August 11, 2020
Wow… two days in a row with not much to say — what’s going on?! Tune in tomorrow for something more substantive… but for now, here are some current numbers; nothing new — same patterns we’ve been seeing. Let’s see what tomorrow brings…
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August 10, 2020
Short (and early!) update today, because I won’t be around till later.
All of the Canadian numbers, including B.C., are updated and accurate. I always post the U.S. data with the 5pm numbers so that the rolling 24h picture reflects reality, so these are a bit off. I will correct and re-upload the graph and numbers sometime later today.
EDIT: Updated 5pm numbers and graphs.
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August 9, 2020
So a student in Georgia takes a picture of a school hallway… crowded with students, no social distancing, few masks… a school where shortly thereafter, 9 people (6 students, 3 staff) tested positive (and you know there will be more)… and what happened? The student got suspended for sharing that picture publicly.
The outcry was swift and biting… and the suspension was rescinded entirely… “optics”, you know… but not before we all got a good look at what’s going on… and it’s frightening.
We get the outward-facing message, quotes like “The health and well-being of our staff and students remains our highest priority” – that from the principal of the school. Yet the inward-facing reality is that these schools will lose their federal funding if they’re not open “for real” – for everyone. Well, not everyone… Barron Trump’s private school is online-only, but you get the idea. Forcing teachers and students into an environment most know isn’t safe.
The fact is, in Georgia, within hours of opening, a student tested positive, resulting in the closing of that school, and a two-week quarantine for all staff and students. That was one school, but in another school, just up the road, a student tested positive and was sent home, but the school remains open. The following day, more schools… more cases. I don’t know the most recent numbers, but it’s hundreds of staff. And hundreds of students. A tremendous example of how not to do things. A beautiful example.
Closer to home, let’s worry about us for a bit. While the world just saw its 20,000,000th case and the U.S. its 5,000,000th case recently, Canada is close to 120,000. Quebec recently went over 60,000 cases. Ontario went over 40,000 today. And by the time we get our numbers updated tomorrow, here in B.C., we’ll be over 4,000. Whereas B.C. was formerly a shining example… now, not so much. Our numbers are still great, in comparison… up to now. But the trend is not good, and the last thing we need is to wind up trying to force “reality” back in our lives when we’re not yet prepared for it. There are unfortunately too many examples of that. I hope B.C. doesn’t become another one.
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August 8, 2020
The famous Stanford marshmallow experiment of 1972 dealt with delayed gratification. Basically, kids were offered two options… a treat right now, or wait a bit… and get double the treats. Note that the average age of the participants was around 4½… the idea being to figure out if something so simple as this version of “seeing the bigger picture” might be a useful predictor of future outcomes for these kids.
What they found was that those who were patient and would wait it out… turned out to have better outcomes… as measured by SAT scores, educational attainment and other measures. It stands to reason, at the most basic level. If you can’t see more than a move ahead, life looks a lot different. Indeed, consider a chess game where the opponent can’t think much past what they’re about to do. They move a piece, you take it. They move another piece, you take it. Jeez, this game is hard… and life, like chess, looks a lot different if you don’t consider that big picture. And while those kids were 4½, you see this thought-process in adults all the time.
I’ve talked about parking before, so let’s talk about it again for a moment. Back in the day, if you didn’t mind walking a few blocks, parking for the racetrack was a lot cheaper if you parked in some person’s driveway. You know the crowd, if you’ve ever approached the PNE from the residential side; the people all yelling “Parking! Parking!”, trying to hustle you into their driveways or garage for $10 or $8 or $5 or whatever.
There used to be this Italian guy… with a convenient driveway, very close to Renfrew St. Two bucks to park, and we parked there frequently. This was from April to late August, a few times a week.
Then… the actual PNE fair rolled around, and things got busier… and when we went to park, he’d jacked his prices… from $2 to $10. Hey buddy, it’s us. Nope, $10. Are you kidding? We’re your best customers! Nope, $10. OK, you know what… if you don’t let us park here for $2, we will never park here again.
The simple math… he’d make up that amount in less than two weeks of us parking in the future, plus the entire future ahead of that. Nope, $10 or forget it. OK dude, forget it.
And we never parked there again. What we did too, incessantly, is drive by his place slowly as if we were going to park, then wave at him and park somewhere else. Eventually we got tired of mocking him, or perhaps we got tired of his rude gestures towards us. A bit of both.
