. How long would it take to analyze every combination? A few zillion years. Not too practical. That’s how long it’d take to find the perfect solution… but how about a “good enough” solution? Not 100%, but how about 95%?
Back in 1993, when I wrote a program like this, it took about 20 minutes. With today’s horsepower, any home computer could do it in less than a minute.
That’s quite a difference, and for all practical purposes, good enough. The traveling salesman can spend a few extra days on the road and burn a bit more gas… not a big deal. Good enough.
One strategy to solve big problems down to a “not perfect but good … [Continue Reading]