Hey, it’s summer! And I should be free to enjoy it as I like! Masks, social distancing, whatever, who cares! Live for the moment; the future, why worry… what’ll happen will happen and we’ll figure it out eventually. Que será, será.
Well, that’s how some people think. The same people who as kids, snagged the candy now instead of waiting a bit for twice as much.
It’s not just this summer. It’s next summer too. And the decades beyond that. Short-term pain, long-term gain.
It’s pretty obvious to some people, but what’s also pretty obvious is that some people are incapable of considering things on those terms. That’s what comes to mind as I see these numbers creep up. Let's get it together, people. There's no free parking.
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August 7, 2020
I’ve changed some of the data and graphs, to more accurately reflect where we’re at, and to track information that’s now more meaningful. Doesn’t it look good? Tremendous. World leaders are calling me, telling me they’ve never seen anything like it. The colours, the numbers. It’s a beautiful thing.
I’ve removed the growth factor column, because it’s become less relevant as the meteoric exponential growth has tailed off. I’ve left the cases-increase column, because it encapsulates that growth, as well as being directly relatable to what came before it.
I’ve added a “Deaths” column, which is particularly notable in comparison to our neighbours to the south. There is a “Total Deaths” at the very top, and there is a daily number of new deaths reported in the column below it. A blank means zero deaths, and looking at today’s numbers, those at least look really good. Zero in B.C., Ontario and Quebec combined. There were 3 deaths in Alberta and 1 in Saskatchewan today, and that was it, across Canada.
I’ve also changed Deaths / Case to Deaths per 1 million of population… 497 in the U.S., 237 in Canada, 38 in B.C., etc. This more accurately reflects the proliferation of the virus, more apples-to-apples instead of being more about number of tests given. It’s 15,363 in the U.S., 3,137 in Canada, 776 in B.C. and so on. More on that below.
From a Canadian point of view, these are all pretty good. The continuing upward trend here in B.C. is worrying, but we’re being told it was to be expected. I’m not so convinced, and hope the actions we take today will be reflected in those numbers in due course.
Also worth noting… ever since the White House took the number-gathering away from the CDC and decided to do it on their own, the divergence between cases and deaths has grown. I’m not going to accuse the American Government of lying, but I find it suspicious that the numbers of daily new cases (which they control) have shrunk, while the numbers of deaths (which they don’t control) have remained largely unchanged. Like, average deaths over the last week were 1,041 daily… and 1,100 the week before; pretty similar. The number of new daily cases this last week were 55,604, while the week before that, they were 65,373 Ten thousand less daily cases, yet the same number of deaths.
Recall Donald Trump’s musings that maybe too much testing isn’t a good thing, because when you do that, you find too many cases. Whether he’s hiding numbers or testing less, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure though… a few extra coats of paint on the deck of the Titanic probably looked pretty good. Hey, guys, what about this big hole on the side of the ship? Yeah, yeah, but look at the deck! Look at the shiny gloss! Doesn’t it look tremendous? It’s a beautiful thing.
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August 6, 2020
I’m back in Vancouver for a bit… just in time for some Vancouver weather, it seems. As accurate as weather reporting has gotten over the last several years, if all else fails… here’s your local weather forecast: Cloudy, sunny periods, chance of rain. You can’t go too wrong with that.
Where you *can* go wrong is a different sort of forecast: Pandemic, irresponsible gatherings, chance of spreading. We presently have over 400 people in quarantine and a significant number of new cases, all due to one party… and it’s quite possible that at that party, it was just one person who had it. I know it’s impossible, but if every single person isolated properly and responsibly for two weeks, this virus would be wiped out, locally at least. Of course, that’d require properly sealed borders, not leaking Americans traveling to and from Alaska (wink wink) and all of the flights arriving from all over the place with people who refuse to properly isolate.
Summary – it’s still up to us to keep doing what we’ve been doing so successfully up to now, because if we don’t… well, maybe it’s time for Dr. Henry to get a little more harsh. Heading into September on an upswing of cases is bad, for numerous reasons. If one person can infect 40 and affect 400, consider the implications when the weather turns bad and we’re all forced inside. As per yesterday, no Deus ex Machina is going to resolve this. We’re on our own.
Word of the day…
Rückkehrunruhe (noun): The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness.
Indeed, being immersed in the present-day of city life and Vancouver weather will do that to you. It’s still summer, right?
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August 5, 2020
The plot device known as “deus ex machina” was invented by the Greeks, ages ago. It literally translates to “god from the machine”, where back in ancient Greek theatre, the actors playing the role would be hanging from ropes, or some sort of machine, sweeping in to save the day, in whatever context was needed.
From a literary/artistic point of view, this has its detractors… for obvious reasons. It has the potential to wreck an otherwise excellent story with a convenient miracle to undo the entire struggle that led to that point. William Golding was criticized for this in “Lord of the Flies”… after building up an incredible narrative with intriguing and insightful and though-provoking ideas… suddenly, in a just a few pages, a ship arrives, rescues the boys, The End.
It’s not always that blunt, but you get the idea… and it fit well with the narratives of Greek Tragedies (and comedies)… and since then, it’s appeared all over the place. H.G. Wells’s “The War of the Worlds”… big, powerful aliens have the technology to travel across the universe with a battle fleet ready to destroy earth… until they themselves are destroyed by bacteria. Actually, almost identically, Will Smith’s aliens in “Independence Day” – and a computer virus.
You get the idea; it’s when something appears out of nowhere, just in the nick of time… to save the day, like divine intervention.
There are a few versions of this these days to consider. One, of course, is Donald Trump’s hope that this is what will resolve the giant mess his country finds itself in, much of which is his responsibility. Numerous times, he’s stated how it’ll just go away, like a miracle, burn itself out, vanish overnight, whatever. Unfortunately for him, the real world doesn’t operate that way; even the ancient Greeks knew that.
More recently, Trump did an interview with Jonathan Swan on HBO, and the entire thing is now available on YouTube. It is an astonishing 40 minutes of incoherent, delusional nonsense. And great kudos to Mr. Swan who, unlike pretty-much every other reporter, didn’t acquiesce to Donald Trump’s bullshit. He called him on it, repeatedly… though, as expected, when DT has no answer, he deflects away, onto the next incoherent, irrelevant point. The end result of it was asking yourself… what did I learn from that? The answer will be… not much. There was nothing factually useful in Trump’s responses, other than confirmation that he actually doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. You can’t accuse him of actually lying when he doesn’t actually get it. That much was made obvious when the problems with his fist-full of printouts were explained back to him.
Donald Trump has had a hovering “deus ex machina” all his life. First, it was daddy Fred who handheld his inept narcissist of a son through childhood and adolescence, paving and smoothing-out what otherwise would’ve (and should’ve) been a dead-end path.
Then it was Trump’s problem solvers, many of whom are now in prison, having themselves acquiesced to illegalities to keep their guy happy.
Then it was the Republican party and the White House and all the “yes-men” he could gather… and, as we’ve seen with textbook narcissists, once the “yes” turns into anything but… even a “maybe”, let alone a “no” – you’re out of there. The best people, tremendous people, beautiful people… exit stage left, with a knife in their back and a grade-school cheap insulting nickname to be Twittered about incessantly.
During the interview, you could see Trump looking around at his people. “Help”, his eyes pleaded. Help me. Rescue me. Where’s my DeM? It wouldn’t have been too presidential to stand up, rip off the mic and make a scene, like so many celebrities love doing when they’re asked a question they don’t like… no, The President had to sit through it, very uncomfortably in parts, and hang himself just a little bit more with every astonishing, baseless, irrelevant word.
There are no machines big enough, ropes strong enough, storylines believable enough… that would have a Deus sweep in to save the day for him. His mistakes will follow him into eternity, where maybe he can have a discussion with Deus Himself. That’s Who it’d take to make him understand.
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August 4, 2020
Little update… but, unfortunately, big numbers. The cliff-hanger episode didn’t resolve too well… and although the increases were somewhat expected, it doesn’t bode well for the near future… since today’s numbers are a trailing 2-week-or-so indicator of what’s been going on. And it’s not like behavior has improved in the last two weeks, so it wouldn’t be realistic to expect things to improve magically.
“Play safe to stay safe”, says Dr. Henry… yet it’s those private parties and get-togethers that seem to be the places where things spread quickly.
Let’s try to remember what got us to this good place, before we all slide backwards… back to square one. That would really suck.
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December 23, 2020
So… today I got vaccinated. But no – once again, not *that* vaccine. This was the good old-fashioned flu shot which, for some reason, I hadn’t managed to get around to this year… yet.
If you think it’s too late in the season, it’s not. If you think it’s not worth it, it is. If you think it’s too risky, it’s not.
With respect to the *other* vaccine, a lot of people have been vaccinated recently… Joe Biden, Dr. Henry… and a whole bunch of Republicans who spent a long time telling us how this is all overblown, open things up, it’s just a bad flu, it’s low-risk to most people. Those despicable hypocrites are happily tweeting their vaccinations… leading people to ask a lot of questions, including why are they getting their shots ahead of other more elderly or at-risk front-line workers. Because they’re important leaders, of course… we want to make sure they’re protected!
Joe Biden, for numerous reasons should get it, and publicly. He’s the soon-to-be president, he’s in the risky age category, and he’s in contact with a lot of people. Dr. Henry should have gotten it too, because she was going to get slagged either way… if she doesn’t get it, it generates mistrust… why isn’t she getting it if it’s so safe?!?! And if she does, why does she get to jump the queue.
By far, the lesser of those two evils is take it, set the example, and move on.
Canada today approved the Moderna vaccine… an approval process which normally would have taken weeks took hours. Close to 200,000 doses will have arrived before the end of the month. Two million more before the end of March.
The more, the merrier. The more people who get it, the better. The sooner they all do, perhaps the sooner a lot of people who are waiting around to see that things will be ok can be convinced that indeed that’s the case… and then we are all one step closer to putting all of this behind us.
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December 22, 2020
Here’s a great word to add to your vocabulary, if you already haven’t done so: Askhole
An askhole is someone who asks for advice, listens to it, does the complete opposite, and then complains when things go wrong. They just seem to be coming out of the woodwork these days.
In some cases, the advice wasn’t explicitly asked for… but you’re told – don’t travel, essential travel only, don’t go to the U.K, and so on. There were many non-essential travelers stuck on the Coquihalla last night, who this morning are whining about their misfortune. There are Canadians who flew to London last week who are now whining they can’t come home.
The King of the Askholes is the man who’ll be president of the U.S. for another 28 days. He’s the biggest askhole of all, because he actually keeps asking for advice, and then shuts down the people giving him responses he doesn’t want to hear. Then he asks other people, hoping for a different result. The Latin term for his species is Askholo Perpetuo.
As a result of Trump’s askholish behaviour in recent weeks, his inner circle has shrunk to a tiny number of soon-to-be footnotes, but a lot can happen in four weeks when you’re arguably the most powerful man on the planet.
This all came to a bit of a head over the weekend where an Oval Office meeting resulted in some staffers running to the phones to contact the press. After a lot of screaming by the president, it got scary when he starting asking for advice on how exactly to go about establishing martial law in a few specific states. That sent the sane people fleeing for the hills.
Intelligent people don’t listen to, nor feed, the askholes. But even better, don’t be an askhole. And if you’re an askhole, don’t whine. If you’re mature enough to ask for advice, and to listen to replies, you’re certainly mature enough to understand that if things don’t go your way, it’s your responsibility. Unless you’re the president; then it’s apparently everyone else’s fault.
Tomorrow is the last day before the Christmas trifecta of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. And this trifecta is locked in, because the horses have already left the gate; I’m pretty sure everyone already has set in stone … [Continue Reading]
December 21, 2020
We keep hearing about *the* vaccine, but of course, there’s more than one. Besides Pfizer, there’s Moderna… and we’ve all heard of some Chinese one and the Russian one which Putin gave his daughter but refuses to take himself.
Any others? Yes… plenty of others. This petal-to-the-metal race (locally) was won by Pfizer, if that’s how you want to look at it, and Moderna is set to come in second and Oxford-AstraZeneca will likely be third.
But really, there are multiple winners in this race… to win, you just have to cross the finish line. How many horses are in this race? Surprisingly… more than you might imagine. There were originally 90. Not all will finish the race, and while crossing the finish line counts, it’s probably a bit hollow if it happens in 5 years. However… the more, the merrier.
At present, Pfizer is approved and Moderna is approved for emergency use only (for the moment), but Canada is looking at it as we speak and it’s likely to get the green light within weeks. Beyond that, there are a few approved within China and Russia, but we’ll never see them here.
Beyond that, there are actually 18 different vaccines in phase-3 trials… most of them in the U.S and China, but other countries thrown into the mix and approaching the finish line are Japan, India and Australia. And Canada.
We don’t hear a lot about it, but we sure will if this gets beyond phase 3… Quebec-based Medicago, a private company, began their phase 2/3 trial on Nov 12th. In a somewhat eyebrow-raising arrangement, they’re being partially funded by cigarette maker Philip Morris. Medicago literally grows vaccines in plants – specifically, the Nicotiana Benthamiana plant, which is a wild species related to tobacco. The Canadian government has 76 million doses on order in case it all works out.
The fact you can grow vaccine inside tobacco raises some interesting possibilities, not the least of which is slanting the marketing towards “all natural” and “organic”. For all the anti-vaxxers with their “I don’t know what’s in it so I’m not putting it in my body!!!” crowd… notwithstanding I can assure you, you have no idea what’s in a McNugget but you’ll happily ingest that… but all that nonsense aside, hey… this vaccine grows out of … [Continue Reading]
December 20, 2020
No B.C. news to report till tomorrow, but here’s an assortment of other news:
The bad news is that there’s a new, apparently far-more virulent strain of C19. It’s up to 70% more transmissible.
The good news is that it isn’t around here… it’s in Europe, mostly the U.K.
The bad news is that who cares where it is, it’s still going to affect us… because many of us have friends and family over there, and, anyway, it’ll soon get on a plane and make its way over here.
The good news is that likely all of the current vaccines will be effective against it. Like… The Vancouver Sun, The Province, The Georgia Straight, The Courier, The North Shore News… whichever one it is, rip a page out of it and scrunch it up into a ball and toss it into the fire; it’ll burn. Unless someone is suddenly (and very surprisingly) publishing the news on asbestos, it’ll burn. Like all C19 new-strain mutations, given the vaccine.
The bad news is that there is a huge outbreak presently underway because of it… and whereas most people in London were expecting to be able to spend Christmas in town, with family… they’re all fleeing the city, leading to crowded, crammed trains as everyone bails to every corner of the country, where there are fewer restrictions.
The good news is that while this new strain is far easier to catch, there’s nothing to indicate that the illness it causes is any worse.
But the bad news is… as per all of the above… that this virus will soon have reached every corner of the United Kingdom.
I want to end this with good news… and it’s this: Vaccination programs are well-underway in many places, including the U.K… and as pedal-to-the-metal as they are already, they’re going to get a turbo-boost with the approval and quick distribution of the Moderna vaccine.
I’ll end this news update with the same one-word sign-off that Dan Rather used for a while: “Courage”.
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December 19, 2020
When I was in high school, we had a coach who employed a very unique form of punishment. When you screwed up, everyone had to run a lap around the field. And when I say field, it was actually four rugby fields… roughly a 600-metre jog for everyone. Well, almost everyone… you, the perpetrator, did not run. Just everyone else.
In fact, the first time that happened to me, I wanted to run too. I didn’t want everyone else even angrier at me. But no, that was the point.
“Sir, I’d like to run the lap as well.”
“No, Kemeny… you stand here with me and enjoy the consequences of your actions.”
The only thing missing was him providing some hot chocolate while I got to watch my friends and teammates being punished for my transgression. Just to really hammer home the point.
I mention this, because it’s interesting to note that collective punishment of this sort, where the said collective (friends, family, acquaintances, teammates, etc) is targeted, is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. It is literally a war crime.
If wearing the wrong jersey to rugby practice is so serious a crime that it warrants a punishment so severe that it’d require an international court to sort out, what do you do with a significant number of Republicans trying to overthrow the U.S. government?
The end-game of this election is starting to look like a horror-version of whack-a-mole… where there’s no cheap prize at the end, but that’s irrelevant… because the game never seems to end. You could argue it’s been going on for four years, but it’s certainly been going on since the election. After 46 days, those are some pretty tired arms. With still 32 days to go.
Every day, some nonsensical mole makes an appearance, and it’s swiftly whacked back into the hole by evidence, lack of evidence, a court ruling… or just plain common sense. And yet, the moles persist. The most recent mole to get whacked was Mitch McConnell, but that wasn’t enough. Now come some Republicans who literally want to overthrow democracy. Martial Law, and the whole thing.
Far beyond just cutting through the bullshit of Trump trying to pre-emptively pardon himself and his family, maybe it’s time for Joe Biden to make a much stronger statement. Number one, anyone … [Continue Reading]